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713: I Have Medium Hopes

 

00:00:00 ◼   ► So with that in mind, I think we're going to issue iskew no let

00:00:04 ◼   ► me reboot that because I realized I don't know how to pronounce that properly.

00:00:07 ◼   ► Oh you got it right the first time.

00:00:10 ◼   ► No, you had it.

00:00:11 ◼   ► Nope.

00:00:11 ◼   ► We're gonna try it again and few because I just need to do that.

00:00:14 ◼   ► So Marco You can just pick a different word too.

00:00:16 ◼   ► No, that no, we're gonna reboot it, but I need to swear so east

00:00:19 ◼   ► chew follow up.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Yes, chew.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Uh I needed to swear so Marco wouldn't use it.

00:00:23 ◼   ► All right.

00:00:24 ◼   ► Then then that's not a challenge.

00:00:25 ◼   ► Not a challenge.

00:00:26 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:00:26 ◼   ► Not a challenge.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Curse.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Yeah, that's true.

00:00:32 ◼   ► Not a challenge.

00:00:33 ◼   ► All right, let me reboot that whole damn thing.

00:00:35 ◼   ► Hello and goodbye, future marker.

00:00:36 ◼   ► I'm totally using that.

00:00:39 ◼   ► Alright, with that in mind, we we are going to issue follow up for

00:00:43 ◼   ► this episode.

00:00:44 ◼   ► Uh we will keep it askew if you will.

00:00:46 ◼   ► Ha ha.

00:00:47 ◼   ► Uh, but we're gonna go straight into the not event event and we're gonna

00:00:50 ◼   ► talk about Apple's new home products.

00:00:52 ◼   ► And uh we're gonna start with Homeview, which is a name that doesn't offend

00:00:58 ◼   ► me but doesn't really rev my engine either.

00:00:59 ◼   ► What do we think about the name?

00:01:01 ◼   ► Uh it was like home home pod with uh with screen is what we've

00:01:04 ◼   ► been calling it for years, right?

00:01:05 ◼   ► Because that the rumors from years and years ago, it's like a home pod,

00:01:09 ◼   ► but it has a screen and you know, that's this distinguishing characteristic.

00:01:12 ◼   ► As the date approached to like when you know this was supposedly gonna be

00:01:16 ◼   ► announced, I started to see more people saying home pad.

00:01:20 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:01:21 ◼   ► Which makes some amount of sense.

00:01:23 ◼   ► But if you're like, they would never call it HomePad because they already have

00:01:27 ◼   ► HomePod and who would make two products with such confusingly similar names?

00:01:31 ◼   ► Well, if you're new to Apple, they used to have a product call the

00:01:35 ◼   ► iPod.

00:01:36 ◼   ► And then at some point in the future they were gonna make a tablet.

00:01:39 ◼   ► And everyone's like, what are they gonna call the tablet?

00:01:41 ◼   ► The iSlate?

00:01:43 ◼   ► Certainly they're not gonna call it iPad.

00:01:45 ◼   ► Uh they called it iPad.

00:01:47 ◼   ► So they made the iPod and they made the iPad.

00:01:50 ◼   ► They made the home pod.

00:01:51 ◼   ► They did not make the home pad.

00:01:53 ◼   ► Uh they called it home view, which you know it's got a screen, so

00:01:57 ◼   ► you view it.

00:01:58 ◼   ► Makes sense.

00:01:59 ◼   ► Uh Apple's really not uh, you know, if you think you know what Apple's

00:02:03 ◼   ► gonna do with names, they usually zig when you think they're gonna zag.

00:02:07 ◼   ► I think HomeView is better than HomePad, but it's not a great name.

00:02:11 ◼   ► I think the one of the challenges with HomeView is that it doesn't have

00:02:17 ◼   ► any unique or interesting words.

00:02:20 ◼   ► Like Apple's product strategy for product naming strategy for a long time has been

00:02:25 ◼   ► just putting Apple in front of a generic word.

00:02:27 ◼   ► Apple TV.

00:02:28 ◼   ► Apple Watch.

00:02:29 ◼   ► Apple music.

00:02:30 ◼   ► Right.

00:02:30 ◼   ► Apple Music.

00:02:31 ◼   ► You know, Apple was the brand but these were all like pretty boringly named.

00:02:35 ◼   ► And they for a little while could have like a little bit more of

00:02:40 ◼   ► like a trademark unique name.

00:02:42 ◼   ► iPhone.

00:02:43 ◼   ► You know, like b I mean, obviously back when everything was i something, like

00:02:45 ◼   ► y those all kind of had those.

00:02:46 ◼   ► You know, iPod and that led to HomePod.

00:02:49 ◼   ► We still like still using pod as like the you know, the unique Apple

00:02:52 ◼   ► version of this.

00:02:53 ◼   ► It's like generic word, but pod.

00:02:55 ◼   ► So you know that helped.

00:02:56 ◼   ► iPad, you know, again, like the pad was kind of and the i mean,

00:02:59 ◼   ► both of those.

00:02:59 ◼   ► But I feel like HomeView, it's like no part of this name is interesting

00:03:04 ◼   ► or unique to Apple.

00:03:05 ◼   ► It's just like when you're filing a trademark, uh forgive me, I'm not a

00:03:10 ◼   ► trademark lawyer, but I filed a bunch of them and so I know that

00:03:12 ◼   ► the gist of it basically is like if it's too too if you're if

00:03:15 ◼   ► what you're filing is too descriptive and not like unique enough, if it just

00:03:21 ◼   ► describes what the product is, you generally can't get a strong trademark on it

00:03:26 ◼   ► or even maybe maybe any trademark on it.

00:03:27 ◼   ► Um and I feel like home view is like it's Almost that boring.

00:03:31 ◼   ► Like it's not quite to that to that level.

00:03:33 ◼   ► Like I'm sure they got I'm sure they secured the trademark, but it's just

00:03:37 ◼   ► describing with two boring words glued together what this is.

00:03:42 ◼   ► Like, okay, it's fine.

00:03:44 ◼   ► I I do wish there was a little bit more personality in the name,

00:03:48 ◼   ► but what the hell?

00:03:49 ◼   ► It's it's not a bad name.

00:03:51 ◼   ► It's a name that we, even as tet as Apple nerds, are going to

00:03:56 ◼   ► almost immediately have trouble remembering and civilians aren't gonna stand a chance.

00:04:01 ◼   ► Ask anyone who's not an Apple nerd what this product is called in six

00:04:04 ◼   ► months.

00:04:05 ◼   ► Nobody will know, I guarantee it.

00:04:06 ◼   ► That's the interesting thing about Home Pod, because like Pod exists because of the

00:04:11 ◼   ► iPod and the iPod was very popular at the time and people latched onto

00:04:15 ◼   ► it pretty well.

00:04:16 ◼   ► And I feel like the only reason HomePod makes any kind of sense with

00:04:20 ◼   ► consumers is because the iPod existed and they're like, Yeah, whatever, Apple makes pods.

00:04:25 ◼   ► And you know, I I wonder how many people call the home pod an

00:04:28 ◼   ► iPod just because, you know, pod is in the name.

00:04:30 ◼   ► But practically speaking, what is pod about the home pod?

00:04:35 ◼   ► It is is it pod shaped?

00:04:37 ◼   ► I mean, like a lot of things Apple makes are arguably pod shaped.

00:04:41 ◼   ► What is a pod shape?

00:04:42 ◼   ► And it's a home pod?

00:04:44 ◼   ► I mean it doesn't even have anything having to do with sound in there.

00:04:46 ◼   ► Like it is a big speaker, but there's to do with audio sound.

00:04:50 ◼   ► Like nothing in that vein is in there.

00:04:52 ◼   ► It's like they said, we made the iPod, people know we made the iPod.

00:04:55 ◼   ► It was really popular.

00:04:56 ◼   ► Stick home in front of that.

00:04:57 ◼   ► We're done.

00:04:57 ◼   ► At least this one says view and home.

00:05:00 ◼   ► So it's like a thing for your home and you look at it, which

00:05:03 ◼   ► okay.

00:05:04 ◼   ► But I I do think it actually makes more sense than home pod, but

00:05:07 ◼   ► it is a worse name for the reasons you just said, Marco, is like

00:05:10 ◼   ► home is not a thing that Apple owns in any particular way.

00:05:12 ◼   ► And View is definitely not a thing that Apple owns.

00:05:14 ◼   ► So when you stick them together, it doesn't really say Apple.

00:05:17 ◼   ► But like all these names, like I hated MacBook and still don't really particularly

00:05:20 ◼   ► like it.

00:05:21 ◼   ► But eventually you just get used to it.

00:05:22 ◼   ► Even iPad was uh ridiculed when it first came out because people were so

00:05:25 ◼   ► attached with slate and all their other rumors that were going around that that

00:05:28 ◼   ► when they called it pad everyone's like ug but you just get used to

00:05:31 ◼   ► it.

00:05:31 ◼   ► You do, but like I I do kind of I hope that Apple starts

00:05:35 ◼   ► adding more terms that it kind of say Apple.

00:05:38 ◼   ► Like they kind of I think Neo and Duo are small steps in that

00:05:43 ◼   ► direction.

00:05:43 ◼   ► Not like you know, they're not super strong 'cause they're not super unique.

00:05:47 ◼   ► Neo, I think better than Duo.

00:05:49 ◼   ► Well I mean duo is is it's got two screens, so it makes perfect

00:05:52 ◼   ► sense.

00:05:52 ◼   ► And Neo, I cause it's new?

00:05:54 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:05:55 ◼   ► Yeah, I I think again, I think Neo is a better step in that

00:05:57 ◼   ► direction.

00:05:58 ◼   ► Duo is a step in that direction.

00:06:00 ◼   ► So maybe this is just like a boring name product That we know hopeful

00:06:03 ◼   ► hopefully this is the anomaly.

00:06:04 ◼   ► But hopefully new products get like a little more interesting names.

00:06:09 ◼   ► Either way, um we should talk about what the heck this is.

00:06:12 ◼   ► So this is a $300, which I'm gonna come back to that in a

00:06:16 ◼   ► second.

00:06:16 ◼   ► A $300 A three hundred dollar thing that vaguely looks like the w how

00:06:21 ◼   ► would you describe that I Mac John?

00:06:23 ◼   ► The one that ha that was on like a cantilever.

00:06:25 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, the the I Mac G four and all the rumors, all the

00:06:27 ◼   ► rumored uh this product's been rumored for so long.

00:06:30 ◼   ► Supposedly the hardware has been done for so long.

00:06:32 ◼   ► Um, but it didn't actually this hardware didn't actually leak like picture wise.

00:06:36 ◼   ► It everyone knew, oh, it's a square screen, it's got a dome on top,

00:06:39 ◼   ► like it looks like the the iMac G four when you say I Mac

00:06:41 ◼   ► I Mac G four, people don't know what the hell was the G four

00:06:43 ◼   ► it's the one with the arm and the flat screen was on an adjustable

00:06:47 ◼   ► arm and the base of it was a hemisphere, right?

00:06:50 ◼   ► And it sat on the desk.

00:06:51 ◼   ► And so every single like fake rendering based on text rumor descriptions, they're like,

00:06:56 ◼   ► okay I can draw a square screen, I bet it's gonna have rounded corners.

00:06:59 ◼   ► I'm gonna put it on a little arm and I'm gonna put it on

00:07:02 ◼   ► a hemispherical base.

00:07:04 ◼   ► Because you know, all the rumors were like, oh, it's kinda like that that

00:07:07 ◼   ► flat screen iMac that had the thing on the arm.

00:07:09 ◼   ► Uh every drawing I saw of this, every rendering, every everything looked like that.

00:07:13 ◼   ► That's not what the product looks like.

00:07:16 ◼   ► The product looks like that sitting on top of a cylinder.

00:07:20 ◼   ► Yeah, and I would almost say, and and I say this, I say this

00:07:23 ◼   ► not as an insult.

00:07:25 ◼   ► It looks like what an AI rendering of an imagined Apple product would look

00:07:29 ◼   ► like.

00:07:30 ◼   ► Like in the sense that like it just looks kind of like modern Apple

00:07:34 ◼   ► kind of low priority product, you know?

00:07:38 ◼   ► And I think it looks decent.

00:07:39 ◼   ► Like I s you know from at least from from the pictures and from

00:07:41 ◼   ► the couple of reviews that I saw, like couple of video reviews I saw,

00:07:43 ◼   ► or you know, video captures from the the hands-on stuff.

00:07:46 ◼   ► It looks decent.

00:07:47 ◼   ► It looks nice.

00:07:48 ◼   ► And I think it's what it needs to look like because as we'll get

00:07:51 ◼   ► to in a second, like there's two versions.

00:07:53 ◼   ► There's one with the base and there's one that just wall mounts.

00:07:56 ◼   ► And again this is this has all been rumored for a while, so we're

00:07:58 ◼   ► kind of not too surprised.

00:08:00 ◼   ► Um but I you know the wall mount one, you want that to be

00:08:05 ◼   ► as minimal as possible and I think it is.

00:08:07 ◼   ► And the base seems like it's, you know, to put on your counter or

00:08:11 ◼   ► whatever.

00:08:12 ◼   ► And it looks good for that.

00:08:13 ◼   ► It looks like it's gonna be, you know, it's proportionally, it looks like it's

00:08:16 ◼   ► gonna be stable and nice and heavy with that big base woofer on the

00:08:18 ◼   ► bottom.

00:08:19 ◼   ► Um, I think it's gonna look nice and normal on a countertop or on

00:08:23 ◼   ► a side table or something.

00:08:25 ◼   ► So I I think it is a successful design, if not a little unsurprising,

00:08:30 ◼   ► but it's only unsurprising because we expect Apple products to look good and made

00:08:36 ◼   ► out of silver, space gray, pink, and beige aluminum and have holes in them

00:08:40 ◼   ► for sound to come out of.

00:08:41 ◼   ► And like that's exactly what it looks like.

00:08:43 ◼   ► Well here's the thing that surprised me.

00:08:45 ◼   ► Maybe it's because I s seen so many of those images for so long.

00:08:48 ◼   ► I was really, really surprised at how tall and uh skinny the base was.

00:08:52 ◼   ► The fact that it wasn't a hemisphere, the fact that it is essentially an

00:08:55 ◼   ► R2D2 or a top of a rounded trash can, it is a cylinder with

00:08:58 ◼   ► a hemisphere stuck on it.

00:09:00 ◼   ► And it is way taller than I thought it would be.

00:09:02 ◼   ► Now looking at the product, I'm like, okay, it doesn't actually have an like

00:09:06 ◼   ► an arm, adjustable arm like the the the flat panel IMAC did.

00:09:10 ◼   ► It instead has a basically a solid piece of metal that hinges up and

00:09:15 ◼   ► down in one dimension, as far as I can tell.

00:09:18 ◼   ► So it's not an arm, because the arm had like uh the arm had

00:09:20 ◼   ► like joints on both ends and you could, you know, move around.

00:09:23 ◼   ► This is not that.

00:09:23 ◼   ► And remember, there's rumors surrounding this product as well about a version of this

00:09:27 ◼   ► with a robotic arm or that rotates by itself to face people and so

00:09:30 ◼   ► on and so forth.

00:09:31 ◼   ► That's not this product, but you can see how a product like that could

00:09:35 ◼   ► be made from these pieces, differently assembled with a different kind of arm and

00:09:39 ◼   ► so on and so forth.

00:09:40 ◼   ► Um the base is tall, like again, when I look at the product, like,

00:09:43 ◼   ► okay, I see why it's tall now.

00:09:44 ◼   ► Because when you look at it from the front, you don't want the square

00:09:46 ◼   ► screen to be like touching the table.

00:09:48 ◼   ► You want it to be elevated a little bit.

00:09:50 ◼   ► Um, so you have the the stand has to be taller, you know otherwise

00:09:55 ◼   ► you like to try to slowly increase the height of a hemisphere, you end

00:09:58 ◼   ► up having to increase the base by a lot.

00:10:00 ◼   ► Uh there's probably some ratio for those two things that you could figure out.

00:10:03 ◼   ► Anyway, um so it ends it's so it's an R2D2 head.

00:10:07 ◼   ► It's a half of R2 D2 with the screen sticking out of it.

00:10:10 ◼   ► And it looks a little bit more ungainly from the back and the sides

00:10:12 ◼   ► than all the the renderings did.

00:10:14 ◼   ► And the arm is less an arm and more of just like this is

00:10:17 ◼   ► how the thing attaches.

00:10:18 ◼   ► But uh in the end, like you said, Marco, it does look like an

00:10:20 ◼   ► Apple product.

00:10:21 ◼   ► And the rumors about this one are wild.

00:10:23 ◼   ► I can't wait until people start getting these things because like the rumor is

00:10:26 ◼   ► that this thing was done so long ago.

00:10:28 ◼   ► Uh and let's rewind slightly to the first thing Casey said.

00:10:32 ◼   ► $300.

00:10:33 ◼   ► I have to admit, that is way less than I thought this thing would

00:10:36 ◼   ► cost.

00:10:36 ◼   ► And we'll not agree more.

00:10:37 ◼   ► Could not agree.

00:10:38 ◼   ► We'll get to pricing stuff in a little bit.

00:10:39 ◼   ► But I look at it and I'm like, is this $300 because they built

00:10:43 ◼   ► them all in 2024?

00:10:46 ◼   ► When things were cheap, you know what I mean?

00:10:47 ◼   ► When RAM was cheap, when the like when every aspect of this was cheaper

00:10:50 ◼   ► is that why it's $300?

00:10:52 ◼   ► Because they built literally like millions of them and they're sitting in a warehouse

00:10:56 ◼   ► waiting for, you know, uh iOS 27.2 to finally be out?

00:11:00 ◼   ► I don't know, but why?

00:11:01 ◼   ► This is like the bargain of the century if you consider that this thing

00:11:05 ◼   ► includes a screen and has well we'll get to the the specs in a

00:11:08 ◼   ► second, but like it's got a lot of metal, it's got a lot of

00:11:11 ◼   ► pieces.

00:11:11 ◼   ► It does like it's just mind-bogglingly inexpensive.

00:11:15 ◼   ► I haven't heard anyone complain about the price of this thing.

00:11:17 ◼   ► Well I I think one thing that helps the price angle a lot is

00:11:20 ◼   ► like what is expensive right now.

00:11:23 ◼   ► It's not metal and speakers, it's not even screens.

00:11:26 ◼   ► What's expensive right now is high end chips.

00:11:29 ◼   ► And this doesn't really appear to have any of those in it.

00:11:32 ◼   ► It's five nanometer, right?

00:11:34 ◼   ► Like uh maybe.

00:11:34 ◼   ► But like it's i isn't it just an A eighteen?

00:11:36 ◼   ► Like it it seems like it is like it like yeah, there's not much

00:11:39 ◼   ► in there, presumably there's not a huge amount of storage, presumably there's this this

00:11:42 ◼   ► the stock amount of RAM the A eighteen comes with, which I didn't look

00:11:45 ◼   ► up.

00:11:45 ◼   ► Um right.

00:11:46 ◼   ► But like still just Apple doesn't sell you anything made of anything for $300.

00:11:51 ◼   ► Like let alone something something with this when has Apple sold you something with

00:11:54 ◼   ► a screen for $300?

00:11:55 ◼   ► Like it's hard to get Apple watches for that much.

00:11:57 ◼   ► And they have much wimpier SOCs.

00:12:00 ◼   ► Much everything about the Apple Watch is like the screen is smaller.

00:12:02 ◼   ► I mean I guess they're OLED, but the screen is smaller, the SoC is

00:12:05 ◼   ► smaller, the battery is smaller.

00:12:06 ◼   ► Granted, this has no battery.

00:12:07 ◼   ► There's just less there's literally less aluminum in the watch, less everything in the

00:12:11 ◼   ► watch.

00:12:11 ◼   ► $300.

00:12:11 ◼   ► Three hundred dollars.

00:12:12 ◼   ► I this is not a terrible deal, I'm gonna say.

00:12:15 ◼   ► Well but I I think also like they have they are entering into a

00:12:18 ◼   ► market that like, you know, obviously we're all gonna probably buy one because we're

00:12:23 ◼   ► Apple nerds and we're stupid with money.

00:12:24 ◼   ► But I think Oh, really?

00:12:26 ◼   ► Okay.

00:12:26 ◼   ► Casey's allergic to this product category.

00:12:28 ◼   ► Oh we'll get there, okay.

00:12:29 ◼   ► But I will but I will say like if you look at this product

00:12:31 ◼   ► category from other makers, namely you know, a Amazon probably is the most you

00:12:35 ◼   ► know, the biggest player in this category.

00:12:37 ◼   ► Yeah, Google has a thing too.

00:12:38 ◼   ► And and like I think this is more than both of those.

00:12:40 ◼   ► Um yeah, well they're they're like two seventy, right?

00:12:43 ◼   ► Or like two fifty.

00:12:44 ◼   ► So it's stillpark.

00:12:45 ◼   ► And of course the Apple one's gonna be more expensive.

00:12:46 ◼   ► But normally the Apple one is hilariously more expensive.

00:12:49 ◼   ► Not just like, oh it's thirty bucks more than the Amazon one.

00:12:51 ◼   ► Like thirty bucks more than the Amazon one is a price area that Apple

00:12:54 ◼   ► never touches.

00:12:55 ◼   ► Well, but I think like it like sometimes they do, um, just usually not,

00:12:59 ◼   ► and usually only their lowest end products.

00:13:01 ◼   ► So for instance, I think well before today, the home pod mini was actually

00:13:07 ◼   ► a pretty good deal for what it was.

00:13:08 ◼   ► It was a before today.

00:13:09 ◼   ► It was a hundred dollars, we'll get to that later.

00:13:11 ◼   ► But it was a hundred dollars and it was kind of like between like

00:13:15 ◼   ► the the cheap echo dots and the full size echoes in terms of sound

00:13:18 ◼   ► quality.

00:13:19 ◼   ► Um but it was also between them in price and and I think for

00:13:23 ◼   ► for its size especially and secondarily for its price, I think the Home Pod

00:13:27 ◼   ► Mini was a fantastic deal, uh, for what you get for a hundred bucks.

00:13:32 ◼   ► Although again, not anymore.

00:13:33 ◼   ► But um and then the full size home pod, Apple always struggled to move

00:13:38 ◼   ► those.

00:13:39 ◼   ► And I think a huge reason was the price.

00:13:41 ◼   ► That the full size home pod, you know, Apple thought they were competing with

00:13:44 ◼   ► Sonos and they priced it as such and they they kind of aren't competing

00:13:49 ◼   ► with Sonos.

00:13:50 ◼   ► Like the full size home pod I think was competing a little more with

00:13:52 ◼   ► just like higher end, you know, Amazon.

00:13:57 ◼   ► Yeah, which are usually like, you know, a hundred and eighty, two hundred bucks,

00:13:59 ◼   ► something like that.

00:13:59 ◼   ► You know, so so I think you know the the three hundred dollar full

00:14:02 ◼   ► size home pod, uh or three fifty at first, um, I think it just

00:14:06 ◼   ► it was always well well above that market.

00:14:09 ◼   ► So I think maybe Apple has learned from that a little bit.

00:14:12 ◼   ► And maybe they've learned like, hey, we really can't push this too high because

00:14:17 ◼   ► this is not like a must-have product for a lot of people, and all

00:14:21 ◼   ► the other options out there are gonna be cheaper than it.

00:14:24 ◼   ► So it can't be too excessive.

00:14:26 ◼   ► And I think if the way they do that is by basically offloading all

00:14:32 ◼   ► of the expensive operations to your expensive iPhone in your pocket, which just seems

00:14:36 ◼   ► like that's what they're doing, that's a good strategy for them.

00:14:39 ◼   ► Because then they can they can still sell this hardware at what is probably

00:14:42 ◼   ► pretty healthy margins uh and and still be within the realm of what people

00:14:47 ◼   ► might consider for their homes.

00:14:49 ◼   ► Yeah we need to move on from price.

00:14:50 ◼   ► But um with that said, I think the thing that's striking to me about

00:14:53 ◼   ► this is whenever I see a screen and I I and I I think

00:14:57 ◼   ► I conceptually understand that the screen is smaller than I think it is.

00:15:00 ◼   ► It looks to me to be like ten plus inches and it's not.

00:15:03 ◼   ► But I see a screen and I just assume, oh, that's especially with an

00:15:07 ◼   ► Apple screen, because generally speaking, Apple devices have really nice screens.

00:15:10 ◼   ► Oh yeah.

00:15:11 ◼   ► And and so I assume, oh, this is like a five hundred dollar plus

00:15:14 ◼   ► product.

00:15:14 ◼   ► And then I see the price of three hundred dollars.

00:15:16 ◼   ► And the two explanations that make the most sense sense to me genuinely is

00:15:20 ◼   ► that hey, this probably doesn't RAM.

00:15:23 ◼   ► And a lot of the things that are the actual costs these days because

00:15:26 ◼   ► yes, screens used to be the problem, but now arguably they're not.

00:15:30 ◼   ► And actually, John, I really think you're onto something.

00:15:32 ◼   ► I really think these these may have been manufactured I mean I still think

00:15:36 ◼   ► the screen is probably the most expensive component in this.

00:15:38 ◼   ► Maybe the case.

00:15:39 ◼   ► I don't like but it's it's a it's like a six inch by six

00:15:41 ◼   ► inch square screen, or at least the that's the how the outside of it.

00:15:43 ◼   ► What do they call it?

00:15:44 ◼   ► They have a diagonal measure.

00:15:45 ◼   ► Well you'll get to it when you read specs.

00:15:46 ◼   ► But um I'm trying to look up how much RAM the A18 had in

00:15:49 ◼   ► it.

00:15:49 ◼   ► But I'm sure it has the amount of RAM that the A18 eighteen had

00:15:51 ◼   ► when it was in a phone because I don't think they would you know

00:15:54 ◼   ► they're not gonna make a test on one of these for their for that

00:15:56 ◼   ► chip.

00:15:56 ◼   ► So anyway, in an in any case let's keep three nanometer.

00:16:00 ◼   ► The eight eighteen is three nanometer wow.

00:16:02 ◼   ► Oh is it really?

00:16:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:16:03 ◼   ► Uh so they released a couple of videos.

00:16:05 ◼   ► Um I'm gonna talk about there's a there's one that's the new Apple Home

00:16:09 ◼   ► View that's basically just a standard TV ad.

00:16:11 ◼   ► It's like 90 seconds or something like that.

00:16:13 ◼   ► That one was fine.

00:16:14 ◼   ► It's exactly what you expect.

00:16:15 ◼   ► They released a different one that I think was like three and a half

00:16:17 ◼   ► minutes, and it's called Welcome Apple Home View Designed for Life at Home.

00:16:22 ◼   ► I get the vibe that I might be standing alone on this.

00:16:26 ◼   ► I thought this was a great video.

00:16:28 ◼   ► I really enjoyed it.

00:16:29 ◼   ► I agree with you.

00:16:30 ◼   ► I could not believe how many people were slamming this.

00:16:32 ◼   ► Okay.

00:16:32 ◼   ► Because it tr it here's here's the pitch if you haven't seen it, which

00:16:35 ◼   ► you should watch in the show notes, it's short.

00:16:36 ◼   ► It's a family getting ready to leave in the morning.

00:16:39 ◼   ► It's like a brother and a sister and a mom and a dad in

00:16:41 ◼   ► the hectic morning of getting out of the way, and they're trying to show

00:16:43 ◼   ► the how the home view fits into these people's lives.

00:16:46 ◼   ► Um and it's very difficult to do this without embarrassing yourself.

00:16:51 ◼   ► Like it's difficult to make an ad of like, oh, busy family at home.

00:16:55 ◼   ► Like all right, it's it's an ad for the the product, like the the

00:16:57 ◼   ► home view.

00:16:58 ◼   ► Like you're supposed to see everyone in the family using the product and how

00:17:00 ◼   ► it fits into their life, but you're also supposed to show the family interacting

00:17:03 ◼   ► with each other in a realistic way.

00:17:05 ◼   ► That is a really high degree of difficulty because it's so easy to be

00:17:08 ◼   ► like embarrassingly corny or unrealistic or whatever.

00:17:12 ◼   ► And in the end, we all know there is artifice.

00:17:14 ◼   ► We're not, I don't think this is like no real family is like this.

00:17:17 ◼   ► Everyone is too well spoken.

00:17:19 ◼   ► The timings are too perfect.

00:17:20 ◼   ► It is clearly a script piece piece of narrative fiction.

00:17:23 ◼   ► But once you're willing to accept that, the goal of this is to show

00:17:28 ◼   ► how semi-realistic archetypes Of mom, dad, kid, and a brother and sister would use

00:17:34 ◼   ► this product to fit into their life.

00:17:36 ◼   ► And I thought they did not embarrass themselves with the script writing.

00:17:39 ◼   ► So whoever wrote this script, you did not embarrass yourself.

00:17:42 ◼   ► Now, did you write something amazing?

00:17:43 ◼   ► No.

00:17:43 ◼   ► Like it's not there's no groundbreaking stuff here.

00:17:47 ◼   ► It's not like oh it brought a tear to my eye, emotional.

00:17:50 ◼   ► It's the think different ad campaign inspiring the masses.

00:17:53 ◼   ► It's just a little tiny family skit to advertise a product.

00:17:57 ◼   ► But I was shocked by how little I was cringing while watching this.

00:18:01 ◼   ► And I've heard a lot of other people talk about this and say, only

00:18:04 ◼   ► parents understand this thing, like that it speaks to parents, but if you're not

00:18:09 ◼   ► a parent, it just seems like some dumb, corny family sitcom that you don't

00:18:12 ◼   ► want to watch because it's an infomercial for a product.

00:18:14 ◼   ► Like I get it.

00:18:15 ◼   ► And I'm not saying it was like a tear jerker or attaching to my

00:18:18 ◼   ► emotions because I'm parent and I ne didn't see this ad when I wasn't

00:18:21 ◼   ► a parent.

00:18:21 ◼   ► So I don't know.

00:18:22 ◼   ► But I think there is something to that because I have seen a lot

00:18:24 ◼   ► a lot of people looking at this and saying that it's just the most

00:18:27 ◼   ► embarrassing they've ever seen.

00:18:29 ◼   ► And I'm also with Casey.

00:18:30 ◼   ► I didn't think it was that embarrassing.

00:18:32 ◼   ► But it is supposed to tell you this is how the product fits into

00:18:35 ◼   ► your life.

00:18:35 ◼   ► And boy, this was the first thing I watched.

00:18:38 ◼   ► This immediately raised tons of questions to me.

00:18:41 ◼   ► The second the ad starts, it's like a family in a kitchen, um, and

00:18:45 ◼   ► there's a big kitchen island, and the the family is rotating around the kitchen

00:18:48 ◼   ► island dealing with their day of like they have to get off to school

00:18:50 ◼   ► and what they can make for breakfast and they have to look up a

00:18:52 ◼   ► recipe on the homebot.

00:18:53 ◼   ► Mom can't find her keys.

00:18:55 ◼   ► And the the brothers being a jerk and the sisters walk into school with

00:18:58 ◼   ► a guy who might be her boyfriend.

00:19:00 ◼   ► Like it's a whole little skit they fit into this thing here.

00:19:02 ◼   ► And there's the home view in the center of the kitchen island.

00:19:06 ◼   ► And it's Immediately I said, okay, I what I know about this product is

00:19:10 ◼   ► that it's not battery powered.

00:19:12 ◼   ► Like there is no battery inside it.

00:19:14 ◼   ► You must be plugged in for it to be used.

00:19:16 ◼   ► Where is that thing plugged in?

00:19:18 ◼   ► Because you know in an Apple ad, they're not going to show a core

00:19:21 ◼   ► cord snaking from the center of the kitchen island, draping over the edge of

00:19:25 ◼   ► the kitchen island and plugging into a plug that's probably against code in lots

00:19:28 ◼   ► of regions now on the side of their kitchen island.

00:19:31 ◼   ► So they drilled a hole in the middle of their kitchen island and snaked

00:19:35 ◼   ► the USB C cord through the hole that they drilled in the center of

00:19:39 ◼   ► the kitchen island so they could be like a Sony ed where once whenever

00:19:42 ◼   ► Sony shows their televisions on their website, there's never any cords attached to them.

00:19:45 ◼   ► You're like, well, that's a great if you just want to look at the

00:19:47 ◼   ► the TV in the turned-off state, but if you ever wanted to turn on,

00:19:49 ◼   ► you can have to plug it in and maybe connect it to a video

00:19:52 ◼   ► source.

00:19:53 ◼   ► Uh but yeah, that's just like, okay.

00:19:55 ◼   ► I'm I'm mostly willing to give that a pass because like, oh, it's an

00:19:59 ◼   ► ad and you know, in realistically, it would be shoved into a nook somewhere,

00:20:02 ◼   ► but that does factor into their pitch for the product, which is that at

00:20:07 ◼   ► one point they show someone like you can rotate it.

00:20:09 ◼   ► So now the screen's facing me.

00:20:10 ◼   ► Now the screen's facing you.

00:20:11 ◼   ► That's that's why it's on a little R2D2.

00:20:13 ◼   ► That's why it's circular.

00:20:14 ◼   ► That's why it has a little arm.

00:20:16 ◼   ► To be clear, the the thing doesn't.

00:20:18 ◼   ► R2 D2's head does not turn.

00:20:19 ◼   ► R2 D2 is a continuous cylinder.

00:20:21 ◼   ► He does not have a separate head section that turns.

00:20:23 ◼   ► But you can rotate the entire thing because it's a cylinder and it's

00:20:28 ◼   ► or whatever.

00:20:28 ◼   ► And that's why it's center of the island.

00:20:30 ◼   ► But no actual family can ever put this in the center of an aisle

00:20:34 ◼   ► unless they already have a hole there for snaking the USB C cord through.

00:20:38 ◼   ► So that was a immediate ding for me.

00:20:42 ◼   ► Um the second bit is uh they show you know, uh I I was

00:20:47 ◼   ► very curious about this when I saw this in the ad and we'll get

00:20:49 ◼   ► to it in in a bit.

00:20:49 ◼   ► They show people using it.

00:20:50 ◼   ► It's oh when you look at it, you see your junk and when dad

00:20:52 ◼   ► looks at it, he see his junk and and when the the daughter looks

00:20:55 ◼   ► at it, she sees her text messages, right?

00:20:56 ◼   ► So oh it's like it's recognizing you and it shows you your stuff.

00:20:59 ◼   ► Isn't clever.

00:21:00 ◼   ► Um,

00:21:02 ◼   ► and they show a sequence where uh the brother tries to to s peek

00:21:06 ◼   ► and see what the sister was seeing in her text, but he can't because

00:21:09 ◼   ► when he looks at it, it's like sorry, you're not you know the sister,

00:21:12 ◼   ► we won't show you the text, and he shows that he's appointed as they're

00:21:15 ◼   ► showing the security thing about it.

00:21:18 ◼   ► And that brings me to the final and I feel like most important question

00:21:21 ◼   ► and the thing I heard everyone bring up about this video, which is wouldn't

00:21:24 ◼   ► every person in this video be doing all this stuff on their phone?

00:21:27 ◼   ► Certainly the kids would.

00:21:29 ◼   ► That is the question HomeView has to answer.

00:21:31 ◼   ► Why should I use this and not my phone?

00:21:33 ◼   ► Because if this was not an ad for HomeView, you can bet the girl

00:21:36 ◼   ► would be texting her potential boyfriend on her phone not on the communal home

00:21:41 ◼   ► pot in the middle of the island, regardless of the security features and don't

00:21:45 ◼   ► let her brother see it.

00:21:46 ◼   ► He could just shoulder surf that crap.

00:21:47 ◼   ► She's gonna do that on her phone, one hundred percent.

00:21:50 ◼   ► Is the dad gonna do it on the island for the recipe?

00:21:52 ◼   ► Maybe, but then if someone comes and yanks the the home view and starts

00:21:55 ◼   ► doing their thing, it's like, hey, I was looking at the recipe.

00:21:58 ◼   ► I don't think the Zimbo Marshall answered that question.

00:22:00 ◼   ► And everybody I saw looked at this ad was like, uh what the reason

00:22:03 ◼   ► why it was unrealistic depiction of a family is that there was no one

00:22:06 ◼   ► on their phone.

00:22:07 ◼   ► And that's a problem for this product.

00:22:09 ◼   ► Absolutely.

00:22:10 ◼   ► And and I think that's like phones have gotten so good now that many

00:22:16 ◼   ► people don't even use countertop speakers anymore.

00:22:19 ◼   ► They just play crap out of their phone speakers like as they go around

00:22:22 ◼   ► the house doing stuff.

00:22:24 ◼   ► Many people use their phone for the timers.

00:22:26 ◼   ► Especially like, you know, young kids are gonna use their phone, like teenagers are

00:22:29 ◼   ► gonna use their phone for all of these tasks.

00:22:32 ◼   ► Teenagers care even less about sound quality and big screens and you're like teenagers

00:22:36 ◼   ► care way more about privacy and and the whole family not seeing what they're

00:22:39 ◼   ► doing.

00:22:40 ◼   ► Yeah, but I I I think this is I I think it's going to

00:22:44 ◼   ► have a reasonably small market.

00:22:46 ◼   ► I don't think it's gonna be no market.

00:22:48 ◼   ► Like I think it will sell.

00:22:49 ◼   ► It's gonna I mean I mean I think it's gonna sell better than some

00:22:52 ◼   ► other platforms Apple might have launched in the last few years.

00:22:54 ◼   ► Uh but I think it's going to be

00:22:59 ◼   ► probably about the same size as the market for the home pod, which is

00:23:04 ◼   ► not big.

00:23:05 ◼   ► It it's not nothing, and it's not a bad product.

00:23:08 ◼   ► It's just not a big market.

00:23:10 ◼   ► And that's okay.

00:23:12 ◼   ► And I think that's this is kind of leading into like you know, we'll

00:23:14 ◼   ► we'll the larger view later on about like, you know, what they're doing with

00:23:18 ◼   ► with you know th this new push in into home kit and home devices

00:23:20 ◼   ► and stuff.

00:23:21 ◼   ► But I think this is like a flagship device for people who are already

00:23:27 ◼   ► in that Apple home ecosystem already, I don't think this is gonna bring that

00:23:32 ◼   ► many new people into it.

00:23:33 ◼   ► But for those of us who are in it, this is probably gonna be

00:23:36 ◼   ► pretty nice.

00:23:37 ◼   ► I do wonder if it's live and die based on its audio quality, because

00:23:41 ◼   ► the main appeal I can see for this is like I've seen a lot

00:23:44 ◼   ► of people who bounce off um home home smart speakers because you have to

00:23:49 ◼   ► talk to them and people find that uncomfortable and they don't know how to

00:23:52 ◼   ► do it and it's we all know that it's can be unreliable and weird.

00:23:55 ◼   ► Whereas if you basically got a speaker with a little screen on it, people

00:23:59 ◼   ► are a little bit more comfortable interacting with that, even if they're just mostly

00:24:02 ◼   ► doing it from their phone, just to be able that shows that they're doing

00:24:05 ◼   ► it right.

00:24:06 ◼   ► Like there's being able to see, like visibility into what the thing is doing

00:24:10 ◼   ► and a thing that you can touch, I think that makes people feel more

00:24:12 ◼   ► comfortable.

00:24:12 ◼   ► So I'm still thinking of this kind of as the home pod with a

00:24:16 ◼   ► screen for most people and that like so maybe you didn't want a home

00:24:20 ◼   ► pod mini because you're or a big home pod certainly because you're like, well

00:24:23 ◼   ► I like the idea of a speaker, but I'd rather just have a dumb

00:24:25 ◼   ► Bluetooth speaker.

00:24:26 ◼   ► Like I don't need any smarts in it because I dumb Bluetooth speaker looks

00:24:28 ◼   ► I know I know how to connect to my phone and play stuff and

00:24:30 ◼   ► that's that.

00:24:31 ◼   ► But for like young people setting up their first apartment or home and they

00:24:35 ◼   ► want to have some sound, maybe they bounce off the mini because they're like,

00:24:38 ◼   ► I don't want to talk to a thing, but if it has a screen,

00:24:40 ◼   ► I can just, you know, pull up a playlist and hit like it.

00:24:42 ◼   ► Whatever they think they can do with this.

00:24:44 ◼   ► Remains to be seen whether they'll be able to do with it by touching

00:24:46 ◼   ► the screen, but whatever they think they can do with it, they're like, I'll

00:24:49 ◼   ► just be able to pull it up there and use a touch screen and

00:24:50 ◼   ► start playing stuff as sort of like a modern young person small compact apartment

00:24:56 ◼   ► or dorm room stereo.

00:24:57 ◼   ► And that really depends on well how how good is that speaker.

00:24:59 ◼   ► The only thing I've heard from the people who are there in person, like

00:25:01 ◼   ► the YouTubers who said that so a couple people say that it it wasn't

00:25:05 ◼   ► as loud as they thought it would be.

00:25:07 ◼   ► Uh and that is maybe a problem.

00:25:08 ◼   ► Maybe it's a little bit too small to do that.

00:25:10 ◼   ► Maybe it's actually not even as loud as a HomePod Mini.

00:25:13 ◼   ► But you know, at 300 bucks, I can see this as a splurge purchase

00:25:17 ◼   ► for your first apartment on your own as a way to have sound and

00:25:22 ◼   ► maybe also some other aspects of like, you know, FaceTime or whatever.

00:25:26 ◼   ► How many people getting their first apartment on their own have the money for

00:25:29 ◼   ► this?

00:25:29 ◼   ► Oh, like again, it's at three hundred bucks, like I said, I did say

00:25:32 ◼   ► it's a splurge purchase.

00:25:33 ◼   ► Like it's better than like, oh I want, you know, I want to buy

00:25:35 ◼   ► a stereo from a new apartment.

00:25:36 ◼   ► Well no, no one buys stereos anymore.

00:25:38 ◼   ► Like Again, they're just they're just gonna play it on their phone.

00:25:41 ◼   ► What if you wanna level up a little bit from that?

00:25:42 ◼   ► What if you wanna s if you're interested in music and you want some

00:25:45 ◼   ► kind of sound system for like casual gatherings and par parties at your apartment

00:25:49 ◼   ► that also maybe doubles as the thing you can FaceTime your parents from and

00:25:51 ◼   ► whatever?

00:25:52 ◼   ► Like I I can see a way to advert advertise this as that product.

00:25:55 ◼   ► Again at 300 bucks, I feel like it's in reach because it is within

00:25:58 ◼   ► it's less than a hundred dollars within its competitors.

00:26:01 ◼   ► So we liked well Marco, what did you think of the com of the

00:26:04 ◼   ► video?

00:26:05 ◼   ► I thought it was Fine.

00:26:08 ◼   ► I wasn't put off by it.

00:26:09 ◼   ► I think it was a little long.

00:26:11 ◼   ► I mean it is an infomercial.

00:26:13 ◼   ► Yes.

00:26:13 ◼   ► And I think I think like it they they can get a little too

00:26:17 ◼   ► cute, you know, but like it's fine.

00:26:19 ◼   ► It was exactly what it needed to be.

00:26:21 ◼   ► Yeah Ever everyone was a little bit too well spoken and clever, and they

00:26:24 ◼   ► you know, and it in the end they're demonstrating features of a product, so

00:26:28 ◼   ► there's no getting around that.

00:26:29 ◼   ► Yep.

00:26:29 ◼   ► I think the only thing that turned me off, personally the only thing that

00:26:32 ◼   ► turned me off about it, other than yeah, where are all the phones, but

00:26:34 ◼   ► of course it's contrived.

00:26:36 ◼   ► But this is a tangent I really don't want to go down.

00:26:39 ◼   ► So please do not engage, gentlemen.

00:26:41 ◼   ► But I actually don't think New Siri is that great.

00:26:44 ◼   ► And it's certainly not as fast as they showed in this commercial.

00:26:48 ◼   ► Oh yes.

00:26:48 ◼   ► I noticed that immediately.

00:26:49 ◼   ► That brings up the final point that a lot of people were pointing out.

00:26:51 ◼   ► Like, oh we were we were lauding them for showing Siri AI in real

00:26:55 ◼   ► time when it was first rolled out.

00:26:56 ◼   ► Like you know, making up for the twenty twenty four WWE C right?

00:26:59 ◼   ► And people were like, well this doesn't do that.

00:27:01 ◼   ► This doesn't show anything in real time.

00:27:03 ◼   ► Not even in real time.

00:27:03 ◼   ► Someone asked.

00:27:04 ◼   ► Did they have a sequence shortened text at the bottom?

00:27:07 ◼   ► You ever see that?

00:27:07 ◼   ► They did sequences shortened to show that they're not lying about a product.

00:27:10 ◼   ► And my take on this is that they don't need to do that because

00:27:16 ◼   ► this is clearly narrative fiction with edits.

00:27:19 ◼   ► And every time there's

00:27:21 ◼   ► well be infinite potential time between the edits.

00:27:25 ◼   ► Like it's an under st a media understanding of when we see something edited

00:27:27 ◼   ► like this.

00:27:28 ◼   ► If there's a cut, we're not saying that this happened and then immediately that

00:27:32 ◼   ► happened.

00:27:33 ◼   ► There could be any amount of time between those cuts.

00:27:35 ◼   ► And so I don't think they have to say, you know, professional driver, close

00:27:39 ◼   ► course, sequences shortened.

00:27:40 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:27:40 ◼   ► Because it's not one continuous shot.

00:27:42 ◼   ► They put that in there when they when it's like a TV ed where

00:27:44 ◼   ► they're showing a phone and they hear someone tapping and tapping on the phone

00:27:46 ◼   ► and they never cut away and things happen way too fast.

00:27:48 ◼   ► You need sequences shortened on that.

00:27:50 ◼   ► Again, I'm a lawyer, I don't know.

00:27:52 ◼   ► For this one, they always seem to cut.

00:27:54 ◼   ► And the cuts did make it seem like Siri AI is way way faster

00:27:59 ◼   ► than we all know it to be.

00:28:00 ◼   ► And I agree with you, Casey.

00:28:01 ◼   ► Like I mean, Siri AI is j is is only uh such a relief

00:28:05 ◼   ► after the non AI Siri, but compared to other competing products that are more

00:28:10 ◼   ► mature and have always been more responsive, they still are.

00:28:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:13 ◼   ► All right.

00:28:14 ◼   ► So there is the tabletop one, which is mostly what we've been talking about.

00:28:17 ◼   ► There's also a wall-mounted one, which I think John mentioned in passing earlier.

00:28:22 ◼   ► Um the tabletop one has, I believe, a downward facing subwoofer, if I'm not

00:28:27 ◼   ► mistaken.

00:28:27 ◼   ► Uh downward facing dog.

00:28:28 ◼   ► Uh no, it isn't.

00:28:29 ◼   ► We'll get to the the specs of the two things, but for now it's

00:28:32 ◼   ► suffice it to say that the wall map one is the non-wall mat one

00:28:36 ◼   ► without the R2D2 in the arm.

00:28:37 ◼   ► Yep.

00:28:38 ◼   ► That's it.

00:28:39 ◼   ► And you may be thinking, well what the hell's in the R2D2 in the

00:28:41 ◼   ► ARM?

00:28:42 ◼   ► Apparently you don't need any of that stuff because you can put it on

00:28:44 ◼   ► the wall.

00:28:44 ◼   ► Apparently the whole thing is in the screen.

00:28:46 ◼   ► Well the R2D2, the ARM obviously connects it to the R2D2 and the R2D2

00:28:50 ◼   ► contains Speakers.

00:28:52 ◼   ► Indeed.

00:28:53 ◼   ► Yes.

00:28:53 ◼   ► But the Walmart one does does also have speakers, and Apple has made a

00:28:57 ◼   ► point in the releases that they've made, the the the you know newsroom stuff,

00:29:02 ◼   ► um, that they have tuned the speakers for the Walmount version to accommodate for

00:29:08 ◼   ► the fact that it's mounted against a wall.

00:29:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:29:09 ◼   ► And obviously the Walmount speakers will be worse because they are tiny like iPad

00:29:13 ◼   ► speakers.

00:29:14 ◼   ► Right.

00:29:14 ◼   ► And we'll come back to the Walmount stuff in minutes.

00:29:17 ◼   ► But uh like we said earlier the display with bezel is a little less

00:29:21 ◼   ► than six inches across.

00:29:22 ◼   ► Um I forget what they're calling it corner to corner, but it it's fine.

00:29:26 ◼   ► Uh the colors for the R2T R2D2 version are silver, starlight, rose, pink, and

00:29:32 ◼   ► space gray, which I would describe as gray, gold, pink, and darker gray.

00:29:36 ◼   ► Uh for the wall mount one, you get gray or darker gray.

00:29:39 ◼   ► And I think that's smart because anything you're going to mount on your wall

00:29:42 ◼   ► you want to be neutral.

00:29:43 ◼   ► I know people are complaining about this.

00:29:44 ◼   ► Why can't I get the pink one on my wall?

00:29:45 ◼   ► You probably don't want the pink one on your wall.

00:29:48 ◼   ► Fair enough.

00:29:49 ◼   ► Uh so yeah, the it's an A18, which we've already covered.

00:29:52 ◼   ► The screen is eight gigs of RAM by the way in the A18.

00:29:55 ◼   ► Oh, thank you.

00:29:55 ◼   ► The screen is a seven-inch diagonal IPS L C D.

00:29:59 ◼   ► It's 1088 by 1088 at 220 points per inch.

00:30:02 ◼   ► It is true tone.

00:30:03 ◼   ► It goes as as bright as 500 knits, but interestingly as dark as three

00:30:08 ◼   ► tenths of a knit.

00:30:09 ◼   ► Uh this is the lowest minimum brightness ever.

00:30:12 ◼   ► The previous low was one knit.

00:30:13 ◼   ► Uh John, uh what could we get any lower?

00:30:16 ◼   ► Well, so here when I look at this screen, like people were lauding the

00:30:19 ◼   ► fact that it can get down to 0.3 nits because like if what if

00:30:22 ◼   ► it's in a home and you want the home to be dark?

00:30:23 ◼   ► It's really annoying like to have a dark room and like this bright screen

00:30:26 ◼   ► in it.

00:30:26 ◼   ► So getting really, really dim is useful.

00:30:29 ◼   ► Like imagine if you want to put this in a bedroom or use it

00:30:30 ◼   ► as like your alarm clock or whatever.

00:30:32 ◼   ► Who knows what people use this for?

00:30:33 ◼   ► It's nice that it goes down.

00:30:35 ◼   ► But here's the thing, it drives me up a wall about all these devices.

00:30:38 ◼   ► Like my for example, my Ecubie thermostat, which is similar.

00:30:41 ◼   ► It's a wall, it's got a screen on it.

00:30:43 ◼   ► Sometimes that room is dark.

00:30:45 ◼   ► Uh L C Ds emit light when they're quote unquote black.

00:30:49 ◼   ► Uh because the I spent these are these don't have dynamic backlights.

00:30:53 ◼   ► The backlight is on all the time.

00:30:54 ◼   ► They close the liquid crystals, trying not to let any light out.

00:30:57 ◼   ► But guess what?

00:30:58 ◼   ► Some light gets through, which means in a dark room, your LCD screen, even

00:31:03 ◼   ► when the screen is entirely quote unquote black, is glowing.

00:31:07 ◼   ► You know it doesn't do that?

00:31:09 ◼   ► Self-emissive technologies like OLED.

00:31:11 ◼   ► I know OLED would have made this super expensive, but like for my EcoBee

00:31:14 ◼   ► where the screen is like the size of an Apple Watch.

00:31:16 ◼   ► Oh my god, I would pay like a hundred dollars extra for an OLED

00:31:19 ◼   ► screen on my Ecoby.

00:31:21 ◼   ► Just so the black can be black, cause most of the time it's black

00:31:23 ◼   ► with like some white numerals showing the temperature or whatever.

00:31:26 ◼   ► OLED is perfect for home devices because the black parts of the screen you

00:31:31 ◼   ► always want to be actually black and only self-emissive stuff per pixel self-admissive stuff

00:31:36 ◼   ► like OLED can do that.

00:31:38 ◼   ► LCD can't.

00:31:39 ◼   ► So this thing, it's great that it gets dim.

00:31:42 ◼   ► It's not so great that even when the screen is quote unquote black with

00:31:45 ◼   ► white letters on it, even though the white part can get down to 0.3

00:31:49 ◼   ► knits, I wonder if the black part will be 0.03 nits.

00:31:54 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm not I'm not arguing for like, oh, this should have been

00:31:56 ◼   ► only because it's a $300 device or whatever.

00:31:59 ◼   ► I'm just saying like the sooner s Self emissive per pixel lighting can reduce

00:32:04 ◼   ► in price enough that it's in home devices, the better because that is the

00:32:07 ◼   ► ideal application.

00:32:09 ◼   ► Well also I I mean it wouldn't um image retention be a pretty significant

00:32:12 ◼   ► concern on this one, on this kind of device?

00:32:13 ◼   ► I mean they gotta solve that problem too, it's true.

00:32:15 ◼   ► But yeah.

00:32:16 ◼   ► Like uh you get image retention on L C D's as well, as we've

00:32:19 ◼   ► all seen by looking at like a big uh old L C D flat

00:32:21 ◼   ► screen TV as a menu in some like restaurant, right?

00:32:24 ◼   ► That these are problems to be solved.

00:32:26 ◼   ► I'm just saying, like for home devices in particular, since we're talking about getting

00:32:29 ◼   ► dim, any screen in a black room, you're gonna know the technology.

00:32:33 ◼   ► You're like, is that an L C D or not?

00:32:35 ◼   ► I can tell.

00:32:36 ◼   ► Uh so yeah, the camera is 12 megapixel center stage camera, F2.4 aperture.

00:32:42 ◼   ► It is in the bezel.

00:32:43 ◼   ► There's no notch or dynamic island.

00:32:45 ◼   ► For the regular and and the wall-mounted versions, there are two custom full-range driver

00:32:51 ◼   ► speakers.

00:32:51 ◼   ► For the uh R2T2 version only, there's a custom downfiring woofer and dual force

00:32:56 ◼   ► canceling Marco, passive radiators.

00:32:59 ◼   ► Interesting.

00:32:59 ◼   ► Yeah, so they s shove a lot of speakers in that in that dome.

00:33:02 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean so the the a passive radiator in this case, um they've

00:33:05 ◼   ► been doing those recently in a bunch of their devices.

00:33:08 ◼   ► That the passive radiator is the only kind of base sort of driver um

00:33:13 ◼   ► that the home pod mini has.

00:33:14 ◼   ► Uh and I think they even put them in some of the laptops recently,

00:33:17 ◼   ► or at least maybe the IMAX.

00:33:19 ◼   ► I forget, but um it it it actually helps somewhat with base response.

00:33:24 ◼   ► Like it's not as good as having a real driver.

00:33:26 ◼   ► But it's good.

00:33:26 ◼   ► Um now in this case, they're g they have both.

00:33:29 ◼   ► They have a r you know what sounds like probably it's probably gonna be

00:33:32 ◼   ► like a big downward-facing woofer, which is how home pods have always been built.

00:33:37 ◼   ► Um it looks like the that's kind of what the base mainly is.

00:33:41 ◼   ► The good thing is those tend to be really frickin' heavy.

00:33:43 ◼   ► So it kind of you know gives you what you want in a base

00:33:46 ◼   ► like this, which is, you know, a a nice f you know stable footing

00:33:50 ◼   ► for the whole thing, and probably pretty good sound, at least in the bass

00:33:54 ◼   ► department.

00:33:54 ◼   ► I do want wonder a little bit how the mid-range and upper frequencies are

00:34:00 ◼   ► gonna be represented very well by what appears to be only the screen um

00:34:04 ◼   ► and only the top and bottom edges, or maybe even only the bottom edge.

00:34:09 ◼   ► I forgot is it are there holes in the top?

00:34:11 ◼   ► So on the on the left and right sides it appears to just be

00:34:13 ◼   ► microphones.

00:34:14 ◼   ► Yeah, I can't tell where the where the speakers are.

00:34:16 ◼   ► I haven't seen one uh cut one of these open yet.

00:34:17 ◼   ► Yeah I think it might just be the bottom for the for the mid

00:34:20 ◼   ► and treble.

00:34:21 ◼   ► So that that like the so the bottom of the screen, like that little

00:34:25 ◼   ► You you'd assume on that one it's bouncing off a hard surface, like that

00:34:27 ◼   ► would be incorporated into it, kind of like how the IMAX used to have

00:34:30 ◼   ► down firing things.

00:34:31 ◼   ► And and it will, but like that's that's a tough design to make sound

00:34:34 ◼   ► good if you don't need to.

00:34:36 ◼   ► Um so uh we'll see how it sounds.

00:34:39 ◼   ► Full Full-sized home pods, which this seems to be basically replacing, um, sound pretty

00:34:44 ◼   ► good.

00:34:45 ◼   ► So I don't know.

00:34:46 ◼   ► I'm a little skeptical of that this will sound as good as they do,

00:34:48 ◼   ► but uh we'll see.

00:34:49 ◼   ► Oh, it's gonna sound as good as a home s full-size home pod.

00:34:51 ◼   ► And by the way, rumors are that they are going to eventually make a

00:34:53 ◼   ► new full size home pod.

00:34:55 ◼   ► But yeah, this is not close to the sound quality of a full size

00:34:57 ◼   ► home pot, I would bet.

00:34:58 ◼   ► Also rumors are always that they will eventually make a new full size home

00:35:01 ◼   ► pod.

00:35:01 ◼   ► And they did.

00:35:02 ◼   ► They can't they canceled the entire product and they still made a new one.

00:35:04 ◼   ► So it's hard to kill that sucker.

00:35:06 ◼   ► Like they stopped making the old one for a while.

00:35:09 ◼   ► Yeah, we'll see.

00:35:10 ◼   ► Oh and uh rewinding slightly for the the the camera and we're gonna talk

00:35:14 ◼   ► more about the camera in a little bit.

00:35:16 ◼   ► Thank God that they put a camera back in the bezel.

00:35:19 ◼   ► Like I'm so sick of nachos and dynamic islands.

00:35:21 ◼   ► And I was like, like is could could they have done this with a

00:35:24 ◼   ► nachos or dynamic island?

00:35:25 ◼   ► Yeah, they could have.

00:35:26 ◼   ► You would like, Oh, we don't like any bezels on our screen.

00:35:28 ◼   ► Why?

00:35:28 ◼   ► 'Cause we don't like them.

00:35:29 ◼   ► We just don't so we're not gonna have them.

00:35:31 ◼   ► Like, I mean there's a million arguments for them.

00:35:33 ◼   ► It's like oh well, it's so you can grab the screen and move it.

00:35:35 ◼   ► Yeah, that applies to iPads too.

00:35:36 ◼   ► We used to have to grab those by a giant one inch rim around

00:35:38 ◼   ► the outside, and they just shrunk that up until it was totally gone, and

00:35:41 ◼   ► now we get notches in the dynamic islands and stuff.

00:35:43 ◼   ► Love a screen without a notch or a dynamic island.

00:35:46 ◼   ► Just put a bezel on it.

00:35:48 ◼   ► It's fine.

00:35:48 ◼   ► It still looks nice.

00:35:50 ◼   ► Thank God.

00:35:50 ◼   ► Yeah, I actually think these proportions of the screen, be bezel and all.

00:35:55 ◼   ► I think it looks really good for this type of thing.

00:35:57 ◼   ► Yeah, it looks like a home product.

00:35:58 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:35:59 ◼   ► I I it is totally fine and I think it's actually screen-wise, it looks

00:36:03 ◼   ► like a pretty attractive design to me.

00:36:05 ◼   ► Continuing on with sound, uh Apple says it's powered by Apple Silicon and real-time

00:36:09 ◼   ► system sensors.

00:36:10 ◼   ► Advanced computational audio cont continuously optimizes loudness and bass response at any volume.

00:36:15 ◼   ► It does have spatial audio with Dolby Atmos for music and video, uh computational

00:36:20 ◼   ► audio for real-time tuning and for microphone design for far field S IRI, and

00:36:25 ◼   ► sound recognition for smoke and carbon monoxide alarm sounds.

00:36:29 ◼   ► So throwing a lot of computation at uh in the end, like as Marco

00:36:32 ◼   ► was saying, there's no getting around the fact of like what are your drivers

00:36:34 ◼   ► and where are they positioned, but they'll throw the computers at it to try

00:36:37 ◼   ► to make it all sound better.

00:36:38 ◼   ► And I do like the fact that like most of their home speaker products

00:36:42 ◼   ► is trying to like wherever you put me, I'll try to figure out how

00:36:45 ◼   ► to not sound terrible in this position.

00:36:47 ◼   ► You know, I'm sure if that's the same inertial sensors as the big home

00:36:50 ◼   ► pods of knowing when to do that or whatever, but I give them the

00:36:52 ◼   ► benefit of the doubt that they're gonna do as much sound processing as they

00:36:55 ◼   ► possibly can to make this sound better.

00:36:57 ◼   ► For wireless, it's uh Wi-Fi 6E, simultaneous dual band, uh peer-to-peer discovery for easy

00:37:03 ◼   ► guest access, Bluetooth 6 and thread.

00:37:05 ◼   ► It has ambient light sensors, temperature and humidity sensors and an accelerometer.

00:37:10 ◼   ► Uh where things get a little bit dodgy though is power.

00:37:13 ◼   ► So I believe it requires 20 watts.

00:37:16 ◼   ► Um there is a 30-watt adapter with a meter and a half long cable

00:37:20 ◼   ► included.

00:37:21 ◼   ► For the R2D2 version, you get nothing if you get the wall-mounted version.

00:37:26 ◼   ► Uh but interestingly, and in the defense of Apple, there's like three or four

00:37:30 ◼   ► different um options for wall mounts.

00:37:32 ◼   ► And I f forgot to put them in our internal show notes, so don't

00:37:35 ◼   ► have them in front of me.

00:37:35 ◼   ► But interestingly they're they're in there.

00:37:37 ◼   ► You're looking at them right now.

00:37:38 ◼   ► Cool.

00:37:39 ◼   ► Uh that's what I totally said.

00:37:41 ◼   ► Um

00:37:42 ◼   ► three prices at the bottom.

00:37:44 ◼   ► Yes, I'm sorry.

00:37:44 ◼   ► That's totally said.

00:37:46 ◼   ► We're gonna leave it in.

00:37:47 ◼   ► Uh there's a USB C Wall Mount for sixty dollars, an AC Walmount for

00:37:50 ◼   ► $80, and interestingly, and I really do, no snark, I commend Apple for this.

00:37:56 ◼   ► Uh Schneider Home is apparently going to do a POE wall mount, which is

00:38:00 ◼   ► great.

00:38:01 ◼   ► I genuinely mean that.

00:38:02 ◼   ► I think that's awesome that for power over Ethernet people, which if you're a

00:38:05 ◼   ► ubiquity person, you kind of implicitly become a power over Ethernet person.

00:38:09 ◼   ► I'm genuinely happy that they're doing something with PoE.

00:38:13 ◼   ► Now, I suspect that it's not actually getting a network connection over PoE.

00:38:17 ◼   ► In fact, I would probably assume that this is just a PoE to USB

00:38:20 ◼   ► converter.

00:38:21 ◼   ► Nevertheless, I still appreciate that it's

00:38:24 ◼   ► from a press release from Schneider, it says Schneider Holmes power mount designed exclusively

00:38:28 ◼   ► for Apple's HomeView, wall-mounted.

00:38:31 ◼   ► Uh Power Mount's design is purpose-built for Apple Home View and offering an elegant

00:38:34 ◼   ► wall-mounted installation in three configurations: USB C wall connector, AC wired, and power over

00:38:38 ◼   ► Ethernet wired.

00:38:39 ◼   ► All three Power Mounts feature precision magnets to securely hold Apple HomeView against the

00:38:43 ◼   ► wall to stay powered.

00:38:44 ◼   ► For a seamless professional installation with no visible wires, the AC powered wall mount

00:38:47 ◼   ► connects to electrical wiring through a single wall box and the POE wired wall

00:38:50 ◼   ► mount receives power and data.

00:38:51 ◼   ► Oh, I'm wrong.

00:38:52 ◼   ► I should have read that further.

00:38:53 ◼   ► And data through a standard Ethernet cable hidden in the wall.

00:38:55 ◼   ► Again, I really, really dig this until you look at the price.

00:38:59 ◼   ► The PoE Walmart is one hundred and twenty-nine dollars and ninety-five cents, which if

00:39:04 ◼   ► you do a little bit of mathematics, is forty-three percent of the purchase price

00:39:10 ◼   ► of the entire effing home view.

00:39:12 ◼   ► Astonishing.

00:39:13 ◼   ► And wait, it get it gets better.

00:39:15 ◼   ► Remember that the Walmount home view is the regular home view with the R2D2

00:39:21 ◼   ► part chopped off.

00:39:23 ◼   ► But it's the same price as that other one.

00:39:26 ◼   ► So they took a piece a piece of the other product.

00:39:29 ◼   ► Granted, probably the most expensive piece because it's the screen and has the SOC

00:39:33 ◼   ► in it, clearly or whatever.

00:39:34 ◼   ► But they removed all like the downfiring woofer, that aluminum case, the passive radiators,

00:39:40 ◼   ► the arm, all that is gone.

00:39:41 ◼   ► Is it cheaper than the non-wall mountain?

00:39:43 ◼   ► No, exactly the same price.

00:39:45 ◼   ► And then insult to injury is oh, and if you want to connect it

00:39:48 ◼   ► to power or over Ethernet, take your thing that doesn't R2D tube across the

00:39:52 ◼   ► same price as one that does, and had forty-three percent of the price for

00:39:55 ◼   ► a power.

00:39:55 ◼   ► Now the good the good thing about that is look, these are as in

00:39:59 ◼   ► the end, these are like it's a physical problem.

00:40:01 ◼   ► How do you mount this thing to the wall?

00:40:03 ◼   ► Third parties are gonna be all over this with like I mean, you could

00:40:07 ◼   ► three D print something or go to do this, like in the end, you

00:40:10 ◼   ► just have to get some way to get a USB C cable into the

00:40:13 ◼   ► thing.

00:40:14 ◼   ► Uh or some kind of, you know, whatever you have to do.

00:40:16 ◼   ► It is a physical problem, not a computer problem.

00:40:20 ◼   ► Uh if you don't want to pay $130 for a power over Ethernet thing,

00:40:23 ◼   ► I'm sure you could take a power over Ethernet to USB C thing or

00:40:27 ◼   ► whatever.

00:40:28 ◼   ► Maybe you won't get data through it.

00:40:29 ◼   ► Like I don't know what the details of that are.

00:40:30 ◼   ► Maybe that's why it's 130 bucks, but like these are solvable problems for people.

00:40:35 ◼   ► Maybe you're not gonna have the precision magnets, maybe, although you can 3D print

00:40:38 ◼   ► those too.

00:40:38 ◼   ► Not the magnets, but the places where the magnets go.

00:40:40 ◼   ► Um you can buy magics on Amazon that fit into 3D printed things really

00:40:44 ◼   ► cheaply.

00:40:44 ◼   ► Yeah, this is this is like

00:40:47 ◼   ► the the the wall mount one is clearly like look if you're gonna wall

00:40:51 ◼   ► mount this you're the kind of person who is putting smart things in your

00:40:54 ◼   ► walls and so we're gonna charge you more money for it, I guess.

00:40:56 ◼   ► But like it really does feel a little bit punitive to me to make

00:40:59 ◼   ► the Walmart one not be cheaper than the regular one.

00:41:01 ◼   ► Because let's let's face it, it can't cost it it costs less for them

00:41:04 ◼   ► to make.

00:41:05 ◼   ► It just does.

00:41:06 ◼   ► Yeah I mean what this What the Walmart product is, or at least what

00:41:11 ◼   ► they're hoping it will be, is there's this whole market, uh first of all,

00:41:17 ◼   ► businesses will, you know, if for for some reason a business wants to install

00:41:21 ◼   ► one of these.

00:41:22 ◼   ► Now, I don't know what kind of business that would be that would want

00:41:24 ◼   ► this.

00:41:25 ◼   ► Yeah why would they do it?

00:41:26 ◼   ► Six person company?

00:41:27 ◼   ► But where I think what this is really for is custom installers doing high

00:41:32 ◼   ► end installs for nice houses and rich people.

00:41:34 ◼   ► Um there's this whole world out there um of you know the pe the

00:41:38 ◼   ► same people who walm out TVs, you know, and and you know, a lot

00:41:41 ◼   ► of times like people will have like centralized audio systems that like play through

00:41:46 ◼   ► ceiling speakers all over the house, and they'll like a closet full of Sonos

00:41:49 ◼   ► amps and a rack.

00:41:50 ◼   ► Like it's that market.

00:41:51 ◼   ► Cut Custom installed nice things for high end houses.

00:41:55 ◼   ► That is what this is for.

00:41:56 ◼   ► And that market, it's like when you sell to the enterprise or to people

00:42:01 ◼   ► having weddings.

00:42:02 ◼   ► These are just words that you can put in front of things that make

00:42:05 ◼   ► the prices go up.

00:42:06 ◼   ► Why?

00:42:06 ◼   ► Because they can.

00:42:08 ◼   ► And because those customers will usually pay the premium because they can.

00:42:12 ◼   ► So it's not like it is it like

00:42:16 ◼   ► I don't like when people use the term money grab.

00:42:20 ◼   ► Uh to when they accuse developers of software of money grabs for things like

00:42:26 ◼   ► charging money for anything.

00:42:29 ◼   ► However, that's kind of what this type of product like when you have like

00:42:34 ◼   ► the version of it that comes with less stuff and costs more, that's just

00:42:38 ◼   ► market segmentation.

00:42:40 ◼   ► They're selling to a market that will pay more and they will happily make

00:42:44 ◼   ► them pay more.

00:42:44 ◼   ► That's all it is.

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00:44:43 ◼   ► Uh let's talk apps.

00:44:44 ◼   ► They're built-in apps, alarms, calendar, FaceTime, find my home, intercom, messages, music, podcast, reminders,

00:44:50 ◼   ► safari settings uh timers, weather, and world clock.

00:44:54 ◼   ► There are apps also available from iPhone, which is audiobooks, classical music, news, and

00:44:58 ◼   ► TV.

00:44:59 ◼   ► Then it uh apparently quote supported it will also have supported third party audio

00:45:06 ◼   ► and video apps, quote.

00:45:07 ◼   ► Uh this requires iOS and iPad OS twenty-seven point two.

00:45:10 ◼   ► There were there there has been a lot of confusion to which I don't

00:45:14 ◼   ► think I can bring final answers, but there's been a lot of confusion with

00:45:17 ◼   ► regard to okay, how does third party stuff work?

00:45:20 ◼   ► Uh Ju J Julian Chakatu at Wired says it doesn't have an app store.

00:45:25 ◼   ► Instead, Apple has a curated selection of apps, including FaceTime Messengers and Safari.

00:45:28 ◼   ► A handful of third party media apps like Spotify are available and developers can

00:45:32 ◼   ► bring over existing CarPlay apps.

00:45:34 ◼   ► What?

00:45:35 ◼   ► Hey, it's on boats.

00:45:36 ◼   ► Right?

00:45:36 ◼   ► It's on boats.

00:45:38 ◼   ► It's not on Rivians, but it's on boats.

00:45:40 ◼   ► Uh a handful of third-party media apps like Spotify are available and developers can

00:45:43 ◼   ► bring over existing CarPlay apps.

00:45:45 ◼   ► If your iPhone already has one of these CarPlay apps installed, it can automatically

00:45:48 ◼   ► appear on the HomeView after setup.

00:45:50 ◼   ► Julian continues, there are no video streaming apps like YouTube, Netflix or Disney, but

00:45:55 ◼   ► if those companies choose to make their apps available on the CarPlay framework, they

00:45:58 ◼   ► will show up in HomeView.

00:46:00 ◼   ► For now, you'll have to consume videos by using the Safari browser, which raises

00:46:04 ◼   ► something that John beat me to and put in our internal show notes, which

00:46:07 ◼   ► we will also put in your show notes.

00:46:09 ◼   ► There was something about this at WWDC this year which I immediately thought of

00:46:13 ◼   ► and apparently so did John.

00:46:14 ◼   ► John, what is what is this?

00:46:15 ◼   ► Yeah, at CarPlay, uh WC2026, they were like, Hey, now we support video apps

00:46:21 ◼   ► for CarPlay.

00:46:21 ◼   ► And they were very cautious saying, Oh, you should watch them when you're parked,

00:46:24 ◼   ► maybe you're charging your EV.

00:46:26 ◼   ► It's good to like, this is not for when you're driving, but you know,

00:46:28 ◼   ► just so you know, we now have support for video apps for CarPlay.

00:46:31 ◼   ► And it's like, all right, sure, I guess.

00:46:33 ◼   ► Secret uh preparing for a product that was already done by then.

00:46:37 ◼   ► Hey, why would you make a CarPlay video app?

00:46:40 ◼   ► Well, now if you did make a CarPlay video app, boom, automatically works on

00:46:44 ◼   ► the home view.

00:46:44 ◼   ► Yeah, it was it turns out it wasn't just for when you're charging your

00:46:47 ◼   ► EV.

00:46:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:46:48 ◼   ► I mean it is for that, like that is a valid place for it,

00:46:51 ◼   ► but also for this.

00:46:52 ◼   ► But again, people who were parked charging their EVs usually use their phones or

00:46:57 ◼   ► go into the travel plaza?

00:46:59 ◼   ► You know, but anyway, yeah.

00:47:02 ◼   ► Teslas do it.

00:47:03 ◼   ► A lot of them have a way where when you are stationary in your

00:47:05 ◼   ► car and it's charging that you can watch video content on the dashboard.

00:47:09 ◼   ► How many people use it?

00:47:10 ◼   ► I bet it doesn't get a lot of use for exactly the reason you

00:47:11 ◼   ► said, but a lot of people do it.

00:47:13 ◼   ► So when Apple did it, no one really raised an eyebrow.

00:47:15 ◼   ► They're okay, other people do it.

00:47:16 ◼   ► Apple will too.

00:47:17 ◼   ► Continuing, uh, we'll quote from Apple's latest developer agreement, which just came out, I

00:47:23 ◼   ► think, earlier today as we record 6.4.1, iOS application widgets on CarPlay and Apple

00:47:27 ◼   ► HomeView.

00:47:28 ◼   ► You agree that your iOS application widget may be available on CarPlay and Apple

00:47:32 ◼   ► HomeView.

00:47:33 ◼   ► 6.4.2, availability of iOS applications for CarPlay on Apple HomeView.

00:47:37 ◼   ► If your application includes a CarPlay entitlement profile in a category identified by Apple

00:47:42 ◼   ► in the documentation, you agree Apple may provide access to such application on Apple

00:47:46 ◼   ► Home View while it is running on a paired iOS device.

00:47:48 ◼   ► So it's not like Vision OS where you can opt in and opt out.

00:47:51 ◼   ► It's iPad uh apps on macOS where you can opt in and opt out

00:47:54 ◼   ► they're like look if you made a CarPlay thing you now agree we can

00:47:58 ◼   ► make that appear on this device like you're you are opted into it and

00:48:02 ◼   ► you have no choice and which is probably fine but it's just it is

00:48:05 ◼   ► a change in attitude towards Apple's things.

00:48:08 ◼   ► And again, we'll get more into this with the next item, but like, is

00:48:11 ◼   ► this really a platform?

00:48:12 ◼   ► But uh just FYI.

00:48:13 ◼   ► It seems like Marco Overcast will be on this device and you have no

00:48:16 ◼   ► say.

00:48:17 ◼   ► I mean, first of all, like good?

00:48:19 ◼   ► Like I I I want Overcast to be on this device.

00:48:22 ◼   ► And you don't do more work because you already have a CarPlay version, right?

00:48:24 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:25 ◼   ► So my my one wish for this, this is totally unrelated to the home

00:48:30 ◼   ► view.

00:48:31 ◼   ► I I I had to think about that name for a second.

00:48:33 ◼   ► Um

00:48:34 ◼   ► CarPlay, the APIs to to write CarPlay interfaces are very old style like create

00:48:43 ◼   ► CP template row, set properties, you know, when things update, you have to go

00:48:48 ◼   ► find the instance of the C P update row and update its properties or

00:48:51 ◼   ► like, you know, generate a new one and then it makes the whole screen

00:48:54 ◼   ► blink and it like there's so many it's so cumbersome.

00:48:57 ◼   ► Is it like Watch Kit where it's entirely data driven where you're just sending

00:49:00 ◼   ► like uh data over the wire and then the data rehydrates into a thing?

00:49:04 ◼   ► Sort of, except that I'm pretty sure the phone is rendering the whole UI

00:49:08 ◼   ► and just sending it over like a like a video airplay kind of link.

00:49:11 ◼   ► But um but like if for what the what the apps see is you

00:49:14 ◼   ► just create like CarPlay list template, CarPlay Row, CarPlay Media Row.

00:49:18 ◼   ► And you say this is this one is now playing.

00:49:20 ◼   ► This one's title is this, this one's description description is this.

00:49:22 ◼   ► You know, put this at index one or whatever.

00:49:24 ◼   ► You know, like that's what you're doing.

00:49:26 ◼   ► It is so difficult to make anything good using that.

00:49:31 ◼   ► Because it's first of all, it's full of bugs.

00:49:33 ◼   ► Second of all, like it's so cumbersome to go you you basically have to

00:49:36 ◼   ► like manually diff and update your data model into the interface.

00:49:41 ◼   ► Swift UI has this amazing power where like you know the the declarative structure

00:49:45 ◼   ► of it is like you basically declare the interface using these wonderful result builders,

00:49:50 ◼   ► and you know, you you kind of bind your data to various parts of

00:49:53 ◼   ► it such that when your data updates, the UI updates for you.

00:49:56 ◼   ► It does its own diffing.

00:49:57 ◼   ► It kind of does like efficient updates to only updating what it needs to

00:50:01 ◼   ► update.

00:50:02 ◼   ► I really, really hope that a every day, every year WDC, what I hope

00:50:07 ◼   ► Apple releases is a Swift UI style declarative result builder based interface for CarPlay

00:50:14 ◼   ► apps to use.

00:50:15 ◼   ► They haven't yet done it.

00:50:17 ◼   ► I'm hoping maybe this will help push them to do that sooner rather than

00:50:22 ◼   ► later.

00:50:22 ◼   ► Maybe next year W D C maybe there's a chance of something like that.

00:50:25 ◼   ► Like some kind of redo of the CarPlay APIs, because it's it's not for

00:50:31 ◼   ► like six apps anymore.

00:50:32 ◼   ► There's there's a lot of CarPlay apps out there, as we always talk about

00:50:34 ◼   ► whenever we talk about Ruby and but um there's a lot of CarPlay apps

00:50:37 ◼   ► out there and writing them is so unbelievably cumbersome.

00:50:42 ◼   ► And they have this amazing data diffing system with Swift UI.

00:50:48 ◼   ► Just use that, make that like it's w it's one of my projects like

00:50:51 ◼   ► I c I fantasize sometimes about like I wonder if I could make AI

00:50:54 ◼   ► build me a shim that does that.

00:50:56 ◼   ► Like just build me that layer so that I never have to use the

00:51:00 ◼   ► ancient CarPlay APIs again.

00:51:01 ◼   ► 'Cause it's again it's just it's so difficult to to write a CarPlay UI

00:51:06 ◼   ► that is correct, efficient, and good.

00:51:10 ◼   ► And a result builder one would do that so much more easily.

00:51:14 ◼   ► Uh I think uh we may get email from Swift UI experts saying that

00:51:17 ◼   ► Swift UI does not actually do React style tree diffing.

00:51:21 ◼   ► Uh but we get conceptually what you're saying.

00:51:23 ◼   ► Thank you.

00:51:24 ◼   ► All right.

00:51:25 ◼   ► Uh with regard to the name, Joe Joe Rosignal at MacRumors writes Mac Rumors

00:51:30 ◼   ► was the first to reveal the name HomeView last week after discovering a trademark

00:51:33 ◼   ► fil filing from a secretive shell company that we correctly suspected was linked to

00:51:37 ◼   ► Apple.

00:51:38 ◼   ► Apple was likely behind a Home OS trademark filing as well, but the company

00:51:42 ◼   ► ultimately decided to stick with generic home view software naming, just like it refers

00:51:46 ◼   ► to HomePod's operating system as HomePod Software.

00:51:49 ◼   ► For example, the device will ship with HomeView Software version twenty seven point two.

00:51:54 ◼   ► So this does actually lean it's yeah yeah explain and uh what Apple's stance

00:52:00 ◼   ► is on this.

00:52:00 ◼   ► Uh is it a platform or is it not?

00:52:02 ◼   ► Apple's platforms have names like T V OS and iOS and iPad OS and

00:52:07 ◼   ► Mac OS and so on and so forth.

00:52:09 ◼   ► Apple's platforms that aren't really platforms don't have names.

00:52:13 ◼   ► The home pod runs, I believe, currently Audio OS, but nobody knows that name

00:52:18 ◼   ► who's not a developer because it's not a platform that you develop for.

00:52:21 ◼   ► It is just simply what the operating system is called under the covers because

00:52:24 ◼   ► it's got to have a name, right?

00:52:26 ◼   ► Home OS would have been publicized if there was, for example, an app store

00:52:30 ◼   ► for HomeView, but there's not.

00:52:32 ◼   ► So instead, it's like the when it was like iPhone software, iPhone firmware before

00:52:36 ◼   ► it was christened uh iOS or whatever.

00:52:39 ◼   ► It's just the software for your home view.

00:52:42 ◼   ► Home view software version 27.2.

00:52:44 ◼   ► It's nice that they sync the version of this totally unbranded, nameless.

00:52:47 ◼   ► Don't call it an operating system, operating system with everybody else.

00:52:51 ◼   ► So it is also 27.2.

00:52:52 ◼   ► What is 27.82?

00:52:54 ◼   ► Home view software.

00:52:55 ◼   ► And under the covers, maybe it is call home OS.

00:52:57 ◼   ► When someone cracks one of these opens and and looks at what you name

00:53:00 ◼   ► pulls out or whatever, it probably is actually called Home OS or maybe what

00:53:03 ◼   ► the code name was like Vision uh what do you call the the Vision

00:53:06 ◼   ► Pro is still called XROS under the cover, I believe.

00:53:08 ◼   ► Um but yeah they didn't brand it as a platform because it's not.

00:53:12 ◼   ► It is

00:53:14 ◼   ► I've heard some people refer to it and we'll talk about like the UI

00:53:16 ◼   ► in a little bit, like it's like a big Apple Watch, kind of, but

00:53:20 ◼   ► also kind of like a big CarPlay screen, but also its own thing.

00:53:23 ◼   ► It is a weird hybrid because you can project stuff onto it because CarPlay,

00:53:27 ◼   ► that's what CarPlay does.

00:53:28 ◼   ► Uh and it can delegate stuff to your phone, which is more powerful and

00:53:32 ◼   ► has all your data.

00:53:32 ◼   ► And we'll that in a minute too.

00:53:34 ◼   ► But also it seems like it has things that run directly on it too,

00:53:38 ◼   ► like you know, the home pod has stuff that runs directly on it as

00:53:41 ◼   ► well.

00:53:42 ◼   ► But this has a screen and everything.

00:53:43 ◼   ► So this is in a weird middle place, but it's clear that Apple is

00:53:46 ◼   ► starting this cautiously and not trying to say, kind of like they did with

00:53:51 ◼   ► uh uh TVOS of like this is just an all-new platform.

00:53:54 ◼   ► Like everything we make is a platform, and everything has an app store.

00:53:57 ◼   ► And that's and like the watch.

00:53:58 ◼   ► Watch has its own app store and its own apps.

00:54:00 ◼   ► And it's like some things lend themselves better to that approach than others.

00:54:03 ◼   ► This one they're not even trying.

00:54:05 ◼   ► They're saying this is fits into our ecosystem, but it is not yet a

00:54:08 ◼   ► platform you develop for.

00:54:09 ◼   ► I just had someone ask me on uh Mastodon earlier who's like, ca is

00:54:12 ◼   ► this a deploy deployable target in X code?

00:54:14 ◼   ► I don't think it is.

00:54:15 ◼   ► I don't the answer to this, but I don't think it is.

00:54:17 ◼   ► Like you don't you can't like write apps for it and target it and

00:54:20 ◼   ► deploy it on it.

00:54:21 ◼   ► I think you add CarPlay support for your app and you use the CarPlay

00:54:25 ◼   ► video player APIs if you want to do that and so on and so

00:54:27 ◼   ► forth.

00:54:27 ◼   ► But I think that's it.

00:54:29 ◼   ► Like I we'll find out more in in the coming days.

00:54:31 ◼   ► But yeah, it may be running Home OS under the covers, but it is

00:54:34 ◼   ► not a new platform, at least not yet.

00:54:36 ◼   ► Yeah, it definitely seems like from a developer point of view, it's basically like

00:54:41 ◼   ► CarPlan widgets.

00:54:42 ◼   ► Like it almost like standby mode on the phone where like you can offer

00:54:46 ◼   ► a widget.

00:54:46 ◼   ► And the user can put it there.

00:54:48 ◼   ► It's probably gonna be very similar to that.

00:54:50 ◼   ► Um and you y you know, we don't make home view os whatever we

00:54:57 ◼   ► don't we don't make yeah, we don't make home OS apps.

00:54:59 ◼   ► We make iOS apps that can optionally project something onto the home view.

00:55:04 ◼   ► There are some requirements if you want to use this.

00:55:07 ◼   ► Uh Julian at Wired writes to get the most out of home view, you

00:55:10 ◼   ► need an iPhone with Apple Intelligence support, which is an iPhone 15 Pro or

00:55:13 ◼   ► newer.

00:55:14 ◼   ► You can't set it up with an iPad.

00:55:15 ◼   ► Apple says you can still set it up with an older iPhone and access

00:55:18 ◼   ► some of Siri AI's smarts, like broad world knowledge, but smarter app actions and

00:55:23 ◼   ► personal context queries require an iPhone with Apple intelligence.

00:55:26 ◼   ► I mean that makes sense because like it's just doing them on your phone.

00:55:28 ◼   ► So if your phone doesn't support personal context, then Apple Serie AI, you can't

00:55:32 ◼   ► delegate it to like that stuff's not going to happen on the home view.

00:55:35 ◼   ► It happens on your phone.

00:55:37 ◼   ► That's right.

00:55:37 ◼   ► And again, Julian writes, you can add up to six iCloud accounts.

00:55:41 ◼   ► John has made a couple of mentions to that earlier, and the user interface

00:55:44 ◼   ► will adapt to each person.

00:55:46 ◼   ► Uh John, I believe you would like to take a moment to climb up

00:55:49 ◼   ► on your high horse.

00:55:50 ◼   ► My my immediate snark about this was I wonder if it will cancel your

00:55:53 ◼   ► Apple Care One plan every time a different person uses it.

00:55:58 ◼   ► Because historically speaking, products that are in your home that can be used by

00:56:03 ◼   ► more than one Apple account simultaneously, all in or an alternation, will in fact

00:56:08 ◼   ► cancel your Apple Care.

00:56:09 ◼   ► One plan.

00:56:09 ◼   ► And I'm speaking of course about a Mac with multiple accounts.

00:56:12 ◼   ► If anybody signs into an account on that Mac with an Apple account that

00:56:17 ◼   ► is not part of your Apple family, yoink, off your Apple Care One family

00:56:21 ◼   ► plan it goes.

00:56:21 ◼   ► And by the way, I did confirm this with a long uh phone call

00:56:24 ◼   ► with uh Apple support the other day.

00:56:27 ◼   ► Um I think I mentioned in the last episode, but I'll just reiterate it

00:56:29 ◼   ► again.

00:56:30 ◼   ► Apple Care One Family, what they told me is if you do that, even

00:56:33 ◼   ► if you have Apple Care One Family, if you use any Apple account that's

00:56:36 ◼   ► not part of your Apple Care One family, even if you're still logged into

00:56:39 ◼   ► that Mac with one of your Apple Kit Apple family accounts, doesn't matter.

00:56:42 ◼   ► They will yank it off Apple Care One family.

00:56:44 ◼   ► So that sucks, but don't worry about it because as far as I can

00:56:49 ◼   ► tell, this is not like Mac OS, where it's like there are multiple users

00:56:53 ◼   ► on the system and they have accounts and it switches accounts.

00:56:56 ◼   ► That's not what this is doing, as far as I can tell.

00:56:58 ◼   ► We'll find out when we get closer.

00:56:59 ◼   ► This is all speculation, but I would bet a substantial amount of money that

00:57:03 ◼   ► what this is actually doing is always running one big monolithic application that simply

00:57:09 ◼   ► does different things depending on who the current authenticated user is.

00:57:13 ◼   ► And we'll

00:57:15 ◼   ► Oh, it's running as a different user.

00:57:17 ◼   ► It's switching to a different account.

00:57:18 ◼   ► It's none of that.

00:57:19 ◼   ► It's it's always running as I don't know if it's always running as root,

00:57:22 ◼   ► but anyway, it's always running as the same user.

00:57:23 ◼   ► It's single monolithic application.

00:57:25 ◼   ► And it's just multiplexing whose phone it's talking to.

00:57:28 ◼   ► Uh and in that way, yes, six people can use it at the same

00:57:31 ◼   ► time.

00:57:32 ◼   ► Because that's that's that's the problem of any kind of like thing in a

00:57:34 ◼   ► home with a screen.

00:57:35 ◼   ► If you're not living alone with it and multiple people people want to use

00:57:38 ◼   ► it, it has to be useful to all of them.

00:57:40 ◼   ► So yeah, I guess you could put a family calendar on a shared thing

00:57:42 ◼   ► or whatever, but ideally when you are using it, it will tell you your

00:57:45 ◼   ► stuff.

00:57:46 ◼   ► Like, um, well, we'll get to it in a bit, but I have a

00:57:49 ◼   ► Google device that is similar and I can figure out who's talking to it

00:57:51 ◼   ► and and show them their stuff in response to that.

00:57:54 ◼   ► So to be a registered user of the HomeView, you need an iPhone, an

00:57:57 ◼   ► Apple account, and you need to be a member of the home that the

00:57:59 ◼   ► HomeView is a part of.

00:58:01 ◼   ► That's an interesting list of requirements because first of all, hey kid, are you

00:58:04 ◼   ► a little kid and you don't iPhone?

00:58:06 ◼   ► Tough luck.

00:58:08 ◼   ► You don't get any customization for the home view.

00:58:10 ◼   ► It doesn't show you your stuff.

00:58:12 ◼   ► Uh it doesn't know who you are.

00:58:13 ◼   ► It doesn't care.

00:58:14 ◼   ► If you don't have you're not a person.

00:58:15 ◼   ► Uh second, you need an Apple account, which that makes sense.

00:58:18 ◼   ► And then being member of the home, that's different than being a member of

00:58:22 ◼   ► the Apple family thing, I think.

00:58:24 ◼   ► Cause I think you can add anyone to your home, like your Apple home.

00:58:27 ◼   ► It's who do you want to be a member of this home?

00:58:29 ◼   ► But uh most people, it's it's probably the same thing like they're a member

00:58:32 ◼   ► of your Apple family, they're a member of your Apple Home, but it it

00:58:34 ◼   ► doesn't require you to be a member of Apple family.

00:58:37 ◼   ► In any case, uh HomeView does not have face ID.

00:58:42 ◼   ► Uh recognition just uses the camera.

00:58:44 ◼   ► There's no like depth sensors or anything like that.

00:58:46 ◼   ► You will only be recognized by home view if your iPhone is at home

00:58:49 ◼   ► on the same Wi-Fi and has been recently unlocked.

00:58:53 ◼   ► Apple Watch is not enough to serve as your I'm home personal device.

00:58:57 ◼   ► There is no IR, so you know there's limited to no functionality in the

00:59:01 ◼   ► dark, and there's no voice recognition.

00:59:03 ◼   ► We don't think.

00:59:04 ◼   ► Yeah, so I they didn't say anything about it, but like the my Google

00:59:07 ◼   ► home does voice recognition.

00:59:08 ◼   ► When I talk to it, it knows that it's me because my voice sounds

00:59:10 ◼   ► different than my wife.

00:59:11 ◼   ► Um, all this, this is of another fascinating part of the multi-user thing aspect

00:59:16 ◼   ► of it.

00:59:16 ◼   ► So it doesn't have face ID.

00:59:18 ◼   ► I don't quite know why because it's plenty thick, but again, 300 bucks, whatever.

00:59:21 ◼   ► That's fine.

00:59:22 ◼   ► Um it just uses cameras, but as we all know, all I can just

00:59:25 ◼   ► print out a picture of your face and hold it up.

00:59:27 ◼   ► But that's there's more that is required.

00:59:29 ◼   ► The other things that you read.

00:59:30 ◼   ► You have to be on the you have to have your iPhone, it has

00:59:32 ◼   ► to be on the home Wi Fi, and you have to have recently unlocked

00:59:34 ◼   ► it, and that iPhone has to be signed in with the Apple account that

00:59:37 ◼   ► it thinks is you.

00:59:37 ◼   ► So you could still do this, like if I'm sitting on the couch and

00:59:41 ◼   ► I've unlocked my iPhone and you walk over to HomeView and hold up a

00:59:43 ◼   ► printout of my face, you're in.

00:59:45 ◼   ► So it's not super duper security, but remember, when I say you're in, it's

00:59:49 ◼   ► like you suddenly have access to my phone on the home view.

00:59:52 ◼   ► You just can see, I guess, my events for the day and you could

00:59:54 ◼   ► ask it questions that would go to my phone and get personal con it

00:59:57 ◼   ► is still like it is still potentially a side door security hole because this

01:00:01 ◼   ► is probably the weakest security Apple has ever had in modern times for accessing

01:00:07 ◼   ► someone's personal information.

01:00:09 ◼   ► But from what I've heard of people who are there in person asking Apple

01:00:12 ◼   ► these questions, Apple's basically saying that like we are considering your home to be

01:00:18 ◼   ► a security domain that like if someone's inside your home and and you don't

01:00:21 ◼   ► want them to be, you know, um there's a follow-up item that we'll probably

01:00:24 ◼   ► have in the thing next week saying, you know, for a lot of people

01:00:28 ◼   ► Being in the same home doesn't necessarily mean that everyone who's in that home

01:00:32 ◼   ► is a safe person, right?

01:00:33 ◼   ► So keep this in mind when you are considering this product, because I feel

01:00:37 ◼   ► like it does give people in your home one of the easiest possible ways

01:00:43 ◼   ► to get at your stuff without being you.

01:00:46 ◼   ► I mean obviously they can just wait till your shower and steal your phone

01:00:48 ◼   ► or whatever, but like a lot of people are in in home situations where

01:00:51 ◼   ► they can't trust everyone who's with them.

01:00:53 ◼   ► This product is designed in a way that you mostly trust the people who

01:00:57 ◼   ► you're in the house with.

01:00:57 ◼   ► Now, the stinky little brother trying to see his sister's text, he could print

01:01:01 ◼   ► out a picture of her face and do that because you know she's gonna

01:01:03 ◼   ► be nearby with her phone and you know she's gonna have unlocked it recently

01:01:06 ◼   ► and you know she's gonna be on the home Wi-Fi and a picture will

01:01:09 ◼   ► fool the camera.

01:01:10 ◼   ► So I do wonder how this is gonna play out.

01:01:12 ◼   ► But in the end, if you don't put a face ID sensor on this

01:01:15 ◼   ► thing, this is basically your only choice to make it a useful product for

01:01:19 ◼   ► multiple people.

01:01:20 ◼   ► Um arguably Google's voice recognition is weaker because you can just make a deep

01:01:24 ◼   ► voice and it'll probably think you're me or whatever.

01:01:27 ◼   ► Um but I do I do worry about this aspect of the product.

01:01:30 ◼   ► I'm I'm not quite sure what they could have done otherwise.

01:01:32 ◼   ► Again, because if you want to sell for three hundred bucks, maybe you can't

01:01:34 ◼   ► put face ID, but it it does worry me a bit.

01:01:37 ◼   ► You know, I could have sworn during the commercial, the three minute commercial, not

01:01:41 ◼   ► the one and a half minute commercial, I could have sworn they implied that

01:01:45 ◼   ► there was voice recognition.

01:01:46 ◼   ► So we might have that wrong.

01:01:48 ◼   ► Yeah, there there might be, but again, voice recognition is also Like you just

01:01:51 ◼   ► record the person's voice and in my voice is my passport.

01:01:53 ◼   ► Verify me.

01:01:54 ◼   ► Like we know that's not

01:01:56 ◼   ► Marco gets it now.

01:01:57 ◼   ► I get it.

01:02:00 ◼   ► Also, John, you have a question in the show notes, which I concur with.

01:02:03 ◼   ► Why doesn't iPhone Duo, which also does not have face ID, do something similar

01:02:07 ◼   ► where the home location is like a second factor?

01:02:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:02:10 ◼   ► I mean so I think that's the reason why it doesn't like the the

01:02:13 ◼   ► the duo doesn't have face ID because it's not thick enough, okay?

01:02:15 ◼   ► Um but it has cameras, why doesn't just use them just like the home

01:02:18 ◼   ► view does?

01:02:19 ◼   ► Well, I hopefully I explained that with the home view thing of like that

01:02:21 ◼   ► is incredibly less secure than face ID, like up because you can just hold

01:02:24 ◼   ► up a picture of yourself.

01:02:25 ◼   ► And you could say, Well why doesn't the foo uh the iPhone duo just

01:02:28 ◼   ► do that when I'm at home?

01:02:29 ◼   ► Maybe that's arguable, but I do feel like getting like unlocking your phone is

01:02:34 ◼   ► still uh more invasive access than unlocking a home view, which can talk to

01:02:41 ◼   ► your phone.

01:02:41 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

01:02:42 ◼   ► Like the the phone is where all your stuff is once you've unlocked it

01:02:44 ◼   ► it.

01:02:45 ◼   ► So I wouldn't want to say even like a dual mode of like oh

01:02:48 ◼   ► geofenced when you're only at your home location, you can unlock your iPhone dual

01:02:51 ◼   ► with just your face and no face ID.

01:02:52 ◼   ► Like I don't think Apple would do that because the phone for everybody is

01:02:55 ◼   ► like that's the keys to the kingdom at this point for people in terms

01:02:58 ◼   ► of security.

01:02:58 ◼   ► Whereas I feel like the home view is not.

01:03:01 ◼   ► Depending on how much access you have to people's personal data from HomeView, maybe

01:03:04 ◼   ► via Sear AI, we'll again we'll see when people get this, because I'm sure

01:03:07 ◼   ► somebody will try the experiment.

01:03:09 ◼   ► What if I hold up a picture of you, unlock home view?

01:03:11 ◼   ► How much stuff can I exfiltrate from home view while you sit on the

01:03:14 ◼   ► couch without you knowing it.

01:03:15 ◼   ► By asking CRAI questions like what did they say to this person or show

01:03:19 ◼   ► me this message this conversation or or you know, what is the password to

01:03:22 ◼   ► this website?

01:03:23 ◼   ► Something like that.

01:03:24 ◼   ► So we'll see how that goes.

01:03:25 ◼   ► I wonder if it'll like, you know, tap the phone of the person like

01:03:29 ◼   ► as it's responding or like somehow use the phone to notify you like, hey,

01:03:32 ◼   ► I'm talking about you.

01:03:33 ◼   ► For some reason you're not using me.

01:03:35 ◼   ► Hey.

01:03:36 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

01:03:37 ◼   ► Or like, I mean, I don't it I don't know.

01:03:39 ◼   ► It's this would have been good if we were like, does it use ultra

01:03:42 ◼   ► wideband to do like you have to be next to the thing?

01:03:44 ◼   ► I don't think they said that, but like, yeah, we'll we'll see when people

01:03:47 ◼   ► get this and start trying to break it what the actual security barriers are.

01:03:50 ◼   ► But um again with the follow up item that hopefully next week, there is

01:03:54 ◼   ► always a trade-off between convenience and security.

01:03:56 ◼   ► And you have to try to figure out where that bounces.

01:03:58 ◼   ► And for products like this, it's really difficult, especially when you're confined to a

01:04:01 ◼   ► size and a price that doesn't all you to pull out all the security

01:04:04 ◼   ► stops that you have for your fancier devices.

01:04:07 ◼   ► With regard to AI, as we mentioned, personal context requests require a paired Apple

01:04:12 ◼   ► intelligence enabled iPhone or iPad running the latest software version with Siri AI turned

01:04:16 ◼   ► on and set to this to a supported language.

01:04:18 ◼   ► For installation, uh they've said uh particularly for the Walmart mount stuff, that you

01:04:23 ◼   ► can have ADT, which is an American like alarm company, uh do professional installation.

01:04:29 ◼   ► You can receive more information and self service support content with your order confirmation,

01:04:33 ◼   ► says Apple.

01:04:34 ◼   ► I I really would love to know how much this is gonna cost.

01:04:36 ◼   ► Again, it may be more than double the price of the thing that you

01:04:39 ◼   ► buy, but yeah, someone will come to your house and help you install it

01:04:42 ◼   ► for a lot of money, I'm sure.

01:04:44 ◼   ► Uh finally, availability.

01:04:45 ◼   ► You can pre-order right now.

01:04:47 ◼   ► It is in store on the thirteenth of November.

01:04:49 ◼   ► Uh Apple says homeview is not available for s for sale in the European

01:04:52 ◼   ► Union as Siri AI is currently unavailable in IOS in the EU.

01:04:56 ◼   ► Apple's working constructively with the EU in an attempt to find a path forward.

01:05:01 ◼   ► Steve Drown Smith was uh uh cranking online today saying that you know, uh

01:05:05 ◼   ► that Europe didn't get the home pod either until like uh a long time

01:05:08 ◼   ► after it was released, and even then it was only in five countries.

01:05:11 ◼   ► So a lot of the a lot of these home products

01:05:16 ◼   ► Apparently not going to Europe even before the the whole series.

01:05:20 ◼   ► But yeah.

01:05:21 ◼   ► Um software is a hold up on a lot of these.

01:05:23 ◼   ► Also people asking, like, why do we have to wait till November 13th to

01:05:25 ◼   ► get this?

01:05:26 ◼   ► You said they were manufactured in twenty twenty four.

01:05:28 ◼   ► It's been um done forever.

01:05:29 ◼   ► I think it needs like the 27.2 OS to be out everywhere.

01:05:32 ◼   ► So this product is still waiting on software.

01:05:34 ◼   ► Even at this late date, even though they've announced it, you still have to

01:05:37 ◼   ► wait to I assume 27.2 to be out everywhere.

01:05:40 ◼   ► All right.

01:05:41 ◼   ► Anything else for home view?

01:05:42 ◼   ► Actually, let me let me finish this up perhaps by asking, have either of

01:05:46 ◼   ► you ordered one?

01:05:48 ◼   ► Of course.

01:05:49 ◼   ► Um I didn't think Marco was gonna get one because he's been so down

01:05:52 ◼   ► on home pods.

01:05:53 ◼   ► Well, I'm down on home pods, but I still have them all over my

01:05:56 ◼   ► house.

01:05:57 ◼   ► Um the only the only person I've ever seen who has more home pods

01:06:00 ◼   ► in their house is John Gruber.

01:06:02 ◼   ► Like his house, he bas they might as well be like, you know, holding

01:06:05 ◼   ► up benches and stuff.

01:06:06 ◼   ► Like they're just everywhere.

01:06:07 ◼   ► Um but no, I I have a lot of home pods because they are

01:06:12 ◼   ► very good at certain things and they're just really crappy in lots of other

01:06:16 ◼   ► ways.

01:06:17 ◼   ► Um like in almost every workout we do, it's at some point the home

01:06:22 ◼   ► pod in TIF Studio says, hm

01:06:25 ◼   ► like it's they're just so mediocre in so many ways.

01:06:29 ◼   ► It's like having little little uh little pets around that talk to you sometimes.

01:06:32 ◼   ► Right, that that always think they're being talked to and say, hmm?

01:06:35 ◼   ► Yeah?

01:06:35 ◼   ► Yes?

01:06:36 ◼   ► Um anyway, uh but I also use one like to play music while I'm

01:06:40 ◼   ► in the shower every day.

01:06:42 ◼   ► So like I do I do like home pods sometimes in some cases.

01:06:47 ◼   ► They're very good sometimes.

01:06:48 ◼   ► And I think this if it is good, and if it holds up to

01:06:53 ◼   ► the promises and if it is anything like the commercial they made for it,

01:06:58 ◼   ► that will actually be really useful in our kitchen.

01:07:01 ◼   ► Not necessarily because of all the like you know, family asking about their text

01:07:05 ◼   ► from their boyfriends, much more about just it being a nice speaker with a

01:07:11 ◼   ► screen to show timers and the time and the weather and stuff.

01:07:15 ◼   ► All that other stuff like, I don't think we're actually we would actually use

01:07:18 ◼   ► that stuff that much, but just being what this was rumored to be, a

01:07:23 ◼   ► home pod with a screen.

01:07:25 ◼   ► That's actually pretty interesting and pretty compelling.

01:07:29 ◼   ► If it works.

01:07:30 ◼   ► But here's the problem with that.

01:07:34 ◼   ► The home pod doesn't work that well at a lot of this stuff.

01:07:38 ◼   ► It never has.

01:07:41 ◼   ► Siri, as Casey breezed by earlier,

01:07:45 ◼   ► it has gotten better.

01:07:46 ◼   ► It's Siri AI now is a totally different beast than old Siri.

01:07:51 ◼   ► It is way more capable.

01:07:53 ◼   ► It can do way more stuff.

01:07:54 ◼   ► It is significantly improved in most ways.

01:07:59 ◼   ► However, it is slow.

01:08:02 ◼   ► It's really slow.

01:08:04 ◼   ► Sure is.

01:08:05 ◼   ► When I was developing Unforgetful over over the, you know, the spring and, you

01:08:08 ◼   ► know, I thought it was it was you know, I I thought I had

01:08:11 ◼   ► one thing in mind for it.

01:08:12 ◼   ► Um and then when I started using the the iOS twenty seven betas in

01:08:17 ◼   ► the summer and macOS twenty seven betas, but especially iOS, I started using, you

01:08:22 ◼   ► know, Siri AI and beta, and I noticed how incredibly slow and cumbersome it

01:08:28 ◼   ► was to create reminders with Siri.

01:08:31 ◼   ► And at first I thought, crap, here I am making an app that's all

01:08:36 ◼   ► about how useful it is to capture reminders from Siri.

01:08:40 ◼   ► And I and I was relying on this thing that was fine for a

01:08:44 ◼   ► long time.

01:08:45 ◼   ► And this summer I think it got way, way worse.

01:08:48 ◼   ► Because there's two huge problems with using Siri with using Siri AI for reminders.

01:08:53 ◼   ► Number one, it's very, very, very slow.

01:08:56 ◼   ► Number two, it constantly asks, like, you know, you buy milk.

01:09:01 ◼   ► Did you say try silk or buy I said buy milk.

01:09:05 ◼   ► Did you say try silk or no, I said buy milk.

01:09:09 ◼   ► Did you say ah and then you eventually just give up and do something

01:09:12 ◼   ► else.

01:09:12 ◼   ► I remember it also asked you which app you want to use.

01:09:14 ◼   ► Yes, well it apparently it will eventually learn and and stop asking.

01:09:19 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:09:20 ◼   ► I don't know why.

01:09:21 ◼   ► I always give the same answer.

01:09:22 ◼   ► And God forbid there be a UI somewhere to just let you pick.

01:09:25 ◼   ► You know, but I just think it's always gonna be reminders.

01:09:27 ◼   ► Just do it.

01:09:28 ◼   ► It th you know they're they're very conservative with their settings screen and the

01:09:31 ◼   ► settings app, John.

01:09:32 ◼   ► They don't like to stag me kinda uh uh you know, I think it's

01:09:35 ◼   ► over fifty percent of the time it asks me now.

01:09:36 ◼   ► It's madness.

01:09:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:37 ◼   ► Anyway, uh so what I turn that into a a positive for Unforgettable because

01:09:42 ◼   ► I'm like, well Now I'm gonna build in fast dictation.

01:09:45 ◼   ► And that's why like Unforgetful didn't have dictation until like July.

01:09:50 ◼   ► The reason I added that like almost at the last minute was because I'm

01:09:53 ◼   ► like, this is there's an opportunity here because Siri in 27 is gonna be

01:09:57 ◼   ► so incredibly slow for everyone.

01:10:00 ◼   ► Dictating into Unforgettable with its little microphone buttons that I let you put all

01:10:03 ◼   ► over your system, you know, lock screen, control center, widgets, everything.

01:10:07 ◼   ► It's so much faster.

01:10:08 ◼   ► And what that's what I've been doing.

01:10:09 ◼   ► Like all summer, whenever Siri would frustrate me and ask me over and over

01:10:13 ◼   ► and over again, with huge long delays between each one, what I actually meant

01:10:18 ◼   ► by a phrase that I said all the time that worked fine before Siri

01:10:21 ◼   ► AI.

01:10:21 ◼   ► Um I just go tap the unforgetful thing and I say, you know, tomorrow

01:10:25 ◼   ► buy milk.

01:10:25 ◼   ► Done.

01:10:25 ◼   ► And it's so fast.

01:10:27 ◼   ► It create like I saw that as a huge opportunity for me.

01:10:29 ◼   ► The rest of the world, I don't think, has discovered Unforgetful's wonderfulness in this

01:10:32 ◼   ► regard yet.

01:10:33 ◼   ► But I I assure I assure you.

01:10:35 ◼   ► Anyway,

01:10:36 ◼   ► the home view I'm getting there.

01:10:40 ◼   ► The home view is going to have that same problem in that it's relying

01:10:46 ◼   ► on Siri AI, which is very capable most of the time, and it does

01:10:52 ◼   ► have a lot more that it can tell you eventually.

01:10:57 ◼   ► And it it can take more actions and apps, and it is very impressive

01:11:02 ◼   ► often.

01:11:03 ◼   ► But it's so slow.

01:11:05 ◼   ► And this has always been the problem that the home pod had.

01:11:07 ◼   ► You know, the the original home pod with you know original Siri and you

01:11:10 ◼   ► know and the version two and everything.

01:11:12 ◼   ► Siri has always been like able to do things that are fairly impressive for

01:11:19 ◼   ► its time, but it just never did them quickly or reliably.

01:11:23 ◼   ► Will this be any different?

01:11:26 ◼   ► Is this also going to be slow and unreliable?

01:11:30 ◼   ► I don't think we can really say for with confidence that this is gonna

01:11:35 ◼   ► blow us away in that regard.

01:11:37 ◼   ► And will it consistently do it?

01:11:40 ◼   ► And then also, Apple has a history of making home products, like you know,

01:11:47 ◼   ► both home kit and the home app itself, and also home pods.

01:11:52 ◼   ► Both of those Apple kinda puts something out there and then neglects it for

01:11:56 ◼   ► years.

01:11:57 ◼   ► It just withers and dies of neglect because Apple just can't be bothered to

01:12:02 ◼   ► do anything to improve it.

01:12:04 ◼   ► Why would this be any different?

01:12:05 ◼   ► This is HomeKit and a HomePod combined.

01:12:10 ◼   ► So this product, the way it looks in the video, the way it is

01:12:14 ◼   ► sold on Apple's website, the way like the promise of this product is strong.

01:12:19 ◼   ► I think if this product works well and Apple keeps supporting it, And it

01:12:26 ◼   ► actually doesn't a lot of bugs.

01:12:28 ◼   ► And Siri gets fast and is responsive and has a high success rate with

01:12:33 ◼   ► what you ask it.

01:12:34 ◼   ► This could be really great.

01:12:36 ◼   ► But Apple has not shown a strong track record in any of those areas.

01:12:41 ◼   ► So I have a really hard time believing in it long term.

01:12:45 ◼   ► I think the uh the slowness is actually slightly more tolerable for a thing

01:12:49 ◼   ► that you're not like taking out of your pocket or your phone, like because

01:12:52 ◼   ► it's ambient, you can just kind of shout it and if it takes a

01:12:55 ◼   ► little while, as long as I hear the confirm I mean, I do this

01:12:57 ◼   ► with my like Google Home thing.

01:12:58 ◼   ► As long as I hear the confirmation says, Okay, timer is set for twenty

01:13:01 ◼   ► minutes starting now.

01:13:02 ◼   ► Like as long as I hear that within a few seconds, I yeah it

01:13:06 ◼   ► is slow, but I'm it.

01:13:07 ◼   ► Whereas when I do it on my phone and I'm watching those stupid little

01:13:10 ◼   ► white, little leafy things rotate in a circle, I'm like come on, come on,

01:13:13 ◼   ► come on.

01:13:13 ◼   ► So maybe the speed will be more tolerable.

01:13:15 ◼   ► And in terms of speed, like what does the what does the big home

01:13:18 ◼   ► pod have?

01:13:19 ◼   ► It has some like ancient watch chip in it or something?

01:13:21 ◼   ► Um, I think it has like an like yeah, like an S seven or

01:13:23 ◼   ► something or I mean this has got an A eighteen in it, which it

01:13:26 ◼   ► should be a big step up from the other things that we use to

01:13:30 ◼   ► talk to, the home pod mini and the big home pod, which are just

01:13:33 ◼   ► massively underpowered.

01:13:34 ◼   ► I mean eight gigs isn't a lot, but still an A eighteen gives me

01:13:36 ◼   ► some hope that this will approach the speed of your phone, which again to

01:13:39 ◼   ► your point, Marco, the phone is slower now.

01:13:41 ◼   ► Right.

01:13:41 ◼   ► So if if if my iPhone eighteen pro is slow when I talk to

01:13:43 ◼   ► it, this thing sure as hell isn't gonna be faster.

01:13:45 ◼   ► But I do feel like my tolerance for slowness, as long as it eventually

01:13:50 ◼   ► gets the job done, is higher for a thing that is not my phone

01:13:53 ◼   ► that's in my hand now, because I can do it as I wander around.

01:13:57 ◼   ► Um as for getting one of these, uh yeah, I got one.

01:14:00 ◼   ► Uh I mean if it wasn't three if it was like five ninety nine,

01:14:04 ◼   ► I wouldn't have got one.

01:14:05 ◼   ► Um but at three hundred bucks, definitely.

01:14:07 ◼   ► It was like I have a place for this to go where my other

01:14:09 ◼   ► things where the where the my other little robots are or my other little

01:14:12 ◼   ► R2 D2 things.

01:14:13 ◼   ► I have a an Amazon Echo thing, I have a Google Home thing, and

01:14:17 ◼   ► this is gonna be right next to it.

01:14:18 ◼   ► It's the only one with a screen because I heard from everybody's horror stories

01:14:21 ◼   ► about buying the Amazon Echo and I was just festooned with ads and it's

01:14:25 ◼   ► disgusting.

01:14:25 ◼   ► And uh my home is not, I don't have a home automation stuff, so

01:14:29 ◼   ► I didn't really want to get a Google home one that has a screen

01:14:31 ◼   ► on it or whatever.

01:14:32 ◼   ► But this thing, yeah, I'm gonna give it a try.

01:14:34 ◼   ► Like everyone in my house has an Apple account, I'll put them all on

01:14:37 ◼   ► the thing, they all have iPhones.

01:14:38 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

01:14:39 ◼   ► I have a place where it's gonna go.

01:14:41 ◼   ► Uh yeah, I have uh I mean I have medium hopes for this product.

01:14:46 ◼   ► Um What color did you get, by the way, Marco?

01:14:49 ◼   ► I got pink because where I'm going to put it in our kitchen, pink

01:14:53 ◼   ► would be the best color to fit in with our kitchen decor.

01:14:56 ◼   ► Nice.

01:14:56 ◼   ► But and honestly I I kind of do wish they would have had like

01:14:59 ◼   ► a little bit better colors like you know the sp silver, space gray, pink

01:15:04 ◼   ► and beige are Apple's like most old, boring default aluminum like those are that's

01:15:10 ◼   ► at this point, that's the penalty colors for like a low-end crappy product in

01:15:14 ◼   ► Apple's lineup.

01:15:15 ◼   ► That's like, you know, if the Apple Watch SE gets an update, that's a

01:15:19 ◼   ► low-end iPad, that's what you'd expect.

01:15:21 ◼   ► Like it's that's like that's Apple's low-end colors.

01:15:23 ◼   ► So I I was kind of disappointed by those.

01:15:25 ◼   ► Well, I mean I just th I think this thing is just physically larger.

01:15:28 ◼   ► Like I know they do really bold colors in the in the home pod

01:15:30 ◼   ► mini as like a fashion type thing but that is I feel like that's

01:15:33 ◼   ► less physically imposing than this thing with the its upright nature in the screen.

01:15:38 ◼   ► So like I kind of understand why they went with you know various dim

01:15:42 ◼   ► shades of silver for this.

01:15:43 ◼   ► But like why not use like like more of an IMAC treatment on it?

01:15:45 ◼   ► Like the IMAX look decent.

01:15:47 ◼   ► I mean it might stand out too much.

01:15:48 ◼   ► I I just got the space gray one because or I I don't even

01:15:51 ◼   ► remember.

01:15:51 ◼   ► I either got the silver or the space gray.

01:15:52 ◼   ► I got one of those two to fit in with neutral stuff.

01:15:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:56 ◼   ► Uh Casey you continue to uh uh be boycotting this uh entire product category.

01:16:00 ◼   ► I guess you're just so so wed to Sonos that like Sonos is my

01:16:03 ◼   ► thing around the house that makes sound that I talk to and you don't

01:16:06 ◼   ► have a place for anything else like that in your life.

01:16:08 ◼   ► I think it's yeah, it's a little bit of both.

01:16:10 ◼   ► Um I I'm not I I I'm anti home pod because that does things

01:16:17 ◼   ► or I'm trying to say like seven different things.

01:16:19 ◼   ► It conflicts with the Sono stuff.

01:16:20 ◼   ► It conflicts with the Sono stuff because I generally play things using the Sono.

01:16:24 ◼   ► Sonos app.

01:16:25 ◼   ► Obviously I could airplay and I could mix and match, you know, Sonos and

01:16:29 ◼   ► HomePods, but I just I don't personally really get anything out of the home

01:16:34 ◼   ► pods.

01:16:34 ◼   ► Like they don't really do anything for me.

01:16:36 ◼   ► And I really like my Sonos.

01:16:37 ◼   ► My Sono stuff.

01:16:38 ◼   ► Um, with regard to home view, I have never, ever, ever had a screen

01:16:43 ◼   ► thing in the kitchen.

01:16:45 ◼   ► I just haven't and it's just not something I feel like our family needs

01:16:49 ◼   ► or wants.

01:16:50 ◼   ► Um, At $300, I consider this within the realm of not an impulse purchase.

01:16:55 ◼   ► That's dramatic, but like something I could give it a whirl, and it would

01:16:59 ◼   ► not be financially ruinous to do so.

01:17:01 ◼   ► But I I literally do not know where I would physically put this in

01:17:06 ◼   ► my house.

01:17:06 ◼   ► My house That's the big thing about these products.

01:17:08 ◼   ► Like I did actually think about that before I just immediately ordered this.

01:17:11 ◼   ► Like, do I have a place to put this?

01:17:12 ◼   ► Because you do need that.

01:17:13 ◼   ► Otherwise, like what are you gonna do?

01:17:16 ◼   ► Right, exactly.

01:17:17 ◼   ► And I mean, I'm sure we could stick it on like the edge of

01:17:19 ◼   ► the kitchen counter, but in in my house, I think by square footage

01:17:23 ◼   ► by square footage I think is a bit bigger than John's, but it's not

01:17:26 ◼   ► a particularly large house.

01:17:28 ◼   ► And I I I just don't feel like we have extra space for this,

01:17:32 ◼   ► nor do we have a particular need for it.

01:17:34 ◼   ► I'm not opposed to it.

01:17:35 ◼   ► I think it's a cool product.

01:17:37 ◼   ► It looks neat.

01:17:38 ◼   ► I can see how one would enjoy it, but it's I don't think it's

01:17:41 ◼   ► for me.

01:17:41 ◼   ► And I think you'd be more likely to get one of these if you

01:17:44 ◼   ► ever like went all in on home kit and then you'd get the wall

01:17:46 ◼   ► mounted one.

01:17:47 ◼   ► Potentially.

01:17:48 ◼   ► And I did think about that because with home assistance Ooh, you could have

01:17:50 ◼   ► Stephen Hackett wired into your wall for you.

01:17:54 ◼   ► Right, right, right.

01:17:55 ◼   ► Uh no, I've uh I uh I have all pretty much everything that's in

01:18:00 ◼   ► Home Assistant, um uh not echoed, but like presented in HomeKit as well.

01:18:05 ◼   ► And I actually I would say me personally, 5050, I you know, half the

01:18:09 ◼   ► time I'm home assistant to control things and half the time I'm using um

01:18:13 ◼   ► the home app for Erin or occasionally the children, it's the home app.

01:18:19 ◼   ► Um so it is potentially useful.

01:18:21 ◼   ► Um, but I don't I just I I I do have a space in

01:18:24 ◼   ► the kitchen actually just above and slightly to the left, annoyingly, of my status

01:18:28 ◼   ► board.

01:18:29 ◼   ► Uh where I could hypothetically put this.

01:18:32 ◼   ► We have a not used RJ11 telephone socket uh box in the wall.

01:18:37 ◼   ► It's not centered on the wall annoyingly.

01:18:39 ◼   ► So that would be a little weird.

01:18:41 ◼   ► Um, but I I just I I I don't personally feel like there this

01:18:46 ◼   ► is something I need.

01:18:47 ◼   ► And with regard to audio, our kitchen kind of blends in with the living

01:18:51 ◼   ► room.

01:18:52 ◼   ► Again, don't it I'm making this sound like we have some freaking mansion.

01:18:55 ◼   ► It's not, it's like two twenty two hundred square foot house.

01:18:57 ◼   ► It's really unremarkable.

01:18:58 ◼   ► But anyways, the the Sonos Arc Ultra that's in the living room is plenty

01:19:02 ◼   ► of oomph to get music into the kitchen.

01:19:04 ◼   ► So I don't feel like I need an additional speaker there.

01:19:07 ◼   ► If I did.

01:19:07 ◼   ► I would get a Sono speaker anyway.

01:19:09 ◼   ► So it's just, it's not something for me.

01:19:12 ◼   ► I'm not saying it's a bad product.

01:19:13 ◼   ► I think it's very clever product.

01:19:15 ◼   ► And I think it is very appealing and very cute looking, be it wall-mounted

01:19:18 ◼   ► or R2D2.

01:19:19 ◼   ► Um, there's a lot to like about it.

01:19:21 ◼   ► I just don't feel like I have a place for it in my life.

01:19:23 ◼   ► Yeah, I think for for audio purposes, one of the I think one of

01:19:28 ◼   ► the biggest uh downsides of this for audio is that if you are filling

01:19:32 ◼   ► even a modestly sized room, like i look if you if it's going in

01:19:35 ◼   ► your bathroom, put whatever.

01:19:37 ◼   ► But this is not a bathroom product.

01:19:38 ◼   ► Um although it would be nice to see the times.

01:19:41 ◼   ► Anyway, uh I don't think it's waterproof.

01:19:42 ◼   ► Don't don't put in your bathroom.

01:19:44 ◼   ► Well, none of them are waterproof, but um If you're f if you're filling

01:19:48 ◼   ► like a a modestly sized or large room,

01:19:51 ◼   ► historically with the home pods, you really want a stereo pair.

01:19:55 ◼   ► Even with even if you just get two minis, that's still way better than

01:19:59 ◼   ► one of of anything.

01:20:01 ◼   ► Um and you know, you put space them out a little bit on the

01:20:03 ◼   ► countertop or on a table or whatever.

01:20:04 ◼   ► Like a stereo pair is very, very good for any of these speakers.

01:20:10 ◼   ► The I don't think this can do that.

01:20:12 ◼   ► Did they say anywhere?

01:20:13 ◼   ► Um I I don't think it would make sense to have like you know

01:20:16 ◼   ► a left a left screen and a right screen.

01:20:19 ◼   ► Yeah, right.

01:20:20 ◼   ► Um so I think for straight up for audio purposes, this is probably wrong.

01:20:24 ◼   ► But also I think for audio purposes like that's more like a living room

01:20:29 ◼   ► situation.

01:20:29 ◼   ► Whereas this seems really like a kitchen device.

01:20:32 ◼   ► This is like i this this should go on your kitchen counter, like or

01:20:36 ◼   ► wherever like whatever is like the hub of your house.

01:20:39 ◼   ► Maybe it's like, you know, your entryway if you have like a like You

01:20:42 ◼   ► know, a hallway that everyone comes and goes through.

01:20:44 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:20:45 ◼   ► But um I this to me this is a kitchen device.

01:20:49 ◼   ► We are sponsored this week by Tailscale.

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01:22:56 ◼   ► All right, let's move on and let's talk about the actual star of the

01:23:00 ◼   ► show, the Apple TV 4K generation four, I think, something like that.

01:23:08 ◼   ► Um this is a brand new Apple TV, and I want to get this

01:23:14 ◼   ► out of the way and be done with it so we can talk about

01:23:17 ◼   ► happy things.

01:23:19 ◼   ► How the f is this thing $300?

01:23:22 ◼   ► I mean, it makes perfect sense, but it is it is such an amazing

01:23:24 ◼   ► contrast.

01:23:25 ◼   ► We just got done talking about a product with exactly the same price.

01:23:28 ◼   ► And we're like, wow, look how affordable this is.

01:23:30 ◼   ► It's much less than we thought it was going to be.

01:23:31 ◼   ► Now we're going to go to another product.

01:23:33 ◼   ► Same exact price.

01:23:34 ◼   ► Everyone hates it.

01:23:35 ◼   ► And now here's the thing.

01:23:36 ◼   ► I had to look this up because I hadn't been keeping up with Apple

01:23:38 ◼   ► TV prices.

01:23:39 ◼   ► Cauld I?

01:23:39 ◼   ► I was waiting for the new one just like Casey.

01:23:42 ◼   ► But the previous Apple TB4K, it is annoying they all have the same name,

01:23:45 ◼   ► but they do have that generation and whatever in parentheses.

01:23:47 ◼   ► The previous Apple TB4K had been increased in price to 200 bucks for the

01:23:52 ◼   ► one with 64 gigs in Wi-Fi and 250 for the one twenty eight gig

01:23:57 ◼   ► and Wi Fi plus Ethernet.

01:23:58 ◼   ► So already, while I was not paying attention because of, you know, the world

01:24:02 ◼   ► and AI absorbing everything, all RAM and inflation and whatever, the the the biggest

01:24:07 ◼   ► Apple TV was already 250 bucks.

01:24:10 ◼   ► And so now when this one is 300, it's like, how is this 300

01:24:13 ◼   ► bucks?

01:24:13 ◼   ► It was already 250.

01:24:15 ◼   ► Now people are complaining because like, well, no one buys that one.

01:24:17 ◼   ► Why would only stupid people will buy that one?

01:24:19 ◼   ► Who needs Ethernet on their Apple TV?

01:24:20 ◼   ► And who the hell needs storage?

01:24:21 ◼   ► What the hell is it even used for?

01:24:22 ◼   ► Every Everyone buys this cheaper one, and the cheaper one was a hundred bucks

01:24:25 ◼   ► less.

01:24:26 ◼   ► It was 200.

01:24:26 ◼   ► Like I get that.

01:24:28 ◼   ► But how is this 300 bucks?

01:24:30 ◼   ► Because, as we'll see in a second, they decided to only make one, and

01:24:35 ◼   ► it's the big one, and it's Wi-Fi and Ethernet at 128 gigs.

01:24:39 ◼   ► And so that's what they've done.

01:24:40 ◼   ► Like they're clearly choosing their market for this.

01:24:43 ◼   ► Hey, are you in the market for an affordable streaming box?

01:24:46 ◼   ► Apple TV was never it, and now it's really not it.

01:24:49 ◼   ► Remember, like you do you want a a uh you know an affordable thing

01:24:53 ◼   ► that you can stream on your TV?

01:24:55 ◼   ► Don't come into the store.

01:24:56 ◼   ► We have nothing for you.

01:24:57 ◼   ► This is not the product for you.

01:24:59 ◼   ► On the flip side of that, did they make it into like a modern

01:25:02 ◼   ► replacement for the NVIDIA shield?

01:25:04 ◼   ► No they did not.

01:25:06 ◼   ► It is not a super massive, powerful thing that does high frame rate and

01:25:09 ◼   ► has all these amazing features and has audio pass-through.

01:25:11 ◼   ► That is also not this.

01:25:13 ◼   ► So everyone is pissed.

01:25:14 ◼   ► The high-end people are pissed, not because it's 300 bucks, but because it doesn't

01:25:17 ◼   ► have features befitting a 300 bucks streaming box and everyone else is pissed because

01:25:21 ◼   ► like I never would buy an Apple TV for 300 bucks.

01:25:24 ◼   ► Who the hell buys an Apple TV for 300 bucks?

01:25:26 ◼   ► And so yeah, much sadness about the price from all sides.

01:25:30 ◼   ► It's it's real bad.

01:25:31 ◼   ► Like I I bought one I'll

01:25:33 ◼   ► I bought one too.

01:25:34 ◼   ► That's the thing about the price.

01:25:35 ◼   ► I said it the last time we talked about this.

01:25:37 ◼   ► As as overpriced as the Apple TV is, because it is the way I

01:25:42 ◼   ► watch like I would sadly I would pay hundreds more to avoid having to

01:25:47 ◼   ► use a Fire TV stick or a Google TV stick or any of those

01:25:50 ◼   ► because they're worse.

01:25:52 ◼   ► It doesn't make this one any better, to be clear.

01:25:54 ◼   ► I'm saying, oh, it's worth it, but this one is so good.

01:25:56 ◼   ► It just happens to be the best of a very bad bunch.

01:26:00 ◼   ► And if they ever stop making this product, like what would we all do?

01:26:03 ◼   ► Would we go try to find the most expensive Google TV thing filled with

01:26:06 ◼   ► ads and crap?

01:26:07 ◼   ► Like and to be clear, Apple's TV flu pr product is also becoming filled

01:26:11 ◼   ► with ads.

01:26:12 ◼   ► The other day I paused something on my Apple TV and it put an

01:26:14 ◼   ► ad up on the pause screen.

01:26:16 ◼   ► So Apple is getting worse here too.

01:26:18 ◼   ► But still, among all the players, Apple TV is still, with the possible exception

01:26:24 ◼   ► of the ancient what seven-year-old Nvidia Shield, which is like an NVIDIA stringing box

01:26:28 ◼   ► they made back in the day that has a ton of features.

01:26:31 ◼   ► I'm glad they're still making this.

01:26:33 ◼   ► And I bought one even though it's 300 bucks.

01:26:35 ◼   ► I don't like the price, but I'm But I would still rather have this

01:26:39 ◼   ► than any other product.

01:26:40 ◼   ► And so I I think Apple kinda knows they have us over a barrel

01:26:43 ◼   ► because it's like if you appreciate the few remaining good things about this product

01:26:46 ◼   ► as we continue to put ads all over it, it's three hundred bucks now.

01:26:50 ◼   ► Yeah, it's it's ridiculous.

01:26:52 ◼   ► Uh I I really hate how expensive it is.

01:26:56 ◼   ► In in part because I'm comparing it to all of the like forty dollar

01:27:01 ◼   ► devices, which is unfair.

01:27:02 ◼   ► Or free with your TV.

01:27:03 ◼   ► Or free with your TV.

01:27:05 ◼   ► It's just not I don't know.

01:27:07 ◼   ► It's just not a good choice, but I get that, you know, if you're

01:27:11 ◼   ► gonna have 128 gigs of storage, which I'm not really clear why we need

01:27:14 ◼   ► all that, but if you need it.

01:27:15 ◼   ► No, they did they said there's gonna be one and it's gonna be the

01:27:17 ◼   ► high-end one.

01:27:18 ◼   ► So there you have it.

01:27:19 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I suppose, but one way or another.

01:27:21 ◼   ► Um, I do like, uh genuinely, I do like that there's only one of

01:27:25 ◼   ► them now.

01:27:26 ◼   ► It always seemed arbitrary last generation that there was like the 64 gig Wi

01:27:31 ◼   ► Fi only and then the 128 gig Wi Fi on Ethernet.

01:27:34 ◼   ► That seems silly to me.

01:27:35 ◼   ► I get that almost nobody uses Ethernet but John and I anymore, but I

01:27:38 ◼   ► don't know it still seems dumb to have two of them, so I'm glad

01:27:41 ◼   ► we're down to one.

01:27:42 ◼   ► But woof three hundred bones, my goodness.

01:27:47 ◼   ► I think it's fine, by the way.

01:27:48 ◼   ► Like I I I I think for for what the Apple T V is,

01:27:52 ◼   ► it has never been price competitive with anything else in its market.

01:27:56 ◼   ► The Apple T V is not a mass market device.

01:27:59 ◼   ► It never has been a mass market device.

01:28:01 ◼   ► The mass market device now is just the built-in apps on everyone's TVs that

01:28:06 ◼   ► suck.

01:28:07 ◼   ► The you know the mass market device before TVs have all had the apps

01:28:10 ◼   ► were cheap, you know, Roku sticks and Amazon Fire sticks.

01:28:13 ◼   ► This is not a mass market device.

01:28:15 ◼   ► This this is like, you know, it's the sonos of set top boxes.

01:28:19 ◼   ► Like this is for yeah, the Apple TV is for people who value a

01:28:23 ◼   ► high quality experience and are willing to pay a premium for it.

01:28:27 ◼   ► You know, that sucks for those of us who, you know, balk at this

01:28:31 ◼   ► price, like that sucks.

01:28:32 ◼   ► But that's what this product is.

01:28:34 ◼   ► And it is, as you're saying, it is a premium experience.

01:28:37 ◼   ► The other options are really mediocre.

01:28:40 ◼   ► Uh they're full of paper cuts.

01:28:42 ◼   ► And most people don't care or tolerate it because it's cheap.

01:28:45 ◼   ► Uh but we do care and we have money and Apple's happy to take

01:28:49 ◼   ► that money and here's one way they do it.

01:28:50 ◼   ► Like that's what this product is.

01:28:52 ◼   ► I am happy they updated the Apple TV.

01:28:55 ◼   ► I also recognize that in this environment of component cost, there was no way

01:29:00 ◼   ► it wasn't gonna go up.

01:29:01 ◼   ► Because you know, you think about like, you know, we were just saying the

01:29:03 ◼   ► home view, we were surprised that it wasn't more expensive, but it also doesn't

01:29:07 ◼   ► have significant computation, memory, or storage.

01:29:09 ◼   ► The Apple T V has no display, no speakers, but significant computation, memory, and

01:29:16 ◼   ► storage.

01:29:17 ◼   ► It's just got one higher number.

01:29:18 ◼   ► It's got an A nineteen instead of an A eighteen.

01:29:20 ◼   ► I mean, granted, the storage hundred hundred twenty-eight gigs versus whatever the heck the

01:29:24 ◼   ► home view has, which I imagine is piddling.

01:29:26 ◼   ► But you know, it wouldn't surprise me if the home view had sixty-four.

01:29:28 ◼   ► We'll see what it ends up having.

01:29:30 ◼   ► But yeah, like it is that's the other thing is because you look at

01:29:33 ◼   ► this and it's like this featureless black box that it's been for many years

01:29:36 ◼   ► now.

01:29:37 ◼   ► No no down firing subwoofers, no passive radiators, no tweeters, no camera, no screen,

01:29:42 ◼   ► no arm, no nothing.

01:29:44 ◼   ► Three hundred bucks.

01:29:45 ◼   ► It is kind of bananas.

01:29:47 ◼   ► But at least at least there's no longer two different versions of it, weirdly.

01:29:51 ◼   ► Yeah like I'm people wish that but people wish that that there was one

01:29:54 ◼   ► version of it and it was two hundred bucks and it had sixty four

01:29:56 ◼   ► gigs and only Wi-Fi 'cause like like Casey said, nobody cares about Ethernet but

01:29:59 ◼   ► us.

01:29:59 ◼   ► Like I'm glad that it has Ethernet, don't get me wrong, but like most

01:30:02 ◼   ► people don't Yeah, fair.

01:30:04 ◼   ► But I I I'm glad they I'm glad they simplified because that was always

01:30:09 ◼   ► a weird decision.

01:30:10 ◼   ► Um and you know, look, it it's fine.

01:30:14 ◼   ► Like I I think this is it's like we wanted a new Apple TV

01:30:18 ◼   ► for a long time.

01:30:19 ◼   ► They gave us one.

01:30:20 ◼   ► And it's exactly what you would expect out of a twenty twenty-six hardware release.

01:30:24 ◼   ► And we bought it.

01:30:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:30:25 ◼   ► And I'll I will point out though, as for the premium experience, in addition

01:30:28 ◼   ► to me complaining about the fact that ads appear when I hit p hit

01:30:30 ◼   ► pause on a thing, which is just like really over a line for me

01:30:33 ◼   ► and I'm very upset about it.

01:30:34 ◼   ► Another aspect of a premium experience I feel like is just basic reliability.

01:30:39 ◼   ► And I believe twice in the last five days I've had this experience while

01:30:44 ◼   ► watching uh television show on Apple TV uh with my wife.

01:30:48 ◼   ► You know, hit play.

01:30:49 ◼   ► Episode we're watching Ted Lasso, so it's an Apple show and Apple's app.

01:30:52 ◼   ► Like it's Apple Apple Apple.

01:30:54 ◼   ► Okay.

01:30:54 ◼   ► On my Apple TV.

01:30:55 ◼   ► It's the latest before this one, Apple TV 4K.

01:30:58 ◼   ► Hit play.

01:30:59 ◼   ► Episode starts playing.

01:31:00 ◼   ► Oh, she wants to go and get a snack.

01:31:01 ◼   ► I hit pause.

01:31:01 ◼   ► She comes back into the room.

01:31:03 ◼   ► She sits back down.

01:31:03 ◼   ► She's ready for the show to start again.

01:31:05 ◼   ► I hit the button and the video does not resume playing.

01:31:09 ◼   ► That's fun.

01:31:09 ◼   ► Nothing I can do.

01:31:10 ◼   ► Hit the button again, again, nothing happens.

01:31:12 ◼   ► I have to force quit the app, relaunch it, and then resume from where

01:31:15 ◼   ► I left off.

01:31:16 ◼   ► Two times in five days.

01:31:18 ◼   ► That's not a premium experience.

01:31:19 ◼   ► How many times has my TiVo ever done that where I hit pause?

01:31:22 ◼   ► Oh, here we go.

01:31:23 ◼   ► Got hit pause, got up to get something, came back in, hit unpause, and

01:31:26 ◼   ► the video did not resume playing.

01:31:28 ◼   ► I don't know what the problem is.

01:31:29 ◼   ► I don't care what the problem is.

01:31:31 ◼   ► This is like a straight up the middle watching an Apple show on an

01:31:34 ◼   ► Apple TV 4K, latest everything, everything's working, hardware is not broken.

01:31:38 ◼   ► I'm sure it's some stupid software problem, but this to me is unacceptable.

01:31:42 ◼   ► And it's gonna hurt much worse when my three hundred dollar box does the

01:31:45 ◼   ► same thing.

01:31:46 ◼   ► Sure is.

01:31:47 ◼   ► Uh for the record, by the way, as per the Macromerse buyer's guide, 1456

01:31:52 ◼   ► days since the last update, which was October 2022.

01:31:56 ◼   ► Absolutely bananas.

01:31:58 ◼   ► So yeah, so like we said, just one model A19, 128 gig storage, Wi

01:32:03 ◼   ► Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, thread.

01:32:05 ◼   ► The physical form factor is almost identical except that the light is now in

01:32:10 ◼   ► the center.

01:32:11 ◼   ► Not an improvement in my opinion, but fine.

01:32:13 ◼   ► I don't think I care one way or the other, to be honest.

01:32:15 ◼   ► The remote is basically the same, but there's some important exceptions there.

01:32:18 ◼   ► We'll get there in a second.

01:32:19 ◼   ► Uh again, HDMI 2.1 and gigabit Ethernet.

01:32:23 ◼   ► Here's where things get a little bit interesting.

01:32:26 ◼   ► The actual box itself has built-in far-field microphones.

01:32:30 ◼   ► There's a three-microphone array with voice isolation, and it's on the box itself.

01:32:35 ◼   ► Additionally, for output, you can pair Apple TV 4K with four home pod speakers

01:32:40 ◼   ► for three-dimensional sound.

01:32:41 ◼   ► So you'd have two fronts and two rears.

01:32:43 ◼   ► There was a I think marketing photo somewhere that showed two full-size home pods

01:32:49 ◼   ► near the TV, if I recall correctly, and two minis behind the couch uh

01:32:53 ◼   ► as rears, which I thought was very interesting.

01:32:56 ◼   ► On this feature, by the way, this the two things you just read are,

01:32:59 ◼   ► as we'll get to in a little bit, the only things besides the A19

01:33:03 ◼   ► that distinguish this Apple TV from its predecessors.

01:33:07 ◼   ► It's got an A19, microphones on the box, four home pods.

01:33:12 ◼   ► Everything else about this is available in some number of previous iterations of this

01:33:18 ◼   ► product, including the remote, as we'll get to.

01:33:20 ◼   ► Um so that's worth considering.

01:33:21 ◼   ► The other thing is they just say, Oh, now you can pair four horn

01:33:25 ◼   ► pods with it.

01:33:25 ◼   ► Well, the market for many, many, many years has been filled with various products

01:33:31 ◼   ► that let you pair some number of speakers more than two with your television,

01:33:35 ◼   ► not pair, but like connect some number of speakers more than two to your

01:33:38 ◼   ► television and have something somewhere figure out how to make sound come out of

01:33:43 ◼   ► those more than two speakers in a way that provides some kind of experience

01:33:47 ◼   ► based on programs that are may or may not be mastered for multiple speakers,

01:33:51 ◼   ► blah blah blah blah blah.

01:33:52 ◼   ► Lots of products do this.

01:33:53 ◼   ► It is essentially it's it's it's computational audio.

01:33:56 ◼   ► Uh Sony makes sort of like medium to high-end prosumer models that do this

01:34:01 ◼   ► of various things.

01:34:02 ◼   ► I forget what the old one was called.

01:34:03 ◼   ► The new one I think is called the Sony Quad.

01:34:05 ◼   ► I forget the name.

01:34:06 ◼   ► So they they sell a bunch of these products that will like, hey, just

01:34:09 ◼   ► put these speakers wherever in your room.

01:34:10 ◼   ► We give you a bunch of them, just put them around, and then our

01:34:13 ◼   ► computers will figure out uh where did you put them?

01:34:15 ◼   ► How can we make these this these speakers sound good in this room?

01:34:18 ◼   ► When I was talking about my awkward room arrangement, everyone's like, You should get

01:34:21 ◼   ► one of those.

01:34:21 ◼   ► Things.

01:34:22 ◼   ► Instead, I went with components or whatever, you know.

01:34:24 ◼   ► But anyway, um, those systems are always kind of a compromise.

01:34:28 ◼   ► It's like, do you want cool home theater, but don't want to have a

01:34:31 ◼   ► an A V receiver and individual speakers from some expensive speaker company where each

01:34:35 ◼   ► speaker costs five grand or whatever.

01:34:37 ◼   ► Do you just want like I just want to buy it's like a stereo

01:34:39 ◼   ► in a box stuff, but now with computational stuff.

01:34:41 ◼   ► In the old days, you get the you'd get like the uh Dolby or

01:34:44 ◼   ► no, the Bose ster stereo in a box thing with those little Bose speakers

01:34:47 ◼   ► and the big self-word, and it's like, well, home theater.

01:34:49 ◼   ► But like it had no idea where you put the speakers.

01:34:51 ◼   ► It just put the same sound out of all of them and good luck

01:34:53 ◼   ► having that sound good if your room isn't, right?

01:34:56 ◼   ► The computational ones are like, it's user friendly.

01:34:58 ◼   ► Put them somewhere, and we'll figure out where they are and we'll use our

01:35:03 ◼   ► computer maths to make it sound good from where we think you're sitting.

01:35:07 ◼   ► Apple doesn't say anything about this, right, in in their literature, but presumably they've

01:35:12 ◼   ► got to be doing something like that.

01:35:16 ◼   ► But the state of the art in this is like again like the Sony

01:35:18 ◼   ► systems where they they will do amazing things.

01:35:21 ◼   ► You can put the speakers at different heights in weird positions behind a plant,

01:35:24 ◼   ► like wherever you put them.

01:35:26 ◼   ► That Sony system will and it's really expensive, like three grand.

01:35:29 ◼   ► But anyway, that Sony system of like, don't worry about it.

01:35:31 ◼   ► Don't worry about shape of your room.

01:35:32 ◼   ► Don't worry about where your stuff is.

01:35:34 ◼   ► We will figure out how to provide an actual five point one, seven point

01:35:38 ◼   ► one, five point two, whatever mix the the the content you're watching is.

01:35:43 ◼   ► Don't worry if that matches the number of speakers you have.

01:35:45 ◼   ► We will figure it out because our speakers have drivers that point up, that

01:35:48 ◼   ► point left, that point right, that point forward, and we'll drive them all.

01:35:51 ◼   ► They're like, it's a really complicated thing.

01:35:54 ◼   ► And they've gotten actually pretty good, like with the advances in computation with computation

01:35:58 ◼   ► getting cheaper, where those systems can do amazing things in non-ideal situations.

01:36:03 ◼   ► My impression of what Apple's offering is we'll play sound out of all four

01:36:07 ◼   ► of the speakers.

01:36:07 ◼   ► Maybe the back ones will play different than the front ones, but like I

01:36:11 ◼   ► get the impression that they are not doing anything close to the state of

01:36:14 ◼   ► the art and consumer will figure out your room and make cool surround sounds.

01:36:17 ◼   ► So I have extremely low hopes for the audio quality and fidelity of a

01:36:23 ◼   ► four home pod setup that's That said, it will be fantastically better than A,

01:36:28 ◼   ► a setup with no speakers behind you, or B, your stupid built-in TV speakers.

01:36:33 ◼   ► So I'm pooing this, but I am saying that I'm with the other people,

01:36:37 ◼   ► other sort of like medium to high end TV people who are disappointed that

01:36:40 ◼   ► Apple doesn't want to seem to want to pursue that because here they have

01:36:43 ◼   ► huge amounts of computation in that A19.

01:36:46 ◼   ► They could do almost anything.

01:36:48 ◼   ► And there I bet they're my speculation is that they are not going to

01:36:52 ◼   ► have stellar sound from four home pods.

01:36:55 ◼   ► The remote does look the same and it has the same external uh buttons

01:37:01 ◼   ► and whatnot.

01:37:02 ◼   ► However, it does have find my with precision finding and it can make sounds.

01:37:09 ◼   ► You can also buy it separately for 60 bucks.

01:37:11 ◼   ► It works with every model of Apple TV, going back to the Apple TV

01:37:14 ◼   ► HD, but according to Stevie Bonifeld Bonifield at the verge.

01:37:20 ◼   ► If you want to see exactly how far away the new series remote is

01:37:24 ◼   ► on your phone with details like 20 feet, rather than simply far or near,

01:37:27 ◼   ► you need to have an iPhone Duo, iPhone Air, or any iPhone 17 or

01:37:30 ◼   ► later.

01:37:30 ◼   ► Those are the only models that include its new N1 networking chip with support

01:37:34 ◼   ► for Bluetooth channel sounding, which enables air tag-like precision tracking, but without the ultra

01:37:39 ◼   ► wideband chip.

01:37:41 ◼   ► And I think what they're saying is the what they're saying is the remote

01:37:44 ◼   ► doesn't ultra wideband chip.

01:37:46 ◼   ► 'cause like the phones do, right?

01:37:47 ◼   ► But there's like that's why you need the phones with the N one.

01:37:50 ◼   ► So I mean it shouldn't matter.

01:37:51 ◼   ► Like the thing can make a noise and near and far is probably enough,

01:37:53 ◼   ► but just FYI, you need a very new phone, Duo Air seventeen or later,

01:37:58 ◼   ► to be able to get the distance because apparently the you need the N

01:38:02 ◼   ► one.

01:38:03 ◼   ► And I guess like the the r one of the reasons the remote is

01:38:05 ◼   ► the same and works all the other ones is the remote doesn't have radically

01:38:08 ◼   ► different innards inside it, with possible exception of the added speaker.

01:38:13 ◼   ► Uh we're going for distance and we're going for speed, John.

01:38:15 ◼   ► That's a reference.

01:38:16 ◼   ► Wait, from the cake song?

01:38:17 ◼   ► Yes.

01:38:18 ◼   ► Hey, all right.

01:38:19 ◼   ► Look at us, all three of us, look at us go.

01:38:22 ◼   ► Uh with Siri AI, um you do have conversational search.

01:38:26 ◼   ► So Apple says users can simply ask Siri what Apple TV shows won at

01:38:30 ◼   ► the Emmy Awards this year.

01:38:32 ◼   ► Weird flex, but okay.

01:38:33 ◼   ► While watching, users can ask Siri AI follow-up questions and tap into Siri AI's

01:38:38 ◼   ► broad world knowledge to go deeper into a show, asking things like, where was

01:38:42 ◼   ► Pleurabus filmed?

01:38:43 ◼   ► Or is this appropriate for a 15-year-old?

01:38:45 ◼   ► Responses appear in a compact, subtle overlay.

01:38:48 ◼   ► With an Apple Intelligence enabled iPhone, Siri AI on Apple TV 4K can now

01:38:52 ◼   ► tap into a user's personal context to answer questions like, or excuse me, requests

01:38:56 ◼   ► like play the show Alinda recommended.

01:38:59 ◼   ► Yeah, I've heard uh some people saying that like this is kind of silly

01:39:02 ◼   ► in that like uh in fact it was uh a friend of ours saying

01:39:05 ◼   ► that why don't you this is why I just use call sheet because I

01:39:07 ◼   ► don't want crap over my screen, especially if I'm

01:39:10 ◼   ► People like a family.

01:39:11 ◼   ► Uh if I want to know what that person is from, I'm much more

01:39:14 ◼   ► likely to pull out my phone and pull out call sheet and find out

01:39:16 ◼   ► where they're from because that doesn't put anything up on the screen.

01:39:19 ◼   ► Uh but my argument is, okay, I do that too, right, for the same

01:39:23 ◼   ► reasons.

01:39:24 ◼   ► But I still think a device like this and an operating system like TVOS

01:39:28 ◼   ► should support the on screen thing.

01:39:30 ◼   ► That's why I'm very supportive of the speakers in the box, even though I'm

01:39:33 ◼   ► probably always going to use the remote.

01:39:36 ◼   ► It should be there.

01:39:37 ◼   ► I feel like it's base functionality.

01:39:39 ◼   ► You should be able to shout at the screen and say, what is that

01:39:41 ◼   ► person from or whatever, right?

01:39:42 ◼   ► Maybe not everybody wants to do that.

01:39:44 ◼   ► Maybe most people are gonna do it on their phone, but the capability should

01:39:47 ◼   ► be there.

01:39:47 ◼   ► I feel like it is table stakes for especially for a $300 box that

01:39:51 ◼   ► it should be able to do that.

01:39:53 ◼   ► Now you can choose never to use that feature.

01:39:54 ◼   ► You can use to look it up on your phone.

01:39:56 ◼   ► That works great too.

01:39:57 ◼   ► But I definitely think it should be there.

01:39:59 ◼   ► And I do think with Siri AI, it will be less um.

01:40:04 ◼   ► I was gonna say, I don't know less uh less pig headed about it.

01:40:08 ◼   ► Like I should be able to talk to it conversationally and have it actually

01:40:10 ◼   ► figure out what I mean.

01:40:11 ◼   ► Like I'm used to doing this with both the Amazon and the Google products

01:40:14 ◼   ► when I ask questions at the table of like what movie was this person

01:40:16 ◼   ► in or whatever, to answer you know, things that we're wondering without looking it

01:40:20 ◼   ► up on your phone we're eating dinner so we don't have to pull out

01:40:22 ◼   ► our phones, right?

01:40:23 ◼   ► Um I would I'm happy to have that same experience on the Apple TV.

01:40:27 ◼   ► And especially if like I we'll see how it works out.

01:40:29 ◼   ► Like if once I have the capability and if it works at all, maybe

01:40:32 ◼   ► I will pause the show and ask it because very often it's my wife

01:40:35 ◼   ► saying, Go look, where is that person from?

01:40:36 ◼   ► Go look it up.

01:40:37 ◼   ► Go look but she never has her phone with her.

01:40:38 ◼   ► She wants me to look it up, right?

01:40:39 ◼   ► So then I pull out my phone and I look it up on call

01:40:41 ◼   ► sheet.

01:40:42 ◼   ► I would I might be able to just pause the show, assuming it will

01:40:44 ◼   ► play again when I hit the pa play pause button.

01:40:46 ◼   ► Pause Pause the show and say, Hey Dingus, what was this person in before?

01:40:50 ◼   ► We'll see how it works, but I'm uh looking forward to uh trying that.

01:40:54 ◼   ► And again, these are this these this feature, Siri AI, not exclusive to this

01:40:58 ◼   ► new Apple T V hardware, to be clear.

01:41:00 ◼   ► It is part of the whatever twenty seven point whatever OS that has this

01:41:03 ◼   ► in it.

01:41:04 ◼   ► I'm sorry, can we go back a step?

01:41:06 ◼   ► Tina never has her phone with her.

01:41:08 ◼   ► Never.

01:41:08 ◼   ► She doesn't even know where it is.

01:41:10 ◼   ► But she has six phones with her anytime she leaves the house.

01:41:13 ◼   ► I know.

01:41:13 ◼   ► That's maybe that's part of the problem.

01:41:14 ◼   ► She's always like she th the person who is most likely to use the

01:41:17 ◼   ► thing that makes your phone make a sound in our house is her.

01:41:20 ◼   ► Cause the kids know where their phone is, but she has no idea and

01:41:24 ◼   ► is very often wandering around looking for it.

01:41:26 ◼   ► And whenever she wants to look something up a call, she she never has

01:41:28 ◼   ► her phone, so I'm always the one doing it.

01:41:30 ◼   ► Incredible.

01:41:32 ◼   ► Uh some of the older Apple TV 4Ks do get this serie AI stuff

01:41:36 ◼   ► as well.

01:41:36 ◼   ► The Apple TV 4K second or third gen, which is, I believe, the two

01:41:40 ◼   ► prior generations, uh, with TV OS 27.2 uh availability.

01:41:44 ◼   ► You can already pre-order in store on the 13th of November, just like Home

01:41:48 ◼   ► View.

01:41:49 ◼   ► Uh like I said, I'm in for one.

01:41:51 ◼   ► Uh if you recall, I have, I believe, a Gen 3 in the living

01:41:54 ◼   ► room now.

01:41:55 ◼   ► I have a Gen 2 in the bedroom, which we very rarely use, to

01:41:59 ◼   ► be completely honest with you.

01:42:00 ◼   ► And I think it's 4K Gen 1, maybe, or it might be the last

01:42:04 ◼   ► of the 1080s.

01:42:05 ◼   ► Um, that is our tailgate tub/slash travel TV, uh Apple TV, and that is

01:42:11 ◼   ► very long in the tooth.

01:42:12 ◼   ► I think that one is like nine years old or something like that.

01:42:16 ◼   ► So it is a testament to Apple that it still works and reasonably well,

01:42:21 ◼   ► but it's quite slow.

01:42:23 ◼   ► And I am very excited to retire that one.

01:42:26 ◼   ► So there will be a trickle down uh starting uh on November 13th.

01:42:30 ◼   ► John, you said you're in for one.

01:42:31 ◼   ► Are you doing a similar trickle-down?

01:42:33 ◼   ► Yep.

01:42:34 ◼   ► I'm gonna replace the previous generation Apple TV 4K on my main TV, then

01:42:38 ◼   ► that one will move up to my bedroom and the bedroom will become the

01:42:40 ◼   ► travel apple TV and the travel apple TV will retire to a box in

01:42:43 ◼   ► the attic.

01:42:43 ◼   ► I love it.

01:42:44 ◼   ► Marco, what did you do?

01:42:46 ◼   ► I did not buy anything yet.

01:42:48 ◼   ► Uh all of my Apple TVs are fine.

01:42:51 ◼   ► And so when one dies I'll replace it.

01:42:55 ◼   ► Or when if if something you know, if there's some big software update down

01:42:58 ◼   ► the road and it gets really bad, um or something, then I'll buy the

01:43:02 ◼   ► new I'll buy whatever the newest one is then.

01:43:04 ◼   ► But so far all of our Apple TVs are fine.

01:43:08 ◼   ► And that's part of the fallout of this having only those two exclusive features,

01:43:13 ◼   ► which is do you want to talk to your Apple TV box with the

01:43:16 ◼   ► microphones on it?

01:43:17 ◼   ► And do you want to hook up four home pods?

01:43:19 ◼   ► Marco does not want to hook up four home pods to his TV because

01:43:21 ◼   ► he's already got TV speakers and it sounds like you don't talking to the

01:43:23 ◼   ► box, so you're happy to talk to the remote.

01:43:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:43:25 ◼   ► And by the way, if you're a trouble trouble finding your remote, you can

01:43:28 ◼   ► just buy the sixty dollar remote and replace your current remote with it.

01:43:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:43:31 ◼   ► So it's uh as far as I can see, there's nothing in in this

01:43:35 ◼   ► Apple T V that really makes me motivated to replace one that already works.

01:43:39 ◼   ► Yeah, the only other thing would be let's say you're a big Apple T

01:43:42 ◼   ► V gamer, the A nineteen is gonna be much better for games, but like

01:43:46 ◼   ► when I'm not sure.

01:43:47 ◼   ► Are there any of those people left?

01:43:48 ◼   ► Yeah, people laugh because it's what that like, you know.

01:43:51 ◼   ► You're the one.

01:43:52 ◼   ► It's part of the whole thing with this product.

01:43:53 ◼   ► Like Apple has not Apple has continues to pursue the same strategy.

01:43:58 ◼   ► They're not turning into a serious games machine.

01:44:01 ◼   ► They're not turning it into a like the thing that all of the TV

01:44:05 ◼   ► nerds want.

01:44:05 ◼   ► Like everyone is screaming about the fact that it still doesn't have audio pass

01:44:08 ◼   ► through, although they can add that with a with a software update if they

01:44:10 ◼   ► really wanted to.

01:44:11 ◼   ► It still doesn't do more than 60 frames per second.

01:44:13 ◼   ► So if you're gonna like try to stream PC games through it or whatever,

01:44:16 ◼   ► like it's just it is what it has always been.

01:44:19 ◼   ► It is just the latest version of that.

01:44:21 ◼   ► And the price is up because the price of everything is up and because

01:44:24 ◼   ► it's got an A19 in it.

01:44:26 ◼   ► As Jason Snell has been pointing out, you know they're gonna sell this same

01:44:29 ◼   ► damn box for the same price for the next four years.

01:44:32 ◼   ► So this is both the most powerful it will ever be relative to everything

01:44:36 ◼   ► else, and also they need to make sure that the guts are in it

01:44:39 ◼   ► that are in it will not be too embarrassing a thousand change days from

01:44:44 ◼   ► now.

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01:46:44 ◼   ► And then I believe rounding out.

01:46:46 ◼   ► Oh no, not rounding out.

01:46:47 ◼   ► I'm sorry.

01:46:48 ◼   ► We have two more steps to go.

01:46:49 ◼   ► Uh first of all, there's a new home pod mini two.

01:46:52 ◼   ► That's a thing that exists.

01:46:53 ◼   ► Moving on.

01:46:54 ◼   ► Uh there is a home collection.

01:46:56 ◼   ► Wait, uh the home pod mini two.

01:46:58 ◼   ► You can't move on from that because for fifty more dollars they added more

01:47:01 ◼   ► lights on top.

01:47:03 ◼   ► That are that are synced with album art.

01:47:05 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:47:05 ◼   ► I had to also look up what the old price of this one is.

01:47:07 ◼   ► I was surprised that it was only $100, but yeah, it's $150 now instead

01:47:10 ◼   ► of a hundred dollars.

01:47:12 ◼   ► I couldn't find what the SOC is.

01:47:13 ◼   ► Do you did any find that anywhere?

01:47:15 ◼   ► I had no idea.

01:47:16 ◼   ► I mean, yeah, it was a w it was one of the watch ships

01:47:18 ◼   ► before.

01:47:18 ◼   ► I the home pod mini has oh as as I said earlier, it's always

01:47:22 ◼   ► been a really good value for a hundred dollars.

01:47:25 ◼   ► At a hundred and fifty, it's less of a good value.

01:47:27 ◼   ► Uh it's still like if you want the best and most sound out of

01:47:33 ◼   ► the smallest one of these speakers you can get, it's HomePod Mini.

01:47:37 ◼   ► It it gives you way better and bigger sound out of that tiny little

01:47:41 ◼   ► ball than anything Amazon or Google makes.

01:47:44 ◼   ► Um, but it at $150, you know, you you're starting to push people's boundaries

01:47:48 ◼   ► of like value for for what that is.

01:47:51 ◼   ► Um, I still think it is overall an okay value.

01:47:54 ◼   ► Before it was a great value.

01:47:56 ◼   ► Uh as for the lights on top, who cares?

01:48:00 ◼   ► I I mean most of the places that I've put home pods in my

01:48:03 ◼   ► house, I either can't see the top, if it's like on a shelf or

01:48:07 ◼   ► something, or i I'm not looking at the top very often because like it's

01:48:12 ◼   ► not that far below eye level or I'm not staring at it while listening

01:48:16 ◼   ► to it or whatever.

01:48:17 ◼   ► Like that's a nice little gimmick, but you know, that's that's fine.

01:48:20 ◼   ► Mainly it's a price raise.

01:48:21 ◼   ► Yeah, it definitely seems like a kind of feature where they were like the

01:48:23 ◼   ► the team was challenged, like, look, you can't really add any costs or change

01:48:28 ◼   ► this product in any way.

01:48:29 ◼   ► What can you add to the hardware within those constraints?

01:48:32 ◼   ► It's like, well, we can put different lights under it, or if those lights

01:48:36 ◼   ► were already there, we can drive them based on software.

01:48:38 ◼   ► You know, it's it's a kind of like sort of a thing you can

01:48:40 ◼   ► do without changing the product too much.

01:48:42 ◼   ► Uh they changed the colors, I think.

01:48:43 ◼   ► It's green, pink, blue, midnight, and white now.

01:48:46 ◼   ► I don't remember what the old colors were, but I a lot of people

01:48:48 ◼   ► like the old like orange color and stuff and those are gone now.

01:48:51 ◼   ► Same size and shape as far as I can tell, including the quote unquote

01:48:56 ◼   ► non-removable power cord.

01:48:58 ◼   ► I think it's similar to the power cord on the big home pod, and

01:49:01 ◼   ► the the power cord of the big home pod is technically not removable, but

01:49:05 ◼   ► it actually is removable if you yank on it real hard and don't break

01:49:08 ◼   ► it.

01:49:08 ◼   ► Like it's what I'm saying is it's not a connector.

01:49:10 ◼   ► It's a USB-C connector.

01:49:12 ◼   ► It's not any kind of one of the power plugs.

01:49:14 ◼   ► It is the the wires attached and people complain about that because like, oh

01:49:17 ◼   ► if my cat chews through the wire do I have to get an entirely

01:49:19 ◼   ► new HomePod mini?

01:49:21 ◼   ► I don't know what it looks like inside there.

01:49:22 ◼   ► I know on the big one you can physically remove because I've yanked my

01:49:25 ◼   ► own cord out of my big home pod.

01:49:27 ◼   ► I it's hard to do but you can do it and you can also

01:49:29 ◼   ► snap it back in.

01:49:30 ◼   ► Like it goes out and it goes in.

01:49:31 ◼   ► It's it is possible.

01:49:32 ◼   ► I don't know what's on the inside of one of these minis, but I

01:49:35 ◼   ► feel like this does tie into the thing that we haven't mentioned any uh

01:49:38 ◼   ► any of these products.

01:49:38 ◼   ► So like Apple's continuing, like at the bottom of every one of these product

01:49:41 ◼   ► pages, they list like here's our progress towards Apple's carbon neutral twenty thirty goals.

01:49:46 ◼   ► And they keep their listing stuff.

01:49:48 ◼   ► They're like, we're doing better.

01:49:48 ◼   ► Here's how this broadcasts, or whatever.

01:49:50 ◼   ► Part of their carbon neutral twenty thirty goals should be update the whole mud.

01:49:56 ◼   ► Mini to have uh a USB-C jack on it, let's say a removable cord.

01:50:00 ◼   ► Because we all know like the little battery bases that they have for these.

01:50:02 ◼   ► You always have to do something with the cord because you can't get rid

01:50:04 ◼   ► of it and you can't replace it with like a little like a short

01:50:06 ◼   ► USB-C connector.

01:50:07 ◼   ► So that I feel like is an environmental thing that they need to do.

01:50:10 ◼   ► Now the the reason they're doing it is not because Apple is mean and

01:50:13 ◼   ► hates the environment, it's because Apple does not update these products frequently.

01:50:16 ◼   ► Like this has not been redesigned.

01:50:18 ◼   ► It is the same as it has ever been.

01:50:19 ◼   ► They don't design them frequently because they're just not updated frequently.

01:50:23 ◼   ► When they do redesign this in three to five years, I really hope that

01:50:27 ◼   ► it will have a USB C port on it.

01:50:29 ◼   ► And then when your cat chews through the cable, you can just get a

01:50:31 ◼   ► new cable.

01:50:32 ◼   ► Uh let's see.

01:50:34 ◼   ► With regard to audio, the only real change that we know about is the

01:50:36 ◼   ► surround sound thing.

01:50:38 ◼   ► Um we're not sure if this is new.

01:50:40 ◼   ► I think this is new, but again, I don't really care about home pods.

01:50:44 ◼   ► Um, you can make the home pod mini two or I believe a stereo

01:50:47 ◼   ► pair thereof as the the they they can be the default speaker for Max

01:50:52 ◼   ► now.

01:50:52 ◼   ► Maybe that was already a thing but I didn't know.

01:50:54 ◼   ► Yeah, that might have already been there.

01:50:55 ◼   ► But like here's when Apple the Apple was advertising, I guess they're just saying

01:50:58 ◼   ► just to remind you what this product does.

01:51:00 ◼   ► I don't someone will write in and tell us whether it's new.

01:51:02 ◼   ► But either way, the problem with using home pods as speakers for Macs has

01:51:06 ◼   ► always been lag, because you can't connect them to your Mac directly.

01:51:10 ◼   ► It's all, you know, Bluetooth, Wi Fi, whatever.

01:51:13 ◼   ► And if they were really serious about advertising these as speakers for your Mac,

01:51:17 ◼   ► I would hope they would say, and now with, you know, lower lag or

01:51:20 ◼   ► they just didn't say they just don't care.

01:51:22 ◼   ► It's like it's a thing you can do if you feel like it, it

01:51:24 ◼   ► looks real nice.

01:51:24 ◼   ► They're never gonna say that.

01:51:26 ◼   ► I just I d I don't know.

01:51:28 ◼   ► Like uh Marco, you tried this I think with big home pods once.

01:51:31 ◼   ► I did.

01:51:32 ◼   ► And was it was it was it awful?

01:51:33 ◼   ► Yes.

01:51:34 ◼   ► Um and it was awful for two reasons.

01:51:36 ◼   ► The lag was w only one of them.

01:51:38 ◼   ► The other one is that it was just unreliable.

01:51:41 ◼   ► Like they would drop the link, it you'd have to like reconnect it.

01:51:44 ◼   ► Um at at that time, music would like the music app would actually treat

01:51:49 ◼   ► them a little bit differently than using them as system audio.

01:51:51 ◼   ► Like it was a mess.

01:51:52 ◼   ► And I I later tried the same thing with um Sonos era three hundreds

01:51:57 ◼   ► uh, which were significantly better 'cause I just use like a line in kind

01:52:01 ◼   ► of setup, significantly better than trying to like, you know, airplate a home pods

01:52:05 ◼   ► and stuff.

01:52:05 ◼   ► Um, but still had lag as as a fairly annoying factor.

01:52:09 ◼   ► Um now they're saying you know this requires a certain Wi-Fi standard and everything,

01:52:13 ◼   ► so maybe they are gonna take advantage of some like you know nice low

01:52:17 ◼   ► latency Wi-Fi thing so it's not you know just like going over the regular

01:52:20 ◼   ► network, maybe it'll like send some kind of peer-to-peer direct.

01:52:23 ◼   ► Um maybe they can make that very low latency.

01:52:25 ◼   ► I don't.

01:52:26 ◼   ► I mean, as I was saying earlier, CarPlay seems to be you know, a

01:52:31 ◼   ► video stream between the phone and the car at short range, peer-to-peer.

01:52:36 ◼   ► And while we've had issues, with CarPlay audio, because that is kind of sort

01:52:40 ◼   ► of over Bluetooth and you know it it's kind of complicated, CarPlay video is

01:52:45 ◼   ► fairly responsive.

01:52:47 ◼   ► You know, you figure you're touching the car's touch screen, that has to go

01:52:50 ◼   ► over a local Wi-Fi network from the CarPlay, you know, head unit or car

01:52:55 ◼   ► computer, whatever, over Wi-Fi to the phone.

01:52:57 ◼   ► The phone interprets the touch, updates the interface, sends it back over that same

01:53:00 ◼   ► link a second time and updates the UI.

01:53:02 ◼   ► It seems pretty responsive.

01:53:04 ◼   ► So I th I'm guessing they have a way that if you have peer-to-peer

01:53:09 ◼   ► Wi-Fi over short distances with you know known quantities of hardware on both sides

01:53:14 ◼   ► and nothing else is congesting the link in that area and everything else.

01:53:18 ◼   ► Maybe they can set the latency and the buffers very, very low on these

01:53:22 ◼   ► things to make it much more responsive and less noticeable.

01:53:25 ◼   ► So if that's the kind of thing they're doing to achieve this, that could

01:53:29 ◼   ► actually work.

01:53:31 ◼   ► Or again, if and when they ever redesign these things, everyone is screaming for

01:53:35 ◼   ► this forever for every one of Apple speaker products.

01:53:38 ◼   ► Put a damn line in, Jack.

01:53:39 ◼   ► Put a USB C like pick one.

01:53:41 ◼   ► You don't have to have a thousand ports.

01:53:42 ◼   ► It doesn't be like the back of third party speakers that have a thousand

01:53:44 ◼   ► ways to connect them.

01:53:45 ◼   ► We just want one.

01:53:46 ◼   ► One way to connect it with a wire directly to a Mac.

01:53:49 ◼   ► So you have uh a basically, you know, low latency, lower latency than wireless

01:53:53 ◼   ► connection.

01:53:54 ◼   ► USB audio would be perfectly fine.

01:53:56 ◼   ► Analog audio with a three point five millimeter jack also be perfectly fine.

01:54:00 ◼   ► Probably Apple won't do that one.

01:54:01 ◼   ► But like the current situation where it's a sphere and it's got a permanently

01:54:04 ◼   ► attached cord that bring brings it power, everything else is wireless, even if you

01:54:08 ◼   ► want to use it on your desk next to your Mac where it's never

01:54:11 ◼   ► gonna move.

01:54:12 ◼   ► Why does that have to be wireless?

01:54:14 ◼   ► It's dumb.

01:54:15 ◼   ► And then we briefly mentioned SoundGlow.

01:54:18 ◼   ► Apple writes with SoundGlow, the top of HomePod Mini transforms into a visual canvas

01:54:22 ◼   ► that glows and pulses in sync with the music reacting in real time to

01:54:25 ◼   ► bass and treble.

01:54:27 ◼   ► The song's album artwork from Now Playing generates a color matched light experience that's

01:54:31 ◼   ► unique to every song, and users can pick a soundscape like rain to trigger

01:54:34 ◼   ► bespoke animations for a soothing atmosphere.

01:54:36 ◼   ► I snark, but I mean that's kinda neat.

01:54:38 ◼   ► But you'll never look at it.

01:54:40 ◼   ► Nope.

01:54:40 ◼   ► And it's not like it's a screen.

01:54:42 ◼   ► Like it's not like the cars, the all the car interiors that have like

01:54:45 ◼   ► these moody things.

01:54:46 ◼   ► Those are actual screens.

01:54:47 ◼   ► This is just like vague RGB lights under a frosty piece of whatever.

01:54:50 ◼   ► Like a successfully added a feature to a product without having to redesign it.

01:54:55 ◼   ► Hooray.

01:54:57 ◼   ► All right.

01:54:57 ◼   ► Then finally, for real, for real this time, home collection.

01:55:01 ◼   ► Uh writing

01:55:03 ◼   ► writing says, designed in collaboration with Apple and Select brands, Apple Home Collection accessories,

01:55:08 ◼   ► including smart cameras, thermostats, and a door lock, are simple to set up, easy

01:55:11 ◼   ► to use, and private with data that's end to end in Apple Home.

01:55:15 ◼   ► There's two primary manufacturers that are associated there's LG and Snyder home, which we

01:55:20 ◼   ► briefly mentioned earlier.

01:55:21 ◼   ► Uh for LG, you get a floodlight cam, or what you don't get, you

01:55:25 ◼   ► could get a floodlight cam that's 400 bucks, an indoor camera that's 200 bucks,

01:55:29 ◼   ► an outdoor camera that's 350 bucks, a smart deadbolt lock, which is 350 bucks,

01:55:33 ◼   ► a smart thermostat that's 200 bucks, a temperature sensor that's 40 bucks, or a

01:55:37 ◼   ► video doorbell that's 250 dollars.

01:55:40 ◼   ► For Schneider Home, they have their own smart thermostat that is also $200.

01:55:44 ◼   ► They have a smart thermostat room sensor, which I think is basically basically a

01:55:47 ◼   ► temperature sensor, also forty dollars.

01:55:48 ◼   ► And we discussed the power mount earlier at a hundred and thirty freaking dollars.

01:55:53 ◼   ► For the power power Ethernet one.

01:55:54 ◼   ► They also make the that's A C one and the USB C one.

01:55:57 ◼   ► They're those are all Schneider home products.

01:55:59 ◼   ► It seems like as far as I could tell, Apple doesn't make a mount

01:56:02 ◼   ► for the which is weird.

01:56:03 ◼   ► Like they'll sell you a wall mount thing, but they won't mount it.

01:56:06 ◼   ► But they're partnering with Schneider Home for that.

01:56:08 ◼   ► And I'm sure a million companies will have third-party things.

01:56:10 ◼   ► And I went to these the I think there's more products than you just

01:56:13 ◼   ► listed.

01:56:13 ◼   ► These are the ones I found like from Mac Rumors article and like in

01:56:15 ◼   ► Apple's press releases.

01:56:16 ◼   ► But if you go to their websites, you'll find all sorts of other little

01:56:19 ◼   ► doohickies and accessories.

01:56:20 ◼   ► The part I should have put in here from the notes, uh, that I

01:56:22 ◼   ► thought I had, but apparently I don't is some of Apple's, I don't know,

01:56:27 ◼   ► I don't know how to describe this.

01:56:29 ◼   ► Like, the new home kit or the new deal that Apple is making with

01:56:33 ◼   ► manufacturers for home kit products or whatever.

01:56:35 ◼   ► I and you can correct me if I'm wrong because I don't have it

01:56:37 ◼   ► in the notes.

01:56:38 ◼   ► My my recollection is they said something about the fact that all these products

01:56:41 ◼   ► that you just listed uh do not have their own account system and can't

01:56:48 ◼   ► have their own account system or their own apps.

01:56:51 ◼   ► Is that is that correct?

01:56:53 ◼   ► I believe that Apple specifically on the marketing site, which is Apple.com slash home

01:56:57 ◼   ► slash slash accessories.

01:56:59 ◼   ► I believe somewhere on there it specifically says that you don't have to install

01:57:04 ◼   ► an app.

01:57:05 ◼   ► I'm trying to vamp and find where it said that Yeah, like it seem

01:57:08 ◼   ► seemed to me from again, I think I saw it in Apple's marketing literature

01:57:11 ◼   ► that what they were trying to say is, Hey, I know home products suck

01:57:14 ◼   ► 'cause like you get the thing out of the box, you gotta set up,

01:57:16 ◼   ► you gotta install their damn app, you gotta make an account on their thing,

01:57:18 ◼   ► you gotta do all this stuff, and then you just wanted to add it

01:57:20 ◼   ► to HomeKit and it's like, why the hell did I do all that other

01:57:22 ◼   ► stuff and now I have I can view it in the app, but it's

01:57:25 ◼   ► home kit and yada yada.

01:57:26 ◼   ► It seems like with these partners, what they're trying to do is say, hey

01:57:31 ◼   ► partners, we want you to make home kit products.

01:57:34 ◼   ► And they're probably using the matter standard or whatever.

01:57:36 ◼   ► But the point is you can't have your own app.

01:57:38 ◼   ► You can't have your own account system.

01:57:39 ◼   ► You can't make the people sign up for an LG floodlight account or an

01:57:43 ◼   ► LG smart home with their five hundred megabyte app that I have that tells

01:57:47 ◼   ► me my laundry is finished for my LG washing machine.

01:57:50 ◼   ► Like you can't do that anymore if you want to be part of this

01:57:53 ◼   ► program.

01:57:53 ◼   ► I don't know if it's a requirement for all home kit things going forward.

01:57:55 ◼   ► I don't know if it's just a deal with the LG things, but that

01:57:58 ◼   ► is part of the pitch of this.

01:57:59 ◼   ► That and the easy setup.

01:58:00 ◼   ► And it's part of the easy setup.

01:58:02 ◼   ► And like just bring your phone near it.

01:58:03 ◼   ► I mean you know, home kit products that have QR codes on them for

01:58:06 ◼   ► a long time and also the thing where you bring the phone close and

01:58:08 ◼   ► it sets it up.

01:58:09 ◼   ► But the point is there's no other part of that.

01:58:11 ◼   ► There's not also, and by the way, go to the app store and download

01:58:14 ◼   ► the LG app.

01:58:15 ◼   ► It's just it's a home kit accessory.

01:58:17 ◼   ► You bring your phone near it, it Gets into HomeKit, you use Apple's home

01:58:21 ◼   ► app to encrow it, and that's it.

01:58:23 ◼   ► And that I do find appealing.

01:58:25 ◼   ► If only I had any faith that HomeKit didn't.

01:58:27 ◼   ► So I found it.

01:58:28 ◼   ► It's in the press release.

01:58:30 ◼   ► These new accessories are simple to set up, starting with one tap with iPhone

01:58:33 ◼   ► and everything is managed through the Apple Home app.

01:58:36 ◼   ► No separate app or account required.

01:58:38 ◼   ► Yeah, again, it's clear if that's uh that's like they're they're gonna demand that

01:58:41 ◼   ► from all of their partners or if you need it as part of a

01:58:43 ◼   ► qualification for home kit compatibility or if it's just for these particular ones, but

01:58:47 ◼   ► I endorse that approach because it has always been annoying that that has not

01:58:51 ◼   ► been the case.

01:58:52 ◼   ► Now, I think it's also the case that these accessories can also be visible

01:58:57 ◼   ► to other home things.

01:58:58 ◼   ► Like if you buy one of these, you're like well what if I also

01:59:00 ◼   ► have a Google home setup?

01:59:01 ◼   ► Can I use like the camera and doorbell on that?

01:59:03 ◼   ► Some of them I believe that is the case that it's not like it's

01:59:06 ◼   ► tied to Apple things.

01:59:08 ◼   ► They also speak may again maybe they're doing it through maybe they just speak

01:59:11 ◼   ► the other protocols that you will also be able to put this very same

01:59:13 ◼   ► device into Google Home.

01:59:15 ◼   ► Like and that is that's been the case, you know, forever.

01:59:18 ◼   ► Like pretty much every I have very limited number of smart home devices in

01:59:22 ◼   ► my house, but they are all in Amazon's home thing, Google.

01:59:26 ◼   ► Google's home thing and in HomeKit.

01:59:29 ◼   ► Pretty much all of them.

01:59:30 ◼   ► I think my cameras are only are not in HomeKit, but only because I

01:59:33 ◼   ► haven't done the home assistant thing or anything.

01:59:36 ◼   ► And I think most of these are similar that they they are a multi-ecosystem,

01:59:39 ◼   ► which is important for like a doorlock a door lock or something, like if

01:59:42 ◼   ► someone in your home has an Android phone while they can't get in your

01:59:44 ◼   ► house anymore.

01:59:45 ◼   ► Um but the ease of setup in the Apple Apple ecosystem is nice and

01:59:48 ◼   ► the products look vaguely Apple-y, but I'm still not sold on HomeKit as a

01:59:54 ◼   ► platform, period, even though the new one is in theory going to be better,

01:59:58 ◼   ► but we'll see.

01:59:59 ◼   ► I mean this is actually extremely similar to HomeKit Secure Video and the camera

02:00:06 ◼   ► that Logitech made for that years ago.

02:00:09 ◼   ► The one that I bought four of and three of them died within a

02:00:13 ◼   ► year.

02:00:13 ◼   ► Um it it it's exactly the same playbook again.

02:00:17 ◼   ► Partnering out to these companies.

02:00:19 ◼   ► Literally this was the one of the same companies, uh making a very similar

02:00:23 ◼   ► type of camera um that also had no app and no login and no

02:00:29 ◼   ► separate thing.

02:00:29 ◼   ► It was just, you know, natively paired to Home Kit.

02:00:32 ◼   ► Like it's exactly that playbook Again.

02:00:35 ◼   ► It didn't work that well last time.

02:00:38 ◼   ► Why would we believe that it was work that it would work that well

02:00:41 ◼   ► this time?

02:00:41 ◼   ► Isn't that supposed to be?

02:00:43 ◼   ► I don't know if it's they didn't change the they changed the architecture of

02:00:46 ◼   ► screen time.

02:00:46 ◼   ► I'm getting confused.

02:00:47 ◼   ► They changed the architecture of screen.

02:00:48 ◼   ► They used they changed the architecture home time home kit a while back and

02:00:51 ◼   ► you had to convert your old home over to a

02:00:54 ◼   ► but in theory every time there's a new OS release, in theory the home

02:00:57 ◼   ► app could be better.

02:00:58 ◼   ► The the software stack on these devices could be better.

02:01:01 ◼   ► So there's always the promise that even though this is not an overhaul like

02:01:04 ◼   ► the old home kit conversion was, that it is a new version of all

02:01:08 ◼   ► the OSs, and these are new products, so maybe it's better.

02:01:11 ◼   ► And that's I mean, that's that's certainly Apple's pitch.

02:01:13 ◼   ► These are products, they look sleek, they work well, and you trust us this

02:01:17 ◼   ► time, it won't Marco's old Logitech cameras.

02:01:20 ◼   ► Yeah, but that's that's the thing.

02:01:21 ◼   ► Like are would you commit, you know, a grand worth of home equipment to

02:01:25 ◼   ► this?

02:01:26 ◼   ► No.

02:01:26 ◼   ► There's a re there's a reason I don't that I have Google cameras and

02:01:29 ◼   ► not uh well for Formerly Nest cameras, which have been serving me faithfully for

02:01:33 ◼   ► years and years, and there's no way I would buy this Apple one.

02:01:36 ◼   ► Or LG one, sorry.

02:01:37 ◼   ► Yeah, 'cause like it they've literally done exactly the same thing before and it

02:01:41 ◼   ► it was pretty mediocre.

02:01:43 ◼   ► Um and it didn't again it was one of those things where like they

02:01:45 ◼   ► put a bunch of stuff out there, they didn't want to re release it

02:01:48 ◼   ► themselves, so they relied on third parties and partnerships.

02:01:51 ◼   ► No one bought them, which made two things happen.

02:01:54 ◼   ► It made Apple not, you know, put any wood behind the arrow.

02:01:58 ◼   ► And the companies that made them, it made them not really want to update

02:02:03 ◼   ► them or do much for them either.

02:02:05 ◼   ► So they put out products that no one loved.

02:02:07 ◼   ► The company didn't, Apple didn't love them, and customers couldn't love them because it

02:02:11 ◼   ► didn't work that well.

02:02:13 ◼   ► So I don't again, like what's gonna be different here?

02:02:16 ◼   ► I don't know.

02:02:18 ◼   ► I mean, I feel like a part of the the the um the message

02:02:20 ◼   ► of this whole it's not we it's not really an event, but whatever The

02:02:24 ◼   ► the products they announced at uh at a certain time while inviting a bunch

02:02:27 ◼   ► of famous YouTubers to see them in person.

02:02:29 ◼   ► Let's call that an event.

02:02:31 ◼   ► This was their home thing.

02:02:33 ◼   ► And what they came out with was, I think, their most sophisticated and feature

02:02:37 ◼   ► capable home device ever, which is the HomeView.

02:02:40 ◼   ► Uh and they trivially updated a bunch of their other home stuff, including the

02:02:45 ◼   ► Apple TV, which was super old.

02:02:46 ◼   ► And they announced some partnership deals.

02:02:49 ◼   ► And so again, we'll talk about in future episodes this topic that has been

02:02:52 ◼   ► pushed down forever, but like

02:02:55 ◼   ► is Apple making a new push into home?

02:03:00 ◼   ► Are they gonna do what they did before and just let these products all

02:03:02 ◼   ► sit there for a year and neglect them or have they had a change

02:03:05 ◼   ► of heart under a new CEO and they're actually going to pay more attention

02:03:08 ◼   ► to this product caregit?

02:03:10 ◼   ► Remains to be seen.

02:03:10 ◼   ► Apple's message is we're gonna get even more serious about the home and we've

02:03:14 ◼   ► got all this great stuff.

02:03:15 ◼   ► And they've backed it up again by the home view, I feel like is

02:03:18 ◼   ► the strongest signal that like we're we're not giving up on this segment.

02:03:21 ◼   ► We are doing more than we have ever done hardware and software wise in

02:03:25 ◼   ► this segment, even though we're still essentially playing catch up with everybody else, because

02:03:29 ◼   ► they totally are.

02:03:29 ◼   ► Like everyone else is so far ahead and all this stuff.

02:03:32 ◼   ► But But they're not going the opposite direction.

02:03:34 ◼   ► It's not like the uh Division Pro where you're like, are they even gonna

02:03:37 ◼   ► do this at all anymore?

02:03:38 ◼   ► They are like the trend line is upward and it is upward at a

02:03:41 ◼   ► steeper slope than it has ever been before, but that's not saying much.

02:03:45 ◼   ► So I you know it's like prove it to me, but all the potential

02:03:50 ◼   ► rumors and whatever about Apple, you know, putting the gas down on product categories

02:03:55 ◼   ► that they had let uh uh you know lie fallow for a long time.

02:03:59 ◼   ► We'll see.

02:04:00 ◼   ► But like that's I feel like it's the the the very low key message

02:04:03 ◼   ► of this event is like maybe Apple won't neglect all these things forever.

02:04:07 ◼   ► Like Apple hasn't been particularly adamant about it, but you know, I'm again like

02:04:13 ◼   ► s Not optimistic, but I'm I'm not pessimistic about this category.

02:04:17 ◼   ► Previously I was pessimistic about it.

02:04:19 ◼   ► Now that I see the product roll out, I'm just like, I'm neutral.

02:04:22 ◼   ► I don't I don't trust that it's gonna be wonderful, but I will continue

02:04:25 ◼   ► to watch it and I think they're moving in the right direction, albeit slowly.

02:04:28 ◼   ► No, I agree with that wholeheartedly.

02:04:29 ◼   ► Uh one product that I wanted to call attention to is the indoor camera

02:04:33 ◼   ► from LG.

02:04:34 ◼   ► If you imagine a letter L, a capital letter L, and then off the

02:04:38 ◼   ► top of the L is the camera.

02:04:40 ◼   ► Well apparently it can uh at least tilt up and down.

02:04:44 ◼   ► I don't know if

02:04:46 ◼   ► not, but one way or another it'll it can tilt up and down.

02:04:48 ◼   ► And apparently what it does is once Apple Home realizes that there's at least

02:04:52 ◼   ► one person inside the house, you can configure this to tilt, I believe, downward

02:04:56 ◼   ► downwards so that it's basically pointing at its own base and can't see anything

02:05:00 ◼   ► and thus isn't recording anything useful.

02:05:02 ◼   ► And then once when the last person leaves the house, it'll pop itself back

02:05:06 ◼   ► up so that it'll be s it'll start recording again.

02:05:08 ◼   ► I thought that was a very clever feature.

02:05:10 ◼   ► Uh this is the sort of thing you could presumably automate in Home Assistant.

02:05:13 ◼   ► I'm saying, I'm sorry, I'm that guy.

02:05:16 ◼   ► But nevertheless, to have this in Apple Home, I think is very, very cool.

02:05:19 ◼   ► Yeah, my cameras do this too, but they don't

02:05:22 ◼   ► like the uh presence awareness, so they'll turn off when you're and then turn

02:05:25 ◼   ► back on when everybody leaves.

02:05:27 ◼   ► But the key feature of this one is that physical motion because there's always

02:05:30 ◼   ► the question with cameras like, oh don't worry, the little green light will always

02:05:34 ◼   ► be on when it's on.

02:05:36 ◼   ► All right.

02:05:36 ◼   ► Um this there is less doubt because it ro like you said it rotates

02:05:41 ◼   ► so the camera is like two millimeters from the base.

02:05:43 ◼   ► So that camera is just seeing the its own base.

02:05:45 ◼   ► And you can glance at that and say with your eyeballs, clearly that camera

02:05:50 ◼   ► is not looking at me right now because it's literally not looking at you.

02:05:54 ◼   ► Like I don't care if it's on, it's gonna see nothing, it's gonna see

02:05:56 ◼   ► its white base that's five millimeters from the thing, right?

02:05:59 ◼   ► So that I think is a reassurance and is a um it's an improvement

02:06:04 ◼   ► on this thing, but the cost is now the camera is bigger and bulkier

02:06:08 ◼   ► and has moving parts in it.

02:06:09 ◼   ► So I'm not even sure that's a wonderful trade-off, but I do think it

02:06:12 ◼   ► is a useful innovation in the space.

02:06:14 ◼   ► I'm sure other cameras have done similar things, but like I think I think

02:06:16 ◼   ► that is useful.

02:06:17 ◼   ► Like living in a house.

02:06:18 ◼   ► With kids who never want to be on camera when they're like, you know,

02:06:21 ◼   ► you know, are early teens and being left home alone.

02:06:23 ◼   ► They're like, But don't look at me on the cameras, you know, like blah

02:06:25 ◼   ► blah blah.

02:06:26 ◼   ► They always thought the cameras would be on, even if we showed them that

02:06:28 ◼   ► they were off because they didn't trust the little light.

02:06:31 ◼   ► Uh if we had this camera, they would see that it's down They say,

02:06:33 ◼   ► see, we're not looking at you.

02:06:35 ◼   ► Oh, I forgot to mention actually uh these ship in twenty twenty seven you

02:06:38 ◼   ► can order in December.

02:06:40 ◼   ► So we don't know when in twenty twenty seven, could be December of twenty

02:06:43 ◼   ► twenty seven, but sometime in twenty seven you can you can receive some of

02:06:46 ◼   ► these and again you can order allegedly in a couple of months.

02:06:49 ◼   ► I'm I would wait for the Amazon reviews on these.

02:06:52 ◼   ► Right.

02:06:52 ◼   ► Like are is anybody pre ordering these?

02:06:55 ◼   ► Like I don't know.

02:06:56 ◼   ► Yeah no that seems like a high risk and a low excitement product.

02:07:00 ◼   ► Again, if you have a full home kit kit, I think like uh Stephen

02:07:03 ◼   ► Robles is probably gonna get a bunch of these things.

02:07:04 ◼   ► So we'll we'll definitely see how they are from uh based on his experience.

02:07:07 ◼   ► All right.

02:07:08 ◼   ► Thank you to our sponsors this episode, Quince, Factor, and Tail Scale.

02:07:13 ◼   ► And thanks to our members who support us directly, you can join us at

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02:07:17 ◼   ► One of the many perks of membership is ATP overtime, our weekly bonus topic.

02:07:23 ◼   ► This week in overtime we're gonna be talking we're gonna about the um the

02:07:26 ◼   ► Pass Keys Are a Trap blog post that's been going around recently.

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02:07:35 ◼   ► Thank you everybody for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

02:07:41 ◼   ► Now the show is over.

02:07:44 ◼   ► They didn't even mean to begin.

02:07:46 ◼   ► Cause it was accidental.

02:07:48 ◼   ► Accidental.

02:07:49 ◼   ► Oh, it was accidental.

02:07:51 ◼   ► Accidental.

02:07:52 ◼   ► John didn't do any research.

02:07:54 ◼   ► Marco and Casey wouldn't let him Cause it was accidental Accidental It was accidental

02:08:01 ◼   ► Accidental And you can find the show notes at ATP died

02:08:08 ◼   ► And if you're into Mastodon, you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L I-S-S- So that's

02:08:17 ◼   ► K C Lis M-A-R-C-O A-R-M-N-T-Marco Armin S-I-R-A-C U S A C recusa.

02:08:28 ◼   ► It's accidental.

02:08:30 ◼   ► Accidental.

02:08:32 ◼   ► They didn't mean to accidental, accidental, check our cast so long.

02:08:42 ◼   ► Got a new toy like a month ago and I'd finally had the uh

02:08:45 ◼   ► opportunity to use it a little bit uh because I'm turning into that guy

02:08:50 ◼   ► in part because of Marco and largely because of Stephen Hackett.

02:08:53 ◼   ► Um I a while ago, like I don't know, six months ago or something

02:08:56 ◼   ► like that, I got a U Unify UTR, which is a Unify travel router.

02:09:00 ◼   ► So I got a unify unify travel router.

02:09:02 ◼   ► You know what I mean.

02:09:03 ◼   ► It's an ATM machine.

02:09:05 ◼   ► Um anyways.

02:09:06 ◼   ► You put your personal pin number into.

02:09:08 ◼   ► That I put my my personal identification PIN number in.

02:09:11 ◼   ► Uh anyhow, uh I got a new version of this.

02:09:14 ◼   ► Uh they still sell the original, but they now have the UTR-LR or the

02:09:19 ◼   ► Unify Travel Router long range.

02:09:22 ◼   ► And this is almost identical to the original one.

02:09:26 ◼   ► Except now it has a little flappy thing that you can pick up and

02:09:30 ◼   ► I presume that's the antenna and allegedly it works a lot further away.

02:09:35 ◼   ► And I gotta tell you what is the range?

02:09:38 ◼   ► What range are you talking about?

02:09:39 ◼   ► Is it the range that your devices can see the Wi-Fi signal emitted by

02:09:43 ◼   ► the travel router.

02:09:43 ◼   ► That's right.

02:09:44 ◼   ► That's certainly my understanding anyway.

02:09:46 ◼   ► Um the original Unify travel router is roughly the size of an iPhone battery

02:09:52 ◼   ► pack, you know, the one from several years ago that still has a lightning

02:09:54 ◼   ► connector, not the one from the iPhone.

02:09:56 ◼   ► Air.

02:09:56 ◼   ► I'm saying the original one.

02:09:57 ◼   ► It's almost identical to that size.

02:10:00 ◼   ► It's not exactly, but that that's a really good thing to envision.

02:10:03 ◼   ► So now envision another like third of that that can flip up, and that's

02:10:08 ◼   ► the antenna.

02:10:09 ◼   ► Uh i i I I think I've talked about the original UTR in the

02:10:12 ◼   ► past, but it has two Ethernet jacks and the thing is so thin that

02:10:16 ◼   ► it has like PCMCIA style uh flaps that you lift up in order to

02:10:21 ◼   ► make the space for an Ethernet cord to plug plug-in.

02:10:24 ◼   ► Uh this is in contrast to a lot of the uh GLI net.

02:10:28 ◼   ► We talked about GLINET I think it was last episode, maybe the one before.

02:10:30 ◼   ► Uh talked about their KVMs, but they originally became a part of my world

02:10:35 ◼   ► on account of their travel routers, which are very good.

02:10:38 ◼   ► Uh, this is physically quite, quite a bit smaller than their travel routers.

02:10:43 ◼   ► Now, the chat room is already grumbling that it's only Wi-Fi 5.

02:10:47 ◼   ► Um, GLINET has Wi-Fi 7 travel routers.

02:10:51 ◼   ► Um, this is not as advanced, but I love these things.

02:10:56 ◼   ► And I gotta tell you, the the Unify Travel Router, the original one, when

02:11:00 ◼   ► we would travel and we would go over the summer to like a couple

02:11:04 ◼   ► of standalone homes, the one in Cape Charles and one on a different beach

02:11:07 ◼   ► that we go to.

02:11:08 ◼   ► And in those standalone homes, which I would guess are roughly two thousand square

02:11:11 ◼   ► feet, um, the unified travel router, the original one, would work sufficiently, but I

02:11:18 ◼   ► would not say it was spectacular.

02:11:20 ◼   ► And on the far edges of the house, it would typically be really spotty

02:11:25 ◼   ► Wi-Fi coverage.

02:11:26 ◼   ► I haven't had this long enough to go to one of these homes over

02:11:28 ◼   ► the summer, but we did do a little bit of traveling and went to

02:11:31 ◼   ► a uh hotel, a home to suites hotel uh in Charlottesville to meet up

02:11:35 ◼   ► with some friends.

02:11:37 ◼   ► And this thing worked great in there.

02:11:40 ◼   ► And I suspect it would work pretty darn well in most average sized vacation

02:11:45 ◼   ► homes.

02:11:45 ◼   ► Um I I really, really like these things.

02:11:48 ◼   ► And especially by Unify standards, they're astonishingly cheap.

02:11:52 ◼   ► The original UniFi travel router was 80 bucks.

02:11:54 ◼   ► This unified travel router long range, a hundred bucks.

02:11:57 ◼   ► Really not bad.

02:11:58 ◼   ► I think they are still doing a tariff surcharge.

02:12:00 ◼   ► I d I don't recall off the top of my head.

02:12:02 ◼   ► And shipping is annoyingly expensive, despite it all coming from Memphis and going via

02:12:07 ◼   ► FedEx, if I'm not mistaken.

02:12:09 ◼   ► But that being said, I love how freaking small this is.

02:12:13 ◼   ► And I like how it has that has that it has a little display

02:12:15 ◼   ► on it that shows like how many uh clients you have connected and so

02:12:19 ◼   ► on and so forth.

02:12:20 ◼   ► And if you recall, one of the perks of this if when paired with

02:12:22 ◼   ► Unify setup at home is first of all, you can just tell it mimic

02:12:27 ◼   ► the home Wi-Fi and it will use the same SSID and same password that

02:12:30 ◼   ► you have at home.

02:12:31 ◼   ► And the reason that a travel router is exciting and useful is if you

02:12:37 ◼   ► travel with multiple devices, or perhaps you've you have multiple people in your family,

02:12:41 ◼   ► or gasp, you have multiple people in your family with multiple devices per person,

02:12:46 ◼   ► then you only have to get on, let's say, the hotel Wi-Fi or maybe

02:12:50 ◼   ► hotel Ethernet once and then everything else is connected, including if you're an absolute

02:12:56 ◼   ► lunatic like I am, a sono speaker, because as far as the speaker is

02:13:00 ◼   ► concerned, it's still at home.

02:13:02 ◼   ► And that's also true of like an Apple TV.

02:13:04 ◼   ► And again, this does have an Ethernet port for a local area network.

02:13:08 ◼   ► It has a WAN Ether WAN Ethernet port and a LAN Ethernet port.

02:13:12 ◼   ► Unfortunately, there's only one of them.

02:13:14 ◼   ► So you could pair this with like a flex mini which is one of

02:13:17 ◼   ► their uh very, very physically small and very affordable uh gigabit switches.

02:13:23 ◼   ► Um and you can also interestingly, if you use teleport, which is their um

02:13:28 ◼   ► VPN solution that's WireGuard based, similar to Tailscale, but not the same.

02:13:32 ◼   ► Uh, if you use their teleport thing, then you can actually have a camera

02:13:38 ◼   ► attached to this via Wi-Fi or Ethernet.

02:13:41 ◼   ► Uh not PoE, I guess.

02:13:43 ◼   ► So I guess would have to be a Wi-Fi camera.

02:13:44 ◼   ► Um, but anyways, you could have a camera connected to this then via teleport

02:13:50 ◼   ► VPN'd into your home and storing all the footage on your home like UNAS

02:13:55 ◼   ► or uh what's the what's N VR?

02:13:58 ◼   ► Is that what it is, Marco?

02:13:59 ◼   ► The the video recorder?

02:14:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

02:14:00 ◼   ► What am I thinking of?

02:14:01 ◼   ► Yeah there's other there's multiple ones now, but yeah.

02:14:03 ◼   ► Okay.

02:14:04 ◼   ► Um so anyway, so you can have a remote camera if you want.

02:14:07 ◼   ► Why would you want this?

02:14:08 ◼   ► I don't know.

02:14:09 ◼   ► But can you do it?

02:14:09 ◼   ► Yes.

02:14:10 ◼   ► And I think that's neat.

02:14:11 ◼   ► Uh and additionally, you know, it has a second the all of this is

02:14:14 ◼   ► true of the original one.

02:14:15 ◼   ► It also has a second um uh USB port so you can tether.

02:14:19 ◼   ► It's really, really slick.

02:14:21 ◼   ► And if you are a unify person, which maybe you're not, but if you

02:14:24 ◼   ► are, this thing is so cool.

02:14:26 ◼   ► And I really, really appreciate the fact that it is longer range and seems

02:14:30 ◼   ► to work in bigger spaces a lot better.

02:14:33 ◼   ► Cool.

02:14:33 ◼   ► I don't know.

02:14:34 ◼   ► I like it.

02:14:35 ◼   ► Four, four, four.