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This week: Somehow, FineWoven returned… as TechWoven! Will it be any better? Also: Details on the iPhone 17e, Touch ID on the Apple Watch, iOS 26’s coolest new feature, a bananas multidisplay setup, and a fantastic Qi2 battery pack from Anker!
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Produced by Extra Ordinary for Cult of Mac
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
3:40 Insta360
4:43 TechWoven
15:41 iPhone 17e
23:15 Touch ID on Apple Watch
30:04 Spatial Scenes
38:10 Setup of the Week
45:11 Listener Question
54:12 Under Review
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0:02
Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. And welcome to the cult. The most, you know, kind of okay Apple conversation going to
0:09
hear all week long. Joining me today, we have D. Griffin Jones coming in from Ohio. Hey, Griffin. Good evening. Way to hype up the
0:15
episode. I can't do it. I really can't like uh you know, hype it up, but I I just too
0:22
English. I'm going to have to try though. I'll work on it. I'll work on I recommend breakfast gin. Gin. That's not a bad actually. I was
0:28
like I was smoking some pot, but I don't know if that's a good idea. Who are you? And uh uh and Lewis. Hello, Lewis.
0:35
Hey, how's it going? I recommend a a real light gin cocktail for breakfast.
0:42
Uh not something real heavy like a martini. You want something uh you know, not a lot of nice citrus in it.
0:47
Uh my breakfast the last few days this week has been um a a cold chicken leg
0:53
from a rotisserie chicken, a banana, and a small chocolate donut. Was that was
0:59
that three different breakfasts or was that all the same every day? These are not three separate breakfast.
1:04
It's all one breakfast. Oh, we call it uh what you do when you don't really have any breakfast food.
1:10
Did you buy two rotisserie chickens or just one? One rotisserie chicken comes with two legs. So, it's two days this week. Okay.
1:17
Yeah. And you heat it cold. Yep. You don't even heat it up. It's it's it's good
1:24
cold. I I I saw some Tik Tok video this last week saying that the ones from Costco are all covered in horrible
1:29
chemicals and you should avoid them like the plague. Oh god. Well, this was Meer, so I think we're good there. Everything's a
1:35
chemical. Yeah. Well, they they they heat them up in plastic bags and so all the plastic
1:40
leeches from the the bag into onto the, you know, the the delicious rotisserie chicken, which is itself is cooked in a
1:46
bath of chemicals. They did screw up the bag. I mean, what was wrong with the way that you used to
1:52
get a Costco rotisserie chicken? I mean, why has it changed? Don't you remember? They used to have
1:57
like these plastic bubbles basically. A tray with a bubble top. Now they they just put it in a bag that leaks
2:04
everywhere. Everywhere you pick one up, it's like, you know, a greased pig contest.
2:10
They they have to cut every corner they can to keep the chicken at the same price that it's been since like what, 1980. So, I imagine the the the tray
2:18
just cost like an extra few cents. Oh god, it's it's a real bad design flaw.
2:24
Well, the tray was always covered in chicken grease, which you had to spend hours cleaning out like, you know, before you recycled it. And then it was
2:30
it would take up the whole recycle bin, wouldn't it? Cuz it was so giant. Yeah. Did you really have to wash them off? They all go in the same pile
2:36
anyway. They just Yeah. You know, it starts starts to smell, you know, really really bad after
2:41
a few days. And especially like in our house where it remains for weeks. You don't leave it in your house.
2:46
Well, I know that probably is a problem, but you know, just the way it is. The way it is.
2:52
So, getting our kids to take to do anything is like, you know, it's it's a battle. You have to pick your battles. So,
2:58
taking out the recycling, I mean, you know, that's something I got to save for once every couple of weeks. All right, let's get on with the show. So, anyway,
3:04
so this week we're going to talk about uh the return of fine woven, which is Apple's disastrous
3:10
faux leather product, which is coming back as tech woven. So, I don't know, is it going to be any better? We'll talk about that. Uh we've got some new
3:16
details about the iPhone 17e, the budget iPhone, which is going to be coming next spring after the the regular handsets
3:22
launch this fall. Uh and Griffin is going to give us a tour of iOS 26's coolest new feature, which actually does
3:28
look really cool. And then we have a really bananas multi-dis setup to talk about. And then Lewis is going to show us in our review section um a really
3:36
snazzy new uh power brick from Anker. Um, I'd like to thank our sponsor, Insta
3:44
360. Insta3 is like, you know, the the GoPro competitor, and they're actually really, really good. I really want one
3:49
of their cameras. Um, but they've got a new camera out today called the Go Ultra. It's a brand new pocket camera.
3:55
It's about the size of an Oreo, which is unbelievable. Weighs 53 grams, which is like half the weight of a of an iPhone,
4:02
I believe. It's small enough to live in your pocket, but powerful enough to shoot sharp 4K video at a buttery smooth
4:07
60 frames per second. It has magnetic mounts so you can stick instantly stick it everywhere want to
4:13
quickly get the shot you want and you can go hands-free and inversive POV shots and get an incredible 156° field
4:20
of view. It'll shoot video for 70 minutes straight on a single charge. Uh but you can quickly top it up with an
4:26
action pod for over 200 minutes of recording. It's waterproof down to 33
4:31
ft. You can get a free bag of sticky tabs which help you mount the camera
4:36
anywhere from winter jackets to backpacks. You just stick them on and then you stick your camera on top of
4:42
them. So if you buy an Insta Insta Go 360 If you buy an Insta 360 Go Ultra
4:49
purchase and use the code Coltcast, you'll get a free bag of these free stickies. Go to store.inst.com
4:59
and use the promo code cult. And this is available for only the first 30
5:04
purchases. Only for the first 30 people. So, so thanks a lot 360 for sponsoring this week's show. Uh Lewis, let's talk
5:11
about the return of Tech Woven. Is it going to be any better this time? What do you think? Oh my god. I don't know, man. So, uh
5:18
what's it called? It's called Techwoven. Supposedly the replacement for the fine
5:23
woven case that everybody hated. You can remember how great they were. They got scratched up, you know, within minutes
5:30
when they were put on display in the Apple stores and uh Apple quickly removed them. Uh so now they're, you
5:36
know, in their quest to not have leather cases, which everybody loves. Uh they're
5:42
supposedly they supposedly come up with something called Techwoven. And uh this this is coming from uh Majin
5:51
Buu, Leer of some renown. Uh,
5:56
and he actually has like Apple cases that he's he's posting online. Um, this
6:03
looks like a pretty pretty serious actual like leak that is real. Well, yeah, cuz he's got the retail
6:09
packaging, the cases themselves. There's even shots of the um the the the the fabric on on the looms, right? Or or
6:16
some kind of display. What I fabric's on the loom. I must have missed that. I I saw the the pictures of
6:22
the cases and oh my god that camera display area is just gigantic. The the
6:27
cases themselves, they look very uh you know like much more textured than the fine woven was. I mean to be honest like
6:33
Apple always talked about the the you know premium feel of the fine woven cases, but I don't know if you ever
6:38
touched one. It almost felt like it would burn your hand. It was so like kind of slick and plasticky and h just
6:45
like the feeling of like a you know like a a seat belt a car seat belt like rubbing on your neck on a hot day like
6:51
oh god terrible feeling. You didn't like it. I tell you I hated it. I mean I never owned one so
6:57
I I don't know how they wore or anything else. I mean I saw pictures about how badly they wore. I saw in the Apple
7:02
store itself how scratched up and messed up they were. Uh and you know I I don't
7:10
know. I it didn't look premium at all to me. Supposedly, these new ones called Techwoven are going to be uh more grippy
7:16
and uh more practical, right? So, designed to a be more durable and b help
7:23
you hold on to your phone a little better so you're not dropping it all the time, you know. Uh the first round of
7:28
rumors, there's there actually two posts about this. The first one said four colors, four matte colors, green,
7:34
orange, blue, and purple. But on Wednesday, the orange got zipped out and
7:40
they added black and brown. So, who knows? Four colors, five colors, six colors. We'll see.
7:46
It's possible that like the uh the the orange the like the brighter color would only be on like the cheaper phone and
7:51
you know the or maybe it would only be on the on the Pro. Yeah. Well, on the Pro.
7:56
Yeah. But like the the pictures that he showed like the boxes uh are all like
8:02
the Pro iPhone 17 Pro case. So maybe like a different Oh yeah, Pro Max. So
8:07
maybe the selection of of colors will be different on the regular entry- level models. So it's possible that, you know, all of
8:13
the colors are right. Or it's possible that like, you know, it kind of looks orange, but Apple is calling it brown and maybe they're actually not too
8:20
different. Brown. Is this a Zoom? Who's going to buy brown? Look at that. It It's got, you know,
8:25
once again, I I have severe trepidation about this supposed orange, you know,
8:31
iPhone 17 Pro that we keep hearing about. It's like it just every picture I see it seems like they're going to lean
8:37
into like burnt umber. Remember that color Crayola? They probably don't make
8:42
that anymore, but that was one of the my least favorite crayons. I mean, hey, I don't plan on like buying
8:48
an iPhone 17, but if Apple came out with a brown case, I would absolutely buy it. I I love the I love brown. It's one of
8:54
my favorite colors. Jeez, what a weirdo. You said it.
9:02
Brown. Yeah. Do you remember the brown zoom? Do you remember the zoom? Absolutely. I remember your uh postit wire talking about how great it was.
9:09
Well, it was a great device, but the color was horrible. It looked like a turd. I mean, that's what it reminds you
9:14
of. It it it's, you know, the association cannot be shaken. It's it's the color of poo.
9:20
But, you know, that there was just that brief moment in time where brown was a a hip color, right? I mean, actually, the
9:26
accordion band actually printed up some brown t-shirts that right at that time. He's like, "Brown is the new black. When
9:32
was this? When was this? Like 2006 around the Zoom era. Yeah.
9:38
I Yeah. And I don't know about you, but when you know, I don't think these look
9:43
very premium. They don't look premium at all. They look like the sort of kind of cheap cases that you buy on Amazon for
9:48
like, you know, 12 bucks. These tech woven cases you're talking about now. Yeah. Yeah. The new tech woven cases. Like you said, it has that kind of It
9:54
looks like a a seat belt texture. It looks like It looks like the weave on them is a little larger than the fine
10:00
woven. Like the fine woven was very tight like small weave with like tiny little threads almost like the iOS 6
10:06
linen but these seem to have like a much more like much more texture to them. Coarse woven way.
10:12
Yeah, coarse. Yeah. I never thought the fine woven cases like felt that bad or cheap. I mean the
10:19
plastic edge around the around the rim kind of didn't have very good feel to it, but like the actual weave itself on
10:24
the back I thought felt fine. It didn't hold up very well. But I'm I'm not sure how like having an even larger weave or
10:32
texture on it would make it more reliable. It feels like that would make it more susceptible to being, you know, torn because it sticks out more. There's
10:39
more to like catch on a fingernail or a, you know, scratchy piece of metal or a table or
10:44
something like that. But my my mind is open. I I think this could be nice. Looks more resilient to me. And and you
10:50
know, I mean, I think part of what Apple was trying to do with fine woven is try try to make it almost feel like suede or something, you know, and suede will do
10:57
that if you run your finger on it. Uh, you know, you leave a line or whatever. You know, they're just trying to replace
11:03
leather for, you know, green reasons or vegan reasons or whatever. I mean, I I still like a a nice leather case.
11:10
Although, I don't know if you guys ever tried uh Mujo makes something called a a maze case. Are you familiar with this?
11:17
Yeah, we did a review of it. Yeah. Yeah, we ran a review a while back and you know what? I' I've tried that versus the
11:22
leather case. Honestly, like kind of impossible to tell a difference. Uh
11:28
they're different colors, but the the way they feel seems different. Although, I got to say in my completely
11:33
unscientific testing, the uh the vegan one, which I think is made of corn, which is why they call it the maze case,
11:40
uh is uh it didn't hold up quite as well as a leather. you know, I I sort of have like areas where, you know, my hand
11:47
would hold the phone, the the covering would start to come off of it, you know, whereas the leather case just gets a
11:52
nice patina as it ages. Nothing like a nice leather case, I swear. Although, you know, now I'm using the Apple
11:59
silicone. So, Otterbox had like a cactus leather case that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was really nice,
12:04
right? Yeah. I mean, there's all these different ways that people make faux leather cases. cuz I don't know why Apple doesn't just make a faux leather
12:11
case. If if what they hate is using leather and they know that people like leather cases, why don't they, you know,
12:18
pleather? Yeah, why don't they just do it? I mean, other people are doing it. Mujo's doing it.
12:24
Who' you say? Otterbox made the the one with the the cactus case. Uh yeah. So,
12:30
well, Apple's limited themselves. They can't just switch away from leather and do something. They can't just do anything else. they need to do something
12:36
that would still, you know, potentially have a supply chain that could meet their Apple 2030 environmental goals of
12:42
like, you know, they they can't switch to something that'll also, you know, need to be switched away from in a couple years because they need something
12:48
that has a potential to have like, you know, a net zero supply chain attached to it.
12:53
Are these things made like recycled bottles or something, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's I think 80% 70 or
13:01
pretty high 78 80% recycled material. I think that's the whole point is that they want to be make it um from recycled
13:08
materials and which is why they're not making it from maze or or cactus, right? Because you know you can't pro
13:15
presumably you can't recycle that stuff. So I think the whole idea here is to you is to make it from recycled materials
13:20
which I think is pretty ludable. You know the whole idea of uh you know well well a closed supply chain you know you
13:27
can you make new products out of old products. Yeah. And you're turning uh rotisserie chicken boxes into iPhone cases.
13:34
Yeah, right. With that greasy chicken smell. I I think it's a laudable idea. Whether
13:40
it's going to come off, you know, uh remains to be seen. Well, and actually, were the fine woven really that bad? It
13:46
was um Joanna Stern from the Wall Street Journal. She did she made a a really memorable um I mean, she was the one who
13:52
put the nail in the coffin, I think, with a with a with a very very memorable She said that it uh it was all scratched
13:58
up. up. It was fraying at the edges and it discolored like a rotting banana, right? Which I think, you know, that that
14:05
really does um you know, you there's no getting away from that. But I don't know if it was really that bad. Was it was it
14:11
were they were they really really that bad? Every time I've seen one in an Apple store, like there are scratches all over it.
14:17
But that was the whole point, right? It was like it was supposed to get that that beautiful patina. It's not a patina, though. It's that's a
14:22
problem. It looked like garbage. I mean, I I and I mean, I'm talking about being there on the day that I picked up my
14:29
iPhone 16 or whatever or 15. I guess it was iPhone 15 time, right? And uh I
14:35
walked over to the fine woven cuz I'd heard rumors, right? I look at it, it's like, "Holy crap. It's it's like 10:00
14:41
in the morning on launch day and it's got scratches on it and you just run your finger on it's like unsightly." And
14:47
again, you know, the feeling to me was not premium. The feeling was ick.
14:52
Well, all right. So I I it doesn't look I don't think the prospects look very good for tech woman. I don't but and
14:59
this is like Apple one of you know it's kind of surprising isn't it because Apple doesn't really make missteps. You know they're so careful. Um they test
15:06
everything so thoroughly. Uh it's um it seems kind of mad that they that that you know this this this uh this got
15:13
released without the you know without it being fully baked. But we'll see. We'll see. Yeah. I don't
15:18
have many. I'm I'm using a silicone case, too. Um, which which I think which actually is starting to fray finally
15:24
after about a year. Um, but it's normally it's held up pretty well. Quite like the silicone.
15:30
It's got a good feel and plus it's very grippy. Doesn't slide off the uh kitchen
15:36
counter or Yeah. And it's protective, too. It's It's actually really held up. All right, let's move on. The iPhone 17. I'm really
15:43
looking forward to it. In fact, your picture uh Griffin on our post we did for the story of the 16A. Oh my god, is
15:50
there a nicer looking phone from the back? I genuinely think it's maybe the nicest looking iPhone since probably the 5S. It
15:57
is absolutely gorgeous. Uh I mean, especially like hold one in your hand. I mean, you can kind of get that in and
16:03
the Apple store, but then it still has like that, you know, metal like puck or whatever attached to a wire on it.
16:08
holding an iPhone 16 is like genuinely like fantastic. Uh but apparently
16:14
they're making a new one just a year later and the iPhone 17e like they're going to be refreshing these things on
16:20
an annual cycle. Now the iPhone 17e will feature a quote smart island design
16:26
which is probably just a mistransation to Apple's dynamic island interface that
16:32
replaces the notch on higherend models. According to WBO leaker digital chat station, the leaker citing supply chain
16:39
sources claimed the device will undergo significant design changes beyond just the screen cutout. Uh spec specific
16:45
details about the new industrial design aren't provided, but um the changes are described as departures from the current
16:51
iPhone 16 aesthetic. They're going to ruin it in other words. Possibly. Possibly. Uh the 17e is
16:57
expected to maintain a 6.1 inch OLED display, the same panel used in the iPhone 16. Um so the I think the rumor
17:05
is the iPhone 17 will be getting like the slightly larger 6.3 in display. Uh
17:11
and then the iPhone 17e will get the uh old display that's currently shipping in
17:17
it. The screen will retain the 60 Hz refresh rate that helps keep costs down
17:22
for budget conscious consumers. Under the hood, the 17e will likely support the same A19 chip uh lining up with the
17:30
rest of the iPhone 17 lineup, and multiple sources have suggested it's still on track for the spring 26 launch.
17:36
All good news, mostly the I think the one thing that everybody was, you know,
17:42
crossing their fingers for is yeah, they're they're changing the design. Does that mean it'll have Mag Safe? No
17:49
mention of that in this story, sadly, which is which is really the one thing really wrong with it. It doesn't have
17:55
MagSafe. I mean, the they're they're solving the other problem, which is doesn't have the magnetic the dynamic island, but um come on, Mag Safe, how
18:03
much could it cost? I just can't imagine not having a phone without Mag Safe at this point. Mhm. Well, it's it's not the cost. It's
18:10
isn't it, you know, the it's one it's a key feature you got to trade up for, right? So, if you want Mag Safe, you got to pay more. I because I think the tear
18:18
down showed that there was no internal components that would have interfered with it. Like there was no reason why
18:23
they shouldn't add it. It's it's it's just a very thin uh ring of magnets. But in fact, funny enough, you can always
18:29
add these though. I've got them right here. They're stick on MagSafe rings, which will turn any device into a
18:34
MagSafe device. Yeah. Or you could add a case that has has MagSafe built into it. Like there there are cases that, you know, have the
18:41
pass through magnets on it. They make those for the iPhone 16. You can get a case like that and then you have Mag
18:46
Safe again and most people put their phones just in a case. It's it's it's weird that they don't have it because I mean you look at it,
18:53
it's so thin it doesn't add like significant thickness to it either, right? But isn't that you know but there you go. Like if you buy a Mag Safe case
18:59
from Apple, they're going to get you extra 50 bucks which you know instead of adding it onto the onto the handset
19:04
itself. Well, the problem is Apple's case is for the iPhone 16 don't have MagSafe. So you can't really you know buy into that
19:11
conspiracy. Okay. All right. Well, forget that then. Just edit that out. Uh, Griffin will
19:19
Oh my god. I saw a picture of of of one of the white 16e in a in a a creamy or a white
19:25
um silicone case and that really looked gorgeous. It was it was really nice. In fact, I might get one of those. I'm not
19:31
Yes. The iPhone 17. I'm not going to get pro model anymore. I'm going to get the the cheapo 17a.
19:36
You're going to wait out an iPhone launch? Yes. Wow. just perversely just so I can get
19:43
the cheapest phone possible. I it's it's play, you know, it's I like that. I really like the the the low-end products
19:49
Apple puts out, you know, like I was playing around with um the uh the iPad, the the entry- level iPad. Fabulous.
19:55
Absolutely fabulous device. Unbelievable for the price. You know, you can get those for 250. Um
20:01
but it doesn't have Apple intelligence. Oh my god. Yeah. I don't know. That's actually a selling point, though, wasn't it?
20:07
Features. Oh, but you won't get the camera control. Oh, what a disappointment.
20:14
I've actually started using that finally after a year. Train myself to use it. Um, but I keep, you know, every time
20:20
every now and again you you hit the controls and you get lost in that awful. It's like taking a picture, you get lost
20:25
in all the controls, which is like horrible because then I can I can I can never figure out how to get out of them
20:31
again. You have to you have to double half click. It's that it's intuitive and easy. Yeah. really intuitive. Really
20:38
intuitive. But and but I never use the action button. Do you use the action button? I do use the action button because I set
20:44
up a um I I should probably do like a whole segment on this, but I set up a custom action for it. Uh when I'm
20:51
holding my phone vertically and I click the action button, it asks me to add something to my shopping list. Uh and I
20:57
use that all the time because I always think to myself, oh, you know, I should add that to my shopping list. And I literally never do. But now I just have
21:02
a button I can press. But when I'm holding my phone horizontally, it does something different.
21:07
It toggles a orientation lock. You know, you you want to watch a video
21:12
and it doesn't and it doesn't, you know, rotate. You hit the action button, suddenly it rotates. Or the other way,
21:18
you know, you turn it and you don't want it to rotate, you hit the button and then it rotates again or like it turns on the lock. It's great.
21:23
You should definitely do the same about that. Yeah, cuz that's totally handy. I need that as well. And then I also have a third uh
21:28
conditional on it that's I don't really recommend for anybody else. It's kind of just specific to my use case, but it
21:35
detects when my phone is in light mode. I normally use my phone in dark mode, but when my phone is in light mode, it's
21:40
because I'm taking screenshots for an article. And a problem that I often have is, you know, you want to know what the
21:47
official name is for a button that doesn't have a label on it. And you can figure that out if you enable the
21:52
feature called voice over. So, I hit the action button when my phone is in light mode and it toggles voice over. So then
21:58
I can, you know, tap a button and it'll see like more or, you know, this button is called select and then I know, okay,
22:04
that's what it's called. Wow, that's a very specific use case. Yes, I think I I don't think anyone's
22:10
going to want to do that. But I I've got an assignment for you, Griffin. Yeah. Can you do this? I want it. So I I like
22:17
to use the translate button on the action or translate function on the action button. I want I want a a shortcut, you know, takes your GPS
22:24
location so it knows where you're at and it picks the right language there cuz you know when you're traveling all over
22:31
the world, landing here, going there, stopping there, it's, you know, oh gee, you're in Italy and you press it and
22:37
it's in German and it's a dang, you got to remember to go back in and change it. You know, it just it just ought to happen naturally. You think you can do
22:44
that? I don't know if that Well, the thing is like Apple when you when you hit when you assign the action button to
22:49
do the translate feature, it has that super nice user interface. As far as I know, that's a custom thing that isn't
22:54
available for a shortcut to do. Dang. And I also don't know if there's a shortcut action that picks your current
23:01
country, but I can look into that. Anyways, let's move on. We are well off
23:06
topic here. iPhone 17, it's going to be a good phone. Uh maybe it'll have Mag Safe, but maybe it probably
23:13
No action button. Yeah. Well, uh yeah. So, we have another rumor to talk about which is the Touch ID
23:19
coming to Apple Watch. Uh this uh this has come from some leaked code that
23:24
revealed plans for Apple's upcoming devices. So, in this leaked code, you know, apparently it said that it it it
23:30
indicated that Apple's going to update the Apple TV 4K, the iPad mini, and the iPad with faster chips for Apple
23:36
intelligence support. So, Apple intelligence will be coming to those devices. Uh it also plans to use it
23:41
in-house wireless chips. uh on the iPhone 17 Air and the M5 MacBook Air.
23:50
So, in-house wireless chips. Very exciting. Uh the same internal code leaks points
23:55
to Apple experimenting with adding Touch ID to support the 2026 Apple Watch. Uh
24:01
this is seen by Macworld. It mentions supports for quote Apple Mesa, the internal code name for Touch ID. So,
24:08
it's difficult to ascertain from the code how much Apple will integrate biometric information into its 2026
24:14
smartwatch, but it could possibly embed the sensor into the side button, which sounds fantastic. That sounds like a
24:20
great idea. Uh, however, given the space constraints, the company may have to slim down the sensor significantly. Uh,
24:26
and there was a rumor back in 2020 that Apple was going to put the Touch ID right under um the display as it works
24:34
on some Android phones. 2020 uh
24:40
you know anyway. Yeah. So this is an old one. So uh the same internal code uh hints that the 2026 Apple Watch is going
24:46
to be using a new CPU architecture that could uh lead to a notable notable jump in performance and efficiency.
24:53
So I think the Touch ID is a great idea. Although it's hard it's not really like a big deal to unlock your phone right
25:00
your watch right now is it with the code or with your iPhone. Your iPhone will automatically unlock you on it.
25:05
I never, you know, this seems to be a little bit of a problem in search of a solution. It's kind of annoying when you have to
25:10
type in your passcode on the Apple Watch just because the numbers are so tiny. Like if you're ever in the solution where you do want to unlock it on the
25:17
watch and you don't want to wait for it to automatically unlock with your phone, like typing in the passcode is kind of
25:22
annoying. I can maybe see this being like an Apple Watch Ultra exclusive feature because that's the only device
25:27
where they really have the room for it. like that they don't really have a problem where you know they don't have enough surface area because the iPad Air
25:35
has the Touch ID built into the power button and that's just as small. I think the problem is the depth like the I
25:41
don't know how big the Touch ID button is, but like they really don't have a lot of room in the Apple Watch for the
25:48
button to protrude more like into the inside more than it does already because right now it's just a simple button that
25:53
doesn't do anything. Like that takes up the least amount of space that it can possibly take up. adding a Touch ID
25:59
sensor to it unless they have the buttons stick out which would be ugly. You know, they're they're kind of limited on space there. Um, but I can
26:06
see the Are you talking about adding another button or or like, you know, just adding Touch I replacing the side button with a Touch
26:11
ID sensor, which is I think maybe the most logical way for them to do it. I don't know if they have room on the
26:17
regular tiny Apple Watch, but Well, you don't think it the tra the the the digital crown travels enough for it
26:23
to enable the for them to put I imagine this being in the side button, not the digital crown, like the the long
26:29
button. I see the lower button. Yeah, maybe I should have started with that. But yeah, that no one ever Yeah, that the the Apple Pay button.
26:36
That's how I think about it. And you you remember that it invokes control center after you do it the wrong
26:43
way first. Yeah, I only ever use it when I hit it accidentally like the action button as
26:49
well. Well, I mean, you don't even it can't Are there any does it does the Apple
26:55
Watch ask you for authentication when it does, you know, payments and stuff like that? It doesn't it doesn't use any kind of authentication, right? So,
27:01
no, because it's it already assumes it's unlocked because it's sitting on your wrist after you type in the passcode in the morning,
27:06
right? So, I I don't know. Does it does a Touch ID make any sense on the Apple Watch really aside from make it easier
27:12
to unlock initially when you put it on? I I can't think of any other use cases for it really that would make it, you
27:18
know, really useful. Yeah, maybe if it had like an extra layer of authentication, they could just make it more secure and maybe that would
27:24
enable them to have more smart features that we're not imagining right now. But I mean, it would be kind of it would be
27:30
kind of nice not having to type in like a six-digit code on the those tiny little buttons.
27:35
Would you rather have Face ID? I can't imagine that working very well on the Apple Watch, I'll be honest.
27:40
I don't know. Hold it up here like that. Scan it around.
27:45
All right. All right. Yeah. Well, I mean, not not very exciting. I'd rather I want to see, you know, glucose monitoring. That's what I'm really waiting for.
27:51
Well, I think that might be another eight years out. And they still need to add find more things to make the Apple Watch exciting before then.
27:58
Yeah. If ever. If ever. You're not. Lewis, does that interest you at all? Am I the only person who's
28:03
excited by this blood glucose or no? No. Uh, Touch ID on the Apple Watch. Touch ID. Oh, yeah. I mean, I think it
28:09
seems cool. I I don't particularly like tapping in a little I I only have a four-digit code, which is Oh my god. Not
28:16
safe enough, right? And the other thing that this does is it stops somebody from seeing you typing in your code, right? I
28:22
mean, that's that's one of the things that is not good. Um, I It's funny. I
28:27
envisioned it uh being in the digital crown, too. But side button maybe makes more sense. It's more shaped like the
28:33
the one on the iPad, right? Yeah, I think it makes sense. I mean, I I would I think why wouldn't I I mean,
28:41
aside from it taking up time and and money and everything else and making us not get blood glucose monitoring or
28:49
blood pressure monitoring. I mean, it seems like it would be a a fine to have addition, put it that way,
28:54
right? Yeah. But no one's going to go and buy an Apple new Apple Watch just for the Touch ID. It's got Touch ID. No,
29:00
you keep an Apple Watch until it breaks and then you just buy whatever the new one is. Well, does it work for you anyway? I
29:05
mean, I have Touch ID sensor on uh on an old iPad Air and it just doesn't work. I mean, it's you know, after you set it, I
29:12
I probably should set it up for multiple fingers and um you know, sorry, with the
29:18
same finger, you know, multiple times, multiple instances. Uh but I have dry skin on my hands and so it tends to
29:25
break down. It doesn't work on my keyboard either. I've got a Touch ID sensor on my keyboard. That tends not to
29:30
last very long. And it's just too annoying to keep adding, you know, re resetting the thing and keep adding and readding the fingerprints all the time.
29:36
I've never had much luck with Touch ID. In fact, I kind of hate it. Wow.
29:41
It's really annoying because of my horrible flaky dry skin. It uh it Yeah,
29:46
it's never really worked ever properly for me. Sounds like he could get away with a few crimes. Yeah, I was going to say you don't know
29:51
this about Leander, but he's actually an international super spy. gets his uh fingerprints and everything, you know,
29:57
sanded off and and rewaxed like what was it weekly now or
30:02
Well, all right, let's move on. We're gonna talk about iOS 26's uh best new
30:08
feature, which is spatial scenes. So, this is a feature where you can uh
30:13
hit a button and convert one of your pictures and it'll do a cool little 3D scan and you can sort of look at a 3D
30:20
picture even on a 2D screen. Uh, so I I have a few examples here. This is a
30:26
picture of my dog I took a few years ago. You hit this hexagonal button in
30:31
the upper right corner and then you can just move it around. Oh wow.
30:36
And look at the perspective. This is this is a great example because you know you've got you've got a subject in the foreground, a big clear like you know
30:43
blurry background. I think I used portrait mode for this. But it even like sort of tries to figure out like some of
30:50
the contours of my dog's face. So you see yeah it's adding information there isn't it? I mean it's
30:55
Yeah. Yeah. This is almost this is you know what this looks like is Bladeunner that uh incredible scene in Bladeunner when he's
31:01
you know he's zooming into that photograph which is completely impossible because it was a 2D picture. But uh yeah like it's actually adding
31:08
information there isn't it? Because in the original it's the dog's ear is oluded.
31:13
Yes. But here but here you wiggle it around you can see his his his you move his nose to the side and you can see the see
31:19
the ear behind it. like you can see a little bit of the the foliage behind him that you wouldn't normally be able to see and that's how it's able to like you
31:26
know shift the perspective get that parallax effect. So, this is a good example of
31:32
uh what's different about this because Apple does have a very similarly named feature called spatial photos,
31:38
which is when you take a 3D picture on a vision pro or on an iPhone. And what
31:43
that does is it has, you know, the picture has much more depth to it than this, but because it's a fixed
31:50
perspective, you can't see behind anything. And so a spatial photo uh just
31:55
looks like a normal photo when you're on an iPhone because it can't simulate any perspective. It has no way to show it. A
32:00
spatial scene, which is, you know, what I'm showing here, is where it tries to like fill in like little edges around
32:07
the background so that you can you can you can wiggle it around like that. Um I have a few other example pictures here.
32:13
Here's one of Craig Federigi. And you can see it's it's got a lot of perspective there. like it, you know, in
32:20
this picture of Craig Federi on a stage, he's giving a talk and he has his hands up in front of him kind of like at shoulder level and you can see as I move
32:27
the photo around like it's it's giving like different layers of perspective for his hands versus even the contours of
32:35
his hair versus the background behind him. And yeah, you can really if you really pay
32:40
attention to the background, you can see, oh well, you know, there are some words on the stage behind him and it hasn't really filled those in very well.
32:49
there's like a grid line on the stage behind him and it, you know, kind of muddles that up a little bit, you know,
32:55
but you're not you're not supposed to be looking at the details. You're supposed to be looking at the Wow, I can move it around and it moves.
33:00
Yeah. In the foreground. Yeah. It's just like those What those What were those goggles we used to have as
33:06
kids? The um slideshows goggles. Yeah.
33:11
The view master's back. Any dinosaur pictures? I I haven't photographed any. Oh, I have close. I have a picture of some buffalo.
33:18
Uh I think this is a picture that I haven't yet converted to a spatial scene. So you'll see what it looks like
33:23
uh when you do it on a new photo. Uh you just tap the uh little hexagon button in the upper right corner. It It's really
33:30
small. It's right under like the three dots menu. You tap it, it'll do like a little multicolored wave
33:37
and then you can see its perspective again. And sometimes if you get like a a
33:42
good landscape shot like this where the camera's really close to the ground, it'll even do like, you know,
33:47
perspective on like the flat plane of ground in front of you as it's done here. So that that really sells like you
33:53
have a you have more foreground to to play with. Sometimes if you have like a a big like sweeping like landscape
34:00
background, it does kind of look like, you know, a cardboard cutout effect. like there's there's like hills and sky
34:08
in the background, but you know, you wiggle your phone around like the clouds would not be moving in perfect sync with
34:14
the ground, you know. So, you can play with this as much as you want uh in the photos app. But the real special thing
34:22
is when you do it as a lock screen. So, you set up a photoshuffle lock screen
34:28
and just like a regular photo shuffle, you know, as it always has been since iOS 16, you know, you can pick different
34:33
categories. It'll intelligently choose photos for you. You can switch how frequently it grabs new photos. You have
34:40
a new option when you're setting up a Photoshop lock screen. You have the same hexagon button. You tap it and it'll
34:46
generate spatial scenes of all of your wallpapers and you can tap through them.
34:53
Here's some rolling hills of houses in Italy. Looks like an earthquake.
34:58
Yeah. Well, so you just you just tap it once and it does it for all of them. Yeah. Yeah. It'll it'll generate them in
35:04
the background. It's so it's generated a preview of like, you know, 10 or so of them and then before your iPhone
35:10
switches your wallpaper for you, it'll generate the next spatial scene. Here's a kind of terrible shot that I took on a
35:17
bridge in Chicago. I don't know why it thinks this is a good picture. It's pretty blurry, but that's a great screen picture.
35:24
Yeah. Yeah. Some Chicago style in there. the Grand Canyon. You know, you have some some foliage in
35:29
the in the foreground and you can see the canyon wiggle around in the background. This is also a great way to,
35:35
you know, see the liquid glass clock, which is a new effect on the iOS 26
35:41
because you can and if you get if you get a really good 3D scene, it h it oludes the clock, doesn't it? It um and that's a really
35:47
striking effect. Yeah. Yeah. Or this one. This building, I don't remember where I took this. Uh
35:53
it it's a really like striking red church or something. And as as you wiggle it around, you can see the the
35:58
the glass of the clock like you know oluded. And look at those power lines though. They're disappearing.
36:04
It's good when you have like both a like a dramatic like perspective that you can show like a city street, cityscapes,
36:10
shots of nature. What happens to the original photograph? The original photo is still there. You
36:16
can turn it back off again and then it'll just be a static shot. It doesn't create a duplicate or anything like that. It's It's like a
36:22
dynamic effect that you can turn on and off. Yeah. Yeah. The thing is when you have a
36:28
normal flat photo, like a wallpaper, it has to be really tall and skinny and the clock like covers the upper 40% of the
36:34
image. So on most normal photos, when you're just setting a normal photo uh
36:40
lock screen, you have the ability to sort of uncrop it and your phone will like intelligently blur the top of the
36:46
screen and like automatically fill in to, you know, to make sure the subject of the photo is below the clock. Um, but
36:53
you can't do that with a spatial scene, which is a somewhat frustrating limit if you want to have like a a spatial scene
36:59
of like, you know, your partner or your kids or a dog or something like that. uh you need it needs to have like a lot of
37:05
headroom above the subject of the photo, but it's really great with the photo shuffle because then you just get, you
37:10
know, to try it over and over again. Like I haven't gotten to the end of these yet. Oo, that's one of the Sears tower.
37:16
Look at that liquid glass effect there. Yeah, spatial scenes. It's a pretty cool feature. It's I think it's maybe a after
37:22
you get bored of like the liquid glass thing for a week or two, this is this is another feature that you can use to wow
37:28
people. So, it's pretty cool. I don't use a uh photo as my wallpaper, but um
37:35
for the people who do, this is gonna be a pretty exciting feature. All right, nice one. Yeah, that's a great little tool there.
37:41
We we don't yet have an article about this feature on Cult of Mac because I our our website is slightly broken at
37:47
the moment and we can't embed GIFs, but uh there you go. It's coming soon and uh
37:53
you've gotten a little guided tour. Check it out when you update your phone. Yeah, that's right. So, um, and like Griffin says, we've already got a how-to
38:00
on this, and and as soon as we figure out how to get gifts to display, we'll be publishing it. This has been an ongoing problem for
38:06
about several years, but we'll get it figured out sooner or later. All right, let's move on to um the
38:12
setups uh segment of the show where we talk about a featured setup. This week,
38:18
we did something different. We we rounded up uh some of the best multi-d display setups that we featured over the
38:25
years on the site and there was some really bonkers one in here. There was like I think it was 15 of the best
38:30
setups. Um and uh some of them are really crazy. I mean lot some people
38:35
have a lot of screens in their Mac setups. And this one we're going to talk about today. We got a picture here. Uh I'll just to to give you a picture of
38:43
what it pictures. Uh it's got how many? Eight displays. Eight displays. All of them, I think,
38:49
are 27 in. Uh, three iMacs, a PC, and
38:54
five Dell 27in 4K monitors arranged on
38:59
kind of like an L-shaped desk in a pretty crowded room, actually. Good
39:04
lord. And they're stacked up on top of each other. So, it's uh that one on top of
39:10
each other, eight of them. Why does anyone need eight monitors? What is he doing?
39:15
one of one of the displays he is using just to show a single picture of a like an anime scene or something like that.
39:22
So, it's like Twoface or something. Oh, yeah. Not not using all of these screens to to great effect. It seems a
39:28
lot of them are just, you know, only showing two things side by side with acres of uh white space, although he's
39:34
in dark mode, so gray space. Um, he has Spotify open on two separate machines. I
39:42
don't know if he's listening to two albums at the same time or not. Well, there's two there are two keyboards and mice. So,
39:49
you know, he has four computers, but but only two keyboards and two pointing devices.
39:55
Yeah, which raises some questions. This is nutty. Wow.
40:00
Totally is. But he also has how many? Three caldigit 4K docs in order to run
40:06
this. Wow. He's apparently a production worker on documentary films in LA. So I can
40:12
imagine, you know, maybe if he's in the middle of his work, he's got he's using a lot of those screens, you know, one
40:18
for, you know, pulling in clips, one for the timeline, reference monitors, stuff
40:23
like that. I can imagine how, you know, a professional video editor might be using a lot of these, but uh he he's not
40:29
shown us his work here for understandable reasons. Uh yeah, too too bad. What perplexed me is,
40:37
you know, aside from the fact that, you know, four computers, two keyboards, two mice, if you if you're putting this much
40:44
money into a setup, uh, he's stuck with a basic Apple keyboard from 20 years
40:49
ago, and not even a very good one. He's got that awful Apple keyboard with like the the acrylic
40:55
base that looks cool. I think it debuted with the G4 Cube, but it types awful.
41:01
It's like typing on a sponge. It is maybe the worst Apple keyboard they have ever made.
41:07
Other than the butterfly ones, which like literally do not work. I have one of those and I spilled coffee
41:12
all over it and then and it also collects a lot of crumbs, sandwich crumbs. I turned it over. It was the
41:19
most disgusting thing I've ever seen. Any dust that accumulates in this keyboard, you can see because the base is completely clear and acrylic.
41:25
His are actually in pretty good shape. I don't know why he's preserved them so well because they type like absolute
41:30
mush. Yeah, they look brand new. So, yeah. Why would It's personal preference, the keyboard.
41:36
Some people like them. Aren't those the ones that have like the they got really you can feel the springs
41:43
in these little have the little rubbery membranes, the little um half spheres. Yeah. Yeah.
41:48
I think this one you could pop off the keys pretty easily. It was It was fairly easy to pop the keys on and off, wasn't
41:54
it? Mhm. And in fact, I think you could put those through I I put one of these through the dishwasher, I'm pretty sure, and it worked fine. to get to get all that
42:00
crumb out. The crumbs kidding me? No, I think it worked great. I think it was absolutely fine. Just let you just
42:06
let it dry for a couple of days and uh it works great. It threw me off when I first looked at
42:11
this picture because I thought, well, this this is like, you know, an interior room with what looks like a window on
42:19
the back wall that opens up to another room in the interior until I realized,
42:24
no, that's actually a mirror. But he has like this giant mirror that's completely obscured by these four monitors that
42:32
just shows him like the back of them. I don't know what that could be for.
42:37
Sheesh. Because then I realized it was a mirror when I saw Oh, well, you can see a reflection of the same desk in the
42:43
other in it. It looks like he's in one of those uh rooms with a two-way mirror, you know,
42:48
like people on the other side can stare at the back of the monitors. Maybe that's why he he he has a wall of
42:54
monitors because people were staring at him and he wanted to cover it up. Yeah, more than likely. Uh and he's got
43:00
some nice under lighting. A lot of the monitors on monitor rises and there's some kind of lighting to uh underneath,
43:07
right? Some under monitor lighting. Mhm. Casting light on the desk. Yeah. On the
43:14
Yeah. I don't know. What do you What do you think out of 10? How many What would you rate this? I would not enjoy this setup. too many
43:21
computers. Uh 25% of at least 25% of them are running Windows. So, you know,
43:26
that's out out of eight monitors. That's a it's pretty bad hit rate. Um it looks like maybe he actually has Windows
43:33
running on one of the iMacs. I mean, it's an Intel iMac. One or more of the Macs has the Windows taskbar on it. So,
43:40
additional thumbs down there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
43:46
Too much Windows in the setup and too many monitors. Yeah. It's making my eyesight. But anyway, yeah, there there are some
43:51
interesting setups. There was some other really fun ones uh in this roundup. I mean, there's some some crazy crazy setups uh that we featured over the
43:58
years. And uh this this, you know, this one that we published last week, which we'll put in the show notes, was all
44:03
about the the multimonitors place. We have another one with dual monitors, which uh we're going to be featuring in
44:08
the newsletter today. Uh dual monitors is is much more reasonable. I've I've you know like in
44:14
my own personal monitor journey I've gone uh you know at one time firmly
44:20
believed that the more monitors the better and down in the basement when I when I set up my computers up there I
44:26
had uh one two three four monitors um and I found out I only used two of
44:33
them. The other two were kind of just sort of sitting there. So now I've gone back to one and it's actually totally
44:40
fine. Uh I've gone the other way. Well, he has dual monitor setups. He just has four dual monitor setups in the same
44:46
room. Yeah, right. The same task. Some of these are amazing. They they
44:51
look really cool because they all have, you know, the same screen saver or something. That's really is an
44:58
impressive effect. Not that's not the case in this particular one,
45:03
but Oh, you mean the other in the roundup? Yeah. I mean, it's it's when people do that, it really brings it all together,
45:10
right? Let's talk about uh read a question this week. We have a a question
45:16
um from somebody called Melgross, right? Uh Griffin left on YouTube. Yes. This was a question about the um
45:23
Apple desktop robot, which was a big topic on last week's show. A question
45:28
about the the robot is, will it be easier to use it or do it yourself? If
45:33
it comes out, I might just I might buy it just because it'll likely be expensive and few will buy it. So it'll be a collector's item and we know how
45:40
much Apple products go for after some time. Could be worth a lot for my daughter. So he's questioning whether a
45:46
robot will be will be uh worth the the the money spent or whether it'll be easier to you know instead of asking
45:52
your questions to this thing, you know, just do it yourself. I think it will be I think this is going to be a huge hit. Enormous. I think this
46:00
is going to be a really significant product. Mhm. Because you know last week when we were talking about it we were questioning why does this thing have Face ID? Why? And
46:06
in fact, we we never made the connection between the two stories which you we were talking about the robot and then
46:11
we're talking about Apple's move into home security devices like a a especially a lock with face ID and
46:18
obviously the robot is going to display the video from the face ID doorbell. This is you know someone rings the doorbell it's going to come up the video
46:25
feed is going to come up on the robot to show you who's waiting at the door. Uh and we were also wondering why these
46:32
cameras would have face ID in them. Why would it need to recognize somebody? There was a story that broke last week
46:37
talking about Apple working on a new uh operating system for these devices. Uh
46:43
and they're going to be highly personalized. It it it uh it's there'll be unlike the iPad um at the moment, you
46:50
know, which is a single user device. It's they're going to be multi-user devices. And you know, it needs a way to recognize who it's talking to. It'll
46:56
bring up, you know, if it recognizes you or your wife, if it's your wife talking to it, it'll it'll, you know, have her
47:02
playlists, her um calendar, uh, you know, to be able to talk about um her her appointments and stuff like that.
47:08
And and it'll switch if it's going talking to somebody if it realized it's talking to somebody else. Um, and then I
47:13
was thinking, I remember years ago when I was at Wired doing stories about early Roombas when when the Roomba came out,
47:19
people really fell in love with their Roomba. They did a story about people who were in love with their Roombas because, you know, it it
47:26
it becomes like a pet and and Sony Ibo dogs as well. You know that remember this the robot dogs that Sony came out
47:31
with years and years ago. Um people really do fall in love with these
47:37
devices and and if it has this personality that we talked about last week, I think you know people will fall
47:42
in love with their little robots. Uh especially if it has that kind of you know Pixar Junior playful um uh
47:49
personality, non-threatening, very trustworthy. Uh and I so I you know I
47:54
think I I think they could sell a lot of these and and uh and yeah, keep it in the box.
48:00
Don't open it up. Keep it shrink wrapped. 50 years, if you last that long, it might be worth something.
48:06
And uh I guess going back to like the the basic question of utility, you know, will it be easier to like try shouting
48:13
your instructions to a thing across the room than it will be to just, you know, use your phone and do it yourself? I
48:19
mean, no. That it'll never be easier. But the point is that the the home robot thing in the kitchen is something that
48:24
you can use while you're doing something else. It's it's a thing you can shout instructions to when you're otherwise
48:30
not using your phone or, you know, hands-free. Like, you know, you're in the middle of doing dishes. Oh, you get a FaceTime call. Yeah, sure. Accept it.
48:37
And then it'll make sure that your face is in frame and, you know, it's it's it's a hands-free way to use a computer.
48:42
And it's a dedicated machine for that. You don't have to get your phone out of your pocket and get, you know, soap all over it or, you know, try to try to get
48:49
it to change music tracks. You know, it's it's it's it could be more convenient in a number of ways in that
48:55
regard. Yeah. I mean, thinking about it in a kitchen, like like throughout all this,
49:00
I've been thinking about it like on a, you know, coffee table or something in in the dining room, but in a kitchen, it
49:06
makes a lot of sense. It just exactly for the reason you're talking about. Your hands are, you know, dirty. you're
49:13
stirring a, you know, thing of pasta or something, you know, it's it's it would
49:18
be handy if it actually worked properly and you could do all these things. I mean, we actually I have got like a
49:24
because we have a Google Nest door doorbell, right? And so there's a little I can't even remember the name of the
49:29
product, some Google thing. And so when it when the doorbell rings, eventually the the the
49:35
image comes up on the screen. So if Apple could do it, it's all lightning fast. somebody walks up your door, you
49:40
look in and say, "Oh, and you could tell it, hey, unlock the front door and let you know, my dinner guest in. I'm too
49:46
busy uh in the middle of cooking something." I mean, there's all kinds of ways in the kitchen. It makes a lot of
49:51
sense. I I still don't get it. Like I I guess part of the problems I think about my own house layout, right? But like
49:59
imagine if you had a a a downstairs den or something, right? and you're sitting
50:05
down there watching TV or playing games or, you know, working out or something and it it could be super handy in
50:12
different locations in your house. Well, I was wondering, you know, you could have it in the kitchen, one in the living room for doing FaceTime calls,
50:19
you know, putting stuff on the big TV. Uh, one in all three rooms and then spend $3,000. Right.
50:24
Yeah. Right. This is maybe this is why they're exploring a robot on wheels or something that would like trundle around the house. This is a product clearly
50:30
designed for rich people who have open concept floor plans on the ground floor. You only need one in the middle, you
50:36
know. I think yeah, I'm pretty excited about this. Like a whole new operating system to, you know, to make the smart home finally smart with matter support, you
50:43
know, it'll probably support all sorts of uh uh, you know, peripherals from other people or other manufacturers. Uh,
50:49
my house is like, you know, we've only got a few automations. I got some some really old smart light bulbs which uh I
50:56
don't think the company's even in business anymore. So, you can't even really control them. So, I might uh but
51:01
that's about it. But, uh you know, not very very many automations. I don't you you're much more You have a lot more devices, don't you, Louis?
51:07
Uh it's mostly lights and locks and things. Um but yeah, you know, and some
51:13
smart plugs that function as lights in a unfinished basement.
51:18
Yeah, I' I've got the smart plugs, too. In fact, my mom uses a smart she's a smart play. She uses better she puts it in better use than I do. Uh turning her
51:25
lights on and off and just barking commands and stuff like that. I I use it mostly for um uh energy tracking because
51:31
our energy bills are like completely unbelievable. And uh we couldn't figure out like where's it where's it coming from? Where's all where's what's what's
51:37
drawing all this power. So I put a few around the house. Unfortunately, I still didn't figure it out. So I have no idea.
51:44
Yeah. They they can't crack the PG& code. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's something
51:49
here. There some kind of phantom energy sucker in the house. It's just PG&E charging you more money.
51:56
Yeah, it could well be. Could well be. Well, you know, on the bill they give you a breakdown like on, you know, how you compare to other houses and we're
52:03
way off the charts. Like much much higher than all of our neighbors. Yeah. Yeah. I I I have a
52:10
you know like a what's it called? A an entry sensor on a door downstairs. So I open the back door into my basement and
52:16
the lights come on. I mean, that's super handy. That kind of stuff is great.
52:22
Is that No, like, you know, I I have one of those, but it's a motion sensor light uh switch. You know, it was actually
52:28
fairly cheap. I think it was like 20, 30 bucks. The the the motion sensor is actually built into the Switch itself. I
52:33
think this could be an exciting product. And this is going to be coming out next spring, isn't it? That the rumors are whenever they have new Siri out, so you
52:40
know, 20 38. I thought the idea was that it was going to be the iPad on the wall
52:45
first and then the robot arm comes later. Oh, okay. Next year though or the year
52:52
after? I think the iPad one was supposed to come next year. Was supposed to come earlier this year. It's supposed now
52:57
it's supposed to come next year when they get their smart Siri act together. And then uh
53:03
and then I I don't know. I think the robot arm is like 2027 is the latest rumor. You know, don't quote me, but I'm
53:09
pretty sure. Hm. Too bad. I was looking forward to that. Your own little robot pet.
53:16
Yeah, I think that was gonna be fantastic. Like if they give it that personality and it make it friendly and and probably it could play play games
53:22
with your kids and they can make it like a Tamagotchi. You have to like go and interact with it every day or it just dies.
53:29
They come home and it's like it's got crosses for eyes and it's like I don't get any attention
53:36
face down. They they didn't motor it. It keeps your cat engaged like a cat game
53:41
on it to keep them from that would be very useful. Knocking stuff off the counters.
53:47
You could maybe that'd be third party apps. That could be like a a good idea for a third party app. Uh so anyways, if you like to leave a
53:53
comment, you can hit the link in the show notes or leave the comment on the video on YouTube. I will just say we're
53:59
not getting a lot of questions. Uh so if you leave any question, it'll probably be on next week's show.
54:05
Jeez. Oh my god, that's a little pathetic. Leave Leave us your questions.
54:11
Yeah. Uh and okay, so now we're gonna go our review section. We're gonna talk we're
54:17
going to review uh a new um product from Anker uh a Mago battery which Louis has
54:23
been playing around with. Take it away. Yeah, I mean I literally got this in the mail like a a day or so ago, so I haven't had a ton of time to deal with
54:28
it, but it's it's uh it's called the I sigh because the only problem I have
54:35
with Anchor products is the names. They're so generic and and they include many of the same terms as other ones.
54:41
This one is called the Ankor Nano Power Bank and then in parenthesis 5K Mago
54:48
Slim. [Laughter] Not that doesn't really uh roll off the
54:54
tongue. Anyway, what it is is a super super thin iPhone MagSafe uh charger. I
55:00
don't know if you can see. And of course, I'm using my phone. I realized as after we started this, I'm using my phone for my camera, so I can't really
55:06
show it on the back of the phone. Well, um I can show it on the back of my phone because they sent me the same one. They
55:12
actually sent me two. So, they sent me one and it got stuck in customs for at least a week.
55:19
They sent me black and white. So, you've got both colors here. Uh I think the the
55:24
idea is that this is a really slim battery pack. So, if you're hypothetically like interested in the
55:30
iPhone 17 Air and you still want a pretty slim battery, but you do want,
55:35
you know, a full day of battery life, this is a pretty thin way to get, you know, a full day of charge. Unlike other
55:42
Apple products or like other MagSafe products that are sized to the dimensions of an iPhone mini, uh this is
55:50
actually like it's thin, but it's wide enough that it covers a regular Pro
55:55
phone. You know, a regular size or, you know, presumably the regular iPhone 16 size. So, it it fills the entire back.
56:03
So, it's much like wider than Apple's Mag Safe battery, but it's it's much thinner. Like, it's still very
56:08
comfortable to hold in the hand, you know. Can you hold it up again? See, it's it looks like is it thinner than the iPhone itself or about the same?
56:15
It's I think it's a little thinner than the iPhone itself, but it's still thin enough that on a on a Pro phone, I don't
56:20
have very big hands. It's thin enough that my hand still wraps all the way around both sides.
56:26
So, it doesn't add a lot of depth to it. And it does feel pretty nice in the hand as well. Yeah, that I mean honestly I
56:33
I've tried a bunch of different uh Mag Safe chargers in my life and they're almost always bulky, super, you know,
56:39
they're deep. They make your phone hard to put in and out of your pocket, you know. Uh this thing feels unbelievably
56:46
thin. It almost feels like it's not there. It weighs I think like 3 o. It's
56:52
about It's a little over a quarter inch thick. Um feels it it actually does feel
56:58
good on the phone. It It's kind of shocking. It's not that much. I I don't know if it protrudes much more than the
57:03
stupid uh camera bump. Yeah. Um and sometimes you don't need a battery
57:09
pack that can give you like three days out in the wilderness. Like sometimes you just need, you know, a day at Disney
57:15
and you just need like an extra 60% or so. Yeah, that's exactly right. And I I you
57:20
know, like I said, not scientific testing here, but uh I I slapped on the back of my phone the other day, yesterday, as a matter of fact, at 35%.
57:28
Uh it was up to 70 in an hour and 20 minutes. This is not using the phone. Um
57:34
and it got up to 80% like an hour and 45 minutes. And one of the things that
57:39
Anker talks about with this thing is that it's uh not as hot as your average phone or mag safe battery, right? And I
57:47
actually measured the temperature in the middle of this charging. It was less than 100 degrees. It was warm warm to the touch, but less than 100. I I have
57:53
another one uh that I was I take on trips or used to take on trips. I'm going to replace it with this. Um and
57:59
man, sometimes that thing would I I would almost burn my finger on it. It would get so hot. It's like, geez, man,
58:05
some of these things really heat up and that's not very pleasant. Um this one's
58:10
pretty great. Uh let's see. going from 35% to
58:17
85%. That basically almost used up the entire
58:22
charge. So, it's it's really I mean I I'd say it probably doubles the life of your iPhone 16 Pro is what I was using
58:28
it on. Probably. I'm not 100% sure. Again, haven't had that much time to deal with it. But, uh it was it it
58:34
doesn't One of the things I don't like about it is it doesn't you know I'm kind of getting spoiled with some of these things. It doesn't show you the exact
58:40
percentage of the battery pack. It just has, you know, the sort of standard four four lights, right? So, yeah, I mean,
58:46
it's it's fine. I just sometimes it's nice to be able to look at and see, you know, not just a blinking battery, you
58:52
know, is it like is it 50 or is it 69, you know, that kind of thing. But, you
58:58
know, USBC, of course, because everything is now. Uh, super sleek design, not hot.
59:04
Very, very handy. I could I could totally see taking this uh you know slapping on the back of the phone if
59:10
you're like going to be out all day long. I mean my phone if I'm actually out using you know my phone especially
59:16
on vacation or something like that or anywhere where I'm out like actively using the phone for any significant
59:22
period of time my phone will always be dead by the end of the day or you know down to the oh my god 20% where I'm just
59:28
terrified it's it is going to go dead. This this would be a great way if you know you're going to be out all day. uh
59:34
a great way to keep your phone actually alive and not like making it turn into this hulking thing.
59:41
And it's not just Mags safe, it's CH2. So hypothetically, it'll work with that new Pixel 10 as well. No, right.
59:47
That's G2. G2 is is Mag Safe. It's Yeah. One thing I don't like about it
59:52
though is it's got quite a lot of I don't know if you can see this on the camera, but it has quite a lot of like
59:59
regulatory like symbols and legal text on the outer rim of the of the battery
1:00:05
itself. Jeez, I couldn't even see that, man. It's a lot. Like the entire upper edge
1:00:11
of it and the entire side of it is just like covered in symbols and text.
1:00:17
God, it's like hieroglyphs. Yeah. And it's like, well, why don't they just put it on the MagSafe side that sticks onto your phone so you don't
1:00:23
see it? Like if they have to print them on there. But it really is quite a lot of symbols.
1:00:28
Like some symbols that I didn't even I've never even seen before. It's like all over. Airplane on there. That that must be
1:00:34
like a new thing that says, "Hey, you can take this on an airplane." I've never even seen that symbol ever before in my life.
1:00:41
It's uh Well, I certainly can't read it because it has every statistic printed on the side of it. I can tell you it has
1:00:46
3 thou 3,000 milliamp hour capacity. So it it's hard to see, but if you can see
1:00:52
it, it's just kind of annoying because it's like covered in text. But yeah, that I've never I it's bizarre. I
1:00:59
mean, I honestly didn't notice that. And it's uh now I can't unsee it and and I
1:01:04
want it now I want to go and get a like a a magnifying glass and stare at it and see what all it says on there. I want to get like acetone and rub it
1:01:10
all off. But I mean, the nice thing is it has a USBC port on the bottom. So, if you have an
1:01:15
old iPhone that has Mag Safe but doesn't have USBC, I mean, stick this on the back and you don't have to use your
1:01:22
lightning port, you can charge your iPhone effectively with USBC because it'll charge through it.
1:01:28
So, Ankor, you know, they point out it's 15 watts Mag Safe, but you know, I think
1:01:33
that's as fast as it goes for wireless. 104% or 104% 104 degrees Fahrenheit is
1:01:39
what they say is the maximum temperature where they say the industry standard is 118.4° four degrees Fahrenheit. Uh,
1:01:46
comes in black and white. Uh, it look there's also two other colors on their website that are like blanked out. I
1:01:52
don't I don't know if it's coming later, like a looks like a blue and a pink. Who knows? They don't appear to be available
1:01:57
just yet. I think this thing just came out like in the last week or so. Actually, pre-order ships in September.
1:02:04
Oh. So, so it's it's not even available, but you can go to their website. They're $54.99
1:02:09
right now. That's actually a good price. That's not a bad price. Not a bad price. I see a little thing that says get 20% off. I'm sure you'd like to go ahead and
1:02:15
click that little button. Uh anyway, I I was I I mean, I was actually like, "Oh
1:02:21
my god, I I I requested a review unit of a of a phone charger. What am I going to
1:02:27
say?" But, you know, slapping it on and after recently having used other ones
1:02:32
that were much bulkier, I was like, "Wow, this thing is very slender and very good. Feels very good in the hand."
1:02:38
So, of course, Anker makes really nice products, so you can, you know, it's it's not going to burst into flames.
1:02:46
Yeah. I mean, it says on the package it says dual NTC cooling system. Who knew?
1:02:51
All right. Very nice. Right. Good job there. Thanks very much. Uh, I think
1:02:57
that about wraps it up. That's all the cult we have for you this week. I'm Leander Kaney. Uh, and uh,
1:03:06
what's your name again? Yeah, I almost got it wrong. It's um, I
1:03:12
I try to do it out of order for some reason. I don't know why I shouldn't stick to the order. It's a Lewis if you
1:03:18
want to. The fun continues all week on the socials. And if you want to follow Lewis, Lewis is on Twitter at Lewis
1:03:24
Wallace. Griffin's on Macedon and Blue Sky Driffin Jones. And I write every day
1:03:29
on the Cult Today newsletter which is at newsletters. mat.com. So, uh, like we
1:03:34
said earlier, send us a text or, uh, leave us a comment on YouTube, uh, to get your questions. Ask us a question.
1:03:41
Please do. Please do. Yeah, like Griffin said, uh, you know, if if anyone anyone leaves us a question, it's probably
1:03:46
going to be featured on next week's show. So, definitely do that. This has been the Cold Cast, the best hourong
1:03:52
Apple conversation you're going to hear all week long. Uh, the shows come out every Thursday night, and I want to
1:03:57
thank you all guys for listening, and we'll catch you next time. Goodbye. Bye. a little later.
1:04:04
It'll all come out at the end. All right. That was horrible. Okay. Yeah. Good. That was horrible.
1:04:11
Absolutely horrible. Getting worse week by week instead of
1:04:16
better. Hey, it's always a roll of the dice whether this is going to be like, "Oh yeah, we just played the show barely yet." Or, "Yeah, I'm going to have a lot
1:04:22
to clean up on this one and I think this one will be the ladder. [Music]
1:04:41
[Music]