Hottest Apple tech of 2025 + New iPhone 18 intel! (CultCast #680)

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just saw that that Apple intelligence picture of
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Fon is that is that supposed to that's not supposed to be you is it or is it who is it oh yeah that's me oh God if it
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scared you terribly looks like you got electri you know 30,000 volt electric
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shock God a great service yeah the power of
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image playground I feel like I just go on that theme all year to be honest with you cuz it's just so comically
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bad AR live I think oh Paradise was here looking for
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us yesterday yeah we are one day late $1 short aren't we is that how the saying
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goes several dollars short I'm still not seeing the tweet every time I reload I
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see that picture again oh you want the Tweet terrifying there you go
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this take that tweet put it in your Tweet pipe and just smoke it I'm just
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gonna copy that all right copy that drop that in deliver it and see oh man let's
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wait for some more people we got caveman here we got some people rolling
1:16
in I got a little pre-show banter I could do for those of you as we're waiting I need an image and the good
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news is I think I have one why does it say no one's here I see
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some people in the chat but YouTube says no one's here and I don't know why but if you are here can you give us a thumbs
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up let me know that you're here and also help to boost Us in the algorithms that
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people who are considering going to endure four hours of the talk show can
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see that there's another choice for their life we got Wes B here dude that's uh that's a very exuberant hello happy
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New Year yeah happy 2025 y'all
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exciting we made it 2025 sorry we're a day late so yesterday
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was my son's birthday and um we decided to go to a
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museum in Everett Washington this place is a sleeper man I didn't even know this
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Museum was there it was started by Paul Allen and it is a basically like a World
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War II museum but with all sorts of like heritage milit equipment tanks all sorts
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of stuff like super cool equipment and all the airplanes there are fully
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functional so they maintain the entire fleet of airplanes like all like the dog fighters and everything and every year
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they take some of them out and fly them all around it's like when you go in there there's mechanics there they have like the engine compartment taken apart
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and like they're in there maintaining the airplane it's unbelievable and in 2025 in fact I should look it up I I
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should give them a plug in 2025 um they made the Museum free so you
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don't even have to pay anymore and they say they have people flying in from all over the world because they have certain
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airplanes that are literally the last ones left you just can't see them anywhere else and it is it's called The
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Heritage in arms Museum I think let me see if I can find it the flying Heritage
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and combat armor Museum in Everett Washington and when my wife was telling
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us about this like she told me it was free and I was like oh boy this place is going to suck but then we got there and
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I I was blown away I was like this is like a professional Museum that Paul
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Allen started he put a lot of his own personal collection into this Museum and
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um as it says on their website beginning January 2nd 2025 it's completely free
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and it is so cool I mean and so i' I've said that like like 10 times so well son
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they have movies that show you different historical accounts of
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World War II and they'll show like this like this dog fighter like flying over to Germany and like blowing planes down
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and then they superimpose like their own airplane which is in the museum like into the footage and it's like whoa
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there's the plane I just saw that plane dude it's so cool maybe we'll learn more about like American history but uh
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anyway that's where I was yesterday so we couldn't do the the show yesterday um but if you ever come to
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Seattle or the Seattle area definitely go to to the uh flying Heritage and
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combat armor Museum they got like outfits like from like Nazi Germany and
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like the US and like tanks and motorcycles there's like an original Harley-Davidson I mean all sorts of like
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really cool stuff all right that's not Weir dude they're so cool I I just saw
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that plane that they're showing there and when you see some of these planes it's like you go inside them some of
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them you can go inside it's like being in a cave it's completely dark they had no pressurized planes or heating systems
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like you're up at like I don't know 10,000 fet you're freezing you're pulling who knows how many G's there's
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dudes shooting at you everywhere and you're like stuck inside this metal tube
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you know of what like aluminum or something I don't even know probably steel but I bet it's aluminum maybe and
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the best planes were ones that they said could take the most bullet hole Holes and still get you home it's like dude
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you're flying a plane that is being shot at and it's being you know littered with
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bullet holes and you're like you know flying This Plane all around you're blowing up enemy airplanes and dropping
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bombs and then and then the thing gets you home and a lot of these planes I mean weren't even full metal fuselages
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part of them were cloth and with a lot of these planes if you got shot they would just cover up the bullet hole with cloth and send you back up you know it's
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crazy I remember something about that they were seeing like the designs that could take the bullets they were the
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best because they could take it yeah exactly they would actually get you home that was a sign of good engineering or
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something not only that but like like back then there were no computers so all these plans were designed by like guys
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with calculators and slide rules and I'm it's unbelievable man unbel not even calculators not in World War II oh that
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would did I say calculators I meant pen and paper or pencil and Pap yeah anyway
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wow crosssection of a tank down the center it actually a lot of it reminded me of like a uh an Indiana Jones movie
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cuz like all the equipment used in those movies is like of this era right and then you go and it's like holy cow it's
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like there's the Harley-Davidson that that Indiana Jones rode in um the Last
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Crusade right it's like it's not the exact one obviously but it looks just like it and all just sorts of crazy
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military equipment and you you just really you you have no idea how big a tank is until you see it in person and I
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don't know if you ever held like a cast iron pan in your hands like how thick and like how the texture of it is like
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not uniform it almost looks like it was like uh pasted on at some point like
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that's like the top section of the tank where the gun is attached like that whole thing is just like one 85,000 lb
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cast iron pan like that thing is just impenetrable and then you look inside and it's like how did they fit four guys
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in here like you know and how did you see you have like one 1900s tiny guys
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who are probably like malnourished you know that's true that's true but like and it's like how do they see and there's like one little slit in the
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whole tank where the guy could see you he's like driving around like this it's like that's all you can see in this whole tank you can't see behind you you
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can't see this side it's unbelievable man anyway this is not what you guys came here to hear or is it I don't know
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let's move on um I think we're ready to go aren't we well if we're not we are now um let's
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go ahead and um get this thing rolling we got all sorts of Apple stories and we're
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already like an hour and a half fine so if you don't mind Mrs D oh Mrs D are you
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[Music] there oh my dear I'm so tired after 24
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hours of New Year's love making with elcy oh my goodness leis that's one way to kick it in
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distasteful and it's gross Mr D no one wants to hear about that if you don't mind we want to
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go ahead and hop into this week's best apple stories look at this we got a full got a full show here lots of people
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showing up um let's get this thing rolling in three two
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one hello and welcome to the coass best 30 plus conversation you're going to
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hear all week long I'm your host join me today he's kicking off 2025 with an improved culac headquarters security
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system in including robotic dogs from Boston Dynamics several real dogs which
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will guard the riding room and Dog the Bounty Hunter on retainer in case any
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Riders manag to slip away in the dead of the night he's manag get cter back walls
9:14
is here it's a Simply Safe Deluxe in beta also with us this year he'll be
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upgrading to the Newton message pad 2100 boasting 162 MHz sa 110 risk processor
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and vastly improved handwriting recognition system he expects his productivity to Skyrocket at least 4%
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he's a riter at cter back Griffin Jones is here good evening my newon message
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pad 2000 already has been upgraded internally to a 2100 really although it doesn't have the updated case design
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yeah it was a popular upgrade for 12 Apple Newton 2000 your upgrade he's not
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joking popular relatively speaking like popular for Apple in the 90s was like 12 people
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by the way I apologize if you hear me hacking I of course am sick uh not too
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sick but I caught a little something I was at a friend's house and uh over new years's and then right when we got there
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his kids got sick and I was like oh great here we go and then I had a few alses and I was like this is probably
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not a good idea and I was right it's never a good idea to drink when you're around people who are sick I didn't even
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drink that much but I did have a few and snapic so kicking off the new year with
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a little bit of a cough and a scratchy throat it's very scratchy I hope you all feel bad for me very popular on the west
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coast and like literally popular almost everybody I knows is or has been sick
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yeah I know same same thing with around here but the show must go on as uh they
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say and we got a ton of stuff to talk about we are going to let me just bring this up we're going to be talking about
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the hottest Tech of the hottest Apple tech of 2025 these are going to be our most hotly anticipated items that we're
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looking forward to in 2025 uh we've got some new Intel on the iPhone 18 Pro we
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have a way for you to to get Apple TV Plus for free but it's only for a limited amount of time but it's probably
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enough to watch Silo Silo's completely released we have we have sneaky method
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this one is it's a new way that only we know about um let's see here Griffin's
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gonna tell us about uh an update a huge update potentially coming to allegedly
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coming to the redesigned Apple Mouse and we're going to we're going to finish off our top uh picks and anti picks of
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2024 I feel like we didn't do nearly enough of these wrapping up the year um I'll be doing my best my best thorough
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Ravens Croft impression oh yeah wait it's great how about that little Tony
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the Tiger action before we dive in I should probably bring up my notes here
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huh that would be useful oh yeah I'm glad I did that
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they're back my friends and if you missed out on taking advantage of
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heading over to our sponsor Factor meals oh hold on a second I gotta bring this
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up and I uh how come it's not shown up in my browser mode uh hold on a sec just just L don't
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don't get your don't get your undies 2025 I thought all this just worked out
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was based on a randomized controlled clinical trial with Factor keto now of course your results will vary depending
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on diet and exercise don't think you can be cramming M&M's every night and lose eight lounds but I really want to try
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doing keto for 10 weeks I I I want to try and see if I can do it and see how I feel um and see what
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my muscle mass does during that time and I was actually thinking maybe I could just do this with Factor meals because the hardest part about keto you got to
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eat exactly right to do keto otherwise you get kicked out of ketosis and it doesn't work more on that later well
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and kids keep eating them so I'll come in and like the ones that I was going to eat are gone which is a me problem
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they're just so good they're just so good it's it's like a superpower if you work in an office and you never know
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what to get for lunch every day like you know you just bring one of these with you and then it's you know bam 2 minutes
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lunch is settled lunch is settled uh TM okay takes the stress out of it let's go
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ahead and Dive Right In we have uh some new Intel on the 2026
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iPhone 18 Pro and it's potential game-changing feature here a variable a
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uh Vari variable aperture camera which is uh extreme ex useful in any camera
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and I love this picture that we have with Lewis grinning as big as can be in the background there how did they get
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you to do that Lewis I don't know oh God this a it's a reused photo I'm not happy
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about it I thought maybe it was AI I'm like why does leou why does l Lis look so happy here this has got to be AI
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That's a giant iPhone 15 Pro Max too big for a case you know what I uh picked up
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my iPhone 15 Pro Max yesterday the one I need to sell and I was like you know I actually missed this phone I don't miss
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I don't miss carrying it around but I missed the screen that screen was glorious all right in a recent medium
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post TF International Securities analyst M quo said he thinks Apple will adopt a
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variable aperture system in the iPhone 18 Pros primary car camera in
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2026 uh a variable aperture does a lot of stuff it helps you control how much light hits the the sensor um it can help
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dynamic range um but it it it it helps
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with um depth of field right so how blurry or not blurry are the items in
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your image now it's interesting because the iPhone already employs an artificial depth of field technology
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that artificially blurs the background and it's okay I don't think it looks as good as a lens that has a large aperture
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does but you know um in any case um
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let's see here I already set off I already set a bunch of this stuff about what aperture does for you um last July
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quo predicted that the iPhone 17 would get a variable aperture system but now he thinks the feature won't arrive until
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2018 or 2026 with the iPhone 18 Pro so if you want it you have to go into the
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past in 2018 and get it there so good luck with that um I think this is interesting only because with a very
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small lens like that or I should say with a very small sensor controlling the
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aperture will make a difference but I don't foresee it making a big difference
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because apertures or or lenses that are I can't even talk today sensors that are
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small have a u a a greatly reduced um uh
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depth of field which means it's hard to make the background blurry I mean typically if you want a blur blurry
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background you need to have the right lens but you also need to have a large sensor and with a sensor as small as it
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is in the iPhone I don't really know that the aperture is going to make that much of a difference for depth of field control now maybe it will make a
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difference in controlling brightness in fact it will um which is useful because
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you can use the Aperture instead of using ISO which typically makes an image look worse if you crank it too high um
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but so I think that this will have an effect on your phot taking on the iPhone I just don't know to what degree um I
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bet it'll prob be more about controlling the brightness because your your phone has no way of like you know aside from
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like digitally like turning down the exposure and stuff like that or it doesn't really have like a a solid Optical mechanism for reducing the
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brightness it's just taking in all of the light that hits the sensor all of the time which is why some of the
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outdoor photos can look blown out or weird and why it has to use a bunch of computational Photography to make up for
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the fact that it doesn't have that there are a few situations though where having a variable aperture to adjust the like
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depth of field would be handy though because certain iPhone features need a
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very wide depth of field like with the entire frame in focus at once like if you want to apply like a you know like
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the Cinematic video mode it needs it needs the widest up the field it can
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possibly have because the whole point of cinematic video is that you can choose you know after the fact whether which
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part of the frame you want to be in Focus or not and you can't make anything sharper uh you can't make anything
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sharper if it's already blurry in the background so having a having a wide depth the field is very handy in those
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situations whereas you know counter that with portrait mode where you know you want you want to have a very shallow
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depth the field so like I can I can see that the use case for there but I think a bigger part of it will probably be for
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like adjusting like the amount of exposure that comes into the image because that could that could reduce the
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amount of like computational photography weirdness that you're phone has to do after the fact after you take a shot
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yeah that's true maybe it will blur it to a certain degree and then the computational photography can do the
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rest this is why Apple needs their own actual camera I mean that thing would be absolutely Unstoppable the iPhone I mean
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I've taken so many I mean I've been playing around with the uh Fujifilm x16
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as many of you probably are well aware and that camera's it's good I'm frustrated with
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it in many ways but I also am still in enjoying using it and trying to get used to it and it's weird quirks uh but I was
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looking at pictures of it in low light situations and in very bright situations versus what I took with my iPhone and
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I'm like dude the iPhone is just so effortless it takes really great pictures in both low light situations
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and in very bright situations pictures that a normal mirrorless camera just couldn't match because the dynamic range
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is not computational and so it relies on the sensor's ability to C capture you know
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very dark and very bright together and most sensors don't do that very well unless you want to
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spend uh you know $50,000 on an Airy cinema camera and shoot it in log and
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then color grade it you know like then you can get a really great picture but the iPhone is able to do those pictures
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well not perfectly but then also some of the pictures look synthetic sometimes because it's just trying too hard so if
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Apple did their own camera that would be like The Best of Both Worlds I I seriously think it would be the best
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camera that is probably on the market if Apple did that cu no one's doing computational as well as them there
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there was like a viral Tik Tok a few weeks ago of like somebody taking pictures of somebody else on the beach
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and like a sunny day on the beach is a very challenging even though there's a lot of light it's a very challenging
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situation because like you know the sun you have the sun on a bright day that's
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that can like blow out anything that you point at it and then you have like the sand which is also highly reflective and the water like it's a challenging
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situation for a camera and somebody was like like their Tik Tok was just like why is it that when I take a picture of
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somebody on a beach their skin looks gray and it's because they're shooting like against the sun in the backdrop and
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the iPhone just has to like raise the Shadows so much where there isn't any actual color information there and it
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just makes your skin look gray and weird like there are situations where a variable aperture could potentially help
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in that situation because the iPhone just has to do so much work to make a good picture and Apple's like ethos is
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that the iPhone should always take a picture like the iPhone the
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nothing should ever be blown out or too dark in an iPhone's camera picture you should always be able to see something
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there even when it can't really turn out anything even though it doesn't look great and and I think that that doesn't
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look great part of it is what I notice most often it's like oh it it created a image where everything is um exposed
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properly but the colors look terrible or it looks over Sharp or something the one thing that the iPhone does really well I
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don't know if Samsung devices do this or any Android devices I don't even know if
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Google does this but the ability for the
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computational HDR to like brighten a face but not the scene behind it that that that feature is I think
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revolutionary I don't know if there's any camera that can do that and that is what you want CU you when you're
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standing against a scene most cameras well all cameras pretty much will brighten the entire picture or none of
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it right but like iPhones will just look at your face and your hands and your skin and it's like oh we're going to
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just bring that up a little bit to make your face brighter like that's something I used to do in Lightroom and the
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computational does that on its own and then it keeps the background properly Expo exposed which I think creates a
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much better image and if Canon or Fujifilm or Sony ever matched that that
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would be a huge Improvement in mirrorless photography anyway we don't have to linger here too long um I will
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say about that really quickly that like the iPhone 16 lines with the uh photographic Styles feature they try to
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emulate that it's not very discoverable but you can change the undertone style and that specifically affects how it
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handles skin tones not the rest of the image but you have to know about it and figure it out and it's kind of
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impossible spend time figuring it out God it's not easy I've ever messed around with any of that but the feature
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is technically there I think they're trying to Chase Fujifilm on that cuz one of the reasons people love love Fujifilm
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cameras is because they have like these cinematic Styles so Fujifilm used to
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make film and they have baked those filmic looks into their digital cameras
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and they actually look great and so that's one of the reasons why people love Fujifilm cameras is because they're
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able to create unique looks and you can tweak them in stuff in camera and they're easy because once you do it in camera you don't have to like take it
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into Lightroom or photoshop and mess with there cuz ain't nobody got time for that but this feature from Apple is
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trying to emulate that I think they're like oh people really like this feature like let's build it in I have played around with it on the iPhone I like it I
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think it actually makes photos look more interesting I don't use it all the time in fact I forget that it's there a lot
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because there's so much going on in the camera app but it is worth messing around with if you actually care how your photos look most people don't care
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and like you can even make all the colors oversaturated like a candy shop like an Android phone yeah you could do
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that if you wanted to I don't know why you would but all right um should we move on I feel like we talked about that
25:34
way too long and I'm trying to get us to our apple and 2025 the the products that
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we're most excited about that are coming down the pipe but before we do that Lewis we got to tell people how to get
25:45
this is an exclusive right here how to get Apple TV Plus for free you've probably heard this nowhere
25:52
else and if you want to go and binge watch Silo which I've been trying to get
25:57
to like the last episodes for like the last two weeks but I haven't been able to cuz I'm watching it with my wife
26:03
which I love I love my wife but she never has time or we only have specific
26:09
times that we can watch shows and so I I'm like I could just watch this but now I got to wait and I haven't been able to
26:16
get to it but anyway Apple TV plus leis let's hear it yeah there's a a this is a
26:22
totally great trick the trick is you turn on you you open the Apple TV app
26:28
okay this weekend starting right now what's the code you have to enter zero codes
26:34
just open the app the code zero codes where do you put that right just tap on the app oh okay
26:43
and you can watch so you just go in there and it just it just works it's free for everybody all around the world
26:49
everything everything on Apple TV plus free January 3 to 5 so there's no like special trick or anything that you have
26:54
to do just you just open the app and it's just free I believe that is the case sir we need to change the headline of the story
27:00
free I feel like we misled people what Silo what do you mean you feel like we misled people we told them there was a
27:06
special trick it was the one hack that you well I mean I mentioned on your behalf I mentioned it on your behalf the
27:13
one trick you need to know to get Apple TV Plus for free yeah open the app open the app it's pretty awesome though I
27:21
mean if you're one of those people who watched Apple TV plus a long time ago when it was first starting out and there were like eight shows on it or something
27:27
and you have't gone back I mean you can totally imagine that right like like you get you bought an iPad in whatever year
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at this launch what was it 2019 I believe you open this like so five over
27:39
five years ago uh you bought an Apple TV you bought an iPad you bought an i
27:45
whatever you bought that gave you a free what was it three one month trial or I think they used to give three three I
27:51
maybe still three month they still are I'm on a three-month trial right now yeah so so if you did that back then and
27:57
you you haven't checked in a while this is a great opportunity to do that and you know you're going to be frankly
28:02
you're be probably going to be shocked at how many shows there are in there I mean you know with uh here at CAC we we
28:09
were updating our list of best Apple TV shows and uh prompted all of us to go in
28:14
and poke and look around in the library you know it's like good grief there's so much stuff in there and you know leander's mentioning shows like I
28:21
haven't even I haven't even heard of that show in like three years you know we used to review every single one of these shows what show was that that you
28:27
haven't heard of uh Echo 3 oh I either you know
28:33
completely below the radar yeah uh there was something else on this list that you know it was like some old poll from a
28:40
couple of years ago what what's your favorite one on Apple TV plus now and like what Echo 3 what are you kidding me
28:47
that's a that one didn't really have any legs never really caught on um there was
28:52
another one that was like completely oh shantaram remember that one no
28:58
I've never heard that super excited about shander because it's I I believe it's a a based on a
29:06
well-known uh novel or series of novels I I've never read them of course because
29:11
who has time to read books but um I I remember cult uh cult Graham one of the
29:18
writers who written a bunch of stuff about Apple watch for us he was super excited about this he loved the The
29:24
Source material you know and and it had Charlie hunam you know him remember him from Sons of Anarchy the guy I like how
29:30
Le just keeps listing off all this stuff that he thinks like me and Griffin are just sting shaking like we have no idea
29:37
what you're talking about he's actually a movie star is he but he was you know character okay H well you know mid mid
29:44
mid tier mid tier mider oh that's rude uh let's see anyway let's see here
29:52
sorry I feel like my my Stupid humor ruined the entire point of the story for and once again buried lead January 3rd
29:59
through the 5th so this weekend Apple TV Plus is free right now if you're listening if you're not tardy listening
30:05
you can watch Apple TV and it's like like I said it's any anything with the app you know like I I my understanding
30:11
if you have like a Samsung TV a smart TV with a Apple TV app on it you can turn
30:18
it on and watch it right now yeah man and this is a great weekend too because as you mentioned um there's a lot of
30:24
great content on there but Silo just completed I think didn't they I don't think so isn't the final episode
30:31
today I don't know today or next week oh maybe next week but I know we're getting close and and the other thing is that
30:37
you can go in and you can watch sance which is maybe a show you've maybe heard about maybe not we've talked about it we
30:43
love it Severance is coming back later this month that's another reason why uh Apple's doing this right now right I
30:49
mean aside from the fact it's New Year people are still kind of easing back into their uh regular routine I've been
30:56
doing a I've been doing a very rare rewat watch I I very rarely rewatch shows but I've been rewatching Severance
31:01
oh really like three episodes yesterday to catch myself up oh man I'm the rewatch King it's like all I do is
31:07
rewatch stuff I only ever watch things I've already watched it's wild rewatches
31:12
Severance I i' forgotten you know specifics about why I liked it so much it's like dang man it's
31:19
just so weird and so creative and so creative I mean I I was just watching
31:26
episode two yesterday and when the guy says something like oh well you know we got to get this over so we
31:32
can get to the uh melon bar and it's like what I I I think that was when that
31:37
was the hook that just like right in the cheek I'm I'm hooked on this show forever I mean I've just forgotten so
31:43
like so how I forgotten how funny it is like the episode I watched yesterday with like uh you know Bert is it's it's
31:51
just I remember that this as being like one of my favorite lines from season one but like Bert and like Mark and I think
31:58
oh the other guy are like sitting around right after like hel's doing something that's like you know whatever one of the
32:04
dramatic things that she does and then Burt just says what if we just leave inspirational quotes hidden like around
32:11
the office for her to discover yeah the whole the
32:16
whole the whole world that they create with that show is so bizarre that all
32:22
the characters are so so interesting and weird and it's it is I think it's
32:28
hilarious at times but it's also really weird and dark I mean the whole concept
32:34
we we always talk about s how it's a great show I mean if people don't know what it's about is it's about this
32:40
company where you can work for them and they will they will surgically implant a a
32:47
little piece of metal inside your brain that that cuts your work life away from
32:52
your uh normal life so basically you go into the office you're you know Lewis
33:00
the Audi and then you go in a elevator down to the work floor and and suddenly
33:06
you don't know anything about Lewis the Audi now you're Lewis the inie I mean and then you become like a brand new
33:12
person who from their perspective only lives inside the office and knows nothing about anything about the outside
33:18
world it's so creative right and and that there there was a line in that I think first or second episode where it's
33:24
like well you know what if what if I want to quit you know what if I want to quit this job well you know basically
33:30
you you'd be like you know committing suicide because your inie would be dead
33:36
it would just disappear it's just it's a weird like it's I
33:41
think it's a a great concept and they they they take the concept like completely through its execution like
33:47
they explore every logical path of things that would happen and how this would affect the real world like they
33:53
they really you know there's always these shows that have like interesting ideas but they don't really explore them
33:59
completely this show like takes it to its logical conclusion like you know they explore the ethics of the company
34:05
that's doing this like the ethics of like well what if your Audi doesn't want your any to quit and they just like keep
34:13
keep you down there like forcibly like yeah and you know this the set design is
34:19
really striking everything about it is just at least in that first season I mean I don't know I was just like wow
34:26
that was such a great first season of a show I couldn't wait for the second and now Mei it's been so
34:31
long they I I hope that it's not like the world's biggest disappointment which
34:37
I mean I don't think it's gonna be but that first season was so rich it it'll
34:43
be it's you know it's tough to to deliver that kind of uh amazing work I agree Silo season two so far I feel like
34:51
has been great and I'm worried it's it's turning into lost almost where it's like
34:57
hey I'm we're going raise a bunch of questions and Mysteries in this season and then the next season we're not going
35:03
to answer any of those questions we're going to just move on to new questions and Mysteries and like we're going to do that the entire show and then at the end
35:09
we'll just be like well it was magic and then the whole show ends you know it's like I'm kind of worried that's going to
35:15
happen I don't think it will but so far Silo has been really good but it I feel like it hasn't really gone anywhere it's
35:21
like okay they're just raising more questions and more Mysteries and it's really super interesting as to where we
35:27
are now in the world of Silo but like nothing you don't really have answers to to very much they're just
35:33
expanding the the sphere of questions it's like I had questions here and now my questions are out here I still have
35:40
these these questions too but the question sphere is expanding and I hope at some point no show is ever going to
35:46
be as satisfying as the leftovers I'll just say I said this before that show
35:52
had one of the the biggest uh payoff
35:58
catharsis I've ever experienced I was like I cannot believe they wrapped this show up in such an amazingly cathartic
36:05
way I felt so deeply satisfied with how that show ended we're going to go on a
36:11
tangent and I could see Griffin's making faces did you finished the show Griffin I did okay we can't talk about it now
36:17
but we should probably talk about this in a cultcast off topic if we ever make another one again I'm just joking joking
36:24
I think you should drop a link in the show notes to the our up of best shows on Apple TV plus we've recently updated
36:30
it we've got uh and I don't know it's more than a dozen shows that we've picked in there and we did something new
36:37
to this thing you know we added like oh descriptions of what the shows
36:42
are in the in the subheads you know so you can just kind of scroll through it easily and say oh best you
36:48
know Sports comedy drama guess what that one is but uh yeah one that I haven't seen
36:55
I'll say again it it's shocking how many shows are on Apple TV plus I
37:01
mean the amount of stuff that they have pumped out and it's in these weird silos of like Nature
37:08
Documentaries feature films there's a lot of sports documentaries for whatever
37:13
reason you know I remember Scout guy used to review a bunch of stuff for us his theory was that they were really
37:19
trying to just you know suck up to the sports industry so that they could get exclusive streaming deals right maybe
37:27
true who knows uh I couldn't be bothered to watch a sports documentary I'll tell you that but I did watch um they had a
37:33
documentary on uh Michael J fox and one on uh Steve Martin a two-parter on Steve Martin both of those were fascinating
37:40
documentaries they also had a documentary on Carl Goen the um Infamous ex CEO of Nissan and
37:49
Renault oh right right dude that documentary was gripping I was I I I
37:56
couldn't get away away from it like every moment I had I had to watch that documentary and and uh if you I'll just
38:03
give you like a quick uh bio so this CEO was this very shrewd kind of
38:11
quirky business person who made his way up to the ranks of uh International
38:18
corporations ended up at Nissan and he had also worked for
38:23
Renault which is a French car company and both I think when he worked at Renault he had basically saved the
38:30
company and so Nissan enticed him to move over to Nissan to see if he could do the same
38:36
thing for them and during that time um he even though he had promised he
38:43
wouldn't he they they believed or he was trying to combine Renault with Nissan
38:48
and make them into one company and so they Nissan hated him for that and
38:55
during the same time Nissan accused him of all these corporate crimes and which
39:01
which basically pulled him into like the Japanese legal system from once he could not escape and he was like stuck in
39:08
Japan they wouldn't let him go because of all these all this pending litigation and the big question was like did this
39:15
guy do something wrong or did the Japanese um working at Nissan like ENT
39:22
trap him with these accusations in order to get him to stop
39:27
combining these two companies it's like you don't know what happened like is this guy a criminal or did Nissan frame
39:35
him to get him to go the way that they wanted him to go and it's truly
39:41
fascinating anyway we got to move on man um but I'm looking forward to the return
39:48
of severance and to wrapping up Silo we should probably talk about those in a future episode uh let's see here before
39:54
we do move on just real quick if I may entice you speaking of enticing you if you haven't already purchased coat cloth
40:01
I don't even know how many of you have't we have sold thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of these um but
40:07
if you haven't now is a great time we're fully restocked ready to roll um and
40:12
your order will actually go out quickly which doesn't always happen because we keep running out or we have issues with
40:18
plugins um occasionally where orders just disappear that's always fun um we
40:23
eventually find the orders it's just that they don't ship out right away but but c cloth. c cloth. you will not find
40:32
any cleaning cloth that does a better job than C cloth at keeping your gadgets sparkling clean your glasses your
40:38
sunglasses your lenses your cameras um every time I wipe down my Fuji film cameras with all its little knobs at the
40:45
top I'm like thank God for C cloth because it's its dual fiber design
40:50
reaches down into the cracks and crevices where all like your finger dust gets trapped that which you would never
40:56
be able to get out and just I can attest to that um one of my dogs has like
41:01
really thin wiry hair and sometimes his hairs get stuck like in the tiny little gasket like between the screen and the
41:08
aluminum of my phone and you know when that used to happen I'll just be like all right well I guess I just have one
41:14
of Scout's hairs just permanently embedded in there but um no I I got the
41:19
I got the Dual you have the little fiber cloth the the super fuzzy one you just you know rub it up up and down along
41:25
that edge and boom it's gone it took it out it really actually works it really
41:31
works I mean like I always say it is the best clean cloth I've ever used which is why I sell them um and if you'd like to
41:37
get yourself some head over to cult cloth. c.co and use code ccasta checkout you'll
41:44
get a free carry cloth with orders $20 plus this is our new improved carry cloth which is even better than our old
41:49
ones which were also amazing um but these were these ones work even better over time which is what I love about
41:54
them they kind of develop like a cleaning fuzz that works similarly to the co cloth Duo it's not quite the same
42:01
but they're small and Compact and easy to take with you and keep your glasses sparkling clean I know because I now
42:07
have three children with glasses like I don't wear glasses but three of my kids do now I think two of
42:13
them will grow out of it but it's like it's like how come everyone here wears glasses but me this is so weird what's
42:18
going on with your eyeballs yeah I mean that's what they say they say like with certain eye issues um they can be
42:25
treated and eventually your kid's eyes will improve I don't know if that's true
42:30
but treat it how lasers uh well one of my daughters has
42:37
to wear like a patch over her eye like for like two hours a day to like in like improve the strength of her other eye
42:42
she has a a lazy eyeball it's like dick curless is it oh yeah well it's got real
42:50
lazy perly retired you could say uh all right let's see here
42:58
tablets and iPhones cause premature eye issues well that might be happening to me all right let's continue on and let's
43:06
talk about our favorite most hotly anticipated Alpha products of 2025 I've got some on my list that I
43:13
can't wait for in fact I'm I'm having a terrible time making my MacBook Pro purchase decision because of one of the
43:19
products that is going to be on this list but Louis I'm gonna send it to you first what are your most hotly
43:26
anticipated Alpha products of 2025 well uh you know of
43:34
course an incredible new design on iPhone is always exciting yeah and uh you know the idea that they come out
43:40
with this super thin one or that they Andor that they completely changed the iPhone Pro for the first time in like
43:48
what four years I mean the fact that they're talking about really shaking up the lineup that that to me is the most
43:54
exciting thing about uh upcoming years because it's been so so long of same old same old same old y uh at the same time
44:03
when I hear people complain about that I'm like well you know they are pretty amazing devices I mean I don't have a a
44:09
problem with my current iPhone 16 Pro but um no one does but it's time to mix
44:14
it up a little bit man I mean I feel like we always talk about Apple doing something Innovative and new to make
44:20
things more exciting and it seems like this might be our year with the you're talking about the iPhone 17 air right
44:25
yeah or or this iPhone slim or whatever the heck they end up calling it yeah uh I think air is probably a pretty good
44:31
bet and if they do come up with this I mean if just to recap I suppose it's supposed to be uh like a single camera
44:38
phone uh much Slimmer design like slimmest slimmest design by far for an
44:44
iPhone um large screen you know slightly slightly dumb down features not dumbed
44:50
down but slightly like less good features like a new a new Apple design
44:55
modem I think that's not quite as good as the current modem you know they they've been designing like the same
45:01
they've been entrenched in like the same pattern of features and Designs like ever since the iPhone 12 like over the
45:07
last four going on five years like the iPhone 17 slim or air I think is
45:13
exciting because it's like well what happens if we just try something different like let's just go let's just
45:18
make a different goal and then well these are the trade-offs and benefits if we design a phone with this goal in mind
45:24
instead of what we've been doing you know it's for all the people who complain that there are the people who
45:30
complain every year they're like ah they're just doing the same thing again and again and again year after year after year why don't you do something
45:35
new well this is what happens if you make a phone that's new with a different goal in mind let's it's exciting it's
45:43
fun yeah absolutely I'm I'm with you man and although in the past I've maybe been
45:49
too critical of product improvements that have been proposed I'm not going to be right now it's a whole new me whole
45:55
new year whole new me I'm excited to see what Apple does what Lois why you laughing at me wonder how long it'll
46:01
last a week at least till next week like like people at the gym at my gym it's
46:07
like the first week it's like oh great here we go again you know it's like cuz I I the regulars we all recognize each
46:14
other you know it's like there's there's that uh there's that woman who wears way too tight workout clothes it's like
46:20
there's the guy who grunts way too loud when he's lifting the iron it's like okay I know everyone here the new face shows up I'm like what's this person
46:26
doing in here they're on my machine if they know at 615 this is my machine you know and but they'll be gone they'll be
46:33
gone in a week or less shake out period okay what about you Griffin well I mean personally I'm kind
46:40
of satisfied with a lot of the products that I own I'm you know I have my N2 Pro Mac Mini still serving me well oh yeah
46:46
just got an iPhone last year I'll probably go a few years before upgrading that um you know Vision Pro I cannot
46:53
afford to buy a second one so you know although I'm interested to see like what
46:58
the revision that might be coming at the by the end of the year will be I'll you know
47:04
probably buy it just to return it and and try it out because I'm the Vision Pro expert at camac um like I'm
47:11
interested in those but I'm I'm not personally gonna buy them like I I guess what's exciting for me is the simple
47:17
concept that now that I have an apple card with a high enough credit limit that I can actually buy these things and
47:23
test them out and send them back without putting you know without like losing significant amounts
47:29
of money personally like I can what I'm excited for in 2025 is the opportunity to like you know buy the new Macbook Air
47:36
when it comes out you know review it send it back you like I love how griin just admited this openly I kind of
47:43
there's there's alarm going off in the Apple uh Apple Credit center
47:48
like lower his credit limit lower his credit limit I wonder if they're going to notice at a certain
47:54
point uh I don't know like I I expit told this to like the Apple Store people when I bought the Mac Mini and iMac a
48:00
few weeks ago and they didn't seem bothered by it all I don't think they care I don't I genuinely don't think they do I mean you know they're a
48:06
trillion dollar company we're just a small Plucky little operation here at cult we're not going to affect their
48:11
bottom line in any meaningful Way by many orders of magnitude like they Apple will be fine people oh for sure they're
48:18
gonna be okay I would sorry I'm dying I would love to
48:24
know how many Vision Pros got
48:30
returned wow I hope I'm not losing my voice we still got a lot of show left to do I I guess personally among the among
48:37
the products I'm that I am interested in like actually buying would be the airpods pro three yeah now I am a little
48:44
concerned that you know Apple releases these airpods like on a pretty regular like threee cycle uh so we're expecting
48:51
airpods Pro 3 this year but it does kind of worry me that there aren't actually any rumors that say oh airpods 3 are
48:58
coming you know those like everybody's just sort of like decided that they're probably going to come this year but like Mark Gman hasn't said anything
49:05
about them specifically yeah that's a bad sign we haven't or like nothing from M quo or anything like that at least we
49:12
haven't if if there is news we haven't reported it on Cult of Max so maybe it's just I don't know I I hope so I hope
49:19
they're coming this year because I am interested in buying airpods and I'm not going to buy airpods Pro now because
49:24
well their time is up but but we'll see think say that they are coming next year
49:32
but it might be you know later in the year who knows I it's always could slip
49:37
too well for me I got two things on my list actually three but I don't know if
49:42
one of is going to arrive in 2025 first of all F first off that new Mac Studio is going to be an absolute monster like
49:49
with the M4 Max in there first of all the M4 Max version is going to be such a
49:55
screaming deal I mean to get an M4 Max for
50:00
probably what what will be 2,000 for like the the bin model and maybe 2200
50:05
for the unbin model that same machine in a MacBook Pro body is going
50:11
to cost you $4,000 I mean it it's going to be such an unbelievable deal and then
50:18
the M4 Ultra is going to open up a hole in the SpaceTime Continuum and suck you
50:25
out and you'll probably never return I mean that thing is going to be so unbelievably powerful and such a great
50:32
deal that it has had me agonizing whether or not I actually want one I was like should I get a MacBook Pro now or
50:38
should I just wait and get Louis is shaking his head how dare you I got to have the best pro look look the only
50:45
reason to buy a desktop Mac is if you don't have the extra money to spend to get the equivalent laptop or if you need
50:52
the ultra chip because the ultra chip isn't available on a laptop Aon you you have the money like lined up and you
50:58
have the Apple discount you should get a MacBook Pro well that's probably what I'm going to do and that leads me to
51:03
another conversation entirely but uh so I'm not going into it now though I'm G to save it for a sec um and that is the
51:09
anization over which MacBook Pro to actually get what specs to get but the
51:15
other thing that I'm really excited for is the Apple watch Ultra 3 I really
51:20
wanted an ultra this last year but I just could not justify spending money on
51:26
the two when I already have the one so I'm really curious to see like what they do for the ultra 3 like what possible
51:33
features could they add to it is it going to just be like another spec bump um how are they going to improve it
51:39
because pretty much no matter what they do I'm I'm in all likelihood going to buy one um just because I love my Apple
51:47
watch Ultra so much and uh I'm looking forward to see what they do but the mysterious you know
51:55
Apple home device that they're working on whether that be something that mounts to your
52:00
wall or an iPad uh on a stick or whatever they end up doing I'm super
52:06
excited about because I have a lot of homekit
52:12
devices wow and I know I can't stop coughing we may actually have to end early if I can't stop
52:18
coughing take a little Swig here yeah that's don't worry Louis this is 100%
52:24
pure Mo moonshine so it disinfect alcohol yeah great that'll
52:30
help oh my gosh I'm trying not to cough so hard that it makes it worse you know
52:36
sometimes you cough really hard and it actually makes it work worse um and then the other thing is air tag too I love my
52:42
air tags I would love one with more range and the other big thing that I hope that they add is a more powerful
52:48
speaker cuz right now I don't feel like they're powerful enough and especially if they make it so that they work from
52:55
farther away you're going to need a better speaker and by far that was one of my favorite things that Apple did in 2024 was add
53:02
the find my capability to the airpods 3 case I mean that speaker is so dang loud
53:08
you could hear that thing from like 200 feet away across house levels it is so
53:14
loud and I've used that so many times already it's like hey where are my airpods how many times have you asked yourself that question like that happens
53:21
to me at least three times a week and like being able to play a sound on my airpods case
53:27
makes it so much easier to find um so I'm hoping that they um improve airpods to or uh no not airpods air tags to with
53:35
the better speaker and then uh I think that might be it I'm pretty excited
53:41
about that too because I love air tags and I almost bit on the the four pack because you can never have enough of these things I know but it's not worth
53:47
it because you know knew these were coming I'm going to want to get some more I want to get to the better ones
53:53
I've used some like third party air tag clones and and the fact that they don't have that you know fine what was it
54:00
called Precision finding I mean that is that is a really great feature of the air tag and if
54:08
especially if they make that so it has better range you can find stuff easier and better distance I I mean I'm gonna
54:16
I'm gonna want to replace all the third party ones that I have I know right and
54:21
then you have to like go spend money on all the new Air tacts can I just say before we uh before we move
54:27
on just real quick I'm agonizing over my MacBook Pro model
54:33
purchase I was talking about waiting for the Mac Studio which I I don't think I'm
54:39
going to do because I I don't actually think I need a Mac Studio although I would love to have one and then I'm like
54:44
okay I'll get the MacBook Pro I'm like well wait a second the M3 Max MacBook Pro is majorly discounted already on the
54:51
refurbished store and I can also get a discount on that so like that would be a screaming deal a machine that would once
54:57
be $4,400 I could get for 3,000 right it's that big of a
55:02
discount but the M4 Max is so much faster than the M3 Max I just can't get
55:08
myself to do it Griffin is nodding enthusiastically over there um yeah the reason it's cheaper is because it's not
55:14
as good of a compter near current ones yeah the M4 Max really is a huge leap in performance and plus you get the better
55:20
screen you get Thunderbolt 5 I mean there's a lot of big updates but and so then I'm like okay I thought for sure I
55:26
was going to get the 16-inch MacBook Pro but now I'm not so sure I've been watching a ton of videos on YouTube
55:33
about the performance of the MacBook Pro um M3 Max and though the sentiment
55:39
exists out there and I've talked about it on this show many times because of previous Max te videos that I've seen
55:45
where the M3 Max performed better in a 16-inch MacBook Pro than it did in a 14inch but now I've seen videos where
55:52
it's like they're virtually identical and it's it's turns out that some people don't know how to test their laptops
55:59
like you there's a the high power mode which I'm sure many of you know about and the high power mode um exist for my
56:07
understanding to uh enable better battery life and like quieter performance um or I should say the uh
56:16
the mode allows you to to select like better battery performance or high power mode or Auto and the MacBook Pro just
56:22
hand handles it on its own so if you don't set it to high power mode I think that the the laptop will automatically
56:28
default to bet to worse performance in order to prolong the battery life and not be loud well a 16inch MacBook Pro
56:36
has better fan has a better cooling system so it can cool efficiently without being allowed the 14-inch MacBook Pro I think in order to get the
56:42
best performance out of it you actually do have to turn on high power mode which means it's going to be louder and the battery life is going to be worse well I
56:48
don't know how many the people testing these MacBooks knew that and so the throttling that we saw could have been
56:57
that people didn't turn on the right settings on the 14-in MacBook Pro and so it started to throttle now I saw some
57:04
other benchmarks where people knew that and that they turned on high power mode and they tested both machines and the
57:09
14-inch MacBook Pro was louder but the performance was the same and I'm like shoot if you can get the same
57:15
performance out of 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M4 Max by turning on high power mode and it's a little bit louder and
57:21
the battery life isn't as good like I don't necessarily care about that because the the 14inch is almost a pound
57:29
and a half lighter than the 16-inch MacBook Pro I mean that computer is huge
57:35
and heavy and I would love to have something more portable so I I've been agonizing over that decision and the
57:40
other decision is this is going to make Griffin pass out in his chair I have been thinking about either
57:47
going with the two terabyte or the 4 terabyte SSD the 4 terabyte
57:53
SSD is Tim Cook slapping in the face and reaching his hand into your wallet and
57:59
pulling out all the dollars that you have it is astronomically overpriced
58:04
insane and yet if you get a discount on it 25% off it's like okay it's still
58:10
insane but now it seems within the realm of possibility and you could literally
58:16
edit anything that you need to edit on that machine and never have to like be moving stuff off to a portable SSD which
58:23
I hate who wants to have be dongled again um or constantly be moving stuff off to
58:29
like a Naas or something like it would allow you to actually edit Moby and have multiple projects ongoing on the same
58:35
laptop it's it's immensely useful which is why Apple marks them up that high so
58:41
I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with a 64 gigabyte 14inch MacBook Pro for or 64
58:48
gigabytes of RAM I should say I will say this yeah I have I have two opinions
58:53
okay with regards to screen size I mean personally I have always been a 15-inch
58:58
laptop person reformed now into a desktop Mac truther so like personally I
59:04
I just can't imagine ever considering 14 inches to be enough
59:10
I would I would go for the big one but that's just me um with regards to storage and you know just general
59:16
philosophy of which one you should pick I feel like you should be transparent with yourself and understand that this is just a holdover laptop until the m6
59:23
version comes out with an OLED screen which you know you're going to buy I would be hesitant to spend all the money
59:30
on the upgrades because if you want to resell the M4 later I mean the
59:36
depreciation on the higher storage tiers it just drops Like a Rock it's like buying a luxury car because like the the
59:41
4 terab model is like you know the leather seats are like the heated steering wheel of Apple options it costs
59:46
enor it's enormously expensive and it's not going to retain any of that value you don't think so huh like I would
59:52
think that it would you if two terabytes is like I have terab of internal storage on my Mac Mini and unlike you I actually
59:59
make YouTube videos every single week and I can fit like a year of projects on that hard drive but see the thing that
1:00:04
you don't have that I have at least I'm presuming Maybe I'm Wrong is an absolutely massive photos library that
1:00:12
gets stored on your Mac which takes a path to space I have a 500 gigabyte storage
1:00:17
library that I keep on my Mac I think see so mine is probably bigger mine's huge and like that's a big problem like
1:00:22
I wish Apple gave me a way to designate how big I want my photo photos library to be and then just offload everything
1:00:29
else to the cloud because right now my Mac I think it takes up like 900 gigabytes of of space which is which is
1:00:35
insane like why do I have that many photos living on my machine like it should just be in the cloud and that's
1:00:41
it so that's my problem is like with a two terabyte that probably would be enough if I didn't put my photos on my
1:00:47
Mac but I do and it would also be nice to be able to download the entire photo
1:00:53
library and then back it up to my Nas on my Mac which is another one of the reasons why I want to have like four
1:00:58
terabytes but it is insane I mean the cost is like outrageous so I probably will go two terab but to your earlier
1:01:04
point about me upgrading um so it'll probably be like the M7 um OLED MacBook Pro I don't think M6
1:01:13
I think uh M6 sorry M6 I don't think I'll have a discount available to me for
1:01:18
that upgrade cycle because all the geni that I know are all waiting for that machine and so they're all going to be
1:01:25
upgrading when that comes comes out and that that's going to be the super cycle of upgrades I think there's a lot of people who are on M1 Max who are going
1:01:30
to be waiting for that machine and their M1 Max still serves them perfectly and it's like oh they're not going to move
1:01:36
at the M5 the M5 is going to be a spec bump and you know that you fall into that camp too you also have an M1 Max
1:01:42
and you could wait perfectly fine no way because this is the year I returned to YouTube Griffin this is the year oh M1
1:01:50
you can't possibly do that with an M1 Max the highest tier of a it it's it's practically unusable for the single
1:01:57
camera again I produce a videos every single week and I have an M2 Pro which is probably you know performs a little
1:02:03
worse than the M1 Max and you know I don't know how I scrape by doing it I don't either are you doing 8K or
1:02:09
something I'm not even sure how you're making that work so bit what's that
1:02:15
eight bit eight bit well if you're only doing eight bit then maybe the N1 Max would be appropriate but I go 10bit I'm
1:02:20
always 10 bit so I don't know I got big plans this is the Year this is the year
1:02:25
every churn and also I just have the money burnning a hole in my pocket uh so
1:02:31
I don't know man I mean no matter what I get is it going to be sufficient for my YouTube aspirations yeah for sure I mean
1:02:39
to your point could I make the M1 Max work probably what I'd be happy about that no it's very IR to me you could
1:02:45
make an M1 iMac work I'm serious you could you probably could edit 4k on an M1 iMac and not have any issues and it's
1:02:52
not like my timeline is like you know 55 layers deep you know so and actually
1:02:58
ironically enough from all the benchmarking I've seen the out of all the things you could be doing with a Mac
1:03:04
that would stress the actual video editing is one
1:03:09
of like the least stressful things that you could be doing because everything is offloaded to those um to those codec
1:03:16
encoders the two that come on the M4 Max do all the heavy lifting and also true
1:03:21
for like the M3 and the M2 so it's like you really actually don't see huge gains in Final Cup Pro by upgrading to the M4
1:03:28
Max so really it's going to be not really huge gains for me any the M4 generation has the av1 hardware decoder
1:03:34
which I think you you would want to use av1 right because that's what YouTube does yes that that that is that is uh
1:03:40
accurate so do I need a MacBook Pro no I don't I could definitely make de with
1:03:46
what I got but my MacBook Pro is worth like ,7 or $1,800 so like if I can get
1:03:51
25% discount now and I can sell my machine for 1,800 bucks then I'm I'm spending like two grand for like the
1:03:56
most Cutting Edge Mac that exists so it's it's really not a bad deal and to your point um I mean I I would probably
1:04:05
try to upgrade when the OLED one comes up comes out but I'll have to wait for there to be a refurbished model because
1:04:10
um Mac or Apple employees always get a discount on the refurbished stuff they don't have a limit I don't think or the
1:04:16
limit's very high it might be like 10 discounts a year or something so and actually refurbished with an apple
1:04:23
discount is the absolute best way to get a discount because the refurbished store generally discounts Max
1:04:29
15% and then you get another 15% discount on top of that with the Apple store or the Apple Apple employee
1:04:35
discount so you're getting a 30% discount off the original price that's pretty good um so I might have to wait
1:04:43
to do that but with all this waffling you could open up a breakfast bar you think so although I don't know if I have
1:04:50
enough waffles it's only like two and I think you're need like hundreds but people
1:04:56
the math don't do the math on the machine I want don't do it don't do it
1:05:01
it's going to make your eyes bulge out of your head um so we'll I'll let you know I'm planning on going to the Apple
1:05:06
Store today actually probably after we record this and looking and making my decision so I'll let you know kick the
1:05:12
tires I want to pick up the the 15inch or the 15 inch I want to pick up the 14 inch and just hold it in my hands and
1:05:18
see how I feel but I figured you know what I'll try it for a couple years and see how it goes I think I'm going to
1:05:24
love magnifying glass see that tiny screen yeah be careful when you pick up the 60 Niche I know strain your back I
1:05:31
know kidding strain your your bicep um I I am definitely getting the iPad Pro the
1:05:37
11 in I decided on that one this the base 11inch iPad Pro I almost went 13 but everyone talked me out of it
1:05:43
although way I'm going to look at it while I'm there today get some more waffles for my bar
1:05:49
okay um that was a long tangent that should have been short I should have known better um do you want to talk
1:05:56
about the Magic Mouse real quick there Griffin before we yes I do uh so the
1:06:02
Magic Mouse is maybe one of the most confusing Apple products that was released last year uh they literally
1:06:08
just swapped out the lightning port for USBC and that was it no touch no no new
1:06:13
features at all uh but Mac Rumors I'm sorry has this article today or a few
1:06:20
days ago redesigned Magic Mouse with touch and voice controls reportedly coming in 26 expanding on a recent
1:06:27
report from blumberg's Shark Sherman the Korean Apple news aggregator known as
1:06:33
UK's 1122 something like that sounds reliable Apple's Next Generation Magic Mouse will
1:06:40
feature a new more ergonomic design nice nice that addresses longstanding complaints including the location of the
1:06:46
charging port which I think is fine it's kind of a non-issue to me but I I think the worst part about the location of the
1:06:53
charging port is that it's like bait for PC guys to dunk on about Apple you know
1:06:59
if if if we just take that away from them that that would be that would be an improvement in my book anyways the
1:07:05
overall look of the magic Mass has not changed much since 2009 so design seems to be long overdue it's only changes
1:07:11
include switching from ablea batteries to the built-in battery uh recharge that's rechargeable and switching the
1:07:17
port from lightning USBC it still doesn't support the same gestures as a magic Trackpad nor support Force touch
1:07:24
or haptic feedback so it it feels like an outdated product it's definitely not worth like the $100
1:07:30
that they charge you for it um Apple has apparently designed a prototype of the new mouse that incorporates a mixture of
1:07:37
touch voice controls and hand gestures making it more suitable for today's Computing demands I don't know what
1:07:44
about today's Computing demands dude require voice controls but um Mouse one inch to the
1:07:51
left please hey hey s move the mouse to the upper left corner no not that far like
1:07:59
that it's weird um it reportedly plans to release the new Magic Mouse alongside the OLED M6 MacBook Pro in
1:08:07
2026 so Mark Gman keeps assuring us that voice commands are coming to the mouse
1:08:14
whatever so bizarre what I I I just can't believe that it's completely pointless yeah in the most recent tweet
1:08:23
he says voice control in the new Magic Mouse I wrote about this month makes sense in the light of AI how ex I'm not
1:08:30
following I'm not following youmore I don't either and the fact that apple is on a decade plus cycle from what I've
1:08:36
heard the big focus on her nomics yeah I'd expect a new keyboard too the keyboard I think is fine does the um Mac
1:08:44
Mini or Mac Studio have mics built in maybe they don't I believe they do yeah
1:08:51
they do okay so you could do a FaceTime call and not have to have a microphone you in the monitor
1:08:57
or yeah okay pretty sure I'll have to look into that cuz if not then maybe
1:09:02
that's why this would be useful but other than that because I'm like doesn't every Mac that you use already have a
1:09:07
microphone built in like why would you need this I'm checking Mac tracker right now
1:09:13
to see while you're doing that one quick thing I wanted to mention I think Apple's about to release a new
1:09:18
Thunderbolt display um or Studio display a lot of people asked why this
1:09:24
the studio display didn't have promotion and I think it's because of its 5K
1:09:29
resolution um if you match that with with 120 hertz it would it would it
1:09:35
would be more bandwidth than Thunderbolt 4 could handle I think now that we have
1:09:40
Thunderbolt 5 in place I bet you Apple's going to release a new studio
1:09:45
display I don't know if it will come in I'm checking system settings sound input
1:09:51
and I'm seeing my microphone I'm seeing my iPhone microphone but I'm not seeing a built-in microphone so maybe it doesn't have built-in one so maybe
1:09:56
that's why to give you a microphone somewhere although I still think that would be it would be covered up by your
1:10:01
hand and it would be far away on your desk so it wouldn't be very good
1:10:07
yeah dude you got to move your hand stop touching your mouse with your hand are you insane I can't hear what
1:10:14
you're saying you keep touching your mouse all right are you talking about
1:10:19
the studio display that's what I just talked about yeah and but you were talking about is there a microphone built in
1:10:25
no no no no no sorry I I I I was talking about we were talking about that earlier there is one built into the studio display I was talking about how I think
1:10:32
apple is going to release a new studio display in 2025 with promotion support
1:10:38
got it okay because I just confused for a moment there I yeah because I think
1:10:43
the reason they didn't do it is because they couldn't they couldn't pair promotion with 5K it overwhelms the
1:10:50
bandwith the Thunderbolt 4 so now that they're on Thunderbolt 5 they'll have the band with the D that so all I'm
1:10:56
trying to say is it might be time to sell your studio display and wait I'm probably not going to do that um
1:11:03
especially because I'll have a 14inch MacBook Pro but the studio display also isn't mini LED like it's it's behind I
1:11:09
know a few generations of te it's the same panel they've had since the iMac 5K like 10 years ago you're G to make me go
1:11:15
on a tangent don't are you trying to bait me it's essentially just the iMac display from the Intel iMac wrapped in a
1:11:22
new container but costing almost the same price it's completely insane it is a nice monitor but insane we we we've
1:11:29
we've covered this ad nauseum um but yeah my goodness how however priced uh
1:11:34
all right we're so long it's a good thing that I'm off today that's all I
1:11:40
got to say because we're like an hour and 45 minutes you mean off work right not just off well both actually if you
1:11:46
haven't noticed um I think that's all the Apple stories that we have should we wrap up
1:11:52
with our final 2024 picks I have a whole list of stuff whole list of stuff here
1:11:58
picks and anti-pick actually I don't know if I'll have time for all of it but um does anyone want to
1:12:05
start should I just Dive Right In oh you know what I I'll go on I I have a number of picks as well but let's do it looking
1:12:12
through the list I'll I'll just go for one here since we are we are going a little long that's fine one of the best
1:12:19
things I watched in 2024 yeah bringing it back around the leftovers you're right fantastic show no way you did like
1:12:27
it really great ending yeah you liked the ending too oh it was it was fantastic now I'm I'm a little easy to
1:12:34
impress with endings like I guess I'm one of the rare people who genuinely liked the ending to lost and I also genuinely liked the ending to Game of
1:12:40
Thrones I think they're very thematically resonant with the message of the show if you really pay attention and I kind of understood like you know I
1:12:47
I don't really need all of the answers questions all the questions answered on lost I I wasn't one of those people but
1:12:53
like um man the left if you are that kind of stickler and like you you like a good last episode is
1:12:59
super important to you it's fantastic it's and it's not just about the last episode like I I really feel like the
1:13:06
leftovers uh picks up like sort of in the mid middle of season one like once I
1:13:11
got there I was like oh man this is a great show like how many Weir there are
1:13:17
three seasons only 28 episodes so it's like super bingeable it's super easy to
1:13:22
watch it's not like you know oh it's it's Seven Seasons long and it only gets good around like season three like you
1:13:28
know Star Trek the Next Generation like leftovers how dare really understand the the premise
1:13:34
but like then it's fantastic it is also weird how all three of the seasons feel
1:13:40
like completely different shows yeah like you watch the first episode of season two and it's like whoa what is
1:13:47
happening here and yet they all have that same through line you know of what
1:13:53
is happening in our world where all people go mhm and then like you get to the end of season two and the entire
1:13:59
show completely changes again International assassin
1:14:05
that episode oh man I mean the world has turned over it's it's great it's like
1:14:11
when Star Trek the Next Generation added the hollow deck and all of a sudden they're going on like these like like
1:14:17
pirate missions you know from like the 1600s and something you're like what is this is this still Star Trek oh man this
1:14:24
show was just it it it it's a um it's such a
1:14:30
great demonstration of good writing and and and how many shows lack like
1:14:36
cohesive creative writing and again I I think it's ending
1:14:42
as one of the best in any Series history that I've ever seen I don't want to give away too much but it's what Damon L
1:14:48
Lindelof is capable of when he isn't forced to make like 24 episodes every single year and he can actually like
1:14:54
plan things out in advance that's interesting isn't David Lindelof isn't he also he was a writer
1:15:00
for lost wasn't he he was yeah I actually didn't know that so he wrote this show too or he co-wrote the show I
1:15:06
mean he I think he was the showrunner on both lost and the leftovers I don't think I realized that but I feel like we
1:15:12
may maybe talked about that in a previous episode dude I'm first of all I'm so happy to hear that
1:15:19
you enjoyed it but also it it's affirmation that like it's not just me
1:15:26
like this show really did have one of the best endings of any show and I got I
1:15:32
got towards the last episodes of season 3 I'm trying not to give away too much and I was thinking to myself here we go
1:15:39
there's no way they're going to be able to wrap this show up like we're we're so close to the end like how are they possibly going to do this and they
1:15:47
brought it to conclusion in in a simple but effective way that you know when the
1:15:53
show is over and you just sit there with the credits rolling not saying anything and just sitting there in absolute um
1:16:00
Wonder at what you just experienced like that was that was me um at the end of
1:16:07
the leftovers and such a great premise for a show too and they answer the big question it's like what happened here
1:16:13
they they actually answer it in a very satisfying way I rewatch this show
1:16:18
probably once a year I absolutely love it did you ever watch it Louis we've talked about it so many times no I've never watched it oh man great C too
1:16:25
absolutely terrific guest all right well I'll have a
1:16:30
maybe more controversial pick here that some will love and some will hate but I
1:16:37
would say for the first time in maybe four years I'm actually enjoying Call of
1:16:44
Duty again I've been playing Call of Duty Black Ops 6 on my Xbox uh series X and dude you
1:16:53
know I can't even B it that game really got zany Black Ops just in general
1:17:00
really just I I think got to be too much and I remember I remember playing it and
1:17:06
thinking to myself this game is way too complicated there's way too many gimmicks and Mech fighting mechanisms
1:17:12
that don't make sense and this new Call of Duty Black Ops I feel like is a return to Greatness it is one of the
1:17:18
most fun Black Ops games that I've ever played it's simple it's fun it's it's
1:17:25
got a fun sliding and Diving mechanism but it's not going overboard where you have like jetpacks and all these crazy
1:17:31
powerups it's got fun weapons it's got fun levels um the multiplayer is just so
1:17:36
much fun it still has some of the same problems as other Black Ops games that I absolutely hated which I won't go on too
1:17:42
much of a tangent on uh namely the freakin um lag comp man and if you don't
1:17:48
know what lag comp is it is where the game is trying to reconcile your
1:17:54
different connections speeds or your connection speed with someone else and it can show up in two two different ways
1:17:59
like let's say my connection speed is fast and yours is slow well on your screen um I may show up before you show
1:18:06
up on my screen and so our combat is not fair because you can shoot at me before
1:18:12
I ever even see you and I all and then when you do finally show up on my screen it's like boom I'm dead and I don't even
1:18:18
have a chance to shoot my gun at you because I've been on your screen for like a full second extremely annoying it
1:18:23
can also show up the other way where you're shooting at me and I'm shooting at you I go to hide and I hide
1:18:29
behind a building but on your screen I'm still there so you're firing at me and even though I'm hiding on my screen and
1:18:36
I can't see you anymore you're still able to see me and now boom I'm dead even though I should be protected so
1:18:43
that kind of stuff happens all the time it's extremely annoying and I don't know if there's ever a way to solve that
1:18:49
problem because everyone has different connection speeds I also don't love how they pair you in a game there's like a
1:18:55
new movement maybe not new but this movement to like unify all the online gaming experiences between different
1:19:01
devices so people on a PlayStation people on a on a PC people on an Xbox all playing the same multiplayer game
1:19:06
together I don't know that I love that because there is an inherent advantage of playing on a PC there's a reason they
1:19:13
call it PC Master race like when you have a when you have a keyboard and a mouse like you can react to things so
1:19:18
much more accurately and faster than on a controller I feel like that's kind of unfair you may be able to trim that off
1:19:24
um in the settings I haven't found it yet but all that to say dude I've been playing so much Call of Duty I've been
1:19:30
having a great time I I it reminds me of the old days like Black Ops 2 when the game was just at its apex just as good
1:19:37
as it ever had been and it's it's right back up there I would say for the most part the the the kill streaks aren't
1:19:44
nearly as good but so far I've been loving it um Ken's asking me about Indie
1:19:50
that's really high on my list the new Indiana Jones game I am a huge Indiana
1:19:55
Jones franchise fan like I love Indiana Jones does it have problems yes I could do a whole episode on that but I love
1:20:03
the lore of Indiana Jones and I've heard that game is good it was made by Bethesda I think Bethesda is one of the
1:20:08
best gaming Studios ever so I've been trying to play it caveman says it's good okay that's good to hear man I'm excited
1:20:15
for it I have been trying to go into it I'm also playing um Diablo 4 at the moment
1:20:21
which is also extremely timec consuming um so I don't know when I'll be able to
1:20:27
make it into it yet but I do have it I just haven't played it yet that's my first Pi who's going speak a little bit as to like you know what your what Your
1:20:34
setup is or like when you play or stuff like that like you know are you playing on the TV behind you or no so the TV
1:20:39
behind me no I don't um I typically play on my Xbox series X in my living room um
1:20:46
I do have a really great gaming PC but I just like kicking back and sitting on my
1:20:52
couch and so I typically do that that the most and I grew up playing Xbox and using a controller and so and it's
1:21:00
probably one of my favorite controllers I think it's better than every other system especially when they had the big Duke controller that was like you know
1:21:07
like as big as your head and was so comfortable in your hands and the buttons all over it man I loved that
1:21:12
thing what you say called The Duke the Duke yeah it was named after the guy who
1:21:19
designed it was named after his his kid I think I know that
1:21:25
I believe I know that because I met his kid randomly at Costco did I tell this
1:21:30
story what I started talking to sub dude at Costco and we got to talk about
1:21:37
Duke we started talking about something and he may have told me his name was Duke and I may have mentioned the Xbox controller because you never meet anyone
1:21:43
named Duke and he told me that that was his dad and his dad had helped design the origin and he knew all sorts of
1:21:49
stuff about it so it wasn't just like you know BS um and uh and uh anyway so Random
1:21:58
story that's what expected yeah leis you got to go I got to hop out of here just
1:22:03
really quick to grab something real fast but you keep going and actually I'll I'll load up your screen for whatever
1:22:09
you're picking what is it all right well you know I already raved about this product once and you know what I've used
1:22:16
it a lot this year it's it's still good there it is the old uh you can't
1:22:22
see it of course as dark as can be in my office what is that it's the uh X air duffel by uh Waterfield designs the most
1:22:30
amazing uh like carry-on travel bag you're ever gonna find I'll put a oh my oh my that is a nice bag holy cow don't
1:22:36
you remember seeing this I do yeah okay I'm I'm loading up the image though real fast let's see here yeah yeah definitely
1:22:43
I like that Griffin is like literally updating the show notes as we do this here it's uh like everything that
1:22:49
Waterfield makes you keep going high quality the zippers are amazing ly great
1:22:55
it's waterproof it's made from this material called uh xack which is super
1:23:00
light and super you know very kind of rugged and water resistant it's got
1:23:06
leather accents on there uh you know I I like the way it looks if there's one
1:23:11
downside it's like it's kind of manly like my my wife is like oh I wish that I could get one of those but she looks at
1:23:18
the color she's like I don't really like want gray or gunmetal gray or black or
1:23:23
light gray green black yeah they're all like uh uh iPhone
1:23:29
Pro colors you know they're just but I I I like the green with the black um the interior of these things
1:23:37
are like they use this interior and all this gold which is weird first time you use it but then you're like oh when you
1:23:43
look inside there in a dark place you can actually see what's going on it's it's like one of those smart things that
1:23:49
they do everything that they do is great you know the the connections the the little clips that that hold you know
1:23:56
hold the things shut the zippers there quality I mean I don't know I've spent so much money on
1:24:01
garbage uh luggage over the years you know and I just the last trick we took you know I I check something get it back
1:24:08
the stupid air tag thing had popped off of it ripped off the they ripped off
1:24:13
part of the zipper it's like you know just it's nice to have quality luggage
1:24:19
and and I can just I can tell that I mean I've used this a lot this year I can tell that it's going to LA for a
1:24:24
good long time every time I take it out of the house and go on a trip the people are like wow what is that they're looking at they're like it's I mean you
1:24:31
wouldn't think so much about it it's just a just a piece of luggage but uh it's very practical you put a lot of
1:24:37
stuff in there like almost I think everything they make is also really heavily designed
1:24:43
for apple and and Tech users it's got this has a special side of it you know
1:24:49
it's made for holding it can hold a laptop you can hold a tablet it has little
1:24:55
areas for all their um all all your you know cables and things like that it's
1:25:00
really I I mean it as as I said before super expensive
1:25:05
$459 look nice though but it's it is very nice and so is it your go-to travel
1:25:11
bag is that take I take it every trip I go and it it you know it's got you know pop it on top of the um pop it on top of
1:25:19
the regular luggage and just there you go and dude I love it comes comes with a
1:25:26
nice uh you know like it's everything about it it's just high quality you know like the the strap is really comfy
1:25:34
really cushioned kind of stretchy not like it's not just like you know a piece of nylon webbing with a little thing on
1:25:42
the center of it it's like it's just it's kind of like wow this is what this
1:25:47
is what rich people use you know I mean it it everything about it feels so
1:25:53
luxurious and and well put together and well thought out it's it's it's really kind of
1:25:58
shocking it reminds me of philson I don't know if anyone said that yet if
1:26:03
anyone's not familiar with philson oh my gosh it's like um a really rugged
1:26:10
clothing and bag brand that originated in the Pacific Northwest it looks kind of like it's like Pacific northwesty
1:26:16
mixed with like cowboy in my opinion you know it's like natural materials waxed canvas leather it's got like a western
1:26:23
flare but like their stuff is I mean high quality outrageously expensive you
1:26:28
know like a bag is like $800 you know a jacket's like you know $1,200 but it's like a got a lifetime guarantee uh you
1:26:35
know they won't even sell it to you if you don't have a five o' Shad out when you come in um you know kind of this bag
1:26:42
kind of reminds me of that with with its use of like canvas and leather and stuff you know materials that like last a
1:26:48
lifetime right they make all their stuff in um well not all but a lot of their
1:26:53
stuff they make it in variet materials wax canvas is real big with them with water I I like Waterfield also I mean
1:27:00
you know they're Hometown Heroes they they they make their stuff by hand in San Francisco um you're not you're not
1:27:08
going to see it on sale very often I mean like I I actually contacted them over uh Black Friday you know I was like hey you guys got any big sales coming up
1:27:14
you know like to promote you know because we're always pretty trying always trying to show people our favorite stuff on sale right I was like
1:27:21
well you know they they I think they had a deal where like if you if you spent
1:27:26
over $500 you got a free like little gear bag to go inside which by the way I
1:27:34
have a couple of those too and those are really awesome they they make these little um zip up things again super
1:27:41
heavy duty zippers you're never like zipping it and it's it's like fighting you it's like everything's smooth like butter and they've got all these little
1:27:48
uh components I don't remember the name of these products you know it's like Tech sleeve or gear sleeve or something
1:27:53
like that but those things are great I I toss one or two of those in in this bag when I go so then you know you pull out
1:28:00
you got your your writing utensil or whatever in there maybe you stick in an apple
1:28:05
pencil all you know bunch of cables keep them Orly I I don't know I I can't say enough good things about Waterfield
1:28:10
designs I mean they know I I I believe I mentioned before they gave this to me as
1:28:16
a review unit so I mean I have to disclose that but their stuff is super
1:28:21
high quality man I love their duffel bag too I actually need a new duffel bag my um
1:28:26
my old one is breaking and so I've been looking for another one that I can love for another 10 years it was made out of
1:28:33
leather too um and the zipper is breaking off of it so I'm like okay I
1:28:38
guess I could get it repaired but I kind of want to get something that is not as dark because it's like a really dark
1:28:44
brown leather but um this is interesting man I might purchase one of these actually these are good looking bags
1:28:50
good stuff man I mean you know they make some things like sort of Fanny p which I know you're a fan of which I can't get
1:28:55
behind I love but uh what do they call them they call them gear I think they
1:29:01
call them they're what utility belt that's a much nicer word for they're they're gear pouch you know that that
1:29:08
kind of thing those things they're bag hip bag Louis hip bag it says it's tip right in the name I
1:29:15
know there you go that's all the proof you need oh man I got so much stuff on my
1:29:20
list yeah I have one more pick I could do that's kind of a quick one I got like 20 have to do a best of just rattle
1:29:27
off okay well um I guess if we're going for it I have that my last pick is
1:29:32
actually one of a personal projects of mine okay that I'm not actually completely done with but I I do want to
1:29:37
talk about it a little bit so with my personal website uh DG Griffin jones.com
1:29:42
I've I've generally struggled in my head because as an old computer collector I
1:29:48
want my website to be navigable and browsable by old computers like you know
1:29:53
for for funsies you know if I'm testing out like you know a laptop from 20 years ago I want to be able to go to my own
1:29:59
website on it but uh keeping a website accessible to Old Computers is a
1:30:04
struggle between because modern web Technologies don't want you to don't
1:30:09
don't don't want that like you're constantly at odds between making something obscenely ugly you know or you
1:30:17
know optimizing for modern smart devices so I recently had the idea to just
1:30:22
create a fork in my we it so you can go to DG Griffin jones.com and see it as it
1:30:28
normally is you know the nice blue and gray color scheme nice modern web font I
1:30:33
I you know I use some of the uh the Cooper family of like it's like a nice friendly looking sand serif it is
1:30:39
friendly if you want if you have an old computer you can now go to old. driffin
1:30:46
jones.com and you'll see a version of my website that is approximated entirely
1:30:51
without any CSS whatsoever well look at that this is this is a website that is targeted uh for web
1:30:59
browsers Circa 1996 so Netscape Navigator 2 and
1:31:04
Internet Explorer 2 I've actually been testing it on like an old like MS DOS
1:31:11
like running Windows 3.1 with with micros with Internet Explorer 2 on it and I'm I'm I'm testing it out I still
1:31:17
have a few more bugs to work out but like all of the layout is done with like HTML tables table elements tables yeah
1:31:25
wow man that was the good old days no custom fonts because like you know well
1:31:31
it's whatever the whatever the user has chosen for the font of their browser that is what will show up no styling
1:31:37
whatsoever HTML tables HTML elements like you know just headers and paragraph elements and that's
1:31:44
it and so I try to make sure that any new post that I write I post to both versions of the site you know when I've
1:31:50
when I when I finished writing them and making all my edits um I was hoping that I would have a system
1:31:56
where I could just be able to like write a post once and automatically update both sites but that doesn't seem to be
1:32:01
working um maybe maybe I'll work out a workflow for that in the future uh I haven't officially launched it yet
1:32:07
because I I I still need to go through like my old post like a few of them aren't loading on the old version of the
1:32:13
site I need to go through and remove all of those pesky unic code characters can't have any of those wait a minute
1:32:19
you say you haven't officially launched it what are you GNA like hire somebody with a bucket full of doves to releasee or
1:32:26
something I mean how do you officially launch it's live on the web yeah he's made an announcement post yet I you know
1:32:32
I'm I'm only Ann pre-announcing it here you know it's it's a beta version I haven't I haven't fully made it like web
1:32:37
compliant like with with Netscape Navigator yet confetti can confetti Canon Netscape
1:32:45
Navigator was the biggest web browser in 1996 and I need to weird to think about Netscape Navigator no I haven't heard
1:32:50
that word or thought of that word in 20 years
1:32:56
hey man this looks clean you know what it needs though is ADS like around the side the left and the right maybe
1:33:01
between the text and the top and the bottom you know we had ads back then I know they
1:33:09
were all over the place like geoc cities it would have been on the side I know that's what I'm saying what would they call they used call him
1:33:15
skyscrapers maybe they still do I know banner ads remember that oh my God it's
1:33:21
always funny when I go to a website that doesn't have any ads it's like it's very disorienting it doesn't have to be so it
1:33:27
would be fun if I if I if I got like period correct ads from like 1999 and like add them in there like add a
1:33:34
popup God all right should I should I rattle off my list do you guys have more stuff leis do you have anything
1:33:41
more uh you know the thing that I would say that has been awesome in 2024 I I've
1:33:47
really takeen to using like mid journey and grock AI image generation I I'm I'm
1:33:53
finding it to be that's a great one man that it's the year of generative AI images it's it's been really fascinating
1:34:01
I mean I'm a guy who cannot draw anything I mean I bet you the uh what is the Apple thing called magic wand or
1:34:07
something that that you you scribble something in a note it turns into a drawing well okay I bet it can't even
1:34:13
work with my my amazing drawing techniques which is I I can't do anything but you can go on these things
1:34:20
and put in a a simple command and have have four different really amazing
1:34:26
looking images to choose from and and especially with like cartoon style stuff
1:34:33
you know pop art style stuff I mean I I don't know man I I'm astonished at how
1:34:38
quickly and amazingly it can generate stuff I leand and I have been talking about should we use AI images i' I've been using them with the social stuff
1:34:45
just playing around with it having fun with it and seeing what's possible and what's easy and and a lot of these
1:34:52
things I mean it takes so little time and and I look at this I said Leander look at this this if we you know back
1:34:58
when we worked at wired you would have somebody you You' talk with them you'd have a meeting that would take at least
1:35:05
15 minutes and maybe an hour to discuss some graphics and then they would
1:35:10
produce something and then maybe you'd like it maybe you wouldn't you'd have to like go back and forth uh you know and
1:35:16
eventually you come up with something that looked really amazing well I mean you could get the same results in literally like 10 seconds I know it's
1:35:23
UNC mid journey and I I mean some of the stuff that that um I've done you know
1:35:30
just with like cartoon art style I me I swear to God it's like literally you
1:35:35
could not tell if it was spit out by AI in 10 seconds or labored over by a
1:35:41
legitimate artist that's what makes the artist so mad I'm sure it's got to be terrifying I mean thank God that the the
1:35:47
words that it spits out are you know kind of Samy and completely
1:35:53
untrustworthy I mean at least if you're talking about cartoon artwork wow I mean
1:35:59
and I don't see how it's controversy I mean like leander's like well I think people are you know don't like the AI art style well there is no AI art style
1:36:06
there is no specific look I mean you know you look at podcasts I mean some
1:36:11
some podcast people that every episode has different art and everyone is like amazingly different and I especially if
1:36:19
you go like you know some podcast that's talking about like crypted or something
1:36:24
right I mean so they like they've got you know the crazy demon of Southern
1:36:29
Ohio right and they have some AI generated art and and it has this very distinct style and I just think about
1:36:35
like how much time and effort that would have taken before and how how many people would have had been employed and
1:36:42
how much money it would have cost you know I mean like when we were working at wired if if you had to get a like an
1:36:48
image generated I mean how much would that it would probably cost you $1,000
1:36:53
little picture oh yeah and you know I feel sorry for the artists who are going to be out of work but I mean it's super
1:37:00
simple and and the results are fantastic using this AI stuff so well we'll disagree on the results being fantastic
1:37:07
I think they look heinously ugly and I think it's I I'm not happy with them at all but well I mean you can't say they
1:37:16
the let's put it this way the results can be amazing I
1:37:22
mean well what which ones don't you like I mean what type of thing are you do you find
1:37:29
unpleasant I don't want to on this too much but but I just you say you can't tell the difference I feel like it's
1:37:35
incredibly obvious which ones are AI generated they they they do have a look to them they they they have a very particular like uh style they they're
1:37:43
they all look super like smoothed over I don't know it's I I find them distasteful I mean are are you talking
1:37:49
about the ones that are like Pixar type of generations generated art or what a lot of the Genera generated images
1:37:56
that I that I've seen I'm not I think they look kind of ugly I mean I'm not a fan of the yeah yeah it's fast and it's
1:38:02
easy to use but the results aren't great in my opinion what do you mean it doesn't get
1:38:07
better than image playground that's the Pinnacle of generative AI I've seen some
1:38:13
stuff that I'm just like absolutely amazed at how good it looks I mean I
1:38:19
don't know if you can show this in the thing but uh probably the technology
1:38:25
exists maybe maybe it does I don't know I like if if you sat me in a room with a
1:38:34
a bunch of you know markers or paints or something like that and and said I want
1:38:39
you to create this image I it would never happen I mean it's like the I dropped it in in slack in the called
1:38:45
casting it's just not possible that this would be you know come out the other end of you know it's like the millions of
1:38:52
monkeys typing I it's not possible I cannot draw cannot ever it's just not
1:38:58
possible I look at this cartoon cartoon art style thing and it it I mean I can
1:39:03
absolutely see that on a page of Wired Magazine oh I could too I'm I'm I'm
1:39:08
about to open this um at least for those of you watching I could too I mean is it
1:39:14
perfect all the time no a lot of it depends on your ability to prompt I mean
1:39:19
you're going to get certain kinds of results for certain kinds of prompts that's why everyone needs to be prompt engineer and I do think that there are
1:39:27
certain kinds of styles that mid Journey defaults to especially if you're asking it for pictures of like real people but
1:39:33
and I think maybe every um llm um has its own specific
1:39:40
look to it maybe um but if you are able to prompt to a certain degree to
1:39:45
fine-tune it I think you could end up with some really unique results but I can't unforunately I can't show this
1:39:50
um um on the stream it's all right I mean can't open the browser but um it I
1:39:56
totally see what you're saying like this could be an illustration in wi magazine I I completely agree with you and like for like these lower profile images that
1:40:02
you just need to put as a header image for a story I think I think generative AI is perfect for that type of stuff I
1:40:09
mean the thing is if if I'm if I'm browsing through Mastadon and like I I see somebody's posted a link to an
1:40:15
article and it has a and it has an AI generated image on it it it makes me less interest I don't want to read it
1:40:22
because if you can't be B B to make a an image for it then like I can't trust that you've bothered to write it
1:40:27
yourself either and you know if the image looks like it was lazily generated
1:40:32
then I I just don't trust that the content is going to be good or meaningful sure if it was lazy I totally
1:40:37
agree that's why I think that you need to be you need to develop skill in prompting and understand how prompting
1:40:44
works and create an image that looks interesting and so you're using
1:40:50
personally speaking a well prompted image isn't going to change my opinion on that
1:40:56
I think it could I think it could I mean if you get something that someone spent time crafting the right language for in
1:41:03
order to produce a creative result that looked realistic or looked unique then I
1:41:08
you're still getting that human element because the person is like using their language to make an image in that is
1:41:16
reflective of some kind of creative they're trying to achieve now of course the image itself is is still being
1:41:23
you know manipulated it and and bolted together by AI but it's almost like a
1:41:30
collaboration at that point you know it's like you're still you're working with the machine to to produce a specific results it's doing most of the
1:41:37
heavy lifting but you're kind of acting as like the director and so it still has a human touch I think but it's not ever
1:41:44
going to be the same as a human artist creating something with a pen in their hand you
1:41:50
know the human touch is I look for like you know like freaking
1:41:58
like 1800s like wood cut drawings to accompany every article but I don't know
1:42:04
you know I bet you it could do some pretty good woodcut drawings too it might be able to streamline from the
1:42:09
chat is saying I think ai ai art is like human art some is good and some is bad I think that's a profound statement I
1:42:15
think he's right um yeah I mean most human art is really bad although it's as cheesy as it says
1:42:23
as it sounds beauty is in the eye of the beholder cuz my kids create something that conceptually artistically is very
1:42:31
bad but I think it's very beautiful and it's it it it is a snapshot of their emotional and
1:42:37
mental um abilities and development in in a certain point in time and so I cherish it for that reason right and
1:42:43
like it's not good but it's what they did it's like a representation of their creativity and so I love it for that
1:42:48
reason and that's something that I think that um AI maybe will never do it has no soul because it has no soul it's just
1:42:57
it's it's an imitator it's um it's a machinator it just takes things that
1:43:02
people have made and mashes it into something which doesn't necessarily make you feel like it's a new creation sorry
1:43:07
L I cut you off what were you gonna say no I just just say like you know like uh we were talking about last week using a
1:43:13
what image are you going to use to uh go along with a today an Apple history post
1:43:19
about Steve Jobs or sorry Steve wnac working on Christmas to I any young
1:43:25
picture of Steve wnc I think that's pretty egregious like creating a fake image of St Steve wnc to accompany an
1:43:30
article that's like I I think that was maybe the worst example of yeah it's obviously
1:43:36
fake but the thing is if you know absolutely nothing about Apple you don't know that it's obviously fake it's obviously fake to me and to you because
1:43:43
we know oh well you know Steve wnac was young in 1977 but
1:43:48
like yeah I do think there needs to be some kind of mechanism put in place from te techn iCal perspective so that people
1:43:54
know when something is is AI like we're not there yet it's still the complete Wild West and it's going to be wild
1:44:01
Westy for a long time I don't see that going away anytime soon but people will
1:44:07
need a way to know what's real and what's not real and what's made by humans and what's made by
1:44:13
machines um this is leading us into an episode of Terminator but um I I'm we
1:44:21
should be able to tell art sty you know cartoon art style pop art style yeah not
1:44:26
the stuff that's trying to be like realistic yeah sure although I thought
1:44:31
that wasak image was hilarious I thought it was pretty pretty dang good too like
1:44:37
that that was definitely grock wasn't it I think you mentioned that was yeah that was great yeah grock's ability to make
1:44:43
images of actual people is is really crazy all right let me R off my wrist my
1:44:50
not my wrist I could R off my wrist it's 231 oh we got wrap this thing up we've been live for almost two hour oh over
1:44:56
two hours holy cow well we had like a half hours where we were just like talking about nothing that's actually
1:45:02
true only although even despite that this is a long episode hour 45 so far all right let me wrap it up uh these are
1:45:08
things that I enjoyed in 2024 didn't necessarily come out in 2024 although um
1:45:14
they did um probably come out like the end of 2023 since they showed up in 20
1:45:19
2024 for me uh Diablo 4 obviously another game that I have just been loving I mean it's Diablo II part two
1:45:27
but if you like Diablo and the play style of Diablo dude it's just such a fun game in fact I'll be playing it
1:45:34
probably all night tonight I can't wait oh my god um absolutely love Diablo I'm playing as the Rogue and that's usually
1:45:41
what I start as and I just respect my guy last night because I was like why do I have him in I have him respected like
1:45:46
all these like hand to-hand combat scenarios that's not what Rogues are for they're supposed to be you know far away
1:45:53
ranged weapons uh you know group um group skills that do group
1:46:00
damage or group skills skills that do group damage I mean you know they're supposed to be fast in doing damage
1:46:08
quickly and then running away so I have been really enjoying Diablo 4 I'm just at the very beginning stages so far like
1:46:15
probably I'm probably like maybe like five% into the game my my top game of last year was Tetris for the Nintendo
1:46:21
Entertainment System so I course Nintendo oh you've upgraded from the Atari um thought you gonna say snakes
1:46:27
for Atari um I have also I also loved Starfield that epic was too beautiful to
1:46:35
live as the saying goes like I just that game was so massive in scale and there's
1:46:40
so much to do that eventually you get tired of it and you go play something else and then you come back to it and
1:46:46
you're like I don't remember what's going on in this game anymore there's way too many side missions I don't remember how to fly this ship but that
1:46:53
game truly was beautiful and fun to play and a technical achievement unlike any
1:46:59
that I've really experienced just exploring space and finding side missions and going to different planets
1:47:04
and you know Finding different armor and guns and I mean leveling up your guy and his skills and everything that was like
1:47:10
so beautiful and so much fun but just way too big if you have kids there's
1:47:16
just a certain level of gameplay you can't commit to and if you're single and you have no job and you're in college
1:47:23
high school it's like you could probably play all the all the way through Starfield I'm not there unfortunately um
1:47:28
I think far more suiting to my level of time is a game like Mario party jamere which is another iteration of Mario
1:47:35
party if you know Mario Party you love it it doesn't ever change they just keep coming out with new mini games Mario
1:47:41
party for me is a game I don't even play that often I just watch my kids play it like my kids are old enough now where
1:47:47
they can play games on their own they love Mario Party and all my four kids
1:47:52
all get a joyc con and they're just like playing Mario Party together and I love to watch it I like watching my kids
1:47:57
enjoy video games and this new series of Mario party I think it's one of the best
1:48:03
that Nintendo has made it's true to the series and the mini games are super fun
1:48:08
and so we've been playing that together and we've been loving it I do want to highlight one product that I think is
1:48:14
worth mentioning now this did come out at the end of 2023 I think this is one of the most
1:48:19
important cameras that has ever been released and it's been one of the most
1:48:25
transformative you you probably don't know that it has been maybe you do but you've definitely seen it and it's and
1:48:31
its ability on YouTube it is the DJI osmo 3 it's a handheld small camera on a
1:48:38
gimble I still have this stupid image up from what we were talking about before um that I bought that has taken
1:48:46
over um content creation if you've ever watched YouTube you've seen the DJI a Mo
1:48:53
3 and I'll talk about why it's so important um here in a second see as I can bring it up um where the heck is it
1:49:00
oh that's why it's not coming up I don't want the release date I want the actual
1:49:05
pocket so the DJI osmo is a super compact camera with a 1in c sensor which
1:49:12
is a huge sensor for a camera of this size on a little gimbal a gimbal is a like a little arm that allows the camera
1:49:19
to move when you're walking so it it kind of absorbs like the shock of a camera that generally gets um that
1:49:28
generally makes an image blurry or shaky when you're walking running so it delivers super smooth video but more
1:49:34
important than that is the DJI osmo pocket is just a really
1:49:40
excellent camera it creates Beautiful video in all sorts of highlight and low
1:49:48
light situations and just as a camera itself is impressive It's ability to
1:49:53
appropriately expose a person in in a broad range of lighting
1:49:58
scenarios is extremely impressive to me it does it better than almost any camera that I've seen I would say maybe even
1:50:04
better than the iPhone does it and then you pair it with the you pair it with the ability to
1:50:11
absorb shock from walking and its ability to do low light video so I forever ago I talked about how I loved
1:50:18
the Sony uh cameras and especially the zv1 cuz could see in the dark but I took
1:50:25
that camera to Disneyland and I paired it against the the osmo pocket 3 I
1:50:31
haven't released any of this footage yet it's on my list of things to do and I couldn't believe it the osmo pocket like
1:50:38
kicked that thing's butt like its ability to to deliver stable footage on
1:50:44
dark rides and a produce a pleasing image in almost near black darkness
1:50:51
kicked the zv1 but now if you know anything about the Sony zv1 it has one of Sony's best low light
1:50:57
camera sensors and the the ability or its um image that It produced in low
1:51:03
light scenarios I thought was not even close to the oso pocket that's what makes the osmo pocket such a super
1:51:10
popular camera for documenting your life for doing Vlogs for doing YouTube work it also does 120 frames per second oh by
1:51:18
the way it has an excellent camera built in so you don't need a microphone really
1:51:23
I mean it comes in a Creator pack where it comes with an additional DJI mic I don't even think you need it because the
1:51:28
inbuilt mic is so dang good this camera is just
1:51:33
exceptionally well it's exceptional in almost every facet of what you would
1:51:39
want to have in a camera which is why for the first like three months when this camera released you couldn't even
1:51:44
get it because it's been so insanely popular and I think it's just one of the
1:51:50
best cameras ever made and it's made by a drone company or are they a drone company they've so far transcended that
1:51:57
uh in fact there's rumors that they're going to be coming out with their own a mirrorless camera in like the next month
1:52:02
or two that DJI is going to because they are like the apple of the camera and
1:52:09
drone world and their cameras are easy to use their drones are easy to fly they produce exceptional results the cameras
1:52:17
create beautiful images and beautiful videos and this one little Gadget I think is probably all you need to start
1:52:25
a YouTube channel I mean even do product reviews like I have all this like video equipment and I'm like dude I probably
1:52:32
would just use my osmo pocket for a lot of this stuff because it's easy to use it does everything I need and it's easy
1:52:38
to hold doesn't kill your back and it's not you know $6,000 it's a $500 camera
1:52:43
so one of my favorite products of 2024 and probably will be one of my favorites of 2025 as I actually reboot my YouTube
1:52:50
channel Griffin I heard a rumor about that yes what's the resolution and frame rate that it does uh 4K 120 120 uh
1:52:58
frames per second does it do HDR um I don't know if it does HDR it
1:53:04
might but my suspicion is it's not very good HDR does anything do good HDR I think the app I think the iPhone does
1:53:11
the best HDR that exists dude the iPhone 16 Pro is such an unbelievably amazing
1:53:18
camera and I don't say that hyperbolically in any way shape perform I have done so so many experience or
1:53:23
experiments on cameras and the iPhone is able to deliver in such a unbelievably
1:53:30
broad array of lighting and just life situations um
1:53:35
it's not the best at everything but it's damn good at just about everything it's crazy how you have to spend like at
1:53:42
least an extra 50% more for a dedicated camera than it costs for an iPhone to get a better video camera than the
1:53:48
iPhone yeah and I will say the one thing that this camera does that almost no camera does is stabilized low light
1:53:55
video I think this is the king I don't think there is a camera unless you want to spend like $10,000 on a equipment and
1:54:01
even then I don't know if you could beat this camera in stabilized low light um footage because like the iPhone and a
1:54:08
lot of digital cameras will do like tricks with the frame rate and things to stabilize their
1:54:16
footage and once you take them into low light scenarios they can't use those same tricks because they need those
1:54:21
tricks to make the video exposed correctly for the low light and so having this camera on a
1:54:27
gimbal it delivers like the best smoothest low light performance of any camera that I've
1:54:33
seen and it's only 500 bucks but yeah I mean to your point this is just a camera for you know 500 bucks and the iPhone
1:54:39
does so much more but in any case is there a YouTuber there is a
1:54:45
YouTuber that uses this camera says Betty Reyes Betty every YouTuber uses
1:54:51
this camera it is ubiquitous now like there's hardly a YouTuber that doesn't use this camera now because it's so dang
1:54:58
good um unless you're talking about the iPhone I can't tell all right everyone
1:55:04
that's it 2024 in the books and if I do say so
1:55:10
strong start to 2025 best start I don't think a podcast has had a better start
1:55:16
than us for 2025 but I haven't done any searching yet so we'll see but in any case that's all the cult cast we have
1:55:22
for for you guys this week if you want to come hang out on with us in the very
1:55:27
exclusive cult club and support us support the show support.the cast.com support.the cast.com and of course me
1:55:34
and Lewis are still duking it out on the allnew X I'm at airon erf win Lewis is
1:55:40
at Lewis Wallace Griffin is at D Griffin Jones on all the other platforms he's hold down the fort everywhere else all
1:55:46
the platforms that me and Lewis don't go that's where Griffin is um this has been the coast the best 30 plus minute UPC
1:55:52
ation you're going to hear all week long new episodes of the codcast come out every Thursday night I want to thank
1:55:57
everyone for listening for hanging out for supporting the show we really appreciate you all looking forward to uh 2025 and we will see you
1:56:05
guys next time oh I made
1:56:11
it I can I can just let my voice be it's normal normal tone and texture s
1:56:20
rough we made it finally got through the show someone get my maror
1:56:26
[Music]
1:56:33
Reds oh my gosh I probably won't be able to talk
1:56:38
for 3 days my wife will love it sweet
1:56:43
relief she'll be so relieved nothing but
1:56:48
Whispers Len in my new band too all right
1:56:55
everyone that's it stop again bye y'all
1:57:00
[Music]

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