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Bad week for Apple Watch — HUGE news for HomePod (CultCast #655)
Mar 11, 2025
This week - potentially huge news for the iPhone 17, the latest changes in iOS 18, disappointing news for the Apple Watch — but evidence that a big change is coming to HomePod! Chapters: 0:00 Preshow 8:48 Intro 11:50 Notion 14:00 2 nanometer chips 18:09 Apple Watch Sensors 26:00 HomePod with a Screen 38:29 iOS 18 Beta 3 41:54 404 Media Podcast 44:27 Severance Season 2 49:57 Wombat Willow Pro
View Video Transcript
0:01
I feel like I'm missing something huge and important but I guess we'll find out
0:08
when we go live you have to post the Tweet oh the Tweet action did I close that tab
0:17
I think we're live B and we're live oh my I went to full screen me sorry about
0:23
that let's take it up to Lewis full screen how about that everyone loves a little full screen Lewis action spare
0:29
the people I should do I should do a a l Zoom angle where it's just like your whole middle
0:35
of your face just on the screen and nothing else you're just trying to kill the show
0:42
aren't you just trying dude that actually might make it better
0:47
loose um I can't find the Tweet action it's completely
0:53
gone what happened did I close it see I told you I was missing something and
1:01
didn't we do that one year or one show I think we did oh
1:07
dear okay let me um let me spin up this tweet action because I already lost it
1:13
don't ask me how that happened and uh we'll get this thing rolling but you know what we got Carlos
1:19
L here we got spooky spooky spooky Roland we got streamlines we got Betty
1:26
Reyes we got Ian William Clark I hope that that's three names and not two is
1:32
it William Clark or William Clark we got zagd that reminds me of the name of uh
1:38
the bad guy in Ghostbusters let me get this thing uh queued up and we got a
1:45
whole lot of show going on here my friends I look I hope that you're ready I hope that you're sitting down I doubt
1:51
you even have the ability to comprehend what kind of show you're in for this
1:57
week let's see here are you ready for the Tweet action here leis I I'm beyond
2:03
ready B what's the deal with the Tweet there
2:08
it is the whole website is just called X what's
2:14
next Instagram's gonna be L Facebook's gonna be K oh man it's pretty good we got Jan
2:22
hanol here okay I think we're ready to go guys
2:29
we have Quorum we'll see how many people stick around once the content starts flowing
2:34
out of our moue but uh we got to make this one a good one
2:40
because the more people we get here the more opportunity we have to get these to convince these
2:47
people that they need to send us on a Disneyland trip leis so we can put you on some roller
2:53
coasters that would be one of my favorite things that I ever did in my lifetime I know that when was the last
2:58
time you were on a roller coaster God that's an interesting question
3:03
probably uh wow it's probably been
3:12
uh like the the mid 80s wow maybe the late 80s it's been a
3:18
while '90s I did hop on one of those um
3:24
one of those what are they called those things where they put you in the like a center of a a
3:30
round circle there's two seats in there and then they they take the giant stand that goes up in the airway
3:38
and it's connected with rubber bands basically you never heard of this it's it it basically sounds terrible it
3:44
launches you into the air like I don't oh like a catapult yeah but straight up
3:50
yeah why would you ever do that I have my God that was so intense it was unbelievable yeah that sounds like heart
3:57
attack territory awesome it was awesome cuz you you you go so fast and you just soar and then you get up to the very top
4:03
and start slowing down and then you there's a moment you get to the top and you're sitting there you're going oh
4:08
boy and it's just straight down yeah I saw a video of these women getting on
4:16
one of those rides and they were like all right here we go and they're winding it up right and right before they let go
4:22
the strap breaks oh my God and so that that ride
4:28
never happened and ever since I saw that video I mean I never wanted to go one of those anyway but then I saw that video I'm like that's going to be a big note
4:34
for me the fact that that's even possible broke you go like sideways wrap around
4:41
the thing yeah You' go you get la la straight up and then back down and hit
4:47
the ground back up hit the ground you'd be hamburger or the or the
4:53
other one that people do and I do not understand why are like those big swings
4:58
that take you like 200 ft in the air and you're just like going around in a circle circle circle circle and your
5:05
feet have nothing below them except for you know 200 feet of Sky they have one of those in Orlando and I don't know how
5:12
tall this thing is it looks like it goes up like 300 feet I'm like that I would never do that or the roller coaster like
5:17
on the top of the stratosphere uh that tower build that Tower hotel in Vegas and it's like
5:22
you're going around the roller coaster if be at the top of the freaking Stratosphere no way dude why no why I
5:29
don't know I have children and I want to be there for their future life events sounds terrible more worried
5:36
about that roller coaster than any other roller coaster well you have a hope of
5:41
surviving another roller coaster but the strap breaks on the slingshot Dude
5:47
That's it man you're done it's because the roller coasters Aon liks at Disneyland are tame compared to the ones
5:52
we have at Cedar Point and Kennywood yeah M mine have been inspected for safety I think that might
5:58
be the difference do you uh ride the roller coasters that have like a a milk stand a chocolate
6:05
milk stand on the way out I haven't seen chocolate milk but they have juice and stuff cookies okay you know cotton candy
6:13
and did you get on the saucer ride or does that upset your tum tum look I go I
6:18
I I don't appreciate the accusations or the insinuations that are going on here I took the uh I went on the Hulk ride at
6:27
at uh Universal Orlando that thing was about as intense as it gets it shoots you out of like this big giant tube and
6:34
about 170 mph your eyeballs are like flap it open and then as soon as
6:40
you get out of the tube it takes you over and upside down and shoots you down so fast you have to clench your bung not
6:46
to not to lose it's not not to go full Al on the
6:52
right it's not a proven roller coaster unless at least one person has died on it before I got Top Thrill Dragster at
6:58
Cedar Point okay well if I ever come is that in Ohio yeah it it's straight up straight forwards incredibly fast then
7:05
it goes like 500 feet up and then just 500 feet straight down and then that's the roller coaster okay that sounds safe
7:12
I got off the Hulk one and there's some guy sitting there with a medic you know regretting his life choices oh my God no
7:18
joke and then and then uh they have another one called the Velociraptor which is like one of the fastest roller
7:24
coasters I think in America it takes you up to like 70 miles per hour and it's like you're hanging there it it goes
7:31
over the actual walking paths of the park so you're not just like in the
7:37
roller coaster Zone where there's like nothing below you but roller coaster like you're flying over people and like bushes and other rides and stuff and
7:43
it's super fast um so I've been on some real manly roller coasters the roller
7:48
coasters where I would probably have to come back and collect to you Louis after I was done okay you know maybe we do
7:55
that instead univers all right all right
8:00
look I got leave I know we have almost no time to do this show so I'm going to queue up Mrs Uno we get this thing
8:06
rolling oh Mrs D well that's not it Mrs
8:12
D Mrs D oh my dear I also love roller coasters oh really Mrs D oh yes I love
8:19
going on rides really oh yes I rode El key last
8:25
night Must Be This Tall we saw it coming we saw it coming should have muted it
8:32
for that part Mrs D look at Lewis his face is turning green well this is not
8:37
the kind of information we wanted to hear from you today we just want to get this show going so if you don't mind I'll get the music queued up and we'll
8:44
get this thing rolling in three hello and welcome to the Ki best
8:51
30 plus minute Apple conversation you're going to here all week long I'm your host a Live join me today you know I
8:57
haven't given him enough credit he's Beyond cogent in fact he's better than
9:03
he's ever been intellectually analy analytically I would even go as far as saying this is
9:09
the best version of Ls Wallace that I've ever experienced and if you can't handle that truth and F
9:14
you managing Louis walls is here perfect
9:20
between the hours of 8 and four we got him right at his Peak also with
9:26
us hair dryer usage accounts for 16% of his monthly electricity
9:32
expenses he's thinking about switching to a natural gas model just to save some money he's
9:38
a grimit Jones is here still waiting to
9:44
hit Happ yet well I can't hear you Griffin yeah your
9:49
audio actually did seem to drop lower for some reason
9:55
randomly let me see if I can fix that yeah why you do that I will uh let everyone know a how to what's that what
10:03
you can read a howto a howto on how to keep your Audio Level normal is that better oh oh there much better in fact
10:10
two better may maybe bring it back like 55 or 60
10:16
DB no it's good maybe bring it back like 15% okay how about now yeah I think that
10:23
probably it's that it spontaneously changed like that we haven't had that in in a while yeah and what's also weird is
10:28
like all of a sudden it kind of seemed like your audio had like sped up but I don't think it did I think that's a
10:33
Skype lag thing you think so all right it plays catchup sometimes yeah I thought maybe just Griffin was playing
10:39
katchup he's got that he's got that corn powerered internet back there in Ohio yeah that's Crawford County Ohio no
10:45
kidding no kidding so I've experienced okay well look we have a lot of stuff to talk about and not a lot of time to do
10:52
it I gotta be walking these sweet Buns of mine out the door oh my goodness in 50 minutes like we got to make that happen we're going to have to Micro
10:58
Machines our way through this show we're going to be talking about uh some Cutting Edge Tech coming to iPhone 17
11:05
Lewis is going to talk about what's coming next for iPhone or iPhone Apple Watch series 10 I don't think you're
11:11
going to like this news but you're not getting a series 10 anyway right you all are getting the ultra so this may not
11:17
even matter we have some big developments coming to homepod yes I still love the homepods just not nearly
11:23
as much as I used to sadly Griffin's going to tell us about uh new features coming to iOS 18 beta
11:30
three uh we have a new season of severance on the way which I didn't realize this was coming so soon so I'm
11:36
extremely happy about that we're going to wrap up with an all new Under review where Griffin's going to tell us about a
11:41
new pillow that he's been reviewing made out of one bite hair right did I misread that oh maybe I did okay well before we
11:49
dive in I want to give a big hearty thank you to notion for supporting this
11:56
episode did I pull that up oh yeah is that working oh thank goodness we you do everything so last minute here you never
12:02
know what's going to go wrong but thank thanks to my uh experience and Tech
12:07
prowess we we rarely have problems except for the 40 minutes before the show I want to thank notion for
12:13
supporting this episode notion is a place where any team can write plan organize and ReDiscover the joy of play
12:20
notion combines your notes and docs into one space that's simple and beautifully designed uh with the power of AI built
12:28
right inside not a sep AI tool or browser Tab and it does so much G darn
12:34
stuff more than you could probably uh expect from any normal Notes application
12:42
uh I see people using notion all the time now in fact there's this Real Estate club that I'm a part of and uh
12:49
they had this Wiki that they had created and it's available online and I go to click on it it's a otion website they
12:55
created the whole thing in notion I see people using notion for planning U all sorts of various Tech projects I see
13:02
people using notion for planning like their content their ad content their YouTube content plus you can use it just
13:08
as a Notes application if that's all you need it's a great way to um uh create
13:14
like uh different task management systems there's just so much power that's woven into notion and then it has
13:20
all of the AI stuff obviously where it can do AI right there in the actual application it has all these prompts
13:26
that show you exactly the types of AI functionality it's available to you you can change the tone of your uh of
13:34
whatever you've written you can have it create copy for you you could have it summarized long articles or whatever I
13:40
mean it just does a ton of stuff try notion for free when you go to notion.com cultcast that's all lowercase
13:46
letters notion.com cultcast and start turning your ideas into action and when
13:52
you use our link you're supporting our show which we appreciate no notion.com cultcast so they know that we sent you
13:59
all right let's Dive Right In cutting edge Tech an iPhone 17 yes it's a little
14:05
bit of ways down the road but we thought you still might be interested in this and Griffin has promised to make this
14:11
sound interesting take it away Griffin so the iPhone 17 might be getting a Cutting Edge 2 nanometer chip
14:19
from tsmc Apple's chipmaker tsmc will begin trial production of two nanometer processors next week this is apparently
14:26
months earlier than expected and is the possibility that the company's Next Generation production process will be
14:33
ready in time for the a19 chip in the iPhone 17 as a reminder it was just last year
14:38
in 2023 that the company rolled out the first three nanometer chips and this year the a18 processor is expected to be
14:46
made with an improved version of that process which tsmc calls quote the industry's most advanced semic cutter
14:53
semiconductor technology but then a big change might come ET news reports that the Taiwanese Foundry is ready to start
15:00
2 nanometer Trail production next week that's well ahead of what that's well ahead of what had been expected
15:06
previously it was thought the company wouldn't begin until the fourth quarter tsmc says that uh volume
15:14
production using its 2 nanometer process which it calls N2 will begin next year
15:19
and the early start might mean that the a19 chip can be made in time for the iPhone 17 using this
15:26
process uh the the company says tsmc N2 technology will be the most advanced technology in the semiconductor industry
15:33
in both density and Energy Efficiency when it is introduced um N2 technology with leading
15:40
Nano sheet transistor structure whatever that is performance power benefits to address
15:47
the increasing need for energy efficient Computing I want my money
15:53
back wow power in the palm of your hand that's what I'm talking about right
15:59
there but I think Beyond even the updated uh system on a chip I heard that
16:06
they're going to be doing away with the plus model phones and switching to like those super thin model iPhones which I'm
16:13
I feel like I'm just such a pessimist now I don't mean to be but I'm very dubious of like I just coming from being
16:20
traumatized by the by the thin and light that Apple was moving towards for such a
16:26
long time and how it almost ruined the Mac completely for forever and they
16:31
somehow clawed their way back from the edge of that cliff and I was even thinking about switching to PC because I
16:38
I was I was at a point with Mac where I was so fed up I I I I was like there there's nothing for me here you know I I
16:45
I don't want to buy any of these machines they're not practical and then they move to their new architecture the
16:52
Apple silicon practical ports and now when I hear thin I start to get a little
16:57
bit sweaty you know I start to I start to perspire and and I think oh boy are we are we going down
17:03
this road again did they not learn their lesson but Johny I have PTSD when that
17:09
yeah jtsd is that jisd I'm not sure but
17:14
he's gone so there is hope that that's not what is going to happen and I don't mind thin at all but it has to be
17:20
practical you can't sacrifice practical features just to make something thinner I don't care if the phone's a little bit
17:26
heavier I don't think anyone cares as long as it has good battery life and has features that you'll actually use on a
17:33
daily basis so I really hope that's not the way that they're going but even if it is at least we'll have the 2
17:38
nanometer tsmc chip in iPhone 7 and like a part of it is like a bit of marketing
17:44
because it's not like the entire chip will be shrunken 33% like you know it's
17:50
kind of a marketing timing that like you know it refers to like the smallest transistors used on the chip there's still a lot more progress to be made but
17:56
it does show like how incredibly like the fact that they'll you know two years after the 3 nanometer process they'll be
18:03
on a two nanometer process is pretty insane you know well speaking
18:10
of cutting things down in size I'm trying to work us into this next story
18:16
say speaking of insane I don't know if that segue worked but I think yours
18:21
actually sounded better let's talk about Apple Watch series 10 getting
18:28
cut down in features I'm trying that failed I'll
18:34
just I'll just hand it to you and be quiet all right well so you know we heard uh I guess we talked a couple weeks ago about uh how it's Apple Watch
18:41
series 10 is going to have this great new thinner design with a bigger display uh that all sounds great I am a fan of
18:48
thin and light especially if they can maintain the battery or increase the battery but
18:54
here's the bummer sounds like new health sensors won't arrive this year so how can that
19:01
be apple reportedly ran into problems with several Health features it was working on for the Apple watch this year
19:08
the company planned to add a high blood pressure monitoring and sleep apnea
19:14
detection to the Apple watch but according to Apple scoop Machine Mark
19:20
German in his newsletter he said quote serious snags close quote could delay
19:26
release of the features I'll just quote from his uh piece which which is very
19:32
dis distressing to me that the technology that measures high blood pressure or hypertension hasn't been as
19:38
reliable as hoped during testing that may Force Apple to postpone the release Beyond this year there have been
19:44
particular concerns about the blood pressure feature working properly with the new series 10
19:49
design he said also uh even when the option does launch it won't be a replacement for the blood pressure cuff
19:55
that some consumers have at home the mechanism isn't designed to give you an actual reading unlike the heart rate and
20:00
blood oxygen apps on the Apple watch instead it will figure out your Baseline and monitor if your blood pressure is relatively High then you'll be able to
20:07
take note of what you were doing when your reading spiked I wonder what I wonder what that would
20:14
be that sounds in line with a lot of things that Apple watch does already right like gives you a uh nonmedical
20:22
yeah it's it's it's monitoring constantly which is awesome and and this actually sounds good I mean you know
20:27
it's like oh I you know I got three dings in a row from slack and my blood pressure went up 10 10 points right or
20:36
or maybe maybe more likely 50 points uh
20:41
so that that actually even if it's not an exact reading that would be very very helpful for a lot of people just like
20:47
having you know blood glucose monitoring constantly throughout your day and week
20:54
whatever would would be very helpful for people it helps them
20:59
you know connect their actions or things that happen to them with their physical
21:05
health so anyway that's a big bummer I've been waiting for this one for a long time I would love to have that in there scared to go get my blood blood
21:12
pressure checked anyway uh so this this is a funny one the sleep apnea detection
21:17
might not de debut in this this watch because it relies on monitoring your blood oxygenation level which of course
21:25
Apple had to remove that from series 9 and watch Ultra because of this ongoing patent dispute so it sounds like that I
21:33
wonder when that's going to be rolled up I mean I know how can they what are they doing come on just give buy the give
21:40
them a check and let it and move on well who knows how much money this company wants I mean if they're saying that they
21:47
own the patent and Apple has to pay them they could literally set whatever price they want okay Apple Apple has that
21:54
amount of money I guarantee the biggest number anybody at M comes up with Apple has that amount of money like it's if if
22:02
it if this affects two generations of Apple watch I think I think I'll be kind of irritated I'm not even planning on
22:08
buying an Apple watch this year but like come on guys figure this out it's been almost a year I know crazy how long it's
22:15
dragging out can you imagine it comes out and it has the exact same features as last time it's just slightly bigger
22:22
and you know slightly I'm sure the display will be you know the best display ever on an Apple Watch it'll be
22:29
you know brighter and bigger and everything else and it'll look a lot like the current watches and you know I
22:35
mean it'll be I'm sure it'll be slightly better just like every watch The Last Five Years slightly better that that's
22:42
what the series seven was like I had the series seven it's only new feature was like the display was like what 02 inches
22:48
larger than the one before it this every year I don't I don't even think they made the display bigger on the seven did
22:54
they they they did only slightly bigger and that's why they said that this Watch series 7 can show a full quty keyboard
23:01
and the Series 6 which is smaller couldn't I think that's also when they moved it from like 40 to 41 millimeters
23:08
something like that but like it also why does Apple feel like they need to update the Apple watch every single year you
23:14
know if the updates are so tiny I don't think anybody would you know be upset if it's like yeah well you know we could we
23:21
could we could make a watch that's basically the same or we could just keep selling the same one for another six
23:26
months I mean I think the the question answers itself I mean because they need to they need to
23:33
maintain the facade of of newness so that people keep buying them and every
23:38
time there's a quote unquote new watch like even if people who know Apple watches and the features and what
23:44
features are new or not uh well people who I think people already keep their
23:50
apple watches for like five or six years you I know but they constantly have to keep dangling that carrot and so people
23:55
don't follow that stuff just see new and they don't know what features are in the watch like oh it's new I'll just get that one right so they might be more
24:01
motivated to buy that one I mean I'm I'm planning on upgrading to the new Ultra probably when they release that one
24:08
mine's almost two years old there's nothing wrong with the ultra that I have but after two years I'm like okay it has
24:13
enough like small features that it might be worth upgrading but I feel like with Apple watch this happens every single
24:20
year we hear about all these features that are going to be coming to it a lot of them end up being software features
24:26
and nothing huge from a hardware perspective and this has been going on for so long like the one feature I think that was
24:32
actually like a big one that was worth it was the always on display which happened in the series five I think I
24:40
believe and after that I can't think of a feature that has been released that I
24:46
have found to be personally useful oh but you don't have double tap do you no
24:52
I keep try the Marquee feature of the series now I don't yet no I want to be picking the invisible blueberry
24:59
but this is more like ashing the invisible cigarette ashing the invisible cigarette
25:06
are you are you walking around ashing leis uh a long time since I've ashed I I
25:11
I read Griffin's how too this week on uh what was it on it was we published it like six months ago or something we
25:18
updated it and republished it oh it was that that was the one about the watch OS 10 smart widget STI oh right the widgets
25:24
yeah and and you know thank you for writing that and screw me for not paying attention to it the first time I read it
25:29
but uh I went through it I'm like wow this actually makes a lot of sense and and the double tap gesture which brings
25:35
that smart Stack Up is actually handy it's actually handy I and I I've i' like
25:42
never used it at all but I found myself using it lately you know in the privacy of my own home of course I don't think
25:48
I'll be doing that in public but well you will eventually it's only a matter of time before you're out there picking the
25:54
blueberries ashing the cigarette whatever you need to do all right well let's keep it moving cuz we got a whole
26:00
lot of show left and not a whole lot of time to do it and this is one that I was excited about I don't know we'll see how
26:06
this plays out but we seem to be on the
26:12
cusp of getting a new homod with a large touchscreen attached to it now this is something that I actually would be
26:18
interested in homepod for me I go I have
26:23
a LoveHate relationship with homepod I love them but I really don't like the changes Apple made in the last
26:29
generation actually that's not true they added a lot of really powerful features internally uh like the proximity stuff
26:36
and um uh well that might be the only one that I actually find to be that useful they also don't spontaneously
26:42
kill themselves after six to 12 months well yeah and then I was going to say in the connection Port so that you can actually fix them because the Gen 1es
26:49
obviously didn't have that which was an an absolute shame so if they brick themselves they basically just become
26:55
trash which is which is uh outrageous at that that's even something that happens um and uh and then the other
27:02
thing is they removed speakers and that removed the magic I don't know what tweaks they made but you all know how I
27:09
felt about the homepods before I thought that they were one of the best speakers in the market for the price they and they punched way above their weight they
27:16
had like this effervescence to them this just magic golden sound and you put them
27:21
in in Stereo mode and and they they were like two angels singing to you and then the new ones are just not like that they
27:28
there's just something not right about them and now they're from a sound perspective like every other you know
27:35
quote unquote you know high quality wireless speaker on the market which is really sad but this feature would give
27:42
them a bit more practicality so if you're looking at the if you're watching the live stream you can see a picture of the mockup uh a bit of a user interface
27:51
for a rumored hod speaker with a large touchscreen reportedly turned up in the latest beta of TV OS 18
27:58
now we've heard Le leaks and rumors about this feature for years it seems
28:04
like we might be getting nearer to an actual release I think German was has been talking about this for probably two years and we've been reg germinating
28:10
this those stories for a long time Apple reportedly wants to turn the device into the center of a smart home by grafting
28:16
on an iPad or some kind of screen rather than relying on voice commands yeah good luck with that as with the current Mo
28:22
models the future version supposedly will include a touchscreen yeah because every time you try to talk to your homepods
28:28
your your iPhone activates or my favorite I'm talking to my homepods and and then my
28:34
and my Apple watch starts listening I'm like I I literally never want to talk to my Apple watch Ever I never want to use
28:40
Siri on my Apple watch I should turn it off I I can I can drop in the show notes for you yeah go ahead and do that I just
28:48
could never remember to do it so unfortunately you can't help me with that uh the new tvos interfa interface
28:54
or system shell is internally called plaster board okay no one cares that uh
28:59
let's see here Griffin to the show notes in real time here for me to remember to do this
29:04
okay yeah thanks except after the show's over I'll never look at these show notes again they will be dead to me forever an
29:10
unconfirmed report earlier this year indicated Apple won't release the hod with a large touchcreen until 2025 at the
29:15
earliest uh the new homod could be like a kitchen computer see that would be
29:21
cool that that would actually be useful I I I would definitely be interested in that it would be good for FaceTime calls
29:27
obviously uh but we'll see if this thing ever comes to fruition I mean who knows they could be just testing it out and I like
29:34
how the image on the website looks like a iPad just superimposed over a homepod
29:41
mini although it's still arm huh where's the robot arm there's no robot arm on it
29:49
yeah that's disappointing I have um I have a couple things I want to add to this story I think I also read on Mac
29:54
rumors that uh the this rumored new homod is going to get the um a18 chip the same
30:01
chip that's coming in the iPhone this year and that would mean that it would then have the homod would then have the
30:06
power to run Apple intelligence features on the device itself well as long as you're not in
30:12
Europe software there yet but you know it it would then be future proof to to
30:17
to add that whenever they can get around to it and another element that I was uh another dot I connected is that there's
30:24
a new feature in iOS and iPad OS that lets you control the device entire with your eyes it has a camera and it like
30:30
looks at your eyes and tries to Intuit it where you're looking on the screen and kind of like U you know eye tracking
30:35
control with the Vision Pro do it iPad oh that's another area that's another
30:42
software feature they could borrow for this because you know you have a thing sitting on a screen across the room you know just talk to it with your voice but
30:48
you could also look at it and you know pinch blueberries out of your kitchen I just want to that's the life I want to
30:55
live I want to be pinching the blueberries I haven't pinched a blueberry in a long time I've pinched real blueberries but we have blueberry
31:00
bushes in my front yard but it's not the same when they're actually there Louis you know what I'm saying sure it's it's a completely different thing it's all
31:05
about the and then your hands get dyed all blue and then you don't then you don't want to touch your screen but you can just do it remotely from afar yeah
31:11
that's true uh let's see here I was going to say one other thing about this but
31:17
unfortunately I can't remember what it was going to be I would just love to see apple they have so much potential to
31:24
expand the homepod line at least I think I mean what do I know I have haven't done any market research but to make a
31:31
homepod pro and then allow you to have it be used in like a real surround sound
31:37
setup so people have to buy like four of them people pay thousands of dollars for these systems Sony has a system um that
31:44
allows you to have wireless speakers connected to your TV and apple could do the same thing I mean it seems like they
31:50
could do it just with software right now with the current homepods if they wanted to to allow you to set up some kind of
31:56
surround sound situation and like the TV application is a really big one and they were on to something with allowing you
32:02
to do the stereo pair and then use them as your speakers with your Apple TV I mean that was a really great extra use
32:09
case for the homepods and it's something that I use every single day I mean I have the homepods and a stereo
32:16
pair but from an audio perspective it's just it's just not the same it's just
32:23
not the same I keep thinking I should make a video on YouTube I don't know if anyone cares about homepods anymore um I
32:30
already know the title of it just talking about what they need to do to like bring life back to the homepods it
32:36
feels like they are like a side hobby for Apple now which is such a disappointment I don't even know why
32:42
they sell them at this point I'm like it seems like they just want to have something available for people so
32:48
that they can compete with Sonos and have speakers all throughout your house listening to music and stuff I mean that does make sense but they could be doing
32:55
so much more they could be doing so much more and they're such such a great product uh yeah it's really weird how
33:01
much the homepod mini cost I mean if that if that was like $49 instead of $99
33:08
I would probably buy multiple ones I mean I I we have you know dual homep pod
33:14
regular homep pods in the in the living room you know just praying they don't die uh and we have a like a little Echo
33:23
dot or something in the kitchen you know and they're both kind of right like near each other right so you can use either one to set a timer and and honestly we
33:29
almost always use the echo dot just because it's you know more reliable and and those things go for like 20 bucks
33:36
right so I was thinking it but but it's after years and years of use that thing for some reason it's like not as loud as
33:41
it used to be it keeps turning itself down and I was like well you know maybe I should buy a little homepod man but I'm like well think how annoying that
33:48
would be to to have the homepod because it's not as good as the echo dot as far as like fulfilling your requests and
33:55
things it sounds better but it doesn't it doesn't uh it's just too confused and
34:00
and I guarantee if that was in there it would like make that whole which sheery
34:05
am I talking to now uh you know just that much more complicated oh my God it even responded to that oh you did it
34:11
sorry I was going to say you can't say that word it's just not good enough is it you can't even slur the word and make
34:18
it Eerie say pig latin we'll have to go have to go pig latin in future yeah I
34:24
can't believe these are still $99 and it's nuts it continues to be a product in their lineup as Tim Cook says
34:31
but if you look at the review counts on uh Best Buy they've a ton of reviews like people are obviously buying these I
34:38
agree I think they're way overpriced they should be 59 Max and then on sale for 49 sometimes I mean for the amount
34:44
of for the amount of usability that these things have I mean they're essentially just music machines because
34:50
the series functionality is so severely limited and the the like the echo
34:56
products are so vastly Superior in every single way to actually answering questions and doing anything and I'm
35:02
sure the Google products are as good if not better and the homepod just doesn't really do anything except play music and
35:08
it doesn't sound that great for $100 especially there are things that are
35:13
$100 I think probably sound better than the homepod mini in my opinion but if
35:19
you're in the Apple ecosystem then there is all that connectivity that you get
35:24
with your phone and AirPlay and you can even use home kit I mean that's useful there is
35:30
home kit yeah that's true and the new ones have the thread antenna right so that's helpful if you have Smart Home
35:36
yeah I guess that's true the thread stuff is cool and actually very useful so I guess maybe if you consider all
35:42
those extra pieces of functionality but just from a musical quality perspective 100 bucks for this for the h
35:48
pod mini and and volume I mean they're not very loud they're not very loud even if it was 79 that would be more
35:55
reasonable they do go on sale for I don't have any speaker system in my kitchen whatsoever so I and I have like
36:02
an Adama Edge credit card that I haven't used in like you know eight months or so
36:07
and and I don't want to let it expire so I was thinking about just like picking up two homepod Minis and just having something in my kitchen for that you
36:14
know I think they're probably good for that I mean they're good for having multi-room audio as long as you're not
36:19
picky on what that audio sounds like you know because I mean it it sounds decent
36:25
yeah I don't mean to I just think that for $100 it should sound
36:31
better yeah that is true streamline from the chat to be fair the homepod mini sounds better than any other speaker in
36:37
its size I think I do agree with that I think for its size and the same with the homepod
36:43
well it that original hom the original homep pod I think it's probably still true but it's not as obvious it was a
36:51
clear winter before and the Thunder that came out of the homepod before was so
36:58
surprising and it punched so far outside of its class that that was definitely true it's a little less that way now
37:04
even though I think that probably is still true for the original homepod but yeah all right look obsolete by the way
37:11
what's that the original homepod yeah well one of mine or going obsolete here
37:16
either just went obsolete or I don't remember what it was my my original hom
37:21
pod obsoleted itself and no no amount of unplugging it and leaving it sitting
37:27
there for months on end has gotten it to has gotten it to resolve I mean I
37:33
almost got the OS reinstalled remember after leaving it unplugged for I don't know six months and then plugging it
37:40
back in and then resetting it like I was like holy moly like this actually works but then it tried to force an update
37:45
which I turned off on my iPhone and I can never get it back after that because I'm like I think there is a
37:52
problem with it upgrading its software and if it can just stay in the state it was in it was fine but as soon as you
37:58
try to update the software something goes wi or goes haywire and and it and it I even got it back into the stereo
38:04
pair I mean everything on it was working it was it was Unreal it's it's got like the wrong Wi-Fi password or something
38:11
it's probably something really stupid yeah and because you can't plug into it it's just completely borked what a huge
38:17
design oversight okay look I I misspoke it's it's only vintage the original home pot is only vintage not obsolete I take
38:24
it back we'll give it another year uh let's talk about iOS 18 beta 3 changes
38:32
hand it over to the gripster to cover some of these keep in mind got about 20
38:37
minutes left before the show has to be over and we got a lot to do so turbo mode well this is kind of a small beta
38:43
update so we can rush through this okay iOS 18 beta 3 further refines the dynamic Island flashlight animation on
38:50
the iPhone 15 pro and pro Max you can swipe up and down to make it brighter and dimmer or swipe left and right to
38:57
make the light light narrower or wider there's like a really cool animation you have to you have to check it out if you're um you know click through the
39:02
show notes if you're just listening or maybe maybe go to watch dth cultcast outcom to to see it it's really cool
39:08
looking um iOS 18 beta 3 introduces Mac OS inspired Dynamic color changing
39:16
wallpapers that'll change colors based on the time of the day um Apple continues to make changes to how dark
39:22
mode icons work uh they now Force third party icons to switch to dark mode even
39:30
if the developer hasn't created their own custom dark mode icon any app icon that's like a simple like color glyph on
39:37
a solid background will be automatically recolored to match Apple's own color
39:42
scheme wow um and and other icons will just be darkened as well so that they
39:48
fit in a little more uh that'll give give you a more consistent look if you prefer that look
39:54
I the iOS 18 beta they make a big change to the Emoji picker making the Emoji
40:00
bigger so now they're only like four rows of emoji instead of like five or six and they increase the space between
40:08
them like the first time this brought up I thought something was wrong because like all the Emoji looked huge uh it's cleaner and more clut
40:14
clutter-free According to some I think it's it's lowering the information density like you know we make our phone
40:20
screens bigger so you can put more stuff on them and then like years down the line well we just make everything bigger on the screen you know well what's the
40:26
point then of having having a giant screen um you can also directly access stickers or memoji from the Emoji
40:32
Keyboard that's part of the reason why they why they make the size bigger admittedly oh um there are a few minor
40:39
changes to the uh photos app as well including a select button that's always visible and a search button that is now
40:45
colored blue instead of gray oh it's blue wow okay great they made it slightly more prominent I have there's
40:51
actually going to be a a piece coming this weekend about all the things that I hate about the new photo zone so stay
40:57
tuned for that 3,000 words on why blue is the wrong color for the search the search box coming this week folks it
41:03
shouldn't be a tiny button way up in the toolbar anyways it should just be like a full-size text field there's this gorgeous new like full screen user
41:09
interface when you when you when you bring up the the search bar but and they they hide it away like it's it's it's so
41:14
hard to reach you know it's kind of it really blew [Laughter]
41:20
it where's my
41:27
what the there we goes looking for it little slow on the
41:32
draw little slow on the draw there but there it is there's your room shot okay let's see I've completely lost my place
41:39
I'm floating through space and time like Gand off after he destroyed the Bell Rog
41:45
okay we did the uh oh right real quick about our awesome cool new sponsor uh yeah we're actually doing a a
41:52
promo swap another promo Swap and for those of you that don't know what these are so like we partner with other
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podcasts who we think that you might want to uh give a shot and listen to and
42:04
then they promote us to Their audience just to kind of like help build up uh the audience and bring some new people
42:09
in that may not have heard about us before and so this week we haven't done
42:15
one of these in a while actually uh I want to give a plug to 404 media and let
42:20
me make sure I bring this up so I don't miss anything uh and of course my scroll is going so slowly say while you're
42:28
searching that like 404 media if you haven't been going to their website it is some of like the best tech journalism
42:33
I mean second to Cult of Mac of course found on the I go there like several times a week they always have like the
42:39
the coolest best stories I know you just read them on the website because you know inevitably a few days later I'm
42:45
going to see people talking about their work on Mastadon or threads or stuff like that so great great site Okay cool
42:51
so you actually are familiar with them that's great cuz I I hadn't I hadn't uh had a lot of exposure to them
42:58
um but it sounds like they actually have like a pretty uh ingrained audience there sorry I'm trying to read the chat
43:03
at the same time let me uh let me read the spot so that I don't miss anything Instagram's rampant ads for Crime
43:10
problem Amazon's issue with AI generated mushroom foraging books I don't see a
43:16
problem with that the FBI's secret phone company and the AI music ripping the hairy styles community of Parts oh boy
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now now you're speaking my language the these are just some of the stories that you won't won't hear about anywhere else but on the 404 media podcast 404 media
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is an independent Tech news Outlet made by industry leading journalists forly from the tech site
43:36
motherboard every week 404 media's co-founders Joseph Sam Emanuel and Jason
43:41
give you unparalleled access to Hidden Worlds both online and IRL and take you
43:47
behind the scenes of how their stories were made and what they really mean you
43:52
can find the 404 the 404 media podcast wherever you listen to podcast or 4404
43:58
media it's 4444 media. co 4ia uh.
44:06
co uh ohco doco I know I always say doco
44:12
but yes it's doco 404 media. and when I do Co cloth. do I say Co or Co I think I
44:18
say Co so I'm not sure why I went full Co there
44:24
but all right uh let's keep it moving here and I want to give a quick mention
44:32
to something that I'm extremely excited about and that is Severance season 2
44:38
which I had no idea when they were coming out with the new season I hadn't
44:44
heard that they had finished production I hadn't heard anything and this is one of the best shows well I'll just say
44:50
it's just one of the best shows I was going to say on Apple TV plus but it's just one of the best shows and for all
44:55
of you that saw it it's one of the most original gripping
45:01
and uh quirky shows that I've seen in a
45:06
long time and one of the ones that I am really excited to have come back and this would actually get me to pay Apple
45:13
for for a month or two to actually finish watching this show that this and Silo these are two of my favorite shows
45:20
I was going to say on television but um just that exists now Adam brousard
45:25
saying Silo is decent oh man I don't know about that I think Silo was outstanding that that end sequence which
45:34
you may have been able to see coming I think that that plot Point has been used
45:39
in other programs even shows that are on now uh that I won't call out because I don't want to spoil anything for you but
45:46
still I thought that end sequence was so good and um I'm talking about Silo um I
45:52
also thought s's ending was really good so it looks like it's coming back in
45:58
January uh there was a sance teaser
46:04
trailer that came out oh no that was that wasn't a trailer it's a teaser trailer it's like 30 seconds or a minute
46:11
yeah but it didn't really show anything from the actual show yeah total tease yeah I hate teaser for the teaser what
46:19
do you mean there was a teaser for the teaser that came out on Tuesday but then on or no maybe Monday but then on Tuesday there was there was like a full
46:25
30 second trailer like you know I haven't even seen that one yeah okay so there's two ah you've got something to
46:32
look forward to oh man I got to get out of here sorry guys we're gonna ahead and just uh WP it it was a very welcome
46:39
reminder of of just how weird the show is you know like it just it's like I I
46:44
could feel like oh yeah I remember you know just brought the vibe uh introduced a new
46:50
character played by okay do you know who no do you care do you want to know
46:57
well is it in the trailer yeah no don't tell me I'm gonna go back and watch it and plus there are probably we're not even gonna not even G to spoil spoil a
47:04
trailer and I know there's some people in the chat saying that they don't like to watch trailers I don't blame you I
47:10
I'm careful with my trailers cuz often times they do show you too much if it's a teaser then this does not okay then
47:17
there you go I'll probably it's literally just like kind of a reminder of what happened in like one shot of a new a new character saying like three
47:25
words and then apple has a description of the second season which may be a
47:31
spoiler so skip ahead 30 seconds if you don't want to hear this but they say in
47:37
season 2 Mark and his friends learn the dire consequences of trifling with the severance barrier leading them further
47:44
down a path of Woe oh man that is a that's surprisingly
47:51
bad writing for such a creative show isn't it yeah it's very generic isn't it yeah like I thought the more interesting
47:57
aspect of severance Beyond just the severance barrier was like the whole wacky and weird um like religious o
48:06
overtones that they have in the show it's like they basically have like a like a temple inside the this this might
48:14
be going into spoiler territory but it's not really I'm not going to talk too much about it but like there's just like
48:20
that company L Lumen is so bizarre and you you kind of start to learn like
48:25
where they get their values from and the more you learn like the more wacky and weird it is and and uh and there's like
48:32
all this like religious language that happens and imagery and stuff is very strange um but I thought it was an interesting interplay between that and
48:38
like the actual science and technology that is happening anyway uh coming out in January
48:45
so uh gives you something to look forward to forward to during the long Bleak winter at least here in Seattle
48:52
dude I'm so over Seattle Winters I I I I I need to move I need to move I got to
48:58
go somewhere sunnier uh Seattle summers are the best they're hard to beat but the you just don't get any sun here and
49:07
come August I always start getting depressed and I'm like here we go another long dreary fall and winter once
49:14
we get into it I'm usually fine I you know I actually do like fall but it's
49:20
just gray and people always think that it rains a lot in Seattle it it actually doesn't but it looks like it's going to
49:25
rain so it looks like it's going to rain for like nine months and and then it just doesn't so it's just long and gray
49:32
and boring and awful you know what you need to move you need a melon bar what's
49:40
that for a waffle party there you go maybe a dance party
49:46
yeah okay all right well let's move on to our last story I'm going to give you
49:52
a full seven or eight minutes to wrap this one up here Griffin you want to talk about
49:57
the wombat pillow Pro made of real wombat hair wombat Willow Pro which is a
50:04
keyboard oh it's a keyboard I actually didn't know I misread it the exact same way I can believe we're doing pillow
50:11
reviews on C Cast all right I'll bring it up so uh here we go I'll hold it up here oh dude
50:18
it's nice oh yeah it's really cool looking keyboard so yeah it looks really cool it's like
50:25
you know silver and add like these Gray and white and yellow Keys uh what I like about it especially in contrast to my
50:30
regular everyday keyboard is that it's really thin you know it's it's kind of low profile yeah it is for Apple
50:37
keyboard you know just just the right amount you want and even though it's thin I will say it's also like very
50:42
welld designed like this thing is seriously almost feels like overbuilt like I can't I always do like a flex
50:49
test whenever I get a product Oh my God try and try and see how much wiggle it has this thing has like absolutely no
50:56
give it's kind of crazy no Wiggles marked that in the Pro column yeah incredibly stury the layout is really
51:03
unique um I don't really like full keyboards like the full 120 key keyboards with the number pad because
51:10
the number pad increases the distance between like the alpha numeric keys and
51:15
where I keep my trackpad I don't like a lot of you know distance between the two when I especially when I'm editing and moving between the two a lot and most
51:22
compact keyboards you know just chop off the number pad um and you know so then above the arrow
51:29
keys you have like the page up page down and that's kind of the whole thing this keyboard has it all it has the full
51:35
Alpha Keys it has arrow keys and it has a number pad but it moves the number pad
51:41
above the arrow keys yeah that's nice instead you have two rows of function keys on top so you still have room for
51:48
all your you know your F1 through F12 but then you still have your page up page down delete they're not exactly
51:54
where your muscle memory expects them to be but they are still there you have like a full set and it it does mean that
52:00
like the keyboard is like longer or like you know keyboard but it's it's still
52:06
compact you know give us some uh Adam brard from the chat want some clicky
52:12
ASMR let's hear that thing okay yeah I was I was gonna move on to that one thing I like about this keyboard is that
52:18
although it's mechanical it's quiet enough that I can still use it during the cult cast so I'm going to keep my
52:23
microphone exactly where it is but I'm just going to type a few random letters
52:28
here oh it's got a yeah it's got a nice soft
52:34
clicky action to it yeah it's not offensive tactile wise there's not like a defined like click action to it you
52:41
know you are bottoming out the keys and you can tell it's been like dampened a little bit audio wise you know but um it
52:49
is still nice to come to type on it's comfortable compare that to and I'm gonna switch these around with my daily
52:55
keyboard oh boy here we go the model f maybe headphone warning or turn down the
53:02
volume in your car unless you want to be de high
53:07
but that's giving me a case of the Mondays yeah you can like seriously hear this keyboard across the house why would
53:13
you ever why would you ever use that it's way too clicky oh my god look how thick it is I know yeah yeah it's like a
53:19
phone book you said it's an F1 is it made by Ford this is the uh Model F keyboard that's that's my daily keyboard
53:27
um uh let's see what else uh the willow Pro does have RGB back lighting but because I have good taste I just keep it
53:34
on white um it also has one little uh detail it has the neatest like flip down
53:40
feet I've ever seen on a keyboard you know just like a little piece of plastic you just flip them around ones it's like
53:46
a a piece that you you pull out of the bottom and then it Clips on
53:51
magnetically oh well never seen that then stay fir spot and then it
53:58
magnets in there and it is very firm like it's a it's a strong magnet uh one more feature it has like
54:05
three different ways you can connect to it yeah you can plug it in over USBC there's a little you know usba dongle
54:12
you can oh there's a dongle good okay I thought it was wired only and there's also a it Alo connects over Bluetooth to
54:19
up to three devices so you can have like a full array of computers surrounding you and he the one oh nice dude kind of
54:26
person would have a full array of computers around them yeah that would be absolutely ridiculous I don't know who would only those with elevated IQs but
54:34
it's not something that you guys would get it takes a very high IQ to
54:40
understand the Willer Pro keyboard no it doesn't it it it takes $129 and then you can buy it yourself it's a nice keyb
54:46
okay so it's 130 bucks but it's got a pretty serious feature set here I mean
54:52
that's a lot for a keyboard but it's got dedicated Mac Keys mhm and it's got a
54:58
pleasant soft clicky creamy tone comes with a spare key caps and a
55:03
little key po so you can swap out the windows keys with Mac keys that say command option and control on them it's
55:09
definitely got a cool aesthetic to it which for me and for many keyboard enthusiasts is arguably one of the most
55:16
important things about a keyboard is that it just looks cool on your desk which is kind of what they're going for here I like the color scheme I like the
55:23
number keypad and arrows layout too how they have the those positioned uh above
55:28
and below one another so but how come it's not your daily driver well I do I do really like the
55:36
the feeling of the model f keyboard that I have yeah it's not a typical mechanical keyboard with key switches and I've written a full review about it
55:42
that I guess I'll also put in the show notes but um it uses a technology called buckling Springs which is instead of
55:48
having like a a switch underneath it you have a metal spring and then when you press down on the key the spring like
55:53
buckles to the side and you know that's why pieces of metal contacting each other
55:58
and that's how it registers key clicks but it's also incredibly comfortable and um and it's it's designed to last like
56:05
40 years or more 40 years and as the chat points out seems like a fine
56:11
instrument to use as a personal self-defense weapon whack somebody right over the head with that thing they're going
56:17
down like this this thing is is heavy you know much heavier than oh that's the other one yeah that oh dude that's kind
56:25
of cool is who which keyboard is that this is the model f that I was just describing is that the same company no
56:32
Model F is the company right Model F is the company model is the name of course the keys have no labels which as much as I love that from an
56:39
aesthetic I don't know if I could ever live with that in my life it it took a lot of getting used to you can read I'll
56:44
I'll put my review it in the show notes where I talk more about it but like I just wanted like a silver and black keyboard because that's just like the
56:50
the the canonical Apple color to me and I didn't like any of their font choices so I just got one without any letters on it at all yeah I'm not sure as much as I
56:59
have my keys mapped to memory it's like every once in a while you're like wait a second it's funny how you can just do it
57:06
by muscle memory but if you had to like visualize it you actually could not and you wouldn't actually know where things
57:12
are until you go and look which occasionally does happen to me but you know what none of that matters
57:17
because that's it that's all the time we have for you guys this week but of course we'll put uh links to that
57:24
product and maybe both keyboards if you want Griffin in the show not so people could check it out and then also to all
57:31
the stories that we talked about today as per usual but that's it that's all the cool cast we have for you guys this week but you know what the fun continues
57:37
in the cult club which I I have been absent from I need to go in there and hang outs I hopefully you guys found my
57:43
rope tie it's missing again and that's fine I just wear my robe open no one seems to mind but if you want you can come hang out in in there with us uh
57:51
this is been the codcast the best 30 plus minute Apple conversation you're going to hear all week long new episodes of the codcast come up every Thursday
57:56
night I want to thank everyone for listening for hanging hanging out live and I forgot to mention support. class.com is how you get into the cult
58:01
Club if you want to come and Fork it over it's only five it's only five bucks it's only five bucks is the content
58:08
worth it it's dubious but you'll feel good about yourself just forking it over won't you um thanks for listening thanks
58:16
for hanging out live and we will see you guys next
58:23
time in 2 minutes this music's going off that's
58:29
it have to shut it off even if it's not done short show this it can be yeah
58:36
yeah hope everyone has a great weekend I'm going to start moving my cursor towards the
58:42
end stream button slowly it's going slowly slow now
58:48
more now more quickly it's there now it's literally over the stop stream button but I'm waiting for the
58:54
music this is taking so long should I just f it out manually yeah we should do an after show
59:02
after show Q&A we should do that maybe next week leave your
59:09
questions in the cult Club yeah you go bye y
59:14
[Music]
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