BIG wave of M4 Macs is incoming! (CultCast #659)
Mar 11, 2025
This week, a wave of M4 Macs is on the way — including the miniest Mac mini ever! Also, the latest on iOS 18, a plastic Apple Watch, the tragic tale of Erfon’s iPhone, and an all-new Under Review! Chapters: 0:00 Preshow 7:03 Intro 14:25 CultCloth 15:57 HomePod Follow-up 17:57 M4 Macs 24:02 Mac mini 32:04 Hugo Last Honorary Segment 34:11 iOS 18 Beta 5 40:32 Samsung's Apple Watch 45:47 Apple Watch SE 3 54:30 Erfon’s iPhone Story 1:18:23 Under Review
View Video Transcript
0:00
press I think it worked wow I turned on auto start and I
0:06
think that actually fixed it but let's see if something's going properly don't jinx us
0:13
Le don't jinx us I'm waiting for the bits I see no
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bits that could be a
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problem what the sounded like the Hellraiser teeth
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geez why are there no bits may we need to post the Tweet we've
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got somebody in the chat Betty Reyes can you hear
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us uh he but I'm not seeing a picture come
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through a quiet hesitant hey
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y'all and caveman's got 59 minutes before he has to walk his sweet buns out of here so that's going to be a problem
1:02
let me try refreshing they can hear us we can hear we can hear Let me refresh the page maybe that is the
1:09
problem can you all hear us oh if so I'm sorry okay B that was it thank you for
1:17
letting us know that okay because on our end there was no picture it said that we
1:22
were in to go live so thank goodness that worked oh my
1:28
goodness hug go I'm gonna save that for when we actually go live the last effect
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in effect going straight to lks pocket I'm conflicted about these donations buing
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pocket I'm conf a pole vter with that pocket all right we got a lot of stuff
1:49
to do oh we forgot to tweet though so let me do that real fast no this will be
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the one that brings them all in this is this is the Pathway to
2:00
success right here I hope talk show and 9 to5 Mac podcast aren't live right now CU they're about to lose their whole
2:06
audience ready Lis I've never been more
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ready I don't think if Jerry Seinfeld did a boom it would sound any different than that what I that which I just did I
2:19
really don't it was that accurate okay you got the Tweet action
2:26
there leis no can't find it not seeing it do you guys see the level of
2:32
unprofessionalism I have to deal with uh what you just said ninjab bricks
2:38
says I love the podcast and thought I would try Live Well thank you ninjab bricks I hope that you like it and I
2:44
hope you come back the same as the audio podcast except slightly worse because I can't edit it yeah you get to see ra
2:51
more essential I think the live show is way more fun than the recording but I
2:58
get most people can't come here because it's in the middle of the day but we try
3:03
to do this at a time where it's all the different time zones can actually join I
3:09
don't think they do but they could unless you're in India I think maybe India might be too
3:15
late but that might be the only one uh leis your picture is very bright
3:21
you look like Casper the Apple News host I don't know what to do about it
3:27
actually you look like Uncle Fester from the ad family I mean is there there's no
3:33
like I kind of like it there's no you look like you're fading in and out like the deify the ghost
3:40
man that is not an option he looked like one of the force ghosts from the end of
3:46
Star Wars oh wait you look like an angel coming down to tell us hand us some
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Golden Plates or something yeah you do look like an
3:57
angel okay uh it's weird seems to be making any kind of difference how about
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that better better worse uh actually that did make a difference yeah yeah it
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makes light directly above your head ah my
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retinas go make that bed while you're back
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there all right we're going dark okay is it actually better I don't know
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yeah should turn off all the lights do it and put some you know tar paper over my
4:32
windows no no no don't I shouldn't have said
4:40
anything yeah now now you look like a hacker it's like all dark in your road
4:46
look at that nasty scar on my forehead what happened sheesh look like
4:52
Gorbachev got in a fight with the floor Aron got in a fight with the floor floor one it often does
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uh GoFundMe to get lisis a ring light we need to get something set upst poor for poor old Lewis this is terrible he's G
5:07
to look so beautiful with that ring light like that glowing Sparkle in his eyes going to do it blinking everyone
5:12
will be commenting on your beautiful eyelashes okay God all right let's see here let's
5:19
go ahead and get this thing rolling and uh we got a lot of stuff to talk about and I gotta be walking these sweet buns out the door 90 minutes actually 85
5:28
minutes I saw a movie um listed on Amazon Prime yesterday and the duration was 1 hour
5:35
and 60 Minutes 1 hour and 60 Minutes like is that what is that
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metric uh all right oh Mrs D that's not
5:51
it Mrs D oh my dear I see that Lewis is going dark oh yes Mrs D I went dark with
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L KY last night in the budoir I heard that was actually unusual
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yes usually it's lights on oh it got
6:12
worse oh my goodness Miss D if you don't mind always get worse it's weird how I didn't miss this last week at all I'm
6:19
sure many of our listeners didn't either to be honest with you you didn't have Mrs D on last week no ah that was a that
6:26
was a mistake secret transmission that was a mistake no
6:32
complaints oh well I'm sure they were they were disappointed you just they don't know how to contact you because
6:37
you're not on any of the social media platforms so there's no way to let you know um all right let's go ahead which
6:44
actually might be a good strategy to be honest let's go ahead and get this thing rolling Mrs D if you don't mind no one
6:51
wants to hear about your escapades with elcan I'm glad that he's doing well and that he's still living because I heard that he was gone so let me go ahead and
6:58
get this music turned up and we'll get the thing rolling in three two hello and welcome to the C best 30
7:06
plus minute Al conversation you're can hear all week long I'm your host air Li to join me today he was so traumatized
7:12
by my absence last week he spent most of his days shuffling around his home in a robe and slippers while softly muttering
7:19
hello hello the bacon stair is mostly gone and
7:25
he's definitely doing a lot better he's a man c l Wallace is here
7:31
I don't know if the bacon stair is fully gone it doesn't seem to be but it's at
7:36
least 40% also with us last week he answered the call of duty and took the Reigns of the program here today I
7:42
haven't listened to it yet but many are saying that his hello met the moment and made Mrs Ste proud he's the rider for C
7:50
Max Griffin Jones is here good evening and I can tell you listen the episode
7:57
read that joke because I didn't even try to do your hello my voice just my voice doesn't do that so I said good evening
8:05
as I do every week well you put your own flare on it that's fine but if you ever want to do the hello I can tell you the
8:10
trick is very tight underwear that will get you that will get you the the height
8:16
that you need to get to to hit those High tones but that's okay what chain
8:21
mail what's I prefer meil actually it really gives you that extra
8:28
mythicism that you need to get up the eye well I first I just want to say good
8:34
job dudes forgetting a show out I told Griffin and Lewis I was like look I'm
8:40
not going to be here if you don't want to do the show if you can't do it just don't do it but they they manned up they got the
8:48
show done Griffin did the whole thing Lewis was there too I'm sure he helped in some in some way but Griffin did oh
8:55
yeah I set a file you did yeah I set a file it was great I mean we couldn't have done it without that file otherwise
9:01
it would have just been Griffin talking to himself with long awkward pauses so the file helped but Griffin
9:08
great job I have not listened to the episode yet I want to go back and listen to it I was on vacation last week and
9:14
didn't have great internet and also I only had my iPad so which people keep
9:19
telling me Oh you can totally use as a productivity machine but I was telling
9:25
Griffin and Lewis took me a dang hour to upload the file to our podcast host
9:30
because it just wouldn't recognize the file and I I I almost thought I wasn't going to be able to do it like it was late at night Griffin I was like I'm
9:36
going to have to ping you in the morning and have you do it because it just would not work and then finally I put the two windows side by side on the iPad and I
9:43
dragged a file from uh I don't even know what you call it Apple files the you
9:48
know fake the files app the files app the the the fake file window into our
9:55
podcast web app and it actually worked and so that's how I got the episode outli but in any case good job um I will
10:04
be going on vacation again in September week oh I'm I'm going on Permanent Vacation
10:11
so I'll just need you guys to continue doing the show by yourself so maybe you guys can have some special guests on or
10:17
maybe get LK on you asked him right leis and he was I asked him and he said he wanted to join and he said no not really
10:24
so blink blink blink yeah so maybe we'll get LK on or some other guests but in
10:30
September I'm going to Disneyland so I'm going to be gone and I'm going um Another Place Another Place in
10:36
Washington so I'll be gone for two weeks but I kind of like this whole you guys were able to do the show without me
10:43
and actually be able to take off free at last I'm not sure I'm come back uh we
10:48
got a ton of stories to talk about this week man good show all the M4 max they're incoming we told you this
10:56
is going to happen and it looks like it's it's going to be absolutely huge refresh so if you've been thinking about
11:02
buying Mac absolutely do not do that because it seems like absolutely everything is going to get the M4 treatment including the MacBook Pro
11:08
which got released in October and I think we're we're about to get a new one which I'm very excited about and then we
11:15
have a very uh big redesign coming to the Mac Mini which I think is going to
11:20
make this machine for those of you that don't need uh already have your own screen like the perfect Mac for like
11:26
most people especially if you don't want to like if you already have all the accessories and stuff that you need I'm
11:31
even interested in this for like editing videos and stuff uh Griffin is going to tell us all about iOS 18 beta
11:39
5 uh Lewis is going to tell us about the kid-friendly Apple watch in production
11:45
incoming and it looks like the company Samsung has had a change of heart and doesn't
11:52
want to copy Apple anymore and one of their Executives is actually chastising his own company for C copying apple and
11:59
just releasing products that look just like the Apple products which we thought would be a fun story I'm going to tell
12:04
you why my iPhone 15 Pro Max now looks like
12:12
this for those for those of you listening I'm holding up my iPhone 15 Pro Max and you can see all the
12:19
internals because the screen has been removed by Yours Truly which was a harrowing act to say the least I'll tell
12:25
you what happened to my iPhone my story of trying to get apple to do some about it and how my iPhone ended up in my hand
12:31
with no screen but the good news is is I have this cute dimin a look at that uh
12:39
iPhone 7 here which I had in a drawer I believe it's rose gold beautiful color
12:46
yeah tiny and it still works great I had to go to AT&T and get a new SIM card put in it so that took a little bit of
12:54
effort but like popped it in and it's not fast but it works it's it's
12:59
definitely livable and I have a phone like who would have guessed that after
13:04
years of living in a drawer I get to charge this thing and used it as my main phone I want to get off this as fast as
13:10
possible every time I look at this phone in a moving vehicle I get car sick for some reason I I actually am not enjoying
13:16
using it in any way shape or form Touch ID is way slower than I remember it being uh but other than that like it's
13:23
actually working anyway how's the battery life oh dude well that depends do you want to use it to during the day
13:30
I have to charge the no joke I have to charge this phone probably three times a day every time I use it for any extended
13:36
period of time I have to charge it afterwards I took it to the gym fully charged came back it was at 60% so not
13:43
great Lis not great I have to walk around with a lightning cable in my
13:48
pocket there's a joke in there somewhere but so anyway I'll tell you what happened to my iPhone I I I
13:56
am I hesitate to be passionate about this but I'm pretty pissed off I'm pretty pissed off about what happened to my iPhone I'm pretty pissed about the
14:02
way Apple treated me when I went to the store I'm pretty pissed about the whole thing and I'll tell you the whole story there's a ton of details to go through
14:08
hopefully we have time for all of it and I got to figure out what I'm going to do because my I'm not going to buy a new
14:14
iPhone 15 Pro Max at this moment because the new phones are coming out next month so I'm kind of in a bad spot we'll go
14:20
through all that stuff um I want to give a quick plug for cult cloth if you're
14:26
interested in helping me buy a new iPhone 15 or 16 head on over to cat
14:31
cloth. man I have been using I was using my cat cloth a lot during this process to clean my phone remove debris and that
14:39
type of thing I also took them on my vacation which was um we were doing all
14:44
sorts of stuff Outdoors getting Dusty we were playing at the river you know and
14:50
everything was getting dirty and the cloth really do shine and not just for phones like I use them to clean all my
14:56
kids glasses my sunglasses and there's just nothing as good as them that I've
15:01
seen they really are that good I I honestly do think that they are the best that you can buy for any cleaning
15:07
application that you have any sensitive Electronics lenses cameras glasses I mean you name it nothing works better
15:13
than C CLA truly so if you haven't gotten yourself a pair or a set head to
15:18
C cloth. c.co there's a different um there's different packs
15:25
that you can buy with more or fewer cloths depending on like how much you want be cleaning and stuff you can use
15:30
them on your car too absolutely excellent on cleaning the dashboard of your car and other parts of your car
15:35
I've heard head on over to c.co and use code cultcast checkout to score a free
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carry cloth with orders $20 plus we've had thousands and thousands and thousands of orders so thank you to all
15:47
of you who have bought it and supported if you haven't yet please head over to cloth. and I do want to mention just one
15:53
quick thing I'm sorry I like there's so much Preamble here some of you tagged me
15:59
some of you tagged me in this tweet and I could not believe what I was seeing there is a guy who has started
16:08
specializing in fixing first gen homep pods and he has even uh developed a way
16:17
to update the software because a lot of the homepods that don't work where you have the volume uh buttons just blinking
16:23
on and off just had a failed software update and apple had no way to connect to the homepod so they couldn't fix it
16:29
well this guy developed a cable that he's using to update the first gen homep
16:34
pods and he said that he is actually going to be selling these cables and he
16:40
can tell you if your problem on your homepod is a software issue or a hardware issue now there are there are
16:46
some that are hardware issues so you if you want those fixed you'll have to send the homod to him which I'm not sure is
16:52
worth it actually this guy is local he's probably like 10 miles from me so I was going to see if I could like hook up
16:58
with this guy and like go check out his operations and maybe even like make a video on it or something and see on
17:04
YouTube you should absolutely do that I know that's what I was saying I was like dude there's no one better positioned to do this than me and fact just cut this
17:11
podcast right now get out go do it right now I'm going here we go I'll see you guys later I gotta figure out where he is and
17:19
make contact with him um if any of you know who this guy is let him know I want
17:24
to get a hold of him but he's apparently like a homepod repair exper and he has all the different parts to like fix the
17:31
homepods and stuff it's wild man totally wild if he sells a cable that fixes the software issues on a homepod that could
17:38
potentially make him a lot of money because that issue was fairly widespread but anyway I'll let you guys know how
17:44
this goes I'm going to reach out to this guy and see if I can go get him to look at my homepod and possibly fix it I
17:50
think that's all the Preamble should we hop into the actual St uh show let's talk first about MacBook Pro
17:58
Mac minis M4 upgrade coming later this year let me lead with
18:03
a mayy this is the one we've been waiting for especially for the MacBook
18:09
Pro which was just updated in August as I said Apple will reportedly launch M4
18:14
powered MacBooks and iMacs later this year but the company will wait till 2025 to refesh to refesh to
18:23
refresh its entire uh Mac lineup with M series chips we could get a refesh as
18:29
well maybe that's going to be the new exterior for the max we have no idea we
18:35
have facts either way on that the MacBook Air and the other high-end Mac desktop Macs will reportedly get M4
18:41
upgrades next year this is coming from Mark German so you know it's
18:47
fresh uh Apple has typically launched new Macbook Pros in late Q3 or Q4 in the
18:52
last few years so it should stick to that same timeline this year which would be crazy cuz a one-year turnaround time
18:58
for map Pros is a rarity that does not usually happen usually it's longer uh the MacBook Air
19:07
and other high-end desktop Macs will reportedly get their M4 upgrade next year this is coming from German's power
19:15
on newsletter did I already read all that stuff I think I did German claims Apple will refresh the
19:22
iMac or the Mac Mini and iMac with the M4 chip later this year okay
19:29
I swear every single one of these just repeating the same thing updates for the MacBook Air Mac Studio and the Mac Pro
19:36
will arrive in 2025 okay so if you're looking for a new Mac Studio which I
19:41
think the current one is the M2 correct I don't believe they actually
19:46
ever updated the Mac Studio with an M3 the Mac Studio and the Mac Mini I think are both on the M2 so this is saying
19:53
that the uh Mac Mini will get an upgrade this year along with the uh the iMac but
19:59
then the high-end stuff and the MacBook Air will will come next year I'm really
20:05
eager to take a Peak at what's going to happen with the MacBook Pro interestingly
20:11
enough there was a sale at Best Buy I think this week and they knocked ,000
20:19
off the one tbte M4 16 core 40 core GPU
20:25
16 core CPU 40 core GPU mapbook Pro it's 4,00 and Best Buy selling it for three
20:31
but you said M4 but uh which oh did I say M4 I'm sorry I meant to say the M3 so clearly not the M4 that hasn't been
20:38
released yet the current model the current model it's that with those specs is $4,000 at Apple and Best Buy is I
20:45
think they might even still be selling it for $3,000 they marked they they knocked $1,000 that is the absolute best
20:51
price that I've seen on that machine and a crazy good deal and I almost bit but I
20:56
want two terabytes and I'm going to wait for the M4 at this point so in any case it seems like the stock clearing has
21:03
begun right apple is starting to clear out some of their stock yeah so if if you're interested in
21:10
that Best Buy deal I'll try to post a link to it I don't know if it's still going but if you're interested in the M3
21:15
I mean the 16 core 40 core model is in many respects faster than I think the
21:21
M1 uh Ultra Mac Studio it is a crazy powerful chip that no mortal actually
21:28
needs unless you're editing you know 85k video with overlays and color grading
21:36
and all sorts of other stuff that's going to slow your machine down you probably don't need it but it's not
21:42
about need Lewis that's not what we're about here it's about having the best am
21:47
I right sure for people like you it's all about having the
21:53
best leou you're still on the M1 MacBook here are you interested in potentially
21:58
uh upgrading to that M4 MacBook a when it arrives next spring I mean I'm always tempted to get
22:06
something more powerful I mean there are more times these days where this thing will spin a little bit but it still
22:13
pretty much gets the job done for me I mean I'm not like I'm editing video or
22:20
anything but you could be L you could be oh is the sale already over oh dude
22:27
it might already be over are you sure it was all the way down to three we ran a post about it being
22:33
3500 okay no it's still going I got it right here so you're right there is a caveat here it is 3500 and I guess they
22:43
knock a an extra $500 off if you are a Best Buy plus member which which I think
22:51
requires you to Fork over right oh but it's only 50 bucks for two years so you pay
22:59
50 bucks but you save 500 so that's a pretty good deal let me see if I can
23:04
bring this up here that's a pretty good deal cancel that though what's that gotta remember to cancel that subscription though yeah that's true but
23:11
that's not that that difficult really only 50 I thought it was like 200 a year or something my Best Buy plus add
23:18
membership to get your additional savings of $500 and it says $50 oh it's $50 a year I think not $50
23:25
for two years so 50 bucks yeah I don't think that's that bad I think they have
23:32
another membership that is higher than the Best Buy plus which gets you like all like the extended return windows and
23:39
the I think the extra warranty on like every product that you sell through Geek Squad or something that's a pretty dang
23:46
good deal though like you spend 50 bucks and get a M3 topspec MacBook Pro for
23:54
$3,000 plus tax that is by far the absolute best deal that I've seen anywhere well this is enough talk about
24:01
laptops can I talk about the most exciting Mac in the world the Mac Mini well I'm not sure I agree with your
24:07
premise but I might agree that we've been talking about it for too long Louis do we lose you didn't lose me but uh I'm
24:14
just looking at a live stream I'm seeing a big giant black screen that says something went wrong oh well I'm not so
24:23
it looks like whatever went wrong just me it's just you yeah okay refresh take
24:30
it away Griffin let's talk about Mac Mini Apple is going to shrink the next
24:37
Mac Mini when it adds an M4 processor according to an often reliable source of Insider
24:42
information it it's Mark Gman the D could be the size of an Apple TV Apple
24:50
hasn't redesign Mac Mini since G Griffin I'm sorry to interrupt you your your your levels is your levels are really
24:55
low for some reason can you turn it up in any way I can manually here but then I have to turn up le as well
25:03
yeah is that better now oh yeah that's much better okay I I'll keep this window open okay anyways Apple hasn't
25:10
redesigned the Mac Mini since 2010 the Mac Mini has actually only had two ever designs the like white polycarbonate one
25:16
and their current aluminum one it's kind of crazy but Apple has finally found a way to improve on the tiny desktop it'll
25:24
get much smaller according to information leaked by Mark Gman that can the computer could end up about the size
25:30
of an Apple TV a 3.7 inch square for reference the current Mac Mini is a 7.8
25:36
inch square um a question I have is how they're going to fit all of the ports on
25:41
the back of it because like you know the Mac Mini is currently about as wide as all of the ports that are plugged into
25:47
it um put them on the top Apple has tested modals with at least three USBC ports on the back of
25:54
the mini in addition to an area for plugging in the power cable and an HDMI port port for connecting the device to
25:59
TV sets and monitors but you know there the Mac Mini also comes with two usba
26:05
ports and it comes with an Ethernet Jack and a headphone jack he doesn't mention those so maybe they'll be cutting some
26:10
of those uh well what Apple considers Legacy ports but what I consider kind of essential ports for a computer um the
26:19
Mac Mini will keep its aluminum casing it won't switch to plastic so that's good at least um and they will continue
26:25
to offer M4 and M4 pro versions it's not like when they switch to the tiny case
26:30
that they're going to drop that sort of a mid-tier model that I think is a pretty good balance of power and price
26:37
so uh sounds like mostly good news although I'm a little little hesitant that they're going to butcher my
26:44
favorite machine buter it the case I don't want them to take ports out I
26:50
don't I don't either and and I don't want something as big as a Mac Studio the Mac Mini you know it's it's it's
26:56
it's it's a perfect little nugget of a computer for me yeah but they're going to make it way more powerful I mean it's
27:02
essentially a Mac Studio mini with the M4 Pro in there I mean to a degree is
27:08
and that's what I like about it but you know I I almost I almost every day plug something into my Mac or unplug
27:13
something like every single port on the back of my Mac Mini is filled yeah but that's nothing that a
27:19
dongle can't fix and you know we're heading back that's why you get a desktop computer so you don't have to
27:24
ever deal with like this this dongle problem I skipped over theong generation for this very reason oh you never had
27:30
any dongles huh well no those were tough times man let me tell you those were tough I suffered in other ways because I
27:36
still had a 2015 MacBook Pro in early 2023 but that's beside the point yeah
27:42
but at least you had some usba ports yeah yeah I don't know man I mean I could see them pulling some ports out of
27:48
here but in which case I think the trade-off with more power smaller size so that you could just have it on your
27:54
desk and then you have a dock I I don't want that Solution by any by any means I think I like docs but when you have to
28:01
have a dock it's super annoying I think that it should have enough ports for regular people but if they're going to
28:07
make it smaller they could put ports on the side I don't love that implementation because it's way less clean and now you have cables that are
28:14
pulling on your Mac from the side which kind of makes it like skew and not sit
28:20
on your desk like facing forward because you have like the like the pressure for it being pulled from its side but for
28:26
that chip I think that might be a pretty good trade-off and you could do crazy video editing with an M4 Pro you could
28:34
probably that that would be powerful enough for I would say 95% of people's
28:40
video editing especially for Content creators there's no way you would need anything more powerful than that now
28:46
they haven't released it yet but I mean you can do M2 MacBook Pro is already more than
28:52
powerful enough for that I do 4K video editing all the time and it's and it it it handles it absolutely swimmingly yeah
28:58
the m1's the same like I was arguing with myself last night cuz I'm thinking about getting the M4 Max MacBook Pro
29:05
when they release it and I was like dude you do not need this you do not need this the the M1 is is perfectly good
29:13
enough for anything that I'm going to be doing and not to mention I haven't even put out a YouTube video in like seven months but
29:20
then I think it's not about need loose it's about the it's about having the
29:26
best you know got have the best that there is you got to be able to you got to be able to shave you know 10 seconds
29:33
off your 4K video export for that one export that you do every six months of
29:39
video it's about that I'm not even editing the cultcast anymore gin's doing it so like for me
29:47
it's really pointless to have such a powerful machine because I could probably get away with a 15-inch MacBook
29:53
Air at this point and in a lot of ways that machine would would would be I
29:58
think a better allaround Computing machine because it's not as heavy it's easier to carry and I've thought about
30:04
doing that implementation like getting a MacBook Air and then a Mac Studio or something just to have because I I
30:11
really do I know I say this all the time I actually really do want to get back into YouTube I should have never left it
30:16
was a huge mistake it was a huge mistake I'm telling you I think even a MacBook Air would be more than enough to handle the cultcast live streams because an M4
30:23
MacBook Air would probably be more powerful than that PC you have right now I don't think so man I mean the video
30:30
card that I have in here is a um a 4080 and it's encoders it's video encoders I
30:37
think are unparalleled unless you get a 4090 but it's able to uh to encode in in
30:42
YouTube's um highest quality codec which I'm not sure a Matt could even do I think you actually have to have Nvidia
30:48
to do that I forget what codec it's called it's like the a something AV av1 yeah so we we broadcast an av1 which I
30:55
will say when we upgraded to av1 it made a huge difference in quality I mean for better or worse you can see our faces
31:01
much more clearly now you know all of a sudden you can see that lwis is half gbit trov over
31:08
there that thing's getting redder as we broadcast it's angry I know I don't know if you rubbing it or something for those
31:15
of you listening L did you take a spill on the ground is that what happened I had an unfortunate incident at a wedding
31:21
reception in Wisconsin might have been beer involved yeah I was going to say were there males
31:27
involved okay and you tripped in your leader hosen were you carrying the tray full of
31:33
the beers passing out no it was not working if I was working I'd be fine yeah it doesn't look that bad but
31:40
it is little gorbachov gorbachov gorbachov esque it's There's Something About This Eerie monitor light that is
31:47
uh it's really making it shine it looks like prison Lou might have had to teach
31:53
a few people who was boss in the clink am I right that's really what
32:00
happened okay all right let's see here I've completely lost where we are or
32:06
what we should be talking about I think we're going to Lewis next but before we do I just want to give a huge thanks to
32:13
Hugo last with the big 4999 Super Chat Hugo last coming in
32:18
strong yet again he says finally the four of us I mean the three of you back together but you know what here you go
32:25
we're going to make it four I know I've been promising that for far too long with absolutely no action but we're
32:31
going to make that happen we got to bring Hugo last on the show I'm reaching out I'm making a note I don't have my
32:36
notepad so I guess I'm not making a note but it's use the reminders app on your iPhone 7 I was like really let me take
32:44
20 minutes to unlock my iPhone and when I when I pull down for
32:50
the search bar it takes like six seconds to load you know and then open up oh and
32:55
I open up the notes app it's going to want to sync that's going to take another 20 minutes the things on LTE
33:00
which actually is just as fast as 5G in my area what a shock uh yeah I I can't
33:06
believe we ever used to use phones this size man it it is it's in the hand well doesn't it it's yeah it is easier to
33:12
type with one hand but it is unbearable and like the text is so small I I think that's why looking at my phone in the
33:19
car was making me car sick because you really have to focus and squint to see
33:25
the text on this phone cuz it's just so dainty and tiny but you know it's there
33:31
is actually a feature related to that coming in iOS 18 an operating system that phone can't run called um called
33:38
vehicle motion cues that like adds animated dots around the edge of your
33:44
phone if you're using it in a car that'll make you less motion sick you don't say what a wow is that available
33:50
in the iOS 18 beta it is and if our viewers are more curious about that they can stay tuned for this weekend when I
33:56
make a video All About It the timing could not be more perfect I was going to say they don't have to stay tuned for long because you're about to
34:01
talk about it right let's go to you let's move on to that let's just do
34:07
it take it away uh I think that's part of the story but iOS 18 beta found all the new features and changes the fifth
34:14
beta of iOS 18 is here following their two week release cycle here's what's new iOS 18 beta 5 introduces a new
34:22
distraction control option in Safari it allows you to manually remove annoying
34:28
elements from a web page uh actually minor editing point my the The Voice
34:35
level I'm watching this happen in in system settings on my computer every time I speak the input volume slider
34:41
manually pushes itself down do you have automatically adjust turned on in Skype
34:48
I don't I have it turned off and I can see it happening right now because I'm not continually clicking the button
34:53
that's wonderful but I think I'm going to need you to do that for me you want me to do what for you uh just just turn
34:59
up my my input volume on the YouTube live stream turn off the trail off
35:05
plugin yeah uh I can do it on my mixer but just know that when he's talking
35:11
Griffin or Lewis when I do that your volume's going up too because Skype doesn't separate audio files per person
35:19
so when you talk I get audio on both channels so when Griffin's talking you
35:24
can't talk l absolute silence okay I'll turn it up on
35:29
my side okay um I'll try and see if that fix we'll look into that anyways uh
35:36
hello future Griffin I hope you've had fun editing that anyways don't confuse distraction control with an ad blocker
35:43
because it's not you need to manually remove each individual element including ads and the changes don't carry over
35:50
from other pages from the same website so I'm a lot of people are just kind of scratching their heads at this feature
35:56
like what what it's for it's it's kind of bizarre like yeah when you open a website and it's filled with cluttered
36:01
articles I just go into reader mode I don't want to manually like pop and Thanos snap away all of the ads on the
36:09
site kind of strange uh the other big change is that Apple made a number of changes to the photos app addressing
36:15
some of the problems I've covered in gratuitous detail in a previous article
36:21
uh the first of all the carousel is gone that means that your photo library no longer randomly disappears when you it's
36:30
always there when you scroll back up to it which is what people expect to happen so that's a good change in my
36:36
opinion Apple also made it easier to find your recently saved photos from messages and Safari the recently saved
36:44
album was kind of buried before but now it's right there under your library it's been like merged with the uh new recent
36:50
days section uh those are some changes that'll have a big impact on usability
36:55
and those are I would say my top two out of five changes that I was wishing for I still think the search
37:02
button is way too tiny and hard to reach I have like a 50% failure rate of hitting the wrong button because the
37:09
search button is just so small it's right next to it's it's sandwiched between a select button and your profile
37:15
button so I I I hit the wrong one like constantly um I what I'm really wishing
37:21
for is that I wish it was like a full-size text field between the library and the collections where you could you know actually reach it with your thumb
37:28
and you would think that with uh how much more important search is going to be with all the these Apple intelligence features that they would want to make
37:34
the search button more obvious I don't know seems like a natural thing for me but well they a the carousel though
37:41
that's pretty big that must have meant that I mean first of all how did it sneak its way in there when I'm sure
37:46
they're doing a ton of uiux research and testing and stuff and now it's gone
37:52
which means it must have been complained about so much that they're like yeah we can't continue with this
37:57
I you know I I maybe want to take I want to take a little bit of credit for this because I I wrote that article the
38:04
photos app and it look it was like the the the top post on R slapple for a few weeks and I know a few people on the
38:10
photos team so and I know that they read what I write so wow maybe it was you especially if it was top on on the Apple
38:20
subreddit maybe they the carousel killer I I guess I didn't read the whole article that's what they call you around
38:27
them too I'll be a link in the show notes uh please share it with everybody you know because I I want the search
38:33
button to be reachable with one thumb again uh by the way just real quick chat
38:38
is Griffin's audio loud enough now I turned it way up so hopefully it should be
38:43
fixed but now I also hear a hiss so that's great yeah uh one last change
38:49
they they redesigned some of the icons in Control Center and on the home screen Maps has a new dark mode icon that
38:56
removes much more of the color than before but they they keep changing that one
39:03
okay is it safe to use the beta now should I go ahead and I would say you
39:09
can I would say it's probably reliable enough I actually haven't had as many bugs on this on this build as before but
39:16
actually uh it doesn't matter because it's not compatible with the iPhone 7 that's true that's true you are saved
39:24
I'm on iPhone or iPhone I think I'm on iOS 15 8.3 that's that's as far as I'm going
39:31
it's funny Louis and I were speculating last week when all this apple intelligence beta was released oh man
39:36
it's a shame air fund isn't on this week because he would probably have a lot to say about it little know see he he
39:42
downloaded it blew up his phone yeah uh that certainly wasn't it that probably would have been covered
39:47
under the two months of warranty I had left you know can't believe it um all
39:54
right well I'm I'm I'm chomping at the bit to get to my story here but I know we have the samsum story Sam Sam Samsung
40:02
there's actually um a a guy at my local Nordstrom Rack he is a tailor and his
40:08
name is Samsung and I always chuckle when I go into the dressing room because he they have a picture of him with his name Sam
40:15
space Su he's the local tayor for the nostrom rack there but I'm not sure he
40:21
had any input into this story be strange having a past tense surname yeah okay I
40:29
don't think they bother me that much but tell us about the story leis going skip right over the Apple watch huh oh yeah
40:34
never mind let's do that one first you expect me to know where in the
40:39
notes we are I can never keep track I don't want to blow up the amazing transition let's go with Samsung you
40:45
want to okay hero of the Nordstrom Rack I he is a pretty good tayor to be
40:51
honest with you he's been there forever the guy's been there for like 15 years or something they wouldn't hire a slouch
40:56
at the Nord not so uh you can add samsum Electronics
41:02
chairman Lee oh my God I hope I pronounce this right jayang Lee Jong to
41:08
list of people who think his company's new smartwatch and wireless eye ibuds oh my God that would be something that
41:14
that's what's next eye buds earbuds what I'm sorry I'm I
41:21
shouldn't have interrupted but since I did I'm going to go ahead and just continue I'm looking at the picture now of the new Samsung watch next to the
41:28
Apple watch and I saw I saw a picture of this on X earlier this week and I didn't
41:34
even know what I was looking at I I I I was confused because the band is so identical oh yeah and I me so clearly
41:40
ripped off from Apple that I thought that maybe somebody was trying to sell like a third- party Band on Amazon or
41:47
something I didn't realize this was an actual Samsung product yeah I mean this this
41:53
guy I start at the top Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Jong he he
41:58
called he he basically shook up the mobile team at the company over what he called apple design
42:06
plagiarism pretty crazy he reportedly got angry at Executives at Samsung's mobile division for approving such
42:11
copycat devices as what you're talking about what do they call it the Galaxy watch Ultra I believe Galaxy watch 7 no
42:19
they didn't call it and buds three earbuds um let's see company spokesman
42:26
told a je news chairman Lee himself stepped forward his controversy over apple design plagiarism and quality Rose
42:32
over the budge 3 Series in Galaxy watch 7 released last month this is of course according to a TR machine translation
42:39
the this I love this quote the current internal atmosphere is not very
42:45
good I I I guess I maybe I misspoke I'm not sure he exactly himself called it apple design plagiarism uh but he he
42:54
this guy the head of of Samsung Electronics is shaking up everything
43:01
inside the company saying hey you got to come up with your own ideas you can't just be taking the Apple watch Ultra and
43:06
turning that into our next device I mean and as you're saying it was if if you ever saw those two things side by side
43:11
it it's unbelievably egregious how they copied it and and also how it somehow
43:17
looks worse I mean it's it's like a an AI generated version of the ultra that's
43:23
really funny you know like a a hand with six fingers right it's it's just not quite right it's just a little bit uh
43:30
weird looking anyway so and the same thing with the the earbuds that they put out there they have the stems like like
43:37
airpods do now so I'm showing those right now and the shape is it it it looks exactly like the airpods 3 with
43:45
the new angle of the stems but they're silver uh and they have like an LED
43:51
light on the outside the inspiration of Samsung's products on
43:57
based on Apple's products there's no way that this can be just coincidence like it keeps happening over and over and
44:04
over and over again yeah like did they did they just hire Lee Jong last week like is this the first
44:10
time they've been doing this for a while yeah maybe maybe he's been busy with the uh horrible Samsung refrigerators he'
44:17
been trying to figure out the ice maker for five years I know I've heard really bad
44:23
things about Samsung appliances I've never owned one but they ref refrigerators I mean I've heard you
44:29
should never buy a Samsung washer and dryer for sure yeah well if you want a a refrigerator that doesn't make ice or
44:36
refrigerat Samsung is the brand for you but its Wi-Fi is going to work great the whole time you own it the refrigerator
44:43
Wi-Fi will be perfect it's it's going to be a great uh uh oh go what do they call
44:49
that new standard they added to um matter matter yeah it's probably
44:55
like a matter enabled fridge like it probably works great as a matter router but like the actual
45:00
Refrigeration you know questionable it's crazy man it's crazy
45:06
that they do this and get away with it but you know it's actually a really good business model there's a a lot of hype
45:12
around Apple products and and and if Samsung comes in with one that looks similar but it's cheaper which is what they do even if it's not as good from a
45:19
quality perspective like a lot of people don't a lot a lot of people aren't like me leis they don't demand the best
45:26
they're willing to just go with the second best of course I demanded the best with my iPhone 15 Pro Max and what
45:33
I got Lewis was not the best not the best product not the best experience not
45:38
the best customer service I've got to say went in there I'll tell the whole story in a minute I'm getting ahead of
45:45
myself but so we move on to the kid-friendly Apple watch SE now this
45:51
seems like a zany product but I actually think there is a real market for kids
45:57
smart watches kids like watches my kids like watches and you get have fi turned
46:02
on on it so you could always find your kid I mean there's some things they could work into this that would actually be pretty
46:08
useful yeah and I so that's the rumor Apple watch se3 reportedly become in a
46:13
plastic casing uh the good thing about that I mean aside from possibly making it uh cheaper
46:20
is it might be uh it might be able to make it a lot more colorful and maybe they might even actually make it some
46:25
fun colors like they did with the uh you know 5c when they went with that thing oh man that's a throwback right
46:32
there uh let's see uh what is this story talking about the current color options as you might may or may not know Apple
46:39
watch SE comes in Midnight which is black Starlight which is goldish and silver you know typical typical color
46:46
palette for Apple uh but this latest rumor from you won't believe it uh Bloomberg's Mark German says Next
46:52
Generation version will have a plastic casing that quote could allow for a better array of
46:58
colors he didn't offer any predictions about what those colors might be but I mean if you look at like uh well I mean
47:04
who knows remember how remember Swatch remember those watches yeah they're still around aren't they well I mean are
47:10
they big now I don't know well but I mean probably you know they're probably
47:15
expensive fun colorful watches right um let's see German said expanding a number
47:21
of color options could make the Apple watch SE more kid-friendly and uh as our story points out uh it's outstanding
47:27
accessory for a kid uh their school like if your school bans an iPhone the kid uh
47:32
or they lose their iPhone the Apple watch you can always be in touch with your kid especially if they got a
47:38
Cellular Connection uh like you're saying built-in GPS and fine my so uh you know you kind of keep tabs on a
47:44
little rugrat uh I don't think there's any pricing information about this current one costs
47:50
$249 would they make it a little cheaper by going plastic have to make it cheaper man they'd have to cut features would
47:56
they half to make it cheaper I think so how many people are buying their kid a $250 Smartwatch I don't think so what's
48:04
250 now compared to what 250 was two years ago still a lot for a
48:09
kid I mean in my opinion they'd have to make it like 150 or less it would have to be pretty cheap and yeah
48:16
shatterproof or at least very very very rugged but then you could design a band
48:23
called I'm I'm coining the term safe lock it's a band that you could put on your kid's wrist that can't be taken off
48:31
wow so that you know where your kid is at all time there the only other option
48:36
is securing an airpod to them somewhere or a um um air tag air tag thank you
48:43
it's hard to make them swallow them they're very large you know there's other options but most of them are not
48:49
going to be something that will stay in their bodies so you got to have a way to secure something that will enable fine M
48:55
wouldn't it have to be a break away though I mean what if they get too close to the thresher well if your kids live on a
49:01
farm maybe that we have to think through that user scenario break away Breakaway like the the cat collars they should be
49:08
wearing the Nike sport band if they're getting serious work done you know that's the one thing that
49:13
was kind of weird about this like Apple watch I mean what's Apple watch's main thing I mean yeah using it as like a
49:19
glorified air tag is one thing but uh Health stuff I mean maybe it would maybe
49:25
it would help uh you know the childhood obesity epidemic hey how many steps you get today uh junior might be good who
49:33
knows we'll check this out we got ninjab bricks in the chat says kids can't even use a lot of the features I'm a teen we
49:40
got a teen here can you believe this we're cool with the teens leis I don't know if you knew that I can't believe it
49:46
he says I'm a teen and it won't let me use some health features like ECG I
49:52
guess it will stunt my growth or something I heard if you turn on ECG you just knock the foot off your height
49:57
that's it even one exposure to ECG so that is interesting I never heard this
50:02
been what happened to me the rationale what the rationale be for that I don't know but you know if you're a minor then
50:10
there are things that maybe they just aren't allowed to let you use without your parents permission or something you
50:15
can't check your heart rate yeah well not heart rate but okay huh but still a
50:22
cool product I think this is a great idea like my daughters have started into watches and um you know there their
50:30
watches they have are just your regular run of the the-mill watches and they can't do anything on them except tell time and I think it'd be really cool to
50:37
have something that you could send the messages know their location they could they could use the
50:43
walkie-talkie app remember that that would be that would be super cool finally someone I want a digital digital
50:48
touch with right you know if they if they could drop the price just a smidgen
50:53
although really is is plastic that much more cheaper than Alum I don't think it's just a plastic that's going to be
50:59
it like they're going to have to knock out a bunch of features to make this thing cheap I honestly don't think I don't know maybe using an older version
51:06
of of um the watch and just putting it in a in a plastic case something because
51:12
I $200 too much 250 too much 150 I think
51:17
is maybe in the threshold but a lot of people are not going to want to spend that much on a kid's watch I don't know
51:23
man if they push it like hey yeah you know keep T tabs on your kids and uh find out how much exercise they're
51:29
getting motivate them to uh be more healthy they're under I think I think 179 is maybe the lowest we could
51:37
realistically expect Apple to go I I and you know the thing is if they dropped it to like let's say 229 then it
51:44
goes on sale for 179 and you know I mean that that's part of what happens with all these prices right I mean yeah you
51:50
always find these deals I mean apple apple discontinues it like they're they're going to keep selling it at Walmart a Best Buy for even cheap prices
51:57
like you can probably still buy an original Apple watch from four years ago for like you know if you want a 129
52:03
Apple watch or something like that I'm making those numbers up but to be something like that happens
52:09
often yeah they Swatch is still alive by the way if you
52:14
aren't didn't mean to you know indicate they're not around but I don't think you
52:19
were accusing them not being around I was just curious and uh so watch a very cool trendy watch brand like in the '
52:25
80s and 90s for you know very vibrant loud I have't cool designs for watches and I just went
52:32
to their website dude they still got it man they got tons of cool designs on here I would wear literally any watch in
52:37
this row maybe not that last one but or that one but they got a bunch of really
52:43
cool Swatch designs the only thing is is like do you want to spend $130 like a Swatch back in the day was like what 20
52:51
bucks and of course now they're far more trendy oh they got 80s 90s swatches look
52:57
at this okay those are the ones we were just looking at dude those look cool I
53:03
can't see nothing what live I guess I guess you I like that there on their homepage they have like some transparent
53:10
ones translucent ones I'm all about transparent pretty wild and you know I mean we're always ragging on Apple for
53:16
not having colors so like if they do this let's hope that they actually come up with some real eye popping colors not
53:23
just like you know teal they should do a swap collab they would never do that because
53:28
I don't think Apple does collabs light brown the zoom
53:33
Edition I saw a guy the other day wearing a zoon shirt and my favorite
53:38
part is the shirt was brown do you remember the brown Zoom Brown was a new black for a minute and a half that's
53:44
literally how long it was a minute and a half and then they realized we've made a huge mistake a brown music player I mean it's
53:53
the zoom man at least it wasn't maroon they might had maroon I don't know I
53:58
don't know all right let's see here I think we got to go ahead and start moving on cuz I gotta tell my iPhone
54:05
story this might take a while I'm gonna I'm gonna condense the story although
54:10
this is going to be cathartic for me because it was very traumatic and then Griffin's gonna do a review for us dude
54:17
I need to get some stuff to review oh my goodness we got to get some more under reviews going on this show I've got
54:23
hardly anything to talk about from a hardware perspective although I may have soon I did just buy some stuff uh okay
54:31
so going back to my camera angle here as you all know I was on vacation last week
54:37
I went to beautiful Eastern Washington and Eastern Washington is so once you cross the Cascades you go from
54:44
Western Washington the cascad is a mountain range you go from Western Washington to Eastern Washington and and
54:49
the terrain is completely different like it's not rainy over there it's beautiful it's sunny it's actually very dry and
54:56
desert like and if you go far enough East you will eventually hit the Columbia river which I think is one of
55:01
the most majestic rivers in the US it's absolutely massive you know and you
55:06
could go uh there's all these beaches that that it has along its banks and um
55:12
anyway so we were just playing around in in Eastern Washington and we decided to
55:18
do a River float uh a River float you get on a tube and you just float down
55:23
the river it's super cool it's fun like they have tubes that like hold beers and stuff I mean a lot of people have like
55:29
River float parties we weren't getting so adventurous we were just floating down the river and you can just kind of
55:35
like tile your rafts together and then eventually you have to get off and hit a beach but like you can float for like
55:41
between 1 and three hours I mean depending on how far you go it's super fun so everyone wants me to take a video
55:48
so I'm like yeah no problem my iPhone 15 Pro Max ip68 rated what could go wrong
55:55
so I take thing it's in my lap okay and we're going like 1 mile an hour this is not like you're on a boat getting pulled
56:02
you're just floating dossy down the river there's almost no current at all
56:08
and I was using my phone my w my hands are wet it probably got splashed a few
56:13
times and it did get immersed in probably like 1 to three inches of water like a few times and I took it out you
56:19
know not a big deal I mean for those of you who have followed this show for any length of time you know my iPhone 13 Pro
56:28
I took on a trip to Disney World in 2022 and as I was I was taking a video and as
56:34
I was getting onto a water slide I slipped the phone fell it hit the it hit
56:40
the slide so hard it came out of its case and it went down the water slide all by itself and then landed in a pool
56:47
with a thud hit the bottom of the pool and was in the water for 3 to 4 minutes
56:53
as I went down the water slide and went to look for it I have a video of this whole thing and then eventually I saw it
56:59
I found it in the pool took it out totally perfect and I actually ended up trading that phone in for my 15 Pro Max
57:06
because it had absolutely no water damage okay so you see you can see where this is going so I I I get towards the
57:12
end of the float and I notice that my volume buttons on my 15 Pro Max are
57:19
being all weird and I'm like what is going on like you know sometimes you get water on your screen and your phone interprets that as a touch I thought
57:25
that was it but then I turn it over and there's fog underneath the lenses and I was like you have got to be kidding me
57:31
this thing barely got splashed at all I mean I have almost never used it I don't think it's ever even been near water
57:37
until that instance and so in my mind and I hope you guys don't find this to
57:42
be whiny I'm just telling you what happened so if I get too whiny just let me know I'll tone it down but like in my
57:48
mind this is a warranty problem like this phone's seal has failed it it's an
57:53
ip68 rated phone which means it should be safe you know down to 18 ft of full
58:00
submersion now they say it's water resistant it's not waterproof as a caveats because they don't cover water
58:06
damage under the standard warranty you're supposed to buy Apple Care Plus for that I get that but in my mind if
58:12
they advertise the phone as being water resistant and they show like remember when they released those videos of the phone being sprayed with all those mini
58:19
like Jets right and it's like cycling all around it and there was literally an ad from Apple that showed the water
58:25
getting or show the phone being splashed at a pool and they're like good thing your phone is an iPhone or something I forget what the words are so they they
58:32
advertised the fact that it's water resist but when I used it in the exact scenario where they advertised it the
58:37
phone got water in it so uh sorry if you've explained this but and maybe I just didn't hear but when exactly did
58:44
your phone encounter the water um it was maybe last Wednesday I forget exactly I
58:50
mean like how like did it did it get submerged did you drop it or no no I didn't drop it so I had it my lap and it
58:56
got splashed I think just with water coming over the tube a few times um and then you know when you're sitting in the
59:03
tube it has a net at the bottom so you're not just like hanging your butt down but like if you
59:09
go if you go below a certain level like there is water like touching your butt and stuff and there's a couple times
59:14
where my phone fell off my lap into that water but it's like two or three inches of water right and when that happened I just picked it up and put it back in my
59:20
lap not thinking that this would cause an issue so I took it to the Apple Store
59:26
and I was like I'm going to just tell them I know this is not covered but I'm going to try and make a case why I think
59:31
it should be because there's no way this phone should have failed under these conditions so I go in there and actually
59:38
first off they had me talk to their manager and I told I told her the whole story and she was like you didn't take
59:43
it in like a steam room or anything I was like no it just got splashed and then I tell her the whole story and she's like well actually I can't help
59:49
you you're going to need to talk to our Tech so I'm like oh thanks for having me tell you the whole story for five
59:54
minutes so the tech comes over immediately I can tell this guy's got an attitude problem he needs an adjustment
1:00:00
right but I'm being cool I'm like I'm gonna be cool and I just told him like like the same thing I just told you guys I'm like look I know that this is not C
1:00:07
covered by your warranty but if you'll allow me to make a case I think that this should be covered and here is why
1:00:13
and I told him exactly what happened and this guy is just a complete jerk could
1:00:19
not could could not be any more unpleasant like was combative with me argued with me the entire time and was
1:00:26
basically accusing me of lying to him that I must have done something more than I was telling him and I was like no
1:00:32
man that's exactly what happened and he was like that's I I I I
1:00:38
was I was saying I think the seal on his phone failed which is my premise for why I think you should you should replace it he goes that's literally never happened
1:00:45
it's literally never happened the seal has the seal has never failed and I'm like first of all how could you possibly
1:00:51
know that you know like that's just there's no way you could you could know that like clearly the seal has failed at
1:00:56
some point there's no way that you have an absolutely 100% record for seal failures I'm like not only that if the
1:01:02
seal didn't fail then how did the water get in clearly clearly you got a seal
1:01:07
problem on your hands you know and he just would not hear it he was like no that that doesn't happen and I'm like
1:01:13
well then how did the water get in he's like he's like well there are other ways it could get in I'm like well please please enlighten me how does water get
1:01:18
into a phone if the seal doesn't fail and of course he's like couldn't give me an answer the guy had no idea what to say and I'm like
1:01:25
this guy is used to talking no offense to plebs who have no idea how any of this stuff works and I'm like bro your
1:01:33
phone should be good down to 18 ft of water and when I said that he didn't know what to do he he he could not
1:01:38
believe that I knew that information and he tried to back track and he was like well it's not guaranteed uh you know
1:01:45
like a splash can do it depending on how it Splash he was basically minimizing the fact that the phone is water
1:01:50
resistant basically telling me like yeah like it's it's ip68 but that that's like a best case scenario like really any
1:01:56
Splash could completely brick your phone I mean this is literally what he was telling me like that's kind of his what
1:02:02
his argument was too bad you couldn't pull up the video and show him that the here's how it's supposed to work I know
1:02:08
I I I almost I show you but my phone doesn't work doesn't work well here's the thing though the phone does work
1:02:15
perfectly well except there's fog underneath the lenses and I'm like I've
1:02:21
got to get this water out otherwise it's going to ruin the phone and so he tells
1:02:26
me I think what you should do is just let it sit out to dry so that the water can get out and I'm like how is the
1:02:31
water going to get out man the whole you just told me the seal is unbreakable it's trapped in there there's no way the
1:02:38
water's coming out I'm like how is it going to get out he's like well the same way it got in there and I go how was that that makes sense did you try the
1:02:45
rice dude that the rice trick is completely worthless I think everybody
1:02:50
it's such a classic goto what about what about the toaster oven trick
1:02:56
H H how about the you know the real oven trick you put it in the real oven and just heat it up and see what happens so
1:03:02
that's a waste you just need the size of the toaster oven you don't need a big oven so I I thought of it this way and I
1:03:07
was like that's true just hit the just put it on dark right set it down put it on
1:03:14
dark so I I tried leaving it in the sunlight and the water inside would evaporate but eventually it would start
1:03:20
condensing again and I I was like there's no way this water's coming out so I'm like there's only one solution
1:03:26
here Papa e got to open this bad boy up so I go on Amazon I buy the iix it tool
1:03:35
set which is a very nice tool set very expensive but it is nice and I watched
1:03:40
all the how-to videos I fixed it has some on their website there's some on YouTube and I was like this looks doable
1:03:47
it looks like it's doable now you have to basically heat the phone up with a heat gun and then use a plunger and then
1:03:54
as you are plunging this thing you have to insert like this special tool to like break the seal and that seal spudger
1:04:02
it's it's not a spudger a spudger something different and that and and that seal on there it's on there man
1:04:08
like that thing is super dense it is the most powerful glue I have ever encountered and this entire exercise was
1:04:14
one of the most har harrowing electronic experiences I've ever had I'm like I'm pulling with all my might to get this
1:04:20
thing off and you have to like stick tool in there but you can't stick it in too far cuz if you stick it in too far
1:04:26
you'll Jam the the the tool into the phone and you'll break something inside the phone so I'm working on this thing
1:04:33
for 40 minutes I'm literally sweating and I'm nervous and my goal is to get
1:04:38
this screen off and let the phone air out so with a lot of fuss and elbow
1:04:46
grease I do actually get the screen off
1:04:52
the phone and then I'm able to remove the camera module which for those of you
1:04:57
watching video here it is I got the camera module right here Isn't She
1:05:03
Lovely wow and as soon as I did that all the the water condensation started
1:05:09
drying out and I was like dude I I I was on cloud 10 nine was below me I could
1:05:16
not believe that I had accomplished this feat I'm like I I I am a tech wizard I
1:05:22
cannot believe I got this screen off I was like I am gonna show that guy at Apple this phone will live
1:05:28
again and so it's drying out I think it's gonna be okay I spray it with an
1:05:34
air gun and water comes out of it right because the buttons were all wonky and then later that night I'm
1:05:41
admiring my work and I realize wait a second there is like this really thin
1:05:50
layer of plastic that goes around the edge of the phone I don't know if you can see it and none of the guides tell
1:05:57
you about this but it is what the adhesive affixes to to glue the screen
1:06:04
back on and I somehow broke a bunch of pieces of it around the edge of my screen and I didn't know so I'm not sure
1:06:12
at this point I'm going to be able to reglue this screen to my phone because
1:06:19
now some of the plastic is gone and there's no flat layer to put the glue back onto to adhere it back to the phone
1:06:26
so I'm letting it dry for probably a couple more days and then I'm going to try this out
1:06:32
but I don't know at this point this phone I know it's going to work I just don't know if the screen's going to be all janky after I put it back on and and
1:06:39
the and the weather stealing like the the the dust weather stealing is it it's Toast Man like that's never coming back
1:06:45
and the water indicator had been triggered inside the phone so I can't trade it in or do anything with it now
1:06:51
so I might just sell the phone on eBay for parts um I'm just trying to get this phone in a working condition so I can
1:06:57
use it for the next month and a half until the iPhone 16 comes out
1:07:04
but I don't know man I this was an opportunity for Apple to surprise and Delight me like I know that they are
1:07:11
empowered to fix the problem if they feel like
1:07:17
they it they are allowed to to do what they need to do to give you a great customer service experience and this guy
1:07:24
for some reason I don't know if he was had low blood sugar or what was going on dude what a jerk I left him a scathing
1:07:32
review Apple sent me a review afterwards to see like how did your trip with Shawn go and I was like let me tell you about
1:07:38
Shawn let me tell you about Shawn man wow I mean I mean dude all look all he
1:07:44
had to do is be nice about it and just be like you know what I'm really sorry like I I know that it sucks and I believe your story but there is nothing
1:07:51
I can do right like I wish I could help you I can't like I I wish there was something I could do and like just to
1:07:57
be friendly about it and to make you feel like he actually cared but from the
1:08:03
moment I sat down or from the moment he sat down in that chair just an aggressor right like needlessly aggressive like
1:08:10
accusing me of lying is just so outside the range of any customer service
1:08:16
experience that you should have so I don't know what the M the story is I guess if you want to really make sure
1:08:23
that your iPhone doesn't get water damage you need to get out Apple Care Plus is which which is what they want you to do right but I just think that
1:08:29
this whole situation kind of stinks it's like dude you advertise the phones water resistance level and then when I use it
1:08:36
in the way that you advertise it it broke and now all of a sudden sorry bro you're out of luck buy a new phone they
1:08:41
did offer to give me a big discount like he'll he would he would have sold me a phone for 700 bucks to replace this one
1:08:47
so that there is that option but six weeks before the new phones are coming out it's like dude just give me a new
1:08:53
phone it's six weeks not only that but if I were a product manager at Apple or
1:08:58
if I were on their support team I would have some level of like loyalty score or something like you can look at my
1:09:05
account you can see how many Apple devices I have it's like this guy's got a MacBook Pro 2 a MacBook Air iPhones
1:09:14
iPads Apple TVs Apple watches it's like just give the guy a new phone he's
1:09:19
already paid for it you know like there should be some level of loyalty there where if you have a ton of Apple products that they should be more
1:09:25
willing to help you out or something like if you only have the iPhone and that's it or God forbid you come in with the Galaxy buds 3 throw them out they're
1:09:32
not getting a free phone but some a guy like us I feel like yeah right it's
1:09:38
actually $200,000 of the stock now because of of the double that's what it was when I bought
1:09:44
it so they actually offered to have the manager call me but I'm like dude I I I don't want to argue anymore about this
1:09:50
like I already told her my story she didn't care yeah maybe I should should
1:09:55
have so this is this this actually I I was going to tell another story about I went to AT&T and
1:10:02
they tried to help me out I don't want to get these guys busted for the solution they offered me which was which was less than ethical um I talked to
1:10:09
some AT&T employees and they proposed a solution having to do with phone insurance that I could employ to
1:10:16
actually get my money back I did not take advantage of it I was like no can't I no not going to be not going to be the
1:10:23
way that we go for this I'm going to just buy it if I have to eat it I will but I did appreciate their effort
1:10:30
to try to at least help me out cu I think they recognized like the situation really sucks and the phone has two months of warranty left on it it's a
1:10:35
10-month old phone and here we go well I'm I'm really proud of you for successfully uh taking part your phone
1:10:42
that's not an easy Fe you to do especially if you take the screen off rather than the back plate yeah maybe I should have taken the back plate off
1:10:47
would that have been easier yeah it it probably would have been I didn't see any any guides on taking off the back
1:10:54
plate I should look into that but you know the thing is phone it's just as easy to take the back plate off
1:10:59
as the front plate but if you're not taking off the display then it's a little less risky but yeah interesting
1:11:06
access the camera I uh I needed to I I feel like I needed to take off the front because
1:11:12
that's where the logic board is and I needed to I mean the back plate probably would have been fine I could have shot air in there so maybe in retrospect it
1:11:20
is the way I should have gone but I wanted to make sure I could expose all the internals to see first of all I want
1:11:25
to see if it was if if the water indicator had been triggered because if it is you can't turn TR trade the phone
1:11:31
in um and that's what I was planning on doing with this phone which is now not possible and also like I was going to
1:11:37
sell it on eBay or something if that wasn't possible I just need to know if it had been triggered um and also I
1:11:43
wanted to make sure it was fully dried out and part of the problem was is that there was water inside of the buttons
1:11:49
and I wanted to make sure I could clear all that water out so that I could actually use the buttons again that was actually the most annoying part is water
1:11:54
had got into the into the lower volume button and every time I turned the phone on the volume would immediately shoot to
1:12:00
zero and if you turned it up as soon as you turn it up it would immediately shoot back down to zero because because the the switch was always engaged
1:12:07
because it had water in it and then it would once it was at zero you know the
1:12:12
bar that pops up to show you that the volume has been adjusted it would go away and it would pop back and go away
1:12:17
and pop back and every time I looked at my phone the volume indicator level would just go boop boop boop boop boop
1:12:23
and I was like this is going to drive me insane I cannot handle looking at this for the next 6 weeks it's a shame Apple didn't get the capacitive imaginary
1:12:30
buttons to work yeah that would have saved me anyway when are you going to try and put it back together uh so I'm
1:12:35
waiting until this weekend I wanted to give it like three or four days um to
1:12:41
really really air out and then I'll try to reattach the screen I'm going to buy the adhesive off Amazon to reattach the
1:12:47
screen and and see if that works and then I'll use the phone for six weeks or so and then when I get my new phone I'll
1:12:55
I'll just sell this one on eBay for parts but the screen is the most expensive part and if I have damaged the
1:13:01
screen I'm not totally sure I did like part of me believes that the screen plastic was already missing in some
1:13:07
areas which is how the water got in that's probably not true but like when I'm looking for the plastic inside the
1:13:13
phone I'm like the plastic is missing where did it go it's nowhere to be found it's not inside the phone it's not on
1:13:18
the screen it wasn't on the big desk I was working on so I was like where do these plastic pieces go to they should
1:13:23
be somewhere if I if I busted them so where did it go I don't know and it was
1:13:30
anyway I've gone on and on on and on about this that that that's enough so I particularly am very much looking
1:13:36
forward to the iPhone 16 Pro now because I'm GNA probably be dealing with the
1:13:41
iPhone 7 for the next six weeks if I can't get the screen on or it doesn't
1:13:47
reboot I mean if I put the screen back on and try to turn it on this this phone might be toast now I have no idea but
1:13:53
I'll let you guys know but let me show one last image of look how beautiful the
1:13:58
internals of this phone are I mean everything in its place all the colors are beautiful I know you those of you
1:14:05
listening can't see it go back and watch the uh the live stream but the inter the inside looks just as beautiful as the
1:14:12
outside which I think is a commitment to or a testament of Apple's commitment to Quality am I the jerk here that's what
1:14:19
I'm wondering am am I there's a thread on Reddit am I the a-hole is it me am I
1:14:25
out of touch like should I not be upset about this I really don't know I was like this guy's telling me I should have bought Apple um Care Plus and and I
1:14:33
think there's an element of Truth to that but I also think like dude my phone's 10 months old and it got
1:14:38
splashed by water and it it got bricked like this should not have happened if I
1:14:44
was taking it white water rapid uh rapid uh or in the white water rapids or if I
1:14:51
was scuba diving with it or something where it was really pushing the the phone then I I would have understood
1:14:57
more but it getting splashed a few times and getting immersed in one to two or
1:15:03
three inches of water a couple of times over the period of an hour and being used with wet hands I do not think that
1:15:08
should have been enough to tank the phone I think that's a that I think that's a that's a defect in your product that you should replace but so my my
1:15:14
theory related to that is that uh Apple does have a loyalty system and they can look up how many products you have and
1:15:20
they saw oh this guy owns like three MacBooks of Fleet of watches to replace his
1:15:29
phone right and so he's going to buy stuff no matter what is that your point
1:15:35
yeah yeah that's what I was thinking too like this guy's a this guy's a total Chad he's gonna buy it no matter what
1:15:41
and so let's not give him anything but I don't know man I mean I have had experiences at Apple where they do surprise and Delight you and I know that
1:15:47
I don't know if that's still their philosophy it used to be but particularly with this Apple Store the one in Seattle I find more often than
1:15:54
not and maybe it's because they get scammed so much and people are trying to get something for free that when you go in there they always have an attitude
1:16:01
problem it's like there's there's absolutely no reason to have an attitude you should be cool and for sure you
1:16:07
should not accuse someone of lying to you in any situation it which it should just be like yeah I'm really sorry like
1:16:13
you should always have a level of empathy even if you're pretending because what is that old adage people
1:16:20
may not remember what you do they may not remember what you say but they always remember how you made them feel I
1:16:25
walked out of that store with a very bad taste in my mouth I was like that guy was a complete jerk it was completely
1:16:31
unnecessary not only did he not help me but he was rude he was combative he was argumentative and he was a no all and he
1:16:38
did not even know features about the phone that I knew like the ip68 rating
1:16:44
it's like he almost didn't know anything about it he was telling me that that a minor Splash can brick a phone it's not
1:16:50
a guarantee and that you really shouldn't have it around water at all and I'm like bro there is a commercial
1:16:55
that Apple released with it being sprayed with water Jets have you seen the commercial there's a podcast you
1:17:01
should listen to called the cultcast we talked about it and apparently not because that was news to
1:17:08
him Sean he's not a surprising or delightful person that is true G the
1:17:13
problem is it's not a defect in the product it's a defect in Shawn I think that was the real problem Sean is
1:17:20
defective he's a surprisingly irritating person he got it wrong he only listen to the first word
1:17:26
yeah man anyway I'm sorry I don't mean to be a complainer but um that was the experience I thought you all might find that interesting and it's always
1:17:32
disappointing when something like this happens with a f with a product that you spent a lot of money on like my homepod
1:17:37
right the fact that it failed and I'm just out the money that rarely happens like rarely do you just completely lose
1:17:44
electronic device with no way of repairing it and to be honest I kind of get the right to repair uh argument now
1:17:50
I kind of get it it's like man you're telling me the only thing I can do is pay you for a brand new phone like
1:17:56
there's no other repair that you can offer me no I was like can you take the screen off for me just take the screen off for me because I don't have the
1:18:03
tools or the expertise he's like no absolutely not like we will not we will not do that for you we will not touch that phone you have to buy a new phone
1:18:09
that the only thing he would do for me seems weird right it's like I'll pay you 50 bucks just take the screen off the
1:18:16
the warranty is already void just take the screen off for me and no they wouldn't do it all right man Griffin do
1:18:23
you want to talk about the zeik magnetic wireless charging stand we need a pallet cleanser for sure sure if you
1:18:30
would like a nice product that well I guess I don't know how it does matter I've never taken this product try I've
1:18:36
never taken it rafting before but um this is a three in one style hold on
1:18:41
hold on hold on I just want to caveat I was not rafting uh I was tubing and the
1:18:46
reason the reason I make that distinction is because rafting implies you're like going down Rapids and no man
1:18:52
I was floating at 1 M hour in complete docel Waters and I just want to make that distinction because I know some
1:18:57
people are going to think you were in a boat you were doing something crazy no man it was like if I were floating any
1:19:03
slower I'd be going up River that's all I wanted to add okay well I have not taken this
1:19:08
tubing either I actually went tubing recently as well it was very fun uh my phone didn't have any problems you know
1:19:14
good old good old tried and true iPhone 12 Pro that's what it is anyways this is
1:19:19
the a desktop style uh W 3 in one wireless charger like we reviewed in a number of uh the the portable foldable
1:19:27
ones by Cooks youu this is a desktop me Cooks you
1:19:33
um it has a 15 watt mag safe spot for your iPhone uh you know a little flip up
1:19:40
Apple watch charger the Apple watch charger isn't permanently deployed like it uh you can flip it up if you want or
1:19:47
or lay it flat and it's got a spot for your for your airpods there oh
1:19:52
nice very interesting use of materials that I haven't seen in other desktop Chargers and that it has it's like
1:19:58
mostly made out of um I don't know like plastic that looks like metal but uh on
1:20:05
the on the like sort of horizontal foot charging pad part of it it's like this
1:20:10
alcanta of some kind yeah I'll say it looks like leather it is leather isn't
1:20:15
it Alcantara is like suede leather I think maybe it's like suede I don't know if it's they don't they don't say what
1:20:21
it is but it does feel nice and it's sort of soft touch like that yeah uh my only comparison point is like really the
1:20:27
cooksie products and um what I don't like about those is that the the the chi
1:20:32
charger like the regular like Wireless sit it flat on top no magnetic connection charger that's intended to be
1:20:39
used for airpods on sometimes they'll have like a picture of an airpod case on it and I
1:20:44
find that kind of annoying because like first of all you can put other things on there like you can put an iPhone 10 on there and it'll charge it not as fast as
1:20:51
Maite but it'll still charge older devices like that as well um but I also find like the the picture
1:20:56
of the airpods case a little unsightly this just has like a little tiny little circle embedded in there looks really
1:21:02
nice it's not too inyour face it's really subtle um this product comes with
1:21:07
a built-in well not not builtin it comes with a regular power cable that um has a
1:21:15
really neat like routing mechanism you like sort of slide it in underneath and then it has like a built-in cable rack
1:21:20
that comes out cleanly out the back really nice like there uh the the whole bottom side is covered in this really
1:21:26
nice soft touch like rubber that keeps it really stable um one downside I will
1:21:33
say it it does Creek a little bit the build quality is generally pretty good but you know if you Flex it around in
1:21:38
your hands I don't if you can hear that that's defin that's definitely not going to survive a trip on a highspeed speed
1:21:45
boat yeah you can get it to Creek but that's not that's not something that normal people do it's just what weird
1:21:51
testers like just don't take it to a creek yeah exactly um it has a charging indicator
1:21:58
light on the front oh nice so you can tell if it's charging or not other chargers I've used to have like two charging indicators one for the iPhone
1:22:05
one for the Apple watch or Chi wireless charger but it this this just has the
1:22:11
one I wish it had more because then you could tell like you know if you're not looking at the device itself you can
1:22:16
tell like you know is this charger actually doing anything or not especially like the wireless chargers you don't always know you just kind of
1:22:22
have to hope that you put it in the right spot and oh okay but yeah um I
1:22:28
also say I'm not I'm not entirely like the the Apple watch charger sits flat I find it a little unsightly like I don't
1:22:34
know why but the charging puck is like really thick it's very thick yeah um other than that though it it does look
1:22:40
pretty nice on a desk you know it's it's a sort of silvery so it goes whether you have like you know a bunch of black
1:22:47
stuff on your desk or silver stuff or white stuff it sort of Blends in with all the other gray products you may life
1:22:55
and if we're Apple people we have a lot of them so it's it's a chameleon in terms of design and that way it's a nice
1:23:02
product it's it's a little pricey at $120 I think but um you know it's a three-on-one desktop charger I use it
1:23:08
with my iPhone every day just sit it on there for mag it set it on there and then it goes into standby mode I've oh
1:23:14
that is that is nice I need to get a new Trio charger I'm using a dual one from
1:23:20
Balon and I I don't even know I think it charges like seven Watts it's very
1:23:25
old and what I like about these uh stand Chargers that like put your iPhone up on this stand is that if you have it
1:23:31
sitting vertically you can like just pull your iPhone off with like one fluid motion like you can reach your hands
1:23:37
under and behind it and then just like pull your phone off really quickly and easily pick it up do you know if that's
1:23:43
compatible with an iPhone 7 I'm not sure it is actually I don't think the iPhone
1:23:49
7 does not have mag safe although the first year does have wireless charging of any kind it doesn't no although it
1:23:55
was the first year that they added it an ipx rating or an IP rating of uh 67 I
1:24:00
think this is the first wa water resistant not proof water resistant iPhone right here I should have taken
1:24:06
this on the rafting trip or the ra now you got me saying it on the tubing on the tubing trip maybe I actually the
1:24:13
iPhone 6 that they first added like those rubber gaskets around the volume buttons on the display but it was only until the iPhone 7 that they actually
1:24:19
claimed any amount of water resistance I actually think that's how the water got into the phone I think it was through
1:24:25
the volume buttons because it was the volume buttons that I noticed first and it wasn't um it didn't start acting all
1:24:31
crazy and getting the fog underneath the lenses until later on that day so I think that's where the water caught in
1:24:37
now I know that that is an impossibility there's virtually no way for water to escape past the seal once it's been
1:24:44
installed that doesn't happen now how does water get in we don't know osmosis through the screen perhaps we can't be
1:24:49
sure science will never tell but the screens impervious the mo or the uh the seals impervious to moisture so that's
1:24:56
one thing that you need to know about IP ratings it's it's science I can explain the rest
1:25:03
later all right is that all we got I think so okay well
1:25:09
then I'm going to go ahead and start up that music that's all the C ass we have for you guys this week but you know what
1:25:15
I'm making an extra effort this week to be present and to hang out in the cult club and if you'd like to come join me
1:25:23
Griffin's in there pretty much it's daily I always see Griffin talking but you can you can do so and we would love to see you there you can head on over to
1:25:30
support. cc.com support. cc.com my lawyers tell me that we can still use Cult of 95 Mac rors although the
1:25:37
litigation is ongoing cult of9 to5 macro.com until that gets settled we may actually get to keep it we'll see to
1:25:44
Fork it over it's only five bucks it's only five bucks is this show worth five bucks probably not but it's not about
1:25:51
what it's worth it's about what makes you feel good wouldn't you just feel good supporting the show and funding my
1:25:56
new phone that I'm now going to have to pay for out of pocket which is crazy cuz I have a perfectly did have a perfectly
1:26:02
good phone here support. cast.com uh this has been the coast new episodes
1:26:08
come out every Thursday night I want to thank everyone for listening for hanging out live and thank you to all of you for
1:26:14
all your comments tons of comments this show and of course hug go last with the massive donation we will see you guys
1:26:25
next time would you guys like me
1:26:33
to bring the music back down and do another 25 minutes on the phone I could I could easily do another
1:26:40
20 to 35 minutes on the phone and the experience I actually excited for to
1:26:46
listen to our last week episode because I talk about okay do that but I might volunteer
1:26:55
when I oh the music's going you might have to repeat that cuz I barely heard what you
1:27:00
said but we're going to do that in just a sec talk to somebody at a concert
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