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This week: The surprise launch of the new AirTag — and our review, how to get custom music in your Apple Music library, and a deep dive into the mysterious and murky past of Lewis Wallace.
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Produced by Extra Ordinary for Cult of Mac
Music composed by Will Davenport, arranged by D. Griffin Jones; and Those Darn Accordions
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:22 Cult of Mac Newsletters
2:09 AirTag 2
12:22 Ed’s AirTag 2 review
28:58 AirTag 2 teardown
34:22 Custom music in Apple Music
44:13 Listener Questions
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0:01
Coming up, the surprise launch of the new AirTech and our review, how to get custom music in your Apple Music library
0:08
and a deep dive into the mysterious and murky past of Louis Wallace. [laughter]
0:16
Welcome to the new Cult podcast. I'm your host, Leander Kaney. Joining me today, we have D Griffin Jones coming in
0:21
from snowy Ohio. Hey, Griffin. Good evening. I have to I hate to start the show off on bad news, but sadly the
0:26
cult of Mac [music] Apple financial earnings call live streamathon, which normally begins right after the show, is
0:32
sadly cancelled. [music] The unicyclists I hired uh came down with scarlet fever and it just wouldn't
0:38
be a cult of Mac Apple financial earnings call live streamathon without [music] live unicycling. So, sorry to everybody.
0:43
Absolutely not. Oh dear, that's awful. That's tragic news. Lewis, what's going on? Hello, Lewis. Hey, at least I'm not,
0:51
you know, neck deep in snow like Griffin is if he walks outside of his house. Yeah, right. It's absolutely beautiful
0:56
here. And we also have a special guest today, Ed Hardy, coming in from Georgia. Hey, Ed.
1:01
Hi, guys. Nice to join the the the cast for once. Yeah, welcome. How whereabouts in Georgia are you, Ed?
1:07
I'm outside of Atlanta. Okay, cool. Yeah, beautiful city. Lovely place.
1:13
Thought you were going to ask for a street address so people could mail in things. Not [laughter] not not going to do myself.
1:20
Doc Ed on the podcast. All right, let's let's thank our sponsor
1:25
which is the cult of Mac today and weekender newsletters. Thanks very much for sponsoring this week's uh podcast,
1:31
Cult of Mac today and weekender newsletters. Our newsletters are sent every day around noon and early Saturday
1:36
morning. You can sign up for both or just the weekly digest. The weekend is an easyto read digest of the uh week's
1:43
top stories, how-tos, and reviews. It's a great weekend read and cult today is a rundown of the top news of the day, plus
1:49
reviews and how-tos with commentary by yours truly. Now, for a daily newsletter, our numbers are off the
1:54
charts. We enjoy a daily 75% open rate, 75%, which is mad for a free daily email
2:00
newsletter. Not even subscription newsletters, which people pay good money for. See numbers like that. It shows
2:06
that people really like what they read, and ours are free. Sign up at newsletters.cultmack.com today. And I
2:11
hate to say it, but it's the best way to get cult of Mac. Apple News is also a really great way to
2:17
read Cult of Mac. I'll I'll say that as well. Add us as a favorite on in on in Apple News.
2:22
That's true. Yep. That's good. And on Google News, too. That's not a bad way to read. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
2:28
So, all right. Five years, hundreds, maybe thousands of Apple engineers and designers have been laboring over the
2:34
Air Tag, too. Tim Apple commanded them to come up with an update worthy of the ubiquitous item finder, which has slowly
2:39
become a sleeper hit. Thousands of tests and millions of prototypes later, Apple has finally unveiled the Air Tag 2,
2:46
which at first glance is exactly the same as the old one. Lewis, what do you
2:51
think? Why don't you tell us about the new Air Tag 2? Yeah, it does look a lot like a very
2:57
familiar item. Uh, launched this week. What is it? First thing Monday morning, right? Very exciting way to start the
3:03
week. [clears throat] It looks the same except for slight slight uh typography change, right?
3:11
Things are in all caps. [laughter] Mhm. Crazy. But that's not what's important. What's
3:16
important is that it's got a better ultra wideband chip that enhances the precision finding. And uh this is the
3:23
same one that's in the iPhone 17, iPhone Air, blah blah blah, these other things, Apple Watch Series 11. Uh, [snorts]
3:30
and [clears throat] the other thing is it's got an upgraded Bluetooth chip so that it works better uh can can reach
3:38
you can find it at at longer distances and uh this is going to be very helpful
3:44
for a lot of people. A louder a louder speaker. So now when you're you know
3:50
you're pressing your phone, you saying make a sound and it does and you can just barely hear it. Now you're going to be able to hear it better. I I haven't
3:56
actually heard one of these yet, but uh I think I know someone who did because he tested. Uh other than that, same
4:03
design, this weird like Mentos circle oval thing. Still no way to attach it to
4:10
anything. You still have to buy a keychain or some other type of holder, you know. And of course, apples cost
4:17
even more than the Air Tag itself. Uh but there's plenty of third party options. I I mean I can't wait to get my
4:23
hands. Although I already have like I don't know 20 air tags. They're they're on everything. So I'm I'm actually
4:28
excited about the uh better precision finding because that's like the one area where I find it to be Yeah. You know,
4:36
sometimes it's great, sometimes it's not so great, sometimes it takes a little while to lock in. Uh so I'm I'm really c
4:42
curious to hear what Ed had to say about exactly how much better that aspect of this thing is. Just like with the old
4:48
one, the uh precision finding uses haptic visual and audio feedback to guide you to your lost items. But uh the
4:55
Air Tag 2, which is actually technically, I believe, called Air Tag in parenthesis second generation. Um
5:03
Apple says it can do uh precision finding from up to 50% farther away than the original one, which is awesome. Uh
5:11
as I mentioned, Bluetooth chips better. Uh and here's another thing. Uh before
5:17
precision finding for an Air Tag only worked with iPhone. Now you can use your uh well certain Apple watches, Apple
5:23
Watch Series 9 or later and Apple Watch Ultra 2 or later. [snorts] So you get the little uh precision finding thing on
5:30
on that watch face and go right to where you need to go. Uh [clears throat]
5:35
I mentioned it's louder. Apple says it's 50% louder than the original Air Tag. And uh Apple comes up with this number
5:43
enabling users to hear the tracker up to two times farther than before. I I I don't I don't know how in the world they
5:49
would uh measure that, but apparently they did. Uh let's see. Same size as the
5:54
original from 2021. Same price, $29 for a single Air Tag, $99 for a fourpack.
6:00
Can't wait for the sales to start. And uh the one good I don't know if you guys have ever done this, but the one good
6:06
thing about paying full price and buying it from Apple is that you can get free personalized engraving. And it's it's
6:12
kind of cool, especially if you get one of the uh you know, the keychain things that doesn't cover it up completely. You
6:18
can see the uh Air Tag on there. So, you know, that's cool. Oh my god. Where did
6:24
this come from? Mind-blowing facts about Air Tag. Where did Where did this come from, Griffin? I I put it in last night. Oh, tell us
6:32
about it, Leander. Mind-blowing fact. Well, I did some research. I was kind of curious, you know, like they they they launched five years ago, and I was I
6:38
was, you know, I wonder how many they sold. So, I tried to do some uh googling around and uh no one actually has really
6:44
come up with a good estimate. Um there's the best estimate that I saw was from the first two years, which they sold um
6:51
I forget now. I think it was uh I can't remember 50 million or something like that. Anyway, I found another estimate
6:56
and I'm not really sure if the if it's really, you know, good. It came from some analyst that I never heard of, but
7:01
330 340 million sold to date was the estimate.
7:06
Um, and you know, that's quite a lot. One thing you do know though is that there's 1.65 billion devices in the fine
7:13
my network. I think that's a much uh that's a much more accurate um uh estimate about you know the numbers
7:19
there. And of course it spans the whole globe. You know, they say quite rightly that that you can find um air test can
7:26
be found in any in any airport, you know, worldwide. And it's also good for the carousel with the new precision
7:32
finding. So, you know, when your bag comes out and you can't you have no idea which one it is, uh Air Tag, you know, will help you there. Um it's actually,
7:39
you know, I forgotten this. Uh it it has really good end to-end encryption. Um,
7:45
and no one, not even Apple knows the location or the identity of an Air Tag that's found, and neither do the
7:51
Finders. Uh, it's really well done. It's, you know, they put people put it on kids and and and pets to track them.
7:58
And I I was reading about a dog that got rescued from the ocean. It got swept down a riptide and the ocean.
8:04
Yeah. It got it got swept to another beach and they found it thanks to this Air Tag and they plugged it from the from the uh from the sea. Mhm.
8:11
Um I think the and the design I think the design is pure genius, you know. I don't know why people are complaining, but there's no there's no key chain. I
8:17
mean, it's so thanks because it's round. It's so adaptable. You can put it into all kinds of places, all kinds of
8:22
devices. I mean, if it had a if it had a any kind of attachment on it, I think it might um compromise that. Uh it's been
8:30
used by high-end car thieves to track down luxury automobiles for stealing later. Uh, and also like um
8:38
air tag poo videos were for a while a thing on uh [laughter] on the videos. There was a they became a
8:44
popular craze on viral video. People would flush an air tag down the toilet and see watch it going down the pipes to the local uh water treatment plant.
8:52
And here's an interesting one as well. I also found out that they they uh some a security researcher in Germany used it
8:57
to uh out a um secret German spy agency. She suspected that this um uh some
9:05
company was a front for the German uh spy spies. And so she sent them an air
9:10
tag in the mail and then watched as it got taken to the the official spy headquarters. So she cleverly figured
9:16
out that this this this com this uh this fake company was in fact a front for the Germans uh spy agency. I think a lot of
9:22
people like complain about the design at least because there are spots on the Air Tag that are empty space and you can
9:28
like take a really tiny drill bit and drill a hole through the middle and it's like if you can do that on like the
9:34
final engineered product, how hard would it be for Apple to just, you know, rearrange the internals a little bit to
9:40
make like a a proper hole in the Air Tag just so you can directly tie it onto a
9:46
key tie like a little loop into it and put that onto a keychain instead of do the giant, you know,
9:51
air tag holder thing that wraps around the entire Air Tag itself. Like if if it's possible already to drill a tiny
9:58
hole through it, like if that were an actual supported part of its design, then it could be better and easier.
10:03
I'm guessing they do it because it's going to compromise its um water uh resistance.
10:09
Mhm. Uh you know, because if you if you have a if you have a hole there, then there's an extra part that's got to be sealed
10:15
up. And I'll bet it's a weak point that would that would make it less waterproof, less dustproof. I mean, it's
10:20
got an IP67 rating right now, I think. Uh, and I forget what that means. 30 minutes under water or something like
10:26
that. Um, but I I was thinking about the same thing, too. And I'll bet it's because it would compromise its um, you know, water
10:33
and dust resistance. I I don't know. I think the the holes that people etch in them, I think they're just entirely through the
10:38
plastic. And so maybe Apple could like redesign the internals to like leave a little smaller
10:45
space on the top or a slightly larger space on the top so that the you know the actual plastic mold of the piece
10:52
could just have like a hole built in. There isn't much room around the edge of that battery though. And uh I would
10:57
think drilling a hole would really like not only would it be a small hole, but I
11:04
bet you there wouldn't be much plastic around the outer edge of it and you know the danger would be that the thing would
11:09
snap off. That's that is a risk. Yeah. Yeah. I think they've got about a small, you know, they've made it as small as
11:15
they possibly can, I think, by packing in the I mean, the battery is the one big thing that they can't uh at least a
11:21
replaceable battery uh you know, mess with. And and then on top of that, the speaker and then the um the radios. Uh
11:28
you know, there's there's there's not a lot of room there. I'm sure if Steve Jobs dropped it into an aquarium, you're not going to be seeing many bubbles
11:34
coming up. [laughter] I I'll bet you that they sell a lot of uh a lot of the keychains and and those
11:40
sorts of things, too. Even though Even though they're probably not the best choice. I bet they sell a lot of them.
11:45
But you The good news is you can still get a fine woven one. Fine woven. It lives. And how much did that that key holder
11:52
cost? Like 46 35 bucks, right? [laughter] Air tag itself is 29. Crappy little fine
11:59
woven thing is 35. Well, fine woven I can tell you it lasts forever, you know. Very durable. Very
12:05
It's actually a really good tech. You're talking about tech woven. Tech woven. Oh, I thought you're right.
12:12
Oh, [laughter] no. So, is it going to fall to pieces and look all like crap uh about a two three
12:18
days after you get it? I don't know. [sighs] I Well, we actually put it to the test. We
12:24
actually got a hold of a new one and uh our our good friend Ed Hardy uh is here today to talk about it because Ed really
12:31
tested it out. What did you think of it, Ed? Um it I am pleased. It is a genuine improvement over the original in in
12:38
multiple ways and pretty much in every way that Apple promised. I'm a big fan
12:43
of uh doing real world testing. So, I just started out by putting this little
12:50
thing on one end of my of my house and going to the other end of my house and seeing if I could get a connection to
12:55
it. And uh I sure could. Uh, I and I put the original generation Air Tag next to
13:04
it and I could get to the point where I could no longer do the precision finding
13:09
connection to the uh the original. And I'm still getting a uh a strong connection through to the Air Tag 2. And
13:16
by position finding, I mean that's the the part where you can connect it to a uh you can connect to it on your iPhone
13:23
and it'll point a little arrow right at the at the the device so you can walk straight to it um like you see in there.
13:31
And it is tremendously convenient. It really is what sets the Air Tag apart. I
13:37
have used a whole bunch of other um rivals and they all have advantages and
13:42
disadvantages, but I have never found one that can that can do precision font.
13:48
Yeah, I think that's a big differentiator, isn't it? I mean, it's and it's hugely convenient. I've always had great luck with it. I find it kind
13:54
of remarkable, you know, uh when the sound I've, you know, I don't, okay,
14:00
it's fine when if if it's close, but uh for leading you right to the, you know, your lost keys or whatever when they're
14:06
in someone's pocket hanging up in a jacket on the back of a chair somewhere and you you know, it takes me right to
14:12
it. I've always had great love, but it sounds like you didn't lose the previous ones. Anyway,
14:17
I mean, it eventually works. I mean, I I found my uh car keys that somebody, you
14:23
know, accidentally took from a bar one time, found them the next morning in their house, which was freaky.
14:29
[laughter] Uh but I noticed it was it was awesome. I mean, got it right back, beeped it. They they walked out, brought
14:36
my code out very sheepishly. Um but I I mean, like in my house, you know, we
14:42
have one on our cat because, you know, where's the cat? We don't know. Did he get outside? Is he stuck in the closet?
14:47
Where is he? And um you know so you're pretty sure that he's within range, right? And and you see that like
14:53
connected the the like circle of dots there. It says it says something like far like if you see on the screen it's
15:00
far away and then you can kind of it says signal is weak and it you know you move around try and find it. you know,
15:06
you start to finally finally it connects and the precision finding is great, but it does for me anyway with in my house
15:14
with my cat and my phone sometimes takes a little while to kind of connect. I don't Does a new one
15:21
connect faster? Ed, it connects farther. Uh, it's not necessarily faster. Um, but it does it
15:28
does that well. Well, I mean, you'll be less there's a whole lot less going for, you know, far and, you know, giving you
15:35
a general um general connection and giving you the go straight to specifics instead.
15:42
What's Apple claiming, Ed, for the for the distance now for the new one? It does not make any claims. It does not make a claim because it's
15:49
it's kind of meaningless. Like, you can it's great. you know, the the distance
15:55
between if it's on your cat and he's in your neighbor's yard is going to be completely different from the distance between you're in your kitchen and it's
16:01
the keys in your in your uh your closet uh in the pocket of your pants in your
16:06
closet. I mean, one of them's 20 feet and the other one's 200 feet. And it depends on like the construction
16:12
of your house, I'm sure. You know, yes, you you know, brick, brick or not brick, if it will affect it
16:18
tremendously. Looks like uh you know it in your testing and in your review it looks like you said that uh the find my
16:24
app on my iPhone 17 can point right to the second generation Air Tag from almost 50 ft away through walls and a
16:29
closed door and it's a moderately you know a few rooms over certainly
16:36
I I tested it in a couple of houses and that's about as far as away as I could get realistically inside of my house and
16:42
inside of my friend's house is about 50 ft away. That's pretty good. 50 ft. That's pretty good. And how about the speakers? Why
16:48
don't you tell us a little bit about that? The new speaker is louder. Um, and it's
16:56
also more shrill, so it's a little easier to hear. I'm glad that's not the only change in the
17:02
new one. I would not be telling people you need to run out to get a new Air Tag, too. So, it can be more shrill.
17:08
Another [snorts] benefit for the new speaker is apparently the the te the tear down for it finds that it's harder
17:14
to remove the speaker. So, it makes it harder for people to use it for stalking.
17:19
That was one of the big uh the big downsides of this thing, right? I remember not too long after it came out, the original one, it was like, "Oh my
17:25
god, people are using it to track people and and you know, nipping out the
17:31
speakers or whatever so that so that people can't find them on them." That That's pretty uh nefarious. So, now it's
17:39
harder. That's awesome. More importantly, I think uh supposedly it goes from an F note to a G. That's very
17:44
important. Mhm. So, by the time that they have the Air Tag 8, they'll have a full octave
17:49
and you can play music with [laughter] them. Uh, you also wrote in your review that you you checked with a sound meter and
17:55
it went from 66 dB to 87. So, that's quite a bit louder. It's quite a bit louder.
18:02
Yeah. 87 is like threshold of that's that's pretty close to like you're going to get a warning from your air airpods.
18:10
Mhm. I can tell you holding this thing in my hand and setting it off, that's that's pretty piercing.
18:15
Like if you use it all the time to find a lost cat, it'll have an extra benefit of it'll annoy the crap out of the cat.
18:21
I have in fact, you know, when I've I have been testing the thing with it on
18:27
the cat and I set it off and made the cat jump. [laughter] I guess we should tell people. I mean,
18:33
Apple always always says they've maintained this from the first one. And they said this is not for tracking pets
18:39
or people. They they spe I think they specifically said that in the or in the website in the press release. Not for
18:45
pets or people. And uh you know I mean 87 dB right near a cat's ear. I mean
18:51
that might be a little much but I'll use it sparingly. There's there's no volume control, is there?
18:57
No. Well, I saw lots of um uh stories about people tracking their kids. you know,
19:03
they go to Disneyland and then they they they they uh they they stick one in the kid and or you know, making sure they
19:08
get to school or after school activities. And you can actually buy a whole bunch of different accessories, too, um on Amazon, like straps.
19:16
Yeah. [laughter] For the kid, I think it gets a lot of people. It's,
19:21
you know, I I'm sure it's a there's a mixed um a mixed uh whether it's good
19:27
for tracking people or not. I mean, you're probably far better off with an Apple Watch on a kid. Uh but yeah,
19:32
that's going to be difficult to strap to your pet. And the tracking thing too, you know, like that the they did a pretty good job I thought Apple of doing
19:38
that of uh because if if if it you know when you tell us about it, Ed, my sis my sister real world tried to use
19:46
Air Tags to her husband has her his parents are quite elderly and were still
19:53
insisting on driving. So, they put a an air tag on their car keys so that if
19:58
they the worst came to worst, they would still be able to find their parents. And it's just not great for that. Um, if
20:05
you're the system works fine on the assumption that what you're tracking is
20:11
going to stand still because you're going to get you have to some other iPhone has to come near them to set the
20:18
alarm off. And if it doesn't, the alarm doesn't go off, which is fine if your if your backpack is sitting in a bus
20:24
station, somebody, you know, in the window is going to walk by and alert you, you know, in a time window is going
20:30
to walk by and alert you that you're this is where your bag is. But if your bag is walking um like say your
20:36
grandparents would, then it's it's not much help. Yeah. And like you said, if they're not
20:41
passing by anybody who's in the network, um they can go undetected for a long time. Yes. I think the idea that like somebody
20:49
can track you with an Air Tag, yes. Can they track you really well? Not really. I mean, they can know you're at the
20:54
office. They're not going to know that you're, you know, exactly where you are in the park,
21:01
right? It's not bad for a place like Disneyland or somewhere where there's a lot of phones, airports or shopping malls, places where there's a lot of
21:07
people around with with um you know with with uh with with with iPhones and other
21:12
uh you know devices that can uh that can track it. Yes. But also, I think the the Air Tag
21:18
gets unfairly blamed as being like the, you know, the thing people use to track people just because it's Apple's version
21:24
of it and it's the most famous like among every GPS tracking device, Air Tag
21:30
is probably the only one that most people could name if they could name it at all. Whereas, it's it's really not
21:36
the best for for stalking people. If you actually want to stalk somebody, you know, you're you're not very well
21:41
off getting an Air Tag. There's a million, you know, ones on Amazon that have no privacy protections whatsoever
21:47
that would be better suited for that purpose, which Oh, yeah. You can get one GP that's a GPS and has cellular phone connectivity
21:54
built into it. Um, but and that'll track that person 24/7.
22:00
You know exactly where they are. I tested one for built into a dog collar and it worked great. But it's $600, not
22:07
29. Yeah. And and Air tags aren't GPS. They don't have GPS just to be sort of, you
22:13
know, technical about it. Yes. Yeah. Cool. So, what do you think overall, Ed? You know, is it worth the upgrade?
22:19
Yes. Yes. And no. Um, if you're if you're frequently losing things,
22:25
absolutely. But I don't know that you need to pitch out your old one to get the new one because actually my favorite
22:31
feature is works great on both of them which is I don't often lose things even
22:37
the cat but I do leave things behind and that's the actually the function that I
22:43
use 80% of the time which is I've got the famous casserole cover.
22:49
The famous casserole cover. You know, you you go to a I slip one in my casserole dish and and I take it and
22:57
when I leave my friend's neighborhood, he will go off and say, "Dude, you've you've you've left the casserole dish
23:03
behind again. You just attract a casserole dish." Sure. [laughter]
23:09
Because like the casserole dish isn't going missing, but it's I' I don't want to get home and I like, "Oh, damn. I've
23:17
left the casserole dish at blah blah blah behind again." and that, you know, and they then I got to go to the hassle
23:23
of going and getting it back. That's actually a really that's a really great idea cuz I, you know, brought a
23:30
dish to somebody's house for like over Thanksgiving and I left one of my favorite spatulas there and then I knew
23:36
I was going to see them again at Christmas and, you know, luckily they're only a month apart, but for that month I didn't have my favorite spatula.
23:42
I should have taped an Air Tag to it before [laughter] I left. The weird thing is that you have multiple favorite spatulas.
23:49
You know, I I'm a bit of a minimalist. I you know, each of the things in utensils in my kitchen serves a purpose. They're
23:55
all like, you know, the matching like KitchenAid set and uh you know, they're they're all like the the the sk aqua sky
24:00
color. And so, like when one of them goes missing, then it's like, well, I don't have a slotted spatula. I have other spatulas that serve other
24:06
purposes, but not that one. [laughter] You better talk them all, Griffin.
24:12
I apparently I do. Yeah. I I think you should start a website called Cult of Spatulas. [laughter]
24:18
It would be a very short website because I would only have five posts and then that would be all my Spanish, [laughter]
24:24
but you would cover Yeah, there would definitely be the deep dive on it. I I put air tags in everything. I have
24:29
one in my base case. I have one in my darts bag. I have uh I have them in I I put one in my truck
24:36
just in case somebody steals it or I forget where it's parked. Um works. And what you were saying about
24:41
finding stuff at an airport, one of the great things about having an Air Tag in your luggage is [snorts] like if you're
24:48
doing a connecting flight or something, you can see if you're or or when you land where you're going, you can see
24:54
when as soon as you turn your phone on, you can see whether or not your Air Tag or or you know, your luggage has made it
25:00
with you or whether it's still back in San Francisco or wherever you left from, which is, you know, I mean, it's minor,
25:07
but it's peace of mind. And uh you know like there was one time uh my wife
25:13
Suzanne was uh at the airport. I guess we're both there and uh
25:18
like the luggage didn't come out forever like like 45 minutes or an hour cuz there's some kind of like strike or
25:24
something you know like but you could look and see that the luggage was in the building. It's just nobody would bring
25:31
it up. It was just sitting there for like literally an hour. But, you know, way better to know that it's there and
25:36
and you don't just like head home and and then have to come back to the airport, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah,
25:43
but it it definitely infuriated you, didn't it? Just to see us waiting, sitting there waiting. Yeah, it was it was very irritating.
25:50
People were cursing the uh baggage handlers union. [laughter]
25:55
All right. Well, Ed, was there anything more to add, you know, to the review? Anything that we didn't talk about? I I
26:03
mean I do like the device and I think that people dismiss it uh as like I don't need that cuz I never lose my
26:09
stuff. But other people will lose your stuff for you. Um you know your your car
26:15
keys go missing, you know, and it's not your fault, but they they go they go wandering around. So consider putting
26:22
air tags on your stuff because in many cases if something goes missing it's really bad. Um, it can be uh and uh an
26:30
air an air tag can be peace of mind. Think of it this way. If you never need it there, then you've uh you've come out
26:37
ahead. You haven't lost your stuff. Yeah. And I mean, for the last several
26:44
years, you can get a fourack of these things for like 65 bucks often on sale. So that's when I load up on them. So I I
26:50
can't wait till the four packs of the new ones go on sale. Although I I I know what you mean. Like why would I retire an Air Tag? cuz I mean they they work
26:58
fine. It's just these other ones work better, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is how Apple
27:04
rolls, isn't it? I mean, you know, that sort of steady incremental improvement. Um I don't think that they're necessing
27:09
everyone to go out and replace their their old Air Tags with these new ones just to get that, you know, the extra 30 dibels. But if you're going to be
27:15
buying, you know, from now on down the line, whenever you buy an Air Tag, it's it's much better. It's much better than the other.
27:20
You know, this is also an excuse to just Air Tag more things in your life. Like they just come out with new ones. Oh, okay. Buy buy another fourpack and I've
27:27
got four new things that'll, you know, be louder and easier to find. Yeah. All your spatulas, all your
27:34
I know some people who actually double up Air Tags in their luggage. They have one on the outside so that it's visible
27:39
and it's easier to find, but then in the off chance that that one gets stolen or, you know, cut off by a thief, you have
27:45
another Air Tag inside the bag that they don't know about. Yeah. You know, that's a good idea. The
27:52
only one that I've ever lost uh was on a a piece of luggage. It was uh you know
27:58
attached to the outside and it came off somewhere and my luggage arrived be all beat to hell but without the Air Tag and
28:05
the thing was you know in the middle of an airport in Italy. It's like okay well I'm in the United States. I sent an
28:11
email. Never heard back from him of course. Never got it back. It was a nice uh a nice Air Tag holder too. Like a
28:17
nice leather one. That was before they started working with airlines. Now they have some kind
28:24
of situation with the airlines. Some kind of uh and I I don't know if it's every single airline in the world, but
28:29
uh you can now 30 airlines only 30. Yeah. Anyway, you can send the information to the airline so that they
28:36
can find it, which is cool. Yeah. Very cool. Very cool. All right,
28:41
let's let Ed go. Thanks so much for your review, Ed. And uh thanks for letting me uh do a do
28:48
a guest appearance. Thank you. Now get the hell back to work. See you. Bye. Somebody running has got to work. Jeez.
28:55
Eventually, you [laughter] know. See you. All right. Well, let's talk about the tear down because there were some
29:00
interesting things that they found out when it was uh turned it looked like torn down. Major internal changes
29:08
apparently. uh they uh you know this this is goes
29:13
you know as we discussed before you know talking about bad actors uh tampering with it to remove the speaker so it
29:18
wouldn't give a warning to if you're tracking your your ex um your ex so with
29:23
the second gen generation air tag Apple redesigned the internal so that's more difficult uh and this is a tear down
29:30
from the tracking tag by YouTuber Joseph Taylor highlighted this um while the Air
29:35
Tag 2's out of designs and de design and dimensions remain unchanged. It features a notably thinner PCB which is what's
29:44
the PCB? That's the control board, right? The I can't remember what something
29:50
something board. [laughter] Okay. Right.
29:55
Printed circuit board. Ah, apparently to avoid tampering, it's used more glue to to it secure the secure the
30:03
internal speaker magnet into place. It's still removable, but it takes a lot more effort than before.
30:09
Um, Apple loves the glow and unfortunately he tried this out and it remains, you know, fully functional
30:15
even after you remove the speaker. Other minor changes include slightly angled battery contacts and a QR code inside
30:22
the battery compartment. Huh. Wonder what that's for. Just make it I mean because the setup is so easy. All
30:29
you do is pull out the little uh the little thing that keeps the battery turned off and it just instantly pops up
30:35
on your phone. So what is a QR code for? Maybe that's so that like an Apple employee can scan it and ID which one it
30:41
is somehow. I wonder if it helps with people who uh find one or something somehow.
30:48
Maybe maybe you know the uh it it send out alerts to to to uh any phones that are following
30:56
it. So uh and this works with Androids too. So any any any any device found nearby
31:04
uh it'll ping. So, um, it what even if you're trying to if you're trying to track an ex or your spouse or a kid or
31:11
something like that, I mean, it'll try and if they have a phone, it'll try to ping their phone, but if they don't have a phone on them, um, it'll ping any
31:18
other phone that it finds near them, which I think is actually a pretty good I mean, you know, it the reports of the
31:26
tracking and the stalking have fallen off a cliff, haven't they? I mean, I haven't heard one about one recently. And it hasn't been highlighted by secure
31:32
like like like Griffin said, there are plenty of other trackers that are much easier to use if you for these kind of
31:38
purposes. Um, and I I haven't seen any security researchers calling them out. I mean, it's been five years out now. And
31:45
you know there was a lot of initial press about this and and worries and I'm sure there have been some some cases but
31:53
you know overall I don't think there have been any reports recently especially from security researchers saying that this is an ongoing problem
31:58
that needs to be addressed. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, you know, the the tracking thing too makes it
32:03
unfortunately it makes it useless for um for for tracking stolen items because,
32:11
you know, the the the thief or the thieves get a notification. You know,
32:16
like I I've got them on my bike. If someone nicks my bike, um, even if I've hidden it in a clever place somewhere
32:22
inside the frame, whoever's nicked it is going to get a notification that there's an air tag following them, which will
32:28
alert them to, you know, to go and find the air tag on the bike somewhere and remove it. Now, when you mark a a item as missing,
32:36
does that change? Does it still it must it must not change because people would just if they were
32:42
going to track somebody, they would just put it on there and mark it as missing. Uh, I I It doesn't.
32:48
I haven't noticed those. Uh I haven't noticed those. What does it say? It
32:53
always says like an unknown Air Tag is traveling with you, right? That's what it it pops up on your phone. You're
32:58
like, "Oh, that's interest." But I got to say, I have not I've not gotten those all that consistently.
33:04
There have been times where I've gone on like a road trip with a friend who has like the new, you know, AirPods Pro that
33:09
have the like the AirPods Pro two or three have the, you know, the built-in Find My system as well. And you know, by
33:15
the time we get to Philadelphia, it's like, "Oh, there are AirPods traveling with you." And everybody gets that
33:20
notification. It's like, "Oh, okay. That's, you know, John's AirPods." I just I I've noticed that it doesn't
33:27
always happen. I mean, even I mean, I'm I'm sure once you like say, "Oh, I know
33:34
that that's my wife's wallet that's traveling with me." I'm sure it's it's only going to show you that one time.
33:39
But I mean like I've I've gone on trips with other people who have I air tags on
33:45
their keychains or whatever and and never never gotten one of those alerts. So I I'm not 100% sure how fantastic
33:53
that works. But I I you know when I've got them I I thought wow this is really pretty good
33:58
at um seem to work fine because I haven't got one recently but then again I haven't been anywhere. [laughter]
34:03
That'll do it. Well, that air tagged head on I think was really kind of underwhelming to be
34:09
honest. It didn't really say very much. More glue and an angled battery.
34:15
[laughter] Yeah. And [clears throat] Yeah. And and and some mystery QR code that no one knows what it does. [laughter]
34:21
The mystery code. All right, let's move on to Apple Apple Music. And you know, this is uh this is
34:27
one of the we're going to talk about one of the big differentiating factors, one of the big things that makes Apple Music
34:33
better than Spotify. And uh you know I I did this myself back in the day. You know I don't know if you
34:38
remember Limewire and Audio Galaxy these Mur Piracy apps. Um the Audio Galaxy was
34:44
amazing. It was just so easy to to to snag gigabytes and gigabytes of uh of
34:51
music. And of course actually most of this was stuff I had already owned. Um I was mostly interested in getting digital
34:58
versions of stuff I had on LPs or CDs. And it was much easier than ripping a ripping a CD. But anyway, I ended up
35:04
with about 30 gigs worth of um dodgy music. None of it was really labeled very well. The metadata was terrible.
35:11
The artwork was missing. Um but uh it's it's really if you have a bunch of this
35:17
stuff and if you have like custom recordings of concerts, you know, dead shows or uh you know, obscure what's it
35:26
called? Something Pony Club. Pony Club. That's my favorite band. [laughter] Yeah.
35:31
From the Midwest. Mhm. If they're not if they're not if you if you you know if you can't find their
35:37
stuff on the streaming services, it's it's super easy to add them to to your to your Apple Music um to your Apple
35:44
Music library. And Griffin's going to show us how to do that, right, Griffin? Yeah. And you know, there are a lot of legitimate places where you can find
35:49
music like this like archive.org or actually has like a lot of uh live albums and stuff and concerts and things
35:56
like uh you know I was looking up this um radio head concert that I went to
36:01
years and years ago that was at um the Blossom Music Center up north uh over by
36:06
Akran and you know this is a concert I went to a long time ago but I was googling about it to find out some
36:12
details about it because I wasn't that big into radio head at the time that I saw them but then I found somebody uploaded it to archive.org or like the
36:18
whole track listing. And so I I of course downloaded it. Uh it's in my, you know, downloads folder and they have it
36:24
separated out into like all the different MP3 files. Super Collider is a great great song.
36:30
I'd love to hear that live. Oh yeah. Well, I can you can you can you can you know I'll put a link in the show
36:35
notes to this to this album where you can download it. Um, they already have it as the MP3s, but you know, the the
36:40
brilliance of Apple Music is that it is incredibly simple to add this custom music to your library because it's, you
36:46
know, an ancient app that dates back to iTunes. You just select all the MP3s in the Finder and just, you know, drag them
36:53
in. And for some reason, it didn't work. It only selected one. But I'll select them all, drag them in, and it keeps
37:00
only selecting one. So, I'm going to try again. Okay, there might be a problem with my
37:06
computer here. Uh well, if that doesn't work, there's a different way. You can also go to the menu bar and hit file,
37:12
import, and then you can you can select them all here from from that interface
37:18
as well. I think you could do this on a PC and a Mac. There's the new music app on the um for Windows that I actually
37:27
don't know. I'm not positive it supports this feature because it wasn't out when I was still using Windows, but you can still download iTunes for Windows as
37:33
well if you want uh that bundle of fun. But, you know, you import all your music and then it's super easy to customize it
37:40
as well. You know, another advantage of um Apple Music over Spotify is you can edit the metadata. So, I've added this
37:48
album in and it shows up as unknown album, unknown artist, and all the song titles are kind of a jumbled mess.
37:54
That's like mostly the file name, but you can just rightclick on the album,
37:59
click get info, and I can just type in oh, the artist radio head album. I'll
38:05
give it a custom name, Radio Head Live
38:11
Blossom Music Center. And, you know, type in the year and you
38:17
can even specify the genre and even the the number of tracks overall and uh you
38:24
can add custom artwork as well. Uh, one of my favorite features of Apple Music. Uh, so I was looking to see if I had any
38:31
pictures from this event and I found uh this photo here. [laughter] That's oh wow
38:36
incredibly grainy. I took it with my presumably iPhone 4 at the time.
38:42
You can't really see anything. But you know what? It kind of looks like it would be like a a weird sort of like
38:48
album cover in that sort of way because it's so lowfi. So, you know, you just
38:53
drag that in and suddenly it's the it's the album artwork and it it'll even show up and you know, if you have an Apple
39:00
Music subscription, it'll all of these changes will automatically just sync to your phone. Um, yeah, that's the best thing. That's the
39:06
best thing, isn't it? That automatic syncing across all your devices, you know, and then you can go back and even, you know, change the clean up the
39:12
the title for all these songs, uh, if you want, you know, archive.org has the the the track listing. So, I can say,
39:19
okay, this one is just the, uh, intro and it's track one. [laughter] Then you go and this one is Bloom and
39:26
it's track two. I'm having a flashback. I used
39:31
[laughter] to I used to used to do this kind of crap with stuff from Napster.
39:37
There there are albums that I've added to my music library that uh I made my
39:42
own album artwork for because I didn't like the album artwork that it came with it. And that's not something you can do on Spotify. It's only Apple Music. And
39:48
it's also not something you can do on an iPad. Again, only a Mac or a PC running Apple Music or iTunes. But uh there you
39:56
go. Quick little nickel tour. And if you know we have an older audience, maybe they this is isn't new to them, but you
40:02
know, a reminder, you know, clean up clean up your music libraries, make it beautiful, make it fun. You know what I hate about this, though?
40:09
Have you So, I have to do this all the time. You know, we we're those darn accordians getting ready for a gig. So,
40:15
we I make a set list in Apple Music. And sometimes there are demos, right?
40:21
Demo recordings. That's the only It's never been released. I've got a file on my hard drive.
40:28
I I make a set list and then I make the mistake of sharing it with somebody and
40:35
for whatever reason I I get super con I always find it very confusing like a a
40:41
message says something like oh if you do this it'll be you know if you share it
40:46
will be deleted from your library or whatever. And uh I'm constantly battling
40:51
it. And I finally I realized I just can't share a a a thing like that. I think I would have to give each person
40:58
send them that file. I could blip them that song file. Mhm. And they have to have it in their library
41:04
and somehow match it up. I I don't know. I've never figured out a way to do it. And uh I I find it completely
41:10
infuriating like once a year when I have to make a set list to practice with. That is the downside. You can't do so
41:16
you can't do shared albums. You also can't do uh they also doesn't show up in
41:22
your Apple Music replay if you listen to a lot of custom albums because it doesn't match them to Apple Music. Apple
41:28
Music does have a feature called uh like iTunes match where it'll try and match them up if it's something that it knows
41:35
about like maybe you ripped your Beatles CD and so it's like oh yeah, you know that's the Beatles. We know what that
41:40
song is. it'll match it up and then you'll get the live lyrics and then you'll get the it'll show up in your
41:45
Apple Music replay sometimes, but uh you know if if it's a concert that Apple
41:50
Music doesn't know about, it doesn't show up in your Apple Music Replay. So, I've exclusively been listening to like this uh orchestral
41:57
concert version of like this particular video game soundtrack uh for pretty much on repeat of the last month and
42:05
Ode to Spatulas. Yeah, I I don't even know what my Apple Music replay is going to be for January.
42:10
certainly won't be this weird concert that it doesn't know about. So, who knows? Uh my my listening hours are
42:15
going to be way under reportported, but that that's another downside. But sometimes the juice is worth the
42:21
squeeze. It's worth the effort. [laughter] I I I I remember trying to use some of
42:28
those third party Tune Sweeper I think it was called, and some of the other um apps that were supposed to automatically
42:34
clean up your iTunes library. it would recognize the tracks and then go out to music match and then it would also find
42:39
artwork but it never worked and and in fact actually what it did I think a few times it completely mislabeled a bunch
42:45
of stuff. So um that caused a huge headache you know that uh then I had to
42:50
face the prospect of going back and manually fixing all these tracks that had mislabeled so I gave up on those but I haven't
42:56
tried that for years so I I don't know whether they've improved or not. I can only hope they have. I know iTunes Match
43:02
used to not be very good, but it's I think they've they've they've cleaned it up in in the last few years. I even had
43:08
the big problems. I mean, when it first launched there was the the big kurfuffle over, you know, it it was like switching
43:14
out the explicit versions of songs with the non-explicit versions and it was like censoring them and people were getting mad about that. But, um, I I
43:21
think it's improved over the last few years and since it transitioned into Apple Music. It's still a great service. What's it like on Spotify? It's it's horrible. I
43:28
think I I came across an article that says that it's technically possible, but it is a massive pain in the ass in part
43:34
because Spotify doesn't have a real Mac app. It's basically just a wrapper around their, you know, web app and so
43:42
you have to like point it to a particular folder and music that you add there will add, you know, add into Spotify. But I don't think you can
43:48
change the metadata for it. It's clunky and it's kind of annoying.
43:53
Well, there you go. Well, that's a good reason, you know, a huge advantage why coming from old Apple, a creek old code from iTunes,
44:00
good reason why it works still works better. Mhm. And and the reason the number one reason why I don't consider the iPad a
44:05
real computer because you can't add your own music from the iPad. [laughter] Thank god Ed isn't on the show right now.
44:10
Mhm. His head would explode. We got a couple of good questions from listeners this week. Uh actually one is
44:17
a comment. Uh and this is on some some uh networking site called Macedon. Have
44:23
you ever heard of that, Louis? It rings a bell. Listener Eden Williamson wrote me to say, "Leander was asking about security
44:30
controls. When HomePod answers personal requests, you get a notification on your phone every time it answers one." And he
44:37
included a screenshot that uh, you know, gets a not that shows a notification on his lock screen, you know, as he's
44:43
listening to our podcast. So, you know, he he he gets plus five points there. and it says kitchen HomePod Siri
44:50
responded to a personal request for calendar. And that's maybe like the most
44:56
annoying way Apple could have solved that problem. Like, oh yeah, we'll just send you a notification anytime somebody
45:01
asks your HomePod a question asking about your life. Like, first of all, it doesn't stop them from getting answers
45:08
to about your personal calendar, but also just inundates you with notifications. So, does it does it if
45:15
you ask about your calendar, does it is it like a feedback loop? I I mean, I got to say, I've never ever asked my HomePod
45:21
a question and had like a good answer. Uh, and I've never even thought to ask
45:26
it something like that. I mean, so I don't know. But it supposedly it can recognize your voice, right? So, if you
45:34
ask, "Hey, what's on my calendar today?" Surely it doesn't pop up a a thing saying,
45:40
"Lewis, somebody just asked about your calendar." I mean, if it doesn't know who's asking, then
45:47
I I don't see why how it would know not to send you a notification. I'm gonna I'm gonna ask it about
45:52
Suzanne's calendar later today. Yeah, me too. I'm going to test it out, too. I'm now really curious about how
45:58
this thing works. Like you, I've never ever actually ever asked it a question about my calendar. I think my wife has ever asked me about my calendar.
46:04
[clears throat] So yeah, why would you ask the HomePod when you can just ask your wife? She probably knows better.
46:12
Exactly. Yeah, that's exactly how it works. Precisely. I know. What am I do? What's on my calendar today?
46:17
Um I also have another bit of followup. this one uh from listener and mother to
46:23
me my mom uh texted me after last week's show and said in reference to the Apple
46:30
AI pin uh the thought of anything even my own private personal device hearing and recording me muttering out loud all
46:37
day is horrific and she says literally the only useful thing I can think of would be telling it to play back all of
46:44
my farts at the end of the day Peace. [laughter]
46:52
A new generation of fart app. Yep. Fart compendium. Your own. I mean, it's it's your [laughter] own. Yeah. [snorts]
46:59
Imagine imagine Apple developing talking about that during a keynote. Like, wow. You know what though? I I like the
47:05
idea. I never thought about this. Get one of these things, pin it on my wife, and then at the end of the day, I could say, "Hey, look, listen to yourself
47:11
muttering to yourself." She because she she does it all the time. She she sits there and she talks to herself and and
47:17
then I [snorts] say, "What?" And she's, "Oh, no. I'm talking to myself." And then, you know, the next time when she's muttering to herself, then she's like, "Why didn't you answer me?" I'm like,
47:23
"Because you're muttering to yourself again." That's [laughter] the fastest possible way to make your
47:29
wife move out of the house from you. Never speak to you again. Are you sure it wouldn't make her just mutter a little less?
47:35
No. [laughter] All right. And then we got some other feedback. Who's this? What's uh
47:41
Brad Brad Thornbro also? uh you know DMB on last and says what the new podcast needs is a theme by those darn
47:48
accordians. So Lewis tell us about that. I hardily agree and there's several
47:55
albums available. You can pick whatever one you like and use it for the podcast. I recommend them hippies was right. That's the most upbeat one.
48:01
Uh [laughter] they're on Apple Music as well so you don't have to uh rip them and add them to your library of your
48:06
own. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All of our albums are on Although maybe the first one's not. I can't remember. that was released on a
48:13
very independent label. Uh yeah, man. I've been playing in this band I was thinking about this this morning. I've
48:19
been playing this band for over 35 years. Longer than you've been breathing,
48:25
Griffin. I've been playing bass in those darn accordians. If you never heard about the band, I
48:30
mean, this band started out in San Francisco in ' 89. And I was I wasn't in it then,
48:36
but uh started out in '89 as just like a group of crazy accordion players. Uh
48:42
they they would run into uh bars in North Beach playing Lady of Spain and uh
48:49
basically either either everybody be like totally into it and buy them shots or like the they'd get bounced
48:56
immediately. And uh it ended up there was a show at a place called I think it
49:03
was at the Paradise Lounge. I don't even know if that place is still Yeah, I went there. Well, I mean the very first gig was at
49:10
at Paradise Lounge. And a woman who was in the band at the time in Big Lou, she
49:15
she basically just did this on a whim. She said, "Let's let's do this as an actual band." And they used sheet music
49:21
and they they played like, you know, Stairway to Heaven and all kinds of rock covers and stuff. And they said, and in
49:27
the ad, it says, "Hey, you know, bring your accordion and come come down and join us." Right? And this this guy, I
49:32
guess he was like 68 at the time, something like that. His name was Clyde Foresman, and he was uh he was an old
49:39
Swedish American guy, played accordion, loved accordion, and uh he was a hoot
49:45
man. He was in that band for couple of decades. We traveled all over the place. We used to play all over the country. Um
49:53
and it was you guys were big. I remember uh you know you were like at one of the the the city's big bands cuz when I got here
49:59
like in ' 92 or something like that. Um we went to the Paradise L. So you guys a
50:04
couple of times played there. Yeah. Yeah. We used to we used to gig a lot and uh you know the band when I joined the band
50:11
it was I was their first permanent bass player and uh I remember when I first I
50:17
went to like you know audition right a friend of mine had played a couple of gigs with him and he's like I just can't do this. I I I got a other band I'm in
50:25
and you know maybe you'd like to do it. So I'm like okay I'll give it a shot. I I take my base there and I'm standing in the living room, somebody down on uh
50:32
[snorts] what is it like kind of close to Hate Ashbury actually, uh Patty Brady's
50:37
apartment and [laughter] I was surrounded by like at the time I
50:42
think it was 10 accordion players and a drummer, Bill Schwarz, our original drummer. And uh I was sitting there
50:50
playing bass with these it was like having all those recordings because they're all slightly out of tune, you
50:56
know, and it's like you're it was like being on a a a carousel, you know? I get that like weird audio warping kind of
51:02
thing going on. I almost always felt dizzy from being surrounded by all these accordians playing this stuff. And I'm s
51:07
I'm trying to like I'm trying my best to hack through this music, you know, using charts and stuff and and at the end I
51:14
was like, "Oh god, I wonder if I'm going to get, you know, be in this band." and and Paul Rogers who was I guess was he
51:20
the I don't even know he was kind of becoming the band leader at that point he's like well you know talking about
51:26
stuff it's great now that we got a bass player we don't have to play the left hand on our accordians and we can I'm like oh I guess I'm in the band so uh
51:34
[laughter] you know 35 years later still doing it we're shockingly we're still doing gigs
51:40
here and there I mean we slowed down a lot Paul who writes almost all the music and is definitely the band leader at
51:45
this point he moved up the uh you know the the Olympic peninsula. So it's a
51:51
little hard to get together and practice. Everybody's scattered. Everybody else is scattered around the Bay Area. So we basically get together
51:56
for like [snorts] sometimes the Katy Accordion Festival up in Kat, California, North Bay. And we
52:05
we we play a lot of October Fest lately actually, which is kind of bizarre. We used to play Italian festivals all the
52:10
time. Now it's October Fest. And uh so we're usually like a
52:15
summerfall band, you know, and then then we we take the rest of the year off and but you
52:22
know, we still get together and do it. It's still a good time. So So uh I went on a bit of a rabbit hole because I found I [laughter] found the
52:27
website for the uh for [snorts] the band. Excellent website if I do say so myself. Uh and then that led me to
52:33
apparently a blog called on Blogger called The Wall of We. Yeah, this was great, man. I I was
52:40
looking looking through this uh links to these will obviously be in the show notes. And I was like, "All right, I don't know. Looks like there were a lot
52:45
of posts in like the mid2000s. Let me just click on a random one." Clicked on the 2007 one. And then I came across
52:51
this video [laughter] called How to Pop a Cork with a Sword
52:56
featuring the voice of Lewis Wallace uh as he attempts to use a a a knife to
53:05
unccork a bottle of champagne. It's definitely Lewis's voice. And I think I hear the la Leander's laugh at the end
53:11
of this video as well. [laughter] Uh so what do you have to say for yourself about this video here? This is this is back in the day at Wired
53:18
News. Uh and I think it was probably it was right around the holidays. I don't know if it I don't think it was
53:24
New Year's Eve, but it could have been. It was but it was definitely in that that period of the of time of the year where there's
53:30
just like no no tech news happening and you're you're like why are we even here in the office? and
53:37
Evan Hansen, the editor-inchief, for some reason, we started talking about sabering champagne bottles, you know,
53:43
and uh [laughter] we went across the street and bought a couple bottles of champagne. We're like, "Okay, let's give this a try." And uh what took took me
53:49
like four or five times to actually That's that's me there with that that butcher knife from the the crappy kitchen at Wired trying my best to uh
53:57
saber thing. Oh, there it goes. Finally made it happen. Spill half the bottle of champagne. Not the greatest way to open
54:03
a bottle of champagne. But uh yeah, I was I'd completely forgotten about that.
54:08
And Mike Kori, who I think he still works at Wired, uh our good friend back
54:13
there, he put it up on YouTube. That that video has 279,000 views.
54:19
279,000. What in the living? My god.
54:25
Of course, it was what, 20 years ago? Yeah. I I forgot all about the all this
54:30
uh the wall of we Yeah, that was I used to write a lot of short little blog posts
54:37
on that. But yeah, that was back when was that using Blogger or something? Yep. Yep. Blogspot. It looks like
54:43
Blogspot. So add that to your RSS feed. Hell, I'm adding it to my resume.
54:50
Good [laughter] stuff. Genuine viral hit there. LinkedIn. The one the one story I
54:57
remember Lewis that you told me is that you fell asleep one time playing bass on stage. That is I I did get busted. I I was
55:04
playing in Oktoberfest and uh I was so tired and and you know I mean let's just
55:10
be completely honest here. I mean some of these pulas are very much like other
55:15
pulas. You know a lot of uh the sort of German style pulas that we play very
55:20
similar to each other. And there was a somebody had a video of me and I was just standing there my eyes shut
55:28
completely and and and I I woke up and like [laughter] I don't think I missed a beat.
55:34
Did you not miss a beat though? I don't think so. No, I it was you actually managed to play. That was the most incredible thing that you
55:40
claimed that you could still playing even while asleep. It was It was definitely autopilot. I don't know. [laughter]
55:47
full self-driving supervised. So, I guess I should say I'm I'm working
55:53
on a new theme song for the podcast. One's a little more energetic. I'm having my friend Will compose it, but
55:58
it's still a work in progress. But, you know, Lewis, uh, you know, I think what we need is an accordion intro. Do you
56:05
think [laughter] you think you put something together a little faster? Uh, you know, I am not an accordion
56:10
player. I own an accordion. Bought one for 100 bucks and it says right on the accordion. You know how they used to put
56:16
names on them? This one says dick. [laughter]
56:21
I couldn't pass it up. Uh, but I I do know plenty of accordion players. And uh
56:26
Oh, look at that. TDA is accepting special bookings for 2025. Huh. Yeah. Get out the time machine, Paul.
56:32
Copyright 2010. I haven't spent much time on this website lately.
56:38
[snorts] Uh, yeah. But yeah, you know, like I said, there's I could think of several songs that might work for uh good uh
56:45
bumper music for this. If if you want to check it out, I'll send you some links.
56:50
Download that at the iTunes music store. The website says Yeah. Like I said, not exactly high
56:57
priority. Look at that. We still got CDs for sale. Oh [laughter] yeah.
57:02
Oh my god. I don't even think to be honest, I don't even know if we have any CDs left because, you know, what's the
57:08
point? I mean, at at the at recent gigs, it's almost just like, well, let's just hand them out. Nobody listens to CDs
57:13
anymore, really. I mean, well, some people do, but almost no one. Cool title, Squeeze Machine.
57:19
Mhm. That was a fun one. I I got to say, our records, I mean, [snorts]
57:24
I I I like them. I I I uh And I think that they definitely got better over
57:30
time. Our band got better, the songwriting got better. Uh but they're also they're all over the place. I mean,
57:36
there's the the the one sort of common theme. 99% of the songs are, you know,
57:42
comedy songs. They're they're funny. They're story songs. A lot of them. Uh
57:49
I love that one there. Rice for One. That's like a a slow country song about a guy eating at a Chinese restaurant by
57:56
himself. I I crack up every time I listen to that. And and one of the greatest things about playing in those darn accordians all this time is staying
58:04
there playing and watching people. If you if you're doing a a gig and the sound is good and people can actually
58:09
understand what what the singer is saying and you can see people like sitting there hanging on every word and
58:16
you can see them crack up at stuff and that I mean that honestly that is so heartwarming. Sometimes it almost brings a tear to my eye. It's it's really uh
58:24
it's weird. I mean I'm actually kind of getting tearary right now just thinking about it. It's it's it that is a very
58:31
satisfying feeling, you know, and uh Well, you guys are a fun show. Um because there's a lot of people on stage and like you said, you're playing the um
58:38
the Led Zeppelin covers and they sound great. They sound really good with with accordians. I It was, you [laughter]
58:44
know, a lot of fun. Really fun as Yeah. I mean, everybody in the band, we've gone through phases, you know. Um
58:52
a lot a lot of people in the band, you know, we have a couple of singers in the band now who are really great singers.
58:57
They don't do every single gig with us. I mean, everybody's schedule's different, but um you know, we run
59:02
accordians through guitar pedals, uh all kinds of stuff. You know, Suzanne has
59:09
all these effects and she uses and makes it sound like, you know, sound like the record. I mean, that was always the that
59:14
was like the sticktick, right? We and and I think that's one reason Paul I mean, Paul is the main songwriter. He
59:20
writes a million songs. He's been doing a thing on on YouTube releasing a song a day or you know the ones that we've
59:26
already recorded and stuff like that, but um that's his thing this year. And
59:32
uh so he he writes these really great songs and just millions of them. Uh and
59:37
he I think he always kind of feels like playing these covers is like a I don't
59:43
know like a cheap way out, right? But I mean, the bottom line, you're playing it, you know, back in black on the
59:48
accordion and it sounds, you know, kind of like the record. I mean, that's that's pretty cool.
59:53
And then you follow it up with Mr. Saggy, but I love that one. That's that would be a great song for the uh the very that's a
1:00:00
that's a total funk groove. You'd love it. Okay. Very energetic. Not the kind of NPR crap
1:00:07
I heard last time I listened to our podcast. [laughter] Yeah.
1:00:13
All right. Right. Well, let's let's mix it up. Maybe the readers um you know, if they have any anyone has any suggest listeners, sorry, a big button have any
1:00:19
suggestions about which uh one we should take a clip from. That might be very very helpful.
1:00:24
You put [laughter] put some accordion music on there. The subscriber list just vanishes overnight.
1:00:31
[laughter] [snorts] All right. Well, I think that's a wrap. Should we wrap it up there?
1:00:37
Might as well. Yes, I think so. There's a consensus. Sounds like a good plan. I think it's time [laughter] to
1:00:42
time to time to go get some lunch and do the newsletter. Woohoo! News letters.
1:00:49
[snorts] So anyway, if you like this rubbish, please give us a five or even a six or seven star rating on Apple Podcast and
1:00:55
also send to someone who else you might think might listen to this. Um, or send us your worst enemy, [laughter]
1:01:02
friends, enemies, they show up all the same in our stat in our analytics. So, all right. So, you can find Lewis on
1:01:08
Twitter. He's at Lewis Wallace. Griffin's on at the mastadon uh at DG Griffin Jones and as I said earlier I
1:01:14
write this newsletter at uh at cult of m newscult.com and 75% open rate. I mean
1:01:20
that really is something to be proud of. We were just talking about our to our account manager at beehive and he was like you know he was he you don't see
1:01:28
these numbers normally these are these are really really off the chart numbers. Yeah he said even like paid paid ones
1:01:33
that's a phenomenal open rate like anybody would be thrilled to have that. So yeah, I I I can't believe the
1:01:41
advertising budget that they're able to sponsor a [music] podcast like this though. Wow. Mhm. I mean, I'll say when I when I did
1:01:46
marketing work, a good day of open rates would be like 12%. So
1:01:52
Wow. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. 12%. Yeah, for sure. 75%. Anyway, it's a
1:01:58
good newsletter. It really is good. It's a really good way to see the to to to see the stuff we put out, the color of Mac stuff. [music] I think you know it's
1:02:05
it's um as I sort of said earlier unfortunately it's way better than the website. I want to say that but it is it
1:02:11
is unfortunately it is it's a it's better presentation better way to read it. It's very scannable.
1:02:16
Mhm. Very scannable. Yeah. Yeah. And uh anyway so thanks thanks a lot for
1:02:22
watching. Thanks for putting up with this rubbish. And we'll see you next time. Have a great weekend everybody. Goodbye. See you. Oh my god. Could
1:02:29
[music] I go on and on about my band any longer? That was good. I thought it was, you know, it was kind of fun.
1:02:35
Oh, that's funny. I was looking for the logic icon in my dock. I'm like, where is it? It's It's the Apple Creator Studio one. It's indecipherable. Yep. I
1:02:44
Sorry, I need to look for the blue circle.