CultCast's Final Best Gear Picks of 2023

Okay, Griffin, I'm going to send it to you first best pick of 2023

Take it away. Sure. So a lot of my picks today are related to, you know, tech journalism and blogging

It's still a burgeoning industry. One of my picks for the best of 2023 is this new site called 404 Media

You can find it at 404Media.com. Put a link here in our show notes for you

This place was founded by like four tech journalists. I think one of them is from motherboard

I don't know if the rest of them are or not. They split off and started this own venture independently called 404 Media

You know, as another writer of an independent tech blog, you know, I can respect independent

journalism, you know, figuring out how to monetize like high quality writing and all that

is honestly still an open question in 2023. You know, where I used to live in Athens, Ohio, our local newspaper was bought up by, like, this big conglomerate that fired 90% of the staff and, like, started taking all these, like, crumbiacos and everyone an iPhone and iPod Touch for pictures

That's literally what they did. They fired their professional photographer and told their, like, three remaining writers to, like, take pictures on their phones

And then they fired, like, two more writers. And, you know, it's being run by a skeleton crew

So, you know, right before I left Athens, though, it was like a new independent

New York organization called the Athens Indy, which has a big fan of

They had some big stories. But I don't know, that's a different pick, I guess

4-4 Media. These guys are really shooting for the moon. Like, they've already had some incredible scoops and great stories on their site

Like, just look at their homepage right now. I mean, Facebook is being overrun with stolen AI-generated images that people think are real

You know, I want to read that. marketing company claims that it actually is listening to your phone and smart speakers to target ads

You know, who's heard that conspiracy theory? Turns out it's actually kind of found out. No laughing matter. Clowns sue clowns.com for wage theft

Now that's a headline, Lewis. You need to be taking notes. Eubiquity users being fed access to strangers security cameras

I check their website every couple of days because inevitably, whenever they have one of these big stories, I see people talking about it on Mastodon anyways

So, you know, I get ahead of the curve and I read their site all the time. It's good stuff there

I'm really interested to see if they can last more than a year. Suppose I don't really, I'm not entirely sure what their business model is

I think it's entirely reader supported. Oh, wow. I mean, I don't see ads on there

I'm sure some of our regular readers have been irritated by some of the ads we run on a cult and act

just to be able to make this operation profitable. But that's a whole different discussion as well

So, yeah, stay tuned. I mean, visit their website. It's good stuff over there

Maybe support them if you can afford to. Yeah, man. It's not just, it's not just journalism

It's, it's, the, the change that we're going through from ad supported content to user

supported content is changing everything. I mean, it's changing streaming. You know, cable channels are dying

Everyone's moving to streaming. It's changing journalism. I mean, podcasts are suffering from it too

Everyone is trying to figure out how to make money, making content, because there are not a lot of, it's not like in the days where everything was on network television and there were ads to support everything

And you had no other choice. And you had no other choice. Everything's on demand now and no one wants to watch ads

It like how do you create media and monetize it and be able to do it and be able to make a living I mean that why so many people do it on the side I mean not everyone is making millions of dollars a year like this production is

It's hard to do, you know? All right, 404media.com. Lewis, what do you say

You want to go next? Sure. All right. What you got? Let's see

The only thing I don't like about this. product is its name, although it's, it's descriptive

The Anchor 3 and 1 Cube with MagSafe. I think I talked about this on the show before. Oh, you've talked about it for a lot more since I've, since, well, because I think I had only

had it for a little bit when I first talked about it. It's a great little travel charger, and I use it every day

I mean, I don't have it. I'm not going to show it on the camera because it's sitting on my desk, or not my desk

but my bedside table. It's a 3-1 charger. It charges iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods

Each one at maximum speed. And it's really small. The design is really kind of cool

It folds up into this little cube. And it's, you know, it feels heavy

The website says it weighs 0.68 pounds. But it's just really dense, which is good because then when you set it on, you know, your hotel room bedside thing, it doesn't wobble around

Your phone isn't, you know, floating around. And it basically gives you that, what's it called

Stand by, the standby thing. So you can use a standby thing. You got your big, beautiful iPhone screen sitting there lit up at night

It's a fantastic thing. $149. That's a lot of money, but it does seem like quality

And as with all anchor things, I mean, they make them, you know, MFI or made for Apple Watch, whatever

You know, it's not like, you're not taking a chance with this stuff. It's high quality charging and it's just a great item

Yeah, I could use something like this, man. I need something that will charge all of my devices all at the same time

I was using the MagSafe Duo, the product that could have been cool, but never became cool

that Apple then completely abandoned. And now I need something that will charge all my stuff at the same time

And this looks like a nice option. Man, there's a bunch of, like, you know, sort of, I don't want to know what to say

but lesser well, less well-known brands, it makes sort of MagSafe trios, right

Yeah. That look kind of, you know, they look pretty good. And I do like the fact that they fold up, you know, at least as small as this

That's the only thing, you know, the only knock on this that I could possibly come up with is that it's, you know, it's a cube

It doesn't, it's not super small. You can't fit it in your pocket, right? But it is super secure and it, you know, comes with a 30-watt-hour adapter

It comes with a cable. It comes with everything you need. And it is, it is nice to be able to have your phone in that mode and not just sitting on a desk, right

Not sitting flat like most of these chargers are. I really like it

Yeah, we got GERN in the chat. MagSafe Duo won't fast charge for

watch or phone. I know, man. I know. And it's lightning now, so it's completely defunct RIP

I'm going to sell mine on eBay. I'm not even going to keep it because... Lightning

Lightning is dead. Do MagSafe duo's dead. It's a disservice and disgrace to the MagSafe

pedigree And it never They just They just it was had big promises and it just never delivered sadly Holy moly This is a big one Lewis are you sitting down I can tell I am sitting down Because I know you normally don wear pants for this for this show

I know sometimes that shows when you're standing up. I swear to you, I've got pants on. Okay, good, because you might get blown out of your chair here

We got a $50 super chat here. Wow. Holy moly. Well, it's $49.99 technically

But I feel like I'm justified in rounding that up. Daniel McNeely says

Merry Christmas and happy birthday Jesus amen looking forward to an exciting

2024 me too let's hope it's definitely going to be exciting for many reasons

thanks for always helping me make an informed decision about my Apple products

well I like that comment even more than I like the money look I like the money too

let's be honest but that's one of my favorite things that we do on this channel

or I guess on this podcast somebody feels informed after listening to

That's an incredible issue. Yeah. I'm sure there are many who feel the exact opposite

But that's one of the things I love about our show and just podcasts in general that I like ours

Just like how we all just get to hang out together and talk about stuff that we like in a genuine way and let you know, like things that we like and things that we don't like

So if we've helped you make a more informed decision about something, then I feel like we've accomplished something here

So thank you for that. Daniel McNeely. That's very generous. I think that might be the biggest one yet

And you know, we've gotten a bunch of super chats this year. I'm not trying to show for super chats

I forgot that we even activated it until we started having people give us money

But I was looking through our backlog of super chats. I'm like, well, we actually got a bunch of super chats this year

which is the first year we've ever had that. I think we might even have enough for like a nice lunch maybe for the three of us

Three of us get together. We picked the right town. I mean, we'll probably have to still pay for the tip in cash

But like the lunch. like that might be covered. All right. This is so tough, man

I could do a whole episode on this on things that I love this year

There's so many things that I've used that I feel like we didn't get a good opportunity

to talk about this year. And I was trying to think, is there something I could talk about that I haven't mentioned before

because I could talk about things that I've talked about before. I thought about talking about my Fuji film S20, which is a terrific camera

probably the best travel camera that you can buy. But I said, no, no, I'm going to do something new

and do something that I don't think I've ever talked about before because it's getting to a point where it's something

that I actually do really love. And that is Xbox Game Pass

Xbox Game Pass. Let's see if I can bring this up. Oh, it's not going to let me do this

Hold on a second. Xbox Game Pass. Your connection is not private

So I must have done something wrong. There we go. So Xbox Game Pass is like a, well, it is a subscription

that lets you play video games on either your Xbox or your PC or both

And for a long time, I just didn't really think the games that were provided

were worth the price. The juice wasn't worth a squeeze. You know what I'm saying, Loose? Yeah

And that has changed. I feel like, especially this year, Microsoft has been

buying up the best studios left and right. And Sony's doing this too

Very soon all studios will be owned. And they have not just a bunch of independent games

in GamePass now, but they're bringing like triple A titles to Game Pass

I'm playing Starfield, which is a Bethesda game, and I'm playing for it

I'm playing it free on Game Pass. It's like a $70 or $80 game

And there's a bunch of other games that are inside Game Pass that I would never have thought to play

because they are not things that I would have necessarily spent money on

because they just not really my genre of game And now I playing them In fact I going to talk about another one here for my next peck in the next round a game that is so original and so refreshing

unlike any game that I've ever played, that it's something that I've been playing a lot of. But I feel like with Game Pass

one of the other things I really like about it is you can buy GamePass Ultimate

which allows you to play games on your Xbox or your PC for free

and it will synchronize your save points in the cloud. So when you're playing

you can start playing on your PC and then go to your Xbox and pick it back up

And I'd never thought that that would be a feature that I use, but I beefed up the Colt Commander this year

for streaming purposes, but I'm also using it a little bit for gaming. And it's really cool to be able to play a game on my PC

and then stop and then go into my living room and pick it right back up

on my Xbox, right where I was. Like, that's pretty cool. The only other system that I know that's flexible in that way is the switch, which

is severely underpowered and can barely pump out 1080P video. And it's not that you can, you know, it's not like two different platforms, but you can

play it in mobile mode or you can play it docked. And I think having the Xbox Play Anywhere feature, I think that's what they call it

And then all of these cool games that they're constantly adding to GamePass

the fact that they also just finalized their merger with Activision. So now all of Activision's games are coming into the service as well

including Call of Duty, which is a game that I love, but I refuse to spend $70 a year on

Now that Activision games are going to be rolled in, I'm like, this is a really great offering

I think they're charging $15 a month for GamePass Ultimate. Now, though, you can get deals on it

and occasionally they have sales on it. Yeah, oh, it's $16.99 a month

Wow. So it's a little bit more expensive. But anyway, if you're a gamer, I mean, you get all of the games

that Microsoft makes, Activision Soon makes, Bethesda, ZettieMax, there's just a ton of games

You get all the EA games via EA play. I mean, it's just tons and tons and tons of stuff

And I feel like it's finally gotten to a point where it's worth the money. if you want to do Xbox only it's $10 a month

if you just buy it from Xbox but like I said there are sales on it

where you can get it for way cheaper but if you're a gamer if you're a serious gamer

and you want to take a break from Apple Arcade like all the serious gamers are playing

I think this is a really cool option now especially how they're adding new games all the time

a serious gamer who is unfortunately a Mac guy and a Nintendo guy

the two games that I'm really jealous that I can't play right now

or Microsoft Flight Simulator. Oh, yeah. And CitySkylines 2. City Skylines 1 was a Mac game

I played it on my 2015 Mac with Pro, but the sequel isn't Mac compatible anymore

It makes me sad. Oh, that's funny because City Skyline, City Skylines 1 was one of those games

that I never would have bought. I never would have played. And I picked it up on my Xbox, and it looks kind of old

Like, it's been around for a while. But I got super into it

like this game's actually really fun and very strategic. And then I started moving on to other games

but I was waiting for Cities Skylines 2 to come out, which I think it came out like a month or two ago

So I've been meaning to go back to it because I know they improved like the UI

and the graphics and everything. But that's one that I have on my list

I mean, Atomic Heart was good. Starfield, insanely good. Probably one of the best games of the year

Maybe even the best game in the year. in my opinion