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This week: Apple’s cheap MacBook sending PC makers into a panic, Google Gemini rescuing the new Siri from vaporware, the next iPhone Air that may (or may not) solve its biggest problem, the battle over Apple CarPlay and iOS 26.1 features you should try. Also: AirPods Pro Mad Libs.
Produced by Extra Ordinary for Cult of Mac
Music composed by Will Davenport, arranged by D. Griffin Jones
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:47 NordStellar
2:56 Apple MacBook
14:13 Gemini-powered Siri
28:24 iPhone 18 Air
35:04 Auto makers versus CarPlay
45:28 Factor
46:57 iOS 26.1 features
54:52 AirPods Pro Mad Libs
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Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:02
Hello and welcome to the Coldcast, the best hourong Apple conversation you're going to hear all week long. I'm your
0:08
host, Nand Kaney. And joining me today, we have D. Griffin Jones. Hey, Griffin.
0:13
Good evening. Uh, I'm coming to you not from a bathroom. I'm in my office,
0:19
right? We'll explain that in a second. And we have Louis Wallace. Hey, Louis. Hello. Fantastic to be here. Also not in
0:26
a bathroom, right? As uh as Griffin just mentioned, I'm in my father-in-law's bathroom in
0:33
Sun City, Arizona. We're here for a few days visiting my wife's uh folks, and there's no good place for me to record.
0:39
I'm actually in a bathroom, which uh I can give you a quick tour. There's the shower curtain. Wow. And uh here's the rest of it. So,
0:46
hopefully this won't be too bad. And I'm also using my new AirPods Pro 3 as this uh you know, the uh the sound source.
0:53
So, if I sound kind of bad, then it's uh this is you now. Now, now you know why
1:01
if this show because Lando's recording from a bathroom, if the show is much longer than other episodes, you also
1:06
know why. Yeah, we won't get into that. Um anyway,
1:12
well, we're going to be talking about this week uh Apple's new cheap MacBook, which is sending PC makers into a panic
1:18
and quite rightly so. Uh we've got Google uh coming in to the rescue Apple
1:23
uh and Siri from Vaporware. Uh we're going to talk about the next iPhone Air and what may or may not solve its
1:30
biggest problem. And then uh also the battle over CarPlay uh which is which is
1:35
heating up. And then we're going to talk also about the new iOS 26.1 features you should try. There's actually some new
1:41
stuff in there that's worth checking out. And we're going to we're going to play some fun new game. I'd like to
1:47
thank our sponsor Nordstellar. Thanks very much Nostella for uh for sponsoring this week's episode of the coldcast.
1:53
This goes out to all the the you know the chief technology officers and the chief information officers, all the CEOs
1:58
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exclusive offer and lock your 10% discount on Nordstellar with a coupon code cult 10. That's Cultcast 10 by
3:10
going to nordstellar.com/cultcast. Just mentioned it to Nordstellar. All right. Thank you very much Nordstellar
3:16
for sponsoring us this week. The first story we're going to be talking about is this uh new uh MacBook that Apple is
3:25
preparing that has the entire PC industry in a complete tizzy uh because it's going to decimate the rest of the
3:32
industry. They're freaking out apparently. Lewis, why don't you tell us about that?
3:38
Yeah, and that's that's the fantastic headline on Cult of Mac story. Apple's upcoming budget laptop has PC makers
3:43
quote freaking out. Uh the new Mac, it's cenamed J700. We've heard about this
3:48
before. Uh it it's currently in testing and early production with the goal of launching in the first half of next
3:54
year. Uh, and supposedly Apple's plan to price this well under $1,000 by using
4:00
cost-saving components, basically bits and pieces from previous products while
4:06
m maintaining the design, quality, and ecosystem integration that all of us Mac users expect.
4:12
Uh, Apple's going to be trying to get students, businesses, casual users who, you know, just basically browse the web
4:19
and do email and stuff. uh also aimed at iPad customers who might prefer a traditional laptop form factor with an
4:25
integrated keyboard. So uh some of the stuff that is inside this is it's it's going to run on an
4:32
iPhone processor rather than a you know Mac specific chip like a M1 or M4. M5 is
4:38
laz right. Um this is the first time Apple has used a smartphone processor on a Mac. However, internal testing shows
4:45
this chip can outperform the M1 processor used in uh well M1 MacBooks.
4:53
Let's see. Uh also supposedly going to use a lower-end LCD display that's slightly smaller than
4:59
the 13.6 in screen on the MacBook Air. And uh here's where our headline came from. A quote from uh analyst Benjar. Is
5:07
that how you pronounce his name? Ben Barn. Bahar. I think Bahar. Okay. Mhm. Let's just call him Ben. He said
5:16
that's the whole idea. The the share of Windows in uh with a
5:21
retail price less than $800 is 100%. And then this is a quote from him. This is
5:26
why the entire PC ecosystem is freaking out over what's coming from Apple next year. So fantastic news, right? What
5:35
could be wrong with it? a a affordable MacBook gets more people in the uh Apple ecosystem, lets businesses and and
5:43
schools actually use a Mac rather than going for some, you know, dirt cheap
5:48
Windows PC. Although, I guess it's still not in the Chromebook area. But yeah, the other thing is Apple silicon
5:55
chips are so good and so powerful that the the base M5 is honestly too much
6:01
computer for most people. if you want to be in the Apple ecosystem, but you're not gonna light up all eight cores of it
6:07
all the time. If you're just browsing the web, you know, in Safari or Google Chrome, and that's your main workflow,
6:13
you're not using the M5 to the best of its ability. You're not using those media core engines or, you know, the the
6:19
Thunderbolt lanes that it has on it. Just the A19 would be enough. You know,
6:24
it's just that Apple doesn't make an iOS device in that form factor. And people just want a computer shaped like a laptop instead
6:30
of an iPad or a big iPhone. And I think this is hitting that market. And you know, the other area that makes Apple
6:37
laptops so much more expensive is the research and development that they do in making those, you know, precision unibody designs, making like these
6:44
custom displays and all that. just taking advantage of the the R&D that
6:49
they've already done in the past to assemble a computer out of old parts. You know, it'll just have a basic
6:55
rectangular screen that the MacBook Air had before it became the M2 MacBook Air. It'll probably the 13.3 in one. It'll
7:03
use the same shell like with the tapered design that that it had before. You know, they don't they don't need to do
7:09
any additional R&D to make those parts work. They've been making them for like, you know, the eight years before that.
7:15
So that'll that'll bring the price down as well. You think it'll have the exact same form
7:20
factor as like the the M1 MacBook? I bet it'll look exactly like the M1
7:26
MacBook Air, which is a a gorgeous machine. I mean, we're looking at one right now. I love it.
7:32
Mhm. Yeah, the industrial design is topnotch. Yeah, it's a I mean, but the Apple already kind of competes, doesn't it? In
7:37
the sort of sub $800 category. I mean, the the M4 MacBook Air right now is on
7:43
sale on Amazon for 750, I believe. Yeah. On sale on Amazon. That's like 150
7:48
off the list, right? Yeah. Yeah. I guess I if you're talking about list price, Yeah. that that's fair
7:54
to say. But, you know, they uh what they were they were selling older M1 MacBook Airs at at
8:01
Walmart for a while, right? They tested that at I can't remember what the price point was, 650 or something.
8:06
Mhm. Um Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, those are all through Apple's secondary channels. I think this is maybe offering a product
8:12
on apple.com or for the people who walk into an Apple store who are like, I want to buy a MacBook. What's the cheapest
8:17
one you have? And they say, well, it's $1,000 or, you know, $900 if you have an, you know, education discount, but
8:24
you know, this is offering more first party solutions for the people who want something new. they don't want to buy a used old thing because again like the
8:32
you know yeah you can get the M1 MacBook Air for $650 and you know the M1
8:39
has more cores and a few extra features but it's also not as good at single core performance and at the low end of you
8:45
know computing needs. Single core performance is what matters more than multi-core. Yeah. And just to be clear what K said
8:51
is well below a thousand. I mean, MacBook Air is already $9.99 straight
8:57
from Apple. So, for this to be, you know, really attractive, you know, what
9:02
are we talking about? 600, 700 bucks. Could they possibly go that low? My guess after thinking about this for a
9:09
little while is it'll be $6.99 full price and then in the education store it'll be 649.
9:15
That sounds like a reasonable guess. And that would be that would be the cheapest MacBook Apple has ever made. And it
9:21
would be only slightly more expensive than the Mac Mini. Like I I think that price makes perfect sense. It won't be
9:27
as low as some people are hoping. Like you know, it's not Apple's not going to make a $500 MacBook. Sorry.
9:32
You can pick up an an iPad, can you? With a Magic Keyboard for 600 bucks.
9:38
That would be the closest. Yeah. The cheapest way you could do that is the entry level iPad, which is I
9:43
think 330. and then the special keyboard folio they have for that that isn't as
9:49
nice as the fullsize magic keyboard but you add that and I think that's like what $200 and that's you know roughly
9:54
the same ballpark but again there are a lot of old-fashioned people who you know don't know that an iPad would be better
9:59
for them and they're like oh no I want a laptop and they they want a laptop that laptop that's uncharitable
10:06
focus yeah it's uh or they just want something you know a reasonable sect of people who want you
10:12
know a real desktop operating system in Mac OS, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Totally. Totally. Yeah. I mean, like you said
10:18
before, there's a there's a huge amount of I 40 years of investment in this, isn't there? Basically. So uh but it um
10:25
I mean if you look one of the interesting things about you know the uh if you look every day we publish you know today in Apple history and we look
10:31
back often at like you know notable machines that are launched on that particular day in Apple history and some
10:36
of crazy prices like you know they they often were 7 $8,000 you know for for
10:43
what looks like a a fairly middling machine these days. I mean even at the time when it was when it was released it
10:49
was a fairly sort of middle of the road machine. It wasn't even the super high-end stuff. Uh the prices have come
10:54
down like crazy. It's like TVs, isn't it? You know, to get a black big flat screen TV used to cost thousands of thousand dollars. Now you go pick one up
11:00
for a few hundred bucks at Walmart or uh Best Buy. Same thing is happening with machines, isn't it? Computers, it's it's
11:06
the the prices come down really low. And this isn't going to be any I I remember an interesting quote from from Johnny IV
11:12
and Steve Jobs when they were asked um Steve Jobs, I think, was asked, you know, why why didn't they make a
11:17
Chromebook? why don't they make a cheap or netbook I think it was at the time uh the the cheap sort of low-end offerings
11:23
and he said well we just can't make a good one and you we can't make a good computer at that price and but that has
11:29
always been Apple's philosophy I think hasn't it you know like it's it's it's can't be something that's just slat together that's really cheap and
11:35
embarrassing this will be a nice machine if it comes in that same chassis like Louis said with it you know the the same
11:41
body as the uh as the MacBook Air I mean that the industrial design on it is topnotch it's absolutely Absolutely
11:48
beautiful and the keyboard is fantastic. The touchpad is fantastic. I mean, if they can deliver something like that at
11:53
this price, it's crazy. It's mad. Yeah. And you know, going back to Apple history, there are a lot of famous old
12:00
Macs like the the Quadra 400 or 800, you know, the the Mac 2X, the
12:06
uh Perform 9600, all of those expensive computers are the ones that Apple barely sold any of. If
12:13
you go on like the secondhand market and see what's on Facebook Marketplace now, what do people have? What are what are
12:19
the Macs that you find on eBay? It's all of the cheapest Macs. The Macintosh Classic, which the Macintosh Classic was
12:25
the first Macintosh under $1,000. You know, adjusting for inflation, it was still more like 2500 today. But still,
12:32
the cheapest Mac is like the most popular Mac and always will be. Well, that's what I mean. You know, like
12:37
the cheapest Mac at the time, 2500 bucks. And now they're they're talking about what, a fifth of that. Um,
12:43
yeah. Yeah. Or the original iMac, which is supposed to be like the computer that brought the internet to the masses. You know, the
12:49
iMac since the original one has always floated around $1,300. Well, go back to 1998. $1,300 is like $2,000. So,
12:58
right. I saw an interesting I mean, as an aside, I saw an interesting graphic saying the the iMac, right? I mean, Apple's prices, they they often don't
13:04
change, do they? even when the cost of the components and the and the you know the I think the the the iMac has been
13:11
priced at what is it 1,200 bucks for more than a decade or more. Um anyway,
13:16
yeah, it's uh it's cool stuff. I think when is this supposed to be coming out? Uh next year. First half of next year.
13:23
First half. Yeah. So what does that mean? Probably spring, right? Mhm.
13:29
Yeah. When they do these things. It's wild to think that an iPhone chip can outperform
13:34
the M1. So, like this little budget machine that they release is going to be better than the the MacBook Air that I
13:41
use every day. Wow. Mhm. I can upgrade by downgrading. Yep.
13:47
It'll be an exciting Mac. It'll, you know, who would have thought like 10 years ago that Apple would be expanding
13:52
the Mac lineup to like double the size that it was in 2015. Like they're adding
13:57
so many. the Mac Studio. They added a new model there. They're adding a new model of laptop. Like this is this is an
14:03
exciting time to be a Mac user. For sure. For sure. Except for the Mac Pro, of course.
14:09
RIP, right? All right. Let's talk about uh this deal
14:15
that Apple signed with Google. Um this is uh about the smartest Siri. And of course, you know, Apple uh set a spring
14:21
deadline. I'm sorry, a deadline for spring 2026 to deliver a smarter Siri. uh this is giving itself an extra year
14:27
to develop this but of course uh it looks like it's running into trouble and now Apple has inked a deal with its
14:33
frenemy Google uh they uh planning to license um
14:40
Google's 1.2 trillion parameter uh AI model Gemini uh to power its long
14:46
promised overhaul of Siri uh voice assistant. So um this I looked it up and
14:52
this is 1.2 2 trillion parameters and this is this is 1.2 trillion. That's trillion with a T. This is this is a big
14:58
model. Um it's almost as big as the current uh sort of state-of-the-art LLMs which I I did some quick research and
15:05
they seem to be coming at about 1.6 1.6 trillion parameters. Uh although um the
15:12
nextG models which are being worked on now uh are anywhere between 5 to 7 trillion parameters which is crazy. So
15:18
the new chat GBT5 is going to be up there and actually you know the more parameters isn't necessarily better
15:24
because you can overtrain the models and they become very inflexible uh with more parameters. So there's a you know
15:30
there's a fine art of balancing this but this is no this is no small model. This is actually a pretty big and in case people aren't aware of like
15:36
the lingo like the the number of parameters in a model roughly correlates to how many things it knows about and
15:43
does. And um also the bigger the the more parameters you have in the model the more expensive it is to run but often is the case where
15:50
uh the these super big models whether you know trillions of in the trillions of parameters in size they are you can
15:57
sort of think of them as multiple models in one where it won't be you know just like how you know browsing Safari on
16:04
your M5 Ultra chip isn't going to light up every single processor core. uh
16:10
asking a very simple question to an LLM isn't going to use every single parameter in the model like it can it
16:15
can run on you know a number of different subsets of the model using only a few parameters at a time uh for
16:22
for simpler different queries and this I mean a model with this many parameters it's it's sort of like a general
16:28
knowledge model right so it it knows about a lot of things a big wide variety
16:33
a big breadth of of uh of it can answer a big breadth of queries Um,
16:39
and for reference, I think this also came out that the Apple foundation model that runs in private cloud compute is
16:46
only 150 billion parameters. So, you know, an order of magnitude down.
16:52
Granted, that that foundation model is, you know, for a very specific purpose. It's not supposed to be Apple's like
16:58
general knowledge model, but uh to a sense of scale, the the they're
17:03
licensing a model from Google that'll be 10 times bigger than the one they're using on their cloud servers.
17:09
And important uh point here, it's going to be running on Apple's own servers, the private cloud comput service. So, it
17:16
ensures that any user data is walled off from Google's infrastructure. And of course, this is important because Google's business is gathering and
17:22
selling data about users to advertisers. So, um, they're charging, apparently
17:28
Google's charging Apple 1 billion a year. And the early reports, and I think our on story said, whoa, you know,
17:34
that's that's a lot of money, but it's not. It's a crazy bargain. This is like
17:39
if Apple had done this itself, it would likely have cost anywhere between a 10 and 100 times as much just to run the
17:46
servers, uh, in all the electricity it's going to be consuming. So, they're licensing this
17:51
thing at a at a at a, you know, at a at a at a budget rate. And of course, they could just subtract this from the 20
17:57
billion that Google pays Apple every year to uh be this, you know, the
18:02
default search engine in Safari. So, and Google's invested, I think, a hundred billion invested in AI overall. So, only
18:10
getting paid back $1 billion per year is a kind of an insane deal.
18:15
It is an insane deal. And in fact, it makes me kind of question how the whole, you know, the whole economics of the entire AI industry. I mean, they're
18:21
saying, you know, like that's a question a lot of people have. It is, you know, like even if Apple
18:27
could, you know, if Apple's only paying a billion, I mean, I don't know where's all the money going to be coming from to to to to recuperate all this investment.
18:33
Um, I want to, you know, this is Tim Cook. He he's known to to to to strike good bargains. You know, he he
18:39
definitely uh he he he keeps the margins as low as possible. So, I I'm kind of surprised that Google is only charging
18:45
this much. It doesn't seem very much money at all. They they must have deployed their tactical Eddie Q with a
18:50
bottle of champagne. Just sent him over to I don't know. Do you think Eddie's like that the uh the the the um the the
18:58
negotiator, the tough, inflexible negotiator? Probably.
19:04
Anyway, we'll see. It It's It's uh I mean, it sounds kind of promising that they're going to they're going to be all
19:10
of this is a stop gap measure as well. like Apple, even though it's it's losing talent left, right, and center, losing
19:16
all of its AI researchers, including the head of its um uh who was the guy that
19:21
the the the head of the models, John G. And Andrea, I think, isn't he still there or is he
19:28
gone? Yeah, he's he was I think promoted into the sky of a different project. Promoted into the sky.
19:36
Well, they lose left, right, and center apparently to Meta and Google and every other anthropic and every other AI company. But that they still want to
19:42
develop something in house. You know, this is the ambition apparently. So they they they they will eventually replace this Google Gemini uh model for
19:51
something that's been homegrown that they developed in house. Uh in the meantime uh you know a lot of Siri
19:58
functions is going to be happen by Apple's own AI. So bring it on. Let's see if we can roll Gemini into this uh
20:04
new version. And this is also coming in the spring, isn't it? Uh, it's going to be an exciting time running that 1.6
20:12
trillion 1.2 trillion parameter model on your $600 MacBook. Mhm.
20:17
It'll be uh cool. It's also worth remembering that uh Apple uses the the name Siri for a bunch
20:22
of different things that are completely unrelated but just happen to all be voice controlled. So, you know, saying
20:28
Gemini is powering Siri, Gemini is probably going to power like a few different Siri things like their general knowledge questions that currently it
20:35
defers to chat GPT. Those those could be answered by Gemini. Uh Gemini could be I
20:41
think German says that Ge Gemini will be powering the the the future versions of Siri that can like do actions on your
20:47
behalf. Like it's the Gemini model that'll be choosing when you ask Siri take a screenshot of this Safari web
20:55
page and send it in Slack to this channel. Like it'll be Gemini that'll be parsing your request and piecing it out
21:01
into the actions of okay, this is how I take a screenshot. this is the shortcut function that I use to share it. This is
21:08
how I send it to Slack. And then I'll I'll plug into Slack's API that sends this thing. Gemini is going to be like,
21:14
you know, the the the brain behind pushing all of those buttons behind the scenes to power the supposedly more
21:19
capable version andor probably the personal context thing. So when you ask it Apple's canonical example of, oh,
21:27
when does my mom's flight land? It could be Gemini reading through your log of uh
21:33
texts with your mother and your emails and you know looking up the flight data to to piece that answer together for
21:38
you. But on the other hand, it could be Apple's own internal Siri things that answers the basic things that Siri
21:45
already does, like you know, set a timer for this amount of time. I've said it too much and now I'm triggering my
21:50
phone. Apologies to the listeners. It could still be the existing uh Apple voice assistant that does things like,
21:57
you know, how old is Jeff Bezos or quick answers that tools that it it looks up
22:03
answers for online or, you know, when you ask it who won the Super Bowl in 1972, it could be the existing Siri
22:09
model that will hopefully be a little better, but uh still answering those questions.
22:14
It it kind of boggles my mind. Do you think why why can't Apple develop its own, you know, uh model sufficiently? Uh, is it because they're losing all the
22:21
talent, but they've all gone to anthropic and and to to matter? I think it's just a very different skill
22:27
set that Apple was uh caught flatfooted and didn't build up any like internal
22:33
research or knowledge of in advance of chat GPT in, you know, though, you know, because they they they
22:39
were integrating neural engines into Apple silicon from the very get-go. AI already is already built into almost
22:46
everything, all of Apple's software, isn't there? I mean or at least machine learning algorithms. Yeah, m Apple's been very good in in
22:52
machine learning, but the the technology of large language models is a surprisingly new invention of like the
22:58
the mid210s and it only been developed into, you know, chat GPT and like a chatbot product, you know, in 2021 or
23:05
2022. though well the people who who um developed uh
23:11
transformers you know which is the the one of the key technologies of LLM's they're all there was like I think a
23:16
dozen Google researchers 8 to 8 to I forget whether the exact number 8 to 12 none of those people are at Google
23:21
anymore like a bunch of them went off did their own startups or they went to other companies so Google has had its
23:26
own brain drain um and yet has somehow you know managed to stay ahead I guess
23:31
you know Apple the rumors I heard is that Apple wasn't paying the insane you know crazy salaries like you they they
23:36
still rely on its um halo effect like oh Apple you know like I'd love to work at Apple I don't care if I only make a
23:42
fraction of what everyone else is making you know it's just an honor to be here at the spaceship campus and to see Tim Cook in the distance or whatever you
23:48
know uh I guess you know I this is the the rumor as I that they seem to be
23:54
circulating about Apple's problem in this area uh but I think you know like
23:59
they were saying one of the other things about this whole AI bubble at the moment is is sort of mission you know Like I
24:06
think if you if you can be if you promise all the money in the world like Meta apparently is having trouble um
24:12
recruiting AI researchers because people don't want to work for Mark Zuckerberg, they don't
24:17
want to work on meta. Meta doesn't have this mission. It doesn't have a good mission. You know that that that
24:22
whatever AI they develop is obviously going to be snooping on people and it's going to be bad. Um, I would have thought that Apple had that, you know,
24:30
that the sense of mission, you know, like if you're going to be working at Apple, you're going to be working on a responsible, privacy focused AI that
24:37
isn't going to burn the world down or sell you, you know, uh, uh, spy on you
24:43
to to sell you more advertising, you know, like of all the people who are developing AI, wouldn't wouldn't isn't Apple's AI probably one of the best ones
24:50
to be working on if you're dri if you have this sort of missiondriven ethos. People also like working on
24:57
successful products and I think Apple intelligence has shown that Apple's a little behind in that regard.
25:04
Good point. Yeah, good point. Well, like like Steve Jobs said, you know, like A players, right? They want to join a they want to work with other A players and
25:10
maybe Apple doesn't have enough A players to to attract other A players are all going to follow, you know, Lun
25:15
and other leading lights. Um it uh it seems a bit of a shame that Apple's lagging in this area uh when everything
25:22
else they're doing is like hitting all the marks uh just perfectly almost. You remember when they uh they killed
25:27
the car project and they it was like oh we got to concentrate on AI, right? But it was like too late. They they spent
25:33
all this time trying to develop a car and money trying to develop a car and then they just bailed on ition kind of
25:39
too late. You know, it it's like I mean it's probably a good idea that they they concentrate on AI since it's the big
25:45
thing right now, but I mean well Tim Cook said from the very early even in the early stages about the the
25:51
the car project was actually the mother of all AI projects he said right but so you know the two are so closely
25:57
related um that and of course you know I think they took most of the car team and and you know rolled them over to
26:03
concentrate on wheeled them down the
26:09
Yeah. Very weird. I mean, that would have to be, wouldn't you think, like if you went
26:15
to join Apple to work on a car and then suddenly it's like, "Oh, no, we're going
26:21
to have you like fix Siri." I mean, I I think that would be a little bit demoralizing. So, did you see the the
26:28
part of that that story where it said basically uh Google and Apple, they're
26:33
not going to be like shouting from the rooftops that that Google is powering this stuff behind the scenes. They're
26:38
going to kind of just make it seem like it's Apple. And then then if Apple actually does get it its AI game
26:45
together, they can swap it out in the background. They don't have to tell anybody. Uh, and they still also might do the thing where they integrate Google
26:52
Gemini in a very public way like with like they do it like right now with chat GPT. So you could, you know, Siri can
26:59
hand off a a question or a qu you know to Google Gemini or instead of or in
27:05
addition to chat GPT. So I can't imagine that it would be like some huge secret that they try to keep
27:10
from everybody. I imagine that they're not going to be announcing a partnership on a keynote, but you know,
27:15
I imagine like it'll probably be exposed to developers in some way. Uh so it's, you know, we'll still be able to find
27:22
out and Apple would probably announce at like an upcoming, you know, uh developer state of the union as part of its WWDC.
27:28
Oh yeah, you know, in iOS 28, we're using the Apple, we're using an improved Apple Foundation model for this. And so
27:35
here are new Apple Foundation model APIs that might silently replace other APIs
27:41
in the background. Like I I don't imagine I don't see this being like a big secret, but there there won't be a Google Gemini logo underneath every Siri
27:48
request either. Well, they don't seem to be shy about advertising chat GPT. I mean that almost seems to be a selling point at the
27:54
moment, isn't it? Oh wow. Chat GPT integration. Yeah, look how great that is. So I don't know, you know, like and and the Gemini model is well regarded.
28:00
So maybe like Intel inside, you know, you have a sticker um inside.
28:06
They're just going to say, "Hey, we fixed Siri. Siri's smart now. We told you it was going to be smart. Now it's
28:12
smart." That's what they're going to say. They're not going to say it's smart because we paid, you know, Google.
28:17
They're going to say, "It's smart and it's run on our own servers. You know, it it's secure and smart." That's all they're going to say.
28:24
Let's talk about the next iPhone Air, which of course has been a giant bust apparently, even though people love it.
28:29
Although I'm not really sure though, you know, like the story is every year they it's the the cut production stories
28:36
appears every single year, doesn't it? After the after new the new models released, then about a month, two months later,
28:42
oh, you know, um supply chain rumors say that Apple's cut production of this or
28:47
that model. Well, they do that anyway. It's routine because they ramp up don't they in the in before the introduction
28:53
to ensure that they have a lot of uh stock on on uh you know ready in supply
29:00
and then they always ramp down production because it it there just isn't that much demand but like Tim Cook
29:05
said I mean in the recent earnings call that um he didn't mention obviously he
29:11
didn't say that the iPhone is a air is a boss but there was actually no indication whatsoever was there in anything he said that anyone or any
29:18
other one particular models was underperforming like he he gave the impression and of course he I don't know
29:24
you know can you can you trust the man but uh he gave the impression everything was doing great anyway
29:30
and he also said that it's a problem Apple struggles with they don't know which model is going to be popular before they start making them
29:36
and you know that the production is such a long lead time that you know they they they really don't
29:41
know you know how much to make of each one. The other perplexing thing about the iPhone Air. Sorry, we're derailing
29:46
the story before it's even started. Apple isn't advertising the iPhone Air.
29:51
Does anybody even know about it? Like all of the pictures of billboards across the country are all, you know, the the
29:57
big orange pro that, you know, the the big words pro on it. All the TV ads are
30:02
for the iPhone Pro. Has anybody I mean, just a question to our listeners, has anybody seen an advertisement for an
30:08
iPhone air on TV or in public? I don't know. They're not advertised. Like I thought, you know, I wrote in my review
30:16
because, you know, before before this was really a thing. Like, yeah, it seems like the iPhone Air wants to be Apple's flagship model this year because, you
30:23
know, they they gave it the most attention during the keto and all that, but Apple isn't treating it like that after its launch. They're not talking
30:29
about it occasionally. I mean, in the Apple store itself, you see a little poster that says Air, but where else do
30:36
people hear about or see this phone? They're uh they're sort of like iconographic treatment of of air like
30:42
they do with all these things, you know. Uh it's actually kind of hard to read. It's so thin like the A and the I the
30:49
phone is the I and the R. Everything's so thin. It looks like, you know, like one of those uh sort of, you know,
30:55
spidery aliens from a sci-fi movie or something. You know, it just looks weird. It doesn't it it doesn't have
31:01
much impact, visual impact. I wonder if they they're going to have a a uh a campaign, you know, in this this
31:08
holiday season because wouldn't it be the sort of ideal phone to advertise during the holidays?
31:14
It's potentially a gift. You know, it's a Yeah, device. I think it'd be an amazing gift to give
31:20
someone. I think I think because I think that when somebody opens that thing, they're actually going to be like
31:26
stunned and amazed, you know? And I also think that it would be a great phone for a lot of people to have. You know, the the biggest reaction I got
31:34
from non- techy friends when they saw me using the iPhone Air during the two weeks I had it was, "Oh, I like how it
31:40
doesn't have three cameras on the back. They don't care about the advanced camera features. They want a phone that looks good." And the iPhone Air is the
31:46
best looking phone they've made in a long time. Well, nice nice little Yeah. segue there. Why don't we talk about the
31:51
cameras? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, the ultra thin iPhone Air drew a lot of attention when it
31:56
launched for its remarkably sleek design. However, in one possible improvement, Apple is quote considering
32:03
adding a new camera lens to what they refer to as the iPhone 18 Air. It would
32:08
add uh it would pair a 48 megapixel main camera with a 48 megapixel ultra wideangle lens. According to Chinese
32:16
leaker digital chat station on WBO, the leaker noted that quote, "A telephoto
32:21
lens would be even better." And I definitely agree, though the current plans apparently don't include one. I
32:27
know a lot of people who would much rather prefer the telephoto lens to the ultra wide lens. Like I very rarely use
32:33
the ultra wide lens on my phone. Honestly, it's more annoying. More more often than I intentionally take an ultra
32:39
wide picture, I have to turn off the irritating macro mode that happens when you try to get too close on the 1x lens
32:45
without focusing. And if I were actually upgrading this year, the biggest problem I would have would be choosing between
32:51
the iPhone Air and the iPhone 17 Pro because the 17 Pro has that excellent telephoto lens that can go between four
32:57
and 8x, you know, optical quote unquote quality zoom. You don't get that on the iPhone Air. You you don't have any zoom
33:04
in beyond 2x. Well, the question is where are they going to stick another camera lens? Like you said, your friends all like the fact
33:10
that it only has one camera lens. You have the plateau there, the camera plateau, which is, you know, like basically lens and then the rest of it
33:16
is filled with the the motherboard and all the other chips uh to to to power the device. Can they possibly shrink
33:23
could they add another lens and and while at the same time shrinking all of the guts into that camera plateau? I
33:30
mean, that's a good point. Like the the camera sticks out farther on the iPhone Air because they have all the extra components sort of behind it. Uh whereas
33:37
on older iPhones, the camera itself would take up the entire thickness of the inside of that part of the phone. Um
33:43
and I was wondering if they're adding a second lens, would they then switch it to a more like entry-level iPhone 17
33:50
inspired design where they're on top of each other like down the height of the phone? But according to the same leak,
33:56
the second generation iPhone Air will retain its core design element, the 6 and 12 in display and the horizontal uh
34:02
runwayshaped camera plateau. And I think the the picture in the top of the article from that leaker where they
34:09
would be they would be side by side across the top of the phone, not stacked on top of each other, you know, going
34:14
towards the volume buttons on the side, which is interesting. They would have to compress the internal components even
34:20
further to make a second camera lens fit there. I I sort of assume that the only reason the iPhone air's plateau is
34:27
shaped the way it is is because it only has a single camera lens up there. I I would assume if they were adding more
34:32
cameras to that design that it would get a plateau that's exactly like the iPhone
34:37
17 Pro, you know, they would add a camera below it and then the plateau would just get larger. Maybe they think
34:43
that would make it too topheavy and that's why they're they're going for the two lenses side by side. I don't know.
34:48
It would kind of it would definitely detract from the whole Air design, wouldn't it? I mean, the only baby air with a big fat plateau like a pearl. I
34:54
mean, there there were, I think, other rumors saying that the iPhone Air next year would have a slightly different design, but nobody really explained how.
35:01
I guess this would explain it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right, let's move on to um CarPlay. Uh there's uh
35:09
some movements in the CarPlay world. The golden age of CarPlay may be ending, which is tragic to be honest. It's a
35:16
troubling sign for Apple enthusiasts. General Motors announced that new vehicles from the automotive giant will no longer supply CarPlay. no longer
35:23
support CarPlay or its Android components. So, uh, GM is moving to its
35:29
own software in its cars. And this isn't just GM making an odd choice. It signals a fundamental shift in how automated
35:35
view relationship between the car and your phone by cutting Apple out as a middleman. GM creates opportunities to
35:41
charge for services that CarPlay currently provides for free. And this, of course, is the crux of the matter,
35:47
charging for services. GM uh replacement system requires its own data plan starting at $10 monthly to access the
35:54
full software suite. So there you go. Another subscription for you. Well, the promises it promises eight
36:00
years of free service for new EV buyers. The long-term strategy is clear. Your your car's features are going to become
36:05
another subscription uh on your credit card statement. And it's not just CarPlay. Popular service like Apple
36:11
Podcast and Apple Music are missing. Uh more fundamentally, you'll have to learn a new system rather than using the iPhone interface you already know. Uh so
36:18
Tesla T Tesla and Rivian have never offered CarPlay uh by betting on their own proprietary systems. Uh and other
36:24
manufacturers are locking previously standard features behind pay walls. Toyota now charges subscriptions for navigation tools that CarPlay provides
36:31
for free. Uh uh one of the car companies charges you for remote unlocking, right? I think now. And didn't BMW charge for
36:40
heat seeders or something crazy? Mhm. I think this is clearly anti-consumer.
36:46
Uh surveys, what are surveys like? You know, if people uh the top feature, the one to number one top feature almost all
36:53
new car buyers is CarPlay or Android Auto. Um more often than not, CarPlay. I think it's like 70% or something like
36:58
that or even higher, 78% of new car buyers wouldn't consider a car without CarPlay.
37:04
I think it was in the '9s, honestly. Was it? Yeah. It's mad. So research
37:10
shows that only 28% of US consumers would switch to native systems and smart smartphone integration were unavailable.
37:16
You know the car companies that the money is just too too good to ignore um
37:22
you know this they're leaving a lot of money on the table. I think this is an absolute tragedy isn't it? You know like CarPlay is by far the best infotainment
37:29
system that you can get and I love I just like, you know, it's almost just a pleasure just to just to have the 3D maps up as you're driving around the
37:35
city and you can and you can just follow the the you know, the map as you go. Um, of course, you know, the music as well,
37:41
the integration, all the apps. I mean, I stream um BBC radio all the time from my
37:47
phone to to CarPlay while I'm driving along, which I don't think, you know, I don't know if that these these
37:53
manufacturers these car manufacturers are going to open up their own systems to third party apps. um probably if they
37:58
can charge for it. But uh yeah, I I I haven't seen a and the Homegrown systems
38:04
of cars are just awful. The the software was just terrible. I don't know if that anyone I think GM I think it I I
38:10
remember saying that it was getting some praise for it new software suite that it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but
38:17
still it's no CarPlay. Yeah. And I I think I also saw earlier this week that GM is already cutting off
38:22
uh car the oldest cars on their current system after only five years. So
38:28
like people keep cars longer than five years. It's ridiculous. Just build in CarPlay there. I mean I think the whole
38:35
idea of oh well we we're leaving money on the table by giving all of this over to Apple and and Google. But the thing
38:42
is that whole thing is built on a false premise because they're imagining if we build this all ourselves we can charge
38:47
our own subscription prices. People aren't going to pay them. I'm very confident people aren't going to pay them. Why do I need a a whole separate
38:55
like system of of podcasts and music just for my car? My phone has
39:01
everything. It It's increasingly important though, isn't it? You know, the the software suite in the car, the entertainment
39:07
stuff, and and they have handed it over to Apple at the moment. You know, no one has any touches on any GM software or GM
39:14
services at all if you have CarPlay or Android Auto. So they are giving like I saw a quote I think from the CEO of
39:21
Rivian who said you know why would we let these invaders in right inside why would we invite them in right inside the
39:27
house he was completely incredulous you know that anyone that any other car manufacturer would even consider CarPlay
39:33
and Android Auto I mean to him it's just fundamentally mad that they would let the brains of the car be given to
39:40
another company and so you know you can definitely see their kind of point of view but of course I think for a
39:45
consumer it's it's just, you know, it's you're you're between a rock and a hard place. Like, I would much rather have
39:51
Android CarPlay. They would invite those people in because that's what people want and that's what people want to buy. I
39:57
imagine if GM announces these plans. I think I heard a report that a lot of um GM dealerships were furious at GM
40:05
headquarters for for announcing that their their war on CarPlay because, you know, how many people do they have to
40:10
turn away when when people come in for a car and they're like, "Oh, how do I how do I access CarPlay on my this Chevy
40:17
Equinox?" It doesn't have it. Okay, goodbye. A lot of people are just going to walk away. Well, but you know, but
40:23
it's it looks like it's going to come to the point though where where all the manufacturers are going to switch away from CarPlay and Android Auto. So, you
40:29
know, like it's not it's not putting GM at the moment. GM is is is you know, stands out and like you said, you know,
40:35
maybe people will shop around for a different vehicle. But eventually, I mean, fairly soon probably um it won't
40:42
be offered, you know, it'll all be native systems from all the manufacturers, all the manufacturers. I've heard much about a lot of other
40:48
manufacturers abandoning CarPlay. I'll be honest. I think I mean yeah Tesla and Nurvian have never had it. They're the
40:53
you know but you know you're buying a weird vehicle when you buy a Tesla or Rivian anyways like those are unique new
40:59
fangled EVs. People already know they're getting something unusual. I don't think Honda or Hyundai or Toyota or anything.
41:05
I don't think any other major manufacturer has announced plans to walk away from like at least original CarPlay. And in fact there's a number of
41:12
manufacturers who are still on the short list of of companies who are getting CarPlay Ultra. I guess probably some of
41:18
the few that I mentioned, Hyundai and Honda, at least I remember them being on the list. Yeah. I wonder if a CarPlay Ultra is what um you know really freaked out the
41:24
car manufacturers because it goes even deeper into the cars um systems and can
41:30
display all kinds of internal data, you know, gas consumption and stuff like that. So, it's it's even it's taking over even more functions. Maybe that was
41:37
what scared uh when when Apple was trying to roll this out. biggest thing for me is I mean I use it every all the time but when I
41:45
go to a rental car that doesn't have CarPlay I just feel lost and and you
41:51
know then you have to start trying to like literally lost but also just figuratively like what what's going on
41:56
here? How do I how do I uh do anything? How do I listen to music? How do I look
42:02
at a map? How do I do anything? And and that's one thing that's so awesome about CarPlay is that you take your phone with
42:07
you. You get in any car. It works. And uh That's from familiar interface. Yeah.
42:13
I mean, God, I I had to use a couple of non-carplay cars on a recent trip and it
42:19
was it was just just terrible, you know, just absolutely terrible. And one of them had had like I don't know what was
42:25
it like Garmin mapping, right? Remember Garmin? I think it was Garmin. And I was like, "Okay, I'll try." I I was like
42:32
trying to use that. It I looked like I was playing a a video game from like 1990 or 86 or something, you know? It
42:38
was not even that not even that new like 1976. It was just it was like lines on a
42:44
screen. I was like what is going on here? I really really missed CarPlay. And uh I it it made me wonder like
42:52
like maybe the thing to do is buy one of those little portable ones that you can sit on the dash and take that with you
42:58
when you travel and rent a car. I mean you cost like 80 or 100 bucks. I mean, I
43:04
would have there was one point driving through uh southern Italy, you know, like trying desperately to get to a
43:10
hotel. I would have paid $100 right then to have that CarPlay on my dashboard
43:16
cuz uh or just, you know, a Mag Safe uh phone mount, just stick that to the AC vent
43:21
and just put your actual phone up there. Yeah, it's the problem with that is it's so small. And I guess you could run the
43:28
audio through the, you know, if you had the right cable, you could run the audio through the uh probably through into the
43:35
aux of the thing. But uh oh god, you know, just it's so much simpler when you
43:40
just can plug in your phone or better yet wireless CarPlay. I don't know if you do you have you have wireless CarPlay?
43:46
I've I've used a car with wireless carplay. One of my close friends has wireless carplay. You just get in and boom, it works. I
43:52
mean, that is luxurious feeling. Yeah, I've got one of those wireless car CarPlay screens and you know for because
43:58
none of our vehicles support CarPlay natively. So I've got uh screens actually in in in all three of our cars.
44:04
Um and uh yeah, they're great. They're fantastic. You plug them into the auxjack, plug them into the cigarette uh charging port. Um the only problem is
44:11
like leaving them in in the car in San Francisco is not a good idea. So
44:17
unfortunately have to sort of take them down and stash them every time you get in and out of the car, which is a bit of a pain. But um yeah, they're great.
44:23
They're fantastic. They really, really work really well. If if these car companies do drop
44:29
CarPlay, that's what people are going to do. They're just going to because it's it's not even like difficult, you know?
44:34
I If you look at like uh what I had to do is I yanked out my Well, I paid
44:39
somebody to yank out my uh existing car stereo, right? And replace it with a a
44:44
CarPlay head. But these other things are just they're just portable. It's super
44:49
cheap and super easy. That's what people will do rather than paying $10 a month to use, you know, some garbage, you
44:56
know, first, you know, original party, uh, software, you know, it doesn't have your calendar
45:01
appointments. It doesn't know where you're going to go. It doesn't have your address book. It doesn't have your contacts. It doesn't have anything. Why
45:07
would people pay money for a worse system, right, when they have already been, you know, shown shown the light,
45:14
right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. I want actually, you know, like it's going to absolutely be a huge investment to be able to run a decent
45:19
infotainment system like to talk to rival CarPlay. I mean, like you said, you know, there's a there's so much involved in it. Um, they're never going
45:25
to be able to compete with Apple, are they ever? Let's uh let's move on to our next sponsor, Factor. It's always a beautiful day when a a big
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at these pictures. These delicious food like potato leak mash and grilled chicken with roasted corn and zucchini
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sauté. Oh my god, the these these meals look amazing. Roasted garlic chicken with gravy, chive Yukon mash and green
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order, you know, with specific uh diet types, you know, like if you're on keto diet or your carnivore diet or
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they they have a surprising number of vegetables in them, which I think is awesome because I don't like cooking
46:16
vegetables and and I don't even I don't even like a lot of vegetables, but but they're good in these dishes, you know?
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There are a lot of things that have like zucchini and broccoli and things like that kind of mashed up in some kind of
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I think as a person who actually really likes to cook, the thing that I'm most amazed by these things, they they show
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which won't be a hard call because you're going to once you get these things, you're going to be like, "This is great. I love having this delivered
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to my house. I love how easy it is to eat some delicious food that's actually good for me." So, um, Griffin, let's rush through this.
47:38
Five new features in iOS is 26 you don't want to miss. So, yeah, iOS 26.1 was released earlier
47:43
this week on Monday. Uh, I guess as a small point of comparison, uh, I still
47:48
don't think this is the software update that Apple is like automatically pushing to everybody still on iOS 18. Uh, which
47:55
is kind of curious. They might be waiting for 18.2, but I will say 26.1 is much more stable than uh, 26.0. A lot of
48:02
bug fixes across all their operating systems really. Um, and a number of uh,
48:08
new features as well. Uh, I think we've talked about this a little bit on the show. Um, in iOS 26.1, Apple introduces
48:14
a new translucency setting for liquid glass. In settings, display and brightness. There's a new option for
48:21
liquid glass where you can choose between clear or tinted. We might have exaggerated the the difference between
48:26
the two in previous episodes of the show. Like overselling it, is Apple losing its oh. Oh, where's its
48:32
conviction on liquid glass? Um, the the tinted style doesn't remove liquid glass. Uh, it makes the, uh, light UI a
48:41
little whiter and the dark UI a little blacker, but it doesn't like remove all of its translucent effects. You can
48:47
still see the background warping through the interface if it's colorful enough. I have like a uh comparison picture of my
48:53
article of like a a picture in the photos app that's filling the screen. You can see in the clear one, the
48:58
buttons are barely visible. And in the tinted one, yeah, the buttons are a lot
49:04
more uh opaque, but you can still see like the warping effects between them. It's even more obvious in motion be
49:10
because you can see all the things uh you know, translucently waving through it. Um
49:15
but yeah, uh and and the tinted option is still not the most if if you don't like it at all, there's still the
49:21
separate accessibility option of reduced transparency and that makes everything like solid colors and all that. But
49:27
tinted is a new uh middle ground appearance. You can choose if you uh it's more like turning toning it down
49:33
rather than turning it off. I I saw somebody ridiculing it uh the way that it displays notifications when
49:39
you have it set like that. They described it as orthopedic like it's it's so like well describe it
49:47
like an an accessibility feature. So I don't know. Yeah. And light mode it it maybe overcorrects a little bit on making uh
49:53
notifications translucent u or sorry opaque. Uh there's a new gesture if you
49:59
use the Apple Music app that makes it uh easy to skip and rewind tracks. When your phone is unlocked, you can swipe
50:06
your finger on the little track title in the little mini player at the bottom or on the full now playing screen. You can
50:13
swipe your finger on the on the title to either skip forward or go backwards. U
50:18
might be easier if you're in the car than, you know, precisely pointing your finger and tapping the fast forward
50:24
button. So that's kind of neat. Uh there's a new interface on the lock screen. When an alarm or a timer goes
50:30
off, instead of having a stop button, you have a little stop slider that you
50:35
have to sort of slide to stop. Kind of like the slide to unlock on an iPhone. That's kind of interesting.
50:41
Why is everyone making a big fuss about this? Like this this kind of like when this, you know, first
50:46
people got wind of it, oh wow, you know, look at this amazing new interface on the alarm. I guess it it it it it the
50:52
old alarm interface must have upset people so much that this change was like
50:57
a big something to celebrate. The old alarm had uh equally sized buttons for snooze and stop. And I think
51:04
the concern was that if you're only half awake and you're just sort of like slapping at your phone, you might accidentally stop the alarm, uh meaning
51:12
to snooze it or just silence it. And uh the this new one makes sure that you have to be a little more awake to be
51:18
able to stop the alarm. We're always pre preference snoozing over stop. Like snooze the snooze button is much bigger
51:23
than the stop button. So it was it was I always found that a little puzzling. I thought it was always
51:29
kind of backwards. It seems like that's the way it should be. I mean you you want it to be easy to snooze. You don't necessarily want it to
51:35
be easy to turn off because of all the reasons just mentioned. I haven't seen this yet on the iPhone. I I tend to uh
51:42
you know I get the alarm on the watch. That's where I look at it. I don't even reach for the phone. So,
51:47
or if you're in standby, you don't see this uh you don't see this interface either. Oh. Or if you don't wake up with an alarm,
51:53
which is what I do. I just sort of wake up whenever I wake up. Oh, hi.
51:59
Yeah. Well, I wake up at precisely the same time every day, too. You know, like it doesn't matter what happens at the same
52:04
time. So, you go right to the gym. Just fist bump Tim Tim Cook on the way.
52:09
But I I mentioned this because you don't want to uh encounter it for the first time when you're angrily trying to turn off your phone. That's That's how it
52:16
works, everybody. Make sure you learn before you update your phone and you wake up at 5:00 a.m. Um, here's a new
52:22
setting I didn't know I wanted. In settings and you go to camera, you can scroll down to the bottom and disable
52:29
lock screen swipe to open camera. This disables the feature where you can, you know, swipe left on your lock screen to
52:35
switch to the camera app. Uh, this is a problem I had with the um old pair of
52:40
pants that I used to wear. the pocket lining was really thin and so my phone would accidentally open the camera like
52:47
just from my thigh touching my thigh all the time and I would pull my phone out of my pocket and see, oh, my phone is
52:53
burning hot. The battery is dead and I've been recording video 4K 60 resolution of the inside of my pocket
52:59
for 20 minutes. iPhone storage full. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, now that I
53:05
have the camera control or you can even, you know, still use the the camera button on the lock screen. can disable the swipe and uh I immediately uh
53:12
checked that or unchecked that feature. So that's that's excellent. And of course slide over made its return on the
53:20
iPad. So it's it's been reinvented to be congruous with their multitasking
53:25
windowing system. It's now a a feature where you can make any window uh a slide over window by tapping and holding on
53:32
like the the green window button. You tap enter slide over and it's no longer limited to being like really tall and
53:37
skinny. You can resize it as big as you want or as tiny as you want. And in a in another sort of benefit, there's no more
53:45
complicated separate app switcher for slide over. You can just bring one window into slide over or take it out.
53:50
Uh you can still swipe it off the edge or bring it in from the side of the screen if you want. But of course, I don't own an iPad, so I don't know what
53:57
it's like living with these things. Have either of you tried the new slide over? Mr. iPad himself, Ed Hardy, one of our
54:02
writers, he he he he loves it and he wrote a a how to uh about how to use it and and an appreciation of it. He he's a
54:09
big fan. He thinks it's a really good system. I understand you're deferring to Ed because you haven't used it yourself,
54:14
Leander. Right. Certainly. I don't have an iPad that'll run the latest version of the software, so
54:20
Oh, wow. Why upgrade? Thrilling discussion we've had. iPad slide over. We can uh we can drop drop
54:27
Ed's post in the uh show notes because it was a quite a good appre appreciation of it.
54:33
Oh, so that's uh 26.1 and the 26.2 beta is already out as well. So new features
54:38
in that that we'll probably talk about in the future. 20 features, right? In 26.1, 20 new
54:44
features or thereabouts, 20 tweaks. Yes. And if you'd like the the full comprehensive list, I have an article
54:49
and a video on that that I will also link in the show notes. So, we have a fun new game from
54:56
quotes. Fun new game.
55:02
Let's test it out. Let's see how it goes. Griffin, what's your game? We are going to do a little bit of Apple
55:10
Mad Libs. So what I've done is I've taken one of the uh product announcement
55:16
posts the a real a real an article that we have on cult of Mac and I've taken
55:22
out a lot of the the keywords from the intro and we're going to reinvent a new
55:27
Apple product announcement article uh in Mad Libs. This is a segment that I've
55:33
shamelessly stolen from a different non tech podcast uh Mad Libs. So, uh, we're
55:40
going to write this article ourselves. So, I'm not familiar with Mad Libs. Okay. So, I'm going to I'm going to ask
55:45
you for a number of words and then we're going to fill in the blanks and then we're going to come up with some absolute nonsense probably. So, I need
55:53
one of the two of you. Maybe you can take turns. Give me the name of a city. Any city.
55:59
Sun City. Sun. City. Okay. Give me a country.
56:04
Italy. Italy. How about an adjective?
56:10
Garlicky. Still looking at the factor meals page. Okay. Uh, another adjective.
56:16
[Laughter] Leander, if you don't do it, I' i've got one. I can't think of anything. Um,
56:23
creamy. Okay, Lander, maybe you could do this one. Give me a number.
56:28
Seven. Seven. Okay. Another number. Three.
56:34
Give me an organ. Organ. Mhm. Liver.
56:40
Heart. Oh. Oh, liver is good. I like liver. And give me an activity.
56:45
Dart. Okay. Another adjective.
56:50
Uh, sauteed. Old cooking ones. I can't I can't take my eyes off the
56:57
factory meals page. Give me a plural noun.
57:03
horses. Another adjective.
57:09
Uh, how about ripping? Rainy.
57:15
Would you say dripping or ripping? Ripping. I like I like dripping.
57:20
Give me a superlative. Best.
57:26
Okay. Uh, a first name. Leander.
57:33
A last name. Wallace. Okay. Give me a rank.
57:42
Rank. Yeah, rank. Sergeant like fifth or lieutenant?
57:47
Sergeant. That works. Leander, you're supposed to say left tenant. That's true. Oh, am I? I've been here so long.
57:54
Give me a college degree. Philosophy. Philosophy. Uh, how about an
58:01
exclamation? Anything you would yell. Yikes. Yikes.
58:08
Thought for sure it was gonna be criy. How about a number?
58:14
Another number. Yep. 11. Okay. And one more number.
58:20
43. Uh, month of the year.
58:27
Happens. This is getting long. Sorry, only two more. Uh, give me a a
58:35
relative period of time like next week, next year, last Tuesday.
58:40
I thought you meant like Paleozoic era. Yeah.
58:47
Uh, I don't know. Last last August. Okay. And finally,
58:54
you're going to give me a color. Green. Ah,
59:00
green. I got green from the factor page again. Lewis said it said it louder. So,
59:06
it's the color of the beans. Now, I'm going to paste this in our show notes and you're going to read it out
59:12
for me, Lewis. Oh, god. Tell tell us about the the new AirPods.
59:18
So, it starts out with datine, Sun City, Italy, which I think is this this was this generated by Chat GPT. Uh,
59:25
this is generated by you. Apple gave a garlicky update to its creamy wireless earbuds, launching AirPods Pro 7. The
59:33
new buds have three-hour battery life and add liver monitoring and live darts.
59:38
I can't wait for this. Finally, with sautéed audio performance and entirely new horses, I think AirPods Pro
59:45
are truly dripping, said Apple CEO Tim Cook. These are my best AirPods ever,
59:50
said Leander Wallace, Apple's sergeant of hardware philosophy. This announcement came at Apple's Yikes
59:57
event. The The new AirPods Pro costs $1143 and will be available starting
1:00:02
January 19th. Pre-orders will open last August. Okay. Well, that's kind of crazy.
1:00:09
Yeah. Kind of funny how that's turned out. Wow. Deliver monitoring is not a bad idea.
1:00:14
Is that kind of what you're expecting, Griffin? Yep. Yep. Apple's yikes event. You know, Tim Cook saying AirPods Pro are truly
1:00:21
dripping does kind of sound like one of the ways they try to gen up their marketing. So,
1:00:28
and I like premium wireless earbuds. That's actually kind of that's not so far off. Yeah. Yeah.
1:00:34
Yikes event. Pre-orders will open last August. That sounds about right, too.
1:00:40
Mhm. You know, you you replaced I the superlative best was actually exactly what was in the quote before. Best
1:00:46
AirPods ever. That's too bad. Did you take this from uh one of our stories then and and uh made some blanks or
1:00:52
this was the the lead to my AirPods Pro 3 article? I just took out a bunch of the words light editing, but it's pretty
1:00:58
much pretty much the intro to that article. So, where did you get this uh this this idea from? The which other which which
1:01:05
podcast did you This was a podcast called Aaron is the funny one. Uh where they do Mad Libs as
1:01:11
a a way of writing horoscopes at the end of each episode. And I thought uh you
1:01:16
know that could be that could be a fun idea we can steal. Try for a product announcement.
1:01:22
All right. Okay. I'm excited for to see to see the the the horses coming to AirPods Pro 7
1:01:28
live darts. Why don't we ask the Yeah, let's ask the readers. What do you think of this segment? Should uh should should should
1:01:34
we try this again? Please let us know and or should we never do it again?
1:01:39
Let's see. Is it a fun new game or a fun new game?
1:01:45
Right. I think that I think that about wraps it up. My wife's been calling, so I I
1:01:51
better get going. Um, yeah, I know. So, here we are. So,
1:01:56
thanks very much for signing off in Sun City, Arizona. Uh, that's all the coldcast we have for you this week. Uh,
1:02:03
if you want more, Lewis is on Twitter at Lewis Wallace. Griffin's on Masttodon, if you ever heard of that, at DG Griffin
1:02:08
Johns. and I wrote the Colmite uh today newsletter, which I better get on with shortly at newslers.calmack.com.
1:02:15
So, if you want to if you want to weigh in on the on the mad lips game, send us a text using a link at the top of the
1:02:20
show notes or in the YouTube comments. Uh or ask questions for the show, you know, like uh questions are always good.
1:02:26
That's been the Coldcast, the best hourong Apple conversation you're going to hear all week long. New episodes of the Cast come out every Thursday
1:02:31
evening. So, thanks very much everybody for listening. We'll see you all next time. Have a great weekend, everybody. Goodbye.
1:02:37
Yikes. All right. Okay. All right. We'll definitely have to wrap it up. Did you
1:02:43
hear the phone ring in there? Yeah. Yeah, it's one time.
1:02:49
I can edit it out. All right. Cool. Did you hear the toilets? I I was creaking a couple of
1:02:54
times. A lot of times just in my lane. Didn't really hear it. That thing creaked just when you almost fell off.
1:03:03
[Music]
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