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Lewis is back with Leander and Griffin to talk about Apple’s AI comeback (coming soon), Liquid Silicone (whatever that is), iOS 26 beta 5, and a hands-on with an iPhone 17 Pro case!
Produced by Extra Ordinary for Cult of Mac
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:32 Apple AI meeting
14:04 Apple’s ChatGPT rival
23:15 Liquid Silicone cases
30:38 Factor
32:13 iOS 26 Beta 5
39:34 Listener Question
44:26 Setup of the Week
50:22 iPhone 17 Pro case hands-on
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Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:02
Hello and welcome to the cold cast. The best hourong Apple conversation you're going to hear all week long. We have an
0:09
old friend back with us. Welcome back, Louis. Hey, it's great to be back. Ah, my brand
0:14
new my brand new beautiful office. It looks really good. It looks It looks wonderful there. Milliondollar view.
0:22
And we have D. Griffin Jones coming in from Ohio. Welcome, Griffin. Good evening. here in my brand old
0:29
adequate office. Is it really evening there? I thought it was like three hours ahead. Uh I round up.
0:36
Yeah, indeed. All right. Well, this week we're going to talk about Apple's AI comeback. Yeah, they really are. They're coming back. A lot of Apple AI news this
0:43
week that uh is putting the the company back in the running. We have liquid silicone that we're going to discuss,
0:49
whatever that is. iOS 26 beta 5. Griffin's going to give us a tour of all the latest features. And there's actually one very controversial one that
0:55
I think is well worth discussing. Uh and then Griffin also has a very exciting hands arm with a very exciting iPhone
1:01
case which uh I'm really looking forward to. What are the odds?
1:07
It's going to be a big surprise. Griffin won't tell us anything about it because it's such a huge surprise and it's so exciting that we're exciting iPhone
1:14
case. You might be thinking, how exciting could a single case be? But you only think that because you don't know how
1:19
exciting it is yet. That's very true. I've seen some exciting cases on Facebook, you know, um the ads, they always look really
1:26
exciting and then you click through and they're like, you know, then they're actually not that exciting, but and it's an iPhone case.
1:32
All right, let's get on with it. Lewis, let's talk about Aapp's AI efforts.
1:37
Yeah, this is crazy. You know, rare all hands meeting. Tim Cook uh reassur I'd say he reassured Apple employees that
1:43
the company can still win at AI. Uh Cook Cook says uh we've rarely been
1:49
first. You know, this is typical, right? We've rarely been first. There was a PC before the Mac. There was a smartphone
1:55
before the phone. There were many tablets before the iPad. There was an MP3 player before iPod. This is how I
2:02
feel about AI. Okay. Well, fair enough. Uh Apple does tend to do that. Show up
2:07
late to the party and then I I don't want to bring her in the flow. But it's a surprising admission though, isn't it? Don't you think?
2:12
Uh I I mean I think this is all about just acknowledging the situation they're in. You know, I mean, they've been in
2:19
all the headlines. their stock is kind of flat for what a a a long time. Uh
2:25
there's the the contravening thing to this is they just keep losing people to other companies, AI, you know, workers
2:32
to other companies. So I mean I I think this is all about sort of damage control, right? This came the day after
2:38
their earnings call, which I missed, thank God, due to a perfectly timed holiday. Uh, but I think they got
2:48
questioned a lot about AI on that uh earnings call. Is that correct? Did you Did you have the pleasure of listening to that one there, Leander?
2:54
I didn't. No, no, no. I uh unfortunately I missed that. I know. I was devastated. But um yeah, I I guess obviously it's a
3:00
hot topic. I just think it was odd that he would, you know, be quite so frank about saying they they've always been upfront about that. Like, you know, their whole
3:06
philosophy is we're not first, we're the best, right? And they have yet to be the best as well. Yeah, I guess it's the way it's, you
3:12
know, it appeared in the headline. It's just so frank and so, you know, upfront about it that and it's not I guess it's
3:19
not an admission of defeat, but it is a little bit defeaty. It's in that
3:24
well, you know, I I don't know if you've ever worked at companies where things happen and embarrassing things happen
3:30
and and you know, it's like, yeah, you just got to let people know, hey, we know that we know what's going on. We
3:35
know we're getting hammered with bad headlines and bad press. We know that Apple intelligence is not, you know,
3:42
some amazing thing that everybody can't, you know, can't stop using every single
3:47
day because it's so fantastic. They know that Siri is still garbage. They have
3:52
already, you know, admitted that that's delayed and explained why. And in fact, part of this at this meeting, Craig
3:58
Federi, their software guy, gets up and and and basically reiterates what he already said in a previous uh interview
4:06
or something. I can't remember exactly where that came from before, but he already said, "Hey, here's what happened." Uh, we tried this hybrid
4:12
approach where we had uh, you know, like normal Siri going one way and then the
4:18
AI powered super smart Siri, you know, kind of working in tandem kind of the way that Apple intelligence does right
4:23
now. You know, where Siri tries to answer a question, fails, uh, and it says, "Would you like chat GPT to answer
4:28
that?" By the way, if you My wife My wife tries to use Siri like all the
4:35
time. time. I I didn't realize this, but on the on the trip that we were on, it's like she's constantly asking Siri, "Hey,
4:40
Siri, what about this?" Blah blah blah blah. It's like it it just was so pathetic. And
4:46
well, what what do you mean? She's becoming a she's This is how the kids use it. My my my niece, my young niece,
4:52
it's all AI all the time. I mean, I'm not saying that she's pathetic for trying that. I'm saying it
4:58
was pathetic what Siri returned. And and to make matters worse, she has this male
5:05
Australian voice on Siri and and so it kept saying, "Uhhuh. Would you like me
5:11
to uh ask Chat JPT to answer that?" It's just like, "Oh my god, it was just it
5:17
was driving me crazy." It was stuff like, you know, how do I get to Rome? You know, I don't know. Would you like me to ask Chat JPT to answer that?
5:25
Good God. Anyway, uh so back to the story at hand. So at at this meeting uh
5:32
let's see Fred Fred good god Fred Fred
5:41
Federigi tells Apple employees quote the work we've done on this end to end revamp of Siri has given us the results
5:47
we needed wait has given us this has put us in a position to not just deliver what we announced but to deliver a much
5:53
bigger upgrade than we envisioned there is no project people are taking more seriously so that's uh you know that's a
6:00
pretty strong rebuttal to all the headlines of like oh we're losing all of our uh best employees to the AI brain
6:06
drain and uh Siri's never going to get smarter and all that. Um Federigi also he mentioned like the the fact that they
6:13
you know I don't know how anybody at Apple wouldn't already know it but you know talking about Mike Rockwell being
6:18
put in charge the vision pro team you know fixing he says that it quote supercharged the effort. Um,
6:25
I guess I should mention all this comes from a Bloomberg report citing quote people aware of the meeting.
6:32
Uh, you don't have a meeting like that without expecting that it's going to be leaked. You you write it knowing that
6:38
it's going to be leaked. That's why you say some of the things you say. You know, this is this is like half pep talk
6:43
for Apple employees to, you know, encourage enthusiasm and get them excited about the mission so that they
6:49
don't take the $200 million deal from Facebook. But then you also write it with the other audience knowing that
6:54
it's going to be leaked and you know have people exactly like us talking about it which is what we're doing. But
6:59
Craig phrasing that in past tense is very interesting. Uh the work we've done
7:06
has given us the results we need. This has put us in a position to deliver you know not just what we announced but a
7:12
much bigger upgrade than what they announced and delayed a year ago. So that's pretty fascinating. I don't know
7:17
when we'll see the results of those. I mean, presumably if he if he's saying it in past tense, like they already have this ready, probably the September
7:24
iPhone event is when they would reannounce it again. Well, there he keeps saying that uh this
7:30
totally new Siri architecture is going to arrive in 2026. So, I don't know if
7:35
they're going to mention it at uh because, you know, they got beat up pretty bad for that, too. you know,
7:41
like, oh, this is great phones with Apple intelligence and then, you know, half the features didn't arrive for
7:46
quite some time after the phones. Um, did you guys want to Well, what what about September
7:52
announcement and then iOS 26.2 beta goes out that day. It's in there.
7:59
I mean, that's what they did before and they got that. Well, before the new series wasn't in the betas at all until like, you
8:04
know, months later and even then it was only half of what they announced. a a nice a nice reassuring glow.
8:12
Um I I think this this meeting was pure pep talk and uh you know to to round it out
8:19
uh Tim Cook also was like you know doing his usual gushing about all the fantastic new products they've got coming and this this town is totally Tim
8:26
Cook this quote here the product pipeline which I can't talk about it's amazing guys it's amazing some of it
8:33
you'll see soon some of it will come later but there's a lot to see I mean that's that's classic Tim Cook saying
8:40
nothing that worked on Hey, I'm totally excited.
8:46
He that for him is is a fusive. I mean that you know he's usually a lot more reserved. I mean this is like this is
8:52
this is you know if you read between the lines it it really sounds you know this new home product and
8:57
wait wait wait wait wait it it might have been Lewis giving a little too much emotion on that. Let me give it another reading.
9:03
The product pipeline which I can't talk about. It's amazing guys. It's amazing. Some of it you'll see soon. Some of it
9:10
will come later, but there's a lot to see. Even the even the boring monotone doesn't doesn't, you know, put put a
9:17
damper on my my enthusiasm for this. Can you put it through a southern draw filter? Yeah.
9:25
Oh my god. Anyway, well, the one question I had, why were they why did they keep Siri around? Why
9:30
were they trying to this this this, you know, this hybrid approach to keep the old Siri, which is has like a
9:35
20-year-old architecture or whatever, and was useless in the first place. Why? Why? Well, because there there are certain
9:41
things that, you know, AI still isn't good at. I AI isn't good at taking like discrete instructions like, you know,
9:47
set a timer for this amount of time. You know, you want you want that to be on like fixed traditional like computer
9:52
logic. We're like, okay, this will call the timer app. This will set a timer for the exact amount of time that you said.
9:57
AI isn't good at that. it's imprecise and it's going to it's it's good at the squishier things like interpreting you
10:03
know a sentence and picking the right tools to use you know like interpreting what you mean to do like a complicated
10:09
thing to do an instruction that's never heard before that's what it's better at um and so I think their tandem approach
10:15
was like yeah you know when you want to send a timer when you want to send a message to somebody when you're giving like discrete like computer text
10:22
adventure instructions you want that to be following you know yeah rock solid programmatically what what you ask it to
10:28
do. And that that was exactly the uh example that I think Federi used was setting a
10:34
timer because that's what everybody uses Siri for 90% of the time and it works 75% of the time.
10:40
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm still excited even if um even if you guys are not. I think um I mean
10:47
it's going to be exciting here, isn't it? We did a post uh Ed did a roundup and I think there's like at least 19
10:53
products coming. Yeah. Most of those folding iPhone
10:58
Jeez. Super thin iPhone with a battery that lasts 28 minutes. Can't wait.
11:04
So excited for that. Well, I'm excited for the uh you know, the new home hub. The the HomePod with a
11:11
screen or the the HomePod you hang on the wall or whatever it's going to be. What's the It was a weird robot arm,
11:17
right? It was strange. The robot arm is delayed. The exciting thing about that is that we
11:22
genuinely have no idea what it's going to be or what to expect. So, that's fun. something like the the Amazon Echo Show,
11:28
you know, where it's a big speaker with a with an attached screen that follows you around. Yeah. I bought one of those a couple years ago
11:33
for my mom and and uh it's it's a little uncanny, you know, cute and and actually
11:39
really useful. Um and did you see that? remember that there was that uh video
11:44
that came out of the Apple AI research team where they had that Luxo Junior like robot that that um and the clever
11:52
thing about that was all the how they gave it a personality and um how they indicated all these different emotions
11:58
by movement, you know, like it would nod its head in agreement or if it couldn't do something, it would shake its head.
12:04
Um if it was listening, it would tilt its head to listen to you. And that would be amazing, I think, if they had a
12:11
HomePod with a screen that could articulate in in in in more directions and and give you these kind of emotive
12:17
feedbacks. I think that would be really um you know, quite something quite strange, you know, a really good way. I
12:24
think more so than a robot arm. What what could a robot arm do to you if it was stuck on a table? I I can't see a
12:30
use case for that. Unless you put it by the sink and it washed up the dishes or something. Slowly and poorly do one dish.
12:37
Yeah. Right. And then smash it and drop it on the floor. Mhm. I think what I think what it's going to be is a iPad mini that mounts on the
12:44
wall. Yeah. I mean, I honestly think that that's that's not a bad direction for them to go in. Like I when when Google had
12:51
announced their new line of Pixel tablets a few years ago that never took on because Android tablets are garbage.
12:57
But like the interesting thing about it was that they had this accessory that was like, you know, a kind of like HomePod sized, but the top of it was at
13:04
an angle and you would just like magnetically attach your Pixel tablet to it and then it would just be like turn
13:10
it into a speaker with a screen or you could use the speaker like independently without it if you wanted to use your
13:15
tablet at the same time or you could use it as like a kitchen speaker thing. Like Apple already has all of these pieces. They already make the iPads. Everybody
13:21
already has a big screen somewhere in their house. I don't think that would be a very um bad idea for them to steal,
13:29
but it sounds like they just want to create an entirely separate device with its own screen with all that built in,
13:34
which you know is I guess a more of an Apple move, but Yeah. Yeah. And this is this is like
13:39
rumored maybe the spring as uh next year, spring 2026. I mean, it's been it was supposed to
13:45
come out this year, right? Previously, but then I don't, you know, Siri put the kaibos
13:51
on that because Siri wasn't up to the task. I don't know if we will see it. Do you think we maybe we will see it this in in the fall this September?
13:58
No, I think that'll be too early. I I think I think spring of 26. Okay. Well, we have some more AI news
14:05
out of Apple. Um, and this is that Apple is going to be beginning its building its own chat GBT rival. Apparently, this
14:12
is read by led by Rob Walker who is Does anyone know who Rob Walker is? He is the person who led the failed AI
14:19
Siri effort before. Oh, okay. Well, well, that's that's really good news. So,
14:24
He's it's going to be called the the answers knowledge and information team is quote exploring a number of in-house
14:30
AI services with a goal of creating a new chat GBT like search experience. Um
14:35
the quote answer engine system will reportly crawl the web to respond to common user questions. The company may
14:40
launch it as a standalone app with the same backend eventually powering search results across Siri Spotlight and
14:45
Safari. So this sounds like a pilot program a uh a prototype.
14:51
Uh apparently the way to think about it is as a strip as a stripped down chat GPT search experience. So Apple is also
14:58
hiring engineers with experience in search algorithms and engine development for the team. Uh and the team reports
15:03
directly to John Gonaria. Oh my god. G Andrea
15:10
Gandrea I couldn't help that. Apple's current AI head. So Walker Okay, here we go. So
15:16
Walker previously spearheaded Siri but was reassigned to the AKI team. Oh, AKI after the failed Siri 2 roll out. Well,
15:24
this sounds all very, very promising given what we know. Mhm.
15:29
Was there any indication about when this is supposed to be coming out? Uh, no. It sounds like it's still in the early development phase. I don't know
15:36
how how many good feelings I have about this product, but it sounds like they have the right person in charge to keep
15:41
it in development hell and so we never see the light of day. Oh my god. So well this is kind of ambitious you know
15:47
if uh this is potentially like you know a Google killer right
15:52
if it becomes the default search experience on you know what is it three
15:57
billion iPhones uh this could put Google in a serious
16:03
position if it works of course it seems this is obviously the way that computing
16:09
is going isn't it and and and Apple obviously wants to you know own this but given look how they did with Maps and
16:15
some other um pretty ambitious projects. You know, Maps was awful when it first came out, but it's, you know, since
16:23
become the best map mapping app on on the web. It's I think it's better than Google Maps. It's better looking for
16:29
sure. Oh my god. But, uh the logic of it sometimes still, you know, like the routes it gives you,
16:35
that's that leaves something to be decided. No, it's always the beautiful route, man. This is my wife and I argue about this all the time. She uses Google uh
16:42
maps and I use Apple Maps. So, we're walking around in Europe and and I swear to God every time they they'll send you
16:48
like two different ways around a building. The Apple way is the nice lit path. The other way is like some you
16:54
know garbage strewn gutter. I'm like it's a it's a superior path in Apple Maps.
17:00
Wow. So, you actually did you actually did a headto head. Yeah. And oftentimes head to head. Lots
17:07
of arguments. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, also my wife, I don't think she quite understands that if you go if one of you
17:13
goes this way around a building and the other goes this way around the building and you both turn, you end up in the same place. It's not like it's not a
17:20
life or death fight, you know? It's uh Is that what you did then? So little bit.
17:26
It's kind of hilarious. Well, how does she she so she never got to experience the the beautiful side of the building?
17:32
Yeah. She was only looking at the back alleys and the some sometimes I can convince her to take the the clean well-lit path.
17:41
Do you use chat GPT you guys? Do are you using AIS more for for search? Now,
17:46
I don't really use it that much for search just because you can't trust it. And when I search for something, I'm
17:52
looking for information that is accurate. And uh you know, I don't know if when you use it in Apple
17:58
intelligence, right? And it's a it's do you want me to ask chat GPT? At the end of every thing, there's this thing that
18:04
says, you know, basically, uh, beware chat GPT information might not be
18:10
accurate. Please check important facts. It's like what? I I I bet you chat GBT
18:16
every time they hear that they're just like bristling bristling with rage because
18:21
it's just such a a an undermining statement and it's every time that you that you use it in in uh Apple
18:28
intelligence you get that but it's true. I mean you cannot trust it without factchecking it. Uh it might point you
18:35
in the right direction. I mean I I I use it for you know tweaking writing giving me ideas about you know transition in a
18:43
story or something. But uh yeah, I don't I don't rely on it for actual information. I
18:48
Well, what about how-tos and things like how to get how to how to do certain things? Like I that's my biggest use case is like how do I do this or how do
18:55
I do that? Um yeah, I find it, you know, unfortunately it's uncannily accurate, but
19:00
I've had I say unfortunately because it doesn't do our publishing business any favors, but um
19:06
well, I' I've had varying results. I mean, I was trying to get to the bottom of this uh Wi-Fi router problem I had a
19:12
long time ago and well, 6 months ago, and uh it it gave me these really
19:19
in-depth, precise steps that seemed logical, but it didn't sol it didn't end up solving my problem. I don't know if
19:25
that's I don't know why. I mean, the thing is you can't always trust that either because there was a I mean, there was a big story in 404 media
19:30
about this software development company. They were making like some some popular app. I don't know exact I don't remember what app it was that they made but chat
19:38
GPT somehow decided that this app had this particular feature and so a lot of people kept asking about it like hey how
19:45
do I get this feature I'm not seeing this feature because chat GPT was telling them it existed and it didn't so they had to add it
19:51
right and that's that's the thing everything looks completely up and up you know you read it sounds
19:57
completely authoritative uh but you know you al like I've I've tried some of these things people say
20:03
like oh well use it as a travel planner. So I I actually tried that for this trip. I was like, you know, give me a,
20:10
you know, fiveday itinerary between here and here. And it, you know, it comes up with just mundane kind of things. I
20:17
mean, some of them were actually things we had already done, you know, cuz it was like halfway through this thing,
20:24
right? And it's like, okay, well, that's actually pretty accurate. And I would definitely say that's a good good recommendation. But, you know, I it's
20:32
just I don't know, man. It's a weird. And I think the question is, do we think that Apple is going to make a better version of this than all of these other
20:39
companies? I don't know. I don't know how they can I think they're so hobbled by their privacy
20:44
concerns and everything, you know. Yeah. But I was read I was reading about that you know like a an AI researcher um
20:50
had a really pretty good essay about the dangers of these things and you know
20:56
like even Sam Olman warned like be careful about talking using chat GPT as your therapist because anything you tell
21:04
it it's not protected there's no legal protections to this like you and there was actually just a giant leak of chat GPT conversations all of these
21:10
like I think 140 million conversations have been leaked and they're now on archive.org for anybody to download.
21:16
Oh my god. I mean, I do like that Apple is I I
21:21
trust them. I trust them much more than I trust anybody any other AI company. And I
21:27
think if they do come up with a chat GB2 alternative, you know, like I would be much more comfortable using it because
21:34
of their concerns about privacy and security. I think the question is how would this product make Apple money? Because the
21:40
big question that they're facing right now is, you know, is the Department of Justice going to, you know, cut off
21:45
Apple from their $20 billion Google deal to be the default search engine that's, you know, accounting for like 30% of
21:51
their services revenue, which is, you know, 30% of their entire revenue of their company. Like replacing it with
21:57
their own product that has a, you know, adds more cost to Apple than it makes the money. I don't see like what the
22:03
where's the upside? What Yeah. Where does Apple make money in in this product from wouldn't it be that you know the
22:10
the the model now which is to sell use it as a as a feature to sell more hardware.
22:15
But do people want this? Like well it's I think it's clearly this is the way it's going. I don't think
22:20
there's any stopping it. Yeah. But do people actually want it? Is that going to make more people buy an iPhone?
22:26
If it if they if they come out with another their version of the same thing that everybody else is selling too. Like
22:32
it's it's not it's not a special product. It's not a thing they're inventing and it's not a thing that people care about or really want.
22:37
Well, I think that, you know, that the trust and privacy thing was a differentiating factor. If it if it evolves like Apple Maps does, it starts
22:44
off a bit rocky but then becomes great. Um, it could becoming a different, you know, a highly differentiating feature
22:51
of the devices because it's not spying on you. But I hear your point. Yeah, we'll see.
22:56
There's going to be an interesting transition, isn't there? I mean Google itself is is is facing this you know
23:01
it's in an existential crisis in a way. I mean it's its own AI Gemini is is and
23:08
and the AIdriven searches is is upending its whole and the way that the whole business model of the web. All right
23:13
let's move on to the liquid. Let's move on to something more fun and there was actually this is a fun
23:19
rumor I thought actually and these actually look really cool. So, uh, they were talking about a leak about some
23:25
liquid silicone cases coming for Apple for the iPhone 17 lineup. That's right, Griffin.
23:30
Yeah. So, Apple reportedly refers to these new cases internally as quote liquid silicone according to leaker
23:36
Majin Buu, who shared detailed information in a blog post on Wednesday. The cases are expected to come in two
23:42
variants. One features a quote liquid glass effect with an opaque satin
23:47
texture and another without that special finish. Uh, we're also seeing like two different designs here in the post. Um,
23:55
the liquid silicone material could feature a soft surface with a velvety finish, positioning it as Apple's
24:00
primary case material for the mass market. Um, however, early samples reportedly show some limitations,
24:07
including a tendency to attract dust and potential wear at the edges over the time. So, I guess no worse than fine
24:13
woven in that regard. I was going to say this is fine woven 2. Yeah, you know, I I feel like Apple
24:19
silicone cases have changed in their material science a bit over the years. They used to be like really tacky and
24:24
sticky. Uh I actually when I had the iPhone 17E, I got their, you know, silicone case for that and I was really
24:31
impressed with it. I thought the materials were really nice. It didn't, you know, turn your pockets inside out when you pulled it out of your pocket.
24:36
It had really nice, you know, button feel on that. Oh, Louis has it right there. That's a nice I love it. It feels great in your hand.
24:42
And you know what? It doesn't get dirty. I mean, I I really this is the first one
24:48
I've these I've had in a long time and and it it's held up well and it uh you know, even like taking it in and out of
24:54
my sweaty pockets on that trip, you know, for a month and setting it down in strange restaurants and bars, it's uh
25:01
it's it's held up great and it feels fantastic. I I I love this. I hope they don't screw it up.
25:06
Mine's all mine's so disgustingly filthy though that
25:11
doing that thing. I know. I don't know what it is. Yeah. So maybe this will be like an
25:16
additional option in the lineup. Maybe it'll replace it. Who knows at this point? Uh, interestingly though, both
25:22
Majin Buu and fellow leaker Duan Rui, I don't know if that's how it's pronounced, reported that Apple plans to
25:28
add lanyard support to its iPhone 17 cases, similar to the feature found on AirPods Pro 2 charging cases. Uh Dwan
25:36
Ruy's image shows two potential lanyard detachment spots both in the bottom left
25:41
and in the bottom right of the case sitting on the corner there. Um other photos show a completely different
25:48
design that's a little bulkier and doesn't look very Appleike at first
25:53
look. It's got these ripples on the back and big exaggerated corners. Uh, I guess
25:59
for additional drop protection, which would be interesting because, you know, the the one case that Apple sells right now doesn't actually protect it against
26:06
like super serious drops. Apple's never made like a, you know, a super intense
26:11
drop it from 100 ft style case before. Uh, but that seems to be what this one
26:16
is about. And, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if they do carry on, you know, a slightly tweaked version of their
26:21
existing case and then this new liquid silicone case. I mean, new name, new material. Maybe it's got extra
26:28
protection. Maybe you drop it and it bounces more rather than rattles around on the ground and shatters. So,
26:34
well, the lanyard, you know, the thing that kind of surprised me. Uh, do you see people with lanyards, lanyard cases,
26:41
iPhone cases? But I was thinking about this, you know, if if if it's super easy to take that
26:46
lanyard on and off. And I mean, can you imagine people using it for like all
26:52
the, you know, videos they do, you know, do skateboarding or on roller coasters, all this crap where they're doing all
26:58
this, you know, crazy stuff, capturing this amazing footage. I mean, that would actually be awesome. I mean, there there
27:03
were times when I was taking uh pictures on that vacation. I was I'm standing there taking a picture, you know,
27:08
holding my phone out over a bridge and I'm like, I better not drop this. And and you know, I I mean, especially for
27:15
people who are doing adventurous things, not just taking pictures off of bridges, uh I think it could be uh actually
27:21
pretty cool. Interestingly, this isn't Apple's first radio with lanyards. Neither is the AirPods Pro 2. There was one particular
27:28
model of iPod touch that I think relatively last minute into the design process, they had to like cut an
27:35
internal component from it and they had just a little bit of empty space inside the case. And so they decided to add a
27:40
little lanyard loop like you it was a little button you clicked it out it popped out then you could like strap in your lanyard and click it back in and it
27:46
would be locked in place. And that seemed like a pretty clever design that's a little more user
27:51
friendly. But uh from what we're seeing on these cases it's just like the standard like you know two holes in it
27:58
like you stick a lanyard through it and you have to manually like you know fiddle with it and tie a loop around it.
28:03
forever that their the MacBooks used to have um you know what what are they called those um a security hole.
28:10
Oh yeah, the Kensington secure lock. Yeah. But uh and when did they discontinue that? They that hasn't been
28:17
on there. I think when they went unibody in 2008. So it's been it's been a while.
28:23
Yeah. Yeah. I don't remember the iPod Touch. That's crazy. It had a pop-up uh
28:28
Yeah. had a little little silver pop-up button. Like you clicked it and then it clicked out and then you and then you had like Apple even designed their own
28:34
lanyards for it that had like a little hole in it like you you loop it around and then you click the button back in and then it's secured.
28:40
Wow. Yeah, that I don't remember seeing that at all. It only lived for that one generation because I think in the next generation
28:46
they they added a camera to it and it filled the space. But yeah, it was interesting. I Well, that's these these cases sound
28:53
fascinating. The liquid silicone glass effect. I mean, that's going to be something to see if it's uh if it really
28:59
is like that. The interesting thing, they describe it as a liquid glass effect, but then they also describe it as an opaque satin
29:04
texture, and liquid glass is not opaque or satin. That, if anything, describes more iOS 18 than liquid glass. Maybe
29:11
they have like these rumors a little conflicted and they're going to start calling their clear cases liquid glass cases,
29:17
you know? Have you seen two-tone cloth? You know, where they they weave in two different colors and it's almost like
29:24
those 3D pictures. So, if you look at it from one angle, it appears green. If you look at it from another angle, it looks
29:30
blue. And this stuff shimmers. And it's actually quite a it's an amazing effect from from a fairly simple design. You
29:36
know, it's just weaving in crossweaving two different colors of of thread. Um,
29:42
so maybe they they can do something similar with uh with silicone. We'll see. We have we have very little
29:48
time to wait. Yeah. Right. Exactly. How long? There's rumored to be um literally a month from now. Yeah.
29:56
September. September 8th. I'll be somewhat shocked if there's a big bulky one like that one that one black image in the in the post.
30:03
I mean, the Apple Watch Ultra surprised me. That is a very chunky, you know, industrial looking design.
30:09
when when the Apple Watch Ultra I think like the CAD designs for the Apple Watch Ultra leaked like the week before the
30:15
announcement and I looked at the design and thought so they've got like this big protruding display this big protruding
30:20
thing on the side. I almost wonder if this is like an Apple Watch that's been designed to have like you know a metal
30:26
case with like a rubber right thing around it to fill the the gaps the things that protrude and I was
30:32
astonished when that wasn't the case and it was just nope it's just shaped really weird and looks like that. Yeah. So, uh, let's give thanks to our,
30:40
um, to our sponsor this week for for helping us, uh, put out this show. Griffin, you're going to talk about
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shipping. Get delicious ready to eat meals delivered with Factor. Let's move on to our high our how-tos. And uh so
32:35
this week we saw a new beta of iOS 26 beta 5 which I actually just downloaded
32:41
and installed. Um and there's a couple of controversial changes here and Griffin was going to give us a tour of
32:47
all the new features and changes. So I don't know about all of them but anyway some of the major ones right they're they're sort of they're sort of
32:53
you know we're getting a clear picture as to what iOS 26 at this stage the the the changes are getting a little smaller
33:00
but um one important change that I am very happy about. So, starting with the
33:06
previous beta, iOS 26 changes the uh default camera behavior, making the uh
33:13
camera mode picker at the bottom of the screen scroll the opposite way as before. I argued vehemently with Graham
33:20
about this when he was on the show two weeks ago, and they've made more changes. They've fixed it kind of.
33:27
There's now a setting that returns it back to the old style where you swipe your finger on the bottom of the screen and all the items scroll with your
33:34
finger. But it's a setting that you have to enable in camera settings. You have
33:39
to go to settings and then right here at the bottom of the camera settings, you can enable classic mode switching, uh,
33:46
which is kind of buried. By default, what it does is it scrolls the opposite way. like you drag your finger this way
33:51
and all the options go the other way because you're moving the bubble instead of the items underneath them which is a
33:57
little counterintuitive and doesn't work the same way as you know Safari which does has a kind of similar interface but
34:03
um they've added a setting there so I guess technically I I should be happy
34:09
but I don't know how do you feel about this I actually prefer the the other you know the new way where you move the button
34:15
that seems seems completely intuitive yeah to me and I I know. I was a little
34:20
bit surprised when I first did. I was like, "Hang on a second. What's going on here?" But um it it it feels like you're moving the
34:26
button over the top of this this uh dial. They they did tweak it a little bit in beta 5 where now the button doesn't stay
34:33
centered like fixed in the middle of the screen. It does kind of move with your finger a little bit. So there is at least some element of things moving
34:39
along with your finger. I don't know. I I think my muscle memory of like opening the camera and swiping
34:44
left to right to switch to the video mode away from photo mode, that muscle memory is just like too ingrained in me.
34:50
So, I I I'll be keeping on uh classic mode switching at least for the time being.
34:56
Well, there's definitely a lot of a lot of bleaching about it on on the web. And it was actually kind of funny, you know, that um that that uh they they they they
35:03
put this setting in. I mean, you know, there was there was this this the backlash caused a backlash in itself,
35:09
whereas I saw some people complaining that, well, you know, Apple used to have the courage of its convictions and it was, you know, you're holding it wrong
35:16
kind of situation. Seemed like a kind of silly thing to have a setting for that they probably should just have an opinion. But
35:22
nonetheless, well, there's quite there's a few now, aren't there, that I mean, there's that the phone app as well. You can switch
35:28
back to to the old interface. And isn't there another one as well? uh Safari, you can switch back the the toolbar to
35:34
the to the full set of buttons on the bottom, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh other changes though, they've
35:42
changed the AirDrop icon for the first time in a while. Uh no longer is the airdrop icon just a a dot with a bunch
35:48
of lines around it. Now it's sort of abstracted to be like, you know, layers of liquid
35:55
glass with a pizza slice taken out of it. Looks like a mountaintop with a
36:01
It does. I'm not sure. It might be a little too abstract. I'm not sure what it really conveys anymore, but
36:07
yeah. Talking of um people were saying this the new the the iTunes store icon. I don't know if you can see it there.
36:12
That's it's a it's now some weird star. And it someone said, "Oh, I hope this is
36:17
I hope this is a bug because if you do look at it, it does look really comically
36:23
bad." Mhm. It it it sticks out. It's I mean I haven't opened the iTunes store for I
36:28
probably a couple of decades but um yeah people were not happy about that icon.
36:34
Uh the other two major changes uh are on are on the iPad and the Mac uh now when
36:41
you're connected to an external display iPad OS uh permanently shows the menu bar uh on that external display. It it's
36:49
always visible there. It's not just when you mouse over it making it more computer-like. Uh, the controversial
36:54
one, Apple has changed the default icon on the Mac for the Macintosh HD internal
37:00
hard drive. It no longer looks like a old spinning hard drive. It's this sort
37:06
of metal block with an Apple logo on top and a bunch of like lines and circles on the bottom.
37:12
Which did it did it look like anything to you? Is it is it supposed to be an SSD? The actual chip inside your computer is
37:19
just a chip. Uh, I think they're they're sort of modeling it after like an external SSD, like you know, the kind of
37:24
thing that you would plug into your computer, like, you know, with like a Samsung disc or something like that. Yeah. Portable one. Yeah. Yeah. Although, interestingly, Apple has
37:31
never made a product that looks like that. Maybe that's what it would look like if they made an external hard drive. But I'm I'm not terribly opposed
37:38
to like the the broad idea of updating that icon, right? What annoys me is that it doesn't have
37:43
any perspective. It's like completely flat and orthogonal. So the the design
37:49
of the the top just doesn't match. Like if you were looking at a a physical object like that, you would either be
37:56
able to see the the top perfectly flat or the front of it perfectly flat. It's at no angle whatsoever. Although it
38:01
still drops a shadow. It's so it's this weird mix of of of 3D and you know
38:07
abstraction that does doesn't work in my eye. Is it wider at the top?
38:12
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it would have to be wider at the top for it to be completely flat like that cuz there's no p perspective at all.
38:18
Uh I could see why they got rid of the old one though. I mean, the old one looks like, you know, a a dis a disc
38:23
drive you'd take out of a a PC in 1996 or something. Got a fan on it and all that. Is that
38:30
what that is? A fan. Looks like it. Well, forever. It's like in Microsoft in in Word, you know, the save icon was an
38:36
old floppy disc, wasn't it? They didn't change for years. It still is, I'm pretty sure. Oh, yeah. Oh, okay.
38:41
Yeah. I guess once people get used to it. I mean, there's something to be said for
38:46
that, isn't there? That, you know, keeping it keeping it consistent for for for generations. I mean, the old one still does look
38:51
like, oh, that's a computer part. It's a part that goes inside a computer, even though it might not be, you know, a computer part anymore. I mean, I still
38:58
have spinning hard drives sitting on my desk, but that's only because I want 32 terabytes of storage. But and you know
39:04
they they they redesigned this icon to make it more in line with all the other icons that they have for like you know network attached storage or like a
39:10
network drive or an external drive. Like they're all in that sort of style of being like an oblong rectangle with
39:16
rounded edges on it. But I mean give them a little bit of perspective if you're going to make them that realistic looking.
39:21
I'm going to have to go ask Chat GPT what orthogonal means. Orthogonal means there's no perspective.
39:27
It's just like a fixed projection. I still don't understand. Okay.
39:34
Well, talking of the betas, I mean, the the the reader question this week is is is, you know, should should you install
39:40
the betas at this point? Um, and I say yes, but I'm also kind of
39:47
reckless and uh, you know, install the the betas on all my devices from the
39:52
very get-go and and and suffer the consequences and and and a couple of times it has um, burn me. But they're
40:00
pretty late in the cycle now and we're only a month away from its release. Um,
40:06
there's gonna be what, maybe one more or two more before it becomes Yeah. Yeah. a release candidate. I I
40:14
personally like on on my iPhone, it's been stable. It hasn't burned up my
40:19
battery or melted my device. Um, almost everything seems to work work fine. I
40:25
don't I don't recall any glitches actually. The computer less so, you know, Mac OS um that things weren't
40:31
working. Slack didn't work uh for the first couple of betas, which is like a a big problem. But uh and and on the iPad,
40:37
yeah, that's been fine as well. So, I say, yeah, go for it. What do you guys think? Beta 5 is a world better than betas one
40:46
through four. Beta 5 is actually pretty clean. There are still a bunch of bugs. Like, uh a lot of animations are broken.
40:52
Like, you know, you you summon the share sheet and it it grows up and then the um
40:57
and then the background completely changes like a fraction of a second later. uh you know transparencies of
41:04
different things like pop in and out of opacity like it it's weird like that but
41:09
broadly this has been far more stable. I think this is now stable enough to where
41:14
you can install the betas on all of your devices if you really want to. And in fact uh in preparation of the Mac OS
41:21
Tahoe, you know, list of features that I'll inevitably have to write in mid-Sepptemeber, I I installed Tahoe on
41:28
my main Mac, so I'm living with that now. Wow. And it it hasn't been too bad.
41:33
Yeah. And and do you like it? The new interface, the the new look of things. Um I'm getting used to it. The giant
41:40
round corners make a lot of apps, you know, look kind of like toy like, you
41:46
know, it's like going from Lego to Duplo with the giant rounded corners and how much bigger everything is. But um
41:53
I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would. One of my biggest design problems with the old design of Mac OS is that it
42:00
was really hard to differentiate between active and inactive windows. Like, you know, this app is in the
42:06
foreground. So, all of its uh toolbar buttons are a very slightly darker shade
42:11
of gray on white and all of the background, you know, windows will be the same shade of white but with
42:17
slightly lighter shades of gray buttons on them. Uh, something that surprised me about Mac OS Tahoe is that foreground
42:25
and background windows are now much more differentiated because the drop shadows
42:31
on the new giant sidebar, all the, you know, big circular buttons, the drop shadows on all those, you know, window
42:38
dressing elements and controls disappear when they're not the active window. So, it's actually easier to, you know,
42:44
differentiate foreground and background windows in Tahoe than before. Um, of
42:49
course with one advancement in that regard, there's a bunch of other regressions like uh uh screenshots have
42:55
been going like viral on Masttodon of like you know um somebody's deleting a file and it you know a pop-up comes up
43:01
and it says and there's like a checkbox that's like practically invisible because it's the light it's only like
43:06
two shades darker than the than the white checkbox behind than the white pop-up behind it, you know. Yeah. Yeah.
43:13
Yeah. You win some, you lose some. That whole screenshot stuff I thought, you know, I think was maybe just a little bit misleading. Um, you know, the whole
43:19
liquid glass debate and and they're showing screenshots that are illeible
43:25
and and you know, you really can't see what's going on. But in in use, I haven't had any of those issues at all.
43:32
And I mean, you do get that with with with, you know, occasionally, don't you, with I don't know. It's not really a
43:37
problem if you move if you you move something. If you can't see it, you move it. It's problem solved. I liked it a
43:42
lot. I think it, you know, that the the just the new when you install it, you get this whole new splash screen. You
43:48
get this beautiful screen saver that is a Lake Tahoe and you can see all the the waves moving, the ripples on the waves.
43:53
It looks absolutely gorgeous. And I was really excited. I thought, "Oh my god, I've got a brand new computer." And
43:58
that's what it totally feels like to me. I mean, I I I love the excitement of these new OSs. It's it's a such a huge
44:04
refresh. Um, and you know, if there's glitches, there's problem, you know, deal just deal with it. I've been developing an
44:10
app like on and off for like the last two years or so and now I need to rebuild it for Tahoe because it has the old design and the icon that I drew is
44:17
in the the the gray penalty box. So I need to make a new icon for it.
44:23
Good luck. Good luck. Good luck. Let's talk about the this week's featured uh setup
44:29
because the user had a lot of eye strain. He was getting his eyes were getting tired and and blinking a lot. I
44:34
know a little about that. So, he spent a lot of time tweaking his setup so that it would reduce his eye
44:41
strain. And for those who can't see this, we're looking at um it's like in a corner of a room. It's a small U desk.
44:48
Uh it has a um MacBook Pro on a stand which is connected to an Apple Studio
44:55
Display. And in front of it, he's got a really nice looking Magic Keyboard, a Magic Trackpad. They're all in the space
45:00
gray and match the hardware of the MacBook Pro. And those are sitting on like this nice black felt desk mat. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
45:08
Exactly. And then he's got um I think the lighting here is key. He has a Ben Q
45:13
uh screen bar monitor light that's sat on top of his studio display that's casting light down over his keyboard and
45:20
over his uh Mac. And um there's also a I guess what is that one of those ring
45:26
lights I think for on the right hand side behind the MacBook Pro there's a ring light I think that
45:32
probably is used for it doesn't it's not on right now so it's not used to reduce his eye strain. I guess it's just for for the um if he's going to do video
45:38
calls. And then the windows are shaded. So even though there's a big window there, there's a one of those um paper
45:44
cellular uh blinds that you pull down um that seems to cover most of the window.
45:49
So he's, you know, making sure that light isn't coming in from behind him. Uh and the light is sort of downcast,
45:55
which which I believe, you know, he's he did a lot of time tweaking this to make sure that it it his eyes it helped his
46:01
eyes and his eyesight. Um, so the lighting looks to be very important here. And then behind it there's um some
46:08
kind of weird letter holder with a bunch of letters in it. And then to the left there's um uh some tapestry thing
46:16
hanging on the wall. Uh the the letter holder is interesting because he's got like this this
46:22
sort of like accordion like file folder thing on the wall with a bunch of papers just like half-hazardly sticking out at
46:27
all manners of angles. So it's got to be stuffed with paper. if if if they're all sticking out like that. He didn't make
46:33
any attempt to clean that up before he took this picture. Uh what are we drinking? He's got a few drinks on the
46:38
corner of his desk. Two cans of uh Waterlue tropical fruit. Uh sparkling
46:45
water. A can of yerba mate. I don't know what that is. I'm not mate. Yeah. It's a
46:51
revolting drink from from south of the border. Yeah.
46:57
I know. I know. I know people are going people are going to be outraged about that, but the stuff I've had is is is um
47:03
impaled. He has he has a car key uh sitting behind his computer like way back there
47:08
in the background, so he's going to lose those. He won't see them when he needs to go for a drive. I don't even see the Oh. Oh, there it
47:14
is. He has five pairs of glasses sitting on this desk. Uh I know he talks about
47:19
like, you know, oh, I wanted to get a pair of computer glasses. That's, you know, reducing blue light. I think a lot
47:25
of those studies have turned out to, you know, kind of be garbage and, you know, the blue light concern is kind of made
47:32
up. Uh, but nonetheless, everybody thinks that they need computer glasses now. And this person has apparently bought five pairs that he leaves.
47:40
Well, he he bought I think you can see the lenses there that I think they're replaceable lenses. So, he uh he bought
47:45
a pair of glasses where you can replace the lenses so you can experiment with the different um different lenses, different magnifications.
47:51
and he uh I I I can't remember how much this kit cost. You can get a kit on Amazon that I think is fairly
47:57
inexpensive, but that was really interesting to me because, you know, obviously I have the same issues. And I I was definitely going to experiment
48:03
with this to try to to try the same thing. I think it's I think it's fairly cheap. I think they're in 20 or $30 um
48:08
for a pair of glasses where you can change the lenses out and see which one suit you best. Uh yeah, he also talks about shading the
48:14
window, but he uh bought a window shade that only covers the bottom half of the window. There's still a lot that's
48:19
peeking out from above. So perhaps he should put his his accordion letter um holder over the the top of the
48:26
window there. Maybe higher up there. Uh I will I will compliment him though. He he's done he's done a nice job with cable management.
48:32
He has the kind of desk that has like the hole in the back that you can like route all of your cables down into. Good
48:37
job there. It's not a lot of cables strewn about. Um although there's that one that one cable on the right though that that that
48:43
that's that's all wrong. That should go down through the hole along the back the bottom of the desk
48:48
and then up the back. Oh my god. Well, that's that's the cable that plugs the MacBook Pro into the studio display. So, you want that cable to be
48:54
accessible. Still, it's wrong. You could plug it in on the other side, though, I guess. Like, don't don't the MacBook Pros have a Thunderbolt cable on
49:00
either side. Uh, I believe so. Yeah. Yeah, they should do. Yeah, my my my uh altogether.
49:07
It's a It's a nice setup. Yeah, I see the car key though. Yeah, you're right. He's never going to find that. I hope he has fine my
49:12
although it won't work with his car keys. Maybe he's got an air tag on it. Yeah. What do you What do you What do you work at a setup like this? Would you
49:18
be happy? I mean, oh, I would. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Especially if it reduc if it
49:24
reduces eye strain as he claims. I think this guy's experimented a lot with and and and I think it took him a long time,
49:30
months and months, maybe maybe years to dial this in and and and and I think he was saying that this finally was his,
49:37
you know, he finally he finally nailed it. He finally managed to reduce his eye strain. So, if that is true, yeah, I'm
49:42
I'm going up there for nine. I like the idea of the uh you know like
49:48
that kind of see-through window thing because I I have giant blackout curtains behind my monitor screen because I
49:53
cannot bear looking at the screen with any sun coming in. But but those uh I never even thought about that. Those
49:59
sort of what is it called? Uh you call them accordion blinds or something.
50:05
I think they're called um cellular paper cellular cell blinds. Yeah. And that they're great cuz you
50:10
usually they they um they're self um whatever it is. Yeah. And you can they
50:16
just pull up and down. I've got some of Blackout ones in in uh in in our in my bedroom and they work
50:21
great. All right. So, let's move to the highlight of the show. This is what we've all been waiting for.
50:27
Are you ready, Griffin? Yes. I'm going to switch to camera two here. Oh my god, it's an envelope.
50:33
Yes. We're looking at a yellow envelope. So, I'm going to take the case box out of the bag. And we have this case from a
50:41
company called Case Coup that I'd never heard of before called the the the box
50:46
says that it's the magic stand. And you can see some holographic Oh, wow. images on the front of it.
50:52
Case cool. Yeah. Yeah. That's very, very cool. Now, this is not the case that they sent
50:58
me. I don't know why they sent it in this box. They sent me a different case, but we're going to take a look at that
51:03
inside. What is going on? There's a very good reason for that.
51:09
This case is a very bright orange, which is the first clue. Is that orange?
51:14
It's It's inside. I'm going to take it out here. Oh, it's coming out of the envelope.
51:20
Mhm. Because this Oh, okay. Now, that is orange. Yeah, this case is interesting because
51:26
this is not an iPhone 16 Pro case. This is an iPhone 17 Pro case that they have sent me to look at. They
51:33
say that this uh color of orange they have matched to the color of the iPhone
51:38
17 Pro. Wow. I will say that the build quality doesn't seem excellent. So maybe this
51:44
case manufacturer isn't uh you know top tier. Like the they have a little camera control cutout here that's a little
51:50
wobbly where the thin part of the case is. So what I'm going to try and do and see
51:55
if I can fit my iPhone 16 Pro inside it and see how close of a match it is. If that's really the color that's that
52:01
that's going to be hot. Yeah, they they've sort of gone for a chrome shiny plastic finish. I don't
52:07
know if that's Yeah, it's got like an Iron Man suit kind of vibe to it. Mhm. Uh so let's see how close of a
52:13
match it is. If it if you can fit a 16 Pro inside.
52:18
Stretch it. Oh yeah, it fits pretty well. I I think the rumor is that maybe the the the 16 17 Pro might be a little
52:25
bit larger. So it it feels like there's a little little give around the edge of it. Uh but yeah, you can see like you
52:32
know when you have the phone inside a case uh you know there's a big gap around the the camera plateau like it's
52:38
you know it spans the whole width of the phone. There's this cutout for the uh camera flash and LAR sensor that my
52:45
phone isn't you know lining up with. But I think this is broadly telling us that uh cases will be backwards compatible.
52:51
Like you you know you buy a 17 Pro case it'll still fit a 16 Pro case. I mean, a 16 Pro phone kind of reasonably. Not a
52:58
big change in dimension there. And and the but the Apple logo, it's it's it's centered. The rumor was it was
53:05
going to move down lower, but that one um is is lined up perfectly with your old logo.
53:10
Not quite centered. The Apple logo of the phone, the 16 Pro is sitting a
53:15
little bit too high inside the MagSafe ring of this 17 Pro case. So maybe there is some truth to it then.
53:22
It's going to move, but like about 3 mm, not Yeah. You'll notice there's no uh camera
53:27
cutout on the top. So, I think that puts that rumor to bed. Not that we really believed it anyways.
53:32
Oh, debunked. Totally debunked. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. But, you know, if this is the if this is the shade of orange it is, then
53:38
I think we have a good reason to be excited. That's definitely not muted. That's not some horrible pro color. That's a nice poppy color.
53:43
Mhm. You know, maybe they Do you think it'll be a bit more matty? Yeah. I I think that they've maybe just gone for like a sort of shiny finish.
53:50
And like this is the shade that it'll be, but probably not the uh optical, you know, quality of, you know, what what
53:56
what Apple's finish is going to look like. And how much of the camera bump at the back? So it it'll it'll it'll look more
54:01
orange at the top there won't on the camera bump. Yeah. No, I just noticed like there's So the design of this case, uh the camera
54:08
bump isn't completely open. They do have a little plastic strip that sits between the three lenses and where the uh flash
54:14
and lighter sensor will go. And I'm noticing that the little plastic bridge they have there has some give to it. But
54:21
that tells me that maybe like the glass plateau is going to be a little higher. You know, I can imagine fitting like a a
54:27
17 Pro inside here. It probably wouldn't have that much wiggle to it. Yeah. It would sit flush with the um the
54:34
elevated camera island. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, fiddling around in my hands, it it does feel like
54:39
there's a little wiggle in here. So maybe the 17 Pro will be getting a little bigger, maybe a little thicker. Um but just slightly. It's hard to tell
54:46
how much of that is, you know, this has been sized for a slightly bigger phone and how much of it is this is a slightly
54:51
imprecisely made case. Yeah, I was obviously one of that I mean it I guess a prototypey maybe it's
54:59
they'll tweak the design. I like that um that stand though. The um the popsocket thing. That is very clever. Yeah, that that's a
55:05
neat thing about this case. It has a uh the the sort of mag safe ring around it flips down so you have a a stand if you
55:12
want that you could use. Is it sturdy? Yeah, it looks it is pretty sturdy. It has a, you know, a bit of a bit of resistance when you
55:19
adjust it up and down, so it feels nice. That looks like a nice case. Mhm. Uh Lewis, I don't think we've
55:25
gotten your opinion on the colors since you've been gone the last three weeks. What What do you feel about this shade of orange?
55:31
It, you know, uh I mean, I think I've been craving a
55:36
bright orange phone forever. Uh my concern is that it'll end up being um
55:43
less flashy than that case. Less flashy than it could be. It'll end up looking like uh I don't know either either like
55:51
a a copper tone ad, you know, from remember that uh
55:57
Yeah. rusty. Yeah. Like like it'll be it'll just be a little too mature. Uh or or it'll be
56:05
more like a dreamsicle, you like it'll be like somehow what I would really like to see is something just like
56:11
completely like glittery spark sparkly
56:17
uh like a an old carnival ride. That's that's what I always think they need to do, you know, or or you know, bright
56:22
red, you know, even just a bright red product red iPhone pro. I I swear people
56:28
would go for it, but Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we had this we've had this debate like, you know, add infinite like for the last three
56:34
weeks talking about these colors, but I you know, totally agree. Yeah, the the product reds are some of the nicest looking colors that they do. I think
56:41
quite bold colors and the the ultramarine or aquamarine uh for the of the current um the the
56:47
regular iPhone. That's a lovely lovely looking color. Right. Yeah. I mean, I I can't wait to see what it actually looks like. I hope
56:54
that it's uh you know a a real like standout kind of gorgeous orange. Uh I'm
57:02
a little afraid it'll be kind of muted and appleley.
57:08
Yeah. Right. We'll see in a month. So what was the name of that case again Griffin? This is the I don't know if they have a
57:14
name for this particular case yet but the the company that sent it to me is called Case. C A S E K O O and magic
57:22
stand the magic stand. And this actually is the magic stand. Yeah,
57:28
it's not holographic. I'll tell you that much. But it does does have a stand.
57:33
All right. Very cool. Very cool demo. Well, I think that we should wrap up there. That's about all the cult cast we
57:39
have for you this week. Uh but if you want to continue the fun, Lewis is on Twitter, Lewis Wallace. Griffin's on
57:45
Mastadon and Blue Sky Driffin Jones. And uh I write every day the Cult ofMac uh
57:51
today newsletter which you can get at newsletters.cultterm.com. So please send us a text using the link
57:57
at the top of the show notes or in the YouTube comments and ask us a question for the show and we'll best do our best to to mess it up. This has been the
58:04
Cultcast, the best hourong Apple conversation you're going to hear all week. New episodes of the Cultcast come out every Thursday night. And I want to
58:11
thank you everybody for listening and we'll see you next time. Have a great weekend. Goodbye. Woohoo.
58:19
All right, cool. That was a great demo again. That was really good. I like these. Thanks.
58:25
Yeah. And the screen sharing, too. I think it's I think it's working. How How did you do the uh You're using
58:32
that I can't ever remember what it's called with that feature where the phone can the phone camera can show the desk.
58:38
What is that called? No, I'm not using that. That's called desk view. Um, I'm using an app to
58:43
capture my video called Camo. And I have two iPhones plugged into my computer right now. One on top of my display, one
58:50
on a tripod on the right side of my desk. And what I did is I uh in Camo
58:55
switched which phone was active. And so that switched it while keeping this video live, changing the image that it's
59:02
receiving. But Camo can do that pretty seamlessly. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. I remember you wrote an awesome apps post about camo.
59:08
Mhm. Highly recommend it. Great. All right, cool. I better get on with the newsletter.
59:16
I think I might have to take a break and get some lunch before the newsletter. Sorry, Leander. Yeah. Well, I'll try and push it
59:22
together. All right. Great job, Griffin. Thanks so much. Thank you. All right. See you guys later. Okay. See you. Talk
59:27
to you tomorrow. Yeah. [Music]
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