00:00:00 ◼ ► From Relay, this is Connected, episode 561. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace.
00:00:14 ◼ ► My name is Mike Hurley and I have the pleasure of introducing the Ricky Benchman, Federico
00:00:20 ◼ ► Ciao Mike, hello, hi. We're also joined by a very special guest today, the one and only
00:00:31 ◼ ► Hello, hello. It's good to talk to you, Ricky. I've never been on a show where I've got to
00:00:41 ◼ ► I don't know why none of us have thought to do this before. John, you're the best guest.
00:01:00 ◼ ► Today, a little bit later on in the show, we're going to be playing the Stephenlympics because
00:01:05 ◼ ► Stephen's not here this week. And so the three of us have made predictions about things that
00:01:10 ◼ ► Stephen will do over the next 12 months. And we will get to that, but this is a regular episode
00:01:15 ◼ ► of Connected, so we must start with some follow-up. James wrote in and said, regarding Federico's
00:01:21 ◼ ► comments about the possibility of design being both opinionated and accessible. So this is a conversation
00:01:26 ◼ ► we were having last time about liquid gloss. James says, I think it's possible to have a strong
00:01:32 ◼ ► identity with design while still being accessible to most users. The best example that I have found
00:01:38 ◼ ► is the UK government's design system. I'll put a link in the show notes if people want to see that.
00:01:42 ◼ ► It's a design that has a lot of clear and accessible controls, but also has a very strong look and feel.
00:01:46 ◼ ► If you've used any of the UK government websites, there's a brand identity that's clear and
00:01:51 ◼ ► immediately recognizable. Before you say anything on this, Federico, if you have anything to say on
00:01:55 ◼ ► this, I do want to jump in and say, this is incredible design. And I do really recommend
00:01:59 ◼ ► people look at the government's design system page that they built like, this is the design of our
00:02:03 ◼ ► websites. The thing about this, I agree with James's point that this is an example of something that
00:02:21 ◼ ► Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Like, what is the example, the government website? Because
00:02:32 ◼ ► No, but like from the comment, I was expecting, I don't know, some kind of masterpiece.
00:02:39 ◼ ► Again, I think it is a masterpiece design for a functional system. Like it is the perfect
00:02:50 ◼ ► That's the thing, because it should be devoid of personality. Like it's a government website.
00:03:00 ◼ ► I guess I just disagree with the comment that has a very strong look and feel. I don't think
00:03:09 ◼ ► Yeah, I agree with you. I'll say that the counter that I'll make is if you are in the UK, you
00:03:17 ◼ ► immediately know when you're on a government page. Like because you can appear here in certain
00:03:21 ◼ ► ways. Like if you're on an NHS website, for example, right? You are like, oh, like it is
00:03:28 ◼ ► immediately has the same look and feel as the website page where you upload your tax information.
00:03:34 ◼ ► Like it is, they have a strong brand, but the brand is no brand. You know what I mean? Like,
00:03:41 ◼ ► so it's like, it's, I think it is a strong example of having an identity, but that identity is devoid
00:03:47 ◼ ► of any fun style or anything, which is the point. But that doesn't like, and while this is a good
00:03:54 ◼ ► example of this, I actually think it is a, it perfectly makes your point, which is if you want to have
00:04:00 ◼ ► something be opinionated and accessible, that opinion is the removal of anything fancy.
00:04:08 ◼ ► It was a good, I think it is a good example to show. I also just think if people have not seen
00:04:15 ◼ ► what the UK government website looks like, I think it is worth looking at because I just think it's
00:04:20 ◼ ► Yeah, it is. I mean, I think it's a great design for a government website. I mean, that's, you know,
00:04:24 ◼ ► it, because it knows what it's trying to be, right? It's trying to be something that's easy for
00:04:28 ◼ ► people to recognize and use to get everyday things done. It's very different than, you know, a,
00:04:42 ◼ ► And boys, I know you boys love accessories. I'm here to tell you, Qi 2.2 is coming. Get excited.
00:04:56 ◼ ► Yeah. Basically matching, basically matching MagSafe, like the latest MagSafe charging by
00:05:02 ◼ ► Apple. Uh, this is good. I mean, the, the spec was like, what? Officialized like two days
00:05:12 ◼ ► And these companies, like I saw, Aki, Ugreen, Belkin, a bunch of others have sort of started
00:05:20 ◼ ► teasing their Qi 2.2 accessories. Um, is there an expectation here that the iPhone 17 lineup
00:05:30 ◼ ► So the Verge found a, or there was a report that there was a new MagSafe charger coming
00:05:39 ◼ ► that supported Qi 2.2, which is really weird, but like it gets, so it can work for other
00:05:45 ◼ ► devices, right? So like while MagSafe charges at that speed, if you put another device on
00:05:53 ◼ ► it, it wouldn't charge at 25 watts. But this is other Qi 2.2 devices could charge at that
00:05:59 ◼ ► is the way that I understand it. But there was a, there was a regulatory leak of a Qi 2.2
00:06:06 ◼ ► MagSafe charging puck that got out, which is odd and weird. But, uh, I think this is great
00:06:13 ◼ ► because I, I, I mean, I mentioned on the show before I upgraded my bedside charging, uh, MagSafe
00:06:19 ◼ ► pucks to the, to the faster ones. And I've been very happy about that. And like when I use
00:06:24 ◼ ► my beloved, uh, Anchor 3 and 1 cube little guy, you know, like the little cube one, oh my
00:06:29 ◼ ► God, it charges so slow. Uh, cause I think that's charging at like 7.5 probably. Um, so I wouldn't
00:06:36 ◼ ► mind, I wouldn't mind an update to some of the products that I use. Um, and so, uh, Qi 2.2
00:06:43 ◼ ► I'm sort of, I'm sort of over Qi. I'm sort of over it. I, yeah, I mean, I, I don't dislike
00:06:50 ◼ ► it. I have a, a Qi 2 or a, I don't know what, what is Qi, what has Qi done to you, John?
00:06:56 ◼ ► I don't know. Well, it's, it's inefficient and it's relatively slow. I mean, this will help
00:07:06 ◼ ► out the battery and I can just easily plug my stuff in and go and charge it a lot faster.
00:07:13 ◼ ► Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just in general, battery charging. I'm sort of over it in the sense that
00:07:18 ◼ ► I have like a little Anker battery that has a built-in USB-C cable in it and it charges
00:07:24 ◼ ► a lot more reliably and faster than, than other methods. So I, I don't know. I just, I'm not
00:07:30 ◼ ► Well, I hope everybody that has like stocks in Anker are just going to sell now because
00:07:36 ◼ ► I know. I buy a lot of batteries, guys. I do like, I do love a good battery, but, but I'm
00:07:44 ◼ ► I really appreciated, uh, on AppStory's big, beautiful battery. I thought it was very funny.
00:07:51 ◼ ► It is a big, beautiful battery. It's really important. Uh, some follow out. Uh, I've used
00:07:56 ◼ ► my quizzes experience in a new place. Uh, so friend of the show, Quinn Nelson is such a fan
00:08:02 ◼ ► of the quizzes, uh, that he asked me to host a quiz show, um, about the Apple style guide,
00:08:08 ◼ ► uh, in which he participated against Linus from LTT, MKBHD and YouTuber Scott, the was who
00:08:19 ◼ ► for everything, everywhere that this is posted, everyone's super excited about Scott, the was
00:08:24 ◼ ► being in the video. So I think that's super fun. Now is somebody new for me to find out
00:08:27 ◼ ► more about. Uh, I hosted this game show. Uh, it was terrifying, uh, but it came out pretty
00:08:32 ◼ ► well, I think. And so I put a link in the show notes if people want to go watch it. Uh, it
00:08:36 ◼ ► was a fun time and I'm happy to use my quizzes experience and thanks to Quinn for asking me
00:08:41 ◼ ► to, to be a part of it. You've done an excellent job. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Very, very nerdy
00:08:47 ◼ ► topic. I love the nerdiness of it. Yeah. Yeah. It was a pretty intense, uh, it was a pretty
00:08:52 ◼ ► intense, uh, to try and work that out. Uh, I have a question for Federico. Okay. I think
00:08:59 ◼ ► this has come up before, but so yes, my accountant, uh, sends me WhatsApp voice messages. So, and
00:09:09 ◼ ► every now and then I get a note and it says from my account. Because probably because you
00:09:14 ◼ ► got to pay your taxes. I mean, it's, it's for much of reasons. I don't need to get into it
00:09:18 ◼ ► right now, but basically every time I get one of these notifications, uh, I am full of anxiety
00:09:23 ◼ ► immediately. Uh, cause I don't know what he's about to tell me now. Yeah. I'd be the same
00:09:28 ◼ ► way. Uh, you know, you never want to see that, right? Like you got a message for your account
00:09:33 ◼ ► and you open it up. It's three minutes long. It's like, Oh God, what next thing you know,
00:09:38 ◼ ► the taxing authorities are going to be using, uh, voice messages, you know, again, from the
00:09:43 ◼ ► IRS or somebody. At least I'll understand how to use the website. Am I right? The nice and clear
00:09:47 ◼ ► design. Um, so as I'm making more friends here in the UK, because of having a baby, uh,
00:09:53 ◼ ► I am using WhatsApp way more. Um, and I'm just wondering, Federico, do you use the voice messages
00:09:59 ◼ ► feature? Oh man, this question is so funny, not because I'm making fun of you, but because
00:10:05 ◼ ► it feels like it's almost as if I asked somebody, Hey, do you think oxygen is important? Like it's,
00:10:12 ◼ ► it, um, yes. Like this for the past, I would say for the past decade, really, uh, was a massive
00:10:22 ◼ ► shift, uh, in Italy. I know about Italy. I think it's the same elsewhere. I think WhatsApp voice
00:10:28 ◼ ► messages are equally used in Spain or Germany. I'm guessing, um, this started happening really
00:10:36 ◼ ► about a decade ago. Um, and it just, I mean, it's not just that WhatsApp is like the default
00:10:43 ◼ ► text texting app in Italy, right? Everybody's using WhatsApp. And then like, there's like,
00:10:48 ◼ ► I don't have exact numbers. I would love to know the actual statistics, but just eyeballing it,
00:10:55 ◼ ► I would say like 85% of people, 90% of people have WhatsApp and the rest 10% is like equally split
00:11:02 ◼ ► between iMessage, Telegram, whatever people are using these days. Um, but yeah, but a decade ago,
00:11:09 ◼ ► or I don't even remember when voice messaging became a feature of WhatsApp has to be, has to be more than
00:11:16 ◼ ► a decade ago. I would bet it predates Facebook buying them. Uh, probably. Yeah. But it's just,
00:11:23 ◼ ► yeah, everybody uses them like every single day, multiple times a day, short ones, long ones. Um,
00:11:30 ◼ ► it's just, it's so woven through our usage of smartphones now that it's just as normal as
00:11:47 ◼ ► But like, I, I know you must understand the weirdness to me because you don't get these from
00:11:54 ◼ ► any of your American friends. Nope. And I find it so fascinating whenever you guys are surprised,
00:12:04 ◼ ► No, I know people here do it. Like I'm very aware that that is a very normal thing in the UK. It's just
00:12:10 ◼ ► not a thing that even my friends here. Because you've been, you've been Americanized. Yeah. You have
00:12:16 ◼ ► too many American friends. Yeah. Cause a lot of my friends and family, I kind of forced them to use
00:12:20 ◼ ► iMessage. Yeah. We gotta, we gotta put some, some, some pure British blood back in your mind. Federico,
00:12:28 ◼ ► you should just start sending me voice messages. I'm going to start sending you voice messages. But
00:12:32 ◼ ► the thing is, can I, I will not do so on iMessage because here's the thing. The voice messaging
00:12:38 ◼ ► feature on iMessage is the perfect example of an American looking at something European and trying
00:12:45 ◼ ► to come up with a replica. It's like, I don't know. It's like the, the, the, the Huawei of a feature.
00:12:51 ◼ ► Right. It's like, Oh, I mean, it seems like these Europeans are into voice messages. Hey,
00:12:57 ◼ ► we can do voice messages. And it's like, Apple, let me tell you, you, you, you totally do not
00:13:04 ◼ ► understand how this feature is supposed to work. The gestures, the speed, the playback.
00:13:15 ◼ ► Yeah. Oh my God. Thank you. Yes. That, that, so the playback speed is a change that occurred over
00:13:21 ◼ ► the past, uh, couple of years, year and a half, I think. And, and now everybody's doing it right.
00:13:27 ◼ ► because I mean, nobody's got time for anything these days. Uh, and so just like you can watch a
00:13:32 ◼ ► YouTube video at 1.5 or listen to a podcast at 1.6. So can you listen to WhatsApp at 1.5 or two?
00:13:39 ◼ ► I wish they transcribed them though. Don't they have that feature in testing? I hope so. They
00:13:46 ◼ ► should. I mean, it seems like an obvious thing. Yeah. Yeah. I think that, I think they have it in
00:13:51 ◼ ► testing. I don't have it yet. Um, let me see. What's the latest? Because you can't always listen,
00:13:56 ◼ ► right? Like you might, you know. Yeah. Don't you have the beta Federico? I know that they were
00:14:00 ◼ ► doing a beta at one point. No, I don't have the beta anymore. Uh, what I did notice recently is that
00:14:05 ◼ ► now, uh, when you get a voice message, uh, you can play back the audio from the iOS notification,
00:14:11 ◼ ► which is an excellent feature. Oh, that's nice. Um, that was very nice. Uh, so yeah, uh, to answer
00:14:17 ◼ ► your question, uh, use them all the time. I find them very convenient. They are the perfect mix of
00:14:24 ◼ ► the asynchronous communication of texting with the, um, sort of intimacy of, of a phone call,
00:14:31 ◼ ► you know, because people can hear you, hear your voice and they can hear your sort of your
00:14:35 ◼ ► tone and no emoji needed. Yeah. And infer the context, you know? So yes, excellent feature
00:14:42 ◼ ► has become, I would say in Italy, like people send more audio messages than make phone calls
00:14:47 ◼ ► by now. Hmm. Yeah. I, uh, WhatsApp is very close to getting on my home screen now. Oh yeah.
00:14:53 ◼ ► I'm just using it more and more and more. It's only going to become more and more and more.
00:14:58 ◼ ► It's good. It's good. They have a, they have a great Mac app. They have a great iPad app now.
00:15:11 ◼ ► Do we now know the colors of the next iPhones? There's been a bunch of news articles about this.
00:15:18 ◼ ► No one will, everyone won't stop posting about it. We have, I have articles from nine to five Mac.
00:15:22 ◼ ► I have articles from Mac world. I've got tons of stuff in the show notes. It started off
00:15:27 ◼ ► with camera rings, right? So like, uh, I think Sonny Dixon had got ahold of the camera rings
00:15:34 ◼ ► for a bunch of the phones and then, uh, Fili Pesposito, Fili Pesposito at Mac world. I thought
00:15:42 ◼ ► it was a nine to five Mac, but it's now moved. It looks like, yeah. Right. Uh, got a hold somehow
00:15:47 ◼ ► of Pantone colors for the next iPhones. Um, essentially, I guess like the top line that we've got, right?
00:15:55 ◼ ► So the iPhone 17 and I guess the iPhone 17 max will have black, gray, silver, light blue, light
00:16:04 ◼ ► green, light purple. The iPhone 17 air will be black, silver, a different blue color and light gold. So
00:16:14 ◼ ► it's own kind of two kind of colors. The iPhone 17 pro and the iPhone 17 pro max will be black,
00:16:22 ◼ ► gray, silver, blue, and orange. I'm sorry. Orange iPhone 17 pro. And if you look at the
00:16:29 ◼ ► Mac world article based on the colors of the phone, it's kind of an interesting color. It's like a bit
00:16:38 ◼ ► goldy. You know what it is? I, to me it's copper. Yeah. I mean, that is what they're going for. Yeah.
00:16:44 ◼ ► The Pantone color code. It's Pantone numbers and letters papaya. Yeah. So, but still, I mean,
00:16:52 ◼ ► I am going to get this one so fast. This, this, an orange iPhone might decide that I end up with
00:17:02 ◼ ► the pro and not the air. I don't know. It doesn't look orange to me. You were never going to get the air.
00:17:07 ◼ ► I was thinking about it. It depends. You're just, you will go to the Apple store. You will hold it,
00:17:12 ◼ ► which is, I'm basically describing what I'm going to do. Yeah. You will hold it. You'll be like, oh,
00:17:20 ◼ ► Oh, that's how it goes. For sure. Yeah. The, the fold is, there's no question. Like that's an easy,
00:17:25 ◼ ► I mean, here's the thing. I was, I was allowing myself to remain open to the idea, but the thing
00:17:34 ◼ ► that I kind of feel like I know in my bones is like the, the decontenting will be too much.
00:17:41 ◼ ► Yes. And listen, listen to me. You got baby pictures to take. Yeah, you do. Yeah. It's going to take
00:17:48 ◼ ► away a lot of features and the battery life I bet is not going to be great. The battery life I will
00:17:52 ◼ ► struggle with. Cause that's, that's my one complaint about the pro. Especially if you're taking lots of
00:17:56 ◼ ► pictures, Mike, I mean, you're going to burn through that battery. That's true. I mean, the thing that
00:18:02 ◼ ► with the battery, it's like, what is the camera situation? Right? Like that's the thing like,
00:18:08 ◼ ► I don't, you know, we don't really know, like the telephoto I could, I don't really need, if I'm
00:18:13 ◼ ► being honest, like, uh, and I actually, at least I don't need the five times. And what I really don't
00:18:21 ◼ ► want sometimes is the ultrawide because the ultrawide causes me more problems than, uh, than, than
00:18:27 ◼ ► benefit. But yeah, but nevertheless, I, I, it is most likely I go with the pro. Uh, and especially if
00:18:34 ◼ ► they actually finally add some colors, like even if it is just the way that these colors look on the
00:18:40 ◼ ► Mac world article, that is more interesting than what we currently have. It is. It is. I kind of like
00:18:46 ◼ ► this light blue. I think the light blue looks really nice. Yeah. I'm not so sure about the orange
00:18:51 ◼ ► because it doesn't look like it's, I mean, I like orange. Orange is one of my favorite colors. Don't
00:18:55 ◼ ► get me wrong. But to me, this does not look like an orange phone. No, I mean, here's the thing.
00:18:59 ◼ ► Everyone has a different mock-up of it. Like Mac rumors also have a mock-up and their mock-up is more
00:19:06 ◼ ► orange. Um, but I, I think that you might be right, John, that if it is any kind of orange,
00:19:14 ◼ ► it's probably copper is what they're going for. Um, yeah. Yeah. Cause it just works with the metal
00:19:20 ◼ ► works with the metal finish that way. Yeah. So I've got lots of links in the show notes. It's very
00:19:26 ◼ ► complicated to try and work out what the colors will be obviously. Cause we're not at that point yet,
00:19:30 ◼ ► but, uh, yeah, it's so happening. I was thinking about this the other day. We're so close to the
00:19:35 ◼ ► next iPhone. Like we're actually so close now. Yeah. Unbelievable. Summer goes by fast. Yeah.
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00:21:46 ◼ ► Beautiful. That was great sound effect work there, John. This is why we pay you the big bucks.
00:21:52 ◼ ► So Stephen's not here this week and he has been informed that he cannot listen to this episode
00:21:57 ◼ ► and we're going to make a bunch of picks. Here are the simple rules for this game. We're going to make
00:22:03 ◼ ► picks on the kinds of technology experiments or life updates Stephen may undertake in the next 12
00:22:11 ◼ ► months. To avoid a space-time paradox, Stephen has been forbidden from looking at the show notes
00:22:16 ◼ ► and is not allowed to listen to this episode. We will each make three picks. Correct predictions will
00:22:22 ◼ ► earn points when they are graded sometime in July of 2026. And we also have a selection of passion picks
00:22:29 ◼ ► that will be, they're like unscored, but for passion. You know, we'll grade them. We'll see
00:22:35 ◼ ► who got it right and who got it wrong, but it does not affect the score. The main picks are what affects
00:22:40 ◼ ► the score. We have three picks each. They're going to be going in round robin fashion. Good old round
00:22:46 ◼ ► robin. I don't get to do that so much anymore. Uh, John, you're going to start up. What is your first
00:22:51 ◼ ► pick? The inaugural pick in the Stephenlympics? I would like to kick things off today with the prediction
00:22:57 ◼ ► that Stephen is going to go back to a Mac setup that involves two or more Macs. So right now,
00:23:05 ◼ ► right? Two or more. Well, I had to say or more because originally this pick was two Macs. And then
00:23:11 ◼ ► I thought, oh, knowing Stephen, I bet he goes to like a three Mac system and I don't get the point. So
00:23:16 ◼ ► this is two or more. I think he's going with two, but I'm, I'm going to say two or more because I think
00:23:21 ◼ ► he will probably pick up a desktop at some point, probably a Mac studio, but that's not part of the
00:23:27 ◼ ► pick. This feels like an inevitability, right? The late. It does. And everybody, everybody who goes
00:23:33 ◼ ► laptop only always then toys with the idea of going back to a two Mac setup, I think. And vice versa.
00:23:39 ◼ ► If you have a two Mac system like I do, I think, you know, it would be much simpler if I, all I had
00:23:43 ◼ ► was my laptop, but I know myself and I've, I've realized that I'm always going to be a two Mac
00:23:48 ◼ ► person. And I think Stephen is just denying his true nature. I think he's a two Mac person.
00:23:54 ◼ ► So I'm actually going to make my pick, my first pick now, so we can continue talking about this.
00:23:58 ◼ ► My first pick is Stephen goes back to a desktop Mac. So like, like I, I really think that this is going
00:24:04 ◼ ► to be his thing. He'll either get a Mac mini or a Mac studio. I think one of the things that's going to
00:24:08 ◼ ► push him to do this is if they do release that a 18 pro Mac book air, I think that he will want one
00:24:16 ◼ ► of those and we'll be like, well, I can't have two laptops. I need a desktop Mac. That's what I
00:24:22 ◼ ► think is going to happen. I will tell you too. I don't think he'll go with a mini because he can't
00:24:26 ◼ ► get enough storage in a mini. How much storage goes in a mini? Oh, I think maybe four terabytes
00:24:38 ◼ ► eight. Okay. Yeah. What do you think Federico? I mean, I don't want to spoil any of your picks,
00:24:44 ◼ ► but yeah. So I feel like it's going to end up with some kind of Mac studio. I think it's going
00:24:51 ◼ ► to justify that because of the storage, because of RAM, I think it's going to use the, not the excuse,
00:24:56 ◼ ► but it's going to sort of use the angle of like, oh, I need to have performance because I'm also
00:25:06 ◼ ► Xcode doesn't work on laptops. We all know that. Yeah. Yeah. Something like that. And we'll have to
00:25:13 ◼ ► just accept it because we're not developers like him. Or something like, oh, I need to run AI locally
00:25:19 ◼ ► with Apple intelligence because of David. Like he's going to try and say something like Dave made me do it
00:25:28 ◼ ► or Dave recommended it to me or something like that. Well, really what's going to happen? I think
00:25:33 ◼ ► Mike's, Mike's right. I think he's going to end up buying that weird Mac book with the phone chip.
00:25:50 ◼ ► Oh, two. See, it's even, yeah. So there's no way it's going to go in a Mac mini. I think if he gets
00:25:55 ◼ ► the weird laptop, that lasts like maybe six months before he gives it to one of his kids, because
00:25:59 ◼ ► that thing's not going to be powerful enough for him in any shape or form. Yep. All right,
00:26:07 ◼ ► Well, I think Steven will end up buying both the iPhone 17 Air and the 17 Pro within the span of 12
00:26:15 ◼ ► months. And by that, I mean, he's buying them for himself, not like for his family. I think it's
00:26:23 ◼ ► going to flip flop. Like we know the guy, right? We know the guy cannot resist a new form factor.
00:26:29 ◼ ► Unlike, you know, Mike and I, you know, man of reason. Um, Steven is a man of impulse with these
00:26:35 ◼ ► things. He's going to go to the Apple store because for whatever reason, people buy stuff online. He
00:26:41 ◼ ► likes to drive to the Apple store. He goes there, he's going to buy a phone. He's going to be, oh,
00:26:46 ◼ ► I'm going to use the 17 Air for a while. And then after what, four or five months, um, it's going to be
00:26:52 ◼ ► like, it's not going to say anything. Right. And so like come, come February or March, we're going
00:26:59 ◼ ► to discover on connected that he's been back on the 17 pro for like a month. So I will, I will defend
00:27:05 ◼ ► Steven on the driving to the Apple store thing. That is partly my fault because he picks up my iPhone
00:27:09 ◼ ► as well. Cause I'm always there right for the podcast. So I want my iPhone. So he has to go pick
00:27:14 ◼ ► it up. I feel like he goes there. He goes there multiple times. That's true. He's always swinging by
00:27:21 ◼ ► the Apple store. Uh, yeah, here's what I, here's what I think will happen. Like I, I agree with
00:27:28 ◼ ► this pig, by the way, that he will order the, he will want the air. He will order the pro. He'll go
00:27:34 ◼ ► to the Apple store, hold the air, return his pro, get an air. And then like within three months,
00:27:42 ◼ ► the air becomes a testing device because Dave said, and then he gets, we, we all, we all agree.
00:27:51 ◼ ► We all agree on the Dave said. Dave is a whole poor underscore, but he's Dave is the new angle
00:27:58 ◼ ► here for sure. He's like the excuse for any purchase at this point. I want to, I have a rules thing that
00:28:04 ◼ ► I want to raise with your pick Federico, which is you say within the span of 12 months, I think this
00:28:09 ◼ ► should be within what the rules are is 12 months from today, right? Not 12 months starting when the
00:28:15 ◼ ► iPhones come out. Yeah. That is. Yeah. I mean, that's implicit. We will grade these when we come
00:28:21 ◼ ► back, but I'm alluring you guys. No, I was thinking that by July, 2026, he will have done the flip
00:28:28 ◼ ► flopping. Yes. Got it. John, you don't need to worry about the rules for this game. They're not as,
00:28:34 ◼ ► as particular. I know we're, I know we are bad with rules, but this is chill. This is a chill game.
00:28:39 ◼ ► Okay. All right. I'll, I'll, I'll calm down a little bit. All right. Here's my second round
00:28:43 ◼ ► pick. When reading this pick, Stephen will confess to another piece of technology that he has broken
00:28:59 ◼ ► Oh, that, that would be fun. It's like, oh, he breaks it and then goes back to the pro. That would
00:29:07 ◼ ► be hilarious. He both bends it and it starts hissing after he bends it and he makes a YouTube video.
00:29:13 ◼ ► That's not, that's not my pick. No. Uh, yeah, no, he, he also does this. Um, he, he, Stephen breaks
00:29:20 ◼ ► stuff, breaks his body parts occasionally. And you sometimes doesn't tell us about it. So yeah.
00:29:29 ◼ ► Yeah. I will never forget the time that he literally threw an iPhone down a set, uh, like a flight of
00:29:36 ◼ ► concrete stairs, like in a parking structure or something. And they went, they went down like
00:29:40 ◼ ► two flights of stairs somehow and they destroyed his phone. Obviously. I don't remember this.
00:29:45 ◼ ► This was years ago now. It was one of the earlier, earlier breaking things. Uh, it was like an,
00:29:53 ◼ ► I might've been like the iPhone six, I was going to say, or seven. I don't know. In that it was in
00:29:59 ◼ ► that era. It was a long time ago. Yeah. Okay. Uh, my round to pick is Stephen will go to WWDC 26.
00:30:09 ◼ ► Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a good call. Yeah. He will not be able to resist next year. Uh,
00:30:18 ◼ ► and the stars will align for Stephen to be there and I think it will go. Okay. Pretty simple pick.
00:30:26 ◼ ► All right. All right. Well, my second pick is that Stephen is going to start a home improvement project
00:30:32 ◼ ► with a technology goal. So my, my thought here, you know, my, my thought here is that Stephen's
00:30:41 ◼ ► always doing home improvement projects, but right. So that, that would be too obvious, but I, this is
00:30:46 ◼ ► something that's going to be related maybe to his family. It might be something, you know, network
00:30:51 ◼ ► related. He loves networking or it could be related to relay. It could be something that he's doing,
00:30:57 ◼ ► you know, changing his chain, his, changing his studio or in some way, putting up a wall,
00:31:03 ◼ ► you know, maybe putting in some electrical equipment because he's got some new lights or who knows what
00:31:09 ◼ ► it is, but he's going to do something that has a technology goal in mind. He's going to try and go
00:31:14 ◼ ► solar somewhere. Yeah, that could be right. Right. He wants to run his whole studio off of solar energy.
00:31:20 ◼ ► Something like that. Something like that. It's going to do something weird. Uh, yeah, for sure. Uh,
00:31:26 ◼ ► okay. So are we, are we in round three? We are in round three and you're picking us in round three.
00:31:33 ◼ ► Okay. I think that Stephen at some point will assemble a gallery of the liquid glass design evolution
00:31:43 ◼ ► through the betas. Hmm. That's a lot of work. Well, I mean, do you know, Stephen, it's got,
00:31:52 ◼ ► it's got a whole thing for every single version of Mac OS. I think it will start doing like, I think,
00:31:58 ◼ ► I think he misses the idea of like doing this big, like image heavy pages on 5.12. And I think maybe
00:32:07 ◼ ► this will actually, this could actually be a series even not that I'm like, not that I'm obviously
00:32:12 ◼ ► Stephen is not going to listen to this episode. So it is impossible for me to give Stephen any ideas,
00:32:17 ◼ ► but maybe I can manifest these ideas and maybe karma can reach Stephen. I mean, when we did the
00:32:22 ◼ ► teaching Olympics, I manifested you going mad and picking like 25 flexes in the very next game we
00:32:29 ◼ ► played. So yeah. So what, okay. So I'm putting, I'm putting this energy into the, into the universe.
00:32:34 ◼ ► Okay. And maybe, maybe Stephen can pick it up. I think a potentially fascinating idea for 5.12
00:32:40 ◼ ► would be to have pages for the major Apple design languages, right? So, so Aqua, iOS 7 and liquid glass,
00:32:50 ◼ ► for example, and have, and have a gallery that showcases how those designs were tweaked from the
00:32:57 ◼ ► presentation of WWDC to beta one, to the final beta and so forth. I think that could be something
00:33:04 ◼ ► that Stephen wants to do. Would it be feasible for him to do that after the fact? Or would it be too hard?
00:33:10 ◼ ► It's hard. Very hard. He's not already doing it. It'll be hard. It'll be hard. Not impossible.
00:33:14 ◼ ► But he might already be doing it. We don't know, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. He has been posting a lot of
00:33:20 ◼ ► content about Aqua recently. Yeah. He has. Yeah. Do you find it weird when he says like, I was watching
00:33:26 ◼ ► this keynote from such and such. Yeah. Yeah. It's a little. Like, what are you doing? You're a real
00:33:32 ◼ ► busy man. Like, when are you watching these? Like, what's happening? Yeah. Like, like, like, like we
00:33:38 ◼ ► watch TV shows. It just, you know. He sits down to watch Steve Jobs in 2001. Sits down, watches Steve Jobs 25
00:33:44 ◼ ► years ago or something. He's like, hmm, bicycle for the mind. Yeah. That's right. I mean, who doesn't?
00:33:50 ◼ ► That's right. Thanks, Steve. All right. All right. So my, my third and final pick is that Stephen is
00:33:56 ◼ ► going to switch email clients on the iPhone. And the thinking behind this is that at some point,
00:34:04 ◼ ► we're going to get the, we're going to get a new email client, you know, we might, we'll finally
00:34:10 ◼ ► get, uh, MimeStream. Yep. That's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking MimeStream will come up. He'll move to
00:34:14 ◼ ► MimeStream if that comes to iOS, like, for sure. Yeah. So that's what I'm hoping that will happen.
00:34:20 ◼ ► Although MimeStream, I mean, that was, that was reported to be coming out in beta a long time ago.
00:34:26 ◼ ► I don't know where they are on it right now. Is that actually ever going to happen? I'm not sure.
00:34:39 ◼ ► Yeah, we are. Okay. Why did, cause, okay. So John, why did you stay on Shortwave and Federico moved to
00:34:47 ◼ ► Superhuman? I consider going to Superhuman. I stayed with Shortwave because I like their AI agent sidebar
00:34:55 ◼ ► better. I think it has, it has a better, it does a better job of mining old emails and with all the
00:35:01 ◼ ► sponsorship stuff. I find, and just getting contacts from developers, I find it really useful to be
00:35:07 ◼ ► able to go in there and say, for instance, show me, uh, create a report of all the developers who
00:35:12 ◼ ► contacted me in the last 30 days and what their apps are about, you know, and what the, and what the
00:35:17 ◼ ► release dates are, that kind of thing. And that, that, that's not, Superhuman's AI integration is
00:35:22 ◼ ► not as deep as Shortwave's. Okay. Okay. But it's like a million dollars a month, right?
00:35:28 ◼ ► Superhuman? Yeah, both of them are. Oh, they both are? Okay. They both are pretty expensive. Yeah.
00:35:33 ◼ ► They're, and they're within spitting distance of each other, really. You know, I'm so, I'm so frustrated
00:35:38 ◼ ► about all of the services that are making me pay more money for tools that I want. Yeah. No kidding.
00:35:43 ◼ ► Right. Like I think I saw, uh, Russell Ivanovich used to work at Pocket Cast. He posted on Mastodon,
00:35:50 ◼ ► something to that effect of like, so many web services and tools. They're adding AI that you
00:35:58 ◼ ► don't want necessarily. And they're just making you pay more. Like, I think it's a spot by Slack,
00:36:04 ◼ ► right? So Slack are like, and Google did this too, Google Workspace, where they're like,
00:36:08 ◼ ► hey, we're adding all these AI features and, uh, we're going to charge you more money for them
00:36:13 ◼ ► and you can't turn them off. So you're going to pay us more money. And so I didn't want it though.
00:36:17 ◼ ► Like, I don't need, like, I don't, I don't use Gmail. Right. So like, I don't need Gemini
00:36:25 ◼ ► and Gmail. Like I have a Gmail account, but I'm never like on the Gmail website. Right. And so,
00:36:32 ◼ ► and it's also, it's like with Slack, it's like, does Slack have AI tools? Like, what are they? I've
00:36:37 ◼ ► never come across them. Like, are these things that are going to happen? It's like, oh, it's so annoying.
00:36:41 ◼ ► I expect shortwave is going to be a short-term thing for me because eventually like the MCP
00:36:46 ◼ ► integrations will get so good that I'll be able to kind of roll my own. It's just the shortwave
00:36:50 ◼ ► has done a good job of what I want now without me having to jump through the hoops myself.
00:36:54 ◼ ► All right. I'm going to take a sidebar here on MCP. Right. Cause I hear you guys talking about it
00:36:58 ◼ ► and I know it's exciting. Right. Like, I understand it. Like, you know, just as a sense of like,
00:37:03 ◼ ► uh, if I can try and oversimplify it at all, like if there's in that, but just for AI. Right.
00:37:09 ◼ ► So like they can just plug all the web services in together. Here's my thinking on this. Why would
00:37:16 ◼ ► any of the big companies fully support this? What do you mean? Like it's not a competitive
00:37:21 ◼ ► advantage, right? For like open AI to really support MCP. Wouldn't they want to own everything
00:37:29 ◼ ► and just have you only live in their world? No, open AI has announced they're going to do MCP.
00:37:34 ◼ ► Yeah. But this is, this is like, they can't do everything though, Mike, you know, they can't do
00:37:39 ◼ ► email. They can't do task managers. Like I think like, can't they? No, I mean, it's not realistic
00:37:45 ◼ ► to imagine that open AI is going to do email and Notion and Slack and discord and building a
00:37:51 ◼ ► computer and a music service. I mean, in the short, in the short term, I mean, nothing is
00:37:58 ◼ ► stopping them from following the Apple approach and doing what is essentially an app store in
00:38:02 ◼ ► the meantime. And then progressively, if they are building a computer, if they are building
00:38:06 ◼ ► an operating system, progressively, they're just going to Sherlock some of those apps. I mean,
00:38:11 ◼ ► Apple is doing both. Um, they can do both. They can do MCP and if they want to build more
00:38:16 ◼ ► apps. Cause what I mean is like, there's like a way of like, you can support these things.
00:38:21 ◼ ► And you can like support these things, right? Where it's like, are you really going all in
00:38:28 ◼ ► on your support for this? Or are you just like, it's kind of, I think what Federico is saying,
00:38:32 ◼ ► because MCP being, is going to be like a very foundational protocol that doesn't do everything.
00:38:38 ◼ ► And then open AI can layer on top of that with more features. And that's how I think they would
00:38:44 ◼ ► do the kind of thing that Federico is suggesting with a store that displaces a lot of roll your
00:38:51 ◼ ► I heard, um, on a podcast, it's completely separate thing that I was listening to because
00:38:58 ◼ ► someone in discord. So like it, cause I said, they're building a computer. It's like, wait,
00:39:03 ◼ ► they're building a computer. And it's like, I am obviously fast forwarding, right? Like the
00:39:06 ◼ ► whole thing with IO is like, we build something eventually computer, right? Like I feel like that
00:39:11 ◼ ► seems like the logical thing, right? Like, well, you just build accessories forever. No,
00:39:15 ◼ ► they, they're like, want to get to computer or thing that replaces computer. Like that's the,
00:39:20 ◼ ► the vision goal here. Right. Um, but as this, an entertainment podcast that I love called the town,
00:39:27 ◼ ► somebody, uh, they were reporting on Sun Valley, you know, like the big CEO conference.
00:39:34 ◼ ► And this person had spoken to Sam Altman and Altman was wearing these like really big sunglasses.
00:39:42 ◼ ► And she said to him like, are these smart glasses? And he was like, no, I don't like those.
00:39:49 ◼ ► Yeah. So he's ruled out another thing that, that, yeah, I saw, I saw the quote. I saw the quote.
00:39:55 ◼ ► So yeah. Uh, who knows what's it gonna, what, what it's gonna be. I think, I mean, my, my money is on
00:40:01 ◼ ► some kind of, I don't want to call it an iPod, but I do want to call it like some kind of pod,
00:40:06 ◼ ► like some kind of accessory to yourself. Like a thing that doesn't really have, doesn't really,
00:40:15 ◼ ► the most precious currency, right. For all these services is context, right. All of these companies
00:40:22 ◼ ► like, and the reason why Mike, you mentioned a competitive advantage. Uh, I would argue that MCP
00:40:28 ◼ ► is also like the reason why all these companies are getting into MCP because their hunger for user
00:40:35 ◼ ► context is what's feeding the embrace of MCP. Okay. Right. They just want, how much information
00:40:46 ◼ ► sense. Which is also the reason why open AI is going to roll out some kind of like sign in,
00:40:50 ◼ ► which RGBT thing across the web at some point. And why they're also all building web browsers
00:40:55 ◼ ► now too. Yes. Yes. That's all that history, all that click history. They just want to suck
00:41:01 ◼ ► everything in. Context is the most important thing for any LLM and all of these companies,
00:41:07 ◼ ► they know they want, they want, they want, and they need your context, right. Yeah. For,
00:41:10 ◼ ► for a whole bunch of reasons. So I think it's going to be some kind of pod, some kind of thing
00:41:15 ◼ ► that, um, like it or not. And I mean, obviously you will, you will be free to buy it or not. Uh,
00:41:22 ◼ ► it's going to gather context from your life and make of that what you will. Obviously I was talking
00:41:27 ◼ ► from a friend of the show, Alex Cox, and they said their, their money is on headphones. Interesting.
00:41:33 ◼ ► Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. I mean, that, that, that's a, that, that's already like a socially acceptable,
00:41:38 ◼ ► you know, accessory. So socially acceptable thing. You wear them a lot. If you go with, say it's
00:41:45 ◼ ► anyone with over ears, which I don't know, but over ears would solve a lot of problems in that
00:41:49 ◼ ► you can pack a lot of battery and technology into those. Uh, if they're in ears, then you could pack
00:41:55 ◼ ► technology into the case. Right. And what they were saying is like, Sam Altman obviously wants to make
00:42:01 ◼ ► her. And that was a headphone, right. A little in ear from the movie. Right. But anyway, let's get
00:42:08 ◼ ► back to where are we? I'm lost. I think I'm on my pick, right. We're back to my pick. My, my final.
00:42:17 ◼ ► Steven has a mustache and a shaved head. Okay. I'm picking Steven's style. And that's what I,
00:42:25 ◼ ► No. Been a while since he's done that. It's, it's a, it's a good, I think mustache is here to stay.
00:42:32 ◼ ► And I think he's going to get bored with long hair and he's going to shave it all off. But also I feel
00:42:35 ◼ ► like it might be one of these things that this might be the first time that we all realize that
00:42:39 ◼ ► that's his look, you know, that's kind of what I'm going for. Right. Right. And next summer is a
00:42:47 ◼ ► All right. We're now into passion picks. Uh, we each have a selection of picks. These are just
00:42:54 ◼ ► for spice, for flavor, for, for fun, for passion, for spice, for spice, passion, spicy passion. Uh,
00:43:03 ◼ ► Yes. I'm going to start with Steven is going to upgrade his NAS setup because I think that
00:43:10 ◼ ► Steven's weakness, one of his kryptonites is storage. There's nothing that he likes more than
00:43:15 ◼ ► just a whole bunch of storage and nothing is better for that than a NAS. And he's going to,
00:43:20 ◼ ► he's going to decide that he needs something with like, I don't know, uh, 10, you know, 10,000 gigabit,
00:43:27 ◼ ► uh, ethernet or bigger SSDs or some, or Thunderbolt five or whatever it ends up being, but he's going
00:43:35 ◼ ► to upgrade his NAS setup. Do you want me to go through the rest of them too? All right. So second,
00:43:41 ◼ ► I think Steven will install something in his truck that, that to me is kind of an easy one. He's always
00:43:48 ◼ ► installing something, you know, different lights or a radio or a car play. He'll be 3d printing
00:43:53 ◼ ► something like, yeah, he'll do something to his truck. That man, I don't know if you guys are
00:43:58 ◼ ► familiar with how much stuff he's 3d printing that goes inside a truck, but it's, oh no, I didn't. I,
00:44:02 ◼ ► I, I, I haven't heard much about his 3d printing recently. He, he designs things to go in the truck.
00:44:14 ◼ ► Like what kind of stuff? What do you, where's he, what's he like gluing these things down?
00:44:29 ◼ ► All right. All right. All right. My, my next one is that Steven is going to install a weather
00:44:36 ◼ ► station. Oh, and this to me there, this has, you know, there, this has a Jason Snell angle. Cause
00:44:43 ◼ ► Jason, you know, he's spoken about his weather station many times over the years on upgrade. And
00:44:49 ◼ ► I feel like that has just kind of seeped slowly into Steven's brain and that he's not going to be
00:44:56 ◼ ► able to resist. He's going to, he's going to have a conversation with Jason sometime in the next year
00:45:01 ◼ ► about his, his weather station set up. And it's just going to send him down a rabbit hole of research
00:45:08 ◼ ► and going and buying parts. And it's one of those things that could, that's going to turn into one
00:45:13 ◼ ► of those technology home improvement projects that he's going to, you know, put on the roof of his house
00:45:17 ◼ ► or something. I actually can't believe he hasn't done this already. I kind of agree. I kind of agree.
00:45:22 ◼ ► The man is obsessed with weather. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it does feel like there's a good reason for
00:45:27 ◼ ► this in that Memphis gets every weather type. They do all the, all the weathers, all of them,
00:45:34 ◼ ► And he comes to get like ice rain or something over there. Like it's like, yeah, it's crazy.
00:45:40 ◼ ► Banana stuff. Yeah. It's actually quite surprising that he's not, that he's not had some,
00:45:44 ◼ ► that he hasn't done that, like a weather session. I don't know how easy these things are to do
00:45:51 ◼ ► these days, but Jason, Jason loves his. Yeah. Yeah. So my next one is that Steven is going to take
00:45:59 ◼ ► apart a major household appliance. We've all... I like major. Oh, like what? What are we thinking?
00:46:06 ◼ ► Yeah. Well, we've all, we've all been there when he sent us pictures of his, uh, what was his, like
00:46:11 ◼ ► his washing machine that he disassembled completely? Like every single piece was on the floor of his
00:46:17 ◼ ► house with a motor and he's putting in some kind of new wire or something, something like that. Like
00:46:21 ◼ ► a washing machine, a dryer, a dishwasher, something along those lines. You know, I, I was going to stop
00:46:28 ◼ ► you, but you, you ended up going and you said, we've all been there. And like, I definitely
00:46:31 ◼ ► haven't. Are you like when he sends his pictures? Like, oh yes, no, we've all been there. We've all
00:46:36 ◼ ► been there in the, in the group thread where we just kind of live vicariously through Steven and think,
00:46:40 ◼ ► nope, not going to do that myself. I would not do that. Uh, I would just pay a man and he will come
00:46:46 ◼ ► and he will fix my dryer for me that I'm perfectly happy with that. Federico, have you ever taken apart
00:46:52 ◼ ► a house out of appliance? Probably not, right? Uh, we have taken apart a few years ago, the washing
00:46:58 ◼ ► machine. I don't remember. Oh, some kind of pipe was connected. Oh my God. I remember that. Yes. Yeah.
00:47:03 ◼ ► Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We took it apart a few times. Actually we, we, we became quite good at it. It was
00:47:08 ◼ ► like, uh, some pipe that needed like some, I don't, I don't know, some, some, something, I don't even know.
00:47:21 ◼ ► because it's a nice big fridge. It's what we call an American fridge, which means it has two doors.
00:47:27 ◼ ► Uh, we call those American fridges, uh, like the, where they open like, you know, like full width.
00:47:33 ◼ ► Yeah. And the reason we did this is because they, the, the previous owner remodeled and I think they
00:47:41 ◼ ► remodeled around the fridge. Cause like, I don't know how we'd get, I don't know how they were going
00:47:48 ◼ ► to get it out. Oh yeah. And then getting a new one in. The problem was getting a new one in where like,
00:47:53 ◼ ► they may have done something like, I don't know, taking it over the back garden wall or something.
00:47:59 ◼ ► I don't know, but I didn't want to deal with this. And I am terrified for the day when that fridge packs
00:48:05 ◼ ► up. Cause I don't know what we will do. Like, I have no idea. Uh, so that's just my little
00:48:16 ◼ ► Yeah. When we moved into our place, the movers passed some of the stuff from the ground floor
00:48:23 ◼ ► up to our balcony on the second floor to bring it into the wide sliding glass doors onto our balcony.
00:48:31 ◼ ► Um, that, so a lot of our big stuff came in that way, but then recently we bought a new bed
00:48:37 ◼ ► and these whole team of people, it took them to get it up to the third floor because it was a king size
00:48:42 ◼ ► bed. And I was, I was terrified that they're going to ruin our walls or break something, but boy,
00:48:48 ◼ ► they knew, they knew what they were doing. They did a great job. They got it up there all the way up to
00:48:52 ◼ ► the third floor. They were, they were tired. There was no way I could have done that myself.
00:48:55 ◼ ► You have just reminded me of something that I had completely put out of my brain. Uh, so when we
00:49:01 ◼ ► sold our flat, the sofa that we had couldn't come with us cause it was too big for the area we would
00:49:08 ◼ ► put the new sofa in the new place. And so we sold the sofa online. I don't even remember like Facebook
00:49:15 ◼ ► marketplace or whatever. And basically said like, we'll sell it cheap. You come take it. Like,
00:49:22 ◼ ► we're not going to be involved in it. When they came the people to take it, they were like,
00:49:29 ◼ ► we can't get this out of the flat through the door. Um, it would have been really hard. So
00:49:37 ◼ ► they're like, we're going to take it out through the window, like the balcony window. I lived on the
00:49:42 ◼ ► second floor. Uh huh. But then I ended up getting roped into this. Oh, cause I was home. So yeah,
00:49:50 ◼ ► I'm standing downstairs on the, on the ground floor waiting for somebody to drop a couch,
00:49:57 ◼ ► a sofa with a guy who was like 20 years older than me. That's why I did it. Right. Cause I'm like,
00:50:03 ◼ ► this guy is older than me. I feel bad. He may have been like more, may might have been like 30 years
00:50:10 ◼ ► older than me. I don't know. Right. And so like, I'm standing down and catching this sofa. I'm like,
00:50:15 ◼ ► what is happening? Why am I doing this? I had not thought about this at all. Like our moving was like
00:50:19 ◼ ► really chaotic. I'm sure you guys, I don't know if you guys remember. Moving. Yeah. Moving is one of
00:50:25 ◼ ► those things you put out of your memory as fast as you possibly can. Well, we just had a thing where we
00:50:29 ◼ ► didn't know if we were moving until the morning of the day we moved, even though all our stuff
00:50:33 ◼ ► had been packed up, like it kind of got real messy. And so like, there were lots of weird things
00:50:37 ◼ ► happening and that was one of them. Anyway, John, you have a final pick. I do. I do. Steven is going
00:50:42 ◼ ► to assemble some shelving because you know, next to storage, it's a storage theme either for his
00:50:48 ◼ ► computer or for his gear. He loves good shelving. It may be a Kallax. It may be something for his
00:50:59 ◼ ► needs more. I think he's still had some of those, has some of those Macs up in his attic of his house.
00:51:04 ◼ ► I think so. I'm going to give you a piece of data here where I think you might be right. So
00:51:08 ◼ ► Jason Snell just put some shelving in his office and he used the same shelving that Steven has.
00:51:18 ◼ ► Yeah. He needs to always be first to the best shelving. So he's now that, now that it's spread
00:51:23 ◼ ► outside the boundaries of Memphis, Tennessee, you know what we should do is we should just to mess with
00:51:28 ◼ ► Steven. We should buy his shelving, each of us to see what he does. See what, see what happens.
00:51:34 ◼ ► We all get it. We all get it. We all get it. Federico would hate it because it's just pure
00:51:40 ◼ ► wood. So you'd have to spray paint it. Nope. Nope. Right. You'd have to spray paint it or something.
00:51:44 ◼ ► It would, that would actually work in my house. Yeah. It would work here too for me. Uh, but yeah.
00:51:54 ◼ ► Steven's next computer has more than eight terabytes of SSD. Oh, that's going to cost. I don't even know if
00:52:01 ◼ ► this is possible. Uh, but I figure when he does get the inevitable Mac that we expect he's going to
00:52:07 ◼ ► get, uh, one of the things to be like, I have too many old keynotes. I got to put them somewhere.
00:52:13 ◼ ► Yeah. I'm not sure it's possible currently, but the Mac pro, you know, he might, the Mac studio goes up
00:52:20 ◼ ► to 16, 16. Oh my gosh. For the low, low price of $4,600. Oh, thank you. Discord. Wow. No, I went to
00:52:32 ◼ ► the, uh, Oh, you went to the website real quick. Yeah. 16. Yeah. Yeah. He's got to go for it. He's
00:52:38 ◼ ► got it. I think he should go for it. He's got it. You know, he could fill that up. He's got a dev and
00:52:42 ◼ ► think databases. It's just incredibly huge. Federico, how much SSD space is in that Mac that Apple sent you?
00:52:48 ◼ ► Uh, eight terabytes. Only eight? Only eight. They chipped out. I mean, cause they gave you,
00:52:54 ◼ ► they gave you 512 Ram, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's the M3 ultra. They did a similar thing when I got a
00:52:59 ◼ ► MacBook pro M4 max. The one thing that, that wasn't maxed out on it was the storage. I like that even
00:53:05 ◼ ► Apple think it's too much. Yeah. You know, like they're like, Ooh, bit rich. Nobody needs that much
00:53:14 ◼ ► storage. We'll give you 512 gigabytes of memory, but it's 16 terabytes of storage. No way. I find
00:53:21 ◼ ► that weird that like, why would they only max out two of the three? And I, I think it was the,
00:53:28 ◼ ► it was the only machine they had available. Right. Probably true. Yeah. With the M3 ultra. Yeah.
00:53:35 ◼ ► All right. Pick two. Steven launches another Kickstarter campaign. Oh, another calendar.
00:53:40 ◼ ► I don't know if it's going to be a calendar because it's a good call. I think he doesn't
00:53:45 ◼ ► want to do the calendar, but I just think he has amassed enough data of his own at this point,
00:53:51 ◼ ► right? Information that he has researched or photos that he has taken or what, and, or just
00:53:56 ◼ ► hardware that at some point he's going to have an idea. Like, remember the calendar he went from,
00:54:12 ◼ ► but at some point something's going to pop into his head and a Kickstarter will be born
00:54:16 ◼ ► because they were successful for him. I think he should have kept doing the calendars, but he
00:54:20 ◼ ► didn't want to do it anymore because it was a lot of work, which I understand at the same
00:54:23 ◼ ► time, but they were, they were successful, successful projects. I think at some point he's going to be
00:54:28 ◼ ► like, well, at some point he's going to take apart a major household appliance and it won't
00:54:33 ◼ ► work anymore. So he launches a Kickstarter campaign. He'll need a new washer dryer. Yeah.
00:54:39 ◼ ► And the new calendar is born. Uh, my next pick. So this is kind of going on from one of the picks
00:54:47 ◼ ► that Federica made earlier, but I had to go for it anyway, cause I love it. Stephen buys and returns
00:54:51 ◼ ► at least one iPhone from the 2025 lineup. Uh, Stephen digs another trench. The man has dug
00:55:00 ◼ ► two trenches. Yeah, he has. I forgot about the one for the sewage. I mean, he, he, that looked
00:55:07 ◼ ► like the, the fiber optic cable one looked like a lot or not fibers ethernet. I guess that one
00:55:12 ◼ ► looked like a ton of tunnel. No, it was fiber, right? Was it a fiber optic cable? I think it was
00:55:16 ◼ ► ethernet. I think it was just ethernet from the house. Cause he had, remember he said he had the
00:55:20 ◼ ► ethernet in the conduit that was not outdoor ethernet and it got damaged somehow. It got
00:55:25 ◼ ► crimped. Yeah. Yeah. So then I think, I think he dug fiber. I think it was a fiber. Oh, okay.
00:55:30 ◼ ► Like a fiber optic cable. I'm pretty sure it was. Maybe I'm wrong. That's, that's my memory. Cause
00:55:34 ◼ ► he had the ethernet cable that he thought was an outdoor ethernet cable, but it wasn't and it died.
00:55:40 ◼ ► And I'm pretty sure he dug a trench and put a fiber optic cable down there. But yeah, do you
00:55:47 ◼ ► No, I was just wondering how you guys remember all these details. I don't know. I just remember
00:55:54 ◼ ► the pictures that he sent us and it was like a, it was hot and he was digging in the backyard
00:55:58 ◼ ► for days. He had, we, we spoke about it on this show, backhoe. And it was like, it's a,
00:56:03 ◼ ► it's a digger essentially that he had to hire. I know, I know what a backhoe is. Yes. I just
00:56:09 ◼ ► remember the story. Yeah. So that, that he did, he, I think a tree root broke through the sewage
00:56:17 ◼ ► pipe and he had to replace the pipe. So I think he'll want to big, do another trench, a third
00:56:27 ◼ ► trench. And I don't know what it will be for yet, but he'll dig another one. My final pick
00:56:32 ◼ ► is Stephen will not win the relay co-founder championship at the podcast. I am the current
00:56:37 ◼ ► belt holder. I display it proudly and I'm coming into this year and I'm going to beat him again.
00:56:42 ◼ ► Yeah. I could see that. The first time he cheated, uh, and I wouldn't allow any cheating to stand in
00:56:49 ◼ ► the second year and I will not allow any cheating to stand in the third year, which means I will win.
00:56:52 ◼ ► Okay. Is it time for my passion picks? Please go for it. My number one is Stephen will win
00:57:01 ◼ ► the relay co-founders championship this year. Wow. Yeah. It's like a shot in the eye right there.
00:57:05 ◼ ► Yeah. Why would you do that? You know, right in front of my bets, you know, right in front of my bets.
00:57:09 ◼ ► Why am I catching stripes? Yeah. Uh, number two, Stephen will finish at least one game on the
00:57:24 ◼ ► Buy a month. Buy a month. Yeah. But like what happens when we get a month down the line,
00:57:30 ◼ ► you know? Yeah. Analog has, nothing's ever come out on time from analog. A lot of you have to kind
00:57:36 ◼ ► of build in an extra year when you order something from them. Yeah. Yeah. But they're really good
00:57:42 ◼ ► consoles. So they make good stuff. They do make good stuff. Yeah. Did you guys see that Casey Neistat now
00:57:48 ◼ ► has a role at the Mod Retro company? Oh no. I saw a video. I saved it. I still haven't watched it.
00:57:55 ◼ ► What's the deal? What's the deal? Basically the video that he put out is essentially an ad
00:58:01 ◼ ► for Mod Retro. And at the end of it, he shows off this business card that's like Casey Neistat,
00:58:09 ◼ ► Mod Retro, chief storyteller or something like that. Like basically it seems like Palmer Luckey
00:58:15 ◼ ► has thrown a bunch of money at Casey Neistat to make some stuff for them, like videos and
00:58:22 ◼ ► It's like one of those videos where like I started watching it and like very quickly I'm like,
00:58:34 ◼ ► the moment when Palmer Luckey appears. I'm like, oh, no. No. What's happening? Here he is. Oh boy.
00:58:44 ◼ ► Because they announced, I think Mod Retro are like, because you remember, I don't know if you
00:58:49 ◼ ► remember this. I had forgotten this, but when they initially did it, they were like, we bought these
00:58:54 ◼ ► many. We're going to sell them. We don't know if this is going to be a thing. And now they're like,
00:59:06 ◼ ► Yeah. I think you got more games because you know, they have the Tetris and I think they have a bunch
00:59:33 ◼ ► It's like, this is like really good aluminum. Did you get this from the aerospace industry, Palmer?
00:59:49 ◼ ► That is, we got, we, we, we got to the point where we're talking about recycled weapons.
00:59:56 ◼ ► Ah, my number three was Stephen sees either or, I don't know, maybe both, Yellow Card or Death
01:00:07 ◼ ► I think it's going to go to a concert of one of those two bands. Maybe even both. I don't
01:00:13 ◼ ► know. Stephen does this thing where like occasionally he goes to a concert and often like,
01:00:24 ◼ ► If you think about it, like if you're in that area, you're most likely, as a band, you're
01:00:30 ◼ ► Yeah, no, that's true. That's true. Like around here, it's like people go to Atlanta. They
01:01:00 ◼ ► Yeah. I mean, this is, the biking with him is one of these things where like, he'll mention
01:01:06 ◼ ► to me that he's doing it. And I'm like, what about the injury? And he's like, ah, don't
01:01:33 ◼ ► Yeah. And finally, I think the time has come for this pic to come true. One of Stephen's old
01:01:55 ◼ ► Something is going to get lost. He's going to misplace something and he will be very upset
01:02:02 ◼ ► Have you guys ever seen his, I don't know if it's public, his inventory of all Mac stuff?
01:02:18 ◼ ► I think he ended up going with Google sheets. He, I think it's public. I'm not sure, but
01:02:26 ◼ ► Yeah. I'm trying to find it. If I can find it, I'll put it in the show notes. I might ask
01:02:29 ◼ ► him and if it is, I'll put it in the show notes. Um, but like, it is possible that he could,
01:02:36 ◼ ► because at first I was like, how would he even know? He has so much stuff. Like, how would
01:02:42 ◼ ► he even know that something got lost? But then it's like, oh, you know what? Like he has such
01:02:55 ◼ ► I wonder if he's recorded like where in his house, each of these things are. Most of it,
01:03:01 ◼ ► At the moment it, he has manufacturer product category year notes condition. Those are the,
01:03:07 ◼ ► those are the things on his table. I'll find out if I can put this in the show notes, I will
01:03:13 ◼ ► put this in the show notes. I'll find that out, but I've shared it both of you too. If you want
01:03:17 ◼ ► to have a look at it again, he shared it with me again recently. Some of the details in this
01:03:33 ◼ ► No, maybe. I'm feeling pretty good about the picks. Feeling pretty good about him, Mike,
01:03:41 ◼ ► They're good picks. They're all good picks. Uh, John, I want to thank you for joining us,
01:03:44 ◼ ► but before we wrap up today, I wanted to get a bit of a, an update in the OTJ life. Uh, more,
01:03:56 ◼ ► Well, that's a loaded question. They, they were treating me better at the beginning than they are
01:04:02 ◼ ► now. I think that these third developer betas are a little, a little shaky, which is probably why we
01:04:08 ◼ ► haven't seen the public version yet. But, uh, as we were sitting here, I have, uh, the, the beta on my
01:04:15 ◼ ► watch and it's only like at one 30 this afternoon, I had this fully charged up by about 8 a.m.
01:04:21 ◼ ► My, my, uh, my, my watch had completely died. The ultra, it just burned through the battery before
01:04:27 ◼ ► one 30 p.m., which I don't know how it did that. I mean, I haven't really done much. I went for a
01:04:31 ◼ ► walk this morning, a short walk this morning, but I think you might be the only person I know that's
01:04:36 ◼ ► got the watch better on. Uh, yeah. I mean, we have, no, I also have it. You also have it? Yeah. Why?
01:04:42 ◼ ► It's fine. Okay. Well, not for Johnny, man. What, what, what, what, what, what, what, everybody wants
01:04:47 ◼ ► to work out, buddy? What question is, what question is why? Because it's new. It's what we do. Yeah, I know.
01:04:53 ◼ ► And it's what we do. Okay. You know, I know, but the watch, I don't know why the watch better to me
01:04:57 ◼ ► always feels like the most precarious. Thank you. Yeah. It's been fine until really, I'd noticed this,
01:05:02 ◼ ► this battery drain thing yesterday and today. I, and I don't know what has changed because I
01:05:07 ◼ ► haven't updated the, the beta in the last couple of days, but it's just been really bad the last
01:05:11 ◼ ► couple of days. Um, the phone, you know, four or five springboard crashes a day. A few things are a
01:05:17 ◼ ► little weird. Overall, it's okay. Uh, the Mac, uh, it's all right. I mean, for the most part, I didn't
01:05:25 ◼ ► really even notice the betas when I first put the, put them on the Mac because you know, the, the stuff
01:05:29 ◼ ► that you use day to day, it hasn't changed that much. And liquid glass just not, is not as deep
01:05:34 ◼ ► on the back yet as it is on other devices. And I haven't run into too many problems except for a
01:05:41 ◼ ► handful of apps, you know, originally carbon copy cloner didn't work, but that was, they had a beta
01:05:46 ◼ ► out right away. Same went for default folder X. They have a beta out now that's working, you know, uh,
01:05:54 ◼ ► audio hijack works. I've had some problems with logic, but by and large, it's been totally fine
01:06:00 ◼ ► on the Mac. Cause I've been doing the same amount of work on my main, uh, Mac studio that I do before
01:06:05 ◼ ► the betas. So it's, you know, it's, it's been good. It's just that it's been a little buggier
01:06:09 ◼ ► since the last, the beta three was released. What was it like 10 days ago, something like that two
01:06:15 ◼ ► weeks? Yeah. I think it's too, well, it was just after 4th of July, right? Yeah, I guess that's
01:06:24 ◼ ► right. So it's been two weeks roughly. And, um, yeah, I don't know where Apple's going with this
01:06:29 ◼ ► public beta. I would have thought that we would have given that it's been a couple of weeks, I would
01:06:33 ◼ ► have thought that we would have seen another beta for earlier this week. It ain't happening. Cause
01:06:39 ◼ ► it's like one of these, so they, there are these, uh, threads accounts, you know, that get suggested
01:06:45 ◼ ► to me. And there's one of them, which is, it is actually a good account. It's like, um, they post
01:06:50 ◼ ► a lot of beta information, like a lot of screenshots and stuff side by side. And I don't remember the
01:06:55 ◼ ► name of the account. I just see it in the algorithm all the time. And I saw a post from them where they
01:07:00 ◼ ► were like, uh, earlier in this week, it's like the public betas will be out this, like will be out
01:07:17 ◼ ► you're looking at previous years and working it out, right? That like beta three comes out
01:07:22 ◼ ► this day, this amount of days later they released the public beta, but I'm like, you're not, but
01:07:28 ◼ ► like I'm looking at, I don't think you're taking into consideration how different this year is
01:07:33 ◼ ► likely to be because of the design, right? That like, and especially because beta three was
01:07:37 ◼ ► odd, right? Like, Oh, they've changed the design. So they've changed it again. So I wasn't sure,
01:07:44 ◼ ► but, and then they published another post a couple of days later and it's like, well, it seems like not
01:07:50 ◼ ► Yeah. I mean, if, you know, history would tell us that it would have been two days ago on the 14th,
01:07:56 ◼ ► because that's the, that's when it was that same week last year. Not this year, obviously. And I think
01:08:03 ◼ ► Mark Gurman said on, on X, the everything app that he expects it's going to be around the 23rd, which is
01:08:14 ◼ ► the middle of next week, which would be a little, a little strange historically. I mean, I think
01:08:31 ◼ ► And then they're going to, yeah. What that would suggest is that they're going to put out a,
01:08:35 ◼ ► what is essentially the, you know, the release version of the public beta on a Monday for
01:08:42 ◼ ► Wednesday release publicly, which I could see them doing. That's not typically how they've done it,
01:08:55 ◼ ► his theory was that one of the reasons they changed the design significantly as they did in beta three
01:09:03 ◼ ► was that they wanted to scale it back when they put it in the public beta, right? That like maybe they
01:09:09 ◼ ► would scale it back a bit and then build it back up again. Maybe they scaled it too far. I don't know.
01:09:15 ◼ ► Or maybe something's just broken because there is a reason because it should be out by now based on
01:09:20 ◼ ► what we would assume. But also this is like just a weird year and who knows what's going on.
01:09:24 ◼ ► Yeah. I think it's a combination of probably the design and just the general bugginess because it's not
01:09:29 ◼ ► unusual for like beta one to be more stable than beta two. It's just the way it is. I mean,
01:09:35 ◼ ► they've worked more, you know, they probably worked more weeks on beta ones. And so they do tend to go
01:09:41 ◼ ► up and down cyclically as the betas go on. It's just that, you know, I think it was in pretty,
01:09:52 ◼ ► So we just said something in the discord, which is like, I'm glad they're not making beta three the
01:09:57 ◼ ► public beta because the multitasking switcher being weird is driving me bananas. What is going on with
01:10:01 ◼ ► this? Like I'm using it on my iPad. It feels like it's doing something completely inconsistent every
01:10:06 ◼ ► time I swipe up. It's like, why am I in the middle of these list of apps now? It's very strange.
01:10:11 ◼ ► Yeah. So on the iPhone, it used to be that when you swipe up and hold, when you open the app
01:10:16 ◼ ► switcher, the window in focus is the previously used application, right? Yeah. And now when you
01:10:22 ◼ ► swipe up and hold, the window in focus is the app that you're using at the moment, which totally
01:10:27 ◼ ► broke my muscle memory as well. Huh? Okay. The iPad's doing something completely different,
01:10:36 ◼ ► But like it's when I, when I, when I do, when I, when I enable that view on my iPad, it's
01:10:42 ◼ ► like, it looks like it puts me in like the middle of that list. Not, not like it's very
01:10:47 ◼ ► strange. Like, I don't know what's going on, but they're doing something. I mean, I wouldn't
01:10:51 ◼ ► be surprised if the iPad one changed cause they added that new, like swipe backwards and forwards
01:11:01 ◼ ► I actually tried doing that gesture before they had added it. And I'm so glad they added it because
01:11:09 ◼ ► Yeah. Still loving the iPad. I was going to put, I was, I was wondering whether I was going to put
01:11:14 ◼ ► it on my iPhone yet, but now I'm, now I'm going to wait for four. I'm going to see, I was originally
01:11:29 ◼ ► And yet I was looking at the maps app in CarPlay and it showed the little triangle showing that I
01:11:35 ◼ ► was right there at my house. And yet Siri kept telling me, we can't, you know, try again later.
01:11:40 ◼ ► We can't locate you. And I was like, well, I need to get somewhere in Charlotte that I don't know how
01:11:43 ◼ ► to get to, you know, I need to get this to work. So then we just resort to Jennifer's phone at that
01:11:55 ◼ ► In case of emergency, 16E. Two phone life though, John, I'll tell you, it's pretty nice.
01:12:27 ◼ ► Hey, thanks for having me. A lot of fun. Yeah, it was a lot of fun playing the games with
01:12:31 ◼ ► I will start the wrap up now. So if you want to find John online, I'm going to tell you
01:12:35 ◼ ► a few places you can go. If you go to maxstories.net, where you can read John's work. You can also
01:12:55 ◼ ► NPC. It's one of my favorite podcasts. John is one of the hosts of that, obviously, along
01:12:59 ◼ ► with Federico and Brendan. I love NPC. I think NPC reminds me a little bit about this show
01:13:06 ◼ ► in a way. I think in that you start for the subject matter, but at a certain point, that's
01:13:21 ◼ ► like, what did you tune into this episode for, in theory, today? You're like, oh, I want to
01:13:26 ◼ ► get my Apple news. What did we do? We made predictions about our friend that we're going to reveal
01:13:30 ◼ ► in a year. It's like, you know, you're here for us. And that's why I love NPC. And it really
01:13:35 ◼ ► goes to the top of my queue every week. And so, and I'm also, I wasn't, when you, the three of you
01:13:47 ◼ ► It's worked out really well. It was a little hard when Brendan was in Tokyo, but he's back
01:13:51 ◼ ► That was one of my favorite things was like, all right, maybe Brendan will be here next week.
01:13:56 ◼ ► Okay. Brendan's not here. Maybe, maybe next week. The man was on his honeymoon. Let the
01:14:03 ◼ ► The window where that was possible to record was so small between the East Coast, US, Italy
01:14:23 ◼ ► And then Federico was, I think upstairs neighbor was just having jackhammering going. I'm such
01:14:29 ◼ ► a, I'm such a super fan. You know, I know, I know everything. Thank you. It's like, this
01:14:33 ◼ ► is how like listeners talk to us. He knows all the details. Right. It's like, in the chat
01:14:37 ◼ ► today, we were talking about things and I'm like, none of us could remember why Steven exactly
01:14:42 ◼ ► had a backhoe. And they're like, oh, it's because of this or that. And so people remember
01:14:46 ◼ ► and it's like, I don't know what it is that like, if you listen to a podcast, you can remember
01:15:00 ◼ ► I have very little few recollections of that series of Tokyo ones because I was, I was usually
01:15:14 ◼ ► No, everyone was unhappy. It was great because you two just arrived back home and Brendan was
01:15:27 ◼ ► I'm not going to keep talking about this show forever. So I'm going to stop now. You can find
01:15:30 ◼ ► Federico over at max stories.net as well. And he is the teacher across social media. You can find me
01:15:35 ◼ ► here and you can go to my website, theenthusiast.net and you can check out my products at Cortex brand as
01:15:40 ◼ ► well. I would like to thank, uh, Squarespace for the support of the show. I would like to
01:15:44 ◼ ► thank our members who support us with connected pro. You can go to get connected pro.co to sign
01:15:50 ◼ ► up. Thank you so much. If you have, uh, in this week's pro show, we all talk about how excited we
01:15:54 ◼ ► are for Donkey Kong Bonanza. So if you're a true gamer, go to get connected pro.co and you can hear