Apple Homeview, Microsoft Surface Ultra, and Fitbit Edge. It's TECHtober.

Windows Update Network Failure

0:00This episode is brought to you by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each week hosts Liz-Ann Saunders, Schwab's Chief Investment Strategist, and Colin Martin, Head of Fixed Income Research and Strategy for the Schwab Center for Financial Research. Bring your fresh insights on what's happening in the markets and why, and what the implications might be for your portfolio. Join Colin and Liz-Ann as they explore questions like, how do you evaluate corporate bonds that look interesting? And what sectors are on the move right now? Download the latest episodes and subscribe at schwab.com slash oninvesting

0:31or wherever you get your podcasts. Support for the show comes from Jira by Atlassian. Your work is scattered. A thread here, a DM there, docs everywhere. And now it's not just your team hunting for context, your AI agents need it too. Jira taps Atlassian's teamwork graph to bring the context together across Jira, Confluence, Slack, GitHub, and more. It makes it easy to share with the agents you already use, like Claude, Cursor, and GitHub co-pilot, assign them work directly, or connect your agents through MCP. The result? Less token waste, more accuracy, and more time moving work forward.

1:03Learn more at jira.com. That's spelled J-I-R-A dot com. Support for the show comes from Google Gemini. You know that moment when curiosity strikes? You're exploring a new city with a family, and a sculpture catches your daughter's eye. What is that? Who made it? With Gemini, you can snap a picture and get a fully interactive breakdown of its history, architecture, and even hidden secrets. Gemini is built for moments like that. Whether you're learning something new, solving a problem, or looking for your next favorite thing,

1:36Google Gemini is here to help. Download Gemini, Google's AI app, or visit gemini.google.com to learn more.

1:46There's this moment, which had such an opportunity to be positive, where it was like, wait, my wife just said see you tonight. Hey, Siri, what is the thing that we're doing tonight? And it's like, you have a date with your wife of like ice skating lessons, and instead of being like, oh, nice, thanks, Siri, he's like, oh, weird. We gotta talk. And I'm like, I mean, we gotta talk. I'm like, what? Yeah, what is up, people of the internet? Welcome back to another episode of the Waveform Podcast. We're your hosts. I'm Marquez. I'm Andrew. And I'm David.

2:18We got Mariah and Ellis at the producer desk this week, and it's Techtober, which means, wow, we've got a lot to talk about. Wait, I made a sound for this. For Techtober. That feels how I've felt for the past couple of days, so I think that's a good sound. Anyway, this week, because we have to make sure we don't fast forward too far ahead, what do we have? We have Apple Home View. They had their home event this week and all the things that came with it, including their new first-gen Home View product. We got to see Microsoft Surface

2:51Ultra laptop with RTX Spark, a new Fitbit with a screen. It's a lot. But first, did they even test this? I'm back. I'm ready to get yelled at because I don't know how to do stuff. People loved your last one. I'd agree with you. This one, this one, man. So, okay. So I, I've been lately, I've been dabbling in the dark arts. And by that, I mean, I've been using a Windows computer at home for some personal projects, you know? I'm so sorry. Wait, before you continue, is that a pixel light bar on your shirt?

3:23It's close. It's got some- No, it's got too many colors. No, only the black bar. Oh, right. They have red on it, so I forgot. The light bar has red. It's the dot. It doesn't matter. The glow bar. I'm just making a dumb joke. You can continue with your Windows. Thank you. All right. So I'm using Windows, right? Yeah. And what happens when you use Windows? Windows updates. You know, it just, you open your computer and be like, hold on, blah, blah, blah. So Windows, this time it was, like, I'm updating right now. Like, you have 10 minutes to wrap up your stuff and then this is happening. And I was like, okay, I can accept this.

3:53Even that happens. Windows updates. The computer comes back online. I try to resume what I'm doing and I'm not connected to the internet. And I'm like, oh, I guess this was a serious enough update. Like, it must have forgotten my Wi-Fi password. Any number of things, right? So I'm sort of new to Windows. So I'm like, how do you connect to the Wi-Fi? You go to that little cluster of tools at the bottom right corner, you click it, and then I don't see Wi-Fi. Like, it's just not an option. I'm like, okay, I must have not really known how to use Windows properly.

4:23I'm new to this, whatever. So I open settings, go to the network tab, right? Nothing about Wi-Fi in there either. So then I'm like, okay, okay, okay. I must not be understanding something like, this is a professional operating system, you know, written by one of the biggest companies in the world. So I search Wi-Fi in the settings. No results. At this point, I'm actively questioning whether Wi-Fi exists or if I just imagined it my whole life up until this point. And so I do a

4:57little bit more digging. Lo and behold, the update that I'd given to my computer uninstalled the network adapter. So there's like a wireless antenna directly connected to the motherboard that needs a driver, even though it's directly connected. This is a laptop. Yeah. It uninstalled the built-in, the driver for the built-in network adapter. And so when Windows diagnoses this as the problem, it goes, here's the link to download it from the internet. And I'm like, well, that doesn't

5:29help me. Luckily, eventually, I read it around the computer. There was like an old version of the network adapter driver in the device manager. It was like a surreal Kafka-esque experience, first being gaslit into questioning whether Wi-Fi exists and then being told, it's okay, dude, just click on this webpage and you can get back on the internet. Yeah. This happened on my old Surface Book 2. I remember it uninstalled the network driver. Yeah. And I had to use a USB-C to Ethernet dongle to get internet so that I could reinstall the network driver. It was just...

6:05I... Yeah. It seems bad. Other than that, Windows has been actually... It's not bad. How dare you guys. I'm just kidding. It's been good. I don't dislike Windows. I just dislike when it updates when you're doing important things. And then all the bloatware. I just hate all the s*** that happens on it. Yeah. I just hate using it, but I don't hate it. I just hate looking at it. I just hate... No, I don't hate looking at it. I actually think it's fairly aesthetic. I do. I like the square. Yeah, I like the way it looks. Yeah. The bloatware? You like all the bloatware?

6:36I do not love the bloatware. I do not love the bloatware. You ask me to sign in. Though, the nice part about the bloatware is that there's... Everything is backwards compatible to infinity. You know what I mean? The bloatware is backwards compatible? Yeah. Well, no, it's just like the reason it's so bloated is because there's some random program written in 1993 that Windows, for some reason, is like, no, we still support all the graphics drivers. Anyway, that's my... Did they even test this? Thanks, Microsoft, for a good story. Well, on the complete

Apple HomeView First Impressions

7:00other side of the fence, Apple had an event this week, and they added a new first-generation device to their ecosystem, and then a whole bunch of other things around it. So it's the home event. It was actually... It was not really an event. It was like a hands-on experience in New York, I guess. I don't know if there's one in California, too. Probably not. There's a New York one. I don't think so. Just Tribeca, yeah. We all walked in, and everyone's like, welcome home. And we're like, oh, I see what you're doing. It's a home event. So they announced their new products, which is the new HomeView, which is an in-home display and speaker computer

7:38combo thing. We'll talk about that. They also announced a partnership with LG and Schneider Electronics for a bunch of smart home products, like a doorbell and a thermostat and security cameras, things like that. And they also dropped a new Apple TV 4K and a new HomePod Mini, too. Now, I think all those other things are a little bit less interesting than the HomeView itself, but the HomeView, I have so many thoughts on. I did my impressions video. I also have a lot of thoughts on the commercial. Yeah. I think it was really strange and really bad, actually. I agree. But I don't know where to

8:13start. Where should we start? Let's just start with what it is, because some people might not even have seen this. True. Fair. Okay. So in the smart home, you guys might have seen like other people have smart home products when you visited their homes before. They need like a little hub, like a screen that you can control all of it from, like a Nest Hub Max or an Echo Show or something like that. Apple has not had one of those. So that's what HomeView is. It is a seven-inch square LCD with these big black bezels, and it sits on this sort of metal base that has extra speakers in it. It's $299, $300, and there are two versions of it, one that sits on the base or

8:49one that mounts to the wall. The one that sits on the base has just like a USB Type-C port in the back, which I was actually fairly happy to see that. Really? You could just like plug it in wherever you want. I have a thought on that also. Fair. But then, yeah, the wall-mounted one is the same price. It doesn't come with the base, so it doesn't come with that woofer, that deep speaker that would be in the base. And it also doesn't come with any mounting hardware. You have to buy that as well separately. How much is that one, though? Because you don't get that stuff. So there's a $60 USB-C one. There is a $80 AC adapter version, and there's a $130 power over

9:22Ethernet version. So based on what sort of wiring setup you have. $130. Yeah. Based on the wiring setup you have, you're going to be spending some extra money just to mount it to the wall. Yeah. And it doesn't have as many speakers. And it doesn't have as many colors, by the way. That one only comes in silver or gray. Yeah. Did you say they're the same price, too? Sorry. They're on the same price. The same price. Yeah. The same price is insane because you get a big speaker when you have the one that sits on your tabletop. Yeah, the woofer. So they did make a big point about how the one on the wall has those full range drivers tuned specifically for on-wall use. I don't know if they are physically

9:58different if they point backwards or something, but they did talk about that every single time I brought it up. But I'm pretty sure it's going to sound worse because it doesn't have a driver, that big woofer driver. I also generally don't want music just coming out of my walls. That sounds like some poltergeists. There's a whole group, and we can talk more about the market for this in a second, but there's a lot, not a lot. There's some amount of people that have an iPad on their wall to do this sort of stuff. Yeah, right. And there's an Apple Home app. And so they just glue the iPad to the wall or however they want to attach it to

10:28the wall, get some power to it so it doesn't die, or maybe just take it off and charge it once in a while. And that's been their home hub until this point. This is generally bespoke designer homes that they will show off in LA or something and sell to multimillionaires. Like 10 years ago. Like 10 years ago. I feel like it's not really, I remember we got a breather for Pixel 2 that had like an iPad on the wall. And even then it was like, this doesn't feel high tech. This somehow feels 15 years old already. Yeah. And like, I think there, but there are people

10:59who want to do it. And giving a version of that makes sense. But to charge the same amount with like 50% less material, and then also be like, here's the mounts you guys need. And it costs more like that should have, that should be the difference. Just include the mount. It should be at least $100 cheaper. Yeah. Or the $60 amount should come with it. Yeah. Like right. For free. And then like, even that I don't think is an equal. Yeah. Because but it's a large speaker in the bottom and we had, we both had briefings. The speaker I think sounded pretty good when it was on the tabletop. It was, it had a lot of good sound. I don't know.

11:32It sounded great in my opinion. A lot better than the Nest Hub Mini. Google doesn't even sell the Nest Hub Max anymore. So it's kind of hard to compare. You used to be able to get them for like $2.29 from the Google store. Yeah. Yeah. I've been thinking about the pricing a lot. I typically don't say that like a decision a company this big makes is totally pointless and stupid. Like there has to be some reason for it. And I've been trying to think of it. And I think it's probably some version of like price steering, where if they're the same price, people will get the one that lives on the table, because that's the one most people should get.

12:05But where if the one on the wall was a hundred bucks cheaper, then a bunch of people who probably shouldn't be getting the one on the wall are going to see that it's a hundred bucks cheaper and are going to try to get the one on the wall. Yeah. Or rig it in like a weird way. Because it is just USB-C in the back, right? Because the amount is essentially a mount that plugs into with a little USB-C port. Right. And the difference in prices between the first two, at least, were essentially if you expect for the USB-C wire to run down your wall, or if you want AC power, which I'm assuming is coded or whatever correctly to be safe inside of a wall. And it tells you to get

12:39it professionally installed. Yeah. Yeah. So I think you probably could just plug a USB-C in the back of it. Yeah. And get it to do something. Because you can order it with no mount. Yeah. Maybe you just put some super glue on it. Just to the wall? Just super glue it straight to the wall. Put the USB-C cord in there. I don't know. I haven't seen the back of it. I live in an apartment and the walls are made of concrete. So I'm not drilling into that concrete. You're not feeding a cord through the wall. We need the third party manufacturers to rise up and make something so you can mount it to the wall. Yeah. Hopefully some cheaper options. But anyway, yeah. So the idea is

13:11the product lives in your home and it can do all of the smart home stuff. It can control your lights and all the smart home stuff you have attached. You can view your security cameras. You can set timers. You can ask Siri things. You can play music. You can even open Safari links and view recipes and things like that. So it does the stuff it's supposed to do. And then its interesting feature, I think it's the headlining feature, is the multi-user switching, like fast multi-user switching. And we'll get to the video in a second. But basically the idea is you walk up to it and it uses facial recognition to

13:45know that it's you. And then it can give you some extra personal context, like your messages, your calendar, or you ask Siri, what was that recipe that Joe texted me? And it can actually tell you because it knows it's you. Yeah. And then when you walk away, it goes back to just being not personal. And it can do this for up to six different people. So one person walks up, asks for something, walks away. A different person walks up, asks for something, gives them their answers. They walk away. As long as you have an iPhone or an iPad with an Apple account, it will be able to be set up to have you

14:16included as one of the users in the home. Cool. I don't know what took them so long. I was actually hoping they would do this for the iPad like 10 years ago, like having multi-user support. But they still don't. But, you know, we have it on Macs. Now we have it on this thing. It's fast. It works with just that selfie camera. It's a 12 megapixel center stage camera. It's not full face ID. But the idea is you probably don't need full face ID. At least this is their logic. This is a device where if it's in your house, you're expecting that pretty much anyone who comes up to it is expected to come up to it. It's not like you're in public. And so that selfie

14:50camera with facial recognition combined with the fact that it's looking to see if your iOS device was recently on and unlocked in the area, then it's probably you. Do we just talk about the video? I don't know if I buy the... Let's do... Let's finish design and everything. Yeah. I want to talk about a lot more of this. First, I don't buy the... If you unlock something nearby, because I feel like the point of this is to be that I don't need to go to my phone for some things. The area is more of like... Like the house? ...the building. The house. Yeah. Okay. Cool. The design itself, I'll give credit for one thing is that we didn't

15:27see a totally accurate leak of this going up to it. We saw a million things close, but not exactly. I think it looks cheaper than I was expecting. I agree with you. I think I was expecting... I kept hearing HomePod mini cut in half, which is one way smaller than this. And I expected the fabric around it. I think because I'm used to Nest Hub. I'm used to HomePod. I think the fabric makes it a little bit nicer. I agree with you. Maybe in a kitchen with like food, they don't want it to get all grimy. Yeah. It's a good point. I kind

16:02of wonder about that. Like all the others in this category that I'm picturing do kind of feel a little bit more homey. Yeah. White bezels, fabric on the speaker, like softer plastic type materials. This is like sharp cornered metal. Yeah. And like an aluminum base with it like a sort of aluminum can feeling look. I don't know if that feels cheaper to me as much as it feels like less home friendly. It's just an unusual design. It is a little bit cuter with like the square aspect ratio on the smaller screen. I love that part. I actually think I like that part. You don't like the square? No, I don't. Really? Tim also hates

16:35the square. I like the squircle a lot, actually. I think how it's set up is nice. Something about the base just feels, maybe it feels cheap. Maybe it just feels cheap because like you said, it doesn't feel homey, but that just feels so, that feels like it should be in an Apple event video in the background, not in my kitchen. I feel like white bezels would have made it feel like it blends into your home more. I agree. I mean, bezels are, they just look huge. I agree. So this is, it's a nice little screen. It's an LCD with true tone. I think that did a good job of adapting, but I, I had so much beef with this. You remember

17:06the iMac? Yeah. You remember the iMac with the white bezels and they didn't offer any black bezels for it. And their, their reasoning for that was in all the commercials, it was like in the kitchen and the living room. And they were like, your, your walls are white. Like you probably want white bezels. So it blends in more nicely. And I was like, eh, I guess I'm not putting an iMac in there, but you chose this. So, all right, you better keep that same energy. Now here's the home thing and it's big black bezels. And I'm like, what happened to that energy? It's probably to hide the camera, I guess, but I guess, but

17:37now you're not hiding any of the bezels. It's massive. It's massive bezel. I think that also contributes to it looking a little bit cheap. Um, that I could see that with the giant like metal base, which is really big black bezels in a kitchen with like smudging is going to look terrible for a while. Yeah. So another thing I found very interesting is like, there's only a set of apps on it and that's it. There's no like app store or anything. It has a bunch of Apple apps that are all optimized. You can only use Safari. You can't use your browser of choice. That's kind of weird. Right. And then they have all of these features that

18:11only work. If you use a very select set of Apple apps, which is felt like something that Apple would have done a number of years ago, but it feels like, like the first home pod that only worked with Apple music. Yeah. They have this feature that they flash around a lot where if you bring, if you have a recipe open on your phone, you can just tap your phone to it and then it shows the recipe on the display and a much richer format that looks a lot nicer and whatever. I guess it uses like a, most recipe websites use JSON to structure it.

18:41Apparently there's a format standardized. Yeah. And apparently it can index that and then use it to show it on the display, whatever. But you have to be using Safari on your phone when you tap it. And it's like, come on. This feels so Apple. No, but it feels like Apple like a number of years ago. Sorry. That's what I mean. Like the Apple we know. It's funny because when I saw people, first of all, the Reddit thread for our video, I don't think I've ever seen our Apple more like I don't get this product at all. And a big thing is the apps. Yeah. At first I wasn't that worried about it because I feel like Nest Hub doesn't

19:14really have, like I never downloaded apps on Nest Hub. It just is like the kind of things I wanted to play music. I wanted to do my home controls, whatever. Yeah. At least my Nest Hub mini. I don't forget the tablet. I have the Nest Hub Max. I've been using it for years. It's not that good of a product. It sucks. But it does have a YouTube app and I can play stuff on Spotify. I guess that's the thing. I never downloaded those, but it had Spotify and YouTube on it already. Like can this have play YouTube videos? It's only in browser or? So YouTube videos are only in browser. Yeah. It's Safari. The other thing that they

19:44kept bringing up was the CarPlay framework. Yeah. So the same way that your car screen can show content from apps that support CarPlay, you will be able to show content on those same apps, CarPlay supported apps on the home view. So when I was asking about Spotify specifically, basically the idea is there is no Spotify app on the home view, but you can airplay like Spotify to the home view and it'll show up the same way it would on CarPlay. Yeah. So SoundCloud will work. Spotify will work. Your Pocket Cast will work. Non-Apple apps will

20:18work if they support CarPlay. Yeah. It's not like a new home framework. It's CarPlay. And by the way, I asked them, what OS is this running? Is there a name for this? And they said it's home view software software. Yeah. They've never named it. And I said, is it home view OS? They said it's home view software. And then they smiled at me. So odd. Cause I checked many places for the OS name, the fine print, the, the newsroom, the website itself. I cannot find any. It's gotta be running one of their OSes. It's, it's combining a couple of things

20:50from several of their OSes. And I almost want to feel like, okay, it's just iOS, but like with some launcher or something or whatever. WatchOS. But like there is watchOS when you change the clocks and the watch faces, I keep saying watch faces, but it's just, it's just watchOS watch faces. Right. And then when you go through and you have that like home screen with your apps and the widgets, that's, it's just iOS right there. That's your iPhone screen right there. Yeah. So it's, it's like kind of a few things stapled together and CarPlay gets stapled in there too. And that's something I wanted to bring up was that this product feels strange because

21:21it feels a little bit like a computer and a little bit like a home display. Cause in some ways they're like, Oh, you've got Safari. You can like bring up these, like in the ad that we'll talk about all of the people in the ad, like they're kind of using it like a computer. They're like touching it and they're doing this, they're spinning around way too much, spinning it a lot. And so it's almost like, it's like a kitchen computer, but at the same time, it's so limited because it's like only got the Apple apps that are approved to be on there and there's no app store or anything like that. So it's like

21:53half computer, half sort of ambient computing device, half Siri AI device. I tried to think about it as like, what does this end up being in like a month when the novelty factor wears off? Cause I've had a lot of this home stuff for a while. And I'm like, what do I at this point now do with my reasonably advanced smart home hub? I do basically three or four things. I listened to music once in a while. I'll ask for a timer once in a while. Every morning I ask it for like my routine slash news. So it tells me the weather, the traffic for my commute and the news. Sounds like something Siri would

22:27do. Um, and I think I asked like for sports scores and random other general knowledge stuff and that's about it. Right? So let's say this is going to have to do the same stuff. This is just Siri performing those tasks instead of Google. It can still give me the sports scores. It can still tell me, you know, what I'm asking from online information. It can still set timers. And then all the other stuff is just kind of like extra. Like I don't, I have my phone with me. That's the only reason it unlocks. Like I don't need to ask it about my messages or my calendar very often or like take a FaceTime call on it. I don't think I'm

23:00going to be doing that stuff as much. I could see in a kitchen, a FaceTime call maybe like if you're cooking, I could, the one thing I do like is like, uh, if you're in the kitchen or something and like your smart doorbell rings to see who's at the door, cause it could just be like, Oh, that's just a FedEx person who has to ring the doorbell and walk away. I don't need to like, yeah, that's not a clean up. So like that, which a lot of this is stuff that like Google has been doing for a long time. Exactly. And I mean, this so much feels like, uh, we realized where it's 100% catching up. Cause then they had to partner with LG to just be like, do you see nest and rings

23:33list? Make all of those and make them a hundred dollars more expensive. Um, but like, yeah, I think it's at the end of the day. And one of the reasons the commercial hit so poorly is they're trying to do too much in a little amount of time when this is a thing you interact with five to six times a day. And that adds up throughout the years and it very much is mostly when you're cooking or like maybe in some part of your home. I also felt that the L the LED display felt a little bit cheap or else, sorry, LCD display felt a little bit cheap. It was very blue kind of casting and I don't know. It had true tone. So maybe

24:08that was off on there. It does have true tone. Um, yeah, I like how dark it gets. It gets to 0.3 nits. One of my favorite features of my Nest Hub mini is that at nighttime I can almost not even see the clock because it's so dim, which is really good at like late at night. It gets up to 500 nits, which is not like crazy bright, but I, you're not going to be in direct sunlight. So it doesn't really matter. Um, not available in the EU because Siri AI is still not available in the EU, which is crazy. Uh, but they are working on trying

24:40to get that, um, approved obviously. Yeah. So my, yeah, I was just saying my gripe with the plug in the back is I think so many other companies have already done this so much better is the bottom should be slightly hollowed out with the USB C port there and a little gap for the plug to come out flush on the bottom because then you can put it against the wall. Then you can, the way they have it set up in the commercial, which I have actually talked about is like drilled into a hole and then you have this like extra three

25:12inches that you need for the cable to make a turn. Yeah. It looks off or just like pull right out. So like when it's stuck in the bottom, it is then secured in there and it's not showing as much. Yeah. It's a good point. So like that again, made it feel kind of cheap that as well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We got to talk about the commercial. I'm so sorry before we move on. Cause I did been reading about the speaker layout in here and I think I have some ideas as to why the price might not be raised because it's a really interesting configuration of speakers. Actually it's one downward facing driver. So that's a driver

25:46that fires sound directly at the table. And then it's two of these things called passive radiators, which are effectively membranes on springs that are not attached to any drivers. And the whole idea is like, as this downward facing cone is moving in and out, you have like changing air pressure inside the base. And then that air pressure actually is what moves those passive radiators. And that is a way of getting around needing to drill sort of like a throat in the speaker, which helps tune it. There's a bunch of speaker design

26:16and consider that you watch my video actually about cabinet size on the studio channel. If you want to learn more anyway, it seems like the way they design this is almost like the base is this weird, like hybrid non-traditional subwoofer because you're not going to get my, I haven't heard it. I haven't seen it, but my guess is it's tuned somewhere around a hundred and 150 Hertz as a crossover. So like only real base is going to come out of the base, no pun intended. Um, so realistically also it's Apple. So all these things are going to

26:48be computationally tuned all the time. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is it seems like there's not very many audio components inside this base. Um, it seems like it's mostly passive components, a really well tuned chamber, one driver facing down, possibly a wave guide, and then just being computationally controlled by the head where they're relying on the classic Apple force canceling drivers, uh, which is what they've been putting in everything lately to produce the full, the full range. I just feel like in terms of materials, the base and the hinge

27:23and everything on it should be more expensive than the one that doesn't have the materials. These are the guys that sold $600 wheels, um, $1,000 stand for your, I just thought we were past that era of Apple, you know, they've made a lot of things that are good value in the last couple of years. That's true. That's true. But I was surprised when you look at this, when you look at this base, it makes you think of like some of the older HomePod stuff where when you took it off, they'd have like a million bajillion speakers firing in all directions. But I think if you were to open this up, it would be, yeah, right. It would be like mostly empty space. I don't know yet.

27:56Well, I'll wait for the, I fix it tear down, but I think it's mostly a cabinet. Anyway, I'm sorry to interrupt. I just feel like I finally got to the conclusion of reading. It does sound really good in my opinion, to be fair. Yeah. There is that. If you like want a smart home display that is also a good speaker, like it's, you know, when I'm thinking about the other, like the competition of like the Nest Hub and the Echo Show and stuff like that, none of them have particularly good speakers. They're all supposed to be pretty inexpensive, like just to just get a display that can just do the basic stuff in the home. Yeah. And they've certainly, it's Apple.

28:27They've certainly like leaned towards the premium look and feel with the metal and all that. But I think at the end of the day, they do have to make it pretty inexpensively. So I'm not shocked that it's not like 15 different drivers in here or something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about the commercial. Okay. The commercial, I just want to say you can go watch it on YouTube. It's three minutes long. It's like the way they introduce this product to the world. And I think it breaks several really longstanding rules that you would think Apple would have about commercials. Yeah.

28:58One of them is, yeah, like a commercial, especially for a first gen product is supposed to basically instruct you, especially as a reviewer of how they see this being used in the world. Yeah. And the family that like goes through their morning with this product and like has a bunch of different users and stuff. I think the idea was to showcase the multi-user support really cleverly. But a lot of the other stuff was like, not how I think most people will use this. So I kind of disagreed with that. It also didn't, it didn't paint a picture of like,

29:30I want to be like this family. Like, it was not, it was not a, like a positive, uh, you know, usually you're like, Oh wow, this person has the iPhone duo and that it looks like they're like getting so much done. Wow. That's so cool. I want, I want the product so I can be like that. This commercial didn't have any of the, Oh, I want the product so I can be like that. It didn't have that. And I just want to clarify for you. So in case people take that wrong, it's not that we don't understand that families can be chaotic. It's we understand that families can be chaotic and you can just speak to each other in that scenario and not all basically have an intermediate little screen on the table. Let me, let me summarize

30:04the video. So, okay. So it's like a four or five person family home, right? They have this kitchen Island that they have the home view on and they're drilled in, drilled in the middle of the cabinet. Yeah. You gotta plug it in. They drill it in anyway. Uh, they do, it is successful in showing that it can be used for everything that you might need to use it for because they basically go through all these scenarios where the son walks in and he's like, I want some fresh toast. And the dad's like, fine, how do I make fresh

30:37toast? And then he beams it to the thing. It's like, okay, the simplest thing you could possibly. Literally. Yeah. It's like two ingredients, but okay. Anyway. Um, it's, it's French and it's toast and then notably, notably not French, not French, which is another part of the ad. I would argue that might be the only thing that I would like in that scenario. I was like, yeah, that is what I, I just ask it random questions. Yeah. So they, they go through a lot of different scenarios where they're, they're beaming recipes over. They're asking Siri AI if French toast is actually French. The daughter walks up to it and it beams to her face. So it switches

31:08to her messages so she can talk to her boyfriend. And then when the son tries to walk over to it, he can't read her messages. It does a good job of showing off all the features, but it is so fast paced and it is so like chaotic and anxiety inducing. I got gems. It just feels like, okay, your turn. What do you need now? Talk to the home pod, not the home view. Okay. Your turn. What do you need now? Talk to the home view. Like they don't really engage with each other. They're just like for every problem, I will go to the home view. There's also something super unrealistic about this ad, which is that everyone in order to set up their account on

31:44this and for it to recognize their face must have an iPhone or an iPad with their account on it and nearby and recently unlocked. Yeah. And so in this ad at no point does anyone at any point have an iPhone in their hands or near them. And that's fine, I guess. But like these are, you know, 15 year old kids or whatever, like they're texting on the family home display for some reason. She's texting her like secret boyfriend on the thing in front of everybody because they all keep picking it up and like spinning it around, which is crazy.

32:17The main, yeah. I don't know. Okay. I think the main faux pas here is that the entire ad just feels really anxious. Like it moves really fast. It spins around. It's like really fast pace. There's like tense music. And at the end, the husband and wife are like, the kids leave and the husband and wife are like, oh, good morning. And then they just leave. They don't embrace. There's no like, there's no like, that was my last thing. Welcome home. Yeah. None of the, they were going to divorce to be honest. That's what, that's the vibe I was getting. It kind of did. All of the, they did actually, I think the thing was like,

32:49we have a checklist of all the features we need to demo and they managed to get every single one in the video. And also every single one of them, the resolution was like kind of negative. Like there was one where the, the like grandparents called on Facebook and they were like, we don't like your beard. Like we feel like what's going on. We shouldn't be calling you right now. I'll call you back later in the car. And then they just like, hang up. They're like, that was weird. I didn't want to, I don't want to call you right now. And then there was like the, like find my keys moment where it was like, oh, it's in your pocket. You're

33:19the whole time. Like you idiot. Like why would you use that product to do that? And then there was the, the texting thing, which was like the, the kid was like, oh, I want to like spy on my sister's texts. So I look over and that was like kind of a weird feeling. And then we're going to watch them. And then we're going to watch them on the doorbell. And at the end there's this moment, which had such an opportunity to be positive where it was like, wait, my wife just said, see you tonight. Hey Siri, what is the thing that we're doing tonight? And it's like, you have a date with your wife of like ice skating lessons. And instead of being like, oh, nice. Thanks Siri. He's like, oh, weird. Yeah. We got to

33:53talk. And I'm like, I mean, we got to talk. I'm like, what? That was so negative. I just didn't, I felt like it was a very stressful watch. So this exists because Apple, when they make a new product, they, they need that product to integrate with everything else they have ever made. And it just so happens that if they put a thing in your home, it has to integrate with your iPhone, it has to integrate with your Apple TV. It has to integrate with your new security cameras. It has to integrate with like so many things at once. Oh, even there was a moment where they had to demo that it plays music. So briefly, the little annoying

34:26kid was like, play this song. And it plays the song loud for like three seconds. And the mom's like, cut that off. Like, no, we don't need it. You're late for class right now. Everyone is annoyed and stressed at everything that is happening out of the home view. Like the grandparents calling, they're like, oh God, I hate that there's a display that my grandparents can call me in, in the kitchen. Oh God. I hate that my son can randomly play annoying music in the morning. Oh God. I have to make French toast. Like everything they're annoyed about. It was weird. It was so weird. So strange. In my eyes, it was like, we have to make a

34:58commercial that shows everything this can do. And if we did it and how people would normally use it, which is two to three times a day with hours in between, it would be really boring. Yeah. So they're like, how do we get all of what's the scenario we can do all of it in? I feel like I could come up with like, well, exactly what you said. Do the same thing with a family, trying a bunch of stuff in the morning, but make them not hate each other. Yeah. It was like high anxiety. They were all annoyed. It was like, oh, modern family. I think they're like poking fun at like the sister, like being smarter than the

35:30brother. And like, it's not actually French. You can do that when not every other thing is like negative. Yeah. Also they drilled a hole in their cabin, in their cabin, which is crazy. Who am I asking? They did drill a hole in the center of their, their kitchen

Apple Smart Home Accessories

35:42island. Yeah. Okay. So this home view integrates with a bunch of new smart home stuff. Um, notably Apple never really got heavy into the smartphone home game, right? Like they made Apple home. They made all these things. They, they have home kit, which has always been their smart home software, but they never really made a lot of first party stuff. And then they got excited about matter because matter allowed, you know, all these other third parties. What's the matter with matter? Smart home protocol, uh, that allows

36:12all of these third parties to sort of integrate together, work well together. Cool. But they did eventually realize like, oh, we're getting our lunch eaten by Google and Amazon. And if we just made our own quote unquote first party stuff, which they still didn't do, uh, we could really win this space. We could really lean into the smartphone space. So they announced a new thing called the Apple home collection, which is a partnership between Apple and LG and Schneider electric. Uh, there's a bunch of stuff. There's a bunch of cameras. There are

36:46temperature sensors, there's thermostats. And when you use these things, the main kind of headline feature is that you can tap your iPhone to it to set it up really quickly, whether or not that solves the problem of the smart home in which doing a smart home is a ton of logic and is just very complicated and confusing. I'm not sure. I have found this sometimes very hard to set up. They announced a ton of different devices. They're all really expensive, like very expensive. Some of them do have some unique features that I haven't really seen on other smartphone, smart home devices before. Uh, so we can just go through them. There's an LG indoor

37:21camera, which is plug in. So it plugs into the, uh, to the wall $200, but it can tilt up and down remotely. It articulates. It articulates. Yeah. Uh, which is kind of cool. It's kind of a weird setup. It like kind of looks like the Pixar lamp in the sense that a little bit. Yeah. The hinges are all very obvious. There are like, there have been smart home things that, uh, like spin and then have their own tilt. But yeah, this is like, and then there's the Amazon that just sold the drone that flies around. Um, so one cool thing about this camera

37:54is that when you're not using it, it tilts down, which I, which I found cool. When you get home, it goes, Oh, all right. You don't need to like monitor the inside anymore. It makes it so nobody feels like something could just be watching them without their knowledge. And I think that's kind of cool. Especially with LG. Uh, there's an outdoor camera. That's $300. That's plug in. There's a $400 floodlight camera. The colors on both of these. I have a big problem with because what's up with the aluminum again. I'm not, it's not even the aluminum. It's that. So it's black or aluminum, but the base on all of the, or silver.

38:25Sorry. Yeah. The base is black on both black base. Like, unless you have like the modern farmhouse or like the, like LA carved into the hill, full matte black home, this does not match with your siding. Like most people have siding that is a light color and to just have this giant black brick on it now. Yeah. Feels really weird. It feels like this super high tech thing on your house. That's probably, this feels like a 2011 aesthetic. Yeah. This is, this is like the movies that were predicting the future. Like you have the futuristic home.

38:57Yeah. Yeah. You know, maybe, maybe what we're learning is Apple is good at designing really modern feeling devices, but the home design is a different type of design that they're not good at. Yeah. I could see that. Like the, like the home stuff. Cause this kind of, this dips into the headphone world too. I'm going so into the weeds, but like all these headphones, every pair of noise canceling headphones we've ever seen is like lightweight plastic. You're going to wear it for six straight hours. It's like super, super cheap feeling. Except for the, and then Apple comes along and they're like metal. Yeah. We're doing

39:28all metal. And it's like, okay, I guess it's not terrible, but it is really heavy. It is heavy. Vision Pro comes along like every other, yeah, metal, like heavy, like every other VR headset is like plastic and lightweight. And the home is kind of different too. It's like fabric, light, like plastic. And then they come along and they're like, how about metal? How about sharp corners and like drilled speaker holes and like all this stuff? Yeah. And maybe they're just not good at this yet. They got it half right with the HomePod mini and the HomePod and the fabrics. Those look so nice. I think that's why I'm so surprised. That's true. That home view looks so different. Yeah. And actually it looks more like all

40:01these LG products. Right. I was going to say like the base of the home view looks similar to the LG cameras and floodlights and stuff. Too brutal. I don't. Uh, yeah. $400 for a single floodlight is also insane. Um, but I guess if you can afford a home, maybe you can afford this. I live in a cellar. So there's an LG video doorbell that is wired. Um, that's $250. It has two cameras notably. That I found very cool. That's clever. Um, there's a main camera that's 2.5 K resolution that points like directly at you. And then there's one that points down. So if you get a package, you can switch to the package view. I'm curious how well this works

40:35because a lot of other doorbell cameras have a single camera and they're just making an ultra wide. So you can see the person and you can see the package. And then if you get a, like one of those notifications where someone delivers a package, you can see the video of the person putting the package down. Yeah. How does it work for this one? It seems like you can manually switch between looking at the out camera and the down camera. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, I don't know. Is this better that it's two cameras? Is the down camera underneath it? Yeah, it is. Straight down. Because it is kind of strange that it is like cylindrical and like now a cylinder is going on

41:05your flat wall outside and looks kind of strange. This again is like kind of weird. At least this one is silver, although there is a black one. There is a black one. Or it's like silver with black on top. Not that bad, but like this wouldn't really fit on a lot of houses either. Yeah. Because this brushed metal and like house siding or brick, like this on brick would look so strange. It would look really out of place. Yeah. Yeah. In my, um, my hands-on event, uh, they showed it on the home view. So you could see both the main camera and the one facing down. One facing down is FHD and you

41:37could really tell. Clearly it doesn't really matter. It's just a package, you know, but you know, whatever. Okay. Uh, there is an LG smart deadbolt lock, which is $350. Damn. That's crazy. Uh, it uses UWD technology. Uh, technology. So if you walk up to it and you have your iPhone in your pocket, it should automatically unlock. That's actually awesome. Yeah. I love that. They have that in a lot of products though. It's not really. I steal your iPhone. I also can steal your, everything in your house. It's like the phone you expect to be like super secure. So like,

42:07I guess maybe, but they have everything. They have like all the options. Like they have a touchpad on it as well with a number keypad. And then they also have a hidden key like lock area. True. So that's great. And I think like, that's not way more expensive than competing options. So I think that's not too bad. My deadbolt was not, I'm pretty sure my deadbolt is like definitely not near that. No, of course. I mean, it's like under a hundred bucks or like a hundred bucks. So you can give guest users access to this, which is also pretty nice. Um, and it works with the doorbell.

42:39So if someone rings your doorbell, you can then just quickly, but like accept and then it unlocks, which is kind of nice. Uh, they have a $40 LG temperature sensor, a $200 LG smart thermostat that looks very similar to the, um, Nest. Everything is just like 20% more expensive than you expect. Yeah. The Nest looks a little bit better though, in my opinion, cause it's domed, but this is not domed. This is like flat. Um, which is kind of weird. That's the Schneider electric one. There's the Schneider electric one, which is really ugly, uh, which is $200. But I guess if you're already in the Schneider ecosystem, both smart thermo home thermostats though,

43:13will adapt to the temperature based on if someone is at home. So that's kind of nice. Like if you're not home, it probably won't, you know, do that. Yeah. I'm sure. I'm sure a lot of everything is except for maybe the, like, if you bring the doorbell, I'm assuming Apple will do a good job of in the thing, bring the doorbell, probably have a buttons unlock. That's the only thing you said so far. That's not part of every single smart home. I need to remind the audience that I live in a cellar for the third time today. I have not used any of these types of products. I, this is all fairly standard functionality

43:46wise. It's just a little more expensive and a little more metallic. Yeah. I think, you know, what's kind of hard about it though, is that it's all like grouped into Apple home and Apple home is still very outdated. Like they just updated the health app and it's so modern. It's so nice and it's beautiful. That was the most overdue. Now that the home app is overdue. You really need to do that with the home app. Yeah, I agree. Like really,

HomePod Mini and HomeKit Updates

44:08really. Yeah. As Shrek would say. So HomePod mini 2, also a new product. Barely. Barely. Five new colors. Well, five colors. White, blue, green, pink, and black. I think they call it midnight, but it's black. Well, I don't know. It's black. It's like dark, dark, dark blue. Anyway. I hate that. When you pair it to an Apple TV 4K, you can set four of them up for surround sound or you can like pair them with regular HomePods. Don't do that. Which I forgot they still sell. Can you set up four HomeViews for surround sound? Unfortunately, probably.

44:40Siri AI is coming in a future software update. Oh my. Wait, isn't that the whole new thing with this HomePod? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, man. So wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, wait. I want to get this straight. So the old HomePod mini. Yep. Is not getting the new Siri AI. No. The new HomePod mini. Yeah. The only thing new about it is this slightly new top screen and that it will be getting Siri AI. Yeah. But it doesn't actually have it yet. I don't really know why they couldn't do this on the previous one. The previous HomePod mini had that glowing kind of top screen that would like glow when you would touch it. Yeah. Now it does that too.

45:15But it's slightly different. Slightly different. A couple more colors so it can match your album art. It matches the album art. That's it. Uh, and then also they have new ambient modes so you can like have rain playing and stuff. Uh, funny enough, like when you play rain and stuff, it, it also dances with color, which I hope you can turn off because if I'm playing rain, it's probably usually cause I'm trying to go to sleep and I don't want it just glowing on my wall. Zero nits, please. Um, it does now also listen for smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and we'll send notification to your phone if it hears it, which I think is very

45:49good. It didn't do that before. Interesting. Cause I thought your phone would do that already. Well, but it's when you're not home. Yeah. Oh, I see. I see. Like I get my Google home alerts me if it hears glass breaking or a monoxide alarm or a fire. Other new feature is they can also be speakers for your Mac. Now I saw that. I think that's hilarious. Uh, in my briefing, for some reason they were playing Angry Birds on the Mac. I also saw that. I, and this setup, Ellis, I think you'd get a kick out of this. They just had an iMac and a HomePod mini on either

46:20side. Yeah. So you can have $300 of speakers. Yeah. Both of them are a Siri smart speaker and there are your, there, there are the setup. $300 of speakers for your iMac. But the whole thing's wireless though, right? Like you don't need to plug the HomePod mini. No, it is wireless and they said they, but they both plug into the wall still. Yeah. They said they re-architected the AirPlay, whatever for the home for specifically for connecting them to a Mac. I don't know what that means. I don't know how much truth is in that. So you can hear the birds footsteps. I didn't even

46:52know Angry Birds was on the Mac. I mean, when Apple does gaming demos, it's always really got to pull from like deep. Cut the rope. Yeah. That's their gaming demo. It's literally a beer app. If you are spending the gun app, like what is, who is this person? I have, I have an iMac already, but I don't want to use the built-in speakers in the iMac, which are fine. I want $300 of better speakers. Yeah. I'm going to choose two HomePod minis as my speakers. It's strange. I find. I've

47:24never thought to do that before. Like look, the pro display or studio display XDR does not have speakers, right? So the studio display. Wait, no, it does have speakers. The pro display did not have speakers. The pro display did not have speakers. Yeah. So maybe, but then just. If you buy a pro display XDR and then two HomePod minis for your speakers, I need to know that a singular person out there. It has to be about volume, right? Like two HomePod minis must be able to get louder. Yeah. Yeah. Because I was thinking about, I was like, for that price, you could get

47:55one of my favorite cheap studio monitors, the JBL 305 Mark II. You can get a lot of speaker for $300. That's a $100 speaker. You get two of them for $200. You get the audio interface and the cables for the rest. Yeah. But the problem is that speaker doesn't get very loud. Like it sounds really good, but turned up all the way. It's not what I would describe it. So I wonder if two HomePod minis cook in together. I think Apple's argument would be ease of setup and just like you have, this is so many of Apple's unexplainable products is like, well, you have a bunch of extra money and this is easy. Yeah. Like that's the real target demographic. How much could a speaker cost Michael?

48:25Like you, you have a bunch of extra money and this is easy. So what? Okay. I guess, uh, I have an iMac and I want better speakers. I have a bunch of extra money and they make speakers. So I guess I'm getting HomePods, huh? Like that's, I guess that's it. Maybe if you get like a free HomePod with something and then you get another free HomePod later, you're like, oh now, but they got a match during Black Friday, they do kind of throw. So wait, you can have four of them. You can have a, you can have a pink iMac and two pink HomePod minis. Yeah. Like you could have surround sound.

48:56Yeah, you can. Yeah. Why four? Cause you got a lot of money. They got to surround you. But why not five? Like the standard surround sound. That's an odd number. We don't do it. Yeah. We only do pairs here. Only pairs. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The, the, the Siri AI coming later thing, I found insane. Um, I feel like Apple is dropping so many products in Q3 and four of this year that they had to release them now, even though Siri AI is not ready yet for it, which by the way,

49:29you shouldn't release something that you say has Siri AI features when Siri AI is not ready. Cause you already played that card and it really didn't go well for you. That was Apple intelligence. It was different things. Oh, right. Right. Don't worry about that. That's a good point. It was Apple intelligence. It was not Siri. Can I ask a dumb question? It's probably not dumb. I bet you. What is the difference? Of what? All the AI. The Siri? Oh. Siri AI. Well, the Siri, the context stuff of it being able to pull information from your, your personal context is like that's big

50:01new thing. It's so great. So a lot of their demos will be like, Hmm, what was that French toast recipe that Jen texted me? And then it'll pull it from your texts and we'll find it. And that's the thing that the old Siri couldn't do. Yeah. And that is for some people very helpful. Legitimately helpful. Um, but so like, can the speaker do the same thing? Like what are we doing? Yes. Not yet. Well, play, play that album that, uh, my friend texted me about. Yeah. Or, uh, yeah, something like that podcast. And then it can just play it directly

50:32from Apple. Like it is that those features work well. Uh, Apple TV had one that I thought was funny, which is like a lot of their demos I think are a little unrealistic. And this one is also a slightly unrealistic, but it was like, um, what was that show that Bob told me to watch? Play that. Yeah. And then it just opened up Ted Lasso season one, episode one, zero, zero, zero. And I was like, all right, I guess that's probably what I would have done. Sure. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, that's, that's what it's supposed to be helpful way. It has to be an Apple TV show. How many products have they promised this, like these

51:05AI would be on and then they haven't launched yet? Well, they're promising it for everything. So it's on the iPhone. It's on iOS. It's in beta still. Right. I think, uh, maybe not. So it's still not like actually rolled out yet. It is on the iPhone. It's on home view. It's coming with home view. That's why it's even more confused that HomePod mini doesn't have it. Well, okay. Home HomePod mini comes out October 30th. Home view comes out in November. Yeah. So it's possible that it will roll out to HomePod by the time home view is out. It's in beta on our iPhones. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. I can't believe Siri. I still admit.

51:39I know. Okay. Apple, Apple uses the beta tag for the products that they are the least confident in being good yet. Remember the, uh, the Apple watch feature where it's like listening to you all the time. That one's in beta. That's not even in beta yet. Right. Well, when it comes out, they said when it does come out, it'll be in beta. It'll be in beta. Yeah. You're like,

Apple TV 4K Overview

51:57all right. I see what you're doing. Yeah. Okay. Last product. They have a new Apple TV 4k. A lot of people have been waiting for this faster performance. It can act as a home hub for smart home monitoring and stuff. It plugs into all of this, you know, stuff has far field microphones. So you control it. You can control it just from the, the brick or whatever it is. Um, the remote has find my support with precision finding and you can chime it. And the cool thing is if you just buy the new remote, it will work with the old Apple TVs. So you can still find the remote. Even if you care with the old Apple TVs, that's great, but it's $300. It costs the same as a home view, which is way more expensive than

52:33the old Apple TVs were. What was the last 4k? I need 399 better come with like a year of Apple TV. $299. $299. Sorry. Yeah. Still point stands. It's very expensive. That's wild. Like I could buy a whole TV for that price. Yeah. I could buy two TVs. What are you going to watch on it Mariah? When there's no Apple TV 4k plus. So true. Yeah. I, everything's expensive. That's, that's sort of the takeaway that I had was like, everything feels a little half baked. Like they're just trying to make the ecosystems work together because that's what

53:05Apple does. But like a lot of the scenarios that they introduced for like, I would never do that, but they had to do it because if they didn't do it, it would feel underbaked. But then for some reason they doubled the price on like everything. I feel like for years we've watched every single other company scramble to try and build the ecosystem that Apple has. And for one time we got to watch Apple scramble with an ecosystem thing and be like, here's a bunch of stuff. And then look, we've got the ecosystem. Which is kind of crazy because what they usually do is just wait a few years and then introduce a better version. But this time I feel like they waited a few years and then everyone's

53:37like, they waited a few years and then like looked at their calendar and were like, Oh s**t, we were supposed to do that. LG fixed this for us. Yeah. The home stuff to me was interesting because Apple makes a very finite number of products and they want to have a very high quality first party option for a bunch of stuff that they do not make. A doorbell, a thermostat, a camera, like all this stuff. And I guess in theory they could have spent a couple more years like making their own Apple thing. They probably will. Maybe. Yeah. Maybe at some point they'll also be metal and expensive, but like instead partnering

54:09with the go-to's, which I guess Schneider Electric is one of them. LG is also, I guess, in there. Um, allowed them to get to market more quickly with some stuff because they're experienced at making that already, but it feels less Apple-like because it's, it is less Apple-like by definition. So, yeah. So home view comes out, uh, pre-order now available November 13th. The Apple home collection, I think you can pre-order now as well. Uh, the Apple TV 4k comes out November 13th as well. And the home pod mini two comes out October

54:4230th. Sweet. So that's kind of the roundup that $350 deadbolt. That's yeah. Sorry. I keep looking all the numbers next to each other. And like, that's almost as much as the floodlights, which feels like it needs to do so much more, but I don't know. $200 for one indoor camera is insane to me. That also is for one. It like moves around, I guess, but like the deadbolt is like, I have to spin, I have to spin a physical lock that I'm not even providing. Yeah. Somewhere

55:13out there, somebody is starting their first smart home and they're like, can I get one of everything? Can I get a home view? Yeah. A doorbell, an outside camera, an inside camera or what that bill would be. And they just spent literally $2,000, $1,500. Yeah. Which shout out to them. I guess if you own a home, look, you're spending $1.8 million on a home or whatever, whatever homes cost these days. How much did a home cost? $10. Okay. We got to take a break. Um, we got a lot to talk about. We got Microsoft. We got more Microsoft.

55:44We got, uh, Bose. We got stuff. It said Bose here, right? No. Oh, I said, Oh, that was bass. Why did I say Bose? Anyway, we don't got that. We got Fitbit again. Let's go. Trivia. Okay. Hear me out. Smooth. I went to the press release. The surround sound thing is kind of cool. For what? Because it sounded good. Well, it's, it's because if you get, okay, so you spend $300, Apple TV, 4k, right? Uh-huh. Then you spend $100 on a HomePod mini. No, $150.

56:21Oh my God. Okay. You spend $150. Then you spend $450 more on three more HomePod minis, right? Mm-hmm. The fact that you can just plug them all in, put them in your room, and then the, the, for the Apple TV can sense their location and automatically calibrate. The ease of setup is what they're doing. Yeah. Yeah. That's a hard thing. Like you can't really buy that. And, uh, that's still a $900 surround sound setup, which like is not

56:51crazy. The cheapest one, but it's also very far from the most expensive. Ellis, I'm glad you liked them so much. We will set up the new audio room in the new office. No, no. If we do, for some reason, we are lucky enough to get four HomePod mini review units and an Apple TV 4k. I will be setting this up. All right, let's do trivia. I'm feeling that today. So last week when I was researching the Samsung mega, a smartphone, I learned about a thing on the mega

57:22that I had never heard of. This was a predecessor of Bixby, a voice assistant on a bunch of Samsung Galaxy phones from the time. Um, it was discontinued and replaced by Bixby. What was it called? Wait, so the preset predecessor to Bixby? Yes. The voice assistant on Samsung phones before Bixby. It was in fact on the Samsung mega, the hilarious big small phone we talked about last week before I destroyed. Huh? And it's Samsung specific, not Android. It is Samsung

57:52specific. That's correct. That I should know. I feel like as soon as you guys see the name, you're going to be like, oh yeah. Okay, good. That's a good hint. All right. Well,

Surface Laptop Ultra Specs

58:00we'll think about it. Answers will be at the end, like usual. We'll be right back.

58:13Support for the show comes from Shopify. Starting a business requires you to be resourceful. And the more you flex that muscle, the more you see opportunities for growth. For example, launching your business with Black Friday approaching means you can take advantage of the extra online traffic. Shopify is there to help you make it all happen. Shopify is a platform for a record-breaking, reliable holiday selling season for businesses at every stage. Their pre-built website themes and AI site builder make it easy to launch a beautiful, professional-looking store, and you don't even need to touch a line of code to do it. They also have a mobile app that lets

58:44you run your store from anywhere, so their e-commerce expert, Sidekick, can help you manage almost any business task with a single prompt, including holiday discounts. With Shopify, you can easily sell everywhere people shop online, in person, across social media, and even in AI chats. If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com slash Waveform to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com slash Waveform. Go to Shopify.com slash Waveform today to hear your first... Support for the show comes from Framer. The future of website building is one that seamlessly blends

59:18all of your tools that we have available, and you should use a platform that has it all and stays useful even after you launch. That's what Framer is. Framer is the AI website builder that helps creators, teams, and businesses ship production-ready sites faster than ever while getting every detail right. You're able to prompt, inspect, edit, and publish in one place at a whole new pace. On Framer, agents and humans work in tandem, so agents bring speed and scale, while people bring taste and judgment and control. And that's what all takes place in the same workspace, where the real site is designed, managed, reviewed, and published. Everyone's ideas land on the canvas,

59:53stay editable, and can be published when the team is ready. Framer is an enterprise-level solution. Thousands of businesses, from early-stage startups to Fortune 500s, are choosing to build their websites in Framer, where changes take minutes instead of days. Learn how you can get more out of your site from a Framer specialist or get started building for free today at framer.com slash wave for 30% off a Framer Pro annual plan. That's framer.com slash wave. Rules and restrictions may apply. Support for the show comes from Pipedrive. Sales teams spend up to 50% of their time on admin work

1:00:24rather than selling and building relationships and closing deals. They can really use a tool that covers all the admin stuff. That way, sales teams can actually focus on the work they were hired to do. That's where Pipedrive comes in. It's an intelligent, AI-powered sales CRM loved by growing sales teams. Their new meeting intelligence feature, like an AI note-taker, are built right into the CRM. Pipedrive automatically pulls deal history, email records, and previous conversations. You can walk into a call already briefed. During meetings, Pipedrive's AI note-taker records and takes notes so you can stay in the conversation. Then it turns those notes into accurate,

1:00:56auto-drafted CRM updates ready for you to review and approve. The end result? Less admin, more selling. Switch to a CRM built by salespeople for salespeople and join the over 100,000 companies already using Pipedrive. Our link gets you an exclusive 30-day free trial instead of the usual 14-day trial, so no credit card or payment needed. Just head to pipedrive.com slash wave form to get started. That's pipedrive.com slash wave form, and you can be up and running in minutes. All right, welcome back. Let's talk about Microsoft. They've dropped a new product

1:01:27that I'm very curious about, and I actually want to hear your guys' thoughts on how we should review this, but Surface Laptop Ultra. I've been a fan of Surface Laptop Sneaky for a while now. I've been making beautiful matte black laptops running Windows for a while, and the newest one is our most powerful laptop yet. It's RTX Spark. Can we retire that phase from everyone? Well, I guess it's typically the most powerful one yet, but this one is significantly because we've had all this Apple Silicon. Remember, M1 comes out, and they leave Intel in the dust.

1:01:59The jump between Intel MacBook Pros and Apple Silicon MacBook Pros was legendary, and we've been thinking about it ever since. People are thinking about M6, but also still have M1s, right? Amazing jump. Unified memory, the whole architecture, beautiful. Wonderful. Windows World has still been sort of like kind of trying to figure out what to do with that. Like do they do – because we've had all these – what are they called? Like arm chips, all these arm chips, and we're like, is that the answer, or is it just going to be like we should make our own version of Apple Silicon? RTX Spark comes out, and V is like, here's essentially not

1:02:33the same thing, but a very similar architecture, unified memory, and dramatically more powerful and more headroom and more speed. And that is what's showing up in these new super high-end laptops. And AI. And AI, of course. I mean, that – if you look at any of the literature, there's a lot of local AI in there too. Built for local AI and 3D graphics. Yes. But 3D graphics also in Windows land includes gaming, includes like 3D rendering and like ray tracing and all the sorts of things, and like a creative workflow. So there's other things that this could be good at. Anyway, I'm spinning around the point, which is that there is a new

1:03:04super, super premium Surface laptop. It's called the Surface Laptop Ultra. It starts at – is this right? $2,600. Yes. And goes way, way, way, way up. There's a lot of different types of people who would be interested in this. But we also notably – we're recording this in the middle of October, right? Yeah. And we all are expecting at the end of October to get that like Halloween time Apple event where we get a new super high-end touchscreen MacBook Pro. And I do feel like these are the same product on each side of the fence, right? The new, most powerful version yet, and it's

1:03:38matte black, hopefully, and a touchscreen, and just like their absolute most premium offering for either creative workflows or local AI or whatever else you plan on doing with this high-end hardware. There is a silver one too, by the way. They're not all matte black. I'll never get it. There is silver. I'll never get it. But the matte black one looks so sick. There's also this magnetic USB Type-C port on the side. So you probably know all these MacBook Pros. We've had this little MagSafe thing now, which is not a USB Type-C port. So you kind of are, I guess, theoretically doing MagSafe instead of a USB Type-C port.

1:04:10Yeah. You can still charge via USB-C, but – Exactly. Yeah. But they threw MagSafe on the side there, which is kind of cool. Yeah. This one, they've put a magnetic USB Type-C connector on the side. So if you want to use the magnetic power connector, it's great. If you don't use it, fine. It's just a USB Type-C port. Yeah. Well, and Surfaces have always had that kind of proprietary, weird, like – Surface Connect port. Yeah. It's almost looked like a PCIe slot-like thing that magnetically steps in and pops off really easy. Yeah. I'm interested to see how easy this will – like MagSafe is there because it pops

1:04:45off really easy. So if you kick a wire with a laptop on a desk, it doesn't fly off. Yeah. The way this works is it's just a USB-C port with really thick sides that have magnets on it. So it feels like if you pull it horizontally, it probably will snap off pretty easy. But in some other directions, I'm wondering if it will actually pop out because the USB-C port still goes in pretty far. Yeah. All of the videos that I saw were only it like kind of like pivoting in on an X or Z axis. It had like a little mechanism they did for demos, and it had an extremely specific way

1:05:16it still snapped in. But if it gets tugged out up, I don't really know how it's going to work. Would like to see it. Very interested in seeing it. They made a big deal about the fact that it's the most ports ever on a Surface laptop. They have a USB-A. They have an SD card reader. They have three USB-C ports, including the magnetic one. Yes. They have a headphone jack. And HDMI. And a HDMI port. Full size. Pretty good. Pretty good. And then all the RTX Spark excitement too, which is like, this is a super, super powerful chip. It has a ton of onboard integrated memory, which is shared between the GPU and

1:05:49the CPU. It will get the same power, or I guess 99% of the power on battery versus plugged in, which is not always true in Windows Land, but that is true for these. And they're claiming 15 hours of local video playback and 12 hours of active web usage. Efficient. Good battery life with these big bright screens. These touchscreen, like huge, I think there's a 4K screen option for this, right? 3270 by 2180, up 220 hertz. Okay. So not quite 4K, but close. And there's also another equivalent in Windows Land, which

1:06:19is the Asus ProArt P16. They're also doing an RTX Spark laptop that's super, super, super high end. And it'll do the same stuff. It's like $5,000, $6,000. Oh my. You can get a $7,000 one with a terabyte of storage and like a 4K, super high res touch screen, super bright, super powerful. It's going to be awesome. So they're doing these super high end laptops and we're going to have this MacBook Pro to compare it to very soon. And I'm just excited to see how close the RTX Spark version gets, or maybe even surpasses because you see the GPU numbers.

1:06:50I was going to say, can I read you the two processors you can purchase? Please. Um, there's the NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X with 5,120 core GPU and 18 core CPU that is available in a 24 or 32 gigabytes of unified memory version. Or there's the NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X with 6,144 core GPU and 20 core CPU. And that's available. I believe that you can go up to 128 gigs. Yeah. Very funny. So I need to somehow figure out how to compare the like 80 core GPU on MacBook Pro with the

1:07:216,144 core GPU on RTX Spark. I don't know what I'm going to do there, but we'll figure it out. Funny enough, you cannot in the pre-order page, get this, the higher processor. You can only get in 32 gigs of memory in platinum. You have to go matte black to get the 4864 128. Yeah. Apple did that with the MacBook Pro as well. Really? I think it only came with the- They color gated the high end. Silly. I think so. Yeah. With the M3, with the M3 Max, I believe they color gated it. That's really funny. Something I do like about this laptop a lot is that it's very repairable and upgradable.

1:07:54So you can, it has internal wayfinding, published repair guides, replacement parts available, upgradable storage. So you can upgrade the storage yourself, which is really nice. Yeah. That's just, that's really nice to see overall, generally. These comparisons to M5 MacBook Pro, is this to M5 Max? Yes. Compared to M5 MacBook, M5 Pro MacBook Pro, 2.1 times faster to first time token. Time to first token. Time to first token. I don't even know what that means. 4.3x faster image generation,

1:08:256.2x faster video generation. Yeah. Wow. You can, you can see who these are targeted at. Oh yeah. Yeah. They're, I mean, built for AI and image generation. Time to first token. Oh my God. I don't even know what that means. But yeah, that, I think we went over a bunch of the specs. Most of them, like the cheapest one is 24 gigabytes unified memory, 512 SSD. That's that like $2,500 one, right? And then you can go up to one terabyte, two terabytes to get into the like almost $6,000 version. Yeah. They're ridiculously expensive.

1:08:56One thing in this event, or are you guys done? Do you have anything else about Surface? No. Ultra? I, not really. I've always really liked their laptops. I think they're sick. I think this is sick. I don't really give a damn about local AIs or anything. So this is too much. I mean, I think it'll be a sick computer, but I don't see me ever spending that kind of money for it. Yeah. Because of that. I think a big part of this and reviewing these obviously is where this comes in is who is this for? Yeah. Yeah. And did I talk about this last time? When we were thinking about, we have the M5 Ultra Mac Studio and the M6 Mac Mini, like three or four years ago, all the ads from Mac Mini and

1:09:32Mac Studio were creative workflows. Yeah. Look at how much faster Premiere and After Effects are. Look at how much faster Final Cut is. Look how much faster it is to render, to like render this 3D scene or to edit a ton of photos or all this stuff. There's a lot of creative workflows in their examples. Yeah. And people would always give shit to YouTubers because it'd be like, all you ever do to benchmark is like export videos. Like that's not the only use case, but it's like, well, that's one of the reasons people are buying these things. Like that's what it's for. Now, if you go to M5 Ultra Mac Studio's website, or if you go to M6 Mac Mini's website, a lot

1:10:07of it is time to first token, time to generate images, time to generate videos, all the stuff like compiling and all the stuff that you do in AI land is much more center focus for these products because that's now who it's primarily for. It's obviously still really good for creative stuff, but that's also true about a lot of these, the Surface Ultra, the Pro Art. The Pro Art, they, they, a lot of the Pro Art line for a long time has been like the nicest screens and the nicest creative tools. So it's still probably targeted for that. But again, you see, yeah, Pro, it's in the name,

1:10:40it's Pro Art, but it's going to have a lot of AI token generation benchmarks too, because that's what these chips are great at. And that's what the, the buyers, these buyers are making a purchase decision based on how much money they think it will make them back. They're thinking, should I spend the extra $800 to get the 128 gigs of internal memory? So I can run the larger model so I can have that model work more to make me more money later. That's the purchases that they're making. So when we're buying these laptops and we're not doing that local AI stuff, doesn't mean

1:11:12anything to us, but there are some of those people who are trying to buy these laptops. One of the examples they gave in this event was they're like, oh, here's the Surface Laptop Ultra running GitHub Copilot. And then he's like, and now I'm just going to alt tab to like, I'm mastering this movie in DaVinci Resolve. And then he's like, alt tabs again. He's like, and I'm playing Gears of War the entire time. This is the experience of being a freelance creative. You're doing all these things at the exact same time. Yeah. Which is a good, I mean, that's impressive. It's just very funny that it's just like, I'm going to do some AI coding and then

1:11:44master this film. And now I'm going to play Gears of War. Yeah. It is crazy capable how good these machines are. Like some of the demos that these companies give us, I make fun of Apple all the time for these. They'll be like, and here's my final cut timeline. It's like a three minute video with like a bunch of clips. And they're like, I'd like to add a LUT to all of my clips and I'll just spam like just a bunch of things. And they'll be like, and now I'll export it. And now I'm done. And now it's got captions and now I'm moving on. And I'm like, what? Nobody edits like that. But sure. It's that it's like a general fast way of demoing how powerful

1:12:16and how quick something works. How quick. Yeah. Yeah. So I can extrapolate my own workflows based on their insane demos. Yeah. Yeah. You want to talk about the search functionality?

Windows Taskbar Search Update

1:12:24Yeah. There's one other thing in here, which is just like a new update to the Windows search experience that I found, which I mentioned previously when Ella said he was having all his network problems. But it seems like Windows is adding a much better search function within their like taskbar search, which is essentially what we've been talking about in a lot of other things, which is like a search feature that just understands you better, can deal with typos and synonyms and makes finding files and settings and everything on your laptop so much easier, including inline previews of docs and photos and videos and quick actions inside the like

1:12:58dialogue on the taskbar, which seems like something Windows has needed forever. Thank God. I know. It's just like now I can be like, why is my sound driver not working anymore? Or like, why can't I get the Wi-Fi? You can run commands and stuff. I just feel like it has always been a pain in the neck to try and find things on a Windows computer, even as an experienced Windows user. And having this will make everyone's lives easier. If it works. It was a nice demo. We'll see how it actually works in the end. I mean, it can't get worse.

1:13:30Everything in this world can get worse. We've been doing this podcast for 300 episodes and we've seen a lot of things get worse. Almost 400. Yeah. Closer to 400. So yeah, I just want to shout that out. I'm excited to try that and see if it actually works as well. And I'm very excited for that, actually. It used to be a society. Okay. Well, after the break, we're going to talk about a new Fitbit that is, I just want to preview this. What if the Fitbit air, but with a screen? Huh. Never seen that before.

1:14:01Now you're thinking. Now we'll, okay. Well, I would, I'm interested. Now I'm thinking with local AI. I'm excited to get there. We need to hire people with bright ideas like this. Yeah. That's right. All right, Alex.

1:14:14All right. We've been talking about computationally intense Windows products, specifically hardware. I want to talk about what at the time, I assume, must have been an insanely graphically intense piece of software, MS Paint. Yes. Nice. A classic, right? Classic. MS Paint actually comes from a predecessor called PC Paint, which originally was built to complement what piece of computer hardware?

1:14:47Complement. Complement. Oh, wow. PC Paint. To complement a piece of hardware? I can't find a lot of info on PC Paint. It seems like it's effectively MS Paint. Like they just sort of bought it, rebadged it, and republished it. So it came out after MS Paint? Oh. No, it came out before MS Paint. When Microsoft was like, we need this to complement a piece of hardware we're making, they just picked it up. Okay. Do we need to name the exact name of the piece of hardware or just like what it is?

1:15:17Just what it is. What it is. Oh, really? What it is. What it is. It's definitely an Etch-a-Sketch. Cool. Okay. Okay. I just guess. It's before my time off. Etch-a-Sketch. But I'll make a really good guess, I promise. Okay. We'll be right back.

1:15:35We'll be right back.

1:16:05From Jira, Confluence, Slack, GitHub, and more, so nothing falls through the cracks. With Jira, you can actually share that context with the AI agents you already use, like Claude, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot, assign them work directly, or connect your agents through MCP. Spend less time digging through endless links and DMs, less time chasing down what got decided and by who, and more time actually shipping. Learn more at jira.com. That's J-I-R-A dot com. At T-Mobile, the new iPhone 18 Pro is here with a big leap in battery life, and you can

1:16:36get it for nothing up front. With so many reasons to choose T-Mobile, you'll want to talk about it. I heard at T-Mobile, you can get iPhone 18 Pro for nothing up front and get $1,000 off. Pass it on. Pay nothing today. No taxes, no fees, nothing down. Pass it on. Hey Mickey, pass it on! iPhone 18 Pro has the most advanced iPhone camera ever. Pass it on. At T-Mobile, you can get iPhone 18 Pro for nothing up front. Pass it on.

1:17:07At T-Mobile, get $1,000 off the amazing iPhone 18 Pro with no trade in needed. With 36 monthly bill credits when you switch to T-Mobile on a qualifying plan. If you cancel entire account before receiving all bill credits, credit stop and balance on required finance agreement is due. Example, $1,199.99, iPhone 18 Pro, 256 gigabytes. Bill credits in if you pay off device early. Qualifying credit, new line, port in, and service. $85 more per month with auto pay plus taxes and fees required. $35 device connection charged due at sale. Visit T-Mobile.com. Experience a membership that backs what you're building with American Express Business Platinum. Enjoy complimentary access to the American Express Global Lounge Collection and apply to

1:17:42find out your welcome offer, which could be as high as 300,000 membership rewards points. American Express Business Platinum. There's nothing like it. Terms apply. Welcome offers vary and you may not be eligible for an offer. Learn more at AmericanExpress.com slash business dash platinum.

Fitbit Edge Fitness Tracker

1:18:01All right, we're back. Lastly, though, I wanted to cover what David mentioned before, the Fitbit Edge, which is a cool but kind of confusing product. And I think the only reason it's confusing is because how everyone's titling all the articles about it, which is we all know Google acquired Fitbit a few years ago. Google and Fitbit have made it nothing short of extremely confusing by keeping both of the names and continually going back and forth. It really reminds me of like Google Home and Nest, where I still don't know if I'm supposed to call things a Nest thing or a Google thing or if it's in the Nest app or the Google app.

1:18:32It's all very confusing. Because they change it every other month. It really feels like it. Yeah. So they just announced the Fitbit Edge, which a lot of people are calling the Fitbit Air with a screen. But you have to use Google Health, not the Fitbit app. Yeah. I don't even know that part. Well, they got rid of the Fitbit app. Okay. So Fitbit app is gone. Yeah, they killed that a while ago. Yeah, everything's in Google Health now. So I'm confused why people are calling it Fitbit Air with a screen because that's what a Fitbit is. That's what a Fitbit always was. In 2013, they had the Fitbit Force, which was just a rubber bracelet with a little tiny screen that could show things like step count.

1:19:03And since then, we have just seen that generally Fitbits are these watches, in quotes, that are just a tall, skinny screen that show fitness metrics on it, right? Yeah. So that's what this is. And I think in that sense, this is actually pretty cool. It does slot in between the Pixel Watch and the Fitbit Air. Yeah. It's $179. It is a much smaller screen, a much smaller form factor. It is updated because the Fitbit Charge 6 is, I believe, the last Fitbit we really got,

1:19:34which was in 2023. And this looks way nicer than that. Yeah. And it's almost the same price. So I'm assuming it's got all the new updated sensors and everything. 1.34-inch AMOLED display, 7-day battery life, 100% charge in 90 minutes or 5 minutes for one day of battery life, 1.35 grams, side button, GPS, and all the fun fitness tracking stuff you'd expect out of a Fitbit. I'm assuming probably still a garbage app. Like the, oh, wait, no, because it doesn't, because it can show things. Update it to make it less broken.

1:20:05Okay. So got to note that. Cool. But so like, yeah, my really fast take on this is I actually, I think it's kind of cool. I wouldn't want it, but this is a new, this is a modernized Fitbit that fits in the lineup much better. Fits. Hearing it called the Fitbit Air with a Screen reminds me of how White Claws started making non-alcoholic seltzers. Like you are now just making the thing you originally based your weird thing off of. Yeah. So does this one show like notifications and stuff? Yeah. Okay.

1:20:36This is, this is, I think they basically said this is the Fitbit Air if you want the notifications and some of the updates you would have on a screen without having a full blown watch screen on it. This is my ideal watch. I think this actually looks kind of nicer than the Pixel Watch. 100% by the seven day battery life. That's pretty good. Like. Yeah. It has real watch faces. Wow. Yeah. It's a whole. I think it's interesting. Yeah. Why are they selling the Pixel Watch then? Why would I spend $400 on a Pixel Watch when this fits my wrist better? How many days of better life does the Pixel Watch have?

1:21:07Less, but it's a much bigger screen. Pixel Watch 5 is 40 hours with always. It's like every regular Apple Watch. 72 hours with a battery saver mode on the Pixel Watch. This is so much better. It's funny that this is about the same amount of battery life as the Fitbit Air, but that's probably because it's got a bigger form factor to fit a larger battery in with the screen. But like, this isn't that big. This is kind of nice. This is great. I would genuinely buy this. This looks like a good product. You should. Yeah. It's $179. I also want to note that the band team has been cooking.

1:21:38Yeah, they have. I was going to say, the bands, there is a lot of good bands for this. Ever since the Fitbit Air came out, which had a couple of bands and they all sucked. These ones are actually pretty good looking and they have some like fancy ones. Like they have like a, I don't even know what you call it, like a Milanese kind of thing. Metal Links. Yeah. Metal Link band. They also released two new bands for the Fitbit Air with the Fitbit Edge. Um, and those look great too. So, that's been good to see because I have been, you know, this thing has gotten real dirty.

1:22:10Air Metal Mesh Band is what they're called. Metal Mesh. It looks, I mean, I saw, I saw photos of it on some people and it looked really nice. Yeah. Was, uh, I don't know how I feel about that. It kind of just looks like a bracelet. That one feels like it should have a watch attached to it. Well, it kind of just feels like a fashion bracelet. Like a thick fashion bracelet. Yeah, that's what I'm... I mean, I know nothing about fashion, so... Because that Fitbit Edge is going to have Google Maps coming soon. Wow. Well, it does have its own GPS, which is great. It's, okay, question. Dedicated GPS in this seven day battery life? Garmin freaking no screen?

1:22:42Yeah. No dedicated GPS? I mean, $400? Yeah. It's kind of surprising. Very surprising. I wonder how much it's used. It's probably just in active workouts that require GPS tracking, minus like... Yeah, but still. I guess maybe Google Maps will be able to use it too. But this has dedicated GPS? It's not just when it's connected to your phone? It said GPS on. It says GPS in the specs. I don't really know when it's used or how often it's on, but... Oh, it has Galileo too. It's there. That's crazy. Wait, in... He's in the... Dog. It comes with... I have so many more questions. The man himself.

1:23:14Anyway, yeah, wow. Okay. This seems good. I think it's awesome. I think just... This is mostly me just ranting about stop calling it a Fitbit Air of the screen. Because that's just what a Fitbit Air is a Fitbit without a screen. Yeah. Fair enough. I do think it's cool that they offer now like multiple screen shapes and sizes. But yeah, seven day battery life with better bands, half the price of a Pixel watch. I feel like for people that want the screen, but want the Fitbit Air, this is a really good in-between. I do kind of like wish there was a version that was like the current Fitbit Air, but

1:23:44with this screen of the Fitbit Force from 2013, which is literally just like... It's all matrix. Essentially, yeah, what? Five different... Enough for like five characters. Yeah. Like maybe be able to... I really like this little OLED. Yeah, it looks nice. A little OLED, yeah. Black bezels, this little OLED. Just like give me a couple things, step counter, time, temperature. It's a good lineup if you look at it from Air, Edge, Pixel Watch. They're cooking. Can I ask a dumb question? It's probably not. We're talking about... You should be asking dumb questions. Are the other Fitbit products iOS compatible?

1:24:18Yeah, with the Google Health app, yeah. Okay, cool. Because this one is as well. I was just curious. Yes. I want to throw back to an older version of the podcast, which I don't remember, but was anybody in here on team no Apple Watch allowed at the wedding? We were all here. Oh, wait, like you said you shouldn't wear one? Yeah. Yeah, that was because you went to the Met Gala wearing one. Well, I was obviously on team like wear the Apple Watch at my wedding. That's fine. I thought, didn't you, weren't you the one who was like, no, never mind. Wow. Throw her under the bed. Was anybody fully against that?

1:24:48I think there was two. I think the Met Gala and this were separate episodes because the wedding was about a tweet that was like popping off. Oh, that's right. That's right. There was some guy who was like, don't you dare. Yeah. No, I was anti. I was anti it at the wedding because I was thinking it was going to feel outdated and the whole point of weddings is to feel out of time. Okay. Can I ask you then? Yeah. How do you feel about the Fitbit Edge dressed up with a nice metal band at that same wedding? It's still got a screen on. You got to say yes, David. Why? Let us just wear what we want. Oh, yeah. Okay.

1:25:19I wore the Fitbit Air to the wedding I went to last weekend. I think you should be allowed to wear anything you want. It's close. It was hidden under. Just add a little OLED on there and then it's the same thing. It was hidden underneath my cuff link. They should make a cover for the top of them that just has a fake analog of hands and then you can just cover it up. This is like when people are talking to their pets and like, okay, you can have a little salami. It's like, okay, you can have a little smartwatch. You're not giving your pets salami? I don't have any pets. Well, I have the freaking mouse that won't go into traps, but.

1:25:51I don't know. I forgot what team I was on, but I think at that point we were doing that fitness competition and I had to wear, I didn't have to, but in order to win the fitness competition, I had to wear the Apple watch and I crushed my rings that night. So it was worth it. Yeah. Okay. Now I'm fully on team. Wear what you have. Wear your kicks. It's a time capsule. It's a time capsule. If you take the photo on a 5D, is that dating the photo? Cause it's taken with a camera of the time. I think everything is of the time. No, it's because it's, it's because emails come on that thing.

1:26:22That's the reason. Emails will show up in 30 years when I'm looking back at these photos. Email weddings. No, no, no. I'm, no, no. I'm saying like the reason the Apple watch at the wedding is a bad thing is cause it's, you're going to get an email. Like weddings are an email free space. If we, if we've culturally agreed that any space is a email free space, it's weddings. I would even argue you could send an email at a funeral and it would be more appropriate. I think do not disturb is all you need. I should have the Apple watch on and it's on do not disturb, but I get to track my calories for my, for the dancing.

1:26:52I get to all the other stuff. I'd still, it's still there. I think that should be, that should be fair game. I think at a wedding, if they're the people getting married and they ask you to do something, you should probably just listen to them. What would you do if the person officiating your wedding was wearing an Apple watch and reading the script off of their Apple watch scrolling on the little side. That would be a little much. Hang on. I don't know where the line is. I just know that everything in the wedding photos is a sign of the times from the outfits we're wearing to the phones, to the grandma holding their phone like this, taking pictures

1:27:24like that's a sign of the times, like the watch I'm wearing. It is very common for officiants to say, please put your phones away. I hear that all the time. And I always see phones anyway. No, you got to call them out then. I know. Grandma. It's always the grandma. I don't want to call out the grandma. You got to. You got to call out the grandma. Grandma, fingers in front of that lens. They'll never learn if you don't keep calling them out. Let her have this one. She doesn't have that many more weddings to go to. That's fair enough. Yeah. It's just a, it's a fun question. But yeah, I think Fitbit is, the edge is kind of fire. Yeah. It's kind of fire. I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to see if this is good.

1:27:55I'm also on the edge of my seat waiting to see if I get the trivia questions right.

1:28:00I'm not going to get them right. Neither am I. Especially the second one. I don't need to guess on a lot. I'm excited I have a guess. The second one? I'm sorry, guys. This is your fault because you didn't know what Chumby was. Yeah, that's my fault. He's that guy from Pawn Stars. Yeah. Before there was Bixby, there was what? Did you say it's the guy from Pawn Stars? That's the craziest shit you've ever said. That's Chum Lee, okay? Put some respect on his name.

1:28:31That was a deep cut. That's crazy. That's the guy. Shit. Oh.

1:28:38The dead silence of trivia and then you're just going to have to bleep that is going to be really funny. What do we got, fellas? This is either really dumb or really smart.

1:28:53Okay, who wants to go first? I wrote the Samsung AI Assistant because I don't know what it is. Well, that is different than David's answer. What did you write, David? Oh, my God, it was. I don't think it is, but. I wrote Samsung Assistant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wrote Dex. Why would it be called Dex? It's not Dex. I don't know. That's another thing. Dex is the thing. I know it's another thing, but this is way before, so I was like, maybe that's where it came from. That's true. No, it was called S-Voice. Oh, I knew that. I did know that. Me too. I knew that. No, it's because Siri, it was such an obvious copy. S-Voice, Samsung Voice, Siri, it's all on the same.

1:29:26Dang, I knew that. I should have known that considering I contributed. That's a good question. I should have gotten that. It should have been called Galaxy Brain. I appreciate that. No, I remember that. Galaxy Brain would be a sick name for that. I remember the little logo, too, for the button with the S on it. Damn. Yeah. I should have gotten that. Before I read the next question, quick update on the score. Mariah, can you open it on your computer? Quick update on the score. Marquez, you got 10 points, meaning you're right behind Andrew at 11 points. Oh. David is still somehow lapping everyone at 16 points.

1:30:00We're catching him, though. We're catching him. I'm going to stroll in Latifi over here. Now, quick correction. I read the question the first time I accidentally said PC Paint. What I meant was PC Paint Brush. Not that that matters to any of you guys, just a different program. PC Paint Brush was the thing that came before Microsoft Paint. However, they're all in the same fork of one another. Anyway, MS Paint, also known previously as PC Paint Brush, was released.

1:30:33Here, I'll give you a little more hint. As part of the driver package for what piece of hardware for Windows computers? Hardware? Hardware for Windows computers. What would you... What would you... What would be really exciting? I just got a brand new blank. Now I can use MS Paint. Let me try something. Can it be a category? Let me try... You can be pretty vague with this one. Okay.

1:30:59I'm just trying... This is a shot in the dark. Shot in the dark. But you're to blame. If the thing that I erased was the right answer, I'm going to be pretty mad. I feel so bad. All right. Wow, we all put different things. That's what I wrote in Crossed Cloud. That's what I was... That was my other guess, but now I have a third guess, too. David, what did you put? Drawing tablet. Unfortunately, drawing tablet is not correct. I'm sure someone's going to be like, actually, they did release a drawing tablet. So please let me know, and then I'll give them the point. Marquez? I wrote mouse and crossed it out and wrote stylus.

1:31:29I'm so sorry. And Andrew, would you please... The best part about Trivia now is based on who Ellis calls on first. Yeah, knowing who got it. I wrote mouse. Mouse is correct. I also wrote that before all of your hints. So when they invented the mouse, they released that software. It's not exactly that simple. And who invented the mouse is a little bit of a convoluted. It was one of those people were sort of racing towards it at the same time. However, there was a company called Mouse Systems that bought some simple art software and then bundled it with their stuff and then released a Windows driver for their mouse.

1:32:07Microsoft was like, why are we not making a mouse, too? So they... Because they never made mouse one. They also developed it now. Gotta start somewhere, Microsoft. They licensed the art software. They bundled it. It made too much sense. I'm sorry, guys. The vibes of PC pain pressure is so good. I wrote mouse in all caps. Next week, I'm just going to start making stuff up again. We got to go back to Trivia's roots, man. Where I just start... Which of these is a real tech company. Yeah. Chumbie would have been an excellent candidate for that. I don't know. There's a chance Mariah cuts the entire Chumbie section and people have no idea what I'm talking about when I say Chumbie.

1:32:43Equally funny. Equally funny. Incredible. Who wants to read us out? Hey, it's still October. By the time you listen to this, Techtober is still cruising along. So thank you for watching and listening to this week's episode. Get subscribed, if you haven't already, to be first in line to wash your dishes to next week's episode because it's still going to be fire. Otherwise, catch you soon. Peace. Bye. There's so much stuff next week as well. We're produced by Mariah Zink and Alice Rovin. We're part of the Fox Media Podcast Network and our intro, outro music was created by Vain.

1:33:15So. Bingo. Let's go. There's the bingo button. Bingo. Let's go.

1:33:25Damn.

1:33:29Guys, what is this called? As far as I could tell, this was one of the first home dashboard sort of ecosystem screen things that was ever made. And when the home view came out, I saw a bunch of people on Twitter being like, damn, we had this in 2006. Can I not have this? First of all, it kind of looks. I thought it was a ham at first. A ham. Like a ham. Excuse me. For audio listeners, can you please describe what you're looking at?

1:34:00I think ham, like tech ham with a leather ham. Have you ever played that game, the DS game where you got to, you, you draw stuff? Yeah. What's it called? Scribblenauts. Yeah. It sort of has a Scribblenauts-esque interface. I love Scribblenauts. But picture that on a ham. Yeah. The two screens, one has Pandora and one has something called Facemaker. Yeah, so it's like an old home hub kind of thing, but it kind of just looks like a stuffed leather purse upside down and there's a screen in the middle. I definitely have never heard of this, but I will do my best to guess.

1:34:33100%. Marquez, damn it. This is the one where- I didn't own a home in 2006. I know, but you were reviewing, you know, TV remotes. I thought this might have made it across your desk. 06? I assumed one of you would be like, oh, I totally remember that. I have no idea. You want a different question? Can I guess who made it? Sure. Myspace. No. It's called the Chumby. Yeah. The Chumby? No, no, I'll never get that. All right. I'll let you decide if you want to keep that catastrophe of a trivia question. Damn, I was really hoping one of you would be like-

1:35:03Oh, yeah. The Chumby. You remember the Chumby? Your business is growing and so is your to-do list, but updating the CRM will not be on it. Because with HubSpot, updates happen automatically, so you can build demand and move deals without all the admin. Learn more at HubSpot.com. Hey, listen! Power up your play with Nintendo Switch 2 and experience Link's legendary adventure, now reborn in vibrant detail on our fastest and most powerful system yet.

1:35:34And harness the power of the Ocarina with the built-in microphone.

1:35:42The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, a Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive. Game and system sold separately. Game rated everyone 10 and up.