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The MacBook is finally coming BackBook! (CultCast #706)
Jul 4, 2025
Send us a text: https://www.buzzsprout.com/twilio/text_messages/2453212/open_sms More Apple news: http://www.cultofmac.com This week, the MacBook might be coming back as Apple’s cheapest laptop ever! Also: Apple might be borrowing Claude or ChatGPT to power Siri, details on the next three years of Apple Vision headsets, the best Apple Watch faces, what to do when you’re low on iCloud storage, and a new Under Review! Produced by Extra Ordinary for Cult of Mac Follow us! Threads: https://www.threads.net/@cultofmac Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@cultofmac Instagram: https://instagram.com/cultofmac/ X: https://x.com/cultofmac Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cultofmac
View Video Transcript
0:00
[Music] Welcome to the Cultcast. The worst Apple
0:05
podcast on the whole internet, which is why we call it the cast.
0:11
Oh my god. I know. Coming out of the gate hot. I said he could change the intro. I I
0:17
wasn't expecting that. Um, and today I'm your host, Lyanna
0:24
Kaney. I'm the editor-inchief and the publisher of Cult of Mac. It's a longunning Apple blog. And today we have
0:30
joining us Lewis Wallace. He's the cult of Mac managing editor and D Griffin
0:36
Jones. He's our resident how-to writer. So, welcome guys. Hey,
0:41
good evening. Evening. So, yeah, not here. It's I round up. I round up.
0:48
Freezing cold afternoon. So, uh we're going to try a little bit
0:54
of a new format on the show today. Instead of it making all uh discussion about news, which is what we've done in
0:59
the for the last 25 years or whatever how long it's been, um we're going to try and do what we do on the Cult
1:04
website, which is a mix of news, reviews, and how-tos. So, we're going to start the show with um three news items.
1:10
We're going to talk about this new lowcost MacBook that's coming up. Um Apple's uh smarter Siri problems. Uh and
1:17
then we're going to try and do a how-to. Uh Griffin's going to show us uh some of the best Apple Watch faces and how to
1:23
change them and customize them and which ones you should be choosing. And then we're going to do uh a review. I'm going to look at um three CarPlay screens that
1:30
I've been testing out. Um these are portable CarPlay screens. Easiest way to add CarPlay to your device. All right.
1:37
I'd like to thank uh Factor for sponsoring this week's show. Factor is a ready to eat meal delivery service uh
1:43
that gives you dietitionian approved meals. It's no hassle. They're ready in two minutes and it's perfect for active
1:50
lifestyles. They arrive fresh, ready to eat, and you have 45 different menu
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options. You can choose from things like calorie smart, protein plus, keto, and there's even a GLP one uh menu that uh
2:03
will offer sort of meals that are balanced between protein and calories if you're on one of those um weight loss
2:08
jabs. They offer breakfast, go-to lunches, dinners, snacks, and guilt-free desserts. So, I'm really curious about
2:15
this, guys. So, I haven't actually tried it, but you two have both been uh on the factor plan. Yeah. Oh, yeah, baby.
2:21
They're delicious. Uh they show up they they show up in a giant box, right?
2:27
Completely insulated and they're they're they're not frozen. They're fresh and
2:33
you just pop them in the fridge and you you've got a week's worth of dinner right there or lunch or whatever. And uh
2:39
Oh, man. That sounds right up my alley. My god. Yeah, absolutely. Better than better than Trace's cooking. my wife's
2:45
cooking. And and it's great because like these are meals that are designed to be microwaved, you know? It's not like having leftovers where like you try
2:52
reheating an Applebee's burger and the bun is terrible and the meat is even worse than when it was fresh. Like you
2:59
the the actual stress test is, you know, for everything is always seafood, right? Like how how's their how good is their
3:05
shrimp or their salmon really? Especially pasta. Pasta is so easy to go
3:11
wrong. It can be gummy or weird or rubbery, but no, they they sent me they had the gall to try and send me uh like
3:18
a shrimp kavatapi pasta and it was perfectly good. It was really good. Yeah, they it tasted fine. It didn't
3:24
stink up my entire kitchen with the smell of fish and it was it was good good food. It it they they always have
3:30
you like, you know, a meat like a little bit of like rice or pasta or something like that. Vegetables. There's always
3:36
like a little serving of vegetables on the side. like it's always good food and you know you know that you're not just
3:42
taking in a bunch of empty calories and uh choices are good. You get a good bunch of choices. Mhm. Mhm. And the car
3:48
and the and the portions the portions are good. They don't skimp. Yeah. Yeah. And if you if you like to eat a lot, it's really easy to add more a little
3:55
more by like, you know, serving something over tortilla chips or like adding a little roll or something on the side. It's good food. Bulk it up. Yeah.
4:01
The uh I was very impressed with like uh a pork chop I got that was like so juicy, you know? I I I mean, I've had
4:09
restaurants screw up pork chops and this was great, man. I mean, the fish is always good. This one steak and shrimp
4:16
combo thing. Oh my god, delicious. They're always they're always like saucy, too, which is like almost a
4:23
little much to me. I mean, they're some of them are kind of rich. I mean, depending on which ones you uh go for, you know, like I think I was on the
4:28
protein plus, and that thing was like, wow, so delicious. It's making me making
4:33
me hungry. And I just had lunch. All right. So, if you're interested, get started at factor meals factor meals.com
4:41
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at factomeals.comcult for 50% off plus free shipping.
5:04
factoals.com/cultast50 off. Okay, so the first story we have
5:09
today is that Apple may launch its most affordable back MacBook ever. And when
5:15
they say ever, this sounds crazy. So next year, the rumors are there's a new MacBook and it's coming from Mincchi
5:22
Quo, who has a stellar record as an Apple analyst and um forecaster. He's uh
5:29
Mincchi is saying that it's going to be a 13-inch display with an A18 Pro chip. And now this is the same chip that's
5:34
going to be coming in the iPhone 17 Pro lineup. And you think, yeah, okay, you know, iPhone chip, this doesn't sound
5:40
very exciting. But this thing is a beast. This is actually better than some uh desktop chips. I saw some on the
5:48
socials someone comparing it to a Geekbench um scores a single thread I think for
5:53
the Intel i9514900K whatever that is. It's a anyway it's a
5:59
2003 desktop chip. It's not the fastest Intel chip they have but it's a pretty fast chip. Uh and this thing beats it.
6:06
You know the A18 Pro. This is a this is a really really pretty good chip. Um, and it's interesting, I thought that
6:11
they're bringing, you know, um, iPhone chips to, uh, to MacBooks where before Apple was bringing, uh, you know, uh,
6:18
uh, M M series chips to, um, to to, uh, to his, uh, portable devices like the
6:24
iPad. So anyway, this thing is supposed to be coming in like a bunch of different colors, blue, pink, yellow, silver, probably black, although did I
6:30
don't think he mentioned black. Uh, and then Mingchi Co says it's going to go into production um either in Q4
6:37
2025 or early 2026. And usually Apple launches uh products a couple of months
6:44
after they go into mass production. So, we can probably expect to see this in the first half of next year. Uh, and
6:50
Apple's, you know, pretty uh they've been missing those COVID numbers. Um, during the CO era, uh, uh, you know,
6:56
MacBooks were selling uh, somewhere in the range of 25 million uh, in 2026. And
7:01
I think they've been dipping recently. So they're hoping that a new lowc cost machine uh could sell somewhere between
7:07
five and 7 million units and bump their numbers back up to that sort of co area work from home when everyone upgraded uh
7:13
their machines. Um and you know the Mac was seeing these these these bumper sales and then this is the craziest
7:19
thing. Now I did did Mingchi do you guys know did Minki Quo mention the price in his uh No, I don't think he did.
7:26
So, I saw some speculation uh on the socials, and this might they might just purely be making this up. It's 600
7:32
bucks, which I don't know. Does that sound how how does that sound to you guys? Right
7:38
now, Apple sells the Walmart M1 MacBook Pro, M1 MacBook Air, the the old MacBook
7:45
Air from late 2020. They sell that at Walmart for I think $650. And, you know, taking the Apple tax,
7:52
like these are these would be new models that they'd be coming out with. So, I my, you know, finger in the air guess is
7:59
probably 700 or 750. I think 600 is a little optimistic considering the Mac Mini doesn't have a display, doesn't
8:05
have a battery, costs $500, I think. Is that right? Yeah. So, I'm thinking 700
8:11
750, but I think this is generally like a pretty smart strategy. One, because yeah, millions of people, everybody
8:18
knows somebody who bought that early 2020 MacBook Air that's now 5 years old and is on an Intel chip.
8:24
all due for an upgrade and this would be an excellent computer. You know, if you say, "Oh, this is a brand new model and it only starts at 750 bucks." I mean,
8:31
that's a great deal. But also, this is a really smart move for uh Tim Cook as
8:38
well, because maybe the most what might be the most wasteful part of Apple's
8:45
chip manufacturing supply chain right now is that every year they make a new A
8:51
series Pro chip for the iPhone that only goes in the Pro iPhone and doesn't really go in that much else. Like yeah,
8:59
the iPad mini I think got the pro chip just because it was what they had left around. Like they they discontinued the
9:05
Pro phones after exactly a year and you know they've designed a whole chip just for those. Well, this is another thing
9:11
that can they can take them like it's extending the life of of the of the Pro Series A series chip. You finding a new
9:18
product to put them in. Yeah. Yeah. Good question. Which is which has probably been keeping Tim Cook up at night, you
9:24
know, just knowing that there's a slight inefficiency, you know. Why do you think it worries about cannibalizing uh you
9:29
know sales if if this thing um is so cheap? Uh I guess you know there's there's still plenty of people who who
9:35
would go for a more expensive MacBook, wouldn't they? I feel like it would lowering the barrier to entry would open the door to many more people than it
9:42
would you know convince people to otherwise who would otherwise buy a $1,000 MacBook. Like if you have the money to buy a $1,000 MacBook, you know,
9:49
there's still a reason to buy the you know M4 MacBook Air instead of this. I
9:54
mean, if you think about all of the things that'll probably be cut out of this new MacBook compared to the current
10:01
MacBook Air, it's probably going to have a rectangular, smaller display. It's probably going to be made out of plastic
10:06
instead of aluminum, 3-in bezels, plastic. It probably won't have Thunderbolt
10:13
because, you know, it'll probably just be because the A18 Pro, I think, only supports, you know, USB 4, which isn't
10:19
isn't as good. Uh, so it won't have as good I/IO. It won't have as many ports. They probably wouldn't have Mag Safe either if I had to guess. H yeah, no
10:27
Mags Safe. Wow. Well, I I I bought a 750 um M2 MacBook Air on sale last year and
10:33
this is the, you know, I mean, the industrial design is absolutely flatout gorgeous on this thing. It's just it's really incredible. Space gray,
10:40
beautiful, beautiful looking machine. Um and I love that, you know, the boxy edges. Um it's stunning. Uh the keyboard
10:47
is fantastic. Uh it the screen's really nice and bright. Um it's super light, really portable. The battery life is
10:53
insane. It just goes on and on forever, you know. Uh if they have the same industrial design and if they can bring
10:58
it in those different colors, I mean, it's going to be really really attractive. I was I was surprised. I've heard a lot of people who miss the M1
11:05
MacBook Air and earlier style shape where it's the the the wedge, the little triangle shape. A lot of people miss
11:11
that particular shape as opposed to the to the flat one. It looks really dated to me now. It looks really really dated.
11:17
Yeah. What do you think, Louis? That's your main machine, isn't it? I think they look great, man. They they're comfortable. They're easy
11:23
to use. And yeah, I mean, are there You said plastic. I mean, was that ever mentioned with this thing? This this
11:29
MacBook that was part of an earlier rumor that they were going to be that they were exploring a cheaper MacBook made out of plastic instead of aluminum.
11:36
And if they're doing bright colors, you know, that would be an easy way to differentiate them because, as we know, it's just impossible to, you know, make
11:42
colorful aluminum according to Apple. Cannot be done. Hm. That that would kind
11:48
of surprise me just because it would seem kind of I don't know. It seems kind of cheap, you know. I I think of plastic
11:53
computers. I think of uh you know PC, Chromebooks, whatever. I I I did
11:59
actually, you know, uh hear from an Apple engineer who worked on um the uh
12:04
who helped develop aluminum, you know, color colored aluminum for Apple. And it is really hard to get the color
12:09
matching. Um, apparently it's very very very difficult, especially if you get, you know, you can get sometimes a slightly different shape for the lid or
12:15
for the keyboard um, uh, chassis. Uh, getting that, you know, getting them to match exactly is is is much harder than
12:22
it looks, apparently. I believe it. I I do not envy their material designers.
12:28
They're probably very busy all the time. Yeah, absolutely. All right, so we're excited about that. Can't wait. Lewis,
12:35
what do you think? You've got the next story about Apple's uh smarter Siri
12:40
woes. The debacle continues. Uh yeah, so we you know, we've been talking about it for weeks. The smarter series been
12:47
delayed. Um this latest rumor is that Apple might outsource the AI part of of
12:54
making this smart Siri to anthropic. Is that how you pronounce anthropic orthropic? I don't know. Anthropic, I
12:59
think. Anthropic. I would have said anthropic. Excuse me. Uh anthropic or open AI. Uh, Apple's supposedly been
13:06
testing this a lot and uh, Siri chief Sam Rockwell and other execs think anthropic, now that I know how to say
13:13
it, is the best fit. Um, first read this headline. Wow, you know,
13:19
is this like a panic? Are they going into panic mode or are they It sounds like they're just kind of doing due diligence. You know, this isn't a done
13:24
deal. They're not definitely doing this. They're just sort of covering their bases in case the uh, in-house LLMs
13:31
don't pan out. Um, the last thing we heard was that they had been trying to to get it out by
13:39
what, I don't know, this spring and and the basically the first version that they were using with the LLM just didn't
13:45
pan just didn't work. Yeah. What were the like up to 70% of the time it worked or something stupid and terrible like
13:51
that. Uh, but then so they just decided screw it, we're going to go with our second version. We're going to wait and
13:57
get it right. Uh, and I guess this is like hedging their bets just in case that second version doesn't get to be
14:03
better than 70%. Um, however, you know, this report comes from Bloomberg, Mark
14:09
German, of course, reporting. He says, quote, "A competing project internally dubbed LLM Siri that uses in-house
14:15
models remains an act of development." That's one I was just talking about. Uh, you know, would this be a giant black
14:20
eye for Apple? you know, I mean, it wouldn't look good if they had to once again say, "Gee, we just couldn't pull
14:26
it off in house." Um, a lot of people, you know, one of one of the concerns is
14:32
privacy, right? Because that's the the big selling point of Apple intelligence. Privacy. It's privacy. They're going to
14:38
take care of all your data and everything. And, uh, looping in a third party makes maybe some people nervous,
14:44
but honestly, I was going to say that that seems to be the biggest objection when you thought because like it wasn't that the whole reason why they're
14:49
developing in house. I mean because they're using chat GBT right now in Apple intelligence but you know the
14:54
whole idea wasn't it was that was a stop gap until they could come up with their own sort of much more private LLM especially if it's going to have access
15:00
to all of your data. So then they're just going to chuck that out the window and say, "Okay, whatever." You know,
15:06
we're going to use Claude. And I think I heard elsewhere that they were maybe as like part of striking up these deals,
15:11
they were going to negotiate such that these these third party models that they would be using would still run on
15:17
Apple's own private cloud compute server, which I would I mean, good luck convincing them to agree to do that, but
15:24
that would that would alleviate some of the concerns on a technical level. I don't think it would make me feel good
15:29
about using it. I probably wouldn't. But I mean, the other thing is though that this is kind of upsetting as as somebody
15:36
who is a little disillusioned with the AI bubble and kind of trusts Apple to do it right or not at all. Like if you
15:43
can't do it right, don't bother. Um, but if anything, I think like the best outcome from here is that this just like
15:51
lights a fire up the ass of Apple engineers and con like knowing that there's competition and that the plan B
15:57
you won't be happy with. Yeah, you don't want you don't want to be made to do that. You know, that that that could be a motivating factor to get them to get
16:04
the proper Siri Apple way done. That's an interesting idea. Do you think do you think Tim Coat just leaked this just just to light a fire underneath his um
16:11
you know, with the team? I don't know about that, but I think it might be a strategy that, you know, maybe lower
16:17
levels of management are using. I mean, Craig Federi said a while ago, yeah, if if we can't do it well, go ahead, use a
16:23
third-party model. And that turned out really great for the Swift Assist thing in Xcode because there just isn't a very
16:29
big pool of like, you know, Swift programming data for them to be able to make a good model there. And what they
16:35
what they turn Swift Assist into is an evolved system where it's like, yeah, if you do any kind of programming in Xcode,
16:40
you can plug in any model you want. You can run an ondevice model. You can just plug in an API key and use your favorite
16:46
model. And then it they ended up making a better product out of it. I I don't know if Apple is going to give everybody
16:52
the keys to that with Siri on their own phones, but I more competition is always better. You know, if if the competition
16:59
if if they're setting the bar of if you can't make this work well enough, we're just going to strike up a deal with
17:05
Anthropic, then that that that's introducing competition into the system, and that's what Siri needs. Yeah. Yeah.
17:11
Yeah. Well, have you used um Claude? No. Have you, Lewis? No, I just uh I
17:16
basically used Chat GBT or Grock. I haven't I haven't spent that much time with all these third, you know, there
17:22
seems like there's so many now. It's like, have you? Well, there No, I haven't. Um, but uh it's from a bunch of
17:28
Open AI exiles, right? I think it was like some of the early Open AI uh team that split off and um I've read good
17:36
things about it. I mean, I've read some, you know, people are falling in love with Claude. And it's also like it I
17:42
think that New York Times had a story about it a few months ago that was saying it was the favorite of the Silicon Valley sort of um set whatever
17:49
that means but you know it's a it's a it's a it's a favorite one. It's a and it's supposed to be really personable. I
17:55
think it it has a huge it has a huge memory. I think they did well they did a good job personalizing it you know
18:00
giving it some personality like Siri is what I'd read. So I haven't used it so
18:06
I'm not 100% sure if you could attest to that. Plus, it's supposed to like remember. It has a long memory. So, it
18:11
can remember conversations, I think, for quite for for longer than most of the others, you know. So, it has that more
18:18
um you know, it it humanlike. It it it just seems a little more humanlike because you can it'll remember
18:24
conversations that you had, you know, like weeks, days, weeks before. That that's less humanlike for me. I don't
18:30
remember what happened yesterday. Yeah, me too. Yeah, good point. Super human. gathering
18:37
information to blackmail you. Yeah. Well, that'd be interesting to see how this thing shakes out, you know, like I
18:43
I it seems so weird that Apple can't get a can't get a grip on this. I mean, it you think a company like Apple with
18:50
unlimited basically unlimited resources um and uh and talent and and the name,
18:56
you know, but then again uh you know, Metaith last week was recruiting engineers with 100 million bonuses. 100
19:04
million signing bonuses. 100 million. This is like there was a there was a tweet that that compared one of the data
19:10
scientists they recruited, you know, that some some uh Oh, right. I saw that. He he got he got paid he got he's worth
19:16
more than Ronaldo, which is just insane. Oh, god. I mean,
19:22
there there was a a thing a while ago in in one of the stories that the engineers working on this thing wanted to spend
19:28
more money. They wanted to buy a whole bunch of computers to, you know, train these models and it went all the way up
19:33
to L CFO Luca Maestry and he just said no. Really? Yeah. Yeah.
19:40
You wonder why would why would they say no? I mean, it's not like they're short of a few pennies. You would think. Yeah.
19:47
Well, though, you know, Amazon, another interesting story last week was Amazon's new um data center in Indiana. They're
19:54
building this enormous enormous compound um eight truly gigantic um data centers
20:01
that are all going to beworked together for this enormous Amazon super brain. Um
20:09
and you know Elma has been saying that the limits really now on AI is the amount of energy that you can devote to
20:16
it. That's the limiting factor. you know, it's not necessarily the chips or the um you know, the uh the size of the
20:24
data center. It's the amount of energy you can you can harness to run them, which uh and of course, you know, this
20:30
is all burning the planet up um at a really alarming rate. Uh think think of
20:35
all the great artwork though. six-fingered people. I'd like not to.
20:42
Well, some of the video I some of the newest video I've seen is really it's indistinguishable from real, you know.
20:48
It doesn't have that gloss or that sheen. It doesn't have the AI look anymore. I mean, it is it's as real as real. It's crazy. You know, can you're
20:54
not going to be able to trust your eyes anymore for sure. Anyway, on that sharing note, Griffin. Yeah. Uh a
21:02
lighter, cheaper Visionaire. This is like this is what's going to rescue Apple's whole headset dream apparently.
21:09
Apple views headmounted devices as the next major trend in computer in consumer electronics says again Mingshi Quo as he
21:17
wrote on Sunday. A vision air will come at a quote significantly lower price point than Vision Pro according to Quo.
21:24
Yeah, thank God. Uh to lower the cost it'll use an iPhone processor rather than a Mac grade one and will include
21:31
fewer sensors. It'll weigh 40% less, which would put it at 08 pounds. That's
21:37
very important. Uh, quote, "Weight red direction would be achieved through blast to plastic replacement, extensive
21:43
magnesium alloy use, uh, with titanium alloys being deemed too expensive, and a
21:49
reduced sensor count." According to Quo, he says that mass production of the Vision Air headset won't begin, however,
21:56
until the third quarter of 2027. What? Mark your calendars. Over two
22:02
years away, Vision Pro. Wow. In the nearer term, Apple still plans a chip in
22:08
chip update to the current Vision Pro for release later this year with the M5 instead of the M2 with no other changes.
22:17
Just a, you know, quick up quick thing they can get out the door. I guess Apple's also working on smart glasses
22:23
after the team up between Meta and Rayband showed there's, you know, a bunch of consumer interest there. So,
22:29
they're approaching this from, you know, the high end with the Vision Pro, the middle end, I guess, I don't like that
22:36
phrase, of the Vision Air, and also the low end with these smart glasses. Uh,
22:41
report out this spring said Apple will release its first smart glasses in 2026,
22:47
but Quo says the launch is farther away. Mass production supposedly isn't scheduled to begin until spring 2027.
22:55
So, that's still a work in progress, I guess. The first generation smart glasses won't have a screen and it'll be controlled with voice commands and
23:01
gestures for audio playback, camera, video recording. Uh but in the second
23:06
half of 2028, so now three years from now, we'll bring an upgraded version of glasses with a built-in display. And
23:14
over time, the whole vision line of headsets will get lighter and cheaper and and the glasses will get more powerful. Gez, I hope I'm still alive by
23:21
then. Approaching it from all angles. Yeah. So, uh what? No screen. what no screen
23:27
in the first cheapo um AR glasses. Yeah, you would think that if they're the the product, you know, remmit for this
23:34
device is that it doesn't have a screen that they'd be able to put it together a little quicker than 2027. Seems like a
23:40
pretty simple thing to, you know, just slap together and ship. But, uh, that's
23:46
more surprising to me than the fact that like like the fact that it's it's such a simple product and they and they can't
23:52
get it out the door for another two years from now and then a year later they'll have one with a screen. Like why not just wait until then? Yeah, I guess
23:58
not. I don't know. Uh, you know, they must be looking to miniaturaturize all the components and um, you know, do do a
24:05
lot of learning and stuff like that. I mean, I guess a screen would be a a high draw component. it would really tax the
24:11
battery um much more than than just having um speakers and and cameras in the thing. Yeah. But would you be
24:17
interested in like a some you know glass hole? I would glasses. I've always
24:22
thought that if the Vision Pro, you know, project 5 years from now, if the Vision Pro has the the same power and
24:28
can do all the same things as a computer or an iPhone, then the lightweight
24:33
glasses would be the equivalent of like an Apple Watch. like it's something you can wear that'll just you know instead
24:38
of being think of it as like an Apple Watch on your face instead it's regular pair of glasses except it you know it
24:44
has light interactions like it'll show you your notifications you can respond to them you know little little stuff
24:49
like that to just stay out of your way you know will it show you notifications though if it doesn't have a screen I
24:55
mean yeah not if it doesn't have a screen it just be a little little camera and music player at that point like
25:01
superpowered airpods really I was going to say yeah you know you already get all of this functionality through AirPods I mean, and I had to turn off the AirPods
25:08
notifications. It would just drive you mad, really. I mean, the main thing about this, I
25:13
think, is, you know, the camera and the video recording. And I don't know what they mean by AI, environmental sensing.
25:19
No idea what what that would mean, but uh, you know, from an audio perspective, why would you wear glasses when you
25:25
could put an AirPod in your ear? I mean, that it doesn't I mean, personally, I don't really like wearing earbuds or
25:32
headphones a lot. I I generally prefer music or podcast or stuff like that to just be playing out in the open. I I
25:38
don't really the I'll do it. I'll I'll put in earbuds if other people are in the house, but I was going to say I prefer to just play play out in the
25:44
open. Sure. Glasses. So, right. But are you going to buy a different pair of
25:50
glasses? We going to wear them over top of those or, you know, you going to have a second pair that I mean, I don't know
25:55
the whole thing of like like those Soundcore things that uh Airfon tried. those Sound Core. I can't remember the name of the product, but they're they're
26:02
glasses that are basically AirPods. I mean, they're they're they're sunglasses and they have audio. And, you know, he
26:08
says the audio sounds decent. I'm I guarantee you it doesn't sound as good as AirPods. And, uh, you know, do you
26:14
really want to be listening to your podcast or your music and having, you know, people in the subway hearing it, too? I mean, uh, I mean, the neat thing
26:21
about the speakers built into the Vision Pro is that because they're right next to your ear, it doesn't have to play very loud at all. you know, somebody in
26:28
the same room as me, but, you know, not immediately next to me. They might hear like a little gentle whisper, but, you
26:34
know, they they won't be able it's not like they'll be distracted by the the same video that I'm watching. And, you
26:39
know, that also doesn't stop people on their phones just like playing TikTok it with other people in the room. It it's
26:45
amazing to me that people don't have the the shame to quiet that down. But, you
26:51
know, people are different. If if Apple makes a version of these glasses in a brown tortoise pattern, then yeah, I
26:58
bought in I'll wear those every day. Will you walk around videoing your, you know, your grocery store trips? I mean,
27:04
I suppose the way people like to share that kind of, you know, mundane crap on the internet, that might be uh, you
27:10
know, for live streamers or what they used to call them when they first started doing that, right? Life streamers. What a ridiculous term. Um,
27:18
but uh, Meta Meta Meta's got some. They're very popular, aren't they? But they've only got two or three battery hours of battery life, which seems to be
27:25
kind of I don't know. You know, that that would be a no a total deal killer for me. It would have to last all day.
27:30
Mhm. I mean, I suppose it could be fun to wear to a party. You know, I could see bands wearing them on stage, you
27:36
know, like capture some wild crap on stage, but uh you know, or any kind of
27:41
performer, whatever. Um but I don't know, man. Sounds awfully weak. And it's
27:47
I mean, if you think about like the glass hole product, what was it? Google Glass. What was that 10 15 years ago?
27:54
They they had something where you could see like turn right at the next intersection. That's that's one of the
28:00
coolest things I think for these. If you're in a a city you don't know and you're trying to get somewhere and you
28:05
can actually like just see the, you know, a big arrow pointing you to your
28:10
destination right in front of your eyes. That would be awesome. We tried using that actually a couple years on the iPhone um and it was awful. It didn't
28:18
work at all. and it burns up your iPhone battery and then it's just dead. Yeah. What the the
28:24
that Well, I think it was where we were cuz we were in Italy and Spain and we were trying to negotiate, you know, through the the the uh the narrow uh
28:31
streets and and there was a lot of um connectivity issues. So, it wasn't necessarily the the tech. I think that's
28:37
a bit of unfair. It was mostly um there was a lag with um getting the next set
28:42
of directions. So sometimes we we'd end up walking and then suddenly get a thing say, "Oh, turn left." But what it meant
28:50
turn left, you four blocks back uh and by which point we we'd missed it. I mean it it does it's you know it was using
28:56
the the uh the little arrows on the VR kind of display thing. Uh it sounded cool in theory, but it just didn't it
29:02
didn't work in in in practice. Of course, it might it might change now with with um 5G uh and if there's a
29:08
better connectivity in these little these little um European towns. And Apple has their own chip team on their side. Like Facebook doesn't have that.
29:14
Apple's making their own in-house chips. That'll probably be Apple. I mean, Apple wouldn't ship anything with bad battery life. They never do except for the first
29:20
Apple Watch. I was trying to look maybe the current Apple Watch. Some Power Books Some Power
29:29
books were really bad. Yeah. Uh but yeah, that's very true. I wonder where they put the batteries. I mean, do you
29:34
think they could put the battery in the frame? Um, like all the way around the frame and wait till that sucker catches
29:41
fire. Yeah. Right. Well, anyway, all right, let's move on.
29:47
So, uh, I I'd also like to thank Squarespace for sponsoring this week's podcast. Um, Squarespace is a great way
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squarespace.com/cultcast for 10% off. All right. So Griffin Mhm.
31:07
you are this is going to be our our how-to section. So we were hoping that um
31:15
we could do um howtos, you know, show people how to do stuff. And we were hoping that um not just show you how to,
31:21
you know, the here's the settings, here's the here's the different things you could look at, but like some some sort of expert advice like not here's
31:26
not just how to do it, but here's how you should do it. Mhm. Uh and we're going to kick this off with um some of
31:33
the coolest Apple Watch faces that you can get on your Apple Watch. And we're going to get Griffin to to walk us through some of the coolest Apple Watch
31:39
faces you can, you know, you can uh you can set up on your Apple Watch. Yeah. So, this is an an article and there's
31:45
also a video where I do a tier list of all of the Apple Watch faces if you're interested in or care about tier lists.
31:52
Uh, but of course, the the the selection of Apple Watch faces that Apple has made available has changed since I made that
31:58
video a while ago. But, uh, you know, this is the article and this is a more more tailored advice. A lot of people
32:05
when I see people wearing an Apple Watch, almost 90% of the time they just have the modular face and also 90% of
32:13
the time they just have like the basic rubber sport band. But you know the Apple Watch is it whole thing is about customization. You you can make it
32:19
yours. Is that exact and Lewis is saying that is exactly what he has.
32:25
But, you know, there are a lot of great options. Like, if you if you really care about fitness or you you like closing your rings, they have three different
32:32
watch faces just for that, a digital one and two different analog faces, so you can keep an eye on your rings all day
32:39
long. Uh, if you're one of the big boys with an Apple Watch Ultra, they have the
32:44
uh they have the Wfinder face, and this has so many complications on it. Like, you can fit eight complications on
32:50
there. You've got all these dials and things and I mean and and also on the
32:55
Apple Watch Ultra they they do the thing where they turn red. Is this the face that you have, Leander? Yeah, there it
33:01
is. See, uh the Apple Hold on. I like it cuz um I got it to match the band. I have a white silicon band and then the
33:07
white watch face when you when it activates. That's pretty good. I thought I thought it was very cool. I think it's got eight
33:14
or 10 complications, maybe even more. Mhm. But um I have Shazam and um uh
33:22
workouts, temperature, uh the sunlight, you know, the um UV index. Yeah, super
33:28
handy for saying a whole bunch of stuff. I like the um the uh the the compass, too. Even though I don't use it. Yeah,
33:33
the gimmick on this one is that you can tap the the the face of the clock and it'll turn into a compass for
33:38
wayfinding. Right. Yeah. No, it's very cool. I like all these. Um the only thing I don't
33:44
like about is that it's analog and being a bit thick, I always have to
33:49
think, what time is it? I like I prefer a digital face, but it would be perfect if I could put a digital face on it. Um,
33:56
but yeah, it's one of my favorites. Yeah. Yeah. I I'd say my overall criticism of the Apple Watch faces is
34:01
there aren't enough good digital ones. A lot of them are analog because a lot of them are the people on that team, I
34:07
imagine, are watch nerds. And watch nerds just, you know, oh no, we're we're too high flutin to make these digital
34:13
faces. Just learn how to tell the time. I know. one like Casio. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, next up in the list of great
34:20
analog watch faces, we have the uh the Breathe ones. And I guess if you're
34:25
really into meditation, this might be good for you. But I just think they look kind of cool. Like the Oh, they are.
34:31
They're one of that's one of the coolest faces on the whole of the whole lot. It looks like really beautiful when you
34:38
when you lift it up, it blooms and it's so it's so zen. It's so calming. It's actually a beautiful I a friend of mine
34:44
had it and I like what the heck is that? You know, I've got to get that one. It really has a beautiful face. Um, if
34:50
you're sick of the regular modular and you want maybe a spicy modular, but you still want to have all the all the data
34:56
in front of you, you can use modular duo. I think this is available on the series 7 and later because it has a
35:02
slightly larger display and you can have two of the big like rich complications
35:08
on there and another small complication in the upper left and the digital time.
35:14
So you can have like your full calendar, you can have, you know, more detailed like hourby- hour weather if you want.
35:21
You can have like graphs of your daily activity. This is a This is a good Apple
35:26
Watch face if you're a big fan of graphs and you want want a few graphs on there every time you look down. I'm gonna get
35:32
that one right now. Oh, yeah. What What complications are you going to put there? Well, I can't even find it. So,
35:38
um I have no idea. That's fair. But, uh yeah, maybe I'll do that later. But that one sounds really that sounds out my
35:44
alley. I I I do like that those rich complications. I've got uh you know uh Infograph, I think it is one of the ones
35:50
I use. Or maybe it's Modular Modell ultra. And you uh you can get the um the
35:57
weather there. And that's good for seeing at a glance, you know, what the weather's going to be like coming up. Oh, look. Freezing. Freezing. Even more
36:04
freezing. Really freezing. Oh wow. Summit in San Francisco.
36:10
It's going to be 90° on Saturday and I have to mow my lawn. So that'll be fun. Uh if you if you deal with a bunch of
36:16
time zones, there's the GMT face that'll somehow show you two different time zones simultaneously. I'm not entirely
36:23
sure how this works. I stared at it and I tried to figure it out, but the the data it it it'll allegedly do that. I
36:30
don't know how. It's kind of hard for me to parse, but it does that. And then we
36:35
get to the uh the watch face that I currently use right now. Numerals Duo.
36:41
This is very simple. It just shows you the the current time all big and square.
36:48
Oh, that's a nice one. Right now it's just five o'clock. I love that one. Um, it's very simple. No complications, just
36:54
the time in a big old time and you can have it color match your band. It comes in a bunch of colors that you can use. I
37:01
like the one where you um it's just the outline of the numbers. Yeah. So, they're not instead of them being solid,
37:06
it's a it's an outline. That one looks really good. Mhm. Uh there's the Apple Watch face that Tim Cook uses called
37:13
Infograph. I think that's it's kind of similar to to Wayfinder except I think that's the older style of it. They have
37:19
extra large which just shows the time really big and one of the small complications but it blows it up to fill
37:26
the whole screen of the watch so it's really easy to see. It's like a Cricut phone version of the Apple Watch. Yeah.
37:32
Yeah. The the Jitterbug watch. There's the the Nike digital one which
37:37
has the it's it's a digital watch face and it has just a few complications on the side. It's also kind of minimal
37:43
and that good that's good for running, right? Yeah. if you're a runner, if even if you're not into running, like it's
37:48
just a it it uses a different font from all the other watch faces. It uses like that italics Nike font, so it's a a
37:55
little more exciting. Uh there's the Chronograph Pro one, which has a built-in stopwatch world time, which
38:02
shows you the entire world at once. Jeez. Wow. For some reason. And we get
38:08
to my all-time favorite Apple Watch face that we sadly have to pay our respects to because it's no longer with us.
38:14
numerals. It was an analog watch face that was really great for a weekend when you
38:20
don't need to know the precise time, but you want an attractive watch face that you know still gives you a vague
38:26
impression of the time because it would be like a little it was it was really simple. It was just like the the three
38:31
watch hands and then it would highlight the hour in a big number and you know
38:37
then you could get an approximation. Oh, it's you know a bit past the hour. Oh, it's almost the next hour. I really
38:43
liked it. It was my favorite, but Apple sadly removed it, I think, in watch OS 10. So, I then moved over to using
38:49
Numerals Duo. I I hope and pray every year that they'll at least if not bring it back, then maybe bring back a new
38:55
Apple Watch face kind of inspired by it. I think in recent years, they've been adding new watch faces
39:02
with the release of the new watches in September. So, there are there could be new watch faces in watch OS 26 that we
39:09
haven't seen yet because Apple hasn't shown them to us yet, but Right. Yeah, I think they did that last time, didn't
39:15
they? Uh, so yeah, very cool. Very cool. Well, you I mean there's uh I I did some
39:20
research this morning. They said you can you can have 50 faces on your watch that are available for for swiping for quick
39:26
uh changes. So, you can set up to 50. Um but you can have I you know, there was no upper limit on the number of faces
39:33
you can have on the Apple Watch app that you can add to the Apple Watch. Um and I
39:40
I never did get a number for the actual total that are available. So, I have no idea, but it's I mean with the
39:45
customizations and everything, it's in the thousands and with all the third party complications and stuff. One of my
39:50
favorites is um Emoji Mimmoji. No, what's it called? Mimmoji. Mhm. It's
39:56
it's this one where you um get a little cartoon robot face. Oh, yeah. And
40:04
you could even have your own face on there if you really wanted to. You can you can switch the mimoji that it uses.
40:09
Oh, like Oh, so your own mimmoji face. Yeah. Well, the last thing I want to see is my ugly potato face. But a cartoon
40:16
version of your ugly potato face. Well, with a grin. I don't even like looking at it when it's, you know, on the the
40:22
login screen of the Mac. But this these ones have really, I think, very very witty animations. They're they're funny.
40:28
They're really genuinely funny. Uh the robot, you know, like its eyes will pop and its ears will burst out. Um and uh
40:36
it it makes me laugh like an idiot. Every time I I look at it, you lift up your wrist and there's a different animation.
40:41
You can customize it to have a fox or a cat, a dog, a unicorn. Um there's even the poo the poo emoji will do will do. I
40:48
haven't I haven't put that one on, but uh that one's one of that's one of my favorites. And my mom's really into um the Snoopy watch face. She keeps showing
40:55
me leas look at this. And then by the time she shows me it's already gone, but you know it Snoop a little bird will fly
41:01
around or Snoopy will sit up or you know whatever. There's there's all kinds of every time it's unique. It's wonderful.
41:07
They really are really wonderful. Really well. They're so whimsical. It's, you know, they're really a little joy, but
41:12
but bit of joy in the day. A little bird. The little bird. Oh, Tweety.
41:18
What's this? Woodstock. Oh, Woodstock. Right. I remember when that was introduced that they had to say that
41:23
they they had to come up with so many animations for that based on like all the different directions that the that
41:29
the hands can be at different parts of the day. They they had to uniquely animate all of those and it took an
41:35
incredibly long time. I'll bet. Wow. Crazy. Yeah. I wonder how many people they have on
41:41
each one of these. Like, like, does one person work on only one or do 10 people work on one or does one person work on
41:47
10? I mean, why do they why would they eliminate one ever even? I mean, it's
41:53
kind of odd. It's not taking up space. Like, you just keep it, you know? Yeah. All it did is make me sad. It is amazing
42:00
scrolling through the uh the face gallery in the the watch app on the phone. It It's like kind of astonishing
42:06
how many they've got in there now. Mhm. Sheesh. Some of them are so like
42:12
kind of goofy, you know? It's It's weird. So, there's so many great ones, but then there's just weird weird ones.
42:18
Yeah. Like the the artist one that just shows you a bunch of different cartoon faces. Yeah. I don't know why that's in
42:24
there, but it is. You can see me rank all of them and uh make fun of most of
42:30
them in my Apple Watch tier list video, which I'll link in the show notes. I want to mention one more before we we
42:36
go, which is one I had for a long time. In fact, um which is this one, the Solar Dial. Some guy um at the airport last
42:44
year, uh he noticed my my white watch band and he went, "Oh, nice nice band. N oh nice Apple Watch Ultra." And then he
42:51
was like, "Oh, look, you know, nice nice watch face." He had the same solar one on two. And it's it it shows you where
42:58
you are in the solar cycle of the globe or the planet, you know. So when um as
43:03
darkness approaches it, it it it moves over and it's it's a nice looking really really nice looking colorful um watch
43:10
face. Interesting. With so many of these things I look at them, I'm like, what in the world kind of information is this
43:15
trying to convey to me? I mean, they're they're honestly like so complex. It's I I don't know. Well,
43:22
there's I don't know what that is. There's one really crazy one that I I don't know what it's called. Um I saw a picture on Reddit.
43:28
Uh oh, sorry. I don't want to get into this, but it was really mad. And it was it looked like a a Mayan something
43:34
you've seen a Mayan temple, you know, with the with with the um all the the the astronomical movements of all the
43:41
planets and stars for 500 years. It was about eight different concentric circles with all this information on it. Really
43:47
crazy looking. Still waiting on the Stonehenge one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's there's a lot of
43:54
fun in changing the faces. I mean, um, I go through sometimes I'll I'll I'll sit on a face and and it'll just I'll keep
44:00
it for a while, but then I'll go on a a face hunt and and start trying out different things and changing them up. I
44:06
I I know I've heard of some people who change them daily, you know, change their their watch faces daily. Have you ever heard of that? Oh, yeah. I mean,
44:13
you can set up so many of them and you can change it with the style. You can have different uh, you know, set faces
44:18
for every different band you have if if you're one of those people, right? That's actually quite a cool uh a cool
44:24
look. I think when people match the face of the band they're wearing, that can often look really really nice. Yeah,
44:29
really good. Do you ever uh you ever set one up for a focus? Like I have one for um you know, believe it or not, a darts
44:37
focus on Wednesday night at 7:30. Uh my phone face changes. Couple of different
44:43
complications show up and my watch face goes to that numerals duo. It's just nothing but the time and big fat numbers
44:49
so I can glance down and see what time is. That's I I I think that's kind of one of the cooler things with uh focus
44:54
is how you can just change the whole look of everything, you know. Well, everything, your phone and your watch.
45:00
It's pretty cool. Yeah, I haven't I haven't really made made use of that. Start playing darts then you'll do it.
45:07
But I should do, you know, like there's definitely, you know, also like when I go for a bike ride at the weekend, I could definitely, you know, that would
45:12
definitely be really handy for that kind of thing. For sure. Yeah. I mean, you can take it as far as you want. I mean, you can customize things. You can, you
45:18
know, you can say, "Oh, I just want this watch face because I just need these two complications and I need them to be
45:23
giant so that I can hit them, you know, tap them easily, right?" Yeah. Yeah. I
45:28
suppose you don't do you do it, Griffin? Yeah, I have a The only focus that I use regularly is the I mean, I'm using it
45:36
right now, the Colt CC cast focus that I have, which uh when I'm recording, I I switch my computer to dark mode. I have
45:42
my my phone switch to a different what do you call? You got lock screen and wallpaper that's all black. And my my
45:48
computer switches from light mode to dark mode so there's not as much glare in my glasses. And I actually wish you could do a little more with it on the
45:54
Mac. On the Mac, you can you can have a shortcut that changes your wallpaper to like a picture that you give it, but you
46:00
can't really use it to pick between Apple's built-in wallpapers that they have. So I after setting the, you know,
46:07
running the shortcut and all that, I have to manually go into system settings and change my wallpaper to black and then change it back to the solar one
46:13
that I usually have it on, the solar gradient wallpaper that keeps it, you know, the same color of the sky, which
46:19
is what I normally have it on. I even spent like a good hour or so seeing if if I could build an Apple script that
46:26
would manually set the wallpaper for me, but ever since Apple redid system preferences into system settings, it
46:32
broke Applec script support and I lost a lot of time trying to get that to work.
46:37
Okay. All right. Well, let's move on to um setups. We're gonna uh that's a
46:42
regular feature we have on the website is um setups. We often three days a week we feature um someone's Mac work from
46:49
home setup and try to find uh what's interesting about it, you know, the the
46:54
different list of gear they're using and how they have um various things set up to help them work um more efficiently or
47:01
better. Uh and this one this week that uh one of the ones that we featured um
47:07
has a iPod hi-fi uh in which is I think plugged into the
47:13
um to the computer and is used as the speaker output and of course the iPod Hi-Fi was um
47:21
uh Apple's one of Apple's first speakers and it was designed specifically to slot
47:27
your iPod into the top. had a 30 pin dock connector at the top and you plug
47:32
your iPod in at the top and um play the sound through the speaker and and Jobs
47:38
uh I was actually at the launch uh I can't remember what year it was was it like 2008 or something like that 200 I
47:44
think it might have been earlier because I think like peak iPod was like what 2005 so I drove down to to Certino and
47:51
um they had the um it was across the way from the the the the hall where they
47:58
usually did the products introductions. The town hall, I think it was called, like a they had a little theater, a
48:03
precursor to the Steve Jobs Theater. Across the hallway, they had they'd set up like a home. It was like a mini
48:09
apartment. There was a living room, a bedroom. February 2006. Okay. 2006.
48:16
And um they had like a they had an iPod hi-fi in each of these different locations. And Jobs when he launched it
48:23
said that, you know, he he he'd been an autoi audio file his whole adult life. and he spent um thousands and thousands
48:30
of dollars on you know very very exclusive audio file equipment and he said at the launch that this this
48:35
matched um you know his his audio file system which everyone scoffed at. They was like
48:41
yeah don't be ridiculous but I don't know you know it's really stood the test
48:46
of time. It was a huge it was it was a bomb when it were launched. I mean it didn't really sell that many and never
48:51
set the world on fire but it actually sounds really good. It actually really is a great speaker. I managed to pick
48:57
one up. A neighbor of mine had one in his garage and he wanted to get rid of it. So, I bought it for $10, which I thought was bargain of the century. It
49:04
really is. That's a steal. It really is. Yeah. Uh and I put a blue a Bluetooth
49:10
adapter. You can get a 30 pin Bluetooth adapter so you can beam beam Bluetooth to it. And of course, I know audio files
49:16
will scoff because Bluetooth is downgrading my audio, but um it really sounds great. It really does. you know,
49:22
it's it's absolutely what, you know, room filling sound. It sounds as good as any beatbox. It has some really clever
49:28
baffling and and all sorts of um wind t pipes inside to um to push air out of
49:35
it, you know, it gives you a subwoofer effect. I thought it sounds gorgeous. It really is a nice sounding speaker. And
49:41
we should say that if you if you're listening and you like to look at it, there'll be a link in the uh podcast
49:46
description where you can bring up the picture, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's a nice looking setup, isn't it?
49:52
What do you think? He's got a 3D printer here in one corner, but he's got it looks like he's got one
49:58
three different computers that are visible. Mhm. So, this is like a a pretty modern looking office. I guess I'll paint a word picture for the people
50:04
who are maybe driving and shouldn't be poking at their phones. Pretty modern office. He's got like an L-shaped desk
50:10
and table with just screens all around and laptops on a bunch of different stands. He's got some a f a a fancy
50:17
keyboard I see over to the left with a bunch of different colors on it. Two 3D printers. But um one thing deeply
50:25
irritates me about this setup. And each of you have one guess. If you can guess what it is that annoys me. I don't know.
50:30
I'm looking uh I don't see anything immediately obvious. Maybe the uh what infuriated me as soon as I saw this is
50:38
that this guy has this one wall that he's applied like that vertical wood slat, right? And he has a TV on it that
50:45
isn't centered. And it's so obvious because you can see, oh, there's one wood slat to the right of it and five to
50:51
the left of it. It's not even straight. I wonder if it's on an arm or something. It's like It's like he might as well
50:57
have put the TV on a ruler or like glued a level to the top of it that shows that it's slightly offc center or slightly
51:03
skew because that's basically what he's done here. Add that to the Add to the fact that
51:09
like visible on this TV is what is clearly an AI generated image because it's a cityscape with a neon sign that
51:16
says H O O D E. That's what I was trying
51:21
to figure out what that meant. I I thought you were going to say that the uh Aren't those like MacBooks that are weirdly tilted up against the wall?
51:29
I mean, if you're going to have your MacBook in the sort of desktop laptop
51:34
mode, that's not actually a bad idea because there's a pretty big vent at the back of your MacBook and along the
51:39
bottom. And that looks like an old Intel MacBook based on the fact that it has the glowing Apple logo on it. So, you
51:47
know, th those things are wind machines. Like, you you you want to give those adequate ventilation. So, are those
51:52
running the are those I can't even tell what all is going on. There's several different things going on in this sink.
51:58
Well, I think the the computer on the right is a is an old ThinkPad because if you look at the bottom uh right hand
52:03
corner, it's got that um cross diagonal ThinkPad logo and the and the distinctive black uh case. Yeah. And
52:11
yeah, that must be that must be running Windows 11 because you can see the Windows taskbar on that ultra wide screen in the center of the screen.
52:18
Super wide and super short. What a There actually don't appear to be very many Macs here. The only other Mac I see is
52:24
that Intel MacBook Pro, which must be pre pre20 2016, and that's driving a
52:30
little display that has like a big flippy clock screen saver on it. Uh, you know, then he's got the iPod Hi-Fi and
52:36
then another Dell laptop to the left. It's like three three places to sit at in this thing. What the Yeah, maybe it
52:42
explains in the post. I didn't read it. This this guy doesn't appear to be very far into the cult of Mac because he's
52:48
only got one ancient Mac, right? Except for the iPod Hi-Fi. Yeah, there's not a lot of Apple stuff in there. Although,
52:54
what's this? What's on the screen saver on the Dell uh machine that seems to be running the 3D printer. That's not Apple Park, is it? No, that's just um some
53:02
stadium. I don't know what that maybe Las Vegas or something. Some one of It might be the I think that's the default
53:08
Windows lock screen where it just shows you random pictures every day. I don't know where that is though. I don't
53:13
recognize it. Oh, well, there is one Apple other Apple product. I don't know if you can spot it. Is that the exploded
53:18
thing up on the wall? Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah, he's got one of those um tear down uh frame tearowns. Yeah. So,
53:26
you can see he's he's murdered an iPhone 4 and framed the evidence on the wall,
53:32
right? What the heck is that thing above the window? Is that like a giant uh It looks like something from you know, an
53:38
old Star Trek like that somebody would use to keep the uh you know, prisoners
53:43
in line. Star Wars. That's a lightsaber. Oh, is it? Yeah. Oh, I was looking at the wrong way.
53:50
Where is it? How can it be a lightsaber? I don't think you hanging above the window. You can't hang a lightsaber by
53:55
the blade. It's not a real lightsaber. That's right. It would shot through the hook,
54:01
wouldn't it? Right through it. Yeah. So, what do we think? Do we like this setup or not? I don't know. You
54:07
know, not a lot of Macs. Yeah, not a lot of Macs. I don't want to work on Windows 11.
54:13
You don't uh You know, all I can say way neater than mine. Yeah, I can I can I
54:19
can cast no stones. It does look like a nice a nice relaxing room, doesn't it? Yeah, look at there's even an easy chair
54:26
there. Oh, perfect for a nap. Yeah. God. Okay, so the next section we're going to
54:31
have and we're going to do this every week. Griffin, listener questions. Take it away. So, this is a fun new segment
54:36
we're going to try out. Uh, if you have a tech problem, if you need help making a purchase decision, or if you want me
54:43
to be forced to research a weird or specific question, uh, this is a segment where we will come to the rescue. So, I
54:50
solicited, uh, questions from the Cult Club Discord, from Mastadon. But if you
54:55
would like to send in questions going forward, you can send us a text using the link at the very top of the show notes. You can just do it from your
55:01
phone. 15 seconds. Bang out your problems or concerns, whatever ails you,
55:07
and we'll pick the best one and answer it every week. So, this first one comes
55:12
from a username I'm not entirely sure how to pronounce. NY Platano. I don't
55:18
It's like trying to read a license plate. I don't know where I'm supposed to initialize or what I'm supposed to read, but uh could be Niplanto.
55:27
Niplanto. I like that more. uh wrote quote, "Need a solution for iCloud
55:32
storage. Wife is hogging up all our storage with photos, so need a solution to offload and have them available. I
55:37
know Airont has been going through the same thing, but maybe research a simple, elegant solution for this." Nice. Nice
55:43
of him to throw his wife under the bus there. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe maybe she
55:48
listens to the show. Maybe they're driving somewhere right now and she's just heard that. Yeah. Bash him over the
55:53
head. Yeah. Well, this is a problem everyone deals with, isn't it? Oh my goodness. iCloud storage space. What a headache. Uh so that the two constraints
56:00
he's put on is need a solution to offload them and have them available. Uh well Airfund's solution to that was to
56:07
wait for Apple to allow him to spend more money on it and just buy more iCloud storage space. As far as I know that's what he did when the 4 TBTE
56:14
option was available. He just upgraded to that and gave them more money. That's probably not the solution you want, but
56:20
that is the easiest way to keep them available. Cough up. Yeah. the the next best thing you can do is what I would
56:27
recommend what is always the thing that takes up the most space pretty much in everybody's life is the videos that you
56:34
have in iCloud especially now that everybody can record 4K footage on their phone and you know Dolby Vision or
56:41
whatever. So, what I would do is I would try and find the biggest videos in your
56:47
photo library, make a good backup of them, like export them to your computer, put them on a
56:53
hard drive or storage or something, wherever would be convenient to have it available, and then remove them from
56:59
iCloud. And that could save, you know, if if you've recorded like a a kids play or, you know, band or concert show or
57:07
something like that, you know, you've got minutes and minutes and minutes or maybe even like an hour or so of 4K video. I mean, that's probably taking up
57:13
like hundreds of gigabytes of space right there. So, and actually we had a we we featured an app this week um that
57:20
will a free app that that that doesn't have any advertising um and um is uh
57:26
called Clever Cleaner and it's from the same folks that did um oh what was it
57:32
Mac version D drill right which is a great great program. So, they have these guys have a new free app out um that
57:38
will help clean up um iPhone storage. Um and it's free and it doesn't have any advertising. So, it's like what's not to
57:44
like? And it has a whole bunch of really clever stuff, but it'll help you find those big those big big fat video files.
57:50
Yeah. Yeah. I think that the next biggest thing you can do is if you have ever like texted people videos over
57:57
iMessage that takes up a lot of space and you can find that by uh oh I I
58:03
didn't think to write down the exact path in the in the show notes here but it's on like settings general usage and
58:09
then you go down to like messages and that'll actually show you these are all the videos that you have in your
58:14
iMessage history you know that you could have sent to somebody like 5 years ago you know your parents ask you Oh, send
58:21
me a video of the kids or whatever. And so you send them like a five minute video and that takes up just like, you know, 10 gigabytes forever on your
58:27
iMessage history. And that just, you know, gets caught up in your device backups and iMessage and iCloud. So you
58:34
there's there's a spot there. And I think that's really the only place where Apple will tell you these are the specific videos that are taking up a lot
58:40
of space. You can delete them there because presumably you already have copies of these videos elsewhere in your photo library where they're more
58:46
discoverable and they're, you know, actually useful to you. but delete them out of your iMessage history and you
58:53
know Bob's your uncle. You'll save a lot of space there. And more importantly, practice doing this yourself before you
58:59
try doing it on your wife's phone because she'll get annoyed if you're fussing around with it for an hour and accidentally delete a bunch of important
59:05
stuff that she likes. All right, good tips. Very good tips. So again, if if you have if you have problems, hit the
59:12
link in the show notes. All right. Okay. So, the last section is we're going to do um reviews, and we're hoping this is
59:19
this uh to sort of do a show and tell. Um you know, every week we're going to choose something that uh we've been
59:26
reviewing, and we're going to try and bring in some of the other cult riders um to talk about stuff they've reviewed.
59:31
Um but this week I'm going to talk about three uh portable CarPlay screens that I've been testing out. Um, and a
59:39
portable CarPlay screen is um a sort of lightweight standalone screen that you
59:45
can mount on your dash and plug into your cigarette lighter port um or a uh
59:52
uh any outlet on the m on the in your car and it'll display CarPlay. And um I've
59:59
got three here to show. Hold on, let's try that. I've been using this one is a
1:00:05
a 7in screen um CarPlay screen. As you can see, it's
1:00:11
it's it's a you know, pretty light. I I took the I took it off its mount. The mount is in the car. Um and I also have
1:00:19
a 10-in one that I've been testing out, which actuallyesh
1:00:27
this one, as you can see, is a little flatter. Mhm. And wider. And this one's And wider. Yeah. And this one's square.
1:00:35
And also this third one which is a which
1:00:40
has a base. So and this one folds. And this one is
1:00:46
good for the glove box. And so this one actually is kind of the easiest one to
1:00:53
stash. Like in San Francisco you cannot leave anything in your car because it's going to get instantly broken. I was
1:00:58
talking to a cop about this the other day and he said if you leave a quarter visible it's going to get broken into. So this one is good for you know the
1:01:07
streets of San Francisco. Um easy to stash in the glove box and put out the way. But this one is my and I don't know
1:01:14
you know what actually I don't have a favorite because I've got I've got three different vehicles and this 7in one I
1:01:20
thought I would like the bigger screen better but I kind of like the square screen and this one fits perfectly into a cubby hole of my Land Rover. There's a
1:01:28
on the uh on the dash there's a little cubby that this thing fits perfectly into. Um so that one's good for the Land
1:01:35
Rover. And then this one I use in I got a Scan IQ. It's like a little twodoor subcompact Toyota. And this one I I
1:01:42
mount the ultra wide one. Yeah. And on top of the built-in um factory stereo.
1:01:49
And it has um a grippy base that you uh it comes with a sticker. So, I stuck it
1:01:56
on top and and the thing is rock solid. And then I just have to screw it in at the back here. And that's the only thing
1:02:02
I don't like about it is I I've got to screw and unscrew this thing every time I get in and out of the car because, you know, I don't want to get ripped off. There's no way I'm going to leave it uh
1:02:09
at the top of the of the uh on top, you know, in in full view through the windshield. But I love these things. I
1:02:15
mean, I I I've waited for so because my cars are so old and beat up and um the
1:02:22
Land Rover doesn't have Bluetooth in it. Um, and but it's got a beautiful Harman Cardon sound system and uh you know I
1:02:29
I've the mechanic um said that there's no way you want to remove the factory stereo
1:02:35
because uh it's so tied into the electronics the thing will never work right ever again and it's got enough electrical problems as it is being a
1:02:42
British car. Yeah. Yeah. Uh electronics by Lord what's his name? The Lord of
1:02:47
Darkness. Lord Lucas. Mhm. Lucas Electronics. The Lord Yeah. The Lord of Darkness. This thing has been like what
1:02:54
I what I what I first did and here's a here's a is I bought like the the solution used to be a couple of years
1:02:59
ago was to get an adapter like this. This is um a wireless CarPlay adapter.
1:03:05
The first ones were wired. You had to plug your phone into these things and then I attached it to a a cheap Fire
1:03:11
tablet, an Amazon Fire tablet. And this thing cost 65 bucks on Amazon. Um the
1:03:16
the adapter and the tablet was I think on sale for $35 $40. Normally like $120
1:03:24
or more, but you know Amazon on Prime Day sold it cheap. But then it was a huge pain to get the thing to charge
1:03:33
while using it because it's only got one port. So I had to tape duct tape a wireless charger to the back. Oh my
1:03:40
goodness. And then when this thing is all wired up, you know, cuz I've got an aux jack going to the stereo. that I've got a power jack going into the um I had
1:03:47
to attach it to a hub to get power to the cigarette lighter. So, there was about eight wires hanging off this thing
1:03:53
and it it worked okay. It was pretty good. But these these these portable power uh screens, CarPlay screens are
1:04:00
way way easier. And I was really surprised that they're they're really um I I don't know if I want to demonstrate
1:04:06
on this one, but that you know the touchcreens are really pretty responsive. They're quick. There's not
1:04:11
much lag. Um, they have pretty decent speakers and pretty decent microphones.
1:04:16
I can have the music on. Uh, and the wind noise will be, you know, pretty loud. How good are the displays? Because
1:04:23
the thing is when you're usually buying a third party thing, like they put in cheap displays that you might not be able to see in like broad sunlight if a
1:04:29
ray of sunshine is coming in through the windshield. How how bright are they? I I have they're pretty bright. You know, I I haven't had a problem. I have noticed
1:04:36
a problem. I mean, like I haven't tested under every circumstance to be for sure. Yeah. Yeah. But you're in sunny California, so you you've got the worst
1:04:41
case scenario every day, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it it tends to be shaded, you know, where it is uh on the
1:04:47
dash. It's it's a little bit offset from the the front windshield. Mhm. But I haven't had any problems with with
1:04:52
legibility at all. Um, and you can uh you can crank up it has its own settings
1:04:59
for brightness um and um for for for certain displays like that. But you know
1:05:06
and these are actually standalone units too. Like this one is a bit more expensive. This is a $200 unit and it
1:05:12
comes with Android 12 and it has all its own built-in apps. So, you can use it as a standalone and and it comes with a GP.
1:05:18
It has built-in GPS and a GPS antenna so that you can use this as a uh on its own
1:05:24
if you wanted to. Now, um I have zero interest in that. And the only thing I was interested in was CarPlay, so I
1:05:31
haven't tested any of that stuff out, but you know, it it comes with Spotify and Chrome. You can chcast this thing.
1:05:37
It's an AirPlay 2 speaker. You can Bluetooth to it. It has its own It has a built-in FM transmitter. So, if you want
1:05:43
to connect it to your car stereo by tuning into the radio, it'll do it that
1:05:48
way. This one also has a built-in FM transmitter. So, you don't even have to plug it in, you know, you can just um
1:05:54
set it up to whatever frequency it is. I haven't tested this, but um and then you tune your radio into that that FM
1:06:00
frequency and it'll play whatever it's playing. Um and it's it's good for phone calls, too. you know, like it'll play uh
1:06:07
it has its own built-in microphones, but it'll play the sound through the speakers, you know, so when you're taking a call, it sounds great. You
1:06:13
know, it'll it'll pause the music and it comes out of the the the car speakers. Uh it also supports Android Auto and you
1:06:20
know, I've uh with iOS 26 with a new version of CarPlay, there's all these new features now. You can actually when
1:06:26
you're parked, you can play video for the first time. But I've had it loaded up with um you can get ways on it. Um,
1:06:34
and for music, you know, I use this one a lot. BBC sounds. Mhm. Um, which is the
1:06:40
BBC, you get all the BBC radio stations streaming from London. To me, that is just a miracle. Um, that I can do this,
1:06:47
you know. It's it's wonderful. Um, Spotify, of course, all kinds of mapping apps. Uh, yeah, I've really fallen in
1:06:53
love with these things. I think they're absolutely fantastic. And well, anyway, did did you guys have
1:06:59
any questions about these? No questions. uh looks a lot easier than ripping the old uh stereo out and replacing it with
1:07:05
a in dash model, which is what I had it Well, I didn't do it. I had it done. And that how much did that cost? A few
1:07:11
hundred bucks. Yeah, I mean the the thing itself was a couple hundred bucks.
1:07:16
And uh yeah, you know, I had some other stuff done at the same time, like a rearview
1:07:21
mirror, whatever. But um yeah, I mean I I honestly I can't imagine not having
1:07:26
CarPlay if I'm going anywhere that I don't know where I need to be. I mean, I know people just use their
1:07:32
phone or whatever, but uh to me, it's just so much simpler. So, something about the the way that it displays on on
1:07:39
your bigger screen, it's just just super easy. Yeah. And once you get used to
1:07:44
using it, you know, you don't I I used to be terrible at texting and um uh
1:07:49
searching for things and maps, you know, uh all the time on my phone. Um and of course, now you don't do it. I I got to
1:07:55
admit I've had a little bit of a mixed um experience getting Siri to find get directions and stuff. You know, sh
1:08:03
But in general, it works. And you know, and I I think mostly it's a it's a you know, if when Siri fails, I think it's
1:08:09
Siri rather than um you know, the microphones or the the the uh the processes on these screens.
1:08:16
Funny enough, we sell all three of these. And the reason I was reviewing them is um yeah, we have them all on the
1:08:22
on the Cult of Mac store. And this this one, the 10-in one, the the the uh uh
1:08:29
the 10-in CarPlay one is normally 200 bucks, but we have it at 40% off for $119.
1:08:35
Um and uh now I don't know if I should say this, but there's another version
1:08:42
that looks that isn't quite as fancy. it it doesn't have all of the built-in Android 12, you know, it's not a
1:08:48
standalone one. It's just more of a sort of pure CarPlay, Android Auto uh connection, a pop, you know, portable
1:08:54
CarPlay screen uh that is only $65, but it's also a 10-in screen like this. And
1:09:00
it comes with a telescopic mount, so you stick it to your windshield uh under the mirror and you can project it out like
1:09:06
under the mirror, which actually looks really good, a really good place to put it. Um, and there's another one that
1:09:12
comes with both front and rear cameras for $109, which is 42% off. And again,
1:09:18
it's not quite as fancy as this one. Um, but it's the same 10-in sort of slim
1:09:24
layout screen. Um, and we can put the the URL in to find those. Uh, this one,
1:09:30
the 7in one is $64, which is 53% off. Uh, and I like this one. This one's a
1:09:35
pretty good one. And then the folding one is $90, which is 43% off. Um, and you can find all these on the CultMax
1:09:42
store. Yeah. A week before Prime Day. So, we've got them beat.
1:09:47
All right. So, I think that just about wraps it up. That's all the cult we have for you this week. Uh, but the fun
1:09:52
continues. You can follow Lewis Wallace on Twitter at Lewis Wallace. I'm El
1:09:57
Kaney on Twitter. I never tweet and I haven't post anything there for years, so I don't know why you'd want to do that. Griffin's on Macedon uh with all
1:10:04
three of his friends. and Blue Sky at D Griffin Jones. Sorry, I didn't mean to say you had three friends. I mean three
1:10:10
friends on Masterdon. Oh, both are true. That's three more than I've got anyway.
1:10:16
Uh and of course you can join. There's a weekl long discussion all all week at the cult club Discord and that's at
1:10:23
support.thecult.com. That's support.thecast.com. So send us a a text uh using the link at
1:10:30
the top of the show notes uh and send us some questions. you know, we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna really dive into
1:10:35
that. I think it's going to be a fun part of the show. So, this has been the Gcast, the worst Apple podcast on the
1:10:40
whole internet. And new co uh episodes of the SHcast come out every Thursday
1:10:46
night. I want to thank you for listening, for watching, and we'll see you next time. Have a great Fourth of
1:10:51
July weekend. Bye. Bye. See you. All right. Sorry.
1:10:58
And the swearing. You going to be on the swearing? Oh, yeah. Of course. Okay, cool. Do you do a beep or how do you do
1:11:04
it? I use the original Macintosh alert sound. How's that sound? If you're the sort of
1:11:10
person to recognize that exact frequency, then it'll be like, "Ah, I recognize that sound." Okay, cool.
1:11:18
All right. Did Did you like hosting? I didn't hate it. Okay.
1:11:31
[Music]
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