00:00:00 ◼ ► From Relay, this is Connected, episode 580. Today's show is brought to you by our sponsors,
00:00:23 ◼ ► It will not be published on Thanksgiving Day because Stephen said I couldn't make our edit
00:00:29 ◼ ► a gym work on Thanksgiving, which he's probably right. I wasn't trying to argue the point,
00:00:34 ◼ ► but he did remind me, and so, yeah, we're going to be publishing it a day late. I'm thankful
00:00:39 ◼ ► for Jim for all the work that he does every week in putting this show together and publishing
00:00:44 ◼ ► and getting it all wonderful for our listener pleasure, so we should all be thankful to our
00:00:49 ◼ ► wonderful editor, Jim Messendorf. But we will be up a day late, and yes, because it was also
00:00:58 ◼ ► Yeah, it's no Thanksgiving for us. Do you celebrate with a special meal or anything tonight, Mike?
00:01:06 ◼ ► Not tonight, but we're going to be spending Thanksgiving with the underscore family this
00:01:12 ◼ ► So they're inviting us to a meal that they're having, so I'm looking forward to that a lot.
00:01:26 ◼ ► As I want to do. And I opened the Instagram app, which I have not been using because I didn't
00:01:31 ◼ ► like it, because they were loading me into this horrible Reels interface on the homepage,
00:01:45 ◼ ► So I don't know if I'm in some kind of A-B test, but now the kind of homepage of Instagram
00:01:50 ◼ ► for my iPad is what I would expect it to be. It's the content from the people that I follow,
00:01:56 ◼ ► With a distinct tab for Reels. So like, this is what I want it to be. It's actually emulating
00:02:03 ◼ ► the new default layout for Instagram on the phone, where Instagram on the phone now has
00:02:11 ◼ ► a messages tab and a Reels tab. Everything's tabbed. The swiping interface just moves left
00:02:18 ◼ ► and right through the tabs, which is always a real jump scare for me when I'm wanting to
00:02:23 ◼ ► access the messages on, say, the Cortex brand account, and then it just opens Reels. So
00:02:28 ◼ ► that's like a whole other thing to deal with. But yeah, Instagram on the iPad is usable for
00:02:34 ◼ ► me now, because it's actually works most of the way that I would expect it to work, rather
00:02:45 ◼ ► Not a great iPad app, if I'm being completely honest. But I don't think we were expecting
00:03:29 ◼ ► With a detonator running through the length of its core, similar to the sticker dynamite.
00:03:43 ◼ ► Johnny Ive and Sam Altman have said that they finally have a prototype of their AI hardware,
00:04:00 ◼ ► So when these two announced that they were working together, I think we expected that they were further along than they clearly have been.
00:04:14 ◼ ► Apparently it could arrive in less than two years, which is still within the originally stated time frame.
00:04:32 ◼ ► They say, it will be a sort of active participant that is proactive in a, quote, not annoying way.
00:04:47 ◼ ► They talk a lot about how your iPhone feels like you're walking in Times Square in New York, and they want it to not feel like that.
00:04:55 ◼ ► I've told Altman that the design is right when you want to lick it or take a bite out of it.
00:05:01 ◼ ► And with the current prototype, Altman got that feeling, like you wanted to take a bite out of it.
00:06:12 ◼ ► And they speak a lot about wanting devices to feel playful and careful and simple and something you don't think about.
00:06:20 ◼ ► Like, all of this sounds great, but I have now gotten to the point where I just want them to stop talking.
00:06:45 ◼ ► Me and Federico have been working really hard on this new device, and it's absolutely going to change the way that you think about computers.
00:07:16 ◼ ► No, I mean, unfortunately here, the issue is that Altman is the kind of guy who likes to talk.
00:08:03 ◼ ► Now, I feel like some of these events, like, he has lost a, he has actually, in his independent life,
00:08:11 ◼ ► Because he is now kind of beholden to investors a little bit more than he was before and stuff
00:09:04 ◼ ► I, yeah, I, we, I still feel like this is going to be some kind of, some kind of recording
00:09:11 ◼ ► And essentially, I think what they're trying to do is they're trying to have like a physical
00:09:16 ◼ ► manifestation of Chagipity that is a cute little object, object that you carry with you.
00:09:29 ◼ ► It's going to be some kind of soft touch material with a cute shape and, you know, I mean, I
00:09:34 ◼ ► don't doubt that Johnny Ive and all the people they hired from Apple, uh, they can make a nice
00:10:12 ◼ ► I guess what they, if I were to imagine what they're banking on is the fact that, I mean,
00:10:24 ◼ ► So when they made a browser, you open, you go to ChatGPT and it tells you, Hey, we have
00:10:52 ◼ ► They should be hitting before the end of the year, 900, 900 million subscribers, no users,
00:11:17 ◼ ► Yeah, but what I would want to know from those 900 million, how many people actually pay the
00:11:28 ◼ ► I think the information probably reported that they plan to have something like 200 billion
00:12:10 ◼ ► And at some point, if you can kind of build the product right, you will get people to sign
00:12:32 ◼ ► I just wanted to know it here, that you have written a follow-up article to your M5 iPad
00:12:38 ◼ ► Pro review, as you've now got access to the on-device MLX model that you did not have, but Apple
00:13:01 ◼ ► In fact, in some tests, even better numbers, like a four, four and a half X improvement.
00:13:07 ◼ ► And on the same day, Apple also published a blog post on their machine learning blog with
00:13:12 ◼ ► more benchmarks for the M5 and MLX, which is now officially in a beta release on GitHub.
00:13:25 ◼ ► And I assume, this is just my personal theory, I assume we're going to see a public release
00:13:51 ◼ ► Like, the more powerful they can make this and the more efficient they can make this, the
00:14:02 ◼ ► Like, when Apple's on-device models get super powerful, they will be able to be processed by
00:14:13 ◼ ► And you're not going to wait around too long for a response because that's really what the
00:14:27 ◼ ► I kind of feel like, you know, we don't know exactly for how long these chips are in the
00:14:42 ◼ ► I don't know if the M4 and the M5 are like maybe half-steps measured to optimize their chipsets
00:14:59 ◼ ► I mean, even if you just take a look at what AMD and NVIDIA are doing now to, I mean, they're
00:15:06 ◼ ► making chipsets and GPUs that are sold as AI GPUs and then people are buying them for gaming,
00:15:13 ◼ ► which is quite clearly that's not, I mean, gaming is now a fraction of NVIDIA's revenue at
00:15:20 ◼ ► But I wonder what can Apple do now that they had, you know, a couple of years since CHGPT
00:15:27 ◼ ► And you've got to imagine that with future chips, they will be able to squeeze even more out of
00:15:36 ◼ ► It's like, obviously we haven't, they haven't had enough time to create something from the
00:15:55 ◼ ► Because what we know about private cloud compute is that is an incredibly inefficient system.
00:16:09 ◼ ► And then they're probably using the M3 Ultra now, but they need custom silicon if they're
00:16:22 ◼ ► Talking about the wonderful website, MacStories.net, you published an article with a few more, like,
00:16:47 ◼ ► What I like most about Liquid Glass, actually, is just the kind of restructuring of the apps.
00:16:52 ◼ ► You know, like, it seems like the iOS 26 design aesthetic is making a lot of people, like,
00:17:06 ◼ ► But yeah, you've posted a bunch of good examples of more apps that are, like, really kind of
00:17:21 ◼ ► It seems like there were a bunch of developers that took time, but that was right for them.
00:17:37 ◼ ► And I think over the past couple of months, a lot of developers have refined as much as they
00:17:58 ◼ ► I feel like I prefer now, like, when I open a third-party app on my phone now, and it doesn't
00:18:31 ◼ ► But yeah, I have been encouraged, I think, by the amount of apps that I wouldn't have expected
00:18:41 ◼ ► I wanted to mention, in case you have forgotten, you should not have forgotten, we are currently
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00:22:47 ◼ ► Our friend, the rumor wizard, Mark Gurman, has had a report. The report focused on a bunch of different things,
00:22:56 ◼ ► but the thing I wanted to talk about with you most is about iOS 27. Mark says that there will be a focus
00:23:04 ◼ ► in two key areas, AI features and overall operating system quality. Mark invokes Snow Leopard.
00:23:12 ◼ ► In fact, the image in the article is Bertrand Soleil, which is the name I've not heard in a long time,
00:23:20 ◼ ► standing in front of Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Now, Snow Leopard is known as the no new releases year,
00:23:33 ◼ ► a Snow Leopard year, which is the idea of increasing software quality and fixing bugs. That was the way
00:23:39 ◼ ► Apple pitched it, but actually under the hood, Snow Leopard was a massive re-architecture of a bunch
00:23:44 ◼ ► of different key technologies. And the introduction, I think, of Grand Central Dispatch,
00:23:54 ◼ ► it was more about making the operating system feel better to use. And in a sense, like people forget
00:24:00 ◼ ► about and people don't really think about the big underpinning stuff, but they think about the user
00:24:05 ◼ ► facing features. Now, we'll come back to this again in a minute, but I actually think if Apple
00:24:10 ◼ ► does what Mark is saying here, this actually would be Snow Leopard like in bug fixes and big under the
00:24:18 ◼ ► hood stuff. So basically, it seems like at the moment, if you're not working on AI at Apple, you are working
00:24:27 ◼ ► on fixing things to make the system run smoother. Like this appears to be what Mark is pitching,
00:24:33 ◼ ► that like everybody is just working on cutting bloat, fixing bugs, like making the system
00:24:39 ◼ ► nicer to use. But also, Mark does expect, considering that we just got a full redesign,
00:24:51 ◼ ► So just stopping on that part, from like a bug fixes and performance improvements release,
00:25:01 ◼ ► I feel like there's going to be a lot of liquid glass refinements. I think a lot of people,
00:25:05 ◼ ► I see these viral posts every once in a while showing like some glitchy liquid glass animation
00:25:13 ◼ ► or visual bug. I think there's going to be, I think, you know, Apple can tell a nice story
00:25:21 ◼ ► about like, and we looked at every nook and cranny of iOS and like this idea of, you know,
00:25:28 ◼ ► iOS has grown so much over the past decade and it's undergone so many changes that it's, you know,
00:25:36 ◼ ► every once in a while, it's got to be time for spring cleaning and, you know, optimizing everything.
00:25:41 ◼ ► And so I think, you know, this idea of we're going to make everybody, I think it's uniquely Apple to say
00:25:56 ◼ ► And Apple is already well known for being one of the few, the only company that actually cares about
00:26:04 ◼ ► supporting old phones with software updates. And so I think, I think it would be in Apple's best interest.
00:26:10 ◼ ► Also going against the idea of what do they call it? Planned obsolescence. Like you say, we're going to make
00:26:16 ◼ ► everybody's devices look faster, be more efficient, be more polished. That's a nice story.
00:26:22 ◼ ► Yeah. Cause I think maybe one of the only things that I have heard, which I feel like would make sense
00:26:35 ◼ ► Yeah. And I could understand that completely. Right. Like that, that feels like a thing that,
00:26:39 ◼ ► that totally makes sense to me and that they could maybe do some work to make that better. I mean,
00:26:46 ◼ ► like when you think about like iOS 26 runs on the iPhone 11. Yeah. Like remember that? That is a,
00:26:55 ◼ ► that is a really old phone at this point. Um, so it's impressive that they do it, but you've got to
00:27:00 ◼ ► assume that that is not where they are prioritizing when they're, when they're rolling out first, but they
00:27:06 ◼ ► could take some time making that better for later. I mean, in general, I think they've had a win of iOS 26.
00:27:15 ◼ ► Like I don't hear complaints. I mean, it doesn't seem like they've done the press the button.
00:27:21 ◼ ► It goes to everyone yet, which is they're getting pretty late in the year. Um, but I would understand why you
00:27:27 ◼ ► would not do that, especially because they seem to not be able to stop themselves from adding new features
00:27:32 ◼ ► and all the point releases right now. It's like, I wouldn't be surprised at this point if what people,
00:27:36 ◼ ► end up getting on their phones is 26.2 rather than 26.1. Cause I think it's gotta, it's gotta be
00:27:42 ◼ ► that one when they push the button to 26.2, you think? Yeah. Yeah. I think so. I think so.
00:27:48 ◼ ► Cause it seems like they, to me, at least it feels like if they were going to push the,
00:27:52 ◼ ► and when I say push the button, it's the, you know, we all, I'm expecting the vast majority of
00:27:57 ◼ ► you that listeners of this show go and get the, you know, they go to the system settings and ask for
00:28:04 ◼ ► the update. Right. Um, but there comes a point in the year when Apple will start pushing it to
00:28:11 ◼ ► everybody else. And so the people that have automatic updates, they're going to wake up one day and
00:28:16 ◼ ► their phone's going to be updated and it doesn't appear like that's happened yet. Um, and so if
00:28:22 ◼ ► they've not done it by now, you, I would expect they're waiting for a specific release and it might
00:28:28 ◼ ► be 0.2 because they, they, you know, you can tell me you, obviously you have a much better sense of
00:28:33 ◼ ► this stuff than me. Does it feel like they're adding more features in these point releases than
00:28:38 ◼ ► they would normally? Feels like, especially this early in the cycle. Yeah. Like usually the, the,
00:28:53 ◼ ► so I don't know if, if they have, you know, accelerated or changed timelines or, you know,
00:28:59 ◼ ► just, they had so much that they wanted to be sure, you know, especially since the, the whole
00:29:04 ◼ ► Apple intelligence debacle from, from last year. Well, that's going to come at some point, right?
00:29:08 ◼ ► The 0.4. Like, yeah, that's going to happen at some point. And, um, but, but to go back to what
00:29:23 ◼ ► performance improvements. Because the thing that I hear from people in my real life all the time is,
00:29:31 ◼ ► oh, should I update? Is it going to make my phone run slower? Like that is the question. And if they
00:29:37 ◼ ► can actually flip that and say, actually, this software update is designed to make your phone faster.
00:29:43 ◼ ► I think that is a way beyond emoji to convince people to upgrade. Um, and yeah, I think they
00:29:50 ◼ ► should do it. I think, uh, I honestly, it's been a while. I mean, I've been reviewing iOS for the past
00:29:56 ◼ ► 11 years. Um, I can imagine that there's a lot under the hood that could use like, as like just a whole
00:30:06 ◼ ► bunch of engineers sitting down and be like, okay, how do we, how do we polish all of this? Like, uh,
00:30:13 ◼ ► there must be some old like, like, and in the process, I would imagine they're going to get rid
00:30:17 ◼ ► of some stuff, right? Uh, that's usually what happens. Like, I would imagine that some features
00:30:22 ◼ ► will be deprecated. Oh, if they're doing this, I don't know what. Um, but I would imagine that some,
00:30:28 ◼ ► some things will be, will be turned off or removed, or, you know, they will pick some new
00:30:33 ◼ ► defaults for settings or just, you know, there are so many options and so many sub settings on iOS
00:30:40 ◼ ► today. I would imagine that the, with this kind of focus on overall quality, you would get rid of
00:30:46 ◼ ► some things. Yeah. Move things around, collapse some things into each other. Like, you know,
00:30:57 ◼ ► right? Cause there's just stuff that's just not being used or it's not being used in the way it's
00:31:01 ◼ ► expected to be used. And can they kind of work some stuff, re-architect some stuff, those kinds of
00:31:07 ◼ ► things. But Mark Gurman obviously expects that for Apple intelligence, we should see the improved Siri
00:31:14 ◼ ► before iOS 27 is released, uh, but we'll continue to see more improvements there. Now, so he references
00:31:22 ◼ ► in iOS 27 specifically that there would be some health app features powered by Apple intelligence,
00:31:27 ◼ ► some form of an AI powered web search. And Gurman keeps referencing big AI upgrades, but doesn't really
00:31:36 ◼ ► mention what they are. Um, the, I guess the expectation is there's more to know. Um, he says that the,
00:31:44 ◼ ► he's not expecting them to ship a Siri kind of chat bot app, which I think is a mistake if they,
00:31:49 ◼ ► uh, if they don't do that in my opinion, um, because they're testing one internally, but he's not
00:31:54 ◼ ► expecting that they will ship that. But yeah, I mean, here's my thing. I mean, I says a few places,
00:32:00 ◼ ► I keep saying it. I don't think that we get the Gemini powered Siri before we see iOS 27.
00:32:09 ◼ ► Oh, that's my, that's my, that's my bet. This all just feels like it's coming in too hot.
00:32:14 ◼ ► Like to expect that in March, we're going to get this when it feels like they're still doing the deal.
00:32:21 ◼ ► like, uh, I, it just seems to, I mean, still within the year, right? They said it within the year.
00:32:39 ◼ ► It shouldn't. I mean, it really shouldn't. Uh, but I, I feel like I would say I could see a scenario
00:32:46 ◼ ► in which we do get it just in the Siri voice UI before 27, but then we get it, get it with a Siri chatbot
00:32:59 ◼ ► in the 27 release cycle, not necessarily in September. Uh, but I don't think there's a, I mean,
00:33:07 ◼ ► let's imagine this, right? Let's, let's fast forward to June, 2026. It's, it's going to be how many,
00:33:24 ◼ ► Right. So it's going to be, it's going to be three, almost three, four years since ChatGPT.
00:33:46 ◼ ► I just don't find that possible at this point that they do, they, that they're going to be
00:33:55 ◼ ► on stage and announce a bunch of Apple intelligence features in Safari, in notes, in Apple music,
00:34:01 ◼ ► in health, and they're going to just show off Siri with the usual UI. You ask a question and that's it.
00:34:14 ◼ ► Especially, like, I think the thing that makes it like, it feels especially unlikely to me. Like,
00:34:17 ◼ ► and I understand what Mark's saying, but the fact that they thought it was important enough
00:34:21 ◼ ► to build an internal tool shows that they know. So they've got to get it right. I think my kind
00:34:29 ◼ ► of hesitance is to the overall package, right? Like we might see a better Siri before WWDC,
00:34:38 ◼ ► but I am not convinced we will see personal context or on-screen awareness or app intents. Like
00:34:46 ◼ ► I do not think that all of that ships before iOS 27. Like I think some of these features ship
00:34:52 ◼ ► with iOS 27. Like I just, I, I think that it's, I don't know if they're ever going to ship some
00:35:01 ◼ ► I, I gotta tell you, I gotta tell you, having been really plugged into this whole ecosystem
00:35:09 ◼ ► And being the person that likes to use AI for automation and productivity, which is why I
00:35:21 ◼ ► Right. Using AI with services like Todoist, Notion, Slack, Gmail. If there's a thing that really
00:35:30 ◼ ► confuses and slows down LLMs is when you enable a lot of integrations. And that's partly the
00:35:39 ◼ ► nature of the protocol that they're using, MCP, which now all of the major companies are sort
00:35:46 ◼ ► of trying to fix MCP. But so far, the biggest obstacle has been as users, the fact that when
00:35:54 ◼ ► you enable a lot of connectors, it just confuses the model, slows down the model. Especially
00:36:02 ◼ ► when you have, you know, apps and services that have tools that are similar to each other.
00:36:10 ◼ ► Which one, which one, right? And Apple is saying, no, we're going to, we're going to make
00:36:21 ◼ ► And I mean, unless, unless they made, and look, this is totally possible. Unless they made internally
00:36:26 ◼ ► a major breakthrough in tool calling and how LLMs are supposed to make sense of this branching,
00:36:36 ◼ ► you know, mosaic of integrations. I really don't know how they're going to make it work.
00:36:50 ◼ ► on your phone, you have Apple Notes and Notion. How's that going to work? Like, are you going
00:37:09 ◼ ► the Anthropic and Google and, and, and OpenAI. They're saying, well, look, MCP was nice, but
00:37:16 ◼ ► we have realized that actually it's better if instead of calling these tools with natural
00:37:22 ◼ ► language, it's actually better if we use code. If we just call them using, uh, if the model writes
00:37:35 ◼ ► what is Apple Intelligence on device exactly going to do there? Like, I, I don't know. Honestly,
00:37:42 ◼ ► don't know. Uh, which is why I'm so, uh, I think they have to do it. Here's the thing. I think they
00:37:48 ◼ ► have to do it. First of all, I don't know if they can do it on device, which was their big
00:37:55 ◼ ► thing last year. Like, Oh, we're going to have a model on device. It's going to call all these
00:38:00 ◼ ► up intents and it's going to pull all these contacts from you. Like, okay, sure. I, I can
00:38:06 ◼ ► tell you that I've tested personally on my MacBook pro on my Mac studio, open source models from
00:38:12 ◼ ► China usually that say that they support local tool calling. And I can tell you it's a mess.
00:38:20 ◼ ► And those are big models. Those are like 30 billion parameter models. And they absolutely go nuts when
00:38:26 ◼ ► you try and run a local tool, um, that is not baked into the model. And Apple is saying, well, no,
00:38:32 ◼ ► actually, actually we can do it with a 3 billion model on device. And I'm like, yeah, how? Like I,
00:38:40 ◼ ► it's puzzling to me. Yeah. I heard this on a podcast I was listening to recently. It might
00:38:44 ◼ ► have been the Verge cast and they were talking about this. There's this like growing movement
00:38:49 ◼ ► of like LLMs, it's not intelligence and you can't get intelligence out of it. Like you can't LLMs
00:38:58 ◼ ► will not get us to art of actual artificial intelligence. Like it's just words like, and that's not enough.
00:39:08 ◼ ► Right. And like, I think this is an example of what you're talking about of like just using
00:39:13 ◼ ► words, like the exchange of words is not enough to understand everything you need to understand
00:39:21 ◼ ► quickly enough. Like, it's not like when I use words with you, you can infer all of the context
00:39:28 ◼ ► that's needed. Like we can have a conversation and make, and make sense of it. LLMs can't do that.
00:39:35 ◼ ► If you like that topic, I, it's very technical, but I will recommend a, an episode of the Dwarkesh
00:39:43 ◼ ► podcast. Um, uh, uh, this week came out an, an interview, an in-depth interview with Ilia
00:39:50 ◼ ► Suskiver, uh, uh, that one of the co-founders and a former chief scientist at open AI. And one
00:39:58 ◼ ► of the big takeaways from the interview was that, uh, Ilia thinks that, um, LLMs are not
00:40:12 ◼ ► of research, as he said. And it sort of became a meme like, Oh, we're going back to the age
00:40:17 ◼ ► of research, but that's essentially the takeaway. Like we need to, uh, Ilia, I mean, he's not
00:40:22 ◼ ► an idiot, right? It's quite a, quite a smart guy. And he's saying, yeah, I mean, we probably,
00:40:28 ◼ ► you know, the whole idea being like, we, we can continue scaling these LLMs and throw more
00:40:34 ◼ ► servers and throw more compute power at them, but we're hitting a wall and we got to go back
00:40:40 ◼ ► to new research approaches if we really want to, you know, take the next step. And so they really
00:40:51 ◼ ► was like my thing in the beginning, right? Where it's like, this is just machine learning. Like
00:40:55 ◼ ► that's what this is. It is just really advanced machine learning. I think there's a difference
00:41:01 ◼ ► between being smart and being intelligent. Yes. And this can be, this can be really smart tools,
00:41:08 ◼ ► but very frequently they are not intelligent. Yes. And, and, and to go back to what we were
00:41:16 ◼ ► saying before, Apple went on stage and said, we're going to use an on-device model to orchestrate
00:41:25 ◼ ► all of these apps on your device with all of these possible commands about you. The further
00:41:32 ◼ ► we get from WWDC24, the more insane that feels like what they did. It was like a fever dream
00:41:41 ◼ ► of an announcement. Like it just, it feels like, why did you do this? The, the amount of aggravation
00:41:48 ◼ ► and energy they are going to have to expend as an organization to fix that mistake is unbelievable.
00:41:57 ◼ ► Right. I mean, I, I think it's going to look, I think it's going to happen, but it's not going
00:42:03 ◼ ► to be good though. No, I think realistically, because they are now doing the thing that Apple
00:42:07 ◼ ► never likes to do for themselves is they are forced to a timeline. Yeah. That everyone knows
00:42:13 ◼ ► about. Right. And the, the, the, from my perspective, the most obvious reality is that it's not going
00:42:21 ◼ ► to happen on device like you think it should. Yeah. I think the private cloud compute model. So Gemini
00:42:27 ◼ ► will make sense of your request, will get some kind of encrypted and, you know, personalized sort
00:42:34 ◼ ► of map of all the tools that you have. And it's going to decide which tool to use and everything is
00:42:41 ◼ ► going to run in private cloud compute. So Apple will sell you. There are so many reasons I don't
00:42:45 ◼ ► want that to happen. The local model will execute those commands, but you're gotta, you must, you
00:42:52 ◼ ► must be connected to the internet for the original request to be parsed and, and understood. That's
00:42:58 ◼ ► the thing that I strongly believe. It's just frustrating because like one of the things that I really liked
00:43:02 ◼ ► about what they were pitching, I was like, Oh great. If it's on device, it's like not expending
00:43:06 ◼ ► the energy in a data center. Right. So like I can feel like unshackled from feeling bad. I'm just
00:43:14 ◼ ► using my phone and it's all on here. But if we're now like, I'm sending some graph to the internet every
00:43:20 ◼ ► time, like, and also then it's like, we're taking a step back again because Siri got better when it,
00:43:27 ◼ ► or like, you know, we worked so hard to get these things to be processed on device. And now we need to
00:43:33 ◼ ► go off device. But yeah, I think you're right. Like I don't, I can't see how they're going to do
00:43:37 ◼ ► this without a data center in the middle of it, but that's so not what they set out to try to do.
00:43:43 ◼ ► No. For so many good reasons. I mean, obviously happy to be proven wrong, but once again, like I
00:43:51 ◼ ► said, like I said, 10 minutes ago, maybe they made a major breakthrough internally that we don't know
00:43:55 ◼ ► of. I just don't think that the likelihood of that to me feels so slim. Like no offense to them, but
00:44:02 ◼ ► like, I don't think breakthroughs like this are really found when you have a gun to your head.
00:44:07 ◼ ► Yeah. Like this isn't that this whole situation has not created the kind of good creative
00:44:16 ◼ ► collaborative environment that people want to work in. So yeah. Fascinating to see what 27 is going to
00:44:23 ◼ ► be like. And that's to kind of wrap it around. Maybe, maybe it does end up being a snow leopard year
00:44:27 ◼ ► where on the surface, there's a lot of focus on stability, but underneath a ton of stuff going on
00:44:34 ◼ ► of Apple intelligence. We'll see. Yeah. Maybe the, maybe the snow leopard approach is actually
00:44:37 ◼ ► for the regional enhancement of Apple intelligence. Yes. We really need to make this work. We fixed the
00:44:44 ◼ ► bug of not having this entire set of tools by now having them. Bug fixed. This episode is made
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00:46:29 ◼ ► Considering it is Thanksgiving weekend, I thought, why not talk about some things in the world of technology
00:46:38 ◼ ► that we are thankful for? And we will bring back the old round robin and take this in turns.
00:46:45 ◼ ► Would you like to go first, Federico? Yes. Yes. Let's see. Where should I start? I am thankful for...
00:46:58 ◼ ► I am really loving this phone. It's made me appreciate using the iPhone in a way that wasn't
00:47:10 ◼ ► true for the past few years where things have gotten kind of boring. And whenever I was holding my phone
00:47:15 ◼ ► for too long, I would get pain in my wrists. This phone has... I use it all the time. Like it's become... I no
00:47:22 ◼ ► longer use my iPad to read stuff in bed. This has become the device where I watch TV shows. I read
00:47:28 ◼ ► books. I read articles. I watch YouTube. I... It's such a pleasure to use this device. And sure, I do miss
00:47:37 ◼ ► more freedom with the camera, but I'm living with it. I'm learning to live with it, you know, framing my
00:47:42 ◼ ► shots better, taking different pictures. And, you know, I was given the opportunity if I wanted to, to switch
00:47:50 ◼ ► to a 17 Pro Max, because I also, you know, I have a review unit of that. And no, I, I'm sticking with the
00:47:56 ◼ ► iPhone Air because I, I truly love it so much as a, it's every day when I pick it up, it feels like I'm
00:48:05 ◼ ► holding an object that is not supposed to exist. Uh, and maybe it won't if it's not successful, but I, I enjoy,
00:48:13 ◼ ► I enjoy, I enjoy, I enjoy the fact that for this moment in time, um, um, I'm using Apple's most
00:48:20 ◼ ► futuristic iPhone to date. It's not going to matter to you if they cancel this phone. No. You will move
00:48:26 ◼ ► on to the folding phone. I will move on to the folding one. And also like, uh, no future failure
00:48:33 ◼ ► is going to take away this beautiful moment in time that is happening now. So whatever. I'm thankful
00:48:40 ◼ ► for it now. I'm going to piggyback on that. Cause I also love my iPhone Air, but I, I love it for
00:48:46 ◼ ► some of the things that I get out of it that are specific to having a second device. So I use, um,
00:48:52 ◼ ► my iPhone Air as it has a few purposes for me. You know, one, I do need a device for testing and
00:48:59 ◼ ► screenshots and stuff like that for my work with David and Steven across forward. But also I have
00:49:05 ◼ ► apps and experiences on the iPhone Air that I don't put on my main phone. Like when I'm at home,
00:49:11 ◼ ► my iPhone Air lives in my backpack. And if I need to, if I need it for some work stuff, I'll have to grab
00:49:17 ◼ ► it. Now I, all of the tech space, social media in my life is on that phone. Um, the slacks that I'm in,
00:49:25 ◼ ► it's on that phone. So my personal phone, when I'm not at work, when I'm not at a work computer,
00:49:31 ◼ ► it doesn't, I don't get kind of pulled into those worlds. And, and to me, for me has been a really
00:49:38 ◼ ► helpful, it's been very helpful to have that separation from some parts of my work life when
00:49:45 ◼ ► I don't want to have that. And like to not be drawn into things that I don't want to be drawn into.
00:49:50 ◼ ► So to kind of have that distance a little bit more has been really nice. And it's a project that I
00:49:55 ◼ ► started with the pixel fold, um, which was also to understand a little bit more about kind of like
00:50:00 ◼ ► the usefulness and utility of folding phones in anticipation of 2026. Um, but also the idea of
00:50:07 ◼ ► kind of separating these devices and yeah, I found it to be, I found it to be a real nice pleasure,
00:50:12 ◼ ► like to have this device and having it be an iPhone has been a better experience for me.
00:50:17 ◼ ► Like it's easier for me to be able to get to all the things that I need to get to in the way that I
00:50:21 ◼ ► want to. Um, and then also it's become pretty essential for the work on like Widget Smith and
00:50:26 ◼ ► put on it. So yes, I love it, but I really do love having that distance and of all the phones to have
00:50:33 ◼ ► as a second device, the iPhone air is a real good one. Real good one. Yeah. I am thankful for, uh, and
00:50:40 ◼ ► this is gonna sound maybe a little counterintuitive to some folks who listen to the podcast. I am thankful
00:50:46 ◼ ► for AI based search tools. Okay. Like web search tools inside AI apps, uh, because they're making me a
00:50:55 ◼ ► more curious person. And, um, I can tell you, honestly, I've discovered more blogs and more
00:51:01 ◼ ► websites in the past year, since like web searching in LLMs really took off than ever before. Like, uh,
00:51:08 ◼ ► if it look as the owner of a website that has been scraped over and over by these LLMs, I, I,
00:51:16 ◼ ► I original sin. I know, I know the pain, right? I know, I know, uh, I've learned to accept the current
00:51:24 ◼ ► reality. And I guess what I'm trying to say is that for me, there has been a positive upside in all of
00:51:30 ◼ ► this, which is I've discovered a lot of websites, a lot of blogs that I've then started reading and added
00:51:37 ◼ ► to my RSS feeds because they were quoted in their responses by these LLMs. And in general, I think
00:51:46 ◼ ► I'm now using this approach of like searching Google manually, the old fashioned way, plus
00:51:52 ◼ ► complimenting it with, uh, usually like, uh, uh, Claude or Chagipity. Like, uh, I think, you know,
00:52:00 ◼ ► especially Claude doesn't really have great web search. Um, I feel like Chagipity or perplexity,
00:52:07 ◼ ► you know, since they scraped everything, they also have better web search results, but I think
00:52:13 ◼ ► it's nice to be able to find the humanity in some of these scraped responses. And for me, that has been
00:52:21 ◼ ► finding blogs from people, like people who publish tutorials or even finding new YouTube creators,
00:52:28 ◼ ► right. I was looking up some answer and, and a YouTube video is cited as a source. And I'm like,
00:52:34 ◼ ► Oh, that's like, that's an interesting creator. And, and I've started following a bunch of people like
00:52:38 ◼ ► that. So yeah, it wasn't ideal originally, but now as a user, I'm discovering these people that normally I
00:52:46 ◼ ► wouldn't have discovered. And I think that's a, that's a net positive for me. So I'm thankful that,
00:52:52 ◼ ► that at least I was able to find some positive aspect and some humanity in, in, in all the web
00:52:59 ◼ ► scraping. I mean, I guess that part of it sounds like a somewhat similar to when web searching began
00:53:07 ◼ ► in a way, like I'm sure that there was a lot of concern initially amongst some people that like,
00:53:14 ◼ ► is Google not just going to give the answers and then nobody bothers really. And maybe that wasn't
00:53:19 ◼ ► initially, but over time for sure. Right. As Google just started before even the AI overview,
00:53:24 ◼ ► which is absolutely the worst implementation of AI that I've come across the AI overview.
00:53:30 ◼ ► Like it's, it's fascinating to me. Like I think Google is like undermining their advancements in Gemini
00:53:39 ◼ ► by providing that tool. Cause it is so frequently wrong in a way that I'm convinced Gemini would not be
00:53:47 ◼ ► if I just searched on Gemini. Like I think, I think Google should get rid of the AI overview
00:53:52 ◼ ► overview in Google search. Like I just, I did, I don't think it is helping them as an organization on
00:53:57 ◼ ► a bunch of fronts. Um, but anyway, that's, that's, that's a hill that I would die on. Um, but yeah,
00:54:03 ◼ ► I wonder like, uh, you know, I wonder if this is an experience that most people will have. Um, I assume
00:54:10 ◼ ► people probably won't work like you, but I also figure that people who Google something get one search
00:54:17 ◼ ► result and then that's the end of it. Like I can't imagine that, you know, they're often like
00:54:23 ◼ ► adding these to their RSS reader or whatever anyway, but I guess people aren't getting the clicks.
00:54:28 ◼ ► The monetization issue is a nightmare. We're not going to solve it on this podcast. Um, I will mention
00:54:34 ◼ ► actually, uh, I will mention chat GPT is the thing that I am thankful for in some of the uses that I've
00:54:39 ◼ ► had since becoming a dad. Like there's just so much stuff to try and learn. Um, and there is a ton
00:54:46 ◼ ► of information out there and me getting a good place to be able to kind of like understand milestones
00:54:55 ◼ ► and behaviors has been very helpful. Um, and it's been very helpful to me trying to like
00:55:00 ◼ ► whittle something down to then be able to start doing some work on it. Right? Like this thing has
00:55:07 ◼ ► happened. What could this possibly be? Okay, now I can go and start doing my own research. Um, I've been
00:55:13 ◼ ► finding it really helpful, uh, in that. And, and also in some of some other places in my life, um, like
00:55:18 ◼ ► some of the things that I've been doing for cross forward, I'm like coming across terms and, and I'm on
00:55:23 ◼ ► meetings with people. They're saying things that I don't understand. And like being able to kind of
00:55:26 ◼ ► have these ongoing conversations with chat GPT that are like, okay, so what does this term mean? What
00:55:31 ◼ ► does that term mean? And it given me that kind of rounded knowledge has been helpful. And then similar,
00:55:36 ◼ ► I mentioned this before, but like one of the reasons that I was happy to start blogging again
00:55:42 ◼ ► is because I, there are so many tools now, including chat GPT that can help me with my grammar and
00:55:48 ◼ ► punctuation. Cause it's just not a thing that I feel very confident in. Um, and so it gives me the
00:55:53 ◼ ► confidence to feel, uh, like I can, like I can publish things on the internet and not have people,
00:56:00 ◼ ► uh, uh, either a being very nice and correct to me about things or be making fun of me,
00:56:11 ◼ ► Yeah. Not me. Yeah, sure. I'm going to follow that up with, I'm thankful for Claude, which is my LLM of
00:56:21 ◼ ► choice. And it's, it's allowing me and John to, you know, we're a small team. Um, and, and we do a lot
00:56:28 ◼ ► of things. We have a lot of responsibilities and I feel like I speak for John too, when I say that,
00:56:34 ◼ ► um, we like Claude, um, because of the focus on, on productivity and it's sort of allowing us to,
00:56:42 ◼ ► to work faster and retain our, our creativity. Like we still like to write all of our articles,
00:56:51 ◼ ► the old fashioned way. Um, but it's amplifying the effect of the other things that we're supposed
00:56:57 ◼ ► to do. The administrative stuff that, you know, I think, I, I think I'm becoming a better business
00:57:04 ◼ ► person because of it, like making sense of stats and, and numbers in a way stuff and like, and have
00:57:12 ◼ ► conversations and, and take the amount of time that you would necessarily wouldn't get from,
00:57:21 ◼ ► Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so just the other day, like I, I, I, uh, exported like a full database,
00:57:30 ◼ ► um, uh, of all our analytics for the past year and a half. And it was like 300 megabytes of CSV files
00:57:40 ◼ ► and a bunch of stuff like that. And, and, uh, first of all, I used a script that John created
00:57:46 ◼ ► with Claude to split up the CSV into smaller files because you have a file size upload limit in Claude.
00:57:55 ◼ ► Um, so I split them up in a bunch of files and then I asked Claude like, okay, this is a full dump of
00:58:02 ◼ ► our analytics for the past 18 months. Uh, I need you to make sense of it and to visualize it in a nice
00:58:08 ◼ ► way. And you got to find trends, patterns, interesting things about our audience, countries, time of day,
00:58:15 ◼ ► day of the week, like everything. And it created this incredible dashboard for me with real data,
00:58:21 ◼ ► right? Uh, because everything is based on the files and it's been like an eyeopening experience,
00:58:27 ◼ ► not just in what AI can do, but in what AI can do when, when it works with you with real data,
00:58:32 ◼ ► no hallucinations and just, you know, I don't know. I keep thinking of this idea of like,
00:58:39 ◼ ► it's, it's amplifying the things I do. It's not replacing me, but it's me, it's giving me like
00:58:45 ◼ ► a collection of small superpowers throughout the week. That's how I think of it. And so you think
00:58:51 ◼ ► of ChatGPT for your, you know, for your family life or for parenting. And I think of Claude for
00:58:55 ◼ ► productivity, but we're basically saying the same thing. Uh, I wanted to mention the athletic app,
00:59:01 ◼ ► which I've been talking about a bunch, um, which does such a great job of pulling in so much health
00:59:09 ◼ ► data for me and making sense of it. And they keep adding new features that I like. Um, like they just
00:59:14 ◼ ► added some, there's really enhanced their step stuff. So like being able to look at the steps that
00:59:18 ◼ ► I'm taking, look at my average heart rate per step and all that kind of stuff. And like while I'm
00:59:23 ◼ ► walking, I just, if Apple don't make something kind of close to this, I don't know what they're doing
00:59:29 ◼ ► over there. You know, like they have all this data and all this information. Um, and then this small
00:59:34 ◼ ► team at athletic is just crushing it. Like, yeah, it's fantastic. Like I'd been using whoop for a long
00:59:41 ◼ ► time and I'm, I've canceled my whoop subscription and that's the end of that. Like this is so much
00:59:46 ◼ ► better and I don't have to wear a second thing. Nice. I will mention these two together, the Aeon Thor
00:59:52 ◼ ► and SteamOS. Okay. Um, the Aeon Thor, it's a, it's a, what if the 3DS, but launched this year and
01:00:01 ◼ ► running Android? Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's a handheld. It's a dual screen handheld by this company
01:00:06 ◼ ► called AYN. Um, we spoke about it on MPC, uh, with John and Brandon a lot. It's so far my handheld of
01:00:15 ◼ ► the year. And, uh, the thing is I don't necessarily use it for dual screen emulation of DS and 3DS.
01:00:21 ◼ ► I mostly use it to play PC games on Android, uh, through this emulation layer called Game Hub.
01:00:29 ◼ ► There's a lot of movement happening on that front of like emulating Windows games on Android. Uh,
01:00:35 ◼ ► Valve itself is going to do it, uh, next year with the Steam Frame, a VR headset. Um, and I've been
01:00:42 ◼ ► using the Aeon Thor as essentially a more portable, pocketable, uh, inherently more easier to carry
01:00:48 ◼ ► around because it's a clamshell Steam Deck. It's basically a Steam Deck emulator in such a portable
01:00:56 ◼ ► and cute device. And it's perfect for indie games, indie games like Ball Pit or Ballotro or, or, you know,
01:01:04 ◼ ► just, uh, 2D RPGs, for example, uh, stuff that is not really graphically demanding. You can just emulate
01:01:12 ◼ ► on Android these days with these devices and the Aeon Thor, uh, I, I, I love it because I, I, I've been
01:01:20 ◼ ► carrying around this device everywhere with me, like even in my jacket pocket, like you can throw it in a
01:01:25 ◼ ► bag, put it in a backpack. It's a clamshell, so it's protected by itself. I love it so much and it's not
01:01:31 ◼ ► perfect. It could be more ergonomic. Um, you know, there've been some issues with the speakers, but nothing is
01:01:37 ◼ ► perfect in this, in this, uh, handled scene. Especially the prices that these products sell at.
01:01:43 ◼ ► Like they're so cheap relatively. Yeah. Um, that they're, the, the imperfections is actually an
01:01:49 ◼ ► important part of the pricing process. Uh, these things aren't built with the same rigor that an
01:01:55 ◼ ► Android phone will be, but they're as powerful inside. Yeah. So this one is good. I'll mention a gaming
01:02:01 ◼ ► device, the Nintendo Switch 2. Love my Switch 2. Um, it's been a good steady stream of games for the
01:02:07 ◼ ► Switch 2. Uh, and the hardware is wonderful. Um, and it's just really nice to have, to be able to play
01:02:14 ◼ ► these games that I love from Nintendo at last gen graphics. But like, it's good though. Like I like
01:02:22 ◼ ► being able to play games that look good and feel good and run great. Like that is just a treat. Um,
01:02:27 ◼ ► and, uh, I, I do really like the hardware. Uh, I wish there were more accessories like to make it more
01:02:34 ◼ ► feel ergonomically better for me. I did get the, uh, D brand, not the kill switch, but just the Joy-Con
01:02:41 ◼ ► holders, the Joy-Con holders, the Joy-Lock or whatever it's called. And that is, that's been made my
01:02:47 ◼ ► experience much nicer. I recommend that to people. Um, it's possible to just buy just the, the,
01:02:55 ◼ ► the kind of grips of the Joy-Cons and it works great. And then you don't have to do all the
01:02:59 ◼ ► nonsense that they want you to do with the like external dock thing that they've got. Um, so yeah,
01:03:05 ◼ ► I'm a, I'm a big fan of that. I am thankful for Notion, the popular note-taking app. Um, it's, it's,
01:03:16 ◼ ► it's, it's not necessarily because it's integrated with AI. I can use it from Claude. I can use it from,
01:03:29 ◼ ► I love the idea of modular software. I love the idea of modularity in general as a person. I mean,
01:03:38 ◼ ► you know me, I love my iPad because of the accessories. I love portable devices because of how
01:03:48 ◼ ► the digital equivalent of Lego. You can build so many things and so many different things. And, um,
01:03:54 ◼ ► this has been the year that I've gone really all in on Notion. And then we went all in on Notion as a
01:04:00 ◼ ► team, um, at Mac stories. And it's, again, it's a, it's amplifying the things we do. It's accelerating
01:04:07 ◼ ► the things we do. Yeah. I have a database with John. I have a database with my web developer and we can
01:04:12 ◼ ► keep track of, of each other's responsibilities, but also I have my own space. Uh, it's where I sync
01:04:18 ◼ ► my highlights from my read later app. It's where I write my articles and then I export my articles
01:04:29 ◼ ► it's fun to work with it. It's, it's, it can be fun to a fault. Uh, but I've tried my best not to
01:04:35 ◼ ► become one of those people that just tinkers with Notion. Um, uh, you know, forever I get work done
01:04:42 ◼ ► in Notion and, and I have become the kind of person that religiously, um, takes daily notes and then
01:04:50 ◼ ► reviews his daily notes. And I've been doing that for well over six months at this point. Um, and yeah,
01:04:58 ◼ ► it's, uh, it's, uh, I also know a whole bunch of people that work at Notion and, and I don't know,
01:05:03 ◼ ► it just, they give me the sort of vibe of people that care about making great software, uh, without
01:05:10 ◼ ► being scammy or, or, um, you know, what is the word that I'm thinking of? Um, that's, there's another
01:05:21 ◼ ► adjective, adjective that, that, you know, without hyping Notion too much. They care. They just want
01:05:28 ◼ ► to make it great. And you know, yeah, Notion is pretty great and, and it keeps getting better.
01:05:35 ◼ ► And there's the old AI, Notion AI discussion, but a lot of people don't like that. I personally do,
01:05:41 ◼ ► but, you know, just in general as a note taking app, as a space to save documents and collaborate,
01:05:46 ◼ ► it's pretty great. Yeah. Uh, I want to talk about the iPhone camera system. Um, so I, I love the iPhone
01:05:53 ◼ ► camera on my, uh, 17 pro. I think it's really nice. Uh, I think they've done a pretty good job overall.
01:05:59 ◼ ► Um, and like, I, I think it's great that we live in a time where I can take such incredible photos
01:06:07 ◼ ► of my family, like just with the thing that I have in my pocket. Like it's, you know, like with many
01:06:12 ◼ ► people who've become parents, I've come to appreciate just how good that is. Uh, but also I wanted to give
01:06:17 ◼ ► a shout out to continuity camera. Um, I use continuity camera on my, on my Mac, like the one that I'm
01:06:23 ◼ ► recording on now, like whenever I do video calls or video podcasts and stuff like that. Um, and it works
01:06:28 ◼ ► so good. Like it's not perfect. Like sometimes I have to unplug and replug, but it's, it works
01:06:35 ◼ ► shockingly well at incredible quality for what is going on. Now I do use it wired like, because I want to get
01:06:42 ◼ ► the best I can get out of it. Um, but it's, that's, that is a fantastic, um, uh, piece of software continuity
01:06:49 ◼ ► camera. Uh, it works, it works really great. And I'm able to use, I have an iPhone 15 pro max that I use as my
01:06:56 ◼ ► webcam and it is, uh, essentially flawless. Nice. Uh, my last one is going to be drafts,
01:07:04 ◼ ► the also note taking app, uh, by Greg Pierce on iOS, iPadOS and macOS. Um, this has also been the year
01:07:14 ◼ ► that I've gone all in on using drafts, uh, and using drafts for what it's supposed to be, which is,
01:07:19 ◼ ► you know, what's the whole thing, like where text starts. Uh, that's how I've been using drafts,
01:07:26 ◼ ► um, this year. And, um, it's become the place, the, the, the app that I open every time I have an
01:07:32 ◼ ► idea, I open drafts and, you know, run an action that I vibe coded with Claude to save it to my daily
01:07:40 ◼ ► note in Notion. Uh, but it's also a destination in the sense that when I'm done writing a draft of a
01:07:45 ◼ ► story in Notion, then I export it to drafts using another script that I created with Claude.
01:07:53 ◼ ► And, and drafts is the place where I put all the finishing touches, like all the markdown editing.
01:07:58 ◼ ► This is exactly how I did the entire iOS 26 review this year. It was entirely written in Notion, uh,
01:08:05 ◼ ► and then exported at the very end as markdown in drafts, where I put all the final plain text
01:08:12 ◼ ► finishing touches. But yeah, the freedom, um, there's, there's a common thread, I think between
01:08:17 ◼ ► Claude and Notion and drafts, uh, the idea of, uh, productivity software that is highly customizable.
01:08:25 ◼ ► Like that I realized is like my thing. Customization has always been my thing, but I, you know, especially
01:08:32 ◼ ► usually for video games before. And then I realized with the iPad hardware, I really liked customization
01:08:38 ◼ ► too, like, you know, customizing the iPad with accessories and all those things. But this year
01:08:43 ◼ ► I realized how customization can be a thing in productivity software as well. Like, um, the
01:08:48 ◼ ► combination of Claude, Notion, drafts, shortcuts, like all these things coming together to essentially
01:08:55 ◼ ► helping me create my own things, my own, my own commands, my own workflows. Um, I guess it was
01:09:04 ◼ ► always a thing for me automation, but now that I can be helped by these AI tools and now that these web
01:09:11 ◼ ► services like Notion can communicate with apps on my phone, you know, like drafts, for example, or Claude
01:09:18 ◼ ► because of an API, it's all coming together beautifully for me. Uh, where, um, I, I don't know. I, I feel like
01:09:26 ◼ ► drafts is a great example of take something simple and it can stay simple if you want to, right? That's
01:09:33 ◼ ► how many people use drafts. It's just a, just a plain text field. But if you want to, you can make
01:09:39 ◼ ► it so complex and it, and it can become like this really powerful text editor that can help you deal
01:09:46 ◼ ► with a 30,000 word review comprised of multiple chapters and pages in drafts. And so, yeah, uh,
01:09:54 ◼ ► Greg Pierce, you know, also a great guy and has been working on this for what, 12, 13 years at this
01:10:03 ◼ ► point. Um, yes, drafts is really, really, really, really good. Uh, and I'll finish up by, uh, saying if you
01:10:12 ◼ ► have an iPad mini lying around, super good for a nursery device for white noise. Um, and for us,
01:10:21 ◼ ► at least initially in the, uh, early months of our daughter's life, when we were just sitting in the
01:10:27 ◼ ► nursery or she was sleeping on us, it was good for watching TV. But in general, like white noise stuff
01:10:32 ◼ ► is super good on iPhones. Like we try to, to find devices like physical devices to do it. And they're
01:10:39 ◼ ► just really unhappy with the quality and the options that were available. Um, and realistically an old
01:10:48 ◼ ► iOS device is the way to go. Um, and I tried a bunch of things. Honestly, the thing that I landed on was
01:10:53 ◼ ► just Widgetsmith. Widgetsmith has really good like background sounds in it. And, um, I like, I think
01:10:58 ◼ ► brown noise is kind of the best sound that to, to annoy the fewest people. Um, and it works really
01:11:05 ◼ ► well for us and it's obviously available on all our devices. So that's what I've been using.
01:11:09 ◼ ► It's got a little widget of my daughter's sleeping face and we press it and the white noise begins.
01:11:14 ◼ ► Uh, so, but yeah, just in general, like it's just a helpful thing to have, you know, we've got all of
01:11:19 ◼ ► the, uh, the baby tracking stuff on it, like in the apps that we use like Mango, which is an app that
01:11:24 ◼ ► I've recommended in the past. Um, using a, like that device has been, has been super helpful for us.
01:11:30 ◼ ► So very, very happy to, to have been able to repurpose it. I guess I got just a sub thing
01:11:36 ◼ ► for me, reusing old, uh, iOS devices. I've had iOS devices. This is super good. Like finding places
01:11:42 ◼ ► in your life where these things can be used instead of, um, like, you know, if you don't have anyone to,
01:11:48 ◼ ► to pass them down to, or you didn't trade them in or whatever, like these are, it's good to have
01:11:53 ◼ ► these, uh, devices and use them for different things. Yep. Uh, but of course, most of all, we're thankful
01:11:59 ◼ ► for you for listening. Um, so thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of Connected. Uh, if you'd
01:12:05 ◼ ► like to find us online, there's a few places that you can do that. Uh, Federico is the editor-in-chief
01:12:10 ◼ ► of maxstories.net, uh, and you can find him on various social medias as well. Uh, you can find me at
01:12:17 ◼ ► theenthusiast.net and at cortexbrown.com. When you're hearing this, um, it provided us before
01:12:22 ◼ ► the end of Cyber Monday, uh, we're doing a 20% off sale or Cortex brand right now. It's our first sale.
01:12:28 ◼ ► So I'm intrigued to see how that's going to go. Um, I would like to thank our sponsors of this episode,
01:12:33 ◼ ► KRCS and Ecamm. Uh, I'll speak for Steven and say that he is also thankful for you, even though he's
01:12:39 ◼ ► not here. Then please do not take Steven's absence as him not being thankful for you, the listener.