MacBreak Weekly 862 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
Leo Laporte (00:00:00):
It's time for Mac Break Weekly. Jason Snell from Six Colors is here. Andy and Ako from wg BH in Boston, and filling in for Alex Lindsay. It's the Marvelous Doc rock. We're gonna talk about why Apple hasn't laid people off, but what they've done instead. We'll also take a look at the amazing AI Steve Jobs and got some photographic and travel tips too. The end of DP review. It's all coming up. Next. I'm Back. Break weekly
Doc Rock (00:00:32):
Podcasts you Love From people you trust. This is TWiT.
Leo Laporte (00:00:42):
This is Mac Break. Weekly episode 862. Recorded Tuesday, March 21st, 2023. Ai, Steve Jobs Mac Break Weekly is brought to you by Melissa. More than 10,000 clients worldwide in retail education, healthcare, insurance, finance, and government. Rely on Melissa for full spectrum data quality and ID verification software. Make sure your customer contacts data is up to date. Get started today with 1000 records clean for free at melissa.com/twi. Thanks for listening to this show. As an ad supported network, we are always looking for new partners with products and services that will benefit our qualified audience. Are you ready to grow your business? Reach out to advertise at twit tv and launch your campaign. Now it's time for Mac Break Weekly, the show we cover the latest news from Apple. Alex Lindsay's out again on assignment, but good news Doc Rock is here rocking the house. Hello Doc Rock.
Doc Rock (00:01:46):
Oh [inaudible]
Leo Laporte (00:01:48):
Oh wow. You even got a, a purple? Sure. SM seven B Mike Muff.
Doc Rock (00:01:55):
Yes. I I love these things and everyone always asks Where'd you get it?
Leo Laporte (00:01:59):
Well, where at The Sure Store probably, or no?
Doc Rock (00:02:03):
No. It's a, it's a place in the Netherlands called report store.com. Oh. The shipping is incredibly crazy cuz it's in Netherlands, but I just,
Leo Laporte (00:02:11):
It was worth it. Have it now. You're all purple all the time. It's actually great cuz the black and purple's an iced combo. I like it. Yes. Yeah. I mean, you're your black shirt, your black glasses, your gray graying. But
Doc Rock (00:02:24):
Salt G Leo, I don't want you canceled after 18
Leo Laporte (00:02:26):
Years. I know. I didn't mean you <laugh>
Doc Rock (00:02:28):
<Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:02:30):
I realized there was a pause there that Oh my God. What have I just said? I meant your shirt anyway.
Doc Rock (00:02:39):
You know, a tech, we don't care. We only have six colors. I
Leo Laporte (00:02:41):
Know. Yeah, they're, it's called They're all Apple. That's right. Hey, that's Jason.
Jason Snell (00:02:45):
Perfect. Acknowledged.
Leo Laporte (00:02:46):
Good to see you, Jason Snell six colors.com
Jason Snell (00:02:49):
Good to be here. Yes, absolutely. I, I don't, I have the stock just boring. Although I have the big I since we're talking about mic windscreens. I have the big one though. I've got the, that's a nice
Leo Laporte (00:03:00):
Mo. I
Jason Snell (00:03:00):
Got the, oh shoot.
Leo Laporte (00:03:01):
I got giant
Jason Snell (00:03:01):
Now. I'm really excited. I got the giant one. Got the giant one. God. But now I, I, yeah, I might have to call the Netherlands.
Leo Laporte (00:03:07):
There it is. Look at that Netherlands doc.
Jason Snell (00:03:10):
Leave it to Doc Rock to make us all envious. To set up course.
Doc Rock (00:03:14):
I'm
Jason Snell (00:03:14):
So sorry. Quite a surprise, <laugh>. It's just, you're better than than us in all of
Leo Laporte (00:03:19):
This. I was tired of doc's, black uff, and I think it's time
Jason Snell (00:03:23):
<Laugh> Just gonna ride on over that one. I don't know what Leo, you're breaking up. I think that's the new sound system and has something wrong with it.
Leo Laporte (00:03:31):
Andy And not co with W Jeep. A Boston. Hello Andrew. We are very close to losing our liquor license. I'm just saying they're gonna shut us down, <laugh>. They're gonna shut us down. 
Doc Rock (00:03:43):
Running it close to the Quasar.
Leo Laporte (00:03:45):
As I was preparing for the show moments ago, I saw some very disappointing news. The DP review, which was long been the best photography review site I sent people there. I read their stuff before I buy a camera. I absolutely check DP Review. It's shutting down April 10th. Mm. What? 
Jason Snell (00:04:07):
Yes. I mean, technically Amazon, which bought DP review and seems to not care about it, has told the people who work there that they're going away. Unfortunately they're gonna, and they're gonna lock the website and then shut it down later. Cuz Amazon, you know, can't find a way to keep a website up and running in for history's sake, either on top of everything
Leo Laporte (00:04:27):
Else. So, Scott Albert general manager DP reviewing.com, writing on the front page of DP Review. This site will be locked with no further updates after April 10th. It'll be in read only mode for a limited period afterwards. We don't know how long cuz Amazon can't figure that out. But I, yeah, that's a bummer. And I know probably Doc Rock, you're a photographer. Did, did you? Yes. Trust DP Review.
Doc Rock (00:04:54):
A hundred percent. You know what? I remember stumbling upon this site eons ago, and the first time I stumbled upon it, I was listening to a podcast with like Scott on it or something, and I went to go look at the site and I said, man, they covered all the details they get into like the seam o stuff, which nobody was really talking to back, back then, right. But as I was selling broadcast equipment, it was something that I was interested in and what was happening with sort of the new form of digital cameras and how they're, you know, upgrading the way chips record images and things like that. I mean, we were still taking photos on Maka with a little CD in the back. You guys remember that <laugh>. So the site was just always good in detail. And the amount of stuff that they got into and the way they did their test, it's going to be hard to replace. So hopefully someone picks them up or they still have access rights to their YouTube channel because that's, there's so much great content there. I I just hope maybe the fans can start emailing you know, at Amazon and tell 'em, listen, people, you have the ability to leave this live <laugh>, like Jason said, <laugh>, and at least leave it live, you know, for a while. Because even the vintage camera collectors will find things there that they need. You bet.
Leo Laporte (00:06:17):
You know, you bet. I'm, although here's the YouTube DP Review TV thumbnail <laugh>, the end is ni <laugh>. I feel like I don't know. I mean, you know, these big companies can be kind of dickish and
Jason Snell (00:06:37):
Yeah, well, and and it's not their focus, right? Like, I mean, and, and I've seen, so Amazon's owned them for 15 years, right? So it's been a while. It's been a long time. And obviously when they bought them, the whole idea there was like, oh, it's helps drive camera sales or whatever. And I'm sure that in 15 years, Amazon's interest in a product like this is totally drifted. The problem is that they kept them around, probably underfunded, probably didn't give them any motivation or opportunity. The people who work their opportunity to make the site, you know, continue to be relevant into the modern era or anything like that. And so you end up in a situation where you've gotta, you know, whoever owned them 15 years ago got to sell out to Amazon. Congratulations to those people retroactively. But you end up with an owner who kind of doesn't care and kind of doesn't need to.
(00:07:17):
I mean, like, do you think anybody at Amazon really has been paying attention to like, well, what are we gonna do to keep DP review on the cutting edge, even though it's the best at what it does in the world? And so it, it's a sad but inevitable. I'm, I'm glad they lasted 15 years. I mean, we saw what happened with Comicology, right? Where it just got completely absorbed and ruined by Amazon. And, you know, and, and again, it's almost like a wild animal killing something for food. It's like, I understand Amazon, like I get why Amazon shouldn't care about this and doesn't care about it. It's so huge. It's got other things to worry about. But it is a shame that this thing that so many people valued just gets cast away. And the fact that they're just saying, we're gonna stop posting on April 10th, and then we're gonna shut it down at an undetermined time and then let what the archives disappear. It's, it's just ridiculous.
Andy Ihnatko (00:08:07):
Yeah. There, there's such a, there, there's such a, a, a database of knowledge. There's, there's such a shared experience in those forums. Every time I was considering buying a lens, every time I was confused about whether this camera body is better than this camera body or what, you get people who wouldn't, you wouldn't get into like brand name flame wars. You wouldn't get into people who are just, well, let me tell, let me show you the histogram of that versus the histogram of that other one. And I think the answers will be very, very clear to you. You get, you get people who basically, who start the, the response by saying, well, I have this one and here's my experience with it, and here's what I've been be able to do with it. And it's like Jason says, it's, it's a shame that when once a once a user base like that, once a once a community like that breaks apart, it never comes back together again.
(00:08:54):
And a, a corpus of messages and threads and information like that goes away. It never comes back. So I really, really hope that that some way of preserving all of these messages and all these threads and all these, all this information can be preserved. Because, I mean, this is, this is exactly the nightmare when, when a big company buys something that you really, really enjoy. Sometimes it's like Apple needing a music player. And so they buy, they buy Sound Jam and they turn it into iTunes, which is an upgrade. Sometimes it's like they bought a classical music service and it's not really a priority to get done really, really fast. And re remember that Amazon also also has good reads. They also own Abe books, all these sort of things that as they're cutting another 9,000 jobs, they're gonna start thinking about, oh, this one costs $800. That's, it's, it's not helping us sell cameras. It's not helping us sell books. Let's just cut it loose and just forget about the fact that we basically bought something wonderful and unique and destroyed it.
Leo Laporte (00:09:57):
Amazon cut 18,000 jobs November through January of this year. Yesterday they announced 9,000 more, 27,000 job cuts. I imagine the, the staff at DP Review is included in that 9,000. It it kind of baffles me that companies, these companies are still highly profitable. Amazon didn't lose money but they're laying off like crazy. And I, is it preparing for doom or do they just have to keep those profits at a, at a high margin for Wall Street? Or, I just,
Andy Ihnatko (00:10:35):
You know what, what I, the, the, the explanation from a financial analyst that I I really like is that it's largely because, well, everyone else is cutting staff. And so that makes management think that should we start cutting our staff as well? And it's true that over the past three or four years, there's been a lot of fluctuations in hiring particularly after Covid forced a lot of companies to decide that, oh, well we need to staff up for this. Now we have a, we have some, we have some we have the depression to get ourselves through. So we'll have to figure out what kind of new businesses we have. And maybe they were a little bit too too enthusiastic in hiring. But most, for the most part, these aren't companies that are on the ropes. These are companies that, again, they are now the fact that every other company besides Apple is hiring excuse me, is firing people in the thousands.
(00:11:27):
It makes them think that if, if I'm a, if I'm a C-suite executive, maybe I should be trying to cut jobs too a before my own fears. And also to keep stockholders happy. Cuz the stockholders are gonna ask, well, do you have the perfect number of employees? The labor is always fungible. You could always basically tell yourself that I bet that the, the 800 people working in this division we need four, 400 people can do it, can do the job of 800. And they can say things, they can tell themselves things like, you know what, we got too much invested in QA right now. I think it'll work fine. Handling customer complaints doesn't make us money. Let's cut some jobs there too. It's easy to f when you have, when you have tens of thousands of people on the payroll, it's easy to find 20,000 people that you think you can get rid of. And this is as easy as I can possibly get.
Leo Laporte (00:12:16):
I guess we could to some degree blame Apple because after all the success of the iPhone camera and now Google and Samsung's camera is kind of, I would imagine eating into sales of cameras Doc. Is it? Oh yeah. Do you still need a camera <laugh>? Oh
Doc Rock (00:12:33):
Yeah. Okay. There's a huge difference between neither one Leo. We've been tech guys for years. <Laugh>,
Leo Laporte (00:12:39):
Well, I'll give you an example. I'm going to Europe in a week and I am really on the cusp about whether I should bring my Sony a seven R or my, like a Q2 or just, you know, the Samsung S 23 Ultra in my iPhone Promax. I probably don't need
Doc Rock (00:12:56):
Those other You say that, it was super funny that you said that I, in, in January, I, I'm sorry, December last two weeks of December, I went to Kyoto. It's Kyoto, not Kyoto. Kyoto. And while I was there, I said, I am literally, because I'm taking the m i I don't want to make her stop and wait for me to do all of my photography stuff. Right. So I legit took my phone rig and it instant 360 x three. Oh,
Leo Laporte (00:13:25):
I was thinking of bringing my, that's all I took. Yeah.
Doc Rock (00:13:27):
Oh, you have to, that's automatic, right? The
Leo Laporte (00:13:29):
360
Doc Rock (00:13:30):
Camera. That's all I took. Yeah. And I feel like I took just as good a pictures, but that's a lie. I took great pictures. If I hadn't actually brought the A 74 and my Teron trio and my tripod, I would've took Epic pictures. <Laugh>. Okay. But it's either have, you know, wifeys mom pe peed off and me cuz I would finally get to go to Japan together. And I'm making her stop for my long setups and my exposure and, you know, busting out my card as you have to, you have to have, you know, your white balance card, you gotta do all these things that would've ruined the experience for the old lady. So I'm like, I am not going to make her pushing 80 sit there and wait for me. I'm just gonna do everything with the iPhone and the Instant 360 and make myself enjoy it for sharing it on the web and sharing it with the family. It's absolutely perfect. My professional space. Yeah, there's a lot of us and our industry has grown. So if anything, once you get good with your iPhone camera and things, those limitations have actually woken people up to wanting a good point. And shoot the rangefinder point and shoot has found a renaissance, right? So many people are looking for the new Fujis or the new smaller Sony that just takes really good filmic looking pictures. And I think it's actually grown the space, not shrink the space. Plus the creator space is booming right now.
Leo Laporte (00:15:00):
Do you think I should bring the Insta 360? You really got something happen?
Doc Rock (00:15:04):
A hundred percent. I I will not leave home without it. I hate to say this in live TV and hopefully no one ever sees this, but of all of my Sonys that I own back here in this gigantic cabinet, my favorite camera par none right now is the instant 360 X three. It does some amazing, incredible
Leo Laporte (00:15:23):
Things. Have I have an older one shoot with should I upgrade? I have an older one, I think. Get me started.
Doc Rock (00:15:29):
Yes.
Leo Laporte (00:15:30):
<Laugh>
Doc Rock (00:15:32):
Some freaking lutely. Yeah. It is so much fun. And you know, again, one of the great things, like if you're traveling or you just walk doing a walkabout, you don't have to point it, you just put it up. Right. It it, you can come back and reframe everything later. So the idea that you won't lose anything is fantastic. And it's waterproof and Yeah. But it is a great, we
Leo Laporte (00:15:53):
Actually use it in the production camera face is growing when we do a car. Really like when we reviewed my Mustang and just now we have a new advertiser that's an e-bike. Anthony puts the Insta on a long tripod. We were bicycling down the road, drove ahead of us in a pickup in the, in sitting in the bed of the pickup truck where the thing just stuck out like this. And then he edits it to, into, you know, nice. Because you know, nobody can look at the 360 stuff unless you're wearing those VR elements. But you can edit, I guess their software lets you edit it. And, and now it looks like just nice 4K footage. Yeah, but he can shoot. There it is. There it is. This looks like we had a drone. I mean, <laugh>, this isn't a drone. This is this is not a crane. This is not a jib shot. <Laugh>. Oh, that was the drone? No. Oh. I guess it had to be a drone. No, no, I think it was all the
Doc Rock (00:16:46):
Instant. No, no, that's the stick.
Leo Laporte (00:16:47):
We did everything with a nine meter stick. A long stick. Yeah. And that's spur dropping all of the new gear
Doc Rock (00:16:53):
<Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:16:55):
Yeah, it, it really it was amazing. We sh did a whole shoot with that 360 camera and it looks like we had a crane and a drone and a jib and that was amazing. All right. So do you think I should get the, what should I get the latest one x
Doc Rock (00:17:11):
Two 60 X three
Leo Laporte (00:17:12):
X three X
Doc Rock (00:17:13):
Three. You want it X
Leo Laporte (00:17:14):
Three? I just came out and you want four 50 bucks?
Doc Rock (00:17:17):
Ain't not my fault. <Laugh> <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:17:20):
Or should I get the F? See, I never use it. That's the funny thing. Oh, but I but you should use it. You should use it. And how do you edit it? Do you, do you turn it into 2D or do you post 360 video? Yeah,
Doc Rock (00:17:34):
No, I do everything in 2d. I do most of the editing on my phone, believe it or not, because it's, you know, the app is fantastic. If I need to do something for production work, it does work directly in final Cup Pro and Premiere and I'm gonna leave Resolve of course. And yeah, it's just, it's just fabulous.
Leo Laporte (00:17:49):
Three just came
Doc Rock (00:17:50):
Out, right? The stabilization is amazing. Yeah, it came out like maybe October.
Leo Laporte (00:17:54):
And do you have that long, that eight nine meter pole? Yes.
Doc Rock (00:17:58):
The nine meter stick. It's a hundred percent, bro. That thing is life <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:18:02):
I need a nine meter stick. Okay. I gotta get, get to work here. You
Doc Rock (00:18:06):
Know why? Cuz that allows you to do drone shots in places where you Yeah, it looks like a drone. Yeah. It, it looks just like a drone. So it is, look, Andy is looking at his cart right now. I see him
Leo Laporte (00:18:16):
<Laugh>. I'm just thinking because I'm, when I, I just checking, I'm just checking on the last time I donated blood, because that's probably I, couple of gallons the cistine ceiling, the Cistine Chapel. They don't let you use drones in there, but I could get right up there <laugh> with on a nine meter pole <laugh> and get the Michaels low hero shot
Doc Rock (00:18:37):
Be before we turn this into an instant 360 shot. I'll give you one other trick you can do. If you needed to take something like the Cistine Chapel, but you can't bring a stick or whatever, then don't allow it. Yeah. All you do is press record. Yeah. Toss it in the air. Oh, catch it. And then stop the recording later on. It will turn it into a wrap. And what it does is it uses the accelerometer and it knows where it is at its highest point. And it basically runs a 360 video basically a full pan. It does a 360 degree pan at its highest place on the accelerometer. And then it comes back down. So you can basically go up and look around and then come back down like you were that little thing. And it needs, what's that thing about needs? Batteries? Batteries required the little
Leo Laporte (00:19:20):
Yeah. No batteries required.
Doc Rock (00:19:21):
Yep. Yeah. There you go. Thank you, Andy.
Leo Laporte (00:19:23):
Wow. <laugh>. All right. You, you ki you know, it's funny, I, I buy, and we've used it once in a while for studio stuff and I never use it anywhere else, but maybe now I do it on the phone, huh. And that way Yep. So now I only, I definitely don't need to bring this Sony <laugh>, right? Oh, you're killing me. Yeah.
Doc Rock (00:19:46):
It's, it's just a way to actually be on vacation. Because if I, if I go on vacation with my gear, I go on vacation as a content creator. Yeah. And that's okay when it's just Karen and I, but when I'm dragging her mom with me, I'm not having her mad at me. Yeah. Your mother-in-law like you, she loves me. We have the same birthday. We're
Leo Laporte (00:20:03):
Her best friend. We're, let me put
Doc Rock (00:20:04):
It this way. We don't want to get on the wrong side.
Leo Laporte (00:20:05):
We ain't bringing her with us. Let's put it that way. <Laugh>. That's crazy talk.
Doc Rock (00:20:11):
Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:20:11):
I know. All right. That's our camera segment.
Doc Rock (00:20:13):
I see. You don't need bad habit. Now
Leo Laporte (00:20:14):
We got Doc Rock <laugh>. Much better.
Doc Rock (00:20:17):
Alright, Dr. Review, let's go.
Leo Laporte (00:20:19):
Dr. Review. <Laugh>. <laugh>. I was checking just to see if internet archive has archived it and I can't really tell, but I'm sure they have because they archive everything. And so I guess there will be a way of looking at old stuff. But come on, come on. Amazon. Yeah.
Jason Snell (00:20:36):
I'll give you my my, my photo tip cuz we, we were in New Zealand for two weeks and I did not, what'd you do? Bring I did not bring a big fancy camera cuz I thought I want to travel light. I brought the iPhone pro and that was it. Yep.
Leo Laporte (00:20:48):
Did you regret
Jason Snell (00:20:49):
It? But I, no, I didn't regret it, but I will give you a tip, which is a lot of, I did some, I turned on the raw mode for some of the shots that I did. Yes. I shoot everything that raw mode. Yeah. On the iPhone 14 Pro is spectacularly good. Although I don't do it. I don't shoot everything that way. But when I'm was in a good spot, I did. And then the other thing I wanna say is action mode, which they just added action mode if you're on a boat or a bus or a tram or anything like that. Like we were in a, on a, on a, like a zodiac going over ice filled glacial lake, right? And that video, I was looking at it yesterday, I shot it action mode and it is like I am using a steady cam. All the, all of that kind of stuff that would be bumpy action mode just clears it all out. So if you've got a modern, like the iPhone 14 turn on action mode when you're doing anything like that, it's magical. The bumps just vanish.
Leo Laporte (00:21:43):
I bought, and I'm, now I'm regretting it. I bought the om fifth generation, sixth generation, the new D j I gimbal. And I think action mode's probably just as good <laugh> doc. What should I do?
Doc Rock (00:21:57):
AC action mode is amazing. Oh, I, I agree with Jason. I, I'll save it for my pick, but I have a cool little rig that I bought from my iPhone just to make it, you know, more nerdy. And I was just at social media conference this weekend and everywhere I walked through that thing, everybody kept stopping me like, what is that? Like, oh my God, does the pictures come out straight? And I was like, yeah, watch my content. And they're like, oh my God, it's perfect <laugh>. So yeah, I'll save it for my pic so that way I, okay,
Leo Laporte (00:22:24):
Good. But
Doc Rock (00:22:25):
That's, that's all you need. And Jason's a hundred percent right. The, the actual mode is pretty
Leo Laporte (00:22:29):
Incredible. So I really need to do is bring my iPhone and that Insta and I have a S 23 Ultra, which has a very nice extra long zoom. Maybe I'll bring that say in case there's a something real far away and I'm set. Is it, should I not bring it? You good
Doc Rock (00:22:46):
To go?
Leo Laporte (00:22:46):
Shit, really? Is it to go? It's breaking my heart. I spent a lot of money on that. Sony <laugh>. Oh God. Apple has managed to save money without layoffs. We've talked about that before. Mark Germond in his newsletter inside Apple's company-wide cost cutting push to avoid layoffs. Now I'm thinking this is mostly propaganda to reassure the stock market. No, no, we're not laying people off, but we're, we're doing all the cost cutting you want us to do. Right?
Jason Snell (00:23:16):
We're very responsible.
Leo Laporte (00:23:17):
We're very responsible. So what are they doing? You know, 30 billion a quarter. It's not like they're hurting 165 billion in cash in the bank. It's not like they're hurting stock price up 20% this year. It's not like they're hurting, but <laugh> they do wanna cut costs cuz well, everybody else is doing, it's 5% drop in sales last quarter maybe because of it. So bonuses are being delayed for corporate teams that previously received payouts twice a year. It's good to be the king. These teams are gonna get the entire bonus once in October, which is what others in the company get. It actually, they're not gonna give 'em less. They're just gonna do it once instead of twice. They're gonna
Jason Snell (00:24:07):
Yeah. It it's amazing. All of this stuff. It's like attrition and and bonuses deferred, but still paid out. And like it is the gentlest, I mean, this is the truth is they've got, we talked about it last week there was a little bit of a disparity. They've got about 50, 60 billion in cash net. They actually have about 160 billion in cash, but they've also got some, some debt. So the net out is like 60 billion in cash. And like, they're doing fine and their sales are fine. So what do they do? It's like they could lay people off performatively, but I think that they don't want to. Right? I I, and I do think that that's behind a lot of this is reassuring Wall Street that they're responsible with their money, all the tech sector. And so the layoffs as gross as that is for people to lose their jobs from big companies that could keep them, but are going to sacrifice them on the altar of, look at us, we're being competitive and we're being responsible during an economic question mark. Period. Right. Apple's like, I mean, in many ways, Mark's mark Iman's report here does Apple's job for it. Right. Which is what it really wants to do. Yeah. It assured everybody a message via bloomberg.com <laugh> saying, look how responsible we are also. Look how great we are. We don't even need to lay people off. We're so responsible.
Leo Laporte (00:25:17):
<Laugh>
Jason Snell (00:25:18):
Mark, that's what's going on. Good morning.
Leo Laporte (00:25:19):
Never. Mark, I've got some news I'd like to share with you, but you didn't hear it from me.
Jason Snell (00:25:23):
I'm, I'm not saying they leak this to Mark. I I don't know that, but I will say this. It it, it does, it does what they want. Yeah. Which is to send that message out
Leo Laporte (00:25:31):
There. Some projects, including new home devices like that home pod with the screen we've been talking about have been pushed back till next year at the earliest. This allows Apple to allocate its research and development budget to more pressing projects. This, you know, this is the, this is the verbiage that Apple or whoever gave him, right? Yeah.
Jason Snell (00:25:50):
And it, and it feels very much like, I mean, I I think a lot of us have been there if we've been in organizations, sometimes an economic downturn or even a fear of an economic downturn. What it ends up becoming is like a, it's an opportunity to do things that you've been meaning to do, but you kind of need an excuse. Yeah. And, and when I was reading Mark's report here, that's what it sounded like too, is like we could use a little time for that home pod. Why don't we just delay it and say that it's part of this Yeah. And we could lay it, you know, that person's not gonna be replaced. We decided that we didn't really need them and that, and then they left. And now we can say it's because the economy we're not replacing. It's a good excuse.
Leo Laporte (00:26:24):
Here's more what boiler
Doc Rock (00:26:26):
Plate that
Leo Laporte (00:26:27):
From Tim Cook. The company has reigned in budgets across several teams and is now requiring senior vice president approval for more items. Doc, go ahead.
Doc Rock (00:26:36):
No, I was gonna say one of the other things that happens, and nobody wants to tell the truth on this, but like said, here's an opportunity to take some of the people in the company that are longer in the tooth but aren't load-bearing walls, if you will. They do excellent job. They do their work. Not saying they're bad employees, but they're not the load-bearing wall.
Leo Laporte (00:26:58):
It sounds like me. I'm, I'm, I'm long in the tooth and not a load bearing wall. Leah, Leo, when we're done here, you just hit me on that.
Jason Snell (00:27:04):
Can you come see me when we're done here, Leah? We just test to talk <laugh>.
Doc Rock (00:27:07):
Just <laugh>. So you're not gonna lose, you're not gonna lose a whole department. But now if I can use a slow market or a slow economy as a chance to get rid of them, you know what? I can replace them with two other fresh outta college dying to have this job. People not one, I could replace them with two people and still save money because of their, their, you know, increase every year. They've been there 15 years, maybe they're coming in at two 50. I can bring in two brand new guys at 80 a piece, saved almost 90 grand. And now I have a bigger team and those other guys are hungry. Great.
Jason Snell (00:27:45):
Also, I would say, you know, it it, what Mark Garman reports is that they're doing things like the people who haven't ki kind of gotten with the program about returning to work three days a week. Mm-Hmm. And they're apparently using this as one of those like, well now we can say it's about the economy, but we're really just using it to lean on them and make sure that they either need to leave or they need to be in their seats three days a week. Mm-Hmm. And that again, it, what does that have to do with the economy? Well, I mean, it just means, hey, in this economy, do these things. We want you to do that. We have an excuse for now. And that's really what it is. So Yeah. Doc rock's, right?
Andy Ihnatko (00:28:16):
Yep. And there's and there's also a reason to, if if we're, if we're gonna guess and speculate, which is all we really can do. Yeah. as long as we label it as such it's als it's one of the things that goes through my mind is that, okay, so we know that the home pod people don't have a really strong voice. I'm sure they weren't begging to please, please back burner us for another year, assuming that these these quotes are, are, are correct. It's but nonetheless, they did have time for their $3,000 vr, gar VR goggles. So that team was able to make a per a persuasive argument with Tim Cook to Yes. Keep us on track even though there is some divis divisive divisiveness within the company, rather about whether or not we should actually be shipping this year. It's it's, it's weird. Also Apple's never been thought of as a company that over hires if, if anything to the absolute op opposite, they're the famous company that, oh, why aren't we getting this feature in Mac os that we've been promised? Well, because iOS is a little bit late and they pulled some engineers off of Mac os to work on an iOS project. Say you can't hire extra people. Could won't
Jason Snell (00:29:23):
Yeah. Takes forever for Apple to hire anybody who's been through it or had a friend who's been through it. Yeah. Apple's a very slow hirer and you end up in situations like this where all these other companies were fast hirers and they hired a lot of people and now they're throwing them on the sacrificial altar. And Apple gets to again, point to their past and say, see, look how responsible we are, which is that message that they're sending. We didn't hire Willynilly. And so we don't need to lay people off. We'll just tighten our belts a little bit. And that'll save us some more money on top of the on top of the pile.
Leo Laporte (00:29:56):
Oh, my carrot weather started talking to me. It's nervous
Jason Snell (00:30:01):
Me. It me, it's powered by ai. Now did
Andy Ihnatko (00:30:04):
It put on its sassy pants today?
Leo Laporte (00:30:05):
Has it's sassy pants. <Laugh>. Why did I make it rain? Because frack you. That's why. So this is the new featuring Carrot weather. They've added chat. G P T. Oh, it's talking. It's talking. Oh boy. Is that new or is it, is where is the chat?
Doc Rock (00:30:24):
It always talks, but it swears So be careful
Leo Laporte (00:30:28):
<Laugh>. I know. Like, we'll
Doc Rock (00:30:29):
Bloop, it, it, it swears like a sailor If you
Leo Laporte (00:30:32):
<Laugh> if you're listening live, sorry. 
Doc Rock (00:30:37):
<Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:30:37):
Okay. I, I I'm, well, I just, so how do I take advantage of this though? This new feature?
Jason Snell (00:30:45):
I think you go into the, I think there's like a the, is it the about screen or there's, there's a screen where you can actually enter in text.
Leo Laporte (00:30:53):
Ah,
Jason Snell (00:30:54):
And it'll chat. G p t you back.
Leo Laporte (00:30:55):
Okay. It's everywhere. This morning I got up early with Micah Sergeant and we did the Nvidia GTC keynote from Jensen Wong. And boy oh boy they are really hot because they are on top of all the biggest, you know, they're not doing VR goggles, <laugh>, they're doing, they could, it's not that they're not, they could, but but they are doing, you know, self-driving cars. They are in every chat and, and image AI out there practically. They're talking about stable Diffusion runway, which owns Stable Diffusion is doing video now. And that's using Invidia chips. They're showing their, you know, high-end processors designed for opera network operations centers so that you can have massive, you know, you know, giant super computers analyzing data to create the next big chat. G P t. It's, it was interesting. I don't know if he recorded it earlier. I think he did because he mentioned chat g PT three, but Miss Chat, g p t four <laugh>, somehow they, I guess either they're not involved, which I think is unlikely. Or they recorded it. Just, you know, a few days ago before everything changed, one of the problems we're talking about ai carrot weather is using four, I think. Right? They're using the new
Doc Rock (00:32:18):
Yes.
Leo Laporte (00:32:19):
Because a new platform is 10. I mean, it's 10 times better they say. Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko (00:32:24):
Yeah. It's kind of incredible. I was, I was playing with it last week about, and giving it a lot of the same prompts. I gave it to, I gave 3.5 and it really is kind of night and day both being able to understand the context of questions, being under able to understand follow questions and not getting quite so mental <laugh> quite so quickly. It's pretty darn good I've got, although I do have, I just got access to Bard. So I'm gonna have to try that later on. That's
Leo Laporte (00:32:50):
Another thing that happened today. One works. Yeah. Google has announced invites for Bard. If you go to bard.google.com, that's their large language ma model ai you know, did you notice Andy that Nest was co-branded with Google on that? Which makes me think the Google assistant, yeah, I'm, this is what I'm really waiting for. N neither Siri or the Google Assistant nor Amazon's Echo use this kind of ai. They're pretty much deterministic trees. Like if he says this, do that. If he says this, do that. Your response is canned. If we start adding inte some, you know, artificial intelligence to this, I think suddenly these voice assistants become much more interesting. Is you think Apples, oh, I know Google's gonna do this cuz they, cuz they mentioned Nest. Do you think Apple's gonna do it?
Andy Ihnatko (00:33:41):
I hope. I hope so. I mean, it's, there's, AI is the, is is one thing that Apple is, it's not, it's not one of their signature strengths. Doesn't mean they're not doing a lot of work on it. Doesn't mean that a lot of their products don't benefit from their work in ai. But you can't point to anything that seems like an AI feature. And if this really is turning into the, the magic wiffle dust that can take a good, good and useful feature and turn it into something that you don't think you can live without over the course of the day, cuz it's so damn useful to you, apple has to make sure that they got their thumb in that pie. I mean, I I, you've, you've heard me talk before, I won't go into the whole thing, but I've always thought that the most powerful augmented reality device is a simple Bluetooth earbud.
(00:34:25):
The ability to simply talk to an assistant, get information from it, put information into it just as is, is pretty darn powerful when you add to it having a conversation. Not just simply being able to have a fake conversation of what's the weather? What about tomorrow, what about Saturday? Yeah. But simply, simply saying, well, how much snow are we going to get? Like, how is it going to, is it gonna change over the course of the afternoon? But, and when you add things like you're in the kitchen and my, my, one of my test questions has been making red beans and rice and because that's a, that's a really good way of exploring stuff where I know what a basic red beans and rice recipe is. But I might have to ask follow up where, what if I'm making it in an instant pot, how does that change?
(00:35:08):
Like, well, what happens if I, if I add tomato sauce to it, I want to, how do I thicken it up? And having these interactive conversations that make you get to the place where you're ready to cook this thing because you've basically pre solved all the problems that you had. You got all the information you had that you could not do with a simple query, even if you're typing it into Google search. So this really is a place where Apple could seem really, really dumb. Oh, and, and don't remember. Don't, and don't, don't forget that Adobe also had their generator AI announcement today where they're adding generative AI features to Photoshop where presumably, or according to the demo, as soon as when this is released, you'll be able to do things like say take, take the, the lighthouse in this picture and make it look like it's being, it's, it's in Moonlight.
(00:35:51):
Or make the, make the lighthouse look a little bit more weather beaten or hide the third person from the left and cover it up with some of the background. And being able to do that magically. If Apple is the only product where you still have to mouse click everything, you still have to do natural queries where this magic thing just like, it's, it could be, it could almost feel like having a phone that doesn't have access to the mobile, to mobile broadband. It's like, why can't my device not do this wonderful thing that I can do with all these other services on these other
Leo Laporte (00:36:22):
Platforms? This is Adobe's firefly beta firefly.adobe.com. And, and, and Huang did mention that at the GTC keynote as well, that they were NVIDIA's working with Adobe to do this. Wow. We are, we are living in interesting times. And even if, and I think we all agree this isn't Arti general artificial intelligence, this isn't thinking machines by any means. The stuff you can do with it is pretty mind bole. Yeah. I
Jason Snell (00:36:51):
Keep, I keep thinking we should probably call it, and I know the, the, the horse out of the barn, but we should probably call it machine learning models, right? Yeah. Because that's really what's going on here. I agree. I I always thought of AI as being a very different thing Yeah. That we're not good at. But the, and, and yeah. You know, Apple's been doing machine learning models in their software for a while. Photos identifies all the photos, objects and all that. They've been doing that for a while. But to Andy's point, there is a difference I I find with most voice assistants right now, and anybody, you know, I think would probably join me on this. It's like you're doing a command line command, right? Yeah. Like, if you give it exactly the words you need, you can get something out of it. That is you, you learn like how to phrase things, but what you don't have is like a conversation with a person.
(00:37:33):
It's like one, one statement and you get your answer. And what Andy's describing is so exciting because it is the conversation. It is at least in the context of that moment, you know what I want and are gonna give it to me. So like I did that today with G P T four where I said, can you write a Python script that will display my will use swift bar for Mac Os to display my next fantastic how calendar event in my menu bar. And I sat there and watched it write a pretty good, although not entirely accurate, but a pretty good Python script to do exactly that. Wow. It didn't choke on any, it gave me some installation instructions. And then, you know, then you can say, could you do that as an Apple script? And it will do it right? Like, oh wow. Because it knows all of that context. Or you could say, by the way, you use the Google Calendar API instead and it will do that
Leo Laporte (00:38:25):
Last time I checked. It's amazing. It doesn't do lisp. So <laugh> unfortunately, give a time. It has to be a modern language. <Laugh>,
Jason Snell (00:38:32):
Apples soft basic. It's come, it's gonna happen. It's gonna happen.
Doc Rock (00:38:35):
<Laugh>. Jason, check this out. I use a program called The Script to basically transcribe our podcast. Yeah, right. Script ai. And then my, my partner on our podcast for e Camm, she basically was turning it into a blog post and I was like, Katie, I'm gonna try something for you, but we cannot summarize our podcast transcript directly with, I call him Chad. Right? With Chad, because Chad can only take 4,000 ish words or so. I go, let me try something. So I I, my Python is crusty, I mean like super crusty, like not even good. Anyway, so I go in there, I says, listen, I want to summarize this text into chunks. I wanna hold the chunks in an array. And then I want you to summarize the chunk stack after it's all put back together. And after you're done that, give me the blog posts skeleton with H one s, h two s, give me the key takeaways and write me five social media posts that will port back to the podcast so that people can see the actual episode. And it did it. And I was like, wait, my Python is horrible. But I was able to make the minor changes that I needed to do. And then I followed a bunch of, you know, tutorials online, but it basically takes our transcript now and generates all of what I need. And recently, because of four, I said, now give me some mid journey prompts based off of my key points to kind of generate, there you go. Images. And it works it like 100% works and it's, yeah, it's bananas.
Leo Laporte (00:40:10):
Mid journeys making progress too. Version five came out. It can do hands five
Doc Rock (00:40:15):
Is gorgeous.
Leo Laporte (00:40:16):
It could do hands. That's kind of amazing. Here's Brad pit wrestling a bear. It can also do biceps, triceps, pecks and forearms. 
Doc Rock (00:40:25):
Yo I'ma tell a mid journey. Make me a buffalo Leo appoint
Leo Laporte (00:40:29):
<Laugh>. Well, somebody, somebody in our, on our staff did do that. They, they put me in only murders in the building and I don't know if that really Oh,
Doc Rock (00:40:38):
I like that. I like, oh yeah. And Andy, I meant to ask you, are you making Louisiana version or the Avi Twila version? Cuz there's a Puerto Rican I have to ask that question.
Andy Ihnatko (00:40:47):
I'm starting with Louisiana. Cause I like the Creole seasonings. No. Okay. No, no. I got,
Doc Rock (00:40:53):
I'm out man. I am out
Leo Laporte (00:40:55):
What kind of red beans with rice do you make Doc Rock?
Doc Rock (00:40:58):
No, it's very, it is very similar. I was just teasing Leo. I mean, teasing Andy. But
Leo Laporte (00:41:03):
Look, I just go over to Popeye's in a kitchen and get their red beans and rice.
Doc Rock (00:41:07):
Yeah, it's, it's very similar, but you just add a little extra sofrito into it to get
Leo Laporte (00:41:12):
Oh, yum. Yeah. No, you got it. Oh, I don't make anything with that sofrito first.
Andy Ihnatko (00:41:17):
My, my, my prob my problem is the consistency. I, I've, I've, I've made it like twice so far and it, it's tasted wonderful, but it's like come out more like a soup, you know? Oh, yeah. <Laugh> than, and, and so, and so I don't know if I should be mashing more of the beans or whether I should cheat and add some
Doc Rock (00:41:32):
Add some tomato. Well, listen, there's plenty of us in Boston, so just go find your neighborhood Porter Rock restaurant and get you a real deal Abi Twila and adjust accordingly.
Leo Laporte (00:41:41):
<Laugh>
Doc Rock (00:41:42):
<Laugh>,
Leo Laporte (00:41:43):
This is a a mid journey five picture of Micah's chihuahuas doing their podcast. And I think it's, it's, it's quite good actually. It is great. Yeah. That is really the the bouquet now, the everything that it's just incredible. In fact, number of the prompts I've seen, people will actually say what camera, you know, they'll say Sony a 70 and this is
Doc Rock (00:42:05):
Where DP review is handy right now. Yeah. Because I can say I wanna pull off a Fuji X 100, but I'm a Sony shooter. I don't know all the right Fuji lenses. That's right. But Fuji has a different type of style, right? So I would be able to go to DP View and be like, what are the best like really expensive Fuji lenses? And you can call up the exact model of like a 20 and it'll simulate dollar Fuji lens. Yeah. And it will simulate it. It's kind. And we're gonna lose one of the best resources. Amazon
Leo Laporte (00:42:34):
Darn you. Here's a Sony a seven R 4 85 millimeter F1 0.0 picture of a kitty cat. This one I really like. I did this one without telling it the camera, I just said it was a black and white cat sitting in San Francisco Fire engine. I think they're getting good enough where you can't really tell if that's a real photo. And so instead of going to Europe this next week, I'm just going to sit at home and do mid journey <laugh> <laugh> post my pictures. Oh, great. And I hope you enjoy the trip <laugh>. It's good. It's funny. It doesn't you know, I mean, it, there's some things it's still not good at but it's pretty amazing what you can do. And Jammer B's been making rugs out of his cat. That's good. I like that.
Doc Rock (00:43:21):
Andy, maybe we can tell it to make us a picture of the Red Sox winning the penant again. Oh,
Leo Laporte (00:43:26):
Wouldn't that be good
Doc Rock (00:43:27):
<Laugh>? Because it's, it's getting far from my memory. If
Leo Laporte (00:43:29):
Brad Fit can wrestle a bear, the Red Sox can win the Penant
Doc Rock (00:43:34):
<Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:43:36):
All right. Where were we? <Laugh>? apparently according to Mac rumors last week, apple engineers are working on a chat. G P t, like ai not f maybe for Siri someday. Maybe not actually this is New York Times. It's New York Times. Saying it let me, let me go back here. Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant lost the AI race according to the Times. Yeah, but the race ain't over yet. And I think it's just a matter of time before we could get something pretty amazing. They have Scott Forestall back in the day asking Siri to define the word mitosis. I don't know if today, I think that was 12 years ago. I think that you asked Siri today, it'll say, here's what I found on the web for that. But it would be kind of cool if we could get, I don't want 'em to be chatty, but some like, summarize yesterday's news would be interesting, right?
Doc Rock (00:44:37):
Yes. I just don't wanna see that's the kinda thing they're good at. Be like, go out, you know, like, Hey sir, what's the weather? I it is like, who you live in Hawaii? Go outside and check for yourself. <Laugh>. Wait, I'm waiting for Sassy. Serious.
Leo Laporte (00:44:49):
That's carrots. That's carrot. I bet Carrot would say that. Yeah,
Doc Rock (00:44:51):
That's carrot. Yeah. You ain't gonna look for yourself. Meat bag. I'm busy.
Leo Laporte (00:44:55):
<Laugh> meat bag. It loves to call us meat bags.
Andy Ihnatko (00:44:59):
You're the one who thinks it has free will.
Leo Laporte (00:45:01):
So Andy, you, you got into the Bard. When did you when did you ask for an invite? How long ago?
Andy Ihnatko (00:45:07):
I don't I I asked for an invite at around 10:00 AM I also fired off an email to P pr like shortly after that. That's, I don't know which one. I don't know which one, which one hit, but
Leo Laporte (00:45:19):
I'm still on the wait list. So I think that second move was a,
Doc Rock (00:45:22):
It's pretty could tell 'em, can you invite my friends too? Like, cool dude, <laugh>,
Andy Ihnatko (00:45:28):
How can I get more invites
Leo Laporte (00:45:32):
Com Compare it to a two chat G p T. Is it similar? In
Andy Ihnatko (00:45:37):
Functionally? It's, you know what? It it, I like the fact that it doesn't try so hard to sound like a human being. It doesn't sound like a robot, but it's clearly, here's the information that you've requested, summarize and formatted in a way that you, that, that you've asked for it. For instance, I asked, I just asked, how do I get more invites into Bard says, there are a few ways to get more invites into Bard, and there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 bullets. Sign up for the Google AI Insider program. Follow Google AI and social media. Oh, interesting. Keep an eye on the Google AI website. Ask your friends and colleagues if they have any invite. If you know
Leo Laporte (00:46:10):
Someone, Hey Andy. So you'll begin last invites, I guess.
Andy Ihnatko (00:46:16):
Patient.
Leo Laporte (00:46:16):
Yeah, yeah. Be patient. Hopefully. Well, yeah, they, it's, they just put this online today, as far as I know. And so they're getting in the game too now.
Andy Ihnatko (00:46:24):
And it, it seems to be wired up like a,
Leo Laporte (00:46:29):
You
Andy Ihnatko (00:46:30):
Click through a couple screens where it says, yeah, this is, this is, this is an experiment. We are not, it's not ready to ship yet. Help us to help us to make this work. And underneath every single thing there is a thumbs up, thumbs down. If you give it a thumbs down, it will let you explain exactly how it got that wrong or was disappointed. And there's also just a button that says Google it, which is very, very, that's
Leo Laporte (00:46:49):
Hysterical.
Andy Ihnatko (00:46:51):
I also noticed that when I asked it for that recipe, it didn't just gimme the recipe. It also gave me or excuse me, when I asked for a factual information about No, both of 'em, it ba for the recipe, it gave me a link to all recipes.com for when I asked about a comic book character. See, okay, do you understand the origin of this character? It gave me the WikiEd, it explained it, and then linked me to the Wikipedia page. So basically it's, it's really is presenting itself as, hi, I am a piece of software that helps you to look, to get information. Ask me a question, and I will, I will, I understand that the humans enjoy English language. So that's why I've been programmed to do that. It's not like I'm sure that you can't I'm sure that you can't get it to like, pretend that it's a real person.
Leo Laporte (00:47:35):
Well, don't, don't think people won't try <laugh>.
Andy Ihnatko (00:47:38):
That's Oh no,
Leo Laporte (00:47:39):
That's part of the fun of Chad g p t is the jail breaks. Right. And the big,
Andy Ihnatko (00:47:42):
The biggest value of this test is everyone's gonna try to break it because we're Americans. It's, it's only, it's only available in America, in the United States and Canada, I think right now. And we are the jerks. We're the ones who say, Hey, here's a clean piece of wall. Let's spray paint something on it. Right? Hey, look, there is a bike chain to a tree. I can't steal the bike. Why don't I just bend the tires? <Laugh>, God bless America. Let's freedom ring <laugh>. Look, grows up on the streets, is what I'm saying. It's tough. <Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:48:08):
All right, let's see what
Andy Ihnatko (00:48:09):
Else. This couple was a rolling stone. Wherever he hanged his hat. Was his home <laugh> all at left Bard was alone. Sorry.
Leo Laporte (00:48:15):
I think, I think Andy is is glitching a little bit. Why don't you press the reset? Let's see if that I'm sorry.
Andy Ihnatko (00:48:21):
Let's,
Leo Laporte (00:48:21):
Let's
Andy Ihnatko (00:48:22):
Close, close my window and reopen it.
Leo Laporte (00:48:24):
The Kremlin has informed officials stop using iPhones. <Laugh>. actually if you look at the information, it's any smartphone, they even Putin doesn't use a smartphone. The,
Jason Snell (00:48:39):
Yeah, yeah. Little, little extra hype there about the iPhone. Yeah, but it's like iPhone or Android. And the argument is basically like, look, other countries, intelligence communities have exploits that they can right use. So you probably, if you're running Russia or you're high up in the, in the government there, you probably shouldn't be using a compromised phone. Yeah, you probably shouldn't. Especially with operating systems written by American
Andy Ihnatko (00:49:04):
Companies. If your phone does not run on vacuum tubes, it is a tool of the enemies of
Jason Snell (00:49:12):
Mo and squirrel are listening.
Leo Laporte (00:49:14):
<Laugh> commerce is a moose and squirrel. A Russian newspaper quoted officials at a criminal organized seminar for officials in domestics policies as saying it's all over for iPhone. Either [inaudible] or give it to the children, give
Jason Snell (00:49:30):
To kids, give
Leo Laporte (00:49:31):
To children. Two kids,
Jason Snell (00:49:32):
No one cared.
Leo Laporte (00:49:33):
If smart, everyone will have to do it in March. Kremlin spokesperson, Dimitri Pescov said he could not confirm the report, but smartphones should not be used for official business. <Laugh>, any smartphone has a fairly transparent mechanism no matter what operating system it is Android or iOS. Naturally.
Andy Ihnatko (00:49:53):
And the most I, and the most important thing is the more security phone is the more often it is limited in functionality.
Leo Laporte (00:50:01):
<Laugh>,
Andy Ihnatko (00:50:01):
The main thing is that it doesn't work out, like, doesn't work out like with super complex passwords that are impossible not only to crack, but also to remember. So you have to stick a cheat sheet in the back of the keyboard.
Leo Laporte (00:50:14):
<Laugh> very
Doc Rock (00:50:15):
Good advice. Just like Henry from Barry Bar
Leo Laporte (00:50:19):
<Laugh>.
Doc Rock (00:50:21):
That was a very good Henry.
Leo Laporte (00:50:22):
I love Henry. I tell you,
Andy Ihnatko (00:50:24):
Ask me how many track suits I got hanging up in the closet. Just go ask
Leo Laporte (00:50:27):
Surprised. This is awesome. 
Andy Ihnatko (00:50:30):
Apparently this is Maverick weekly [inaudible] 9 1 1 [inaudible]
Leo Laporte (00:50:41):
So yeah, don't use an [inaudible] I wonder if they're banning TikTok,
Andy Ihnatko (00:50:47):
<Laugh>. No, no. Chinese are all friends. <Laugh>. They're helping us to spy. Please, please use TikTok, but not on phone.
Leo Laporte (00:50:54):
Not on phone. Yes. Don't use fun. Use on the spec. Apparently I did read an article that said they're working on their own phone operating system. That'll go well. Mm-Hmm. That'll be good. And os let's tell you a little break here, more Apple news still to come, but I want to tell you about our great sponsor, Melissa. Well, you know, it's funny as, as I've gotten to know Melissa over time, I've really been more and more impressed by the range of things Melissa can do. We always have talked about Melissa as the address experts who can take your contact, Melissa, make sure everything's up to date, and all the zip codes are accurate, and emails and so forth. But really, Melissa can do so much more effect. They finally put out a solutions catalog with a list of all the things they can do.
(00:51:37):
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(00:53:37):
Right? It distinguishes eye movement. Other small changes to ensure the user's authenticity. And finally, the fourth most important tent pole in all of this is compliance reporting. Make sure your digital onboarding partner keeps full audit trails, customer due diligence reports. These reports are critical for your business. They should be organization controlled with the ability to evaluate anytime you want. Along with compliance reporting, you should be able to review and approve customer submissions with ease. Needless to say, Melissa does it. Melissa does it all. Get all of this and more With Melissa's digital onboarding and verification services, it says 1985. Melissa has specialized in global intelligence solutions. Of course, your date is safe with Melissa. They undergo continuous independent security audits to reinforce their commitment to data security, privacy and compliance. Their SOC two compliant, HIPAA compliant, GDPR compliant. Your data is in absolutely the best hands.
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So Melissa does it all. They do it accurately. They do it quickly. They do it in every way you need. They're 100% private, they're compliant. It's everything you want in data quality. That's why Gartner has named them in their data Quality Magic Quadrant. Again, year after year. Make sure your customer contact data is up to date. Gets started today with 1000 records cleaned for free. Melissa.Com/Twit. We love Melissa. We're glad to have a partner like Melissa and I hope you'll consider them to help you in your day-to-day business dealings. Melissa.Com/Twit. And if you do decide to check 'em out, please go to that address so that they know you saw it here. Melissa.Com/Twit. We thank them so much for their support. Have you heard Steve Jobs AI voice?
All (00:55:31):
Mm mm
Leo Laporte (00:55:34):
What did they do? Now, <laugh>. Let's play, let's play, let's play a little bit of this for you. This is from Forever Voices, I think. Hello? Make a sound. Oh, maybe I'm not getting sound. Oh, I know what's wrong.
AI Steve Jobs (00:55:54):
However, we have
Leo Laporte (00:55:55):
Adapted. There we go. Let's go back. I'm gonna have a chat with Steve.
AI Steve Jobs (00:55:59):
Steve. Undoubtedly, the biggest global event that occurred in 2020 was the Covid 19 pandemic. It has affected millions of people worldwide and brought about significant changes in the way we live, work, and interact with one
Leo Laporte (00:56:13):
Another. And of course, that's important cuz he passed in 2011. He didn't know about Covid 19. What else can you tell me about how will Covid 19 impact Apple? It was slow. Sorry about that.
Andy Ihnatko (00:56:32):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:56:33):
All right, let me play. I got another one. They
Andy Ihnatko (00:56:34):
Take, they take time and money. People forget about that. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:56:37):
You gotta think. This is actually a somebody's recording company's
AI Steve Jobs (00:56:41):
Covid-19 has had an impact on Apple. It led to the closure of some of our retail stores and disrupted our global supply chain. However, we have adapted quickly and continue to
Leo Laporte (00:56:52):
Innovate. This is somebody named John H. Meyer, who trained an AI on Steve Jobs's voice and connected it to chat G P t using the a p I and then connected it to Facebook Messenger so he can message Steve Jobs. Somebody else has done something similar. Richard Stall Man's Ted Talk was turned into well, basically it, it took Richard s stall, man's Ted Talk, took the transcript and got Steve to narrate it, which by the way, makes it much more compelling. And it's fun to hear Steve promoting non-pro proprietary open software. Good morning, <laugh>. Listen, this is very convincing. This is 11 labs which does a very good job, I think.
AI Steve Jobs (00:57:42):
Thank you. Thank you very much.
(00:57:50):
We have some great philosophy for you today. I'm really excited <laugh>, to introduce the importance of free software and the liberation of cyberspace. Now, a computer is a universal machine. You can make it do anything with the right program. Most of these programs have two forms. The source code that programmers write and change, and the executable, which is a bunch of signals for the
Leo Laporte (00:58:15):
Processor. And that's of course should be executable. But that's the kind of mistake humans make you, you know, almost that, almost that's makes it more human. Right?
Andy Ihnatko (00:58:24):
But that, that's really, that's really impressive because if you've heard, if those of us who've heard cliff Stole speak, he has a very, very,
Leo Laporte (00:58:31):
No, it's not, it's not Cliff stolen. It's Richards Stallman who is even, oh, I'm
Andy Ihnatko (00:58:34):
Sorry, Richard Stallman.
Leo Laporte (00:58:35):
I'm even, even weirder. Diction. Yes. <Laugh>. <laugh>.
Jason Snell (00:58:40):
Yeah. This is clearly trained on it, it sounds like on Jobs's keynotes, right? So it's got that keynote. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:58:44):
He has that
Jason Snell (00:58:45):
Thing. Yeah. Of like, we've got this great philosophy for you today. And yeah, it's funny, I wonder if you trained him on the, he used to be on the the analyst calls, the financial calls if you trained him on that. I wonder if he'd have the talking to a Wall Street analyst, but I really don't want to be here voice that he had on those
Leo Laporte (00:59:01):
<Laugh>. Anybody got a recording? Let's try.
Jason Snell (00:59:04):
Now we dig that one. And
Doc Rock (00:59:05):
It would've been great to have the voice of when, oh, so we used to get these calls into retail like once every quarter or whatever. We would just have like a family meeting and all the employees would sit there, would be on the floor and they would pipe the, the chats in. It'd be really cool to hear those talks because they're not intended to be outbound, so you just hear him talking like a normal person. Yeah. You know, normally excited about something that we were doing in retail, but the best one was in in June when he came and says, Hey, I'm gonna send you guys all present. You'll find out about it in two days. And everybody in the company's getting one. And we kind of didn't know what it was. Was
Leo Laporte (00:59:41):
It an iPhone? Yeah,
Doc Rock (00:59:42):
We, we, it was iPhones. It was all, we all got our OG iPhones. But Steven Ron came on the the wall <laugh>, that's what it was in the store. They came in the wall. We're all sitting on the floor. We're all like, you know, making guesses. You know, at that time, a rumor mill wasn't very, you know, rich like it is. There was a couple people that guessed iPhones. But yeah, it was incredible when we all got our first iPhones.
Leo Laporte (01:00:04):
You should have saved it in its sealed package. You'd be worth a little more money right now. Another sealed. There seems to be a lot of these original iPhones. Another one just sold for $50,000 in a recent auction, $54,904. And March 16th. It also had apple co-founders Wazniak and jobs signatures on an Apple. Let's see a variety of things. An Apple Lisa one owned by Dell Yoakum, former Apple Executive a Apple one computer autographed by Waz. And believe it or not, I can't believe this, somebody bought a an iPhone 11 with Tim Cook's autograph for $4,000. <Laugh> <laugh>. Next time I see Tim, I'm gonna have him sign a few things. What else? Sold a I think a Steve Jobs business card sold for $6,000. So Pete, there's, there's some collectors out there. Love to
Doc Rock (01:01:04):
See. Anybody wanna buy some business cards that have my name on? Sign 'em and Apple Sign 'em. I gotta them got Stack. I kept them.
Andy Ihnatko (01:01:13):
I got,
Doc Rock (01:01:13):
I sell 'em to you.
Andy Ihnatko (01:01:14):
I gotta say I was, I I was doing deep, deep, deep house cleaning. And I have this, I'm, I'm talking about like a real, a huge like boot box full of business cards I've collected at trade shows like since the nineties. And now, damn, I'm gonna, I'm gonna see if there's like a Mickey Mantel rookie card in there. <Laugh> <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (01:01:32):
Here's bill Gates personally used t r s 80 Model 100 computer with an autographed note. Well, I don't know if it's autographed. It says, I don't need this anymore. It's Microsoft property. I'm gonna start using the Model 700 Bill <laugh> property of Microsoft Corporation. But here's a big one. This is the big, the biggie. This is the original x y axis mouse and coding, you know mm-hmm. <Affirmative> courting. I think they got that wrong courting key set used by Doug Engelbart in the mother of all demos.
Andy Ihnatko (01:02:09):
I think it was a reproduction. I don't think it was the actual one, but it was like contemporary. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:02:13):
Cuz I've seen the original one and it was made outta wood. Right. but 178,000. Clearly. Clearly. Yeah. Yeah. I think, you know, I don't know if it's the original one, but it's pretty,
Andy Ihnatko (01:02:27):
No, I, I got, I got a press release on that the other day and I Oh, okay. And I, it wasn't the, wasn't the
Leo Laporte (01:02:31):
Right one. Yeah. Doug, we interviewed Doug at on tech TV many years ago, and he brought the wooden mouse that he used, looked just like this, but it was made outta wood. That was pretty remarkable. But no, it'd be worth $178,000. I'm might have taken it from him.
Andy Ihnatko (01:02:46):
Oh, more. Yeah. Far more
Leo Laporte (01:02:47):
Than that. Wouldn't do that.
Andy Ihnatko (01:02:48):
The only thing, the only thing I top that is the actual camera that Steve Jobs threw at an engineer's head. When you keynote, when a demoed went, went South
Leo Laporte (01:02:55):
<Laugh> I 120 18,
Andy Ihnatko (01:02:59):
You still see fits of hair on it.
Leo Laporte (01:03:00):
<Laugh> Mac prototype, 16,500. I like the buckle. This is the er maze version.
Doc Rock (01:03:06):
Yes, dude, the buckle is nice. <Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (01:03:08):
I know <laugh>, I don't understand
Doc Rock (01:03:10):
That Jason, Jason has one of those. I I put money on
Leo Laporte (01:03:13):
It. This was given to, it says, according to the auction house, a limited number of Apple employees. So yeah, you got a phone, but somebody got one with the leather buckle
Jason Snell (01:03:24):
<Laugh>. That's, you know, I've got
Doc Rock (01:03:25):
Holding
Jason Snell (01:03:26):
Pen, got some stuff, but a leather belt for my Mac Ari 1 28 is not one of them.
Leo Laporte (01:03:32):
No, it's
Jason Snell (01:03:32):
Not. Strangely I don't
Leo Laporte (01:03:34):
Have that. Yeah. Vendors, Steve Jobs business card. Not I Is it signed? I don't, it's not even signed. $6,188 business card. It's just a business card from 1983. Yeah.
Doc Rock (01:03:48):
Huh. And then I have have like a 2010 Leo Laport <laugh> business card from Macro. What can I get for
Leo Laporte (01:03:56):
That? Nothing. Nothing, nothing.
Doc Rock (01:03:59):
I gotta hangover from the chief in one night. What does that count? There
Leo Laporte (01:04:02):
You go. <Laugh>. really an interesting auction. A lot of interesting memorabilia. Yeah. 
Andy Ihnatko (01:04:10):
I'm glad, I'm glad the very least that because of these auctions we're getting like high resolution imagery can, comprehensive imagery of historical items and artifacts. That's true. That, that otherwise aren't being documented. And so yeah. I mean, I I, I would never be able to, if, if I had, if I wanted one of one of those input sets, I would probably hire someone to make me a reproduction for a lot less than a lot less than that. But but I want a picture of exactly what, what seems to be a working version of these. It it does, it doesn't look like it was built for display. You can actually see where on the corded, on, on the corded keyboard. And I, I've never seen that before. There's how many people will ever get to to actually see what a lot of these devices look like to just, to just the other day I was excited because a version of the RCA cosmic v cosmic home computer that I'd never heard of was a oxia development unit. And again, I'm not, I'm, thank you. It's probably worth $3,000 if that's what you're asking for, sir. But thank you for posting high-risk listen resolution pictures that I'm now saving to my hard drive because now I get to look and see and examine and have a little bit more understanding of what really prototypical a home computer of 19 76, 19 77 looked like.
Leo Laporte (01:05:22):
All right. I have a story from GIZ China. I don't know whether to trust it or not. Somebody named Effy UIN wrote European Union Herz, apple, again cannot limit U SB type C charging speed. So what Apple does, correct me if I'm wrong, if it's a MiFi made for iPhone charging cable, it could charge faster than a generic lightning charger. Is that right?
Andy Ihnatko (01:05:51):
Well, this is, this is concerns of the switchover to U s BBC to comply with the EU new edict that the EU has said that no apple, you absolutely do have to create you, you can't pack in a dongle to comply with this new rule. Next, starting next year, you will have to create u s bbc iPhones that will to sell in the eu. And there is some, I I've read this that, that was, I actually put the article in the notes. Cause I thought it was an interesting question. I didn't really think about it until I started reading the, the EU rules myself. And it does seem as though if Apple, there's been a lot of news in other tech press about how Apple tends is going intends to sort of sour the milk <laugh> of, of U s BBC charging by saying, yeah, but it's not gonna be totally standard u s bbc.
(01:06:35):
It's not gonna, you're not, it's gonna, not gonna support fast charging. And basically all, all the really good features of U s BBC 2023 charging unless you use an actual certified by Apple MiFi cable. And according to the text of the edict from eu, if it, if plain English is the actual truth, and is it is it ever in, in a legal document, it says that No, you can't, you, you can't fudge this, you can't force people to get a special cable in order to use this. Just having a u s BBC shaped connector is not enough. You have to have a u s BBC connector that, that features all the charging capabilities of any standard u s BBC cable. So if Apple, if the rumors we're seeing elsewhere are true, apple might have to defend that choice in the eu. And I'm, they must have had this discuss discussion before, because I can't imagine that they would want to take that risk if they're folding on putting u s bbc on the on the iPhone. I can't see why they would want to take a chance that they're still gonna be marinated from the market.
Leo Laporte (01:07:35):
S I, Samsung does this, I I don't know if Apple does it, but Samsung allows higher charging speeds with Samsung made devices. I bet Apple's ex excuse would be similar to Samsung's, which is, well, we don't want you to do fast charging if it's not something that we really are sure is well made. We don't want the battery to explode. This is for your safety.
Andy Ihnatko (01:07:56):
You're not ending as innovate stinkers. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:07:59):
So yeah, the EU is apparently saying, look, it's got to you can't do the made for iPhone certification, gives you better charging than just some you know, PD device. You have to adhere to the U SB D specs. And it does so well, that'll be, you know, what, that would make sense for them to do that. It'll be interest to see how Apple gets around it. I bet you they can <laugh> somehow. Maybe you put it in the box, but you offer a faster charging for sale. How could the EU couldn't stop that
Andy Ihnatko (01:08:34):
If it, if it were better than, if it were better than standard U S B C charge, excuse me, better than standard power delivery, fast charging. I, they could probably get away with it. But I think that the, the wording of the, of the law is saying that you can't simply say, okay, guess what? You're gonna get five watt charging if you don't use an Apple branded, right. Charger or an Apple branded cable. So, so
Leo Laporte (01:08:56):
Offer PD
Andy Ihnatko (01:08:57):
Question
Leo Laporte (01:08:59):
Capability charging in the box, but doesn't mean they couldn't do something better. You know, there's some, there's circuitry in those apple cables, right? There's all sorts of stuff going on. Somebody has got the half-life too engine running natively on Apple silicon. That is a, a good, that's a big deal, right? This is from Reddit half, like two source engine running natively on Apple silicon. Now this is admittedly not a modern engine, but still widely used. That's still,
Andy Ihnatko (01:09:33):
That's a large library of, of games. Like to get portal running right? Like natively under apples under apple silicon would be pretty interesting. Yeah. Whether, whether this is, could be adapted to whether the people who own portal would be interested in actually doing that sort of port. That's another question. But the fact that it's on GitHub, so it's not something that someone in a lab did it just to prove that they could do it. So
Leo Laporte (01:09:54):
Yeah. That's good news people. Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko (01:09:56):
If Apple tell, if Apple tells these engineers that here are things that we're not supporting on Apple silicone, they're saying, well, let us demonstrate whether or not we can do this on Apple silicone and then tell
Leo Laporte (01:10:05):
Us. Right? Right. At least I can play my Gary's mod <laugh> my new MacBook let's see what else is going on. Apple seeks Indian labor reform because they'd like to manufacture in India. But right now labor laws in India are perhaps not as palatable to the Western taste as Apple would like. Yeah. They've had success doing this in China, though, right?
Andy Ihnatko (01:10:38):
Yeah. And that's exactly what they're trying to do. They're basically saying that if you're gonna be making Apple products, you have to at least have the, your labor has to at least labor laws have to at least come up to the standards of what we've got going on in China. So that's a positive thing. There was a, there was, that's, it's very, very assu reassuring because a couple weeks ago there was another news item that said that Apple was also lobbying to have certain laws relaxed, saying we should, that we, we need to, we need workers to be able to work longer hours and more shifts. So we would like you to roll back some of these protective laws for labor. So if they are legitimately saying that we want to have parody with China, not that not the Chinese workers have it as well as an American worker would have, but it's still an, an upgrade over what they would have if they didn't stick their nose in. It
Jason Snell (01:11:25):
Also shows one of the interesting features about India, you know, like we view as Americans, I think, I know, I, I always view India as this monolith, right? It's this right. Big co, big country, world's largest democracy, all of those things. But the fact is it is a federal system and it is a strong federal system. Yeah. And this Bloomberg article, it's interesting, like one state in in India has already passed some legislation about this that's CARNA Kata carna [inaudible]. But they want this change in Tamil Nadu, which is where Foxcon operates the largest iPhone plan. So it's one of those cases, and I've heard this before when we talk about, and apologies for pronouncing, like I said, I didn't even understand how strong the federal system was until a few months ago where it came out that Apple, that's one of the hurdles in Apple expanding in India, is that they can go to China and basically say, Hey China, this is what we need.
(01:12:18):
And yeah, they can go to the Indian government and say, Hey, this is what we need. But what the Indian government basically says is, don't look at us <laugh>. That's the state's job. Yeah. And then they have to lobby in the individual states, ideally, where there are already factories that they could use with their manufacturing partners. And it's gets really complicated. So that's, it's interesting that Apple is basically going from state to state now in India in order to get labor laws changed so that they align with what Apple is looking for. And it, it doesn't sound like they're trying to do anything like, as far as I can tell anything evil, but it is much more about like flexibility of shifts and being able to do overtime where people get paid for overtime and they do two shifts of 12 instead of three shifts of eight and stuff like that. That is just not allowed in certain states in India right now.
Leo Laporte (01:13:06):
It's a good thing. Alex, Lindsay isn't here cuz he'd be apoplectic if he saw this next story. Microsoft, assuming that the EU is gonna enforce its rule, allowing third party app stores on iPhones and Android phones, Microsoft preparing to launch, they're working on already a new app store for their games on iPhones and Android smartphones. The new law would the Digital Markets act would come into effect next March a year from now. Phil Spencer at Microsoft talking in an interview ahead of the G D C conference. The Game Developer's conference in San Francisco says, we want to be in a position to offer Xbox and content for both us and our third party partners across any screen where somebody would want to play. This was the big battle with Microsoft. Apple said, well, you can't do a store with a bunch of stuff, but you could do one by one. Which is of course <laugh> kind of absurd. So you know, I imagine they're not alone in this, that everybody epic and, and so forth. They're, they're preparing their,
Jason Snell (01:14:11):
Andy and I have been doing this a long time. I know you have two Leo, but like, doesn't it feel like almost warm and cuddly to think, oh, Microsoft is an antagonist to Apple
Leo Laporte (01:14:21):
<Laugh>? It's like the old, it's like the good old days times.
Jason Snell (01:14:23):
It's good times. It's the good old days. Yeah. Look at that. It's good
Leo Laporte (01:14:27):
Times. Yeah. actually it's funny cuz that came up on Sunday. We were talking about the imminent banning of TikTok and how companies like Facebook have been using the existence of TikTok to say we're, we're not a monopoly. Look, look, there's TikTok just as Microsoft, when Apple was this close to going under in the mid nineties, gave Apple 150 million Bill Gates remember showing up in the keynote giant looming over Steve Jobs because Microsoft didn't wanna be a monopoly. And they were being, you know, investigated by the Department of Justice who sued them a couple of years later for being a monopoly. So they said, we got, we need a strong Apple. I think, I don't think Microsoft's trying to put Apple out of business. I think they're just looking forward to selling their, their games on the and
Jason Snell (01:15:15):
They, apple has iied them at every, at every turn. Right? Right. It's so frustrating the idea that the apple's like, oh yeah, you can just put every single item in your streaming service in the app store and it'll be reviewed individually. And it's like that's, they know what they're doing there. Right? So I I'm, I'm happy to see that Microsoft's fighting back.
Leo Laporte (01:15:32):
Are you saying that on purpose, that was a big fat middle finger? Are you saying that? Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko (01:15:38):
And there and there and there is like some peril for Apple. I mean I I don't, I think it's been a while since Apple has really boasted about how many billions of dollars that they've generated for developers at the App store. Because by now everybody knows that the people who are making money, the apps that are making money on the app store are games and games through in-app, in-app purchases. So if, if if that, if the major flow of cash were to be diverted because Microsoft can now have their own app store and and all these other apps can all these other game houses can have their own app stores. They don't necessarily have to kick in in-app purchase money to Apple. That could hurt that bigger, bigger piece of the pie. The services wedge of the pie keeps getting bigger and bigger. That could really <laugh> take some wind outta the sails of of services.
Leo Laporte (01:16:27):
By the way, Andy, here's the problem with your red beans and rice. There's no rice in there. You put some rice in there, all that liquid's just gonna get sucked right up. <Laugh>. That's obvious,
Andy Ihnatko (01:16:37):
Right? I didn't, I know, I know how to make rice, so I didn't, I wasn't practicing rice, <laugh>, <laugh>. Oh God. But thank, but, but thank you. Thank you. That, that is a good observation. I you
Leo Laporte (01:16:49):
Put a little taste that just you know, maybe don't have it cooked all the way, you know, that kind of thing. You get some,
Andy Ihnatko (01:16:54):
Some delicious or may or maybe like a loof of sponge at the bottom of it.
Leo Laporte (01:16:57):
<Laugh>. That looks, that looks really good. I'll be honest with you. I would even
Andy Ihnatko (01:17:02):
Yeah, it was damn tasty. It doesn't, it doesn't, I I it's, it's like a lot of like amateur cooks where it's like, it doesn't look like the picture
Leo Laporte (01:17:10):
<Laugh>. It should look
Andy Ihnatko (01:17:11):
Like the picture
Leo Laporte (01:17:12):
To that. Yeah. Yeah. I make most
Doc Rock (01:17:15):
Weeks I'm appreciating your ramen bowl game. That is a legit like ramen bowl right there. Ooh,
Leo Laporte (01:17:20):
There you go. Very nice. Very nice. And
Andy Ihnatko (01:17:22):
It's not, it's not, it's not like water to the person in the person in the chat. It is, it is like a thick sort of like, almost like a chow re sort of soup. There
Leo Laporte (01:17:31):
Is a trick you can use. You could take some of those beans out, use a immersion blender to yeah. Blend them and then put it back in mash
Andy Ihnatko (01:17:38):
Thick, mash 'em up and mash put them in. Mash
Doc Rock (01:17:39):
It back in. Yeah. Yeah. I, I do that. I love that. Yeah. That makes that give, Lord,
Leo Laporte (01:17:43):
I, I make beans almost every week. I usually use black beans like, so, such a good flavor. So <laugh> Anyway, that's our cooking segment. I hope you've enjoyed it. <Laugh>. We are really light on news today. I swear to God. I got nothing. Got nothing.
Doc Rock (01:17:56):
You, you can make red beans and rice in the rice pot, Leo.
Leo Laporte (01:17:59):
Oh, I never thought of that. You just put the bean dry beans or you have to cook 'em ahead of time.
Doc Rock (01:18:04):
I I would, I would put if you soaked them overnight and they're kind of wet or just cheat and use can beans. Okay. But yeah, you can totally do that in the rice cook.
Leo Laporte (01:18:12):
Ah, yeah.
Andy Ihnatko (01:18:13):
Mm. I'm trying to see how that, that's why I started on this kick. Cause I'm trying to, I'm trying to figure out, like, I've been using, you know, staple, staple of any, any good kitchen. It is like canned red beans, canned black beans. And I'm like, maybe I, I have never tried making like red beans like from dry. Should I try it just to see if it's, it's very, actually, it's very easy and it's actually a lot tastier and it costs a lot less money
Leo Laporte (01:18:35):
Just between us kids. You don't have to soak 'em. That's that's overwritten over, over just just take 'em a little longer. That's true.
Andy Ihnatko (01:18:43):
Yeah. Yeah. Or
Doc Rock (01:18:44):
I believe intru, but I don't you kill my grandma that
Leo Laporte (01:18:47):
Well, the problem is you have to think about it that day before you
Jason Snell (01:18:50):
Got the cult cooking device, the Instant Pot that then it takes about an hour. It's pretty easy. I made black bean soup yesterday and that was it. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:18:56):
Super. I have a if you're in the cult, I have a bean recipe book called Cool Beans <laugh> and cool Beans Is that great. So
Jason Snell (01:19:04):
They, so they thought of the title Yeah. And then had to come
Leo Laporte (01:19:07):
Up with, and they said, what do I do now? But, but one of the things that he says, you know, I'll tell you a secret. I never soak my beans. I just you just cook 'em a little bit longer and they come out. Right.
Doc Rock (01:19:15):
You know, what's the most incredible bean thing that I, I've, I've started making, and I actually have to do it again this weekend because we're a little bit late getting started. But I get soybeans from Amazon. Mm. And I normally, on my Japan trips, I bring back Koji, which you can also buy from Amazon. You don't have to go get it from Japan. And we make our own miso now and it's so freaking good. And the dope part. So you just basically, like Jason said, you ins instant pot your soybeans until you get them soft enough to smash and you wanna smash them almost like mashed potatoes. And you put in some salt, some koji, and you gotta use your actual hands because your hand floor of fauna is what starts the sort of bacterial process. The myosis, if you will, <laugh>. You, you smash it all up, you get it nice and going and you just put it in a bucket airtight with a layer of salt and plastic and just hide it for four months, <laugh>. And when it comes out you got like perfect meo. It's so good. And it's much, much better than, you know, the stuff you buy from the store. And I'm getting texts from my buddy Patrice, she's saying like, this is like a foodie flashback movement. <Laugh>, because we always talk, we always talk about foodie stuff. Right, right. Andy, whenever we were doing a show. So
Leo Laporte (01:20:28):
Yeah, we get hungry towards towards noon around here and <laugh>. That's just what happens. That's
Andy Ihnatko (01:20:34):
See the number, the number of times on this show cuz here on the East Coast, like we're over, we're over at around 4 35 and between 2:00 PM and 5:00 PM I, my dinner plans go from, well I, I bought a salad and I'll put maybe some Italian dressing on it too. Maybe I'll get a double bacon cheeseburger from the restaurant in the neighborhood.
Leo Laporte (01:20:52):
<Laugh>, ah, the double bacon cheeseburger. That's always a good out. Alright. I swear to God I don't have anything else. Anybody want to throw anything in? Is there any breaking news? It's very light day and I guess we shouldn't fill, we don't need to fill you know Yeah. When, so you just outta curiosity, usually I'm really trying to decide if I should take this trip. We're going, we're going in a week, we're going to Lisbon spend a few days there, gonna cruise a little bit around the Mediterranean in up spending a week in Rome. And I'm really trying to decide, cuz I know if I had, maybe I'll just take the Leica, the, the, because that's a street street photography camera. Maybe just take that, right? That's just one thing. No, it's not even interchangeable lenses. The Insta 360 and the, and you gotta have the nine meter carbon fiber. No, you
Doc Rock (01:21:45):
Can use the regular, the regular one is fine. I just really enjoy the nine meter because it allows you to pull up drone shots where you're not supposed to fly a drone. Yeah. But
Leo Laporte (01:21:53):
That's what Anthony did, how couldn't, couldn't believe it when I said the footage, it was amazing.
Doc Rock (01:21:57):
Half the time I just have it mounted either to my chest or sticking out of my backpack, you know, full on Mando style. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (01:22:05):
<Laugh> just
Doc Rock (01:22:06):
Have it grabbing shots. Yeah. You know, and
Leo Laporte (01:22:08):
You just says you, as you, as you're walking around, you just shoot it and then if you see something good, you could just say, I want that frame kind of thing. <Laugh>.
Doc Rock (01:22:15):
Right, right. Okay. And because it's so light, oftentimes what I kept doing while I was taking shots is I just put it on the normal stick. There's a battery stick, which comes in handy if your phone starts to die. And I put it on the battery stick and I just hand it to Karen and like, here, hold this. And then she just starts aimlessly walking around, not realizing that it's recording, but I'm getting great footage while I'm doing something
Leo Laporte (01:22:34):
Else. All right. Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko (01:22:36):
Okay. You know, the one, the one thing that that's changed for me, I still, I still take a good camera if I can, but my attitude has changed from I'm, I'm here to take the most brilliant, wonderful picture as I can. It's, that's changed to, I'm here to capture as much data as I can to bring back home and create a really good picture. Whether it's I, I want to just get the, the, the most pixels I can and the, the most valuable pixels I can to in a raw file. A lot of it is now, hey, this is a really good space. I'm to just take random pictures from lots and lots of angles. Un in case a piece of software I have now, or a piece of software I'll have three years from now can assemble that into like a 3D vrr image in ca in case I, in case I can finally get neural radiance field software working on my Mac and can basically turn this into something that is that can put into blender and then relight and re-cap and things like that. So that's what, that's the, that's one of the reasons why I take a, a, at least a good pocket camera because I know it grabs a lot more data per pixel than my phone can. Hello? No, no depth data. So I wonder if I'm losing out on there
Leo Laporte (01:23:41):
Decisions. Decisions. I
Andy Ihnatko (01:23:43):
Know it's hard. It's hard, it's hard.
Leo Laporte (01:23:45):
I also realize that I don't need to take an arty, a great piece of art every time. That sometimes just reporting the experience and having it is is all I need. In fact, that's gonna be my pick of the week. I'll show you that in just a second. But before we get into our picks of the week, I would like to give, if you don't mind, a little plug for our club. We love the Club Club twit. It is, it has become a great refuge. About 7,000 of us in there now. There's several reasons for the club's existence. One is, well, we, you know, it helps us defray the costs of the shows. And because you're giving us seven bucks a month, we don't need to play ads for you. So people wanna add free versions of the shows track or free, add free versions of the shows.
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That's one way to get it. Every show plus shows we don't put out anywhere else. The members only shows and glues hands-on Macintosh with Micah Sergeant Home Theater Geeks is back thanks to the Club Scott Wilkinson's AV show. We also have Hands on Windows with Paul Throt, the Al Untitled Linnux Show with Jonathan Bennett. The GIZ Fizz with Dick d Bartolo. Stacy's book club is coming up. April 6th. Sea of Tranquility is the book this month. We also have inside Twit coming up with one of our great editors, Victor Bona, Alex Wilhelm doing an ask Me Anything in May. Sean Powers from Floss Weekly in June. And we'll have other events as time goes by. Aunt Prutz, our community manager, does a great job putting those together. The Discord is a place you can go, not only to talk about shows as they're going on, and of course they are a haven for animated gifs or gifts.
(01:25:30):
 You can also talk about other things geeks like, because we have sections including cooking, I might add, and coding and comics, fitness, gaming, hacking, ham radio, movies, music, pets, sci-fi software. There's a lot to talk about. And all of that is because it's only people who paid seven bucks a month in there. And our hosts I think the conversations are fantastic. They're really good. So a great place to hang in The Discord ad free versions of all the shows, special shows you don't get anywhere else, and all the gifts all the time. Seven bucks a month, $84 a year. There's also corporate memberships. And you'll have the good feeling of knowing you're helping us put together the network and grow the network. I mean, we can now launch new shows as we have with this week at Space, hands on Mac, hands on Windows, hands on or other home Theater geeks.
(01:26:22):
All of those are new. And all of those are thanks to the good offices of our club members. So we thank the club members and invite you to join. Go to twit.tv/club twit. Hey everybody. Leo LaPorte here. I am the founder and one of the hosts at the twit Podcast Network. I wanna talk to you a little bit about what we do here at twit because I think it's unique and I think for anybody who is bringing a product or a service to a tech audience, you need to know about what we do Here at twit, we've built an amazing audience of engaged, intelligent, affluent listeners who listen to us and trust us when we recommend a product. Our mission statement is twit, is to build a highly engaged community of tech enthusiasts. Well already you should be, your ears should be perking up at that because highly engaged is good for you.
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He said, quote, we would not be where we are today without the Twit network. I think the proof is in the pudding. Advertisers like it Pro TV and Audible that have been with us for more than 10 years, they stick around because their ads work. And honestly, isn't that why you're buying advertising? You get a lot with Twit. We have a very full service attitude. We almost think of it as kind of artisanal advertising, boutique advertising. You'll get a full service continuity team, people who are on the phone with you, who are in touch with you, who support you from, with everything from copywriting to graphic design. So you are not alone in this. We embed our ads into the shows. They're not, they're not added later. They're part of the shows. In fact, often they're such a part of our shows that our other hosts will chime in on the ad saying, yeah, I love that.
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Or just the other day, <laugh>, one of our hosts said, man, I really gotta buy that <laugh>. That's an additional benefit to you because you're hearing people, our audience trusts saying, yeah, that sounds great. We deliver always overdeliver on impressions. So you know, you're gonna get the impressions you expect. The ads are unique every time. We don't pre-record them and roll them in. We are genuinely doing those ads in the middle of the show. We'll give you great onboarding services, ad tech with pod sites that's free for direct clients. Gives you a lot of reporting, gives you a great idea of how well your ads are working. You'll get courtesy commercials. You actually can take our ads and share them across social media and landing pages that really extends the reach. There are other free goodies too, including mentions in our weekly newsletter that sent to thousands of fans, engaged fans who really wanna see this stuff.
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We give you bonus ads and social media promotion too. So if you want to be a long-term partner, introduce your product to a savvy engaged tech audience. Visit twit.tv/advertise. Check out those testimonials. Mark McCreary is the C of Authentic. You probably know him one of the biggest original podcast advertising companies. We've been with him for 16 years. Mark said the feedback from many advertisers over 16 years across a range of product categories, everything from razors to computers, is that if ads and podcasts are gonna work for a brand, they're gonna work on Twitch shows. I'm very proud of what we do because it's honest, it's got integrity, it's authentic, and it really is a great introduction to our audience of your brand. Our listeners are smart, they're engaged, they're tech savvy, they're dedicated to our network. And that's one of the reasons we only work with high integrity partners that we've personally and thoroughly vetted.
(01:31:07):
I have absolute approval on everybody. If you've got a great product, I want to hear from you. Elevate your brand by reaching out today@advertisattwit.tv, break out of the advertising norm. Grow your brand with host red ads on twit.tv. Visit twit tv slash advertise for more details or you can email us, advertise@twit.tv if you're ready to launch your campaign. Now, I can't wait to see your product, so give us a ring picks of the week. Let's start with Mr. Doc Rock, our guest for the week filling in for Alex Lindsay. Hi, doc. What's your, what's your pick? Is this something else I need to buy now before the trip?
Doc Rock (01:31:45):
<Laugh>? Well, yeah, but I forgot if I'm gonna be Alex, I should have bought something expensive. What the heck?
Leo Laporte (01:31:51):
<Laugh>. Okay. Okay. <laugh>,
Doc Rock (01:31:55):
Dude. All right, so thi this is it, right? So I was telling you now you don't two handles. Oh, some rigs actually you don't need, you don't need any handles. But I put the two handles. The cage itself is like 40 bucks, right? It's just a simple really light
Leo Laporte (01:32:09):
Aluminum. This is very Alex, this is very Alex, I think you nailed it.
Doc Rock (01:32:12):
Sorry, video guy. This was casted out of a single piece of aluminum and it's made by small rig. It's called the Universal Smartphone Rig. And the reason why I started buying this as opposed to the ones that used to fit perfectly is I am on the switch phones every September, October cycle. And I was having to buy a new $40 cage over there. After the five of them I gave up and finally got the universal end up liking it better because it has quarter 20 holes on every single side. Ah, and cable management little vents on every single side. So then you can pick up the handles for about 20 bucks a piece. So I have a perfectly good, you know, steady hand if I need to do vertical content, I can still hold it, you know, tightly like such when I'm doing vertical content and what I've added to it, which is also in my link, I just put all the parts you can build at how you wanna skeleton it.
(01:33:05):
This is the DJ I Mike, which allows me, when I'm doing an interview, I'll pull out his twin brother and I'll face one towards myself and then one towards the interviewee. I got perfect sound at 32 bit float. The other thing that I do with it is when I'm doing something where I know I want a vertical content and a horizontal content, I will pop this bad boy on the top and then put my iPhone 13 here and run it in vertical mode like such, right? So I keep the 14 promax in the body, but I'll put my 13 promax right there and I'll shoot both horizontal vertical at the same time because it just saves and because of the offset with Apple camera, it happens to end up in the center. And I mean, again, you know, $40 20, 20 20. And then, yeah, we won't get into the DJ mic at 3 29. The last thing I add to this to make it really good is I have a hummingbird clip on the bottom. And that's, so when I need the tripod, it, I can just take my mantis pod, do one of those, and now it's, you know, ready to go into sankaku mode, aka a tripod. And then it's good to go. You know what I mean?
Leo Laporte (01:34:13):
Wow, this is fancy. I
Doc Rock (01:34:14):
Have these hummingbird clips on every single tripod. I even have this hummingbird clip on my instant 360 stick. So if I were to grab my instant 360, I can pop it right here. You know what I mean? So I just use the hummingbird clips because it's a great way to inter entertain smaller devices. So anything from a small camera like the Zv E 10 or the Zv one, you know, where they don't really weigh a lot, these work perfectly with like this mod. I could even click it right to the top of the small rig mod and shoot both, you know, point and shoot and iPhone at the same time. So it's a really great setup. It, it makes life easy and you can start it as low as 40 bucks and just add what you need after. So rather than a single link, I put in a link to just my, you
Leo Laporte (01:35:01):
Got a whole shopping list here. Collect
Doc Rock (01:35:03):
<Laugh>. Yeah, it's a collection and you just build it as you need to according to your phone. This will support pretty much all the phones on the market today.
Leo Laporte (01:35:10):
Thanks for putting this together. This is awesome. Doc rock.live/mobile rig. Is that it?
Doc Rock (01:35:17):
Mobile rig? Yeah,
Leo Laporte (01:35:18):
Mobile rig. And it's a, it's an Amazon wishlist or whatever shopping list, but this way you can, yeah, you can buy it from him. Buy them
Doc Rock (01:35:26):
Anywhere else. I don't care if, I don't
Leo Laporte (01:35:27):
Care if you buy, but if I buy it, you buy this way, you get a little something, something, which is nice. I
Doc Rock (01:35:31):
Think I will suggest that if nothing else you get this. Because a lot of times, which was cool for us in Japan this one is cheap, right? This one is like 20 some odd bucks. But we would go somewhere and I would clamp this baby to the fence and then I would tell Karen and Mom, let's run back. And I would just click the button on my phone and, you know, get a great shot without having to worry about anything and not set up a tripod. Especially in places where if tripods are frowned upon, like at a temple, I can mount this on a tree and then just back up and get great shots, you know, at King Kok or whatever. So
Andy Ihnatko (01:36:06):
I, I can't, I
Doc Rock (01:36:06):
Can't, less intrusive advice.
Andy Ihnatko (01:36:08):
I can't second that hard enough in terms of payoff for it takes up such little space in your bag and yet it is the every time that you're about to say, ah, I'm screwed. There's no way I can take this. Oh wait a minute, I do have a clamp with a tripod mount on it in my bag. And suddenly congratulations. You can get the shot you want. Yes, you can get the stabilized long exposure thing. Yes, you can get like all four people in the picture at once. And these things, the, the really good professional ones cost like 90 bucks, but I can't tell the difference for my use between those and the cheap knockoffs that go for like 10, 11, 12 bucks bucks. So
Doc Rock (01:36:42):
I can't remember. This small rig is 20 because it's metal. That's, you can get the plastic one cause the iPhone is not heavy at all. But the small rig is like 20 bucks cuz it's metal. And a lot of times all I'll do is put a sta any foam mount you already own that came free with something else, just take that and stick it to this small rig and then just bite it on anything and you're good to go.
Leo Laporte (01:37:02):
Very good stuff. Doc rock.live/mobile rig for a whole thing. A whole bunch of them.
Doc Rock (01:37:13):
Yeah, and I'll probably add more stuff if anything new comes out. So if anything, just pay attention to the list because if somebody makes something cool, I'll just add it to the list because everybody has different wants and needs, so I just try to keep it, you know, keep it functional.
Leo Laporte (01:37:28):
I as I mentioned, we're gonna go on vacation for April Fools. I'll be gone for a few weeks in April. And one of the things I like to do as I'm traveling is keep track of my travels. Of course. I take a lot of pictures and there is a really cool app you could put on your iPhone called Polar Steps. This is one of a whole category of travel journaling apps, but this is the one I've used for some time. It has a social aspect. You could follow me, I can follow you. It automatically uses location tracking in your phone, which while you may not want that on day-to-day is great while you travel cuz it makes a map of everywhere you've been, gives you some travel tips while you're there. All the pictures you take that go into apple's.
(01:38:11):
Photos can go in there as part of your trip. Not all, you know, you get to choose obviously. And then you can even, and this is how they make money on it afterwards cause it's free for the app. Make a book out of it which is really, really cool. Ios as well as enter it as well as iOS polar steps. So I just, I wanted to tell people that's what I will be that's what I, I'll be carrying with me on this trip if you wanna follow along. And I mean, I just don't actually don't know what my handle is on there. Is it Chief Twit? Let me check. Just to see. I'm
Doc Rock (01:38:49):
Pulling it right now. Does it grab data from the trip last week?
Andy Ihnatko (01:38:53):
<Laugh>?
Leo Laporte (01:38:55):
Well I've got my, my my my Mexican vacation on there. So it makes, it's really fun. You can plan it. Oh, actually that's the one coming up. There's the Mexican vacation. You could plan it. It makes a photo book but it also share, you know, has a nice map of where you're being and where you're going. Let's take one more. We did a little more traveling. Let's see. Here we go. So you, you, the map is kind of cool because you can see all the places you've been as you're going there and it has all the pictures you've taken and it makes a book afterwards and it shares it. And so I could follow you and you could follow me as you're traveling around as well. There are other apps that do this, but this is the one I've used before. And it's, the nice thing is they are keeping it up to date. So it's been around for some time. Polar steps.com if you want to know more. Andy and Ako Pick of the week.
Andy Ihnatko (01:39:47):
I thought I com complete the little journey we've been taking over the past few weeks about mutants like me, who later, I like streaming services, but I also like having like my own audio and video files. I can play just locally cause I control my own library. And I found this really nice video player that essentially works just on, it's exclusively for, again, the stuff that you actually own. It's called Infuse, I N F U S E. It's been around for a while. I, I, I only came across it about a week or two ago, but man, is it ever feature rich? There, there, I mean there are a bunch of really good apps like VLC that will play multiple flat file formats and they're okay. They're very, very decent. This one really takes it up to another level.
(01:40:32):
 Yes, it will play pretty much any file format, any video file format that you throw at it. Yes, it will automatically scan your drive for for, for video files that can play, but also it will essentially stream files from wherever you've got them. So if you have like I've got most of my, really all my video on a on, on a nas server as part of my Plex library, I can this app can actually just simply connect to it as an s m s volume and then stream all that content as a nice little, as a nice self-contained library. If I have if I keep video files on Dropbox or Google Drive or any other web dev sort of service, I can stream it right from there too. I can do playlists, I can do collections.
(01:41:17):
It will automatically get get metadata. So I'll get nice data about what's what this these file files are. On top of all that. It's for Mac, it's for iOS, it's for the iPhone, the iPad, apple tv. And if you pay for the non-free version, which costs 10 bucks a year, it will sync between like all of those devices. So sometimes Plex, I, I love it. It's, I think it's the best in its category, but there's still times when it drives me up a fricking wall where I've got the Plex app on Apple TV and it works, but sometimes, oh, I can't find it on the network cuz it's bus, it's, my na is busy doing something else. But but infuse will always work perfectly fine cuz it's not trying to run an entire DVR and file management system.
(01:42:04):
It is just simply saying, oh, here is a source of video files. I have I have seen this, this directory before and, and created a directory of that directory. So I'm going to grab that directory off of I off of iTunes and simply mount it in this Apple app excuse me, apple TV app and let you play all this stuff. And if you quit in the middle if you stop in the middle of a while, you're watching something on your iPhone and then you pick it up later on in the day on your Apple tv, it'll pick up right from you. Started from really, really, really sophisticated. I'm very, very impressed with how well it works. This is clearly not just some a weekend hobby for somebody. This has been stewing like a good red bean red, red bean pot <laugh> for all afternoon, if not for, for five or 10 years. So 10 bucks a year.
Doc Rock (01:42:48):
Yeah. Fire Core has been on for more than 10 years. Fire Cores been around for a
Leo Laporte (01:42:52):
Long time. I know their name.
Doc Rock (01:42:53):
What else to see them growing up? Did
Leo Laporte (01:42:55):
They do some other stuff? I,
Doc Rock (01:42:57):
I, yeah. Back in the day they were a good player for Plex when we first got like fire sticks and the original like Apple tv. So they've been around for quite a minute. It's cool to see that they've grown up into something is cool. Yeah,
Andy Ihnatko (01:43:12):
They, and they were Choir supports still be utmost Yeah. Supports again, 10 bucks a year, boys that unlock a lot of great stuff. I'm very, very happy with it.
Leo Laporte (01:43:19):
Oh, I'm gonna have to try that. That's really cool.
Andy Ihnatko (01:43:21):
I feel, I feel dumb for, as Doc says, it's been around for, wow, how come, how come I'm not coming across this until just now? It just goes to show you that some of the best apps out there, they're just not on your radar. And then you find out, wow, I, my life could have been a lot better starting at least seven years ago.
Leo Laporte (01:43:35):
Fire core.com/infuse
Andy Ihnatko (01:43:39):
Also available on the app store. So
Leo Laporte (01:43:40):
Nice, Mr. Jace Snell Pick of the week.
Jason Snell (01:43:45):
So there was an app that was really great called Camo. And what it did is you ran it on your iPhone and then you ran on your Mac and you got to use your iPhone as a webcam on your Mac, which was great. So great in fact that Apple said that's a good idea. And they invented Continuity camera, which actually does it one better because it builds in Auto Connect. Right? Well, camo Studio two is now out and like any great Sherlock product, they have updated themselves in order to do more because Apple doesn't wanna give you any control over your webcam. So it's basically a great webcam settings app. It works with continuity camera, it works with just about any other webcam that you can connect to your Mac. And then, and I'm actually using it right now. Oh, what a reveal. And among the things that it can do <laugh> that I love is if Apple won't let you control the Zoom.
(01:44:32):
So I'm zoomed in on my image here. I can zoom back out. I I'm not quite on center for my wide shot, so I zoom myself in and then I move it a little bit. It also has adjustments. It has its own version of portrait mode that actually works better than Apple's portrait mode. It's more consistent with what it shows in the background. It's got the little spotlight mode. If you wanna highlight the foreground, you can do that. Everything has sliders that are more adjustable than anything Apple offer offers, cuz all Apple does is let you toggle it on and off. And then a bunch more White balance controls all sorts of brightness and contrast and color controls. They have a whole catalog of overlays. They have a whole catalog of filters and you can import l u t profiles to change your particular image to whatever kind of color profile you want it to be.
(01:45:22):
And yes, they still have an iOS app and if you run that app, then you get complete control over all three cameras on your iPhone Pro. And you can choose which one, and then you can zoom in on that. Like it, it's got its own center stage that is actually better because it will not only track you, but they've got a mode where it'll hold the Zoom and it won't, it won't zoom in and out. It'll just slowly track you, which is really nice. Apple doesn't give you that either. So if you've got a studio display, it's not gonna make the camera better, but it'll let you control that crop so it doesn't look like you're peeking over the edge of the bottom of the screen when you're sitting in front of it. It works with continuity cameras, so you can use it with any iPhone that supports continuity.
(01:45:58):
Camera beauty of that is there didn't used to be good mounts to put iPhones on laptops and on desktop monitors and on imax. And now thanks to Continuity Camera, apple Gott, at least Bekin to build some. And so the experience is actually way better than it ever was with camo <laugh>. And, and yeah, if you've got a 4K webcam that you've been frustrated about how lousy the setting software is camo will probably do the job just as well, if not better. It's not cheap. This is something that if you're using video all the time and are frustrated by your inability to control what your webcam looks like, it's $40 a year or $80 for a lifetime. But I'll tell you if you know, you know, because you're gonna have that moment where you're like, I just want to crop my video in the right place. <Laugh> and, and camo will let you do that plus a whole lot more. So it's just, it's, it's the video settings that Apple won't give you. And, and they did a great job and it just came out version two, so highly recommended for people who need this sort of thing. Like people who do two hours about Mac Break, you know, on Mac Break weekly every week. I, I I like it. It's good.
Leo Laporte (01:47:07):
I had to get up at eight this morning to do the GTC keynote and that's what I used at home on my la on my Mac. But I didn't know it would work with continuity camera. That's kind of nice. That's good.
Doc Rock (01:47:19):
Yeah, the 2.0 added so much. Cool, cool. New
Leo Laporte (01:47:21):
Stuff. Now you say that, but you are an e Camm guy. Does it compete with e Camera? Yeah,
Doc Rock (01:47:26):
But we, no, it can partner with Camel. Oh, I didn't. Eden who's the version of me at Camo is Eden and she is one of my best friends on the planet. We love Allie and the guys over at camo. It's amazing because so many people want to get into this game, but they can't afford to go buy a bunch of cameras. And we always tell 'em, start with your phone. And the basic phone way
Leo Laporte (01:47:48):
Of the phone really works well. Yeah,
Doc Rock (01:47:50):
We can just take a phone from a cable, but we tell everybody go through camo because it's so much better. So yeah, we love camo
Jason Snell (01:47:57):
And, and Doc Rock actually just showed the little camo watermark. That's one of the nice things about it. It's not cheap, but you can use it for free with the watermark. They've got some limitations, but you can at least try it out and see, is this gonna work for me? Is this gonna do what I needed to do? And, and so you can try it out and see, but I, yeah, I, it's great. It, it really is. I don't know why Apple doesn't give us revamp controls, but they don't, they just don't,
Doc Rock (01:48:19):
They absolutely. I don't know why I like showing you guys the top of my dome, but they have really cool overlays. Like I can put in things like that's it. You know,
Leo Laporte (01:48:27):
I think arguably that app, that iPhone is better looking image to be honest with you than you. No,
Doc Rock (01:48:33):
This, this is an instant 360 link. Oh, you're kidding. I use the instant 360 links because it's my overhead camera. Ah.
Leo Laporte (01:48:40):
Cause I
Jason Snell (01:48:40):
Need
Leo Laporte (01:48:40):
To people look at that, look at the bouquet on how to do,
Doc Rock (01:48:43):
And of course, well I actually turn that off in this point cuz in this particular situation like Jason Sing is when I'm showing somebody something from my overhead cam, I normally want to have it, you know, face the right direction or whatever. Right, right, right. So I can just easily pop in and flip that bad boy around. That's the standard instant 360 link version. And then that's the camo version because I have the stupid Boca turned on, but I can now at that
Leo Laporte (01:49:11):
Adjustment's a great shot Yeah.
Doc Rock (01:49:13):
Than what's built into the standard instant 360 app. Right. And yeah, it's really, that's it. The best thing they did was add ability to fix things in the app so I don't have to do stuff like show up on screen like this.
Jason Snell (01:49:26):
Oh yeah. Arbitrary rotation. Green screen. Also, if you use a green screen they've got like a green screen filter that actually like makes it so if your green screen's a little bit weak, like it's a few different kinds of green, they have a filter that sort of like takes the greens of a green screen and flattens them out so that you'll get a good green screen effect and whatever app you use for that, it's just nice. Yeah. It's a, it's a great webcam toolkit if you're, if you're frustrated by what you can't do with your webcam camo, you should use it. Yeah.
Doc Rock (01:49:53):
A hundred percent.
Leo Laporte (01:49:54):
Oh man. Oh, there's a lot to buy today. <Laugh> least
Jason Snell (01:49:59):
Alex isn't here, right? I mean, we, we catch it, we catch it under a
Leo Laporte (01:50:02):
Hundred dollars. Almost as much. Thank you Jason.
Doc Rock (01:50:06):
Thank you for saying
Leo Laporte (01:50:07):
That, by the way here. I might have, I meant to show you the polar Steps has a web interface too, which is kind of cool cuz you can see all the places you've been all around the world and
Doc Rock (01:50:16):
So, and Leo it's scrubbing my old pictures, so it's pulling all it Does
Leo Laporte (01:50:20):
It pull?
Doc Rock (01:50:21):
Yeah. If it would get, so it's working and I'm loving it cuz that means all of my Japan stuff.
Leo Laporte (01:50:27):
You haven't lost anything. All the places you've visited, as long as you have pictures in your apple photos will be part of your, you know, trips I have. Look at all the flags I've collected over the years. All the places I've gone. Wow. I've traveled 37,692 miles, 29 trips. It's the farthest place I went was Yemen, 8,848 miles. I don't know, does it have my Australia trips? It doesn't. So I'm gonna have to, some of the trips are missing. It it work. Yeah. I gotta get, gotta put it to work here.
Jason Snell (01:51:00):
So let's break time myself for not until then.
Leo Laporte (01:51:02):
Yeah. Not now. But isn't that nice? I think I just like the map alone.
Doc Rock (01:51:05):
Leo grabs a bag under his desk. Jason then takes off and like, see you guys. See
Leo Laporte (01:51:09):
Ya. No, I'll be back next week. Table. I'll be back next week. Micah will take over the week. Following. I'm gone from April Fool's Day through April 21st, three weeks in in April. Sorry, Jason. Jason, Jason
Jason Snell (01:51:22):
Is taking over. I think I'm taking over.
Leo Laporte (01:51:23):
Oh, thank you Jason. Even better. Nice. Really cool. Good. that means I'll, yeah, good. I can leave it in Capable hands take It also means I'll have to do all the ads, but that's okay. We don't make you do the ads. If
Jason Snell (01:51:37):
You look at Micah, do the ads.
Leo Laporte (01:51:38):
Yeah, maybe Micah could do the ads. <Laugh>. I'm bringing, I'm actually bringing a a kit with me so that I can do the ads on the trip if I have to. Cuz there's new advertisers coming on and nice. So you may see some ads from me and and Monte Carlo or somewhere. I dunno. <Laugh>. <laugh>.
Doc Rock (01:51:58):
Love it, man. I'm going to, you know, Leo, you just gave me a good reminder. I have to invite Ashley, John to my polar steps because I swear like four times in a row. No joke. John's like, Hey, can you come on this week? Hey, I'm traveling. Dang. Okay. How about, alright, next time. Hey Doc, where you at? San Diego. Dang it. Okay. I'm in Japan. Like, I swear to you like four times in a row I'm in Japan or, or like Seattle somewhere. I'm traveling and John's like, Hey man, you wanna come on? I was like, listen John, look, I'm
Leo Laporte (01:52:27):
Have to get,
Doc Rock (01:52:28):
I'm gonna send you my, I'm gonna add you to my Trippe Pro. So, you know,
Leo Laporte (01:52:32):
That's what I used. Yeah. I use Trippe Pro and I say, you just follow me there. You'll know where I am or not. So,
Doc Rock (01:52:38):
So yeah, John, when you get that invite to Dave, to Doc Rock from Trippi Pro, just go ahead and say Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:52:43):
Yes. Say yes. Know if he's in town. <Laugh>. Yeah. I, you know, it's funny, I I didn't travel much obviously in the last three years. So this is our, our our first. This was a trip we planned for.
Doc Rock (01:52:54):
Yeah. It's kind of fun to be back in
Leo Laporte (01:52:55):
20. The
Doc Rock (01:52:56):
Seat.
Leo Laporte (01:52:56):
Nice. This is a three-year-old trip that we're finally getting to take. Thank you Dr. Rotor. It's so nice to see you. Doc Rock of course is on the YouTube youtube.com/doc rock at Doc Rock on Twitter. Follow him. He does lots of great stuff, especially fun, especially for creators. He's a really great resource for anybody who's doing the you know, videos, as you can tell. Obviously it's always great to see you.
Doc Rock (01:53:22):
Thank you. Thank you, doc. It was really fun and really, really fun. I enjoy catching up with you guys. Yeah. And I get to just totally nerd out at people who are at actually above my nerd level. No way. I'm talking to people where I'm the nerd, so I like, I like talking to you guys better.
Leo Laporte (01:53:37):
What's your handle on on Polar Steps so I can follow you there.
Doc Rock (01:53:40):
Oh, I go Doc Rock. Of course. I try to get everything first before somebody, some geologist is, is racing me now. Yeah, he's
Leo Laporte (01:53:48):
Pissed. <Laugh> damnit. I'm the doc Rock. Thank you Doc. So great to see you. Thank you. Always a pleasure. Mahalo, Mahalo and aloha, Mr. Andy and Ako. When are you gonna be on G B H next?
Andy Ihnatko (01:54:02):
I'm on Friday at 1230 in the afternoon, and that's happening live at the W gbh Boston Studios, at the Boston Public Library. So come on in, grab yourself a, excuse me, pay for buy a coffee and a
Leo Laporte (01:54:15):
<Laugh>. You don't grab it, they'll chase you down. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Andy Ihnatko (01:54:18):
<Affirmative>, there's a, there's a ca there's a very lovely cafe there that has lovely, lovely sandwiches. And watch me again, pretend not to be reading from notes, even though I'm totally reading from notes. <Laugh>. and if you, and if you, and if you you can if you can't be there in person, you can stream it@wgbhnews.org for the audio live or later. And because we're at the big, huge, wonderful Boston Public Library Studios, it's actually gonna be streamed on YouTube, so you can stream it on YouTube live or later at WGBH News Channel on YouTube. So, just
Jason Snell (01:54:46):
To be clear, the the radio is public. The library is public. The sandwiches are not
Leo Laporte (01:54:51):
<Laugh> public.
Andy Ihnatko (01:54:52):
<Laugh>. They're, they're, it's, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a very late stage Capitalism buffet, let's say. Let's put it that way. All
Leo Laporte (01:54:58):
Right. <Laugh> tell us more about what's going on@sixcolors.com. Jason,
Jason Snell (01:55:04):
You know, Dan Warren is on vacation this week and nothing is happening. So I'm searching through the couch cushions, trying to figure out things to write about. We'll write about something somewhere somehow. You know, it's just like podcasts are. You just gotta find days, something to say about something. There's, I, I got a list of evergreen stories for a rainy day and it is a rainy day today, so I'll be using that list. Okay. But yeah, six colors.com, check it out. All my writings there, links to all my podcasts are there. So that's the best place to find me.
Leo Laporte (01:55:31):
Awesome. Thank you so much for being here. And of course, if you go to six colors.com/jason
Jason Snell (01:55:38):
Leo mandated page that listen,
Leo Laporte (01:55:39):
I made, made him make that page.
Jason Snell (01:55:41):
Leo wants
Leo Laporte (01:55:42):
That page. You thank me later. Okay. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, lots of great stuff. Lots of great stuff. Thank you all for joining us. We do Mac Break Weekly. It's my first show of the week, so it's my Monday, but it's Tuesday, 11:00 AM Pacific, 2:00 PM Eastern 1900 utc. You can watch us do it live, that's why I tell you what time it is. On the streams, which are at twit tv slash live, there's audio and video chat with us live in irc, do TWI tv. Of course. Club members get to chat in our lovely, lovely discord. Always great fun. And after the fact, ond demand versions of the shows available at twit tv slash mb w There's a Mac Break weekly YouTube channel which has the video. And you can subscribe in your favorite podcast player to the audio or video version and get that the minute it's available. <Laugh>, there we are all wearing our weird glasses. That's interesting. <Laugh>. Yeah. That was last week with Zack. Yeah. Who did that? Yeah, somebody did that to us. I don't think we were all coordinated. Very nice. Very nice. We're not <laugh>.
Andy Ihnatko (01:56:50):
I had the, I had the perfect s smokey eye that week too. I don't always wake up early enough to get my whole face
Leo Laporte (01:56:55):
On <laugh>.
Jonathan Bennett (01:56:56):
Oh, we
Andy Ihnatko (01:56:56):
Were gonna get on Red Nose. I mean, that's fine. Our red noses. They should have put the red noses on there. We're
Leo Laporte (01:57:00):
Wearing our AR headsets. That's what it is there. I see. Headset. so we will see you next time. Now I must tell you get back to work because great. Time is over. See you next time. Bye-Bye.
Jonathan Bennett (01:57:13):
Hey, we should talk Lennox. It's the operating system that runs the internet, but your game console, cell phones, and maybe even the machine on your desk, but you already knew all that. What you may not know is that Twit now is a show dedicated to it, the Untitled Linux Show. Whether you're a Lennox Pro, a burgeoning ciit man, or just curious what the big deal is, you should join us on the Club Twit Discord every Saturday afternoon for news analysis and tips to sharpen your Lennox skills. And then make sure you subscribe to the Club TWIT exclusive Untitled Lennox Show. Wait, you're not a Club Twit member yet. We'll go to twit.tv/club twit and sign up. Hope to see you there.