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This week: Have you forgotten about the HomePad? Apple hasn’t! Also: The one exec Apple can’t afford to lose, the great new features coming to the Studio Display 2, how to ping your Apple Watch from your iPhone, a question about the Mac that Apple should make, and a review of the Beats Pill!
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
5:06 Apple HomePad
16:19 Johny Srouji
32:12 Studio Display 2
40:58 HelloFresh
42:23 Ping Apple Watch from iPhone
48:13 Listener Question
52:49 Under Review: Beats Pill x Kim Kardashian
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Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:02
Criy, it's time again for the Cult, the greatest Apple podcast of all time. I'm your host, Leander Kenny. Join me today,
0:08
we have D. Griffin Jones. Hey, Griffin. Good evening. How are you? I'm very good. I'm very good. Thank you
0:14
for asking. I just realized I I never returned the favor and ask you how you're doing. Oh, well. Well, you did this time and uh
0:20
thanks for chipping in. Yeah. Now I can uh tell everyone how great I'm doing. Even though actually I'm not.
0:29
I'm all over my bike riding. Um but uh yeah, we also have Louis. Hello, Louis.
0:35
Hey, good morning. It's a beautiful day in San Francisco, isn't it? Yeah, it is finally. And finally, the freeze
0:42
has um has eased a little. It's not so freezing cold as it was. Although it is cold in my house, though.
0:48
Wifey has band turned the heating on and it's like I have to open the doors to get some heat in here.
0:54
That is a bizarre phenomenon. I have noticed that this year. It's warmer outside than it is inside my house.
1:01
Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? It's not even winter yet. I looked it up just just the other day. I was like I thought for sure it
1:07
was already winter. It's still fall, right? And this isn't even the coldest time of the year. Like Mark Twain said,
1:13
you know, the coldest winter I ever spent was the summer in San Francisco. Um like our heating comes on in July
1:19
usually. Well, when we have it turned on, it uh it often comes reliably comes on in July when the fog sets in. Yeah,
1:25
this is actually quite nice. So, I'm looking forward to going for a bike ride later if I can get a chance to. I know.
1:31
Here we're complaining. It's like what is it? 55 or something and Oh, it's 51. 51.
1:36
What is it where you are, Griffin? 21 here. Yeah, right.
1:42
Yep. You're bang on the money, Louis. It's pathetic, isn't it? We're so
1:48
coddled complaining about, you know, like a tiny 10 degree drop in the weather
1:53
here in San Francisco and it's like freezing. It's weird though. I I remember going back to the Midwest and
1:59
it's like it's freezing out c outside, but then everybody has their houses so hot, you know? It was like constant uh
2:08
what do they call those things? Contrast bath or whatever. You know, hot cold, hot, cold. San Francisco is just like
2:13
kind of cold all the time except for, you know, two weeks out of the summer where it's like ridiculously hot.
2:19
And but nobody I don't know, man. Like people's houses are always cold. bars
2:25
and restaurants are cold. I remember the first time I came here, you know, my my girlfriend and I, we went to some
2:30
restaurant. I've never been able to figure out where it was. Uh, but I remember sitting there, it's like, you know, concrete floor and we were eating
2:37
some Vietnamese food. It's like, this is awesome, but it's freezing. And they brought a heater out to our table. And
2:43
this was in the summer and it's like, what in the world is wrong with this? It's it's a bizarre city. It is actually
2:49
one of the things that I I found really attractive about San Francisco is it's it's almost always chilly. You're not
2:54
like, you know, sweating, greasy, horrible Midwest, muggy summer. It's uh
3:01
it's always cold. No, I kind of miss the the heat. You know, now I'm older and thinner of skin.
3:07
And [Music] I used to live with a couple of Swedish people. They're my roommates. And they
3:13
cranked the heating up to like about 80 85 90 degrees in the in the house. It was so hot that they walked around naked
3:19
all the time. Naked Swedes. Well, nearly naked underwear. Houseside sauna.
3:25
They kept they invited me to dinner one night. They said, "We're going to make um we're going to make you a special um spaghetti."
3:32
I don't know. When I sat down, it was literally a pot of plain spaghetti and then the sauce
3:38
was a bottle of ketchup. Are you serious? No, that was it. I was really shocked,
3:45
but then it actually turned out pretty good. It was actually okay. I quite liked it. No Swedish meatballs?
3:51
No, nothing. It was literally spaghetti and ketchup. God, were they Were they pranking you?
3:57
Were they actually excited about this meal? Apparently, it's a thing in in uh in the Nordic countries. That's how they eat
4:03
it. You've never had that?
4:08
That that is even below Ohio standards, isn't it, Griffin? Yeah. Yeah. wasn't below my standards. I mean,
4:14
that's my kind of that's how I cook usually, but um that one was really pretty shocking to me. And even more
4:20
shocking that it was actually quite edible. It wasn't so bad at all. Oh god.
4:26
Anyway, let's get on with the show. What are we going to talk about this week? Oh, the HomePad. Yeah, we're going to
4:31
say we're going to talk about why you might actually want Apple's upcoming smart home hub. Um and uh oh, some great
4:39
features coming to the studio display, too. Griffin is going to break that down for us. We're going to talk about um Apple, the one executive that Apple
4:46
can't afford to lose, and uh how to ping your Apple Watch from your iPhone. Uh
4:51
this is actually one thing I've never ever done and I don't think anybody else ever has done except for Griffin. Um but
4:56
we're going to get into that anyway. Uh oh, and a question about the Apple that uh the Mac that Apple should make. Uh
5:02
and I've got a a short review as well of a of the Beats Pill. So, let's get going. Lewis, what about this HomePad
5:09
smart home hub? Why do you think people are going to want it? Uh well, it it does sound like it's an interesting device. You know, you've
5:15
hear about this for a while. Uh it's supposedly like a merger of an iPad and a HomePod,
5:21
often called the HomePod. Who knows what the actual name is, but uh you know, code named J490. It popped up again in
5:27
some uh pre-release iOS code, iOS 26 code that uh was obtained by Macworld.
5:34
And uh the latest thing is it is supposedly going to include a front-facing ultrawide camera with
5:40
center stage, which if you don't know what that is, that's the Apple technology that like keeps you in frame,
5:46
right? Uh where so you move around, the camera follows you super easy, which
5:52
would be perfect like if like the device that is kind of pitched as like a a great way to control your home and and
5:59
maybe sit in your kitchen on your kitchen counter, you know? Uh, that's the I'm constantly making recipes using
6:05
my iPhone. Very annoying. Constantly turning off. You know, some apps have recipe mode or whatever, but uh, yeah,
6:11
it's tiny. It's hard to see. This thing sounds like it would be great for for right there on your kitchen counter. Uh,
6:19
let's see. So, this thing supposedly is, you know, supposedly Apple was going to release this last year, right? But they
6:24
couldn't they couldn't release it because Siri was so lame. uh and they've been waiting for Siri to not be lame,
6:31
which has not yet happened. Uh and that this device will be, you know,
6:38
it'll really take advantage of this new AI powered Siri that is supposedly coming first quarter of of 2026.
6:46
Uh let's see. Supposedly, this thing is also going to have Face ID, which
6:51
sounds, you know, perfect, especially for a kitchen. There's a good reason for that. If it
6:56
recognizes that you It's not for security. It's to recognize the user and personalize the experience for the
7:01
individual user. Yeah. And and that's that's what's kind of interesting about this. Supposedly, they've developed a new household
7:08
focused operating system that's uh for shared use by multiple family members. So, yeah. So, like
7:13
uh you know, complete with widgets, clock faces, you know, all the normal apps, calendar, music, notes, etc. It'll
7:19
be pretty uh a pretty interesting take on Face ID if they can get it to work on that class of display. Because the the
7:25
thing about Face ID is it only actually works if you're within like 2 feet of the display of your phone. If this
7:32
device is meant to be used like, you know, on a iPad screen from across the kitchen or, you know, from at least
7:38
farther distances, maybe they've like upgraded Face ID in some way to be more accurate or have,
7:44
you know, more resolution or, you know, be better. That's a good point. It uses actually the contours of your face. Like it's not
7:50
actually sort of it uses a like a what do you call it? Like a map, right? Um yeah,
7:55
a surface map. So IR like map and it beams um infrared, right? And and
8:01
sees how fast it comes back. So yeah, I wonder this thing's probably going to be like radiating like an like a pulsar star,
8:07
you know, shooting out radiation into the kitchen so I could recognize your face. Maybe they have a different system for it because do you think that could
8:12
work at a distance? Like you said, that's a good point. It doesn't really work more than a few inches away. Why would it need to work at a distance?
8:18
Well, do you think you have to put your face right up to it for it to um Well, you know, I mean, a foot or so. I
8:24
mean, I I think I have to hold my phone at least a foot away from my face to get Face ID to work reliably. Uh
8:31
I don't know why it would have to work across the room. I I think the more interesting part is it would unlock it unlock different uh you know, scenarios
8:38
for different members of a household, which that still doesn't work on an iPad, does it? Like an iPad is single
8:44
use like you Why why can't it work on an iPad if it can work on this device? That would be cool. That would be something
8:50
that uh you know I think iPad owners would love that. You know, you could share an iPad. You don't need two iPads.
8:57
Every single person need need their own iPad. So anyway, this this thing is supposedly like you know the big the big
9:03
exciting new uh addition to Apple's um well their push into smart home stuff.
9:09
you know, their whole smart home thing with HomeKit is it's it's just been like the whole history of this is it's
9:15
been slow and uh you know, behind everybody else,
9:20
right? HomeKit isn't rubbish. It's just it at first they had these you know specific
9:26
hardware demands. You had to have a certain chip so people didn't want to buy the chip. They didn't want to have you know third party manufacturers
9:31
didn't want to have to put those expensive chips in their devices. Uh then they changed it to
9:38
software some somehow it now works with software. You don't have to have that that special chip in it to be a HomeKit
9:43
device but and now they're also you know there's matter which is crossplatform and and better than
9:50
everything. So so uh Apple's now trying supposedly get back into this home thing. This this
9:55
home hub is going to be uh you know much like a HomePod works as a home hub.
10:01
It's going to work, let you do all your uh, you know, control all your smart devices, right? Your lights and your
10:09
window blinds. I've still never tried the window blinds. I wonder how often you have to recharge those or you just have to I think the though the the window blinds
10:15
ones are like weirdly expensive, like hundreds of dollars for for just smart home connected window blinds. And you
10:22
wouldn't expect that to be so pricey. I understand the appeal, but uh it just seems like it I don't know. It seems
10:29
complicated. like how do you get power to them? Uh so I have no experience with them. I'm I'm I'm ignorant of the smart
10:36
home window blind category, but I have a lot of door locks. I have a lot of lights that work with HomeKit. And I
10:43
love being able to uh to to do that. I I I just put one uh Suzanne and I, you
10:50
know, have a fairly large collection of um alcoholic beverages at our house. It's uh and we had on this nice glass,
10:58
you know, uh shelving unit that I I swear to God, you know, if there's ever an earthquake, it's going to be three-day cleanup. Uh but uh and we also
11:07
had this thing. We got this at a like a you know, vintage shop or something years ago. This little this little uh
11:14
image of like a a you know, uh it's the classic like drunk
11:19
guy hanging onto a lamp post, right? drunken Englishman outside.
11:25
You could tell he's English just by looking at him. And uh and his nose is a red Christmas
11:31
light. Okay. And so this thing, but it has a a cord, you know, that plugs into the wall
11:37
and that's how it doesn't have a switch on it. It's just you just plug it in manually or what. And and because of that, it's been, you know, it it almost
11:44
never gets used. It never gets lit lit up. And so I I finally got around. I put
11:51
it in the middle of the uh of the bar, the bar shelving, set it there amongst
11:57
all the bidters, and I I plugged it into a smart plug, and I I And now I I just say, "Hey, Nitwit, uh,
12:06
turn on the drinking light." And boom, his red light pops open. It just That does make me chuckle. I I'm
12:12
sorry. It's that is a a a smart home trick that uh is is it's pleasant. It's
12:20
pleasant. You should have a dedicated control center button just for that on your
12:25
phone. What I could do is set it up an automation so it goes on at 5:01 p.m. every day. That's what I was thinking. How come it
12:30
doesn't go on every hotel time? Maybe only Fridays.
12:37
Anyway, so uh you know the thing is like this device sounds cool. This HomePad
12:42
sounds like a cool thing. Um, I hope that it is a precursor to Apple
12:48
doing more stuff. I mean, another thing mentioned in this report is there's another device uh that is, you know,
12:55
something with a camera, you know, and they're they're speculating, well, is it going to be the Apple smart doorbell,
13:01
which is been in the works supposedly for a long time. They're saying in fact this is probably more like a indoor
13:07
security camera, which I still don't actually understand what good indoor security cameras are. I
13:14
mean, I get evidence for the police after your house gets ransacked. Mostly I think it's just for looking at your cat when you're on vacation.
13:21
And they also have apparently a cheaper variant of this that is meant to just go on a wall and might not have the speaker
13:28
part of it. It, you know, just a smart display kind of thing, right? like an iPad stuck to your to
13:34
your wall. Yeah. And I mean that that sounds cool, too. I mean, uh I think we've discussed
13:39
it before. I mean, when somebody comes to your house and they don't know how to work all your smart stuff, it's a little
13:45
weird. So, it's it's nice if there's like a real obvious way that they could do that. So,
13:50
you know, the appeal I see is yeah, I have a calendar widget on my phone. You know, other people in my household have
13:56
like a little calendar widget. you know, you can check my calendar. I've got on my watch, but it's it nothing compares
14:02
just like seeing it in a physical space like on the wall and you know, yeah, I could get a paper calendar, but things
14:09
are changing, moving constantly. I don't want to like just copy all of the stuff from my calendar onto a physical
14:15
calendar. Like having a digital calendar just physically pinned in space on this area that I can always just passively
14:22
look at it, it could be a genuinely great product. You you've got one of those in your Vision Pro, don't you?
14:28
Big calendar, big virtual calendar on the wall. The widgets in in the Vision OS 26 are
14:34
not terribly reliable. They don't update very often. It's a little buggy. Yeah,
14:39
that's very disappointing. They they they run a little better on the M5 Vision Pro than the M2 Vision Pro, right? I bet they do. Yeah.
14:46
Yeah. My mom has a a 10-in um uh what's it called? small Amazon Echo Show that um
14:53
follows her around the room. So, it does have a lot of this sort of functionality. This is kind of years old now, too. I I bought it for her like I
14:58
don't know two, three years ago. And it's really great. She uses it all the time um for all kinds of stuff. She can sit when someone rings her smart
15:04
doorbell. It it pops up um you know the the video feed from the doorbell so you can see immediately who's there. It's
15:09
super useful. Of course, she never forgets to charge her doorbell. Um so, half the time it doesn't work, but uh
15:16
you know, she uses it to play the the wireless from London. She plays Tweet of the Day on Radio 4, which is um the bird
15:23
watching uh show of the day. I thought I thought it was like a live
15:30
feed of Twitter. Oh god, it's uh No, it's much more it's much more fascinating. It's it's bird song.
15:37
Gee whiz. And uh yeah, it's really really pretty good. And and she actually it's the one
15:42
device really that I don't have to troubleshoot for her, you know, maybe because maybe she doesn't, you know, mess it up. Um, but uh it uh it it works
15:49
pretty well. I think uh this home stuff is really cool. I'm really looking forward to send a whole suite spending thousands and thousands of dollars on a
15:56
bunch of extra new stuff from Apple. Of course, in the meantime, you know, the house is drafty like a the old Victorian
16:02
that it is. Um I wish Apple would invent some kind of uh home um heating
16:08
technology so we don't have to freeze all the time. Is that what the Intel Max were? Yeah, that's called the the Power Mac
16:14
G5. Yeah, I should get that fired up again. It's in the basement. Let's talk
16:19
about the the one executive that Apple's fighting to keep. So that you know, as we've seen, there's been a lot of uh reports, isn't there, this these past
16:25
few months about Apple's brain drain, all these executives leaving and the one that the Apple's really keen to hold on
16:30
to and is uh Johnny Suji and he's the man who cooks up Certino's cutting edge
16:36
chips. He's the guy who appears in all the videos in the basement with um like a mad scientist
16:42
in in the chip lab. Yeah, he kind of has a word he says you have to turn on subtitles to in order to to follow what
16:47
he's saying. Um, but there's uh a story this week that he was he told Tim Cook
16:52
that he was quote seriously considering leaving Apple in the near future. This is going to mark at Bloomberg. Um, and
16:58
apparently Cook is very keen to hold on to Suji. He's been offered a substantial pay package and additional responsibilities. Um, and once in Ario
17:06
even considered making him Apple's chief technology officer and that would make him the most second most powerful executive at the company. uh this of
17:13
course will be a big blow. He's responsible largely for Apple silicon or at least he oversaw it. He was hired way
17:19
back when to um start with the A series chips that power every iPhone um and
17:24
it's since develops into into you know the chips that power everything including the C1 modem, the N1 wireless
17:30
chip. So Suji himself responded to this on Monday and he sent a a memo to his
17:35
underlings saying quote I know you've been reading all kinds of rumors and speculations about my future at Apple and I feel that you need to hear from me
17:42
directly. He wrote um quote I am proud of the amazing technologies cap we all
17:47
build across displays, cameras, sensors, silicone batteries and a very wide set of technologies across all of Apple's
17:55
products. Cap uh together we enable the best products in the world. I love my team and I love my job at Apple and I
18:01
don't plan on leaving anytime soon. Quote, and I think that last part anytime soon. Isn't that Isn't that a
18:09
little suspicious? It is a little bit of a non-denial denial as they say where I don't plan on
18:14
leaving anytime soon. That could mean a lot of things that don't necessarily mean I'm staying at Apple forever.
18:20
Right. So yeah, I I this is an an interesting opportunity to talk about this all these executive departures
18:25
because of course there's rumors about Tim Cook leaving. Um that was kicked off by a uh a Financial Times report and
18:31
then of course German Mark German probably the leading Apple reporter uh said that this was a lot of bunk that
18:38
they were planning to for Cook's succession but there was actually nothing on the table. he probably wasn't
18:43
going to be leaving in January, but maybe they make an announcement then, I think, is what he reported, and maybe leave later in the year. But then
18:49
everyone's all in a tizzy because we've seen um a whole bunch of like high-profile executive departures. Um
18:55
and you know, people are sort of worried about what's Apple's up to. Although, did we discuss this in previous weeks to
19:01
death? We we talked about Alan Dy and John D and Andrea. I think I we we and then and
19:07
then the day after that was when Lisa Jackson and uh the other woman, I forget her name,
19:14
announced that they were Oh, Katie Adams that Katie Adams. Yeah. It's it's it's just deeply unfortunate
19:20
timing that, you know, the week that Apple planned on announcing John G and Andrea, Katie Adams, Lisa Jackson
19:25
leaving, like you know, with press releases on Apple.com newsroom like in the middle of that
19:31
Allen D left too. It's just it's not a very good look. Yeah. And then and then the very day
19:37
after that explosive week, German has this report about uh Scruji leaving and
19:44
uh that was a whiplash, man. Apple got they they responded to that quite quickly. Uh you know what a surprise
19:50
that Suji's memo leaked to German. Right. Well, that it seems like Suji
19:57
would be the would be a big loss, isn't it? That out of everybody, he would absolutely be the most instrumental. He is maybe one
20:03
of the most important people at Apple. I would argue it's kind of ridiculous that he doesn't have a seale position really.
20:09
He deserves to be chief technology officer. Do you think he's he's this is his um
20:14
his way of angling for that? You know, I mean maybe this is because maybe he's been pushing Tim Cook in private uh to
20:21
do something like this and you know there hasn't been any movement. So he leaks uh rumors about his own departure
20:27
which you know kicks it up to a higher level. I mean, if not for the fact that he immediately issued like a memo on
20:33
Monday saying that he doesn't plan on leaving it. Like this story is so fascinating just because like German as
20:40
he originally reported it is that Johnny Sruji personally met with Tim Cook to
20:46
say that he was planning on leaving at some point. Like who would leak that information other than Johnny Suji and
20:52
Tim Cook? Like does it then you know Tim Cook's assistant like looks at his calendar or like overhears in the room
20:59
or you know Johnny Suji's like intern just like hey what was that meeting about and then leaks out to like who
21:06
where does this leak come from? Well this whole series of stories has um you know uh above Avalon what's his name
21:13
um Neil Cyborg. So he's speculating that this is open AI and Meta and other
21:18
competitors um who who were uh you know sourcing all
21:24
these rumors to make it easier to recruit Apple talent or to sort of set set you know like um
21:31
doubt among Apple employees that the company you know make it sound like the company's um undergoing a brain drain
21:38
and people are leaving left right and center which kind of I don't know makes it less attractive for them to stay and
21:44
you know therefore easier to poach by some of its competitors and obviously there's a huge a lot of competition going on for AI
21:50
talent right now in um Silicon Valley and Apple's has definitely seen like a
21:56
lot of departures in in that department and I don't know you know like from the outside it looks like it's making the
22:01
company suffer you know because it's had so many troubles with Siri and uh other you know um AI
22:08
applications I don't know you know there definitely could have like there's there's definitely sort of something weird going on isn't there with all
22:13
these stories and all these rumors that are a lot of the things in the last week in particular about the high level executives like these are all just
22:18
planned retirements Jeff Williams he was just retirement age John Gian Andrea his he had a big project and it failed Lisa
22:26
Jackson she's getting up there in age like the those aren't anything particularly unusual and I I can also
22:33
see the angle of um Johnny Sergi feeling like he deserves a bigger title like I
22:38
mean these these things also just sort of stack up when all the seauite executives are anticipating a change in
22:44
CEO or a big leadership change. It, you know, it makes everybody ask the questions of like, okay, well, you know, these changes are happening. Am I happy
22:51
where I am right now? Does does the company need to be reorganized at it to some degree? like German was saying, I
22:58
think that, you know, consolidating Lisa Jackson's department and uh Katie Adams
23:03
departments into operations and legal like, you know, that's that's just simplifying the number of direct reports
23:10
that John Turnis will have when he becomes CEO. He won't he won't have, you know, eight people answering to him.
23:16
It'll only be like five or six. That makes sense. And I can also see, you know, going back to John Turnis, Johnny
23:22
Suji is older than John Turnis. you know, yeah, they might they might be like peers, but you know, he still sort of sees himself as being a little senior
23:29
to him. That guy's going to be his boss. Now, you know, that that can be a little bit of a weird thing if I put myself in
23:34
Johnny Sui's shoes, especially if he feels like, you know, I lead the chip team, one of the most important teams at
23:39
Apple, the our output of work influences literally everything else that Apple
23:44
does. their entire product pipeline years down the road. You know, it it doesn't matter how good your software is
23:50
or how good your products are. If our chips aren't good enough and world class and we're making worldclass chips, I
23:56
deserve to, you know, be a seale position. Right. If if I'm playing Johnny Seruji.
24:01
Yeah. I mean, you think about every aspect of of Apple's operations, like what's the one I mean, aside from, you
24:09
know, marketing is pretty good. Uh uh the chips, the processors, that's like the one thing is an unadulterated
24:16
success. Like the the software, people are complaining about the software for years now. Not as good as it used to be,
24:21
buggy, etc. Don't like liquid glass, maybe you do like it, whatever. Uh the
24:27
design, I mean, the design seems to be getting people seem to think it's getting back on track, but they've lost a hell of a lot of designers in the past
24:34
like that's a good point really. the design team, you know, since Johnny Ive left like, you know, the world that everyone
24:40
felt the sky was falling when Johnny IV left and then his lieutenants took over. First of all was Richard Howeth and then
24:45
um uh uh Evans Hanky and now um there's a new person in charge and I don't even
24:51
know who's on the on the on the design team anymore. Like the original so you know the team that that was responsible
24:57
for the iPhone and everything else uh that you know under Johnny IV, they're all gone. Like that there's no one left
25:03
apparently. The whole department is a black box. The only person we know is Steve Lameé. Yeah. Well, and but you know, it's been
25:09
a kind of a success, hasn't it really? I mean, a lot of people sort of thought um you know, Johnny IV has definitely
25:15
undergone sort of a reassessment. Like some people are like, well, you know, it kind of things kind of got better when he left, which I think I don't know it
25:22
that's a little bit of an unfair assessment. Um, but there's something to it as well. uh you know they they they I
25:28
think Apple has Apple design has been more responsive to feedback you know like from from complaints from customers
25:35
like they've actually added a few more ports they've actually fixed the keyboard um and gone back to an older design which I think you know I don't
25:41
think Johnny I would ever have agreed to um and uh you know it's got Apple's like
25:48
the Mac lineup that the industrial design of the Mac lineup I think is is the best that it's ever been for sure.
25:54
Um they're beautiful machines and amazing value especially at the low end. Um and the that you know the pros are
26:00
beautiful anyway it uh yeah it so this changing of the guard is not necessarily a bad thing is it there and of course
26:06
like with the company of Apple how many people work for that company and it's such a black box um it's so secretive
26:12
that we don't know anybody who works I was looking at the executive team uh the executive page and like I didn't
26:17
recognize half of those names there like who who who are these people I have no idea but of course you know like I I would get bet bet bet for a long time
26:23
that they've been working there for a long time Apple of course is known for its um you know there's Apple University
26:29
every uh the the the uh homegrown training program that teaches everybody
26:34
at Apple, all the all the managers, all the senior leaders how Apple does things. And it seems like it's a remarkable success. Um it's been very
26:42
very good at um training people internally. I think the big worry is pulling people in from outside Apple who
26:48
who who aren't inculcated in its culture and and want to change things up. I think that's a big danger. I think
26:54
there's probably no danger at all if they recruit from inside the company, especially if they're recruiting people who've been there for years and have
27:00
been like, you know, trusted team members, trusted lieutenants, like Steve Lame. No, I mean, he's been there since
27:05
1999, before Aqua, before OS10, and he's had a a hand in every single piece of
27:13
interactive, you know, user interface design any that the company's ever put out. And nobody has ever heard of him
27:18
before, you know, two weeks ago. Had you heard of him before? No, I had no he hadn't been mentioned though. I
27:24
mean, but he he hadn't popped up, you know, like on the other there's a photograph that we published about the original
27:30
iPhone team uh four or five guys and we've done a whole bunch of stories about Bazing who
27:36
was one of the leading guys. We've done um stories about uh Ken Cashenda.
27:42
Yeah. Because he wrote a book. Um he's definitely got a higher profile. So, a few of them have have have bubbled up
27:47
and and like especially since leaving Apple, you know, they've they've had a little more freedom to talk, but um so a
27:53
few of them have have have a a little bit of a higher profile, but yeah, Lame, I mean, he was there. You could see his name listed, but no, he he he had no no
28:01
profile at all. He's never I mean, I think he's I think he's given two interviews that I could find. One was with his old album, his old high school,
28:06
where he answered like three questions, right? Um and uh and then there was something with wallpaper. I think they they they
28:12
they trotted him out for like a brief interview with what with the Apple Pencil but no it's kind of it is you know it's kind of amazing and there and
28:18
the Apple is full is you know I mean there are thousands of people like him thousands no doubt thousands of people
28:24
very very talented like some of the probably the best designers in the world who are working there under complete anonymity um and you know Apple's got a
28:32
deep bench a very very deep bench for sure as long as they don't screw it up
28:37
who they who they who they promote you know pick the wrong people but it looks like Um, yeah. I, you know, I I don't
28:43
have any any real concerns about Apple's brain brain drain. I I'm glad they're holding on to Johnny
28:49
Sergy for at least uh sometime soon. I I saw so many people like like Guber
28:55
was like, "Oh, you know, Gurman really screwed up with that first story and it's like, are you kidding me?" I mean,
29:00
things change, you know, and there's no like it didn't say when that conversation happened. They might have
29:06
had a conversation a month ago and it might have filtered out through uh who knows. I mean, you know, somebody that
29:11
works with Suji is talking to him and he's saying, "Oh, yeah, man. He's actually he's like threatening to leave,
29:17
you know, trying to get a higher profile, more money, etc. I mean, that the guy probably deserves it. I have no idea what he what he brings home, but uh
29:24
he seems like his department is killing it. So,
29:29
thinking that that these things couldn't change quickly, you know, word leaks out
29:34
and Tim Cook's like, "Oh, I I better really make him an offer he can't refuse." I mean, that's what that that
29:40
memo that that Shuji I mean, it totally sounded to me like, "Yeah, the the check just cleared. I got my raise and uh hey,
29:47
Tim wanted me to send a email to you all saying, "Hey, don't worry. Everything's cool. And by the way, please, you know,
29:53
leak this as fast as possible, right? Where do you think he's going to go?" I mean, he was floed as a as a
29:58
potential um candidate for the CEO of Intel. I I don't remember the name of this company, but there was a startup
30:04
that was mostly founded by exapple silicon engineers. He probably would
30:10
have gone there if I had to hazard a guess. I don't remember the name of it. Yeah, exactly. Well, the fact you don't remember the name of it maybe. I don't
30:16
know. A startup I guess would be kind of interesting, but I don't know. Startups aren't startups stressful and and
30:22
unpleasant to work for. And you know, someone worked for one for a long time with a company like Apple. I mean, he
30:27
has had an enormous impact. I think that's a that's that's the advantage I think for a lot of Apple staffers is
30:32
that they look at their work and they go okay well you know billions of people use this and um
30:39
you know they they they work they toil in in anonymity and and no one recognizes their work outside there's no
30:45
external validation they're not famous they're not written up in in on blogs and and and uh you know that that
30:51
they're anonymous so I don't know I think that's one of the things I think some Apple staffers like is like a
30:57
little bit of public recognition which maybe he doesn't get, but where where you gonna his work is is hu hugely
31:03
impactful. Um there's I I don't think there's probably any other company I can think of that where he could have such
31:08
an impact. Um and that's going to be hugely that's going to be you know give give you a lot of juice, isn't it? That's got to be
31:14
like massively motivating as much and they're all rich as heck
31:19
anyway. I mean these guys I mean uh in fact that Katie Adams I was really shocked about that this is Apple's top lawyer how much money she makes. Um, in
31:26
fact, she she was she made headlines a couple of years ago for being like the top the the most compensated lawyer,
31:32
corporate lawyer in the country world. I 20 27 million or something like that in
31:39
that one year alone. And that was like 26 before million before the year before. She's sitting on like 140 million 150 million worth of stock. I
31:46
mean, these are just, you know, eye watering. Half a million dollars every single week. That's just insane. Yeah.
31:52
God, you and you know I mean I picked the wrong career path.
31:58
Indeed. Yeah, I know. Definitely. Definitely. Anyway, before I start uh ranting about um income
32:05
inequality, let's move on to um let's talk about fun new computers,
32:11
right? Let's let's talk about the the new studio display. This actually really sounds really cool. There's going to be a whole bunch of new cool features
32:17
coming to the most expensive display that money can buy. Why don't you tell us about Griffin? The Studio Display launched in 2022 and
32:24
it's starting to show its age. Here's a fun fact. The my first published article for Cult was announcing the Studio
32:31
Display, the original. That's how long it's been. Yep. Wow. Uh in the last couple of years, there's
32:37
also also been increased competition from Asus or possibly ASUS. I there's no
32:43
way to know how it's pronounced. Ben Q and Vonic each launching their own 5K 27inch retina displays for significantly
32:50
less money. So, you know, Studio Display still $1,600. It's it's ripe for a
32:56
little bit of a doing up there. An upgrade with newer technologies has been expected for some time. Code in iOS 26
33:03
references an unreleased external monitor with the code name J527. According to Mac World, they've been on
33:10
a tear of like finding Yeah, what's going on? Unreleased products inside code. I don't know if they hired a new guy that's just
33:15
does that for a living, just comes through decompilations of iOS and tries to find these things, but um this is
33:22
apparently the Apple Studio Display 2 rumored for 2026. It reveals that the screen supports a variable refresh rate
33:28
up to 120 hertz, making it a promotion display just like uh MacBooks, iPhones,
33:33
and iPads. In addition, the Studio Display 2 supports HDR, not just a you
33:39
know standard dynamic range. HDR is of course also only available on the MacBook Pro in addition to the
33:46
ridiculously expensive Pro Display XDR among thirdparty displays by Samsung and
33:51
LG. The improved performance in the upcoming version uh will reportedly come with the move to a miniLEDD panel. Um so
34:00
a typical LCD display just has a or LED display has a singular backlight that
34:05
illuminates the entire thing at once. This uses thousands of smaller LEDs to
34:10
uh provide backlighting for individual regions of the display. So separate parts can get much brighter than others.
34:17
And this is sort of like a middle ground between an LED display and an OLED display where an OLED display has every
34:22
single pixel lit individually. This this is also the technology that the MacBook Pros and the Pro Display XDR use right
34:30
now. So this is mostly just bringing those fancy technologies onto their Yeah. trickling it down to their
34:36
entry-level desktop display. Wednesday's leak suggests the nextG version will get upgraded to an A19 Pro chip, the the
34:43
same chip that goes into the iPhone 17 models. That's obviously madness. That's in a in a in a monitor.
34:50
Yeah. I don't know why they would do that, the Pro chip and not just the entry- level A19.
34:55
Well, why do you need such a chip? I mean, this chip's a monster anyway, isn't it? Maybe. Well, now that I say that, it
35:01
it's probably they probably need the A19 Pro if they want to move the Studio
35:07
Display 2 to Thunderbolt 5, which I imagine is what they would do.
35:12
Can't Johnny Succi come up with a nice cheap Thunderbolt 5 chip to power it.
35:18
Honestly, probably the R&D of developing a bespoke chip for a display would have
35:23
so much less volume that it probably is actually cheaper to just use the A19 Pro. Yeah, even though it's overkill.
35:30
Yeah, but I imagine they'll probably if they're if they're doing prootion on an external display with 5K resolution,
35:36
they probably need to move it to Thunderbolt 5 because I bet it's I wouldn't be surprised if it's only Thunderbolt 5 that has the bandwidth to,
35:43
you know, drive a 5K resolution at 120 hertz. Um, so I guess that can make sense. You know, putting an A19 chip
35:50
that would future proof it. Um, Apple supposedly isn't increasing the size of the display. This leaves the open
35:56
question of what they're going to do with the Pro Display XDR. If they introduce a display that's only $1,600
36:02
that has the same HDR and has a better refresh rate, makes the Pro Display XDR at $6,000 look a little silly. Yeah, you
36:09
could spend $12,000 getting a Mac Pro and a Proisplay XDR or $4,000 getting a Mac Studio and a new Studio Display with
36:16
virtually the same performance and features. Yeah, that sounds kind of cool. Um, I
36:22
can't see myself buying one, but uh I'm kind of ash how, you know, you get big OLED TVs. How come they can't bring OLED
36:29
to the to um to to the Mac display, to the studio display? There are a lot of OLED displays you can
36:34
buy, but they're just not retina displays um because they don't have that resolution.
36:41
Yeah. Yeah. Like you can buy a 1080p OLED display or a 1440p OLED display, but this has to be 5K resolution because
36:48
Apple, you know, 15 years ago planted their foot in the ground and said, "We like we like higher resolution more than
36:53
we like, you know, high frame rates or other display qualities." So,
36:58
isn't the quality of displays like almost perfect already? I mean, I don't know, you know, with the with the color
37:06
um I I don't know a lot about displays, obviously, but uh you know, with the the the um what do you call it? that, you
37:11
know, the the color gamut and all that kind of stuff. They're very, especially the Pro Display XDR. But the the Studio Display actually
37:18
has a pretty old panel in it. It's basically the same display panel that they've been using ever since they
37:23
started making the 5K Retina iMac from I think 2015 or 2014.
37:30
I was going to say, yeah, a good 10 years ago. Yeah. Mhm. In fact, uh yeah, I I've got a I've got a couple in the basement which Oh, yeah.
37:37
which um which I'd love to convert into uh 5K displays, but to do it properly, you've kind of got to open the open them
37:43
up and put a new um board in there, which actually sells quite cheaply, doesn't it? Is it like 50 bucks? I think
37:49
you can get it for uh I think around like 100 to 200 bucks, but I wrote a how-to article on that that you can uh follow the directions.
37:54
Did you ever try it yourself? No, I did not. I I wrote up basically an instructional video that somebody else
38:00
had done about it. Took a few screens. I'd like to do I'd love to do it myself because like I said, I've got
38:05
a couple of these things sitting in the basement that I'm going to get rid of and those too nice to to uh to you know to send to
38:11
to the landfill. Um but then again, you know, opening them up is such a huge nightmare that it uh it's probably not
38:19
worth it. Your your computer is set up basically in a closet. Do you have a room for another display? No, but I've got a I
38:25
was going to put it in the basement, but I've got a I'm actually trying to set up um this My wife is obsessed with um our
38:31
digital photo library with um pictures, you know, it's about two terabytes now with with thousands tens
38:38
of thousands of pictures um of the kids, you know, that we've we've had all these years. And so now
38:44
I've had to set up like six different backup uh plans. It's getting backed up
38:51
locally to Time Machine. Um, it's on two it's on another hard drive. It's getting
38:56
backed up to the cloud. It's getting backed up to Google Photos. It was getting backed up to Flickr. There was, you know, multiple multiple backups. And
39:03
so, anyway, cut long story short, I get it's all living on this one iMac that I
39:08
updated with to a big massive six terabyte internal hard drive where I had to take the screen off of that one to do
39:14
that and then uh subsequently crack the screen. But that anyway, that's living in the basement. So now I was going to
39:19
actually think about attaching another monitor to that just to um I don't know why for because I couldn't bear to get rid of
39:25
them for no reason. But myself more work for myself. What's the point in having a bunch of computers if you're not constantly
39:30
opening them up and tickering with them? Right. Well, I got enough to I got enough things to tinker with. Um
39:37
constantly fixing stuff around the house without having to fix old computers. So I don't really want any more work. What about you, Louis? Interested in a
39:43
studio display, too? editing editing text at 120 hertz in HDR.
39:48
Me? Yeah. I don't know. You know, I I uh I question whether my eyes are good enough
39:53
to notice. I mean, the screen that I have is not great. I can tell it's not
39:59
great. Uh I don't think I want to spend $1,600 on a great one because it's
40:05
adequate. So, I don't know. It would be nice if I
40:10
had all kinds of money. Sure, I would get one. Yeah. But it's also not that big, right? What is it? 27 inches.
40:16
27 inches. It's 5K. It's That's big enough. I think I got like a 32 inch screen or
40:21
something. Yeah, but it it you might have a physically larger screen, but what's the resolution of that screen?
40:27
I don't know. 4K. You go 5K. What? So everything be even smaller and
40:32
I'll have to zoom everything up. You know, it's like this whole resolution thing. It's like every time I look at my
40:38
laptop, I take it, you know, go on the road or whatever. It's like, oh my god, everything is tiny and it just it I have
40:45
to like I almost feel like I need to go into accessibility settings and just make everything jumbo
40:50
jitter update to Tahoe. That makes everything big for you, too. Maybe I would like Tahoe. The only
40:55
person on the planet. All right, so let's thank our sponsor for this week. Uh HelloFresh. So, why don't you tell us about HelloFresh,
41:01
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42:02
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42:14
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to get 10 free meals plus free breakfast for life. That's an appealing deal. Very nice. I'm absolutely salivating now
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and I can't wait to get to lunch. So, let's get this show over with. This is the one thing that I think only Griffin
42:59
has a problem with, which is how to ping your Apple Watch from your iPhone, which I don't think anyone has ever done except Griffin, cuz usually you you ping
43:06
your your Apple Watch, I mean your iPhone from your Apple Watch because that's the one you usually use, but um
43:12
sometimes if you lose your Apple Watch, here's how to find it from your iPhone. A lot of people don't know that you can do the reverse as well if you, you know,
43:20
personally I don't have this problem because what I do is I I maintain the rule. The Apple Watch is either on my
43:25
wrist or on my charger. I don't set it down anywhere else. But uh I know uh
43:30
other people I I won't name names a little more loosey goosey. You know, they
43:36
you know, they they they commit to having a watch band that isn't terribly comfortable and they don't want to switch it out all the time. So they just
43:41
take it off and you know it just ends up in places and you know then you got to find it somewhere and you can go into
43:47
find my and like you know tap through six different buttons and get it to ping. But uh you can set up a control
43:53
center button on your iPhone as well. I think this is just new in iOS 18 or iOS 26. So even if you haven't updated to
43:59
iOS 26, you can already set this up. uh you go to control center, you uh tap and
44:05
hold to add a control and you can search for it. I don't think
44:11
it's in like the the top section, but you can type in you type in watch and then you can add a ping my watch button.
44:17
You can even uh resize it to make it really big so it has a label so you know which one it is. You got you've got a
44:23
button right there that pings your watch just like how you can ping your phone from uh your Apple Watch and it'll it'll
44:29
you know play a sound over the speakers even if your watch is in do not disturb or even if it's in a focus mode like I
44:34
am right now. So there you go.
44:39
Very nice. Super easy if if you you can you can add this button to somebody else's phone if
44:44
uh that's a problem that they suffer with. Well, you just gave me a great tip there. I didn't realize that um
44:51
expanding them allows you to see what they actually do. That's my biggest problem with control center. It's like I've got no clue what half these icons
44:58
do. Oh yeah. Um so in in the editable control center that they've had since last year. Uh if you you tap and hold on
45:05
it to edit it, you'll notice that each of these buttons has both like a minus button on top but also a little resizing widget. So if you want to make a uh a
45:13
button really big, you can uh oop it's a little buggy still. You can resize it
45:18
and then it adds a text label or you can make it some of them you can make a gigantic square if you want. Not all of
45:24
them. It's kind of confusing. But yeah, if you want a really big remote button, you can you can make it really big and
45:29
completely break the layout of your of your control center. I'm going have to go and edit mine
45:35
because mine's kind of like I've got three or four of the same controls for some reason.
45:40
And that's funny. I I I do actually use it quite frequently, but um for certain things
45:45
and the longer I keep doing this, the more I keep breaking my control center. So, uh yeah.
45:51
Jeez. And of course, you can have multiple multiple screens, too. I my my control center is so junked up.
45:58
It's ridiculous. There's, you know, 50 things on there. I never use any of them. And right, it's just stupid.
46:04
Time to get in there. Actually, I I'll do another tip while I'm at it. You can have multiple pages of control center, but um what I often
46:11
do is that I do like sort of a two-handed gesture where with my right hand I'll swipe down control center and
46:16
then with my other hand I'll just tap a control really quickly. And you can only do that, I think, if you only have one
46:23
page in control center. Otherwise, when you swipe down, uh then it wants you to
46:28
pick a page before you can interact with any of the controls. And so it's it's not as fast. But, you know, one-handed
46:34
swipe down, tap a button to disable Wi-Fi, swipe back up. You can you can do that motion pretty quickly if you if you
46:40
if you only have one control center page. I try to stick to only one page. Well, they isn't what what's the
46:45
default? Because don't they break it up? So, you have music and um their default control center page and then they have another full page for
46:51
like the connectivity controls and then another full page for HomeKit controls, I think, by default.
46:57
Yeah, I don't think I've ever gone beyond the first page, but there it is.
47:02
All right, cool. Very nice tip. Thank you very much. And sorry, I I beg your pardon. I did not mean to disparage you when I said you were the only person. I
47:09
didn't realize that you were actually doing this for somebody else. So, my sincerest apologies. I'm not, you know,
47:15
like you. I My Apple Watch is either on my wrist or it's on the charger. I don't think I've ever ever put it anywhere
47:20
else. People are really loose with AirPods, too. Like, if you never want to lose an AirPod, just have the rule. An AirPod is in your ear or it's in the
47:27
case and you never set it down on a table. Even if it's just for a second, put it back in the case every time.
47:33
Well, uh, that definitely, you know, my wife was just complaining like, "Why don't my AirPods work?" And I looked at them and they're like, "There's two
47:38
different generations of AirPods case." And then that that and my son as
47:43
well, his AirPods got all mixed up. Um, and they never do that. I mean, my goodness, that that rule hell will
47:50
freeze over before that happens. Uh, it's um, that's a nice tip. Yeah,
47:55
very very good. Find My is like one of the best things ever. It um it we I use
48:00
it all the time. Keeping track of people, keeping track of, you know, devices, car keys, wallets. What a great
48:07
great invention. Find Myers. Thank you very much, Johnny Shrui and Tim Cook.
48:13
All right, cool. Uh let's we've got a question this week. What's the question, Lewis? This comes from a anonymous person via
48:19
the text line. Uh, if Apple can make a much cheaper MacBook with an A series chip inside, could they make an even
48:26
cheaper Mac Mini with one too? Uh, I think the answer to that is why not? Why couldn't they? I mean, it it would be
48:33
easier, right? I mean, it would be easier to make a Mac Mini than a laptop with a with tiny little chip components.
48:40
My my answer to this is they already kind of do. The Apple TV, the Apple TV
48:46
is a full computer. It has an A series chip inside of it. and only cost $129 or
48:52
$159 if you want the more space on it. I think if you start from there, like
48:58
start with an Apple TV, the the shiny black tiny little case, really mini, only like two ports on it, maybe you
49:04
take off the Ethernet port and you replace it with two USBC ports, you've got a full computer. And you know, they
49:11
could probably, yeah, they'd probably want to put more memory in it, a little more storage, but I bet if they made an
49:17
Apple TV based Mac, you know, put Mac OS on it, they could probably sell a Mac
49:22
Mini for as cheap as like 350 or maybe $2.99. And I think that would be
49:28
absolutely incredible. The Mac Nano. Yeah, Mac Nano.
49:34
Yeah, that that sounds really cool. Mhm. I would definitely go for one of those. Are there any ad is there any disadvantage really between having what
49:41
would the disadvantage be between you know if you put an iPhone chip into um
49:46
into a MacBook would there be any is there any disadvantage then you know I mean obviously it's not as powerful as an M series chip
49:52
less multi-core performance and I think only the M series chips have like a few special nicities like the the the media
49:58
engine the more I I was about to say more powerful GPU but even even the iPhones have like the ray tracing and
50:05
whatever graphics stuff that they put in it. But like the media engine is one of them that they
50:10
can like decode more advanced formats of video uh you know more RAM typically.
50:16
But I don't think there's anything stopping them from beefing up the A series chips to you know for to make a
50:22
really high quality cheap Mac. And hasn't Apple for years been using basically the same um logic board for
50:29
like the iMac and the and some of the lower-end MacBooks um and the Mac Mini before it got really
50:37
really small. They've been using basically the same guts for different machines for a long time, haven't they?
50:42
Going back to Steve Jobs, I think. that that famous med you know the the quadrant where it was like professional
50:47
and consumer portable and desktop. Since then I think they you know with
50:52
under uh John Rubenstein I think they consolidate a lot of their design so that they were reusing basically the
50:58
same guts across multiple products. That's long been the ethos of the iMac, you know, a desktop all-in-one computer
51:04
basically built out of laptop parts but without a battery, you know, and a little less portable.
51:10
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That would be really cool. Do you think they'll do it though? No. How
51:15
I'd really like them to a tiny little shiny like Apple Apple TV sized Mac Mini. That
51:21
would be excellent, but I I I don't think they'll do it. Yeah, it's a shame. I don't know. They might do it. Why not?
51:27
Why wouldn't they do it? They've been getting I mean that Apple's entry-level products in the last few years have been astonishing. really are great products,
51:33
you know, like before they always kind of well crap, but um
51:38
well, recently well like the Apple Watch SE, right? Like definitely not anywhere near as
51:46
good as a regular Apple Watch until this latest version, which I I bet I mean I don't know. I don't own one, but reading
51:52
about it, the specs and everything, it sounds like 90% there and uh what is it?
51:58
Uh half the price or something. So, uh, oh, it can't measure blood oxygen, but
52:05
you know, last year an Apple Watch Ultra couldn't do that either. So,
52:10
yeah. Yeah, there's very little there's very little to stop it. I I we've bought I we bought about four of them for Christmas presents this year for various
52:16
people. Um, it's going to be an Apple Watch Christmas SE for every the whole
52:21
Ky clan. Yeah, it's a great little device. But the entry- level iPad is fantastic, too. The entry- level iPhone, I mean, the iPhone 17 this year is
52:27
absolutely fantastic. um uh they've been Apple's been killing it at the at the lower end really for uh better than they
52:34
ever have done I think in their entire company history. I mean for for how long the story has always been uh you know you you don't
52:39
want to get the base model you really want to upgrade the storage or oh you really want to upgrade the RAM. That's really not the case anymore. Every base
52:46
model is still an excellent product. Let's talk about the Beats pill, which um is not a new product. Uh but I
52:54
finally got my hands on one uh after it was on sale for Black Friday. I got
52:59
it for 50 bucks, which I think is one of the best deals out there. Yeah, it really was. And this thing is
53:06
fantastic. Let me switch my camera here. This is the Kim Kardashian edition. Is it? It's only 50 bucks. Yeah, that's the
53:13
only thing about it. I wasn't too happy about that, but it doesn't have a It doesn't have a name on it anywhere. So,
53:19
you know, I can look at that. Her voice doesn't greet you when you turn it on, does it? Uh, luckily, no. What What do you do get
53:25
though? Let me turn it on. I don't know if this is going to come across, but you The thing is really packs a wallup.
53:31
Oh, here we go. It's got a built-in subwoofer. And even though it's kind of small, I mean, here
53:37
it is next to my iPhone. Uh, you can see it's not This is an iPhone 17, the regular one. It's not
53:43
that much bigger. Um, it really puts out I mean, it's not they say it's room filling sound. It's
53:50
not room filling, but it is really good. And surprisingly, it's got to be a small room. Depends on the size of the room, doesn't
53:56
it? If it's a small room like mine, uh, it will fill it up. But, um, it it's got
54:01
all this, you know, Apple nicities. It it the build quality is fantastic. I mean, it really is well put together.
54:08
This thing is going to, you know, will take a beating for sure. And you can throw it in your bag uh or or you know
54:13
possibly even a pocket if you've got big pockets. Geez. Um and take it anywhere. And it's it sounds great. It sounds phenomenal. It
54:19
sounds way better than I thought it was going to sound um for such a small device. Uh it has
54:25
fine my builtin. Uh it's sort of one-touch pairing which I think believe even Apple is on Android.
54:31
Um it's got a super long battery life. It's 24 hours battery life and you can even use it as a power bank, you know,
54:37
using with the USB C. um you know used to use for charging, but you can
54:42
actually plug in other devices into here and and this will charge up you know your iPhone or your AirPods or or
54:48
whatever. Um it's IP67 water and dust resistant. Uh so it'll it'll take a uh
54:57
you know you can splash it uh with um with some water and it and it won't die.
55:02
Yeah, I was really impressed with it. It's it's just a really beautifully made thing. normally. So, like, you know, I would know if I hadn't got it for 50
55:08
bucks and maybe I wouldn't be so delighted with it, but um the 50 bucks
55:13
certainly helps. And uh you can even actually stereo pair this. Now, I haven't tested that out. Um which is the
55:20
one thing I'd like to try, but uh yeah, I was really delighted. I was really happy with this thing. In fact, I went down a whole rabbit hole with um with
55:26
with beat boxes. You know, there's so many choices now um on the market. like
55:32
my brother wanted one for Christmas. So, I did a lot of research looking into all the different brands and trying to find
55:39
um a portable Bluetooth speaker and ended up getting one from um W King,
55:44
which is a brand I hadn't heard of before on on Amazon, but actually really well respected. Got this thing called
55:49
the X20. It puts out 300 watts apparently of um sound, but uh there's a
55:56
whole bunch of great ones from Soundcore. Um and in fact, Dave this week, Mr. Golden Ears himself, the the
56:02
cultmat writer who knows uh the most about who does a lot of audio stuff. He
56:08
um recommends what is it Lewis? The one he recommended. Can't remember. I I that's the one thing
56:13
I don't like about Ankor and Soundcore is that their product names are uh numbers and sometimes even the same like
56:22
nano power bank like there's which one? But uh yeah, what was the name of that
56:28
speaker he was talking about? Sound motion X600. It's on sale right now for about 140 bucks down from 200. He gave
56:35
this really high like it said it was absolutely fantastic. Really really good portable speaker mainly because it has
56:40
an upfiring um speaker uh driver that that make that
56:46
gives it this kind of much a wider sound stage. And so the the bass coming out of it was really good. But uh yeah, I mean
56:54
you're spot for choice. You you sent me one a link to one a Soundcore
56:59
uh one that's on sale right now on uh Costco for for 75 bucks.
57:04
Yeah. And I I have one of those um Soundcore Motion Motion Boom, I think
57:09
it's called. Uh two, I can't remember exactly, but Motion Boom Plus 2, whatever. Uh but uh yeah, it sounds
57:17
great. I mean, and it's really cool having like a I I love portable Bluetooth speakers. But I remember the
57:23
first the very first time I ever saw like a a little one. I I was just trying to remember the name of the the company
57:28
that made this thing, but I I remember it was in um at at like an Airbnb at
57:35
South by Southwest and Mike Kori pulled this thing out of his suitcase and it was like, you know, this big, the size
57:41
of um I don't know, about the size of a banana or something like not even that big. And uh it's like, wow, that sounds
57:49
awesome. It was it was such a great way to listen to your music from your phone. It just it blew my mind. Uh and now
57:57
come out of a banana. Well, of a banana. Doesn't work anymore, unfortunately. The
58:02
uh you know, the batteries are shot, but um it it's such a cool design. I wish I could show it to you. It was like just
58:09
crazy to me. And then then like Ultimate Ears when those speakers started coming around, those Bluetooth speakers, those
58:15
were super impressive. I I have a ton of those. I I I use those all the time. Uh
58:21
the the motion boom thing from Anchor is a bigger like a traditional like boom box kind of form factor. Also great.
58:28
Yeah, they're I I it's amazing how good those things can sound. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. I used to be
58:35
obsessed back in the 80s with boom boxes. Like I had a cassette ones and the one with the double cassette so you could record from one to the other. And
58:42
then um what the ultimate one was there wasn't this a monster one from Sony that
58:47
uh was absolutely gigantic um everybody full size suitcase
58:53
but I I I got one I think eventually I covered it for years and it actually didn't sound that good in the end. It
58:59
wasn't as good as some of the like the the the sort of more medium medium level ones. Yeah, we're smart for choice these
59:05
days with all these different speakers. I know what a lot of people do is they get a HomePod mini and you can like pull
59:11
the regular power cable out of it and attach sort of like a battery base to it and sort of convert your HomePod mini
59:17
into a portable speaker. But I feel like the people who do that are overlooking the the Beats Pill if you're saying it's
59:22
got it's got excellent sound and it's, you know, its own built-in battery as well.
59:28
It's it's waterproof. Yeah. Yeah. Or or at least water resistant to the pool side. I mean, that's a like
59:33
some of the ones that that um Ultimate Ears makes. I mean, they're they're not
59:38
not only waterproof, they float, you know? This is like awesome. You take it to the pool, you don't have to worry about it getting uh you know, wet or
59:46
lost or anything. It it's amazing these devices these days. Oh gosh, I can remember when we used to
59:52
have actual boom. You remember cassette tapes and always getting the the tapes getting eaten? Oh my god.
59:59
You had to carry a pencil with you, didn't you? everywhere. So you could like wind them back in again. I sp I
1:00:04
must have spliced a million tapes as well, you know, like to to get rid of all the chewed up part and then you had to slice it splice it back together
1:00:10
again with a bit of tape which actually surprisingly work kind of well. Yeah. And if you actually liked a song
1:00:15
uh or you know like for instance back back when you know learning songs on on a guitar or whatever like kind of rewind
1:00:22
it and listen to the same section over and over and you know like did the tape just lose its sound quality. I mean,
1:00:29
God, what a We are blessed in this digital I know some people don't like digital music, but my god, compared to
1:00:35
that stuff. Oh my god, it's just it's like heaven. Wait, wait, let me correct you there.
1:00:41
You said some people don't like digital music. Let me correct you, too. Some people fetishize analog music.
1:00:47
That's how it goes. Well, I mean, you know, like the last was it the last record I recorded? I
1:00:53
don't know. Uh, you know, we've recorded on tape and there are reasons to do it. you know, it's uh like the sound
1:00:59
actually I think is better and it's it it compresses it and uh it also there's something to be said for
1:01:07
uh you know, limiting the number of takes, right? Like it's it's a it's a little bit of a a creative uh hardship
1:01:15
that is, you know, you don't go crazy going, "Oh, I I did 57 uh versions of the guitar
1:01:21
solo, you know, okay, great. That's who wants to listen to those." Uh it's nice to actually have this like kind of
1:01:27
constraint that makes you focus, makes you say, "Okay, we got to get this now." And if okay, we can redo it on this thing, but we can't, you know, you can't
1:01:33
do it a million times. So, I I think it always ends up getting dumped into
1:01:39
digital anyway. But, uh, but do you still have a record player? There's one on a, you know, on a shelf
1:01:45
downstairs. I don't I don't have a actual stereo. I have two HomePods. I uh Yeah, it's kind of sad. I was I was
1:01:51
thinking about that the other day. I mean, I would I wouldn't mind having an actual real stereo, but um you know, frankly, I
1:01:59
mean, I mostly listen using a little Bluetooth speaker or AirPods. That's it's almost the only way I listen to
1:02:04
music. My wife likes classical music. She doesn't like any stuff I like. So, yeah. My son uh he got a he got a a
1:02:10
record player for for Christmas a couple of years ago and went on a a short binge
1:02:15
of buying records because you can get like, you know, a garage sale. We used to be able to get like, you know, for a dollar, but that that people have wise
1:02:21
up to that now that now they cost a lot more. Five, six, seven, $10 even. So the
1:02:27
days of cheap vinyl are over. And then it didn't really last that long either. So his his uh his interest in in
1:02:32
records. We used I used to have a beautiful record collection which um I left in the UK and when I combined it
1:02:38
with my dad's collection and my mom's collection, she had a whole bunch of original Mottown stuff. Wow. Otis Reading. Um uh early Beatles
1:02:46
singles. Um, like some of this is I I'll bet it's priceless. Uh, but when I left the UK,
1:02:53
we left it in the in the I left it to the entrusted it to a friend. Oh dear. Who subsequently sold it or or stole it.
1:03:00
So, it kind of got scattered to the four winds. Thousands of thousands of like probably like, you know, very very
1:03:05
valuable records. But when you think back to it, you know, record playing was always it was, you know, I mean, they
1:03:12
were always scratched. There was always covered in dust. um it would always like
1:03:17
go wrong just at the best part of the song. But saying that, I used to buy a record a week and it was absolutely
1:03:23
obsessed with record collecting and and and and all that entailed. And and the one good thing is if you bought a
1:03:28
record, you would almost force yourself to like it just to get your your your return on investment to get your money's worth,
1:03:34
you know, like h I don't know if I like this, but I just spent my last 10 pounds
1:03:39
acquiring it, so I'm going to force myself to like it. That actually is a good exercise in taste because often,
1:03:46
you know, you end up liking the stuff that lasts, the stuff that you like for a longer time is often the stuff that's
1:03:52
you overlook initially, the the songs that really grow on you, right? You know, like the big the big single, the
1:03:58
one that goes to the top of the charts is the one that you really can't listen to years later. Maybe because you over because it gets overplayed and it's
1:04:04
those smaller tracks on the on the album. Um, but yeah, I don't miss records at all. I got to admit,
1:04:11
I mean, I'll admit I was making fun of analog music. I own six records. I don't have a record player. I just have s a
1:04:17
bunch of records that Oh, I just just as like physical embodiment of like, you know, my favorite, you know, few albums
1:04:25
like just a just a souvenir. Yeah. Yeah. I bought this album from this band like 10 years ago. I still
1:04:31
like it, so I'll just buy their physical and you've never played it. They're all they're some of them are are still in
1:04:36
the original plastic as well. Well, that's the one thing you do miss is the artwork. The the fantastic album
1:04:43
artwork and the gatefold covers and I got uh Lady Gaga's Chromatica album
1:04:48
and it comes with like, you know, vinyl that's printed on a weird color, but it's all like the booklets and stuff
1:04:54
that come with it, too. There's like this big book that explains like this absolutely insane bizarre lore of like
1:05:01
the album, and it's printed in like this heavy thick black ink on basically like
1:05:07
tissue paper. So, as you're physically reading the book, it stains your hands black. It's
1:05:13
Oh, wow. the most bizarre thing. And it perfectly in tune with like Yeah, that's exactly what I would expect a Lady Gaga vinyl
1:05:19
album to be like. Sounds like a newspaper. Yeah.
1:05:25
Oh my god. This is Well, Apple's attempted over the years, isn't it, to try to bring back that kind of album work. What was that one thing
1:05:31
they did with this animated the animated? Yeah, there's there's still animated album artwork in Apple
1:05:36
Music. I can't say I've ever actually really noticed it. Have you? Never is cool.
1:05:41
And and you know, it it's another thing, you know, like Bluetooth speaker is
1:05:47
amazing. Well, all this digital music available. It's I like I used to spend
1:05:52
hours in record stores and then later CD stores looking for things, you know, and uh it's kind of it's weird how that kind
1:06:01
of I I I can't imagine being like a a 20-year-old right now and and having all
1:06:06
of this new music. I mean, maybe they just uh you may I know a lot of people listen use Spotify and stuff. They you
1:06:11
know, the recommendations are fantastic. They're always finding new music. I find myself playing like same old crap I
1:06:17
listened to when I was in college. you know, it's like just easier than trying to like find something new.
1:06:23
Music is cover still broken. I listen to the radio in London a lot like um you know, queue it up on the HomePod or
1:06:29
through um TuneIn and I don't you know I don't know it's not the greatest experience but um they uh one thing I
1:06:38
just did discover which I'm ashamed to say is um not surround sound. What's a
1:06:44
spatial spatial audio spatial audio for the first time? Yesterday I actually heard
1:06:50
spatial audio uh for the first time and I was freaky as heck. I was completely
1:06:55
blown out of my mind. I was like what the heck is going on? I thought I was hallucinating because it sounded like the you know it really is freakily
1:07:03
you it sounded like the coming from a boom box right in front three or four feet in front of me. Strangest thing I I
1:07:09
almost took my AirPods out because I was like I can't be hearing this right. This is something's going on. I'm hearing
1:07:15
some music from an external source. Have you have you experienced it? Do you listen to uh tracks in spatial audio?
1:07:21
Yeah, I I also had my first spatial audio experience not too long ago. I mean, technically it's on the Vision Pro, but you know, it's it's not the
1:07:27
same as like having headphones on and like hearing it. I the first devices with spatial audio that I've had other
1:07:33
than that are the AirPods Pro 3 that I just, you know, got a couple months ago. And I don't know, I feel like I need to
1:07:39
find more tracks that like really go all in on like a full spatial audio mix that like sounds like you're in the middle of
1:07:45
the band because, you know, I'll play up like a I mean, it's also Apple Music is just kind of broken. I don't know if
1:07:51
when I'm playing this Beatles album that's supposed to be spatial audio, if it's actually just playing like the
1:07:57
15-year-old MP3 that I've had in my library forever. Maybe. I don't know. I I feel like I need to
1:08:03
I need to like really really I listen to a few tracks before, but you know that I think this is one this one particular track that I heard I you
1:08:10
could hear it sort of subtly but this is this one really made it dramatic and um I think that was
1:08:16
probably the maybe one because I hadn't listened to special order before but just hadn't listened to the right special audio track to get that full
1:08:22
effect. Um and I I don't know if like how much spatial any idea how much audio is put
1:08:27
out in special audio now? Um, how many tracks are available? They have a lot of playlists, a lot of
1:08:33
uh, you know, spatial audio playlists on Apple Music. I have to dip into those. Maybe I'll
1:08:39
give another try. Yeah, I I got to say I I haven't I haven't like sat down and listened to a whole bunch of these. I remember
1:08:44
listening to some when it, you know, first came out or whatever. You know, sounds good. Yeah, because it doesn't really add that
1:08:50
much to the party really. For music, I mean, for for movies obviously it's great, isn't it? because um you
1:08:58
hear Yeah. the sound coming from something behind you or absolutely frightening at times,
1:09:04
right? Like there's a rat scurrying through my Oh, no. It's the It's the It's the movie.
1:09:11
But music, I don't know how much it adds to the party. I'd have to I have to, you know, like like you guys dig into this a bit more.
1:09:17
Um but that's interesting. The Beatles, they have Beatles, spatial audio Beatles tracks. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, well, the
1:09:23
Beatles recorded on these, you know, crummy microphones 60 years ago, four tracks. Yeah.
1:09:28
Yeah. Yeah. It's just all remixed because, you know, you got to wonder, you know, is it really better or is it really following
1:09:34
their vision for the music? I mean, it can't be, right? They had no idea that this was going to exist at this point. All right. Well, I think let's wrap it
1:09:41
up there. Um, is that a good time? How long? Oh, we actually ran a little long. We're good.
1:09:46
20 minute tangent right there at the end. All right. Well, I think that's enough
1:09:53
of this. Um, this is all the cult we have for you this week. If you want more, Lewis is on Twitter at Lewis
1:09:58
Wallace. Griffin is on Macedon at DGriffin Jones. And I write every day at the cult of newsletter, which you can
1:10:05
find at newsletters.cult.com. Please, please send us a text or some kind of comment. Use the link at the top
1:10:11
of the show notes or in the YouTube comments and ask us questions for the show. This has been the Coldcast, the
1:10:17
best Apple conversation you're going to hear all week long. Thank you very much for listening. We'll see you all next
1:10:22
time. Have an absolutely peachy weekend, everybody. Bye bye. Peachy.
1:10:28
Didn't see that one coming. No, me neither. [Music] Good. Good. But a nice a really good
1:10:35
thing to go out on. Good indeed. See you everybody. Bye. See you.
1:10:43
I want to see that, I guess. God. [Music]
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