585: Everyone Heard the Same Nonsense

33:26And that should all come to iPadOS as well in a forthcoming update. I think this makes sense. I like how the reasons are like, well, we have a bunch of criteria. I bet almost meets them, but whatever. It's the same thing. I mean, it is the same thing. I don't see why they need to justify it or have some kind of rules. It's kind of weird that iPadOS didn't get folded in to begin with, but they went through this little dance to say, you know what? Yep, iPadOS too and you know arguably potentially one of many possible motivations for apple renaming you know ipad os to be its own os was to try to make it distinct in all uh legal circumstances or whatever but the thing is the ec can do whatever the hell they want and this is what they want to do so and it just honestly it makes it simpler because i half time i'm always forgetting oh yeah uh there's no alternative uh marketplaces on ipad os but now there will be and it's more consistent for apple it's more consistent for users it just makes more sense so yep i mean this this this is good this is good good work you uh mark german writes no apple vision 2 launch planned before the end of 2026 so no fomo for well i was gonna say mark with me but i guess just me until the end of 2026 uh from mac rumors again german says that apple's latest vision pro roadmap quote doesn't currently call for a second generation model until the end of 2026 quote in february 2024 he said that the device was at least 18 months away according to german sources apple's still trying to figure out a way to bring a cheaper version of market before then although the company remains flummoxed by how exactly to bring down the cost uh kind of tangentially related i don't recall if we said this on the show but they did actually release the second episode of the uh what is it encounter dinosaurs or something like that yeah immersive video yeah this was like a week or two ago actually.

35:13And I think it might've been right after we recorded last. And because of our travel, it's been a wonky recording schedule for us, but it has been released and it's another like five minute thing. And it was fine. I did have somebody reach out on Mastodon and said, Hey, I worked on this. And just so you know, it's, it's, I was going to say historically accurate. I guess that's not the right turn, turn of phrase. It's scientifically accurate based on the understanding that we have today. So like things that should have feathers have feathers and colors are as best as we think they could be at the time.

35:41I won't be able to dig up these toots to link to them i'm sorry but i did find that fascinating uh but in terms of like a compelling cinematic experience it was fine yeah yeah i guess that's what this means i mean trying to waiting this long for a new model to come out like that's you know really putting more cold water on top of the abolition pro market but what it basically means is the parts in this that are expensive are not getting cheaper fast enough for apple to come out with a substantially cheaper model sooner it seems like and i assume what that means is the screens right because we know that the m series socs the cost of those you know they're not the most expensive component in this thing anyway and apple has some control over that and the aluminum and stuff well that's kind of the same yes they could make it cheaper by dropping the screen by dropping the front screen but the screens that are in front of your eyeballs are not made by a lot of companies are not in wide supply and apparently are not going to get cheap enough fast enough for apple to come out with something sooner so this is going to be a long wait with the one it's this is like who would have predicted that the the apple like the glasses the goggles the vr whatever we were talking about the headset the what we were talking about before this was released that they will end up being essentially a home pod like product where they release one and it sits there and people go hmm is apple still doing this thing or and so i i don't it's not a good uh a good comparison when people start thinking of your product the same way they think of the home pod the big home pod that is but if this is true and there's not any other vision pro hardware until the end of 2026 that's home pod vibes well and i don't i don't think that's you know people people are making a big deal out of that news i don't think that's that surprising i think the the bigger a surprise for me with this launch is that Apple seems to be putting no wood behind the arrow.

37:34There's just no content besides one episode of Dinosaurs, I guess. Cool. But what this product needs, yeah, it needs to be radically cheaper. But as you mentioned, there's some pretty critical inhibitions to making it cheaper that are going to stay that way for probably at least five years. We're not close to making it cheaper, at least a lot cheaper. Yeah, you could make it a little bit cheaper with some of the cuts here and there, as you were mentioning. But like it's not going to be a mass market priced device for some time, if ever. So in the meantime, all right, how do you make what it is, this$3 ,500 plus device?

38:10How do you make that valuable to the people who will buy it, who can afford it? And that's the part. That's the surprise to me is that there doesn't seem to be a lot happening there yet. like I would have assumed since there really was no like you know competitive pressure to release this when they did I would have assumed it would be more like you mentioned the play they did a little bit earlier Casey like when panic launched the play date they had like a whole year of games that were like planned and scheduled every week after it was launched a new game came out and they had all this content lined up and all these deals with developers lined up and so they knew that, yes, we're selling a brand new hardware platform with no installed base and no software library that will be there when we get there, so we have to create that.

38:56So they did. And that was a great strategy. It worked very well. I assumed that Apple was releasing it when they were because they had plans to give it a real oomph kind of release. That seems to not have been the case. Apple doesn't have panic money, you know. Yeah, right. I mean, how many people does Panic have? They're such a big corporation, huge staff, incredibly well resourced. You can't really expect Apple to compete with that. Right, right. Exactly. So that's what the Vision Pro needs. What it needs is reasons for the people who are willing to spend$3 ,500, which again, that's not going to be mass market for some time.

39:37But there is a market for high-end luxury electronics. Those markets exist. They're not massive, but they exist. Apple has served them in other ways before. There is a market there at the current price. But even at the current price, Apple's not really addressing the market in other non-price ways. And if they launched a brand new hardware revision in six months or a year, instead of this rumor of 2026 or whatever, if they launched one earlier, that's not going to change that. What's holding it back right now is mostly not the hardware. It's the price which won't change for a long time. And the ecosystem and the software just kind of not like, what's the killer app?

40:21Where's the killer content? That's what they need now. They don't need more hardware releases. They need apps and content. Well, they kind of need both. I mean, I know one was kind of more important than the other. But the reason I compared it to the HomePod is when people don't see updates to a product year over year, especially for like three years in a row, they start to wonder about the company's commitment. And that's really death for a new platform. and even though new hardware like it's i mean it's not gonna be that different within a year or two like whether the technology is not advancing that quickly but it does show oh apple still committed to this they've made some even if it's just like physical changes like we have a little bit better ideas for straps now that we've put these out in the field and we have a little bit a better idea about fit right even if it's exactly the same screen still an m2 like just minor revisions shows that the company is committed to the product no that's not going to move the market but it will make people feel a little bit more comfortable especially if you're you know a a tech gadget fan that like apple is committed to this obviously content also would do that to make you know that apple's committed to it but if they just released content and everyone was loving it three years in they'd be like okay i love it so much but what they need to release more of this they need to make a cheaper one because no one's going to buy this because it's too expensive and i think it's great but you know there's two things there's one it does need to get better like at some point in some number of years there should be a better technically better version but of course that will be equally expensive or even more expensive and then there also needs to be a cheaper one but right now it looks kind of like the original home pod in multiple ways in that uh like maybe they'll be sitting in warehouses unsold like the big home pods were and then when apple does come out with the new one it'll be like the home pod mini they'll be like you know what we just kind of decided that people actually just need a cheaper worse one of these like the home pod mini and we'll just stop making the big one oh but we changed our mind we'll make the big one again and here's a better one like that's not a good path for instilling confidence and the home pod is not even a platform listen the home pod is not a platform it's just a thing that people stick in their house this is a platform and so you need people to believe in it you need developers to believe in it you need users to believe in it you need to have it show signs of life and one of the ways you can show signs of life is don't wait three years between changing the hardware at all I mean, see also the Mac Pro.

42:31Right. And I mean, I think it's really, it's been extremely surprising for me, like you were saying a moment ago, Marco, that there really hasn't been much of a push for content. Like since the launch, what have we gotten? We've gotten the MLS thing that everyone hated, including me. We've gotten the dinosaur, a second dinosaurs episode. And that's it, right? Like, other than some bug fixes and mild improvements to the OS and some legitimately pretty solid improvements to Personas. Oh, and the addition of Spatial Personas. But even still, like, that's not that much. And you would think, and I think the Playdate is a just perfect case study on how to do this right.

43:14You would think that they knew when this was going to come out. And they would have queued up a whole bunch of this content. And it seems like they just didn't. They didn't even have Netflix and YouTube app. Well, right. Well, I mean. Talk about like a way to get content for quote unquote for free. Like, hey, Netflix has content. YouTube has content. It had to be third parties to like make these own kind of, you know, web kit enabled screen scraping clients to try to do something useful out of it. Yeah. It's just it's not been a good. Are we still I think we're still waiting on those coming soon new environments.

43:45Right. Oh, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. I forgot about that. Are those going to come out the end of 2026 too? Yeah. Fair. Netflix and YouTube. Those are third parties. there's lots of reasons why that's kind of out of apple's control some of them sure their fault but but still like you know that's not within their control directly they could have thrown more money at it they could have maybe i mean but you know that's that's more of like you know a corporate politics thing like i get that's kind of a bigger picture problem for them um but there are things within apple's power to do that they seem to not have done yet so for instance you they they do have content studios they could be making more of this content they could have made in advance.

44:22Certain deals they could make with other content providers, things like the sports leagues. I'm sure those are all in progress or in talks, but you need something there now for people to use this device with now. And then, of course, other things that they could make themselves directly, like things like the environments we were saying. Or their own apps. Every Apple app that shipped as an iPad app on the Vision Pro is kind of like, I know this comes up occasionally. I want you to know out there, audience, when we criticize Apple, we get heat from you from other apple fans so we don't criticize apple you know unnecessarily or or with you know cavalierly this is just like no matter how much we all want the vision pro to succeed because it is amazing technology like we all we all are rooting for this we were rooting for this we still are rooting for this to succeed we want this to succeed but it just looks like Apple is fumbling the ball so badly.

45:20Sorry for the sports analogy. I'm not good with sports, but it just looks like they just were not prepared to have actually launched this. And it almost seems like we have more faith in the product than large parts of Apple do. And that's concerning. And the problem is, if they don't put a bunch of wood behind that arrow, no one's going to buy it and keep it and keep using it. And the platform will fail, even though it's an amazing piece of hardware. If the outcome that we want is for this product to succeed, we should be bugging Apple from the outside and be like, hey, you know you got to do something here, right?

45:56You know this is not going to fix itself. The situation in the Vision Pro right now, over time, this is not going to get better unless changes are made. This isn't something that will work itself out. It isn't like, oh, we're just right around the corner from a bunch of apps being made for it. I keep seeing my Overcast U6 graph go down on the Vision Pro. It is now about 120 people. That's not good. What I see is the slope going down, down, down, down, down. That does not tell me that I, as a developer, should invest in this platform. What about content makers? What about Netflix? What about YouTube?

46:33They're seeing the same graphs, I'm sure, of whatever data they have showing how many of their potential customers might be using this thing. And those graphs are also probably going down from a pretty low number to begin with. And so if you follow this out, what's going to happen? How is this going to look six months from now? How's it going to look a year from now? If nothing changes significantly, it's going to look very bad. It's going to be just a continuation of this downward slope with almost no one left using it. Something has to change in order to make that go up. And it's not going to come from the outside because the outside parties have no reason to do it so it has to come from apple apple has to be the one to make that change another potentially helpful analogy is apple tv for long time apple fans remember what the apple tv was when it was introduced as itv it was a mac running a modified version of tiger a mac os 10 10.4 uh and had a hard drive and it was very different from what you see today but it was essentially similar product similar job an apple connected thing that you you know you connect to your television and it helps you watch tv and it took a while for that platform to find whatever legs it has there was a long time where apple itself would refer to it as a hobby project to sort of undercut it and damp tamp down expectations that is not how the vision pro is launched to say the least as a hobby product right but that did sort of give it you know they had to figure out like what should this be a mac should it run mac os 10 should it have a hard drive like what is the right role for this product kind of like the HomePod, what is the right shape of this product?

48:08Are we barking up the wrong tree? And the change from the original Apple TV slash ITV to the current one is big, but it shows that if the company is patient and is willing to plug away at it, yeah, the Apple TV took how many years to see any kind of success to even be good, but Apple didn't give up on it. They just rethought, regrouped, tried a couple of times, made a couple of really bad remotes. It still has a lot of problems, but it is better than it was. If you don't give up and you're willing to keep putting money into it and you do actually do occasional updates, you can make progress. But again, Apple TV as a platform, I think, is not where Apple wants Vision Pro to be as a platform.

48:52And Apple TV was not launched with the same fanfare as Vision Pro. So there is definitely a misbatch between what Apple is saying about the Vision Pro and how much it costs and how they launched it. And the reality of the product is a lot more like that original Apple TV or the big HomePod. But the launch is like it's the iPhone, and it's not. All right. It is time for the 2018 to 2022 iPad Pro exit interview. And I don't know, Marco, this is kind of your baby. Do you have any opening statement? Do you want to start? Do you want to? Yeah. Yeah. So whenever we think that a new product or more recently OS version is about to be unveiled, like we'll do one right before WWDC for iOS 17, etc.

49:39I started doing this a few years ago on this show here doing these exit interviews because, of course, I have lots of experience with corporate America and managing people. And so I know how to conduct such things, obviously. the iPad Pro is probably about to be replaced before or right on our next show the current iPad Pro technically came out in 2022 but it really has not changed much since 2018 that was a major revision the 2018 that was when the 11 inch was released when they got the flat sides the magnetic pencil face ID that was a major revision it was a great revision there are some You know, I've had some nitpicks with it over time, but overall, I think it's really been a fantastic product.

50:24And kind of going into what is most likely to be the update, I think my opinions of the outgoing one frame what I want out of the update and what I hope Apple has addressed with it. Even when I very first got the other iPad Pro in 2018, number one thing I wanted was move the Face ID sensor to either the corner or the long edge. So that way you can use it in landscape mode, which is how I almost always use it, usually with a keyboard, and not have your hand cover the Face ID sensor when you pick it up. Something like that is rumored. It has been rumored for a while. One of the more recent iPad base models actually did that.

51:04They actually moved the Face ID camera to the top. I would love to see like some basic improvements, just like things we've learned along the way. And for me, the major theme for things we've learned along the way since 2018 is I think way more people now than back then really use the iPad configured physically like a laptop. There is some kind of keyboard, whether it's one of Apple's many options for keyboards for the iPad or whether it's a third party keyboard case, whatever. I really never used an iPad regularly until the Apple keyboard covers because they were just so good. But the iPad, it was never seemingly designed to be used in landscape orientation.

51:47And, you know, it does it. But, like, again, like the Face ID and the camera were in the wrong spot for it. You know, the volume buttons and everything. Like, everything on it is clearly in the wrong spot when you turn it on its side for landscape orientation. So I would like to see an iPad Pro. You know, whatever they choose to do with the other ones, whatever, that's up to them. But the iPad Pro, I think, is maybe more likely than the others to be used with a keyboard, the Apple Pencil, or both. I would like to see the new iPad Pro be actually designed to be better used with optionally a keyboard and pencil.

52:25I want the keyboard to be able to physically attach in a better way than just having a having a giant face full of magnets that forms an entire back cover that sticks to the back of it and it turns out we have better ways they're called holes i want the ipad pro to add holes or slot or some kind of physical like clip kind of thing something that the keyboard can clip into. So that way, a keyboard could literally just be the flat bottom part of what we see now is the keyboard cases and not have a back case. And this can be accomplished in a very nice, graceful way if Apple chooses to do it. I'm not talking about like massive, like, you know, a big slot like a Palm Pilot, although that would be nice for the pencil, but we'll get to that in a second.

53:21But I'm not talking about like some kind of giant slot that runs the whole into the thing. This could be like, you know, like roughly the size of the millimeter wave window on an iPhone, on the side of the iPhones, the recent ones. A little oval inset into it with some latch mechanism inside that a keyboard could be designed to latch into. That's what I want. Attaching things with magnets is great. It is great when you have no other options, when it is the best option. It isn't always the best option. It is especially not always the best option with the Apple Pencil. and I'll get to that now, I guess.

53:58The Apple Pencil always falls off the iPad Pro. When you bring it in and out of any bag ever, the Pencil will fall off. Many Pencils have been lost or have fallen into bags or airline seat gaps or whatever from this reason. I would love to see some consideration for the physical form of the iPad Pro to better attach physically pencils and keyboards i don't think this is going to happen frankly i think this is even less likely than the m4 rumor like i think this is very very unlikely to be the design um but that's what ultimately i want and again it could just be as simple as like you know a couple of like oval cutouts that something could could poke into with strong metal and maybe have like a little expanding latch part that expands out and latches it in or something like that like it could be that simple.

54:47And what that would allow is, first of all, way more graceful attachment of keyboards, way more secure attachment of pencils. And the keyboard could then be like half the weight. It could be way smaller, way lighter, way mechanically simpler, which maybe could allow them to lower the obscene prices of those smart keyboards. And then the resulting package would be much more size and weight competitive with similarly sized laptops because right now it's really not it gets pretty bulky i would love so much for them to fix this problem just put some kind of physical notch or something into the ipad body you know i feel like the the johnny ive school of design is let's make everything a smooth featureless blob that you know we can show it floating in space in a white room in a product video, and it just looks like a perfect uninterrupted form.

55:48That is not super compatible with many realities. In reality, then, we have to wrap things around it or bolt things to it with magnets or have cables coming out in weird ways. That's the reality. I would love for the products to be more designed to accommodate the reality of what they actually need, how they're actually used. That way, the way most people actually end up using them can be more graceful and can work better. So that's what I want. I don't think I'm going to get it, but I want that more than I want any other predicted feature. Like that's more important to me than the M4 or the M3 or AI.

56:29It's more important to me than OLED screens even. Sorry, John. Like that's what I really want is for them to finally make the iPad Pro designed to accommodate actually using it more like a laptop and it won't happen probably oh you just want a touchscreen uh laptop running ipad os yes you can just cut to the chase no but it's convertible it would still be convertible in fact it would be more easily convertible you just pop it right out yeah so i mean the the the holes idea uh is interesting but i don't think actually solves the main problem which is the weight distribution because all of the computing guts are in the quote-unquote screen part you can't actually just do a laptop style hinge so you still have to have like cantilevered out area in the back which makes it clumsy i mean i know what you're saying about like instead of having the magnets on the back have an attachment point that saves you some weight there but most people want to protect their pack of their ipads anyway so i don't know i think you'd have to really sketch this out to try to come up with something that actually is both lighter weight and sturdier with the addition of holes but it's it's a tough sell and i don't think they're going to go in that direction uh but the uh for just my brief thing in the exit interview for the current one um i think that it was a really important design in the evolution of the ipad in particular the flat-sided pencil that sticks to it even though yes it does come off it is better than the previous pencil which didn't stick to it at all way better so it was a big important step and i think basically it only stayed around for like one generation too long right like was the last time when it didn't get revised and just got new guts on the inside and when the the ipad 10th gen or whatever got the landscape camera and everything it was so clear it was like oh yeah this year it's kind of a shame the ipad pro but that's just one year right they're still and they and they still updated they still did update the guts i think this revision is not going to be as radical as you want it to be but i think it is going to have some things for you and i think we can casey do you have any ipad ipad pro exit interview stuff before we dive into the announcement uh a little bit uh you know i had bought a 2018 ipad pro loved it that's now been pushed down the hierarchy to be the kids ipad uh predominantly michaela at this point, but, you know, Declan will use it from time to time.

58:39And I had bought the 2022, the, whatever the M2 one was, 2022, right? M2 iPad Pro to replace it, both 11 inches. And I love that one. And I absolutely adore that as an around the house computer, as an in the car, as a passenger computer, things of that nature. You know, one thing that the iPad has up on the Mac and at the rate we're going, we'll always have up on the Mac is Marco. Cellular. I was going to say windshield shattering. It's also windshield shattering. Yes, that's true. Let me remind you, Apple, I will pay you infinite dollars to give me a cellular Mac Pro, please, for the love of God.

59:19I will give you all of my money. But anyway, I really like my iPad in very limited use cases, but those use cases, it is freaking perfect for it. I don't particularly disagree with anything Marco was saying with regard to like cases and things like that I use the cantilevered what is it magic keyboard is that right I always get them backwards yeah the magic is the more expensive cantilevered one the smart keyboard cover is the one that I use and Craig Federighi uses that is just it's it used to be the only one it was like there's no trackpad and it's it's like a little bit shorter up front yeah and so I I do have one of those that's what's on Michaela's iPad.

59:59And I used that until the cantilevered one, the magic one came out. And I do think, and I think you had said this, Marco, I started using iPad way more when I had a real keyboard on it, because then to me anyway, it becomes completely hamstrung for creation purposes to occasionally annoying, which is a big improvement actually. And, uh, and so anyway, so I really like both of the iPads that are in the house. The biggest issue I would say I have with the 2022 iPad is that it's not really that much better than the 2018. Like it's noticeably better, but not night and day better, even though, you know, four years had elapsed.

1:00:36And I think the only thing that I seek, now we're leaving the exit interview part, sorry, John, but the only thing I really seek from a new one, well, first of all, I don't, sitting here now, I don't plan to buy one, remind me of this in a week. But the only thing I really seek is I would love to have the FaceTime, the front facing camera on the longer edge, but like the pencil, well, yeah, it falls off all the time, but at least it can connect. That doesn't really bother me. The cantilever keyboard is heavy, but it's, you know, I love that thing. I think it's worth, it's worth, it's worth the weight.

1:01:07It's worth the cost. Although I will say mine is not aging super gracefully. I feel like we just talked about this a few weeks back, but the corner, one of the corners of mine is looking real gross. And like the, the outer shell, like the kind of rubbery outer shell has fallen away. There's definitely some other spots that have like nicks and whatnot that it's not aged extraordinary extraordinarily gracefully so maybe a little bit better keyboard oh and actually come to think of it you know and now that i'm wish casting uh bigger trackpad which is a common refrain you know i think uh jason and mike talked about this the connected boys talked about this bigger trackpad and for the love of all that it's good and holy an escape key and function row please and thank you i would love that on on a future keyboard but in the grand scheme of things the hardware itself like it's fine it's quick it's got cellular it you know i don't have any strong needs for the um for the apple pencil i do have one and when i use it i really really like it but i'm not an artist i use it more for like you know annotating things than anything else so i don't know i don't even know what i'm seeking right now this is one of those moments where apple needs to tell me what it is i i have missed all of my life because i don't know what it is right now i mean what we're not talking about uh which is we have no reason to talk about it until the wwc is the os which as we always say is the main thing that's holding back but we're not getting a new os for the ipad on may 7th uh that'll wait till wwc so we have to set that aside we're just talking about the hardware but honestly part of the one big part of the the problem with the ipad is that the os has never lived up to the hardware the hardware is essentially laptop it's an apple laptop without the keyboard running a slightly different os but the os does not allow that power to be exploited and it's a shame but you know that's not that's not going to change on may 7th so they but the event the event didn't come out and say this is an ipad event but it did have what it had uh had a bunch of different images uh i got the one that had uh someone holding an apple pencil yeah which might be the first time that apple literally put the product they're going to announce in the image right because it's so clearly an apple pencil it's not it's not like a regular pencil it's an apple pencil um but there were apparently six possible images that you can get and they're all kind of abstract look like they were drawn with the pencil or whatever and then tim cook tweeted pencil us in for may 7th and then did a little pencil emoji gone are the days of subtlety you know it's like the the ai announcement for wwc but anyway you would think that they're going to have an event on may 7th where they're going to announce an apple pencil and that's it i think there will be other things but just fyi there's going to be a new apple pencil uh so that's great but the actual ipad as i said earlier in the year i think is the hardware product i'm most excited for this year because i'm definitely going to get one if the rumors are true and it has an oled screen because i use my ipad as a little tiny television uh and oled is better for tvs the black levels on the current 11 inch ipad pro are very bad uh and oled won't have that problem and so i'm excited for it and honestly from a hardware perspective it's basically a big screen so any improvement to the screen is significant and from what the rumors say this is a very significant upgrade to the screen so significant that i think this will be the best screen that apple sells period the vision pro is having some thoughts right so there's the question of whether those are screens but i guess but even within that realm i think this one will have better color reproduction and brightness than the vision pro wants to maybe not as high a resolution but better color reproduction and brightness and also you don't have to strap it to your head right but just for traditional screens setting aside things that are inside goggles for traditional screens this i think this is going to beat everything that they sell if the rumors are true it's supposedly a dual stacked oled so the problem with oleds is you can't make them too bright over they wear themselves out and use a lot of power so instead they take two oleds and put them on top of each other and run each one at slightly lower power so each individual oled doesn't wear itself out as fast but the total light throughput you get is i don't know if it's double but it's more right uh so that is fascinating and if it is a really good screen as the rumors suggest i'm gonna love it because this is my little miniature tv uh so i know that's not exciting to most people except for maybe color reproduction for people who are trying to do like professional photo or video work on it or whatever and although good luck with that but but but for this particular the case and honestly i think this is a common use case people watching video on their ipads whether or not they have a keyboard attached i think that's that's probably more narrow interest for people who want to use it for productivity but people watching video is common and that's another reason that the landscape camera is important because people are watching video i would imagine mostly in landscape i don't think people are blowing up the tiktok app to 2x and watching everything vertically on it um so the landscape camera helps with the people use it as a mini tv i cover that stupid camera with my hand all the time it's annoying uh and the screen it's basically a big screen and it'll be an amazing screen and then the other thing about the guts which is fascinating but less so for what it says about the ipad and more so for what it says about all their other products is the m4 rumor uh you would think this is going to be an ipad pro with an m3 in it uh that would make perfect sense uh the macbook airs just came out with the m3 m3's been out for a while put it an ipad sure but the rumor is oh but it might be an m4 and it's like okay well maybe i will see but that rumor has heated up recently with actual evidence uh there's two sets of evidence i've meant to grab this one from a screenshot one of them was the uh was it the the part number for the uh the cpu and apple has these weird internal part numbers like the m2 was t8 one one two and the m3 was t8 one two two so that the third number or the fourth digit fourth fourth character is changing so t8 one one t8 one two you would expect that the that the m3 is t8 one two two but the rumor that the people trying to find like things in the os or whatever says that this new upcoming ipad is t813 hmm i know it's confusing because one is the m2 and two is the m3 that's made on the a16 process for the exactly 11 inch ipad for mac ipad os 17 the part number if they follow this if they follow the same pattern the part number says it's an m4 and the other thing is that the like the product number there's sort of internal product numbers that apple has for its devices uh and it's like always like a name of a product then number comma another number um and the rumored uh part numbers again pulled out of ipad os 7.5 beta is ipad 16 comma 3 16 comma 4 16 comma 5 and 16 comma 6 right so the ipad air 5 uh was and the ipad pro from 2021 were labeled ipad 13 comma something and they have the m1 and all the ipads that have the m2 or labeled ipad 14 so m1 is 13 m2 is 14 m3 would be 15 oh so they skipped one but this is ipad 16 so they're skipping ipad 15 which would have been the m3 model and that leads more evidence to this being the m4 so all of the internal software dredged out part numbers and product numbers lead to the conclusion that the ipad pro have an m4 in it and not an m3 i find this so hard to believe and if it wasn't for this like 16 comma whatever whatever i think i would say absolutely not but this whole part number thing or model number thing is really giving me pause and the part number thing because the part number is even more obscure those like t8 whatever like that's super obscure like what there'd be no reason to like fake that or skip a number and that that's really even farther you know to dig that out but yeah it's consistent they they skipped over the m3 thing and this looks like it's gonna have an m4 in it and i find it perfectly plausible because we know that every m3 whatever chip that apple has made has been on the m3b process which is super expensive and essentially apple exclusive and apple kind of had to do it if they wanted to get their products out the door right but they don't want to stick with it for any longer than they have to and so if tsmc can make m4s in time to be in the ipad pro you bet apple would love to not have to pay to make another super expensive n3b based product and i think it is plausible that you can announce something on may 7th with an m14 in it i'm not sure when it will ship but you know tsmc doesn't always publicly say when they're doing all you know so i i think it is plausible i think it's plausible based on the part numbers i think it's plausible based on the timing but it's super interesting because that would mean that the m4 all the rumors about the m4 lineup and how like by the end of next year every single mac will be on on something on the m4 that gets a lot more likely to happen if they're starting with the m4s in may right not even wwc and then what that means also is that for wwdc if they release an m4 ipad i don't care about the m4 right who cares like i think the ipad is plenty you know i don't care about it in in the ipad right but what that means is come wwdc if they announce any mac hardware doesn't that also have to have the m4 or maybe not maybe they just announced the m3 ultra like i just this overlap in these numbers is killing me i just really wish they would get on schedule and just make the number go up by one every once in a while but i i will i will be unrealistically expecting m4 based max at wwc if they release an m4 based ipad pro but i think the m4 based ipad pro is plausible and so now honestly now i expect it german's traffic records have been pretty good about this kind of stuff recently and he's pretty sure about it from his sourcing so like it's looking like this is a real possibility and and you know to some degree like we don't we don't know how big of an update the M4 is compared to the M3.

1:11:22Like, you know, John mentioned, like, there is this process switch thing, you know, with, you know, N3B, as we discussed, was kind of a dead end with TSMC's processing. It was very, this very expensive process. And that's what the M3 and all of last fall's phone chips were made on. Probably, like, if I had to guess, if the M4 is ready this soon after the M3. My guess is the M4 was largely a change to get off that process and to be on the new, you know, N3, whatever the, what's the new one? N3P? N3E. And keep in mind, N3E is essentially, it's worse in terms of the product you get, but it's better in terms of yield and cost.

1:12:04So N3B is like the super expensive, but it actually is slightly better, but like no one wants to pay for it and the yields are terrible, right? So Apple wants to get off of that. Everyone wants to get off it as soon as possible but not because n3e is fantastically better like it is the same or even potentially slightly worse but cheaper uh better yields and so that makes sense and and i think the m4 m4 advances over the m3 i assume like whatever they do with the neural engine or if they rebrand it or whatever ai mumbo jumbo like that could possibly be in there but i mean i don't think it's just a warmed over m3 because the uh the thing about n3e is it's not whatever the term is it's not compatible with the designs they did for n3b so you have to essentially relay out the chip so i think it will be uh more of its own device than we might imagine because it's not like they can just take the exact layout of the m3 and stamp it in n3e they can't do that that's the whole deal with n3b right so what that if if this is if the the last this is the start of the m4s and there are no more m3s it would mean the m3s were like we had to get something out the door we used the most expensive process that no one else wanted to pay for and we did a whole bunch of chips all at once and we got off it as fast as we can but if on the other hand wwc comes and they've introduced an m4 ipad pro and they say and now here's the new m3 ultra max studio i'm gonna be like what are you doing apple what's what's going on what but like an m3b how expensive would an m3b based m3 ultra chip be and i mean it'll be faster than a plain m4 that's for sure but it's just it's so weird so i just it and it's so strange to be launching this on the ipad because who has an ipad who's like boy this needs an m4 like no no one is thinking that they're thinking it needs a better os it needs a better keyboard to marco's point maybe they want more pencil features which we'll get to in a little bit well i have some theories if you look at the rumors overall between last fall and now about things like the process node switch how n3b is so expensive and it's kind of a dead end i'm guessing and and we were seeing this all last fall as you were saying apple wants to get off of that process quickly that the m3 and the a whatever were on for the phones that this like there's a reason why this year only the pro phones got the got the new a chip with the three nanometer process on the n3b and the other phones didn't and then keep in mind, we've already for months heard the rumors that this coming fall's iPhones are both going to get a new chip.

1:14:38So it's not going to continue that lag of like, you know, the cheaper phone has last year's chip. That's been the rumor for months that that's not happening this year, which means that the iPhone chips that were made this past fall are one-offs because Apple does not keep making the pro phones for the next year. So whatever A we're on now is a one-off chip, it seems. It's not going to go to next year's cheaper phone. When Apple stopped making the iPhone 15 Pros this September, that chip is gone. It's not in anything else. That's one of the chips out of the way. Then we have the M3 generation. Well, it sure looks like we've heard rumors so far, and it sure looks like just based on timing, that there might not be an M3-based Mac Studio.

1:15:19This fall, what's going to be left with the M3B process chips, which are the M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max, and A whatever is on the phone. It's just, I think, just going to be then the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro. And those both get updated pretty much every year to every chip that comes out for them. Oh, and the iMac, the iMac. And the iMac, right. Oh yeah, that's okay. That's interesting. But anyway, so the iPad Pro gets updated less frequently. And so maybe what they're looking to do here is jump the iPad Pro forward first because then they can keep making that for the next two years, not touch it, and not have any chips left on the expensive N3B process.

1:16:01So my guess is they were okay using N3B for the really important high-end products that needed 3nm to get ahead, stay competitive, and that's the iPhone Pro, the MacBook Pro, and the MacBook Air. But then they're going to move off of that as quickly as they can. And the products that have longer refresh cycles are kind of less important, like the Mac Mini, the Mac Studio, and the iPad Pro. Maybe they don't get it. And the iMac, unfortunately. The iMac's the one weird one. But maybe they'll just update that with the MacBook Air. Yeah, they skipped with the iMac. So it was overdue. I think the iMac will move to M4 quickly.

1:16:42I don't think the M3 iMac is going to be around for four years. I think they're going to move that to the M4 quicker than we think. But we'll see. Yeah, and based on that, if we go with the theory that the M4 is something that Apple is trying to get out there as quickly as possible to minimize the amount of time they need to keep making N3B chip products, then it does make sense to put it in the iPad Pro now. I would also then simultaneously not have massive expectations for the M4 over the M3, because the M3 was already a big jump over the M2, and it's only been out for like two seconds. Everything we're hearing about the M4 having a significant focus on AI, I'm guessing that's probably going to be mostly a marketing focus, which is fine.

1:17:24Apple should be leaning into this. Everyone else is, and they look like they're behind. So they should be leaning into AI as a marketing thing. Their chips already are good at many AI-related tasks. They're already good at running inference. They're already good at training. They already have good GPUs, good neural engines, lots of fast memory. So they're already good at all that stuff. So for them to say the M4 is great for AI, yeah, that's because all of their chips are pretty good for relative to other consumer product chips so they can still say all that while the m4 doesn't necessarily need to be a major jump forward so i think we're going to see everything move to the m4 as quickly as possible possibly even all in this calendar year we'll see well the problem is the rumors for like the the good beefy m4 chips for like the studio and mac pro are like well out into next year and so that really puts cold water on my idea that there's gonna be a mac studio announcement at wwc with m4 in it yeah but i mean obviously i mean apple apple wants it it's not a question of like deciding to do this they need they need the m4 to be available if the m4 wasn't available they wouldn't do this but if it is available yes they're jumping on it asap and that's why i think it'll also update the imac because as soon as the m4 is available with a reasonable upgrade cycle they're gonna like we got to get to your point get everything off of n3b any products we sell with n3bs in them they're not going to get any cheaper no one else is using that process tsmc is probably going to stop making it as soon as we're done buying it from them so let's let's get off of it and so any product that was on it we need to get it off within you know within the next calendar year right and this being the first product is like well we're making a new ipad and this is available so by all means let's not put the m3 in it and yeah then it gives them more runway to let this i'm gonna say let this languish but not it's not gonna languish like again the computing power is not the thing that is holding this back and this will be presumably the new design with the new pencil and the new camera orientation and no holes in the bottom sorry marco although i guess we'll do the the pencil next the the rumor of this pencil is it's the apple pencil 3 the apple did just come out with a new pencil but that one wasn't like the good pencil the top end one the most expensive pencil this is the new most expensive pencil and how can you tell a it'll be more expensive and b it has new features and the rumored features are a squeeze function because yeah sure like i mean you could you could do also do a button apple but it's so unseemly so a squeeze function and haptic feedback in the pencil of some kind maybe that's just in response to your squeeze maybe it'll be like a rumble feature to make it feel like textured paper or something who knows but uh the pencil continues to get increasingly fancy i think the rumors are that it will still will be flat-sided it will still attach magnetically it'll be a little bit shorter than the old one maybe to fit in wherever they're going to slap it on maybe it'll go on the short side this time as more of a landscape you know landscape oriented ipad type thing where the camera's on the top and the pencil's on the side you know that's that's reasonable and then the one hope this year marco is the rumors of a more quote laptop like aluminum magic keyboard and trackpad i don't think it's going to attach with holes but i think it will be well to help casey and his poor worn out you know how to help everybody with their poor worn out ipad keyboards that are made of whatever fabric or rubbery membrane or whatever if you make the thing out of aluminum and plastic just like the laptops it will wear like the laptops do which is better than these ipad things a bigger trackpad maybe a glass trackpad if it's made aluminum it can be more structurally sturdy um they still have the problem of most of the weight being in the screen part sort of being the inverse of a laptop where laptops the screen is light and the base is heavy and that works out for a you know a simple rear hinge they don't have that on the ipad so they got to do some sort of cantilevering thing but for people who do want a more laptop-like experience out of their ipad the rumors are that apple is going to deliver that yeah i i so first of all just back to the pencil for a second the double tap gesture to like change tools or go to the eraser on the pencil has always been a little finicky and a little bit like it's it's easy to accidentally trigger it excuse me excuse me that is not fair it is so frustratingly difficult to get right really i've always found it like triggers accidentally well yeah it's either you're doing well that's the thing you're either doing it when you don't want to or completely freaking unable to do it when you do you want to right so very frustrating so like i assume that that double tap gesture will be replaced by whatever form this like haptic squeeze possible button thing is and if so that's great because that needs that needs to be rethought i'm hoping to see that you think it'll replace it or be an addition to it oh that's a good question i i hope it replaces it directly because i think that would be better i mean it replaced it in the airpods there's that precedent right airpods used to be tap and now they're squeeze yes but the airpods don't have haptic feedback they play a click sound so like they give you feedback but it's audio feedback not not like vibration feedback so we'll see you know what is audio but vibrations well done so but you know if you look like there were rumors last fall about the iphones getting basically like non-moving buttons that would that would provide haptic feedback so they would feel like buttons but they wouldn't actually be moving.

1:22:41Maybe they are using whatever tech that was that didn't make it into last year's iPhones. Maybe that's what this is in the pencil. I've been much more skeptical about that stuff in the past. I think Apple has shown over time that when they actually try to make a haptic button that is supposed to behave and feel like a button, they usually do a pretty good job. You had the haptic home buttons on the iPhone 7 and forward. Those actually felt pretty good. They felt like buttons. The trackpads. Yeah, the clicking trackpads. When they actually attempt to make something look or feel and work like a button, they usually do a good job of it recently.

1:23:20So if that's what they're doing, I have high hopes that it will probably be decent. And so my major pencil question marks are basically how the heck it will attach and charge and where it will attach and charge to the iPad. And battery life. Honestly, I think the battery life is pretty good. Right, but now they're going to put a motor in there, like a little, whatever it is, the Taptic engine. That's fair. I mean, it would probably be pretty tiny, and you're not basically feeling it constantly. Like, it would only be – anyway, I wouldn't worry too much about that. My main concern is where does it go on the iPad?

1:23:58How does it attach? How does it charge? And do they give it some kind of nice button feel or button effect for that? That would be great. I thought about, Casey, I thought about whether they would put it on the short side. I don't know. Like you got to figure out like where the speaker is going. Yeah. It is supposed to be shorter though, regardless of which side it's on. The rumor is that it is slightly shorter than the Apple pencil too. Yeah. So we'll see. And somebody, I forget where I saw this somewhere on Mastodon. I think somebody was saying like, wouldn't it be great if this also worked with future iPhones?

1:24:31And yeah, that would be amazing. But yeah, it probably, it would not be small enough to, to magnetically attach to an iPhone. But I don't know. honestly, I would love something like that for iPhones. But the problem also with that is that if you've noticed, recent iPads that are compatible with the pencil get really fingerprinty, way more than your phone. And the reason why is because the phone's oleophobic coating apparently gets worn away if you would use it on the iPad for the pencil. So when iPads became pencil compatible, they actually had to switch to a worse oleophobic coating on the glass.

1:25:05and that's why modern iPads get so incredibly fingerprinty so easily. But anyway, so back to the iPad. Those are my wishes for the pencil. I would love for it to have some kind of physical attachment mechanism that was not just magnets that actually would stay there, but I'm not super confident in that. So in the absence of that, yeah, give me a haptic button, sure. Third-party opportunity. There's lots of cases with little loops and latches and pockets and things for you to stick your pencil in. That seems to be Apple's solution to this problem is it attaches with a magnet. If you don't jostle it too much, if you want to travel with it, buy one of those cases where you can stick it in a little holster or loop or whatever.

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1:27:07Let's do some Ask ATP. Charlie Sorrell writes, years and years ago when Marco was still child-free, Casey told Marco that once he became a dad, he'd give up making fancy coffee. I think it was AeroPress at the time. That was a while ago now, obviously. What actually happened? And, you know, I 100 % believe I did this because this is huge Casey energy. But damned if I remember having this conversation. Shocking that you don't remember something that happened years ago on the show. Exactly. Exactly. So what's the story there, Marco? So it turns out you were kind of right. Oh, I'm actually very surprised by this, to be honest.

1:27:41So I no longer roast my own beans. I never ended up roasting at the beach. It was not a great setting for it. Like, you know, when you roast, there's a whole bunch of like smoke and stuff you have to deal with. And the beach setup was just really not a good environment for that. And what happened in those years, like when I moved to the beach in early COVID times, mail order coffee was already really good by that point. I had these wonderful mail order options. What also happened around that same time was my taste in coffee shifted towards more medium and light roasts. medium and light roasts are more difficult to do especially on a home roaster my roasting skills were really not up for making that style of coffee so my home roasting kind of fell off and i stopped doing it and i just switched to mail order and that got me through most of covid all of covid um more recently it's actually gotten a little bit worse because in the new house i'm still living in a construction zone here there's still like you know paper on the floor there's there's like coverings on the countertops they're still doing like some painting and wall works there's still dust being produced here and there first of all there are many days where i just like can't even get into the kitchen or like the sink will have a drop cloth over it because they're working above it or something that was that was going on today so what i've been doing mostly is just going to the coffee shop in town or i've often just been doing uh frozen coffee pods there's a company called cometier that also they make really good frozen pods.

1:29:11And frankly, I love them. They're fantastic. I wouldn't recommend it for every day because it's a little bit over the top, you know, having these like frozen pods that you have to get shipped to you. And, you know, the per cup cost is way higher than bean costs and everything. But if you don't have a coffee maker or an AeroPress nearby to use, if you just need to like make some coffee without pretty much any equipment except maybe a hot water kettle, it's a great way to do it and honestly the coffee that i get from commenteer is better than anything i've ever home roasted it's really good so anyway so all that is to say i i've completely stopped roasting my own beans which i used to do regularly for years i have partially stopped even making my own coffee and brewing my own coffee at home because i just haven't had like a reliable kitchen didn't set up a lot of the time for the last few months.

1:30:05And so I assume I will get back into at least the brewing part more. Once things calm down here and I actually have a kitchen that is not full of dust that I can actually use reliably, I expect to get back into brewing my own coffee and remaining good at that. But I'm actually further from it now than I've ever been. And that was mostly because mailware services got really good and also commenteer kind of ruined me because it's really good too. It doesn't sound like any of it was kid related though. No, well, not really. No, because like, I mean, really, you know, my kid just turned 12 and I was roasting my own coffee until he was about eight and brewing my own coffee until he was 11.

1:30:51So, you know, I don't think it was kid related. I think it's just like old person reality. Aging related, yeah. Yeah, busyness related and aging related. My taste shifted towards something I don't make very well, light roasts. And other options for that taste became available that were really good. Andy writes, after years of trying, I finally got an invitation to attend WWDC. I hope you guys will cover the what to do or not to do at WWDC as I've been told that you've done in the past. Even a pointer to which episodes I should listen to would be extremely helpful. I don't feel like I can be of help at all because last time I was at WWDC was in San Jose.

1:31:28So Marco, tell us about this. Yeah. So one thing to note, Andy, is that the WWDC experience today and for the last couple of years that it's been at Apple Park is very different from what it was in the past where it was like at a conference center and it was a whole week of in-person sessions. So what it is now is all the sessions are virtual, so there's really no in-person component there at all. The only in-person stuff to do now is there's a big developer event that you were presumably invited to at Apple Park to watch the keynote. So what this is, is you are sitting in a lawn like an Apple Park in front of those giant sliding doors for the cafeteria.

1:32:05You sit in a bunch of chairs, set up like a big outdoor concert or something. Tim Cook comes out on stage, says hello, good morning. And then you watch the video basically on a giant screen. And then afterwards, you go and you're led over to some kind of various events. There's tours and stuff like that. And then there's occasional other stuff around Apple Park for that day and maybe the day after, especially revolving around the Apple Visitor Center, which is like it's kind of across the street and has like a coffee shop. And it's basically a big Apple store and stuff. And then there's a handful of other community events that happen.

1:32:43There's things like the live talk show that usually happen there. There's other smaller groups that are arranging things, certain developer groups and meetup kind of things happening. So this is a very different experience than it used to be, but it's still pretty fun. It's just different. The big thing to keep in mind when you're going there now, there is no conference center. So you're led into the event and you're there in Apple Park. You're obviously very well controlled by Apple people the whole time of where you can go and what you're doing. but then after that you are escorted you know you have a few handful of things a day then you're escorted out and then you can't get back in like for the rest of the week so plan if you're going to be there for like a few days try to plan stuff to do with the other groups and events that happen around that because you're just like kind of let out into suburban cupertino it's like all right bye that's it you know there it's not like you're not in downtown san jose anymore or down san San Francisco.

1:33:41And so there's really no like town to hang out in. It's just like Apple Park and then the visitor center and then a bunch of houses around you. So the hotel situation is a little, you know, boring or challenging. The like, you know, dinner and evening event situation is a little limited there. You're basically hanging out in the suburbs next to an office park that won't let you back in. So plan for that with like what you expect event wise. If you can get into any of the other side events that are going on, do that. Plan for that accordingly. And I wouldn't, honestly, I wouldn't recommend staying past, you know, like the events on Monday, I would say you can usually safely leave on at least Wednesday, maybe even Tuesday, you know, depending on whether there's certain events you want to go to.

1:34:31But that's what to expect. Like, it's a really fun presentation that day, but then you're kind of on your own. So plan accordingly. Wade asks, does it bother you that you have no privacy with public electric charging stations? They know who you are and where you live because you're billing information, what car you drive, where you were, when, how far you drove between charges, et cetera. Is there any practical way to have an electric car not be tracked short of only ever charging it at home? Do you know what the charger operators do with this information? Do they anonymize it? Do they sell it?

1:35:00I mean, I hear you, but I mean, this is the way the world is going and I don't think bad news about credit cards yeah exactly like i don't see how how there's really any two ways around this and i i just i i'm really struggling to get myself worked up about this especially since credit cards exist you know there's so much data tracking on your phones which you know apple's doing their best to try to issue but maybe wade pays with cash at gas stations yeah you never know it's possible i mean so there are a couple stories related to this which are more in the vein of things that are car specific because knowing where you are and what you're doing if you use any kind of electronic form of payment that's sufficient but the car stuff is like knowing how you drive and so there are a couple stories this one is from uh march of this year uh automakers sharing consumers driving behavior with insurance companies that you don't want i mean i especially do not want that i can assure you yeah i mean like it's kind of the the point of insurance like As you slice and dice the insured population into smaller and smaller groups based on their behavior, insurance stops being insurance.

1:36:06The whole point of insurance is you're spreading the risk. So you have to be in a group with – there has to be variability within a group. If you just put all the high-risk drivers in one group and all the low-risk drivers and like you keep slicing it up like that, then everyone should just pay for their own car problems. Like there's no longer insurance. The whole point is you're pooling risk. And so there is – I mean it's not really that big of a danger because insurance companies aren't going to be that stupid. But insurance companies do want to adjust the risk pools to their advantage based on knowing exactly how you drive.

1:36:35And that was a controversy in March. And then about 10 days later, General Motors said that they were going to stop sharing their driving behavior with data brokers. Oh, good for you. Yeah. This is the real frontier of privacy in cars. It's not knowing where you go based on paying for charging electric chargers. it is the telemetry gathered while you are driving and where that information goes and what control you have over that information and that is i feel like the more important battlefront uh the battle of like trying to find an electric charging station where you can feed 20 bills into a slot i think you that's not going to happen um but yeah like again everywhere you go if you pay for gas with the credit card or any kind of electronic form of payment it's not really that much different And in terms of knowing what you drive, everybody knows what you drive.

1:37:23It's your vehicle's registered. Like it's not, it's all publicly available or at least information that's available to the people who want to know it. So I would fight for your right to privacy during, yeah, fight for your right to privacy while you're driving. Like the actual moment to moment information about your driving, even what your trips are, where you go, how long it takes you to get from point A to point B, all that information is being gathered by the car. You just want to have legally have some kind of control over it. And hopefully we'll get some laws in that area if we can ever in this country anyway, if we can ever pass some kind of sweeping privacy, technical electronic privacy legislation, which is that people have been trying to do that for a while, but things move slowly around here.

1:38:06So fingers crossed. And by the way, to the question of specifically electric fast charging stations, there are fast charging stations out there that are not profile or login based that you can just have a credit card swipe for them. I've never seen one that takes cash, but there are plenty that take credit cards. And so there are options there for less data tracking that you could do, maybe use a certain card for it or whatever. And then there are also ways to charge your car that don't use DC fast chargers. Like you can charge your car in like 220-volt RV plugs. You just have to leave your car overnight somewhere to charge it.

1:38:45So there are options. If you're on a road trip, you can just go to hotels that have those 220-volt chargers and charge overnight every time. That is an option you have. This is not something I would recommend as like your only option. But there are other options. And usually those 220-volt chargers are even less sophisticated. Sometimes it's literally just like a plug. It could be like one of those Tesla wall units, and there's no login for that. There's no authentication for that. Or it could be like a third-party one or a CCS-based one. There's all sorts of them. But if you pay for that hotel with a credit card, they already know you're there.

1:39:17Yeah. I mean, there's so many. If you have electronic tolling, you have an E-ZPass in your car, that'll tell everybody everything. So there's lots of ways you can be tracked very, very, very, very easily for people who actually want to track you. But if you are looking to minimize it, that is something to consider for sure. Thank you to our sponsors this episode, Trade Coffee and Computex 2024. And thank you to our members who support us directly. You can join atp.fm slash join. Our member-only overtime segment this episode, which is our member-only kind of bonus segment, bonus topic after the main show, is going to be about the Limitless Pendant.

1:39:54This is formerly known as the Rewind AI pendant. It's now called Limitless. We're going to be talking about that in ATP Overtime this week. Join to listen, atp.fm slash join. Thank you so much, and we'll talk to you next week.

1:40:24let him, cause it was accidental it was accidental and you can find the show notes at atp.fm and if you're into Mastodon you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S so that's Casey Liss M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M Antimarco Armin S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A Syracuse. It's accidental. Accidental. They didn't mean to. Accidental. Accidental. Tech podcast. So long. Marco, you went on a trip. How did it go? Oh, my God. It was amazing. All right. So I went, as discussed last episode, I was going to do this. I went to Las Vegas to see Phish play at the Sphere. Oh my God. So, all right. First of all, I'll get past some technical stuff first.

1:41:33I once again use the AirPods Pro as my concert earplugs. And I had the newest model, the USB-C ones. And I don't know if that matters. Probably not. But they were flawless as concert earplugs this time. So it's a minor hardware update since the last time I used them, which was last fall or last summer. There's also been iOS 17 came out in the meantime. So there's been some software updates as well to the AirPods. So whatever they have done, if it's changed, or it could just be the way the Sphere does audio, which is kind of advanced and custom and everything. But whatever it is, they were flawless as concert earplugs.

1:42:14There was no weird artifacting like there was last time. There was no like variation if I move my head side to side or I turn my head like there was last time. It was great. I actually took a picture, which I will make the chapter art for this chapter, of how my watch was reducing the sound. Because I actually, you know, the watch measures it and tells you through the AirPods. And so it actually ended up keeping the sound right around 84 decibels. decibels and it was saying like the outside world at that time in the concert was like in the 90s like around 95 decibels um and so with the airpods it was bringing it down to about 84 most of the time what mode did you have the airpods in so this was the just regular default i didn't go into any of the accessibility stuff because that that alters things in ways that i don't quite want there's a setting called loud sound reduction uh it's just right in the regular like the first level AirPods Pro setting screen, loud sound reduction.

1:43:13And it was in transparency mode, and everything else was left alone. So with that mode, it seems to keep it around 84 decibels. Now, for reference, earlier today, when I was just playing music at like medium to loud volume in my car, just driving around, windows closed, playing medium to loud music in my car, it was around 80-something decibels. It was like, you know, 84, 85, 86 decibels. So like it didn't sound quiet. And this isn't something I would recommend that you listen to like hours and hours a day or even a week at this level. This is not hearing protection for anybody who needs serious hearing protection.

1:43:51But if you just go to a few concerts a year and you want something to be able to enjoy them with some protection, this still continues to work fantastically. So I strongly can encourage people to try this. I have tried, you know, we've gone over this before, I won't go into it now, but I've tried every concert earplug out there. These are better than all of them in terms of sound quality, clarity, ease of use, even comfort for me. They don't offer as much protection as some of the really heavy-duty ones, but it's perfectly sufficient for occasional concert goers. Anyway, so what it is like to see a show at The Sphere?

1:44:30All right. Now, before you establish that, can we recap for those who may not be aware what the sphere is and what the kind of schtick is? Yeah. So this is a spherical concert venue in Las Vegas. It was only built a couple of years ago. And the gimmick of it or the innovation of it, there's a whole bunch of innovations of it. The main one is that the entire dome of the inside of it is a giant screen. And they can show whatever video content they want on that screen. There's actually, there's a good video, I'll put it in the show notes, called How Sphere Works. And it's all about the technical side of what is the video resolution?

1:45:14How do they capture it? How do they do it? And it turns, it's like 16K by 16K square. And it's absurd. It's tons of custom video. It's actually very interesting. And so if you're interested in the hardware of this arena, definitely watch this video. It's not that long. And it's pretty interesting. It shows like, you know, what kind of screens they have. And it's basically just a whole bunch of tiny LEDs that, you know, you're just very far from them. So it just looks like a screen. So it's incredible. So what it's like to actually see a concert there. First of all, you need to go see something here.

1:45:52Because it is impossible to capture what this is like with, you know, a phone camera or whatever. Like it's very much like when you hear people try to explain what it's like to watch immersive video in a vision pro. And this is a theme I'll come back to. When you hear like what it's like to be immersed in some kind of like large, you know, your entire field of view environment in vision pro, everyone says the same thing. Like, oh, you just have to experience it. You can't really like take a picture or video of it and really get what it feels like to be there. And that's exactly what it's like seeing a concert in the sphere.

1:46:27Like it's such an amazing thing. The scale of it is so massive. It is, it's huge and the screens are far away from you. So what this means, first of all, is that it is incredibly immersive in the sense that it dominates your entire field of view. It goes, depending on where you're sitting, you know, generally goes the entire front field of view in front of you and straight, like you can look straight up and you're still looking at video content. And even you can look back somewhat if you're not like in the very back of the place. You can even look back. So it's really all around you. The sound is also really, really good.

1:47:03But, you know, that's kind of... The funny thing is, like, they have this, like, world-class sound system in there. And it's almost, like, incidental to the reason why most people are going to be there, which is the video streams. But it is such an experience to be there. And so one thing that surprised me, first of all, is that, you know, the screen of, the you know the walls like the main screen it is incredibly bright and incredibly sharp i did not expect that like i was thinking a screen that big they're going to be doing a lot of like projection and scaling and i figured it would be kind of dim and i did not expect it to be very high resolution and it is neither like it is extremely high resolution and extremely bright to the point where like you know most concerts you in the audience are basically sitting in the dark and the band's lit up and occasionally maybe some light will shine into the crowd or something, but mostly you are sitting in the dark.

1:48:01In the sphere, the video projection, depending on obviously what they are projecting, but the video content in Fisher's case was often so bright that it's lighting up the whole place like you're in the living room. First of all, you're bathed in light because it's just that bright. It is so sharp that whatever they want the content to look like, they can make it look like that. You don't really see pixels or technical details. It's just immersive. It is everything. Again, sorry to pick on the Vision Pro. It's everything the Vision Pro tries to create and kind of can't with current technology. And there's, I mean, this is a concert arena that costs$2 billion to build.

1:48:47So it's kind of an unfair comparison. but it is an amazing effect to be in there because the screens are also so far from you because it's just it's a large venue they're so far from you that your eyes are effectively at like infinite focus at that point and so you can create 3d ish effects and it it doesn't look like you're looking at a flat screen it can look like you are in a 3d environment pretty well pretty convincingly just because it's so far away you don't perceive like the the lack of you know parallax or whatever um a few remarks on the audio uh it is this like crazy world-class audio system where like they use beam forming to send precise audio to each seat it's that's also a thing covered in the video and various articles it's worth looking up if you care about that kind of stuff yeah that video had a graphic they showed several times that didn't actually go into they tried to i think they were trying to show that different sections of the audience could be hearing things in a different language what yeah that that is something that that the sphere has promoted as like as an ability they have there um i mean fish didn't do that everyone heard the same nonsense but uh there are there were like so at certain times they they played with and i think they used it very sparingly for the best but at certain times they clearly were playing with panning effects where it would seem like one of the instruments was all of a sudden coming from like the far left side of the room and then moved across to the right side of the room and then and then went back but and like you could tell that they were playing around and they did it they did it like i went to two nights and i think i heard that a total of maybe three or four times across the two concerts so they they're using it very sparingly um they also uh one of the one of the uh features of the arena is they call it haptic seats so first of all the bass is partially transmitted through the seat speakers like i guess there's speakers along the seats somehow somewhere.

1:50:38I didn't see them, but maybe they're like, you know, in the floor or whatever. But when you sit down, so, you know, obviously it's a concert. Many people are standing most of the time, but like, you know, you get tired and eventually like you want, you might want to sit down for a couple of songs. So first of all, at the sphere, that's, that's actually a really nice thing to do because even if the people in front of you were standing, so you can't see the band anymore, you can just look up and you can see, you can still see most of the video content, even if the people in front of you are standing and you want to sit for a minute.

1:51:06As an old person, this is disappointing to me that people are standing in the sphere. The whole point is they have these amazing haptic seats and everything. It's like, but no, it's a concert. We have to stand. No, you're all old. Just sit. If you can't sit in the sphere, it's so clearly like an AV experience. They have the world's most high-tech chairs. Some of the sound is in the chair. Sit in the chairs. I can't believe people are standing. You need to wait until people get. There needs to be a cultural shift. At the beginning of the show, they need to put up a sign that says, I know you like us and you are fans of the band.

1:51:40But I assure you, if you all sit, you will all be able to see. Amazing. Yeah. Well, when you run your own concert venue, you can put that sign up and see how it goes. Fish can make it happen. They have a lot of control, cultural control over their audience. They just need to put that message out there and people will get on board. Oh, my God. But anyway, so sitting down was actually a really nice experience because you would feel much more of the bass sitting down. So it was getting like a nice butt massage from the music. And also then, you know, you could watch the screens. And so this was actually really nice.

1:52:10Like if you just, again, like if you want to take a break or something, like normally most concerts you sit down, you can't see anything anymore. The lights are blocked. The band is blocked. Like you can just see somebody's butt. And in this case, like that, it was much better than that. So that's great. They also, they have, the haptic seating is not just like a speaker that is just playing normal volume. Each of the two concerts, there was one or two moments where it almost seemed like there was an earthquake. Like the entire balcony seemed to shake. And everyone kind of looked around like, did somebody just like drop a whale on this balcony or something?

1:52:44Like a huge like shaking vibration. And I looked it up afterwards and I learned like that's actually that's also a feature of their haptic seats. Like they can do like larger moves like that. And it feels pretty nuts. So it was it was a really fun experience, even just like the seat situation, because there's all these like physical features of it and physical realities of being in this big video dome that that was really nice. The value of good seats is very high here. Like you really want to be relatively centered in the venue. I was on the first balcony, the 206 section. I gather these are very good seats because, first of all, they were very good seats.

1:53:26But second of all, a few rows down, the people behind me pointed out was seated Trey Anastasio's dad. So I figured if he was put there, that's a pretty good sign. These are good seats. That's the guys behind me were saying, like, I guess these are pretty good seats. um i also like in the little vestibule like to go down into this section i ran into peter anspach a member of goose did you introduce yourself or what like say hi or whatever very quickly i just said i did the merlin and oh i really really enjoy your work and i just everybody was trying to take pictures with them and so i just breezed through pretty quickly because i didn't like i didn't want to like be that guy um so anyway uh so yeah i figure if if trey's dad and a member of goose were seated in this section i guess it's a pretty desirable section but back back to the show so obviously as a fish fan they were the music was fantastic they were very well rehearsed it was very well produced um the visuals were great i didn't quite know what to expect like what are they going to do with the screens is it like i believe i spoke to it last week like it might be kind of like itunes visualizer or something and there were certain like every song they had a different thing going on with the screens certain songs were kind of like visual some of them were like basically composited live video effects of the band playing so they had cameras on the band like on each member of the band and they would like you know have some kind of visual effect like photo booth like you know have some kind of visual effect that's processing their live video and then throw it up on the screens like in a big grid like you know brady bunch style or like a like some kind of like you know video like color shifting and shadow playing and edge finding like you know so they had like live video of the band playing but processed they also had some that were like pre-rendered scenes or effects uh you know just kind of like animations almost and then some were kind of tweaked live and there have been a few articles about this where they apparently the version article that is they actually used unreal engine to actually generate live animations that the director could control based on what the band was doing.

1:55:35Because that's the thing with Phish, they're a jam band. When U2 was in this venue, U2, they composed a complete show with predefined, like at this point we're going to play this song and we're going to have this visual and it's going to roughly work like this and then we're going to go to this next thing. Phish preset the set list, but they there are certain songs they that they jam in and they kind of do what they feel like and so they designed the visuals of those songs to be able to to go on for any amount of time and to be able to be tweaked and like kind of manually commanded by the visual director as things went through so that was just like just technically speaking like that's a pretty impressive accomplishment when you're dealing with like live manipulation of this these random visuals that are being rendered by unreal engine onto a 16k square circular projection like it's it was quite a technical accomplishment and then just like content wise you know fish usually has a really great light show like they have they have a guy chris corotta who's like this famous uh lighting director he's really well regarded and he does he's done all their lights forever and they usually put on a really good light show and it's it's great fate.

1:56:51But as soon as you see this, you're like, oh my god, this is so much better than a light show. like having all of this video content it's remarkable like they did this one this is the only one i'll call out specifically because i know we're running long but they one of their songs um pillow jets it's a recent song it's not very well liked by the fans it's kind of a kind of a slower maybe a little bit boring song and so when that song started they they had like this like forest that you're like slowly moving through almost like an apple tv landscape screensaver you're like slowly moving forward in this in this like CGI forest and that song comes on and a bunch of fans kind of are like oh well I guess this is a good time to go to the bathroom the whole row in front of me got up and left during that song and this song proceeded to slowly like it was you're going through this forest and then the colors start shifting on the trees and then they get a little bit brighter colored and then these things start moving and then like over the course of this like 10 minute long song the trees slowly start becoming fireworks of color and like the colors are exploding out of each of the leaves of the trees and i'm like and this is a good time for me to clarify i was completely sober and on no drugs whatsoever for this show i was about to ask i was trying to figure out how to interrupt and ask that question delicately so i'm glad you've already answered it for me yeah so i was i was a little bit sick i had like a cold and so i didn't have anything else in my system except it was funny like you know i on the way in like you know the security guys like you It wasn't your pocket.

1:58:24And I take out a bag of fishermen's friends. I'm probably the only person here who brings in a bag of cough drops to a fish concert that are actually just cough drops. Goodness. Anyway, so I'm there totally sober. And this ridiculous like mushroom trip color explosion is happening on the streets. And I felt high. Like it was that immersive. I'm like, I don't need to do any drugs to feel this feeling. Like this is amazing. and and it's just it shows like the the incredible immersion and and of course i mean some of this is just i'd say a large part of this is that fish themselves and their visual staff did a really good job with it like this is this is a canvas bands can use it in different ways there's going to be bands that do it worse and better fish does a really good job with this stuff and this was no exception they did an amazing job um and and yeah the pillow jets tree firework explosion mushroom trip was definitely my favorite song and like and i had the clear view because everyone in front of me got up and left and like they came back afterwards and i was just thinking like you guys have no idea what you just missed but anyway they did such a fantastic job it was great and it really like it is so much elevated above a regular concert experience because it is such a production.

1:59:44The ability to do this well will be mostly limited to really big, really profitable bands. So you're not going to see like indie bands here. And part of that's good because like this is very different from the experience of seeing a band in most venues because in most venues, you are looking at the band. You are watching them play and maybe looking a little bit at the lights. With this, the band could have not even been there because what you're watching, you're watching the entire sky above them so you're not really looking down at the band very much at all oh that's wild you know that's gonna that's gonna affect obviously like what kind of act you'd want to see in a place like this but with that disclaimer aside and with the obvious disclaimer that like only the biggest acts will be able to afford to produce a show like this with all these visuals and everything like that with those disclaimers aside i strongly encourage you all out there, if you ever get a chance to see anything at the Sphere, go see it.

2:00:43If you are in Vegas for whatever reason, and there's a band playing there, and you can get reasonable tickets that are somewhat centrally located in the venue, go. Even if it is not a band that you would otherwise love, it is quite an experience. Now, if you can get a band you love, that's, of course, way better but it is so unique and it's so immersive and so frankly mind-blowing go see anything there whatever is playing that you can get into next time you find a way to get to vegas or if you happen to be there for other reasons go trust me go see anything there it is that much of a good experience but apple recorded the whole thing and it'll be released on vision pro soon right oh can you imagine that's the thing like the whole time i'm thinking like this is the perfect advertisement for vr headsets sort of see the thing is like so as i was thinking like man i would love if there could be like you know a vr headset version of this like i would love if they just like put apple's like alicia keys cameras like put those in the balcony that i was sitting in and just sell me a live stream of a fixed camera from that perspective that i can just you know look up and down whenever i want to look all around me that's such fish thinking no what you want is the direct feed of that 16k by 16k video mapped onto a sphere inside vision pro you don't need to send it through the analog hole and then get it back in through cameras no go direct just get the video but here's the thing so i thought about that like obvious obviously you're right that would be an option but like there was there was one song they played a song called ghost in the first time i was there where the visual was these giant um they look like giant robots made of high voltage power line towers like those giant towers that hold the high voltage power lines you know they were like giant robots made of those and just against just flat black like straight black backdrop and these giant robots that are standing above you made of power lines and because again because the screens are so far from you you can't tell that these are being rendered right up relatively close to you and so it looked like you were actually standing below these giant hundreds of feet tall power line robots that were angry and then at one point the one that was directly above you leaned forward and it looked like it was going to fall on the entire audience and everyone freaked out everyone was like ah And because part of the experience of being in a place like this is the people around you.

2:03:23You're experiencing this together with the audience of other extremely high people around you. If a Vision Pro, you know, like if a VR headset version of this was just transmitting the feed of video that's being mapped on the screens, and you were sitting in an empty movie theater kind of thing, like what they have with some of the experiences now, i think it would feel like many people complain about the vision pro it would feel very lonely because it's like oh i'm in the middle of this concert arena and no one else is here with me like part of the experience of being in a place like this is feeling what everyone else is feeling and and capturing like what makes everyone else excited i think for this to succeed if this was ever to succeed in a vr content play ideally it would need to be like a live recording of like from a perspective of a good seat in the audience.

2:04:19Why wouldn't you just want to be in it with 5 ,000 other people also have Vision Pros on? You know what I mean? Like that's the VR presence thing, the whole personas thing. What if you were in a theater where every single seat was filled with a persona? I think that would be really weird and creepy. I don't know. I mean, maybe I'm just too new to the VR world. I'm still kind of down on those. Yeah, I mean, obviously it's not going to be as high fidelity as actual humans and probably not as high fidelity right now as a recording of actual humans but i feel like the goal is hey instead of me just putting on this thing and me being alone in this giant sphere it's me and the 5 000 other people who are all doing it all instanced together in this one thing and i can hear them you know ooh and ah when the big robot leans forward and stuff like that i don't we're not there yet to be clear but i feel like that is attainable with not so distant technology it would be tempting to make it too technically perfect by doing things like just sending you the video stream and mapping it in 3D and everything and undervalue the human element and the value of the human element, I think that would be a mistake.

2:05:18The human element is very much a part of the experience of being there. Anything that's going to succeed and give you anything close to the experience you want needs that. It needs the human element. I think there is potential opportunity for a VR content play here. I would definitely buy it if I could for many great concerts and live events. That would be wonderful. But it would have to capture the people too. Even like, honestly, live sporting events too. I mean, the people would be there anyway, so I guess you'd capture them regardless. But when you're at a live sporting event, a huge part of the fun of being there is being in the crowd with the other people in the crowd and reacting with them and feeling and hearing their reactions to everything.

2:06:02That's part of the fun of being at a live event yeah i know that's what that's what vr is trying to do with the whole presence thing i feel like my friend is sitting next to me on the couch as we're watching it together i feel like i'm in a stadium with 10 000 people but it's 10 000 personas and you know like that's i know that we're not there yet but that's the whole idea is that the humans are providing that content they're providing the the movement the sound the ooze and the aahs the jostling the looking to the side and seeing expressions on your friend's face like that's i feel like that's where the experience it is sold by a lot of the VR stuff and you know it with the the personas that uh Casey got to try with Mike or whatever like it's it's obviously not there yet but it is actually there is a there's a tiny glimmer of that human element that you're talking about even in the very primitive even even playing battleship with uh shells of yourself that aren't even visible from the back there is definitely a place for that there is value for that um but I think that's never going to replace or even compete with the value of like actual humans being there if that is an option available so like obviously not every context that's an option like that isn't always a possibility but when that is a possibility like if you're trying to do some kind of live event as content like i think you want the live people there in some context now obviously you can do things to like reduce their their annoyingness like you you wouldn't see the camera so low that when the people in front of you stand up they block it you know i was gonna say like the cut this type of thing is ideal for things like division pro because you do actually have a stationary camera it's like you don't you don't you don't get up and go to the camera doesn't get up and go to the bathroom so you don't have any of the problems of like motion sickness and changing perspective and cutting for you could do that but they they shouldn't they should just even more so than sporting events because in a concert venue like this there is one pretty much best seat in the house which you are apparently very close to whereas in a sporting event the field is so big that sometimes you do want like a close-up on the goal or you know different perspectives but this show is made to be viewed from an audience so you can just pick that ideal seat plant the camera or virtual camera there and just keep there the whole time yeah and they can already be part of like the whole like there's like a bit right like only a few rows behind me was like the big like sound and video booth kind of thing like the big like sound and video mixing board setup and everything that's the perfect place put it there like have it be part of that done i think there's something to be said like like marco was saying a moment ago i mean i don't get to go to concerts often but it is one of my favorite things to do is go to see you know music live and i really think that part of what makes that so fun is that shared group experience is knowing even even for a band like fish where it's so easy to get a hand get your hands on a copy of the show it's still amazing knowing that you're seeing art being created live right in front of your eyes and to a degree the people the thousands of the hundreds of the thousands of tens of thousands of people that are next to you are the only ones that will ever really and truly get the full version of that experience and even a perfectly constructed vision pro version of that experience immersive experience it's still in my eyes not exactly the same as being there now does that mean it doesn't have merit of course not i think it would be amazing to be able to go on tour with dave matthews vander fish or who have you without having to leave your house like that would be incredible um but it will never replace the real deal, you know, and, and there's room in the world for both of these things.

2:09:25And I would love for both of these things to exist, but you can pry a real honest to goodness concert from my gold, cold dead hands. I wonder what's more expensive flying to Las Vegas and seeing a real sphere show or buying an Apple vision pro. No comment. I'm not even the one who spent the money and I'm still saying no comment. Yeah. Like the VR version of this is obviously that we're projecting into a future where it is much less expensive to do this from your home and far more people can do it than because i think i don't know how many spheres they're planning on making their their plans for a bunch of other ones in other places but like if people could do this from their own home it's like they're seeing tv in a movie theater or seeing live sports or seeing sports on tv seeing sports on tv is not the same as seeing live sports but it is way more accessible to way more people and it's way less expensive and way more convenient and it does actually have some advantages over seeing sports live in terms of perspective changes and incident replay and stuff so yeah i think there's definitely a place for uh both of these things i don't i don't think the the sphere is going to uh be obsolete anytime soon because big impressive screens are always big and impressive by the way this is why people are so excited about micro led tvs because this is just a big micro led tv uh but yeah the problem with micro led tvs is to make the make the leds small enough and close enough together that's why like the micro led TVs are always so big like it used to be the smallest one you could get was like 100 inches they recently at CES they have one that was 77 inches and people like oh my god 77 inches like people were excited that it was so small which is like the opposite of what everyone's been thinking about televisions for the entire history of television it's because they want this tech to get to the point where they can jam all those little tiny lights into a normal size television set that doesn't cost as much as a car unfortunately they still cost tens of thousands of dollars but yeah, they don't have a space problem.

2:11:11But that's what it is. Individual tiny LEDs and they can be really bright and they look really good as long as you're far enough away from them. A couple of quick thoughts. First of all, if you haven't seen Drew Carey's review of his experience at the Sphere. Everyone has sent it to me. It is something and it is worth watching. It is not really kid-friendly, but it is quite funny. Let's just say he enjoyed his experience. He very much enjoyed his experience. He had a lot of cough drops. Yeah, he had a lot of cough drops. And then secondly, somebody had suggested this to me a while back. I don't have the faintest memory who it was, and I apologize.

2:11:51But there's a Vision Pro app called Amaze VR, and I will put a link in the show notes. it is ostensibly a like music kind of sort of concert app where you can download these immersive I'm going to say concerts but that's a stretch and you can watch them and they have Megan Thee Stallion T-Pain of N7 fold and there's a free one that is Zara Larson who I think I recognize the song that she played let me tell you I have an experience with getting real old that maybe we can talk about another time but I feel older and older every passing day. But anyways, I mean, that is how time works. Yeah. Well, yes, but no, I, in terms of like, I feel like an old man now, but anyways, um, the, the, these are concerts ish.

2:12:39It's more like, you know, let me drop an, uh, an actual artist and like a completely CGI environment and it is immersive, but it's not a concert in the way that you and I think of concerts. Nevertheless, it is worth checking out and downloading the free one just to see what sorts of things are possible. And, you know, there's not that much else to do with Vision Pro right now, so why not do that? So we'll put a link in the show notes. But it is funny because the Sarah Larson one, she does like a song on the free version. And there's at one point where she is at eye level and gets like right up to the camera, way closer than I saw Alicia Keys get.

2:13:15And it was like kind of uncomfortable and off-putting. Like it felt like she was looking deep into your eyes in like a not comfortable way. I don't know. Maybe I'm just weird and old. That's kind of how I felt with the Highline video. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When it starts out and you're extremely close to the woman's face and you're like, I feel like I'm a creep. I don't know this person. She doesn't know me. I feel like I should not be standing this close to her. The difference, though, is that in this case, Zara Larsson is looking into the camera, whereas I forget the woman's name, but from the Highline thing, she's kind of looking past the camera.

2:13:50but this is like, I'm staring into your soul. So this scenario is very, very uncomfortable. But anyway, it is worth checking out despite all that just to see what's possible. So you should take a look. Yeah, because again, I think after I was there, I looked up some videos of, first of all, what they had done the nights before I was there because I missed the first two nights. I kind of regret, honestly, not going to all four. I had no way to know they would be this good. but anyway so I looked up some stuff I hadn't seen and I also looked up some videos of parts of the concerts that I did attend just to kind of see like you know was I remembering it right and I kind of wanted to try to relive some of it and even the really good videos do not feel like what it felt like to be there it is really like videos cannot capture this and this again this is what everyone says about VR experiences too because a small video cannot possibly capture a 360 degree or 180 degree in front of you kind of experience like it is way better to experience it in person or for things that don't exist in person in 3d like that's that is way better so this is a huge opportunity like this is a demo to show everyone like oh this is why vr could be really cool but if anything going to the sphere suggests like yeah but everyone in here is seeing way better quality video than any vr headset can offer today it's hearing way better quality audio with i would i would point out a subwoofer which currently is not super practical or easily possible with vr headsets um and you get the communal experiences if anything this shows like vr has promise if these deals can be made but nothing beats the real thing and man is this a crazy real thing to experience like again go see anything in that venue if you happen to like it that's even better but go see anything in that venue it is quite an experience i strongly recommend it i like how you're calling a gigantic array of leds the real thing the real thing is red rocks marco the real world the real sky the real mountains i mean fish plays there a lot but like they they can't make a space vortex above them when they do well you know what if there was a real space vortex could happen if it was ever gonna happen it would happen above a fish concert that's for sure yeah it happened about the show red rocks probably yeah probably or at least people will report it having seen it well yeah i'm sure that happens a lot