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

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There's this moment, which had such an opportunity to be positive, where it was like, wait, my wife just said see you tonight. Hey, Siri, what is the thing that we're doing tonight? And it's like, you have a date with your wife of, like, ice skating lessons. And instead of being like, oh, nice, thanks, Siri. He's like, oh, weird. Yeah, we gotta talk. And I'm like, I mean, we gotta talk. I'm like, what?

Yeah, what is up, people of the internet? Welcome back to another episode of the Waveform Podcast. We're your hosts. I'm Marquez. I'm Andrew. And I'm David. We got Mariah and Ellis at the producer desk this week. And it's Techtober, which means, wow, we've got a lot to talk about.

Wait, I made a sound for this. For Techtober. That feels how I've felt for the past couple of days. So I think that's a good sound. Anyway, this week, because we have to make sure we don't fast forward too far ahead, what do we have?

We have Apple Home View. They had their home event this week and all the things that came with it, including their new first gen Home View product. We got to see Microsoft Surface Ultra laptop with RTX Spark, a new Fitbit with a screen. It's a lot. But first, did they even test this?

I'm back. I'm ready to get yelled at because I don't know how to do stuff. People loved your last one. I'd agree with you. This one, this one, man. So, okay. So I, I've been lately, I've been dabbling in the dark arts. And by that, I mean, I've been using a Windows computer at home for some personal projects, you know?

I'm so sorry. Wait, before you continue. Yeah. Is that a pixel light bar on your shirt? It's close. It's got some- No, it's got too many colors. No, only the black bar. Oh, right. They have red on it. So I forgot. Yeah. The light bar has red. Right. It's the dot. It doesn't matter.

I know. The glow bar. I'm just making a dumb joke. You can continue with your Windows. Thank you. All right. So I'm using Windows, right? Yeah. And what happens when you use Windows? Windows updates. You know, it just, you open your computer and be like, hold on, blah, blah, blah. So Windows, this time it was like, I'm updating right now. Like, you have 10 minutes to wrap up your stuff and then this is happening. And I was like, okay, I can accept this.

That happens. Windows updates. The computer comes back online. I try to resume what I'm doing and I'm not connected to the internet. And I'm like, oh, I guess this was a serious enough update. Like, it must've forgotten my wifi password, any number of things. Right. So I'm, I'm sort of new to Windows. So I'm like, how do you connect to the wifi again? I know you go to the, that little cluster of tools at the bottom right corner, you click it. And then I don't see wifi. Like, it's just not an option. I'm like, okay, I must've not really known how

to use Windows properly. I'm new to this, whatever. So I open settings, go to the network tab, right? Nothing about wifi in there either. So then I'm like, okay, okay, okay. I must not be understanding something like this is a professional operating system, you know, written by one of the biggest companies in the world. So I search wifi in the settings, no results. At this point, I'm actively questioning whether wifi active like exists or if I just imagined it my

whole life up until this point. And so I do a little bit more digging. Lo and behold, the update that I had given to my computer uninstalled the network adapter. So there's like a, um, a wireless antenna directly connected to the motherboard that needs a driver, even though it's directly connected.

This is a laptop. Yeah. It uninstalled the built in the driver for the built in network adapter. And so when windows diagnosis, this is the problem, it goes , here's the link to download it from the internet. And I'm like, well, that doesn't help me. Luckily , eventually I read it around the computer.

There was like an old version of the network driver adapter driver, like in the device manager. It was like a surreal Kafka esque experience first being gaslit into questioning whether wifi exists and then being told it's okay, dude, just click on this webpage and you can get back on the internet.

Yeah. This happened on my old surface book too. I remember it uninstalled the network driver. Yeah. And I had to use a USB C to ethernet dongle to get internet so that I could re reinstall the network driver. It was just, I, yeah, seems bad.

Other than that, I, windows has been actually, it's not bad . How dare you guys. I don't, I don't dislike windows. I just dislike when it updates when you're doing important things and then, um, yeah. I don't hate windows. And then all the bloatware. All the shit that happens on it. Yeah.

I just hate using it, but I don't hate it. I just hate looking at it. I just hate, no, I don't hate looking at it. I actually think it's fairly aesthetic. I do. I like the square. Yeah, I like, I like the way it looks. The bloatware, you like all the bloatware. I do not love the bloatware. I do not love the bloatware. I do not love the bloatware. You ask me to sign in.

Though, the nice part about the bloatware is that there's, everything is backwards compatible to infinity. You know what I mean? Yeah, well, no, it's just like the reason it's so bloated is because there's some random program written in 1993 that Windows, for some reason, is like, no, we still support all the graphics drivers.

Anyway, that's my, did they even test this? Thanks, Microsoft, for a good story. Well, on the complete other side of the fence, Apple had an event this week, uh, and they, they added a new first generation device to their ecosystem and then a whole bunch of other things around it.

So it's the, it's the home event. It was actually, it was not really an event. It was like a, like a hands-on experience in, uh, New York, I guess is, I don't know if there's one in California too, probably not. There's a New York one. Just Tribeca. Yeah. We all walked in and everyone's like, welcome home. And we're like, oh, I see what you're doing.

It's a home event. Yeah. Um, so they announced their new products, which is the new home view, which is an in-home display and speaker computer combo thing. We'll talk about that. They also announced, uh, a partnership with LG and Schne ider Electronics for a bunch of smart home products like a doorbell and a thermostat and security cameras, things like that.

And they also dropped a new Apple TV 4k and a new home pod mini too. Now I think all those other things are a little bit less interesting in the home view itself, but the home view I have so many thoughts on. I did my impressions video. I also have a lot of thoughts on the commercial. Yeah.

I think it was really strange and really bad actually. I agree. Uh, but I don't know where to start. Where do we, where should we start? Let's just start with what it is. Cause some people might not even have seen this. True. Fair. Okay. Yeah. So in the smart home, you guys might've seen like other people have smart home, uh, products when you visited their homes before they need like a little hub, like a screen that you can control all of it from like a Nest Hub max or an Echo show or something like that.

Apple has not had one of those. So that's what home view is. It is a seven inch square LCD with these big black bezels. And it sits on this sort of metal base that has extra speakers in it. It's $299, $300. And there are two versions of it.

One that sits on the base or one that mounts to the wall. The one that sits on the base has just like a USB type C port in the back, which I was actually fairly happy to see that. Really? Just like plug it in wherever you want. I have a thought on that also. Fair. But then, uh, yeah, the wall mounted one is the same price.

It doesn't come with the base. So it doesn't come with that woofer, that deep speaker, uh, that would be in the base. And it also doesn't come with any mounting hardware. You have to buy that as well separately. How much is that one though? Cause you don't get that stuff. So there's a $60 USB-C one. There is a $80, um, AC adapter version.

And then there's a $130 power over ethernet version. So based on what sort of wiring setup you have. So it's $130. Yeah. Based on the wiring setup you have, you're going to be spending some extra money just to mount it to the wall. Yeah. And it doesn't have as many speakers. And it doesn't have as many colors, by the way. That one only comes in silver or gray.

Yeah. So. Did you say they're the same price too? Sorry. They're on the same price. The same price. Yeah. The same price is insane because you get a big speaker when you have the one that sits on your, your table. Yeah. The woofer. So they, they did make a big point about how the one on the wall has those full range drivers tuned specifically for on wall use.

I don't know if they are physically different, if they like point backwards or something, but they did talk about that every single time I brought it up, but I'm pretty sure it's going to sound worse because it doesn't have a driver that, that big woofer driver. I also generally don't want music just coming out of my walls. Uh, I mean. That sounds like some poltergeists.

There's a whole, there's a whole group and we can talk about more about the market for this in a second, but there's a lot, not a lot. There's some amount of people that have an iPad on their wall to do this sort of stuff. Yeah. Right. And there's an Apple home app. And so they just glue the iPad to the wall or like however they want to attach it to the wall, get some power to it so it doesn't die, or maybe just take it off and charge it once in a while.

And that's been their home hub until this point. This is generally like bespoke, like designer homes that they will like show off in LA or something and sell to multimillionaires. Like 10 years ago. Like 10 years ago. I feel like it's not really, I remember we got a breather for pixel two that had like an iPad on the wall.

And even then it was like, this doesn't feel high tech. This somehow feels 15 years old already. And like, I think there, but there are people who want to do it and giving a version of that makes sense. But to charge the same amount with like 50% less material and then also be like, here's the mounts you guys need.

Yeah. And it costs more. Like that should have, that should be the difference. Just include the amount. It should be at least a hundred dollars cheaper. Yeah. Or the $60 amount should come with it. Yeah. Like right. For free. And then like, even that I don't think is an equal. Yeah. Because. But it's a large speaker in the bottom.

And we had, we both had briefings. The speaker I think sounded pretty good when it was on the tabletop. It was, it had a lot of good sound. I don't know. It sounded great. In my opinion. A lot better than the Nest Hub Mini. Google doesn't even sell the Nest Hub Max anymore. Yeah. So it's kind of hard to compare. You used to be able to get them for like $2.29 from the Google store.

Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I've been thinking about the pricing a lot. I typically don't say that like a decision a company this big makes is totally pointless and stupid. Like there has to be some reason for it. And I've been trying to think of it. And I think it's probably some version of like price steering where if they're the same price, people will get the one that lives on the table because that's the one most people should get.

Where if the one on the wall was a hundred bucks cheaper than a bunch of people who probably shouldn't be getting the one on the wall are going to see that it's a hundred bucks cheaper and are going to try to get the one on the wall. Yeah. Or rig it in like a weird way. Cause it is just USB-C in the back, right? Because the amount is essentially a mount that plugs into with a little USB-C port.

Right. And the difference in prices between the first two at least were essentially if you expect for the USB-C wire to run down your wall or if you want AC power. Straight in. Which I'm assuming is coded or whatever correctly to be safe inside of a wall.

And it tells you to get it professionally installed. Yeah. Yeah. So I think you probably could just plug a USB-C in the back of it. Yeah. And get it to do something. Cause you can order it with no mount. Yeah. Maybe you just put some super glue on it. Just to the wall. Just super glue it straight to the wall. Put the USB-C cord in there.

I don't know. I haven't seen the back of it. I live in an apartment and the walls are made of concrete. So I'm not drilling into that concrete. You're not feeding it. Yeah. You're not feeding it through the wall. This is going to need the third party manufacturers to rise up and make something so we can mount it to the wall. Yeah. Hopefully some cheaper options. But anyway.

Yeah. So the idea is the product lives in your home and it can do all of the smart home stuff. It can control your lights and all the smart home stuff you have attached. You can view your security cameras. You can set timers. You can ask Siri things. You can play music. You can even open Safari links and view recipes and things like that.

So it does the stuff it's supposed to do. And then it's interesting feature. I think it's the headlining feature is the multi-user switching, like fast multi-user switching. And we'll get to the video in a second. But basically the idea is you walk up to it and it uses facial recognition to know that it's you.

And then it can give you some extra personal context, like your messages, your calendar, or you ask Siri, what was that recipe that Joe texted me? And it can actually tell you because it knows it's you. And then when you walk away, it goes back to just being not personal. And it can do this for up to six different people.

So one person walks up, asks for something, walks away. A different person walks up, asks for something, gives them their answers. They walk away. As long as you have an iPhone or an iPad with an Apple account, it will be able to be set up to have you included as one of the users in the home.

Cool. I don't know what took them so long. I was actually hoping they would do this for the iPad like 10 years ago, like having multi-user support. Oh, yeah. But they still don't. But, you know, we have it on Macs. Now we have it on this thing. It's fast. It works with just that selfie camera. It's a 12 megapixel center stage camera.

It's not full face ID. But the idea is you probably don't need full face ID. In your house. At least this is their logic. This is a device where if it's in your house, you're expecting that pretty much anyone who comes up to it is expected to come up to it. It's not like you're in public. And so that selfie camera with facial recognition combined with the fact that it's looking to see if your iOS device was recently on and unlocked in the area, then it's probably you.

Do we just talk about the video? Well, I was going to say, I don't know if I buy the, let's do, let's finish design and everything. Yeah. I want to talk about a little bit more of this. First, I don't buy the, if you unlock something nearby, because I feel like the point of this is to be that I don't need to go to my phone for some things.

The area is more of like the house building. The house. Okay. Cool. The design itself, I'll give credit for one thing is that we didn't see a totally accurate leak of this going up to it. We saw a million things close, but not exactly.

I think it looks cheaper than I was expecting. I agree with you. I think I was expecting, I kept hearing HomePod mini cut in half, which is one way smaller than this. And I expected the fabric around it. I think cause I'm used to Nest Hub.

I'm used to HomePod. I think the fabric makes it a little bit nicer. I agree with you. Maybe they were, maybe in a kitchen with like food, they don't want it to get all grimy. Yeah. That's what I mean. It's a good point. I kind of wonder about that. Like all the others in this category that I'm picturing do kind of feel a little bit more homey.

Yeah. White bezels, fabric on the speaker, like softer plastic type materials. This is like sharp cornered metal. Yeah. And like an aluminum base with it, like a sort of aluminum can feeling look. I don't know if that feels cheaper to me as much as it feels like less home friendly.

It's just an unusual design. It is a little bit cuter with like the square aspect ratio on the smaller screen. I love that part. I actually think I like that part. You don't like the square? No, I don't. Really? Tim also hates the square. I like the squircle a lot, actually. I think how it's set up is nice. Something about the base just feels, maybe it feels cheap.

Maybe it just feels cheap because like you said, it doesn't feel homey, but that just feels so, that feels like it should be in an Apple event video in the background, not in my kitchen. I feel like white bezels would have made it feel like it blends into your home more. I agree. I mean, bezels are, they just look huge.

I agree. So it's a nice little screen. It's an LCD with true tone. I think that did a good job of adapting, but I had so much beef with this. You remember the iMac? Yeah. You remember the iMac with the white bezels and they didn't offer any black bezels for it. And their reasoning for that was in all the commercials, it was like in the kitchen, in the living room.

And they were like, your walls are white. Like you probably want white bezels so it blends in more nicely. And I was like, I guess I'm not putting an iMac in there, but you chose this. So, all right, you better keep that same energy. Now here's the home thing. And it's big black bezels.

Yeah. And I'm like, what happened to that energy? It's probably to hide the camera, I guess. But. I guess. But now you're not hiding any of the bezels. It's massive. Yeah. It's massive bezel. I think that also contributes to it looking a little bit cheap. I could see that. That with the giant like metal base, which is really good.

Big black bezels in a kitchen with like smudging is going to look terrible. Yeah. Yeah. For a while. Yeah. So, another thing I found very interesting is like there's only a set of apps on it and that's it. There's no like app store or anything. It has a bunch of Apple apps that are all optimized.

You can only use Safari. You can't use your browser of choice. That's kind of weird. Right. And then they have all of these features that only work if you use a very select set of Apple apps, which is felt like something that Apple would have done a number of years ago. But it feels like like the first HomePod that only worked with Apple Music.

Yeah. They have this feature that they flash around a lot where if you bring if you have a recipe open on your phone, you can just tap your phone to it and then it shows the recipe on the display and a much richer format that looks a lot nicer and whatever.

I guess it uses like a most recipe websites use JSON. Apparently there's a format standardized. Yeah. And apparently it can index that and then use it to show it on the display, whatever. But you have to be using Safari on your phone when you tap it. And it's like, come on.

This feels so Apple. No, but it feels like Apple like a number of years ago. Sorry. That's what I mean. Like the Apple we know. It's funny because when I saw people, first of all, the Reddit thread for our video, I don't think I've ever seen our Apple more like I don't get this. product at all. And a big thing is the apps.

Yeah. At first, I wasn't that worried about it because I feel like Nest Hub doesn't really have like I never downloaded apps on Nest Hub. It just is like the kind of things I wanted to play music. I wanted to do my home controls, whatever. Yeah. At least my Nest Hub mini. I don't forget the tablet.

I have the Nest Hub Max. I've been using it for years. It's not that good of a product. It sucks. But it does have a YouTube app and I can play stuff on Spotify. I guess that's the thing. I never downloaded those, but it had Spotify and YouTube on it already. Yeah. Like, can this have play YouTube videos? It's only in browser? So YouTube videos are only in browser.

Yeah. It's Safari. The other thing that they kept bringing up was the CarPlay framework. Yeah. So the same way that your car screen can show content from apps that support CarPlay, you will be able to show content on those same apps, CarPlay supported apps, on the HomeView.

So when I was asking about Spotify specifically, basically the idea is there is no Spotify app on the HomeView, but you can AirPlay like Spotify to the HomeView and it'll show up the same way it would on CarPlay. Yeah. So SoundCloud will work. Spotify will work. Your Pocket Cast will work.

Non-Apple apps will work if they support CarPlay. Yeah. It's not like a new Home framework. It's CarPlay. And by the way, I asked them, what OS is this running? Is there a name for this? And they said, they said it's HomeView Software.

Yeah. They've never named it. And I said, is it HomeView OS? They said, it's HomeView Software. And then they smiled at me. I found that so odd because I checked many places for the OS name, the fine print, the news room, the website itself. I cannot find any. It's got to be running one of their OSes.

It's combining a couple of things from several of their OS es. And I almost want to feel like, okay, it's just iOS, but like with some launcher or something or whatever. Watch OS? But like there is watch OS. When you change the clocks and the watch faces, I keep saying watch faces, but it's just watch OS watch faces, right?

And then when you go through and you have that like home screen with your apps and the widgets, that's just iOS right there. That's your iPhone screen right there. Yeah. So it's like kind of a few things stapled together and Car Play gets stapled in there too. And that's something I wanted to bring up was that this product feels strange because it feels a little bit like a computer and a little bit like a home display.

Because in some ways they're like, oh, you've got Safari. You can like bring up these like in the ad that we'll talk about. All of the people in the ad, like they're kind of using it like a computer. They're like touching it and they're doing this. They're spinning it around. They're doing that way too much. Spinning it a lot.

And so it's almost like it's like a kitchen computer, but at the same time it's so limited because it's like only got the Apple apps that are approved to be on there. There's no app store or anything like that. So it's like half computer, half sort of ambient computing device, half Siri AI device.

I tried to think about it as like, what does this end up being in like a month when the novelty factor wears off? Because I've had a lot of this home stuff for a while. And I'm like, what do I at this point now do with my reasonably advanced smart home hub? I do basically three or four things. I listen to music once in a while.

I'll ask for a timer once in a while. Every morning I ask it for like my routine slash news. So it tells me the weather, the traffic for my commute and the news. Sounds like something Siri would do. And I think I asked like for sports scores and random other general knowledge stuff and that's about it, right?

So let's say this is going to have to do the same stuff. This is just Siri performing those tasks instead of Google. It can still give me the sports scores. It can still tell me, you know, what I'm asking from online information. It can still set timers. And then all the other stuff is just kind of like extra.

Like I don't, I have my phone with me. That's the only reason it unlocks. Like I don't need to ask it about my messages or my calendar very often or like take a FaceTime call on it. I don't think I'm going to be doing that stuff as much. I could see in a kitchen a FaceTime call maybe. Like if you're cooking, I could.

The one thing I do like is like if you're in the kitchen or something and like your smart doorbell rings to see who's at the door. Cause it could just be like, oh, that's just a FedEx person who has to ring the doorbell and walk away. I don't need to like clean up. So like that, which a lot of this is stuff that like Google has been doing for a long time.

Exactly. And I mean, this so much feels like, uh, we realized where it's 100% catching up because then they had to partner with LG to just be like, do you see Nest and rings list? Make all of those and make them a hundred dollars more expensive. Um, but like, yeah, I think it's at the end of the day.

And one of the reasons the commercial hits so poorly is they're trying to do too much in a little amount of time when this is a thing you interact with five to six times a day. And that adds up throughout the years. Yeah. And it very much is mostly when you're cooking or like maybe in some part of your home.

I also felt that the L the LED display felt a little bit cheap or else, sorry, LCD display felt a little bit cheap. It was very blue kind of casting. And I don't know. It had true tone. So maybe that was off. It does have true tone. Um, yeah, I like how dark it gets.

It gets to 0.3 nits. One of my favorite features of my Nest Hub mini is that at nighttime, I can almost not even see the clock because it's so dim, which is really good at like late at night. It gets up to 500 nits, which is not like crazy bright, but you're not going to be in direct sunlight.

So it doesn't really matter. Um, not available in the EU because Siri AI is still not available in the EU, which is crazy. Uh, but they are working on trying to get that, um, approved obviously. Yeah. So my, yeah, I was just saying my gripe with the plug in the back is I think so many other companies have already done this so much better is the bottom should be slightly hollowed out

with the USB C port there and a little gap for the plug to come out flush on the bottom. Yeah. Because then you can put it against the wall. Then you can, the way they have it set up in the commercial , which I have to talk about is like drilled into a hole.

And then you have this like extra three inches that you need for the cable to make a turn. It looks like it's going to be up front. Yeah. It looks off or just like pull right out. So like when it's stuck in the bottom, it is then secured in there and it's not showing as much. It's a good point. So like that again made it feel kind of cheap.

That as well. Yeah. Yeah. Especially for a $300 product. Okay. We got to talk about the commercial. I'm so sorry. Before we move on, can I, I did been reading about the speaker layout in here and I think I have some ideas as to why the price might not be raised. Interesting. Because it's a really interesting configuration of speakers .

Actually, it's one downward facing driver. So that's a driver that fires sound directly at the table. And then it's two of these things called passive radiators, which are effectively membranes on springs that are not attached to any drivers. And the whole idea is like, as this downward facing cone is moving in and out, you have like changing air pressure inside the base.

And then that air pressure actually is what moves those passive radiators. And that is a way of getting around needing to drill sort of like a throat in the speaker, which helps tune it. There's a bunch of speaker design. Consider you watch my video actually about cabinet size on the studio channel.

If you want to learn more. Anyway, it seems like the way they design this is almost like the base is this weird, like hybrid, non-traditional subwoofer, because you're not going to get my, I haven't heard it. I haven't seen it, but my guess is it's tuned somewhere around 100 and 150 Hertz as a crossover.

So like only real base is going to come out of the base, no pun intended. So realistically, also it's Apple. So all these things are going to be computationally tuned all the time. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is it seems like there's not very many audio components inside this base.

Yeah. It seems like it's mostly passive components, a really well -tuned chamber, one driver facing down, possibly a wave guide, and then just being computationally controlled by the head where they're relying on the classic Apple force-canceling drivers, which is what they've been putting in everything lately to produce the full range.

I just feel like in terms of materials, the base and the hinge and everything on it should be more expensive than the one that doesn't have the materials. These are the guys that sold $600 wheels. Yeah, and a $1,000 stand for your... I just thought we were past that era of Apple, you know?

They've made a lot of things that are good value in the last couple of years. That's true. That's true. But I was surprised when you look at this... No, they're roots. When you look at this base, it makes you think of some of the older HomePod stuff where when you took it off, they'd have a million bajillion speakers firing in all directions. But I think if you were to open this up...

And just stain this up? It would be... Yeah, right. It would be like mostly empty space. I don't know yet. Well, I'll wait for the iFixit tear down. But I think it's mostly a cabinet. Anyway, I'm sorry to interrupt. I just feel like I finally got to the conclusion of reading it. It does sound really good, in my opinion, to be fair. Yeah.

There is that. If you want a smart home display that is also a good speaker, it's... When I'm thinking about the other... Like the competition of the Nest Hub and the Echo Show and stuff like that, none of them have particularly good speakers. They're all supposed to be pretty inexpensive.

Just get a display that can just do the basic stuff in the home. Yeah. And it's Apple. They've certainly leaned towards the premium look and feel with the metal and all that. But I think at the end of the day, they do have to make it pretty inexpensively. So I'm not shocked that it's not like 15 different drivers in here or something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Let's talk about the commercial. Okay. The commercial, I just want to say, you can go watch it on YouTube. It's three minutes long. It's like the way they introduce this product to the world. And I think it breaks several really longstanding rules that you would think Apple would have about commercials.

Yeah. One of them is... It's anxiety. Yeah, like a commercial, especially for a first-gen product , is supposed to basically instruct you, especially as a reviewer, of how they see this being used in the world. Yeah. And the family that goes through their morning with this product and has a bunch of different users and stuff, I think the idea was to showcase the multi -user support really cleverly.

But a lot of the other stuff was not how I think most people will use this. So I kind of disagreed with that. It also didn't paint a picture of like, I want to be like this family. No. It was not like a positive... No.

You know, usually you're like, oh, wow, this person has the iPhone Duo and it looks like they're getting so much done. Wow, that's so cool. I want the product so I can be like that. This commercial didn't have any of the, oh, I want the product so I can be like that. It didn't have that. And I just want to clarify for you, so in case people take that wrong, it's not that we don't understand that families can be chaotic.

It's we understand that families can be chaotic and you can just speak to each other in that scenario. Yeah. And not all basically have an intermediate little screen on the table. Let me summarize the video. So, okay. So it's like a four or five person family home, right?

They have this kitchen island that they have the home view on. And they're basically... Drilled in. Drilled in the middle. That's crazy. Just drilled in the middle of the cabinet. Yeah. Plug it in. You got to plug it in. They drill it in. Anyway, they do... It is successful in showing that it can be used for everything that you might need to use it for because they basically go through all these scenarios where the son walks in and he's like, I want some fresh toast.

And the dad's like, fine. How do I make fresh toast? And then he beams it to the thing. It's like, okay, the simplest thing you could possibly... Literally, yeah. It's like two ingredients, but okay. Anyway, it's French and it's toast. And then... Notably not French. Notably not French, which is another problem.

I would argue that might be the only thing that I would like... In that scenario, I was like, yeah, that is what I... I just ask it random questions. Yeah. So they go through a lot of different scenarios where they 're beaming recipes over. They're asking Siri AI if French toast is actually French. The daughter walks up to it and it beams to her face.

So it switches to her messages so she can talk to her boyfriend. And then when the son tries to walk over to it, he can't read her messages. It does a good job of showing off all the features. But it is so fast-paced and it is so chaotic and anxiety- inducing.

I got gems. It just feels like, okay, your turn. What do you need now? Talk to the HomePod. Not the HomeView. Okay, your turn. What do you need now? Talk to the HomeView. Like, they don't really engage with each other. They're just like, for every problem, I will go to the Home View. There's also something super unrealistic about this ad, which is that everyone, in order to set up their account on this, and for it to recognize their face, must have an iPhone or an iPad with their account on it and nearby and recently unlocked.

Yeah. Which they probably do. So, in this ad, at no point does anyone, at any point, have an iPhone in their hands or near them. And that's fine, I guess. But, like, these are, you know, 15-year-old kids or whatever. Like, they're texting on the family home display for some reason.

Like, I don't understand that. They're texting her, like, secret boyfriend on the thing in front of everybody. Because they all keep picking it up and, like, spinning it around, which is crazy. The main, yeah. I don't know. Okay, I think the main faux pas here is that the entire ad just feels really anxious.

Like, it moves really fast. It spins around. It's, like, really fast-paced. There's, like, tense music. And at the end, the husband and wife are, like, the kids leave, and the husband and wife are, like, good morning. And then they just leave. They don't embrace. There's no, like, there's no, like, welcome home.

Yeah. None of the... It seems like they were going to divorce, to be honest. That's the vibe I was getting. It kind of did. All of the... They did actually... I think the thing was, like, we have a checklist of all the features we need to demo. And they managed to get every single one in the video. And also, every single one of them, the resolution was, like, kind of negative.

Like, there was one where the, like, grandparents called on FaceTime. And they were, like, we don't like your beard. Like, what's going on? We shouldn't be calling you right now. I'll call you back later in the car. And then they just, like, hang up. They're like, that was weird. I didn't want to... I don't want to call you right now. And then there was, like, the, like, find my keys moment where it was, like, oh, it's in your pocket the whole time.

Like, you idiot. Like, why would you use that product to do that? And then there was the texting thing, which was, like, the kid was, like, I want to, like, spy on my sister's text. So I, like, look over. And that was, like, kind of a weird feeling. And then we're going to watch them. And then we're going to watch them on the doorbell. And they're just, like, shoo, shoo.

And at the end, there was this moment which had such an opportunity positive where it was, like, wait, my wife just said see you tonight. Hey, Siri, what is the thing that we're doing tonight? And it's, like, you have a date with your wife of, like, ice skating lessons. And instead of being, like, oh, nice. Thanks, Siri. He's, like, oh. Weird.

We got to talk. And I'm, like, honey, we got to talk. I'm, like, what? That was so negative. What the heck? I just didn't. I felt like it was a very stressful watch. So this exists because Apple, when they make a new product, they need that product to integrate with everything else they have ever made.

And it just so happens that if they put a thing in your home, it has to integrate with your iPhone. It has to integrate with your Apple TV. It has to integrate with your new security cameras. It has to integrate with, like, so many things at once. Oh, even there was a moment where they had to demo that it plays music.

So briefly, the little annoying kid was, like, play this song. And it plays the song loud for, like, three seconds. And the mom's, like, cut that off. Like, no, we don't need it. You're late for class right now. Everyone is annoyed and stressed at everything that is happening out of the home view. Like, the grandparents calling.

They're, like, oh, God. I hate that there's a display that my grandparents can call me in in the kitchen. Oh, God. I hate that my son can randomly play annoying music in the morning. Oh, God. I have to make French toast. Like, everything they're annoyed about. It was weird. It was so weird. It was so strange. It was so weird.

In my eyes, it was, like, we have to make a commercial that shows everything this can do. And if we did it and how people would normally use it, which is two to three times a day with hours in between, it would be really boring. Yeah. So they're, like, how do we get all of it? What's the scenario we can do all of it in?

I feel like I could come up with, like, a... Well, exactly what you said. Do the same thing with a family trying a bunch of stuff in the morning, but make them not hate each other. Yeah. It was, like, high anxiety. They were all annoyed. It was, like, oh, modern family. I think they're, like, poking fun at, like, the sister, like, being smarter than the brother.

And, like, it's not actually French. You can do that when not every other thing is, like, negative. And also they drilled a hole in their camera, which is crazy. Who am I asking, you know? They did drill a hole in the center of their kitchen island . Yeah. Okay. So this HomeView integrates with a bunch of new smart home stuff.

Notably, Apple never really got heavy into the smartphone home game, right? Like, they made Apple Home. They made all these things. They have HomeKit, which has always been their smart home software. But they never really made a lot of first-party stuff.

And then they got excited about Matter because Matter allowed, you know, all these other third parties. What's the matter with Matter? Smart Home Protocol. That allows all of these third parties to sort of integrate together, work well together. Cool. But they did eventually realize, like, oh, we're getting our lunch eaten by Google and Amazon.

And if we just made our own, quote-unquote, first-party stuff, which they still didn't do, we could really win this space. We could really lean into the smart home space. So they announced a new thing called the Apple Home Collection, which is a partnership between Apple and LG and Schneider Electric.

There's a bunch of stuff. There's a bunch of cameras. There are temperature sensors. There's thermostats. And when you use these things, the main kind of headline feature is that you can tap your iPhone to it to set it up really quickly.

Whether or not that solves the problem of the smart home in which doing a smart home is a ton of logic and is just very complicated and confusing, I'm not sure. I have found this sometimes very hard to set up. They announced a ton of different devices. They're all really expensive, like, very expensive.

Some of them do have some unique features that I haven't really seen on other smart home devices before. So we can just go through them. There's an LG indoor camera, which is plug-in, so it plugs into the wall. $200. But it can tilt up and down remotely.

It articulates. It articulates. Yeah. Which is kind of cool, I guess. It's kind of a weird setup. It, like, kind of looks like the Pixar lamp in the sense that it's like... A little bit. Yeah. The hinges are all very obvious. There are, like, there have been smart home things that, like, spin and then have their own tilt.

But, yeah, this is like... And then there's the Amazon that just sold the drone that flies around. Yeah, the drone. So one cool thing about this camera is that when you're not using it, it tilts down, which I found cool. When you get home, it goes, oh, all right, you don't need to, like, monitor the inside anymore.

It makes it so nobody feels like something could just be watching them without their knowledge. I think that's kind of cool. Especially with LG. There's an outdoor camera that's $300. That's plug-in. There's a $400 floodlight camera. The colors on both of these I have a big problem with. Because...

What's up with the aluminum again? I'm not... It's not even the aluminum. It's that... So it's black or aluminum, but the base on all of the... Or silver, sorry. Yeah. The base is black on both of them. Black base. Like, unless you have, like, the modern farmhouse or, like, the, like, L.A. carved into the hill full matte black home, this does not match with your siding .

Like, most people have siding that is a light color and to just have this giant black brick on it now... Yeah. ...feels really weird. It feels like this super high-tech thing on your house that 's probably... It feels like a 2011 aesthetic to me. Yeah. This is, like, the movies that were predicting the future.

Like, you have the futuristic home. Yeah. Yeah. You know, maybe what we're learning is Apple is good at designing really modern-feeling devices, but the home design is a different type of design that they 're not good at. Yeah, I could see that. Like, the home stuff.

Because this kind of... This dips into the headphone world, too. I'm going so into the weeds. But, like, all these headphones, every pair of noise-canc eling headphones we've ever seen is, like, lightweight plastic. You're going to wear it for six straight hours. It's, like, super, super cheap feeling. Except for the... And then Apple comes along, and they're like, metal. Yeah.

We're doing all metal. And it's like, okay. I guess it's not terrible, but it is really heavy. It is heavy. Vision Pro comes along. Metal. Like, every other... Yeah, metal. Like, heavy. Like, every other VR headset is, like, plastic and lightweight. And the home is kind of different, too. It's, like, fabric, light. Yeah. Like, plastic. And then they come along, and they're like, how about metal ?

Yeah. How about sharp corners and, like, drilled speaker holes and, like, all this stuff? Yeah. And maybe they're just not good at this yet. They got it half right with the HomePod mini and the Home Pod and the fabrics. Those look so nice. I think that's why I'm so surprised. That's true. That HomeView looks so different.

Yeah. And actually, it looks more like all these LG products. Right. I was going to say, like, the base of the HomeView looks similar to the LG cameras and floodlights and stuff. Too brutal. I don't... Yeah. $400 for a single floodlight is also insane. But I guess if you can afford a home, maybe you can afford this. I live in a cellar.

So, there's an LG video doorbell that is wired. That's $250. It has two cameras, notably. That I found very cool. That's clever. There's a main camera that's 2.5K resolution that points, like, directly at you. And then there's one that points down. So, if you get a package, you can switch to the package view, I guess.

I'm curious how well this works, because a lot of other doorbell cameras have a single camera, and they just make it an ultra-wide, so you can see the person, and you can see the package. And then, if you get, like, one of those notifications where someone delivers a package, you can see the video of the person putting the package down. Yeah. How does it work for this one? It seems like you can manually switch between looking at the out camera and the down camera.

Yeah. But, yeah, I don't know. Is this better that it's two cameras? Is the down camera underneath it? Yeah, it is. Straight down. Because it is kind of strange that it is, like, cylindrical . Yeah. And, like, now a cylinder is going on your flat wall outside and looks kind of strange.

This, again, is, like, kind of weird. At least this one is silver, although there is a black one. There is a black one. Or it's, like, silver with black on top. Not that bad. Yeah. But, like, this wouldn't really fit on a lot of houses either. Yeah. Because this brushed metal and, like, house siding. It's like an apartment. Or brick. Like, this on brick would look so strange.

It would look really out of place. Yeah. Yeah. In my hands-on event, they showed it on the home view. So you could see both the main camera and the one facing down. One facing down is FHD, and you could really tell. Clearly, it doesn't really matter. It's just a package.

Yeah. You know, but, you know, whatever. Okay. There is an LG Smart Deadbolt lock, which is $350. Damn. That's crazy. It uses UWD technology, so if you walk up to it and you have your iPhone in your pocket, it should automatically unlock.

That's actually awesome. Yeah. I love that. They have that in a lot of products, though. It's not really new. Really? Can I steal your iPhone? It's not very new. So it can steal everything in your house. It's, like, the phone you expect to be, like, super secure. So, like, I guess maybe. But they have everything. They have, like, all the options. Like, they have a touchpad on it as well with a number key pad.

And then they also have a hidden key, like, lock area. True. So that's great. And I think, like, that's not way more expensive than competing options. So I think that's not too bad. My Deadbolt was not. I'm pretty sure my UW Deadbolt is, like, nowhere near that.

No, of course. I think it's, like, under $100. Oh, really? Or, like, $100. So you can give guest users access to this, which is also pretty nice. And it works with the doorbell. So if someone rings your doorbell, you can then just quickly, like, accept and then it unlocks, which is kind of nice.

They have a $40 LG temperature sensor, a $200 LG smart thermostat that looks very similar to the Nest. Everything is just, like, 20% more expensive than you expect. Yeah. The Nest looks a little bit better, though, in my opinion, because it's domed.

But this is not domed. This is, like, flat. Yeah. Which is kind of weird. That's the Schneider Electric one. There's the Schneider Electric one, which is really ugly, which is $200. But I guess if you're already in the Schneider ecosystem. Both smart home thermostats, though, will adapt to the temperature based on if someone is at home.

So that's kind of nice. Like, if you're not home, it probably won't, you know, do that. Yeah. I'm sure a lot of this stuff. This is all, everything is, except for maybe the, like, if you ring the doorbell. I'm assuming Apple will do a good job of, in the thing, ring the doorbell, probably have a button to unlock it.

That's the only thing you've said so far that's not part of every single smart home thing. I need to remind the audience that I live in a cellar for the third time today. I have not used any of these types of products. This is all fairly standard functionality-wise.

It's just a little more expensive and a little more metallic. Yeah. I think, you know, what's kind of hard about it, though, is that it's all, like, grouped into Apple Home. And Apple Home is still very outdated. Like, they just updated the Health app, and it's so modern, it's so nice, and it's beautiful.

That was the most overdue. Now the Home app is overdue. You really need to do that with the Home app. Yeah, I agree. Like, really, really. Yeah. As Shrek would say. So, HomePod Mini 2. Also a new product. Barely. Barely. Five new colors. Well, five colors.

White, blue, green, pink, and black. I think they call it midnight, but it's black. Well, I don't know. It's black. It's, like, dark, dark, dark blue. Anyway. I hate that. When you pair it to an Apple TV 4K, you can set four of them up for surround sound, or you can, like, pair them with regular HomePods. Don't do that.

Which I forgot they still sell. Can you set up four Home Views for surround sound? Unfortunately, probably. Siri AI is coming in a future software update. Oh, my God. Wait. You know what? Isn't that the whole new thing with this HomePod? Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, man. So, wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, wait. I want to get this straight. Okay. So, the old HomePod Mini. Yep. Is not getting the new Siri AI. No. The new HomePod Mini. Yeah. The only thing new about it is this slightly new top screen and that it will be getting Siri AI. Yeah. But it doesn't actually have it yet.

I don't really know why they couldn't do this on the previous one. The previous HomePod Mini had that glowing kind of top screen that would, like, glow when you would touch it. Yeah. Now, it does that, too. But it's slightly different. Slightly different. A couple more colors so it can match your album art.

It matches the album art. That's it. And then, also, they have new ambient modes so you can, like, have rain playing and stuff. Funny enough, like, when you play rain and stuff, it also dances with color, which I hope you can turn off because if I'm playing rain, it's probably usually because I'm trying to go to sleep.

I don't want it just glowing on my wall. Zero nits, please. It does now also listen for smoke and carbon monoxide alarms and will send notification to your phone if it hears it, which I think is very good. It didn't do that before. Interesting because I thought your phone would do that already. Well, but it's when you're not home.

Yeah. Oh, I see. I see. Got it. My Google Home alerts me if it hears glass breaking or a monoxide alarm or a fire alarm. Other new feature is they can also be speakers for your Mac now. I saw that. I think that's hilarious. In my briefing, for some reason, they were playing Angry Birds on the Mac.

I also saw that. I- What? Wait, this setup, Ellis, I think you'd get a kick out of this. They just had an iMac and a HomePod mini on either side. Yeah, they had two HomePod. So you can have $300 of speakers. Yeah. Both of them are a Siri smart speaker and they are the setup.

$300 of speakers for your iMac. But the whole thing's wireless though, right? Like you don't need to plug the HomePod mini. No, it is wireless and they said they- Technically, but they both plug into the wall still. Yeah. They said they re-architected the AirPlay, whatever, for the home, for specifically for connecting them to a Mac.

I don't know what that means. I don't know how much truth is in that. So you can hear the birds' footsteps. I didn't even know Angry Birds was on the Mac. I mean, when Apple does gaming demos- It's always like- It's really got to pull from like deep- Cut the rope. Yeah, that's their gaming demo.

It's literally a beer app. If you are spending- The gun app. Like what is, who is this person? Listen, I have an iMac already, but I don't want to use the built-in speakers in the iMac, which are fine. I want $300 of better speakers. Yeah.

I'm going to choose two HomePod minis as my speakers. It's strange, I find. I've never thought to do that before. The Pro Display or Studio Display XDR does not have speakers, right? So- The Studio Display does have speakers.

The Pro Display did not have speakers. The Pro Display did not have speakers. Yeah. So maybe, but then just- If you buy a Pro Display XDR and then two HomePod minis for your speakers, I need to know that singular person out there. It has to be about volume, right? Like two HomePod minis must be able to get louder.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I was thinking about it. I was like, for that price, you could get one of my favorite cheap studio monitors, the JBL 305 Mark II. You can get a lot of speakers for $300. That's a $100 speaker. You get two of them for $200. You get the audio interface and the cables for the rest. Yeah. But the problem is that speaker doesn't get very loud.

Like it sounds really good, but turned up all the way. It's not what I would describe it. So I wonder if two HomePod minis cook in together. I think Apple's argument would be ease of setup and just like you have, this is so many of Apple's unexplainable products is like, well, you have a bunch of extra money and this is easy. Yeah.

Like that's the real target demographic. How much could a speaker cost Michael? $10? You have a bunch of extra money and this is easy. So what? Okay. I guess I have an iMac and I want better speakers. I have a bunch of extra money and they make speakers. So I guess I'm getting HomePods, huh?

Like that's, I guess that's it. Maybe if you get like a free HomePod with something and then you get another free HomePod later, you're like, oh now. But they got a match. During Black Friday, they do kind of throw. So wait, you can have four of them? You can have a pink iMac and two pink HomePod minis. Yeah.

Yeah. Like you could have surround sound. Yeah, you can. Four of them? Yeah. Why four? Because you got a lot of money. They got to surround you. But why not five? Like the standard surround sound sound. That's an odd number. We don't do it. We only do pairs here.

Only pairs. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The Siri AI coming later thing I found insane. I feel like Apple is dropping so many products in Q3 and 4 of this year that they had to release them now even though Siri AI is not ready yet for it.

Which, by the way, you shouldn't release something that you say has Siri AI features when Siri AI is not ready because you already played that card and it really didn't go well for you. I didn't realize it. That was Apple Intelligence. It was a different thing. Oh, right, right.

Don't worry about that. That's a good point. It was Apple Intelligence. It was not Siri. Can I ask a dumb question? It's probably not dumb. I bet you. What is the difference? Of what? All the AI. The Siri? Siri AI. Well, the Siri, the context stuff of it being able to pull information from your personal context is like that big new thing.

It's so great. So a lot of their demos will be like, hmm, what was that French toast recipe that Jen texted me? And then it'll pull it from your texts and it will find it. And that's the thing that the old Siri couldn't do. Yeah. And that is, for some people, very helpful. Legitimately helpful. But so like, can the speaker do the same thing?

Like, what are we doing? Not yet. It can be play that album that my friend texted me about. Yeah. Or, yeah, something like that. What was that podcast? And then it can just play it directly from Apple Podcasts. Like, it is, those features work well.

Apple TV had one that I thought was funny, which is like, a lot of their demos, I think, are a little unrealistic. And this one is also slightly unrealistic. But it was like, what was that show that Bob told me to watch? Play that. Yeah. And then it just opened up Ted Lasso, season one, episode one, zero, zero, zero.

And I was like, all right, I guess that's probably what I would have done. Sure. Yeah. But yeah, that's what it's supposed to be helpful with. It has to be an Apple TV show. How many products have they promised this, like, these AI would be on and then they haven't launched yet? Well, they're promising it for everything.

So it's on the iPhone. It's on iOS. It's in beta still, right? I think. Maybe not. So it's still not, like, actually rolled out yet. It is on HomeView, right? Okay. It's on HomeView. It's coming with HomeView. That's why it's even more confused that HomePod mini doesn 't have it. Well, okay. HomePod mini comes out October 30th.

HomeView comes out in November. Yeah. So it's possible that it will roll out to HomePod by the time HomeView is out. It's in beta on our iPhones. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. I can't wait to see your AI. It's still in beta. I know. Okay. Apple uses the beta tag for the products.

that they're the least confident in being good yet. Yeah. Remember the Apple Watch feature where it's, like, listening to you all the time? Oh, yeah. That one's in beta. That's not even in beta yet, right? Well, when it comes out, they said when it does come out, it'll be in beta. When it comes out, it'll be in beta. It'll be in beta. Yeah. You're like, all right, I see what you're doing. Yeah. Okay. Last product.

They have a new Apple TV 4K. A lot of people have been waiting for this. Faster performance. It can act as a home hub for smart home monitoring and stuff. It plugs into all of this, you know, stuff. It has far-filled microphones, so you can control it just from the brick or whatever it is The remote has Find My Support with precision finding, and you can chime it.

And the cool thing is if you just buy the new remote, it will work with the old Apple TVs. You can still find the remote even if you pair with the old Apple TVs. That's great. But it's $300. It costs the same as a home view, which is way more expensive than the old Apple TVs were.

What was the last 4K? $399 better come with, like, a year of Apple TVs. $299. $299. Sorry. Still. Point stands. It's very expensive. That's wild. Like, I could buy a whole TV for that price. Yeah. I could buy two TVs for that price. What are you going to watch on it, Mariah?

When there's no Apple TV 4K plus. So true. So true. Yeah. Everything's expensive. That's sort of the takeaway that I had was, like, everything feels a little half-baked. Like, they're just trying to make the ecosystems work together because that's what Apple does.

But, like, a lot of the scenarios that they introduced were , like, I would never do that. But they had to do it because if they didn't do it, it would feel underbaked. But then, for some reason, they doubled the price on, like, everything. I feel like for years, we've watched every single other company scramble to try and build the ecosystem that Apple has.

And for one time, we got to watch Apple scramble with an ecosystem thing and be like, here's a bunch of stuff. And then, look, we've got the ecosystem for this. Which is kind of crazy because what they usually do is just wait a few years and then introduce a better version. But this time, I feel like they waited a few years and then everyone's like, eww. They waited a few years and then, like, looked at their calendar and were like, oh, s***, we were supposed to do that.

LG, fix this for us. Yeah. The home stuff, to me, was interesting because Apple makes a very finite number of products. And they want to have a very high-quality first-party option for a bunch of stuff that they do not make. A doorbell, a thermostat, a camera, like, all this stuff.

Yeah. And I guess, in theory, they could have spent a couple more years, like, making their own Apple thing. They probably will. Maybe, yeah. Maybe at some point. They'll also be metal and expensive. Yeah. But, like, instead, partnering with the Go2s, which I guess Schneider Electric is one of them.

LG is also, I guess, in there. It's allowed them to get to market more quickly with some stuff because they're experienced at making that already. But it feels less Apple-like because it is less Apple-like by definition. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. So, Home View comes out, pre-order now, available November 13th.

The Apple Home Collection, I think you can pre-order now as well. The Apple TV 4K comes out November 13th as well. And the HomePod Mini 2 comes out October 30th. Sweet. So, that's kind of the roundup of that.

$350 deadbolt. That's crazy. Yeah. Sorry. I keep looking at all the numbers next to each other, and, like, that's almost as much as the floodlights. Yeah. Which feels like it needs to do so much more, but. Yeah. I don't know. $200 for one indoor camera is insane to me.

That also is. Somewhere out there. For one. It, like, moves around, I guess. But, like, the deadbolt is, like, I have to spin a physical lock that I'm not even providing. Yeah. Somewhere out there, somebody's starting their first smart home, and they're like, can I get one of everything? Can I get a home view?

Yeah. A doorbell. An outside camera. An inside camera. I wonder what that bill would be. And they just spent literally $2,000. $1,500. Yeah. Which, shout out to them. I guess if you own a home, look. You're spending $1.8 million on a home or whatever.

Whatever homes cost these days. How much do the homes cost? $10? Okay. We got to take a break. We got a lot to talk about. We got Microsoft. We got more Microsoft. We got Bose. We got stuff. Bose? It said Bose here, right?

No. Oh, I said, oh, that was bass. Why did I say Bose? Anyway, we don't got that. We got Fitbit again. Let's go. Trivia. Okay. Hear me out. Smooth. I went to the press release. No. I read the whole thing.

The surround sound thing is kind of cool. For what? Because. It sounded good. Well, it's because if you get. Okay. So, you spend $300. Apple TV 4K, right? Uh-huh. Then you spend $100 on a HomePod mini. No, $150.

Oh, my God. Okay. You spend $150. Mm-hmm. Then you spend $450 more on three more HomePod minis, right ? Mm-hmm. The fact that you can just plug them all in, put them in your room, and then the Apple TV can sense their location and automatically calibrate.

The ease of setup is what they're doing. Yeah. That's a hard thing. Like, you can't really buy that. And that's still a $900 surround sound setup, which, like, is not. Crazy. The cheapest one. But it's also very far from the most expensive.

Ellis, I'm glad you like them so much. We will set up the new audio room in the new office. No, no. You're welcome. If we do, for some reason, we are lucky enough to get four HomePod mini review units and an Apple TV 4K. I will be setting this up.

All right. Let's do trivia. I'm feeling that today. So, last week when I was researching the Samsung Mega, a smartphone, I learned about a thing on the Mega that I had never heard of. This was a predecessor of Bixby, a voice assistant on a bunch of Samsung Galaxy phones from the time.

It was discontinued and replaced by Bixby. What was it called? Wait, so the predecessor to Bixby? Yes. The voice assistant on Samsung phones before Bixby. It was, in fact, on the Samsung Mega, the hilarious big small phone we talked about last week.

Before I destroyed Bixby. And it's Samsung specific, not Android. It is Samsung specific. That's correct. That I should know. I feel like as soon as you guys see the name, you're going to be like, oh, yeah. Okay, good. That's a good hint. All right. Well, we'll think about it. Answers will be at the end, like usual.

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That's pipedrive.com slash wave form, and you can be up and running in minutes. All right, welcome back. Let's talk about Microsoft. They've dropped a new product that I'm very curious about, and I actually want to hear your guys' thoughts on how we should review this, but Surface Laptop Ultra.

I've been a fan of Surface Laptop Sneaky for a while now. I've been making beautiful matte black laptops running Windows for a while, and the newest one is our most powerful laptop yet. It's RTX Spark. Can we retire that phase from everyone? Well, I guess it's typically the most powerful one yet, but this one is, like, significantly.

Yeah. Because we've had all this Apple Silicon. Remember, M1 comes out, and, like, they leave Intel in the dust. Like, the jump between Intel MacBook Pros and Apple Silicon MacBook Pros was legendary, and we've been thinking about it ever since. And, like, people are thinking about M6, but also, like, still have M1s, right?

Amazing jump. Unified memory, the whole architecture, beautiful. Windows World has still been sort of, like, kind of trying to figure out what to do with that. Like, do they do – because we've had all these – what are they called? Like, ARM chips. All these ARM chips, and we're like, is that the answer, or is it just going to be, like, we should make our own version of Apple Silicon?

RTX Spark comes out, and V is, like, here's essentially not the same thing, but a very similar architecture. Unified memory, and dramatically more powerful, and more headroom, and more speed. And that is what's showing up in these new super high-end laptops. And AI. And AI, of course.

Yes. I mean, if you look at any of the literature, there's a lot of local AI in there, too. This is built for local AI in 3D graphics. Yes. But 3D graphics also in Windows Land includes gaming, includes, like, 3D rendering, and, like, ray tracing, and all those sorts of things, and, like, a creative workflow. So there's other things that this could be good at.

Anyway, I'm spinning around the point, which is that there is a new super, super premium Surface laptop. It's called the Surface Laptop Ultra. It starts at, is this right, $2,600. Yes. And goes way, way, way, way up. There's a lot of different types of people who would be interested in this.

But we also, notably, we're recording this in the middle of October, right? Yeah. And we all are expecting at the end of October to get that, like, Halloween time Apple event where we get a new super high-end touchscreen MacBook Pro. And I do feel like these are the same product on each side of the fence, right?

The new, most powerful version yet, and it's matte black, hopefully, and a touchscreen. And just, like, their absolute most premium offering for either creative workflows or local AI or whatever else you plan on doing with this high-end hardware. There is a silver one, too, by the way.

They're not all matte black. I'll never get it. There is silver. I'll never get it. But the matte black one looks so sick. There's also this magnetic USB-type C port on the side. So you probably know, you know, all these MacBook Pros, we 've had this little MagSafe thing now, which is not a USB- type C port. So you kind of are, I guess, theoretically doing MagSafe instead of a USB-type C port.

Yeah. You can still charge via USB-C, but. Exactly. Yeah. But they threw MagSafe on the side there, which is kind of cool. Yeah. This one, they've put a magnetic USB-type C connector on the side. So if you want to use the magnetic power connector, it's great. If you don't use it, fine.

It's just a USB-type C port. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and Surfaces have always had that kind of proprietary , weird, like. Surface connect port. Yeah. It's almost looked like a PCIe slot, like, thing that magnetically steps in and pops off really easy. Yeah. I'm interested to see how easy this will, like MagSafe is there because it pops off really easy.

So if you kick a wire with a laptop on a desk, it doesn't fly off. Yeah. Yeah. The way this works is it's just a USB-C port with really thick sides that have magnets on it. So it feels like if you pull it horizontally, it probably will snap off pretty easy. But in some other directions, I'm wondering if it will actually pop out.

Because the USB-C port still goes in pretty far. Yeah. All of the videos that I saw were only at, like, kind of, like, pivoting in on an X or Z axis. It had, like, a little mechanism they did for demos, and it had an extremely specific way it still snapped in. If it gets tugged out up, I don't really know how that's going to work.

Would like to see it. Very interested in seeing it. They made a big deal about the fact that it's the most ports ever on a Surface laptop. Mm-hmm. Sure. They have a USB-A. They have an SD card reader. They have three USB-C ports, including the magnetic one. Yes. They have a headphone jack.

An HDMI. And a HDMI port. Full size. Pretty good. Pretty good. And then all the RTX Spark excitement, too. Yeah. Which is, like, this is a super, super powerful chip. It has a ton of onboard integrated memory, which is shared between the GPU and the CPU. It will get the same power, or I guess 99% of the power, on battery versus plugged in, which is not always true in Windows Land, but that is true for these.

And they're claiming 15 hours of local video playback and 12 hours of active web usage. Efficient. Good battery life with these big, bright screens. These touchscreen, like, huge. I think there's a 4K screen option for this, right? 3270 by 2180. 3.220 hertz. So not quite 4K, but close.

And there's also another equivalent in Windows Land, which is the Asus ProArt P16. They're also doing an RTX Spark laptop that's super, super, super high-end. And it'll do the same stuff. It's, like, $5,000, $6,000. Oh, my. You can get a $7,000 one with a terabyte of storage and, like, a 4K super high-res touchscreen, super bright, super powerful.

It's going to be awesome. So they're doing these super high-end laptops, and we're going to have this MacBook Pro to compare it to very soon. And I'm just excited to see how close the RTX Spark version gets or maybe even surpasses. Because you see the GPU numbers? I was going to say, can I read you the two processors you can purchase? Please. There's the NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X with 5,120-core GPU and 18 -core CPU.

That is available in a 24 or 32 gigabytes of unified memory version. Or there's the NVIDIA RTX Spark N1X with 6,144-core GPU and 20-core CPU. And that's available. I believe that you can go up to 128 gigs.

Yeah. Very funny. So I need to somehow figure out how to compare the, like, 80-core GPU on MacBook Pro with the 6,144-core GPU on RTX Spark. I don't know what I'm going to do there, but we'll figure it out. Funny enough, you cannot, in the pre-order page, get the higher processor.

You can only get it 32 gigs of memory in Platinum. You have to go matte black to get the 4864-128. Yeah. Apple did that with the MacBook Pro as well. Really? I think it only came with the 6. They color-gated the high-end. Silly. I think so. Yeah. With the M3 Max, I believe, they color-gated it.

That's really funny. Something I do like about this laptop a lot is that it's very repairable and upgradable. So you can, it has internal wayfinding, published repair guides, replacement parts available, upgradable storage. So you can upgrade the storage yourself, which is really nice.

Yeah. That's just, that's really nice to see overall, generally. These comparisons to M5 MacBook Pro, is this to M5 Max? Compared to M5 MacBook, M5 Pro MacBook Pro, 2.1 times faster to first time token.

Time to first token. Time to first token. I don't even know what that means. 4.3x faster image generation, 6.2x faster video generation. Yeah. Wow. You can see who these are targeted at. Oh, yeah. They're, I mean, built for AI and image generation. Time to first token. Oh, my God.

I don't even know what that means. But, yeah, I think we went over a bunch of the specs. Most of them, like, the cheapest one is 24 gigabytes of unified memory, 512 SSD. That's that, like, $2,500 one, right? And then you can go up to one terabyte, two terabytes to get into the, like, almost $6,000 version.

Yeah. It's ridiculously expensive. One thing in this event, or are you guys done? Do you have anything else about Surface? No. Ultra? I, not really. I've always really liked their laptops. I think they're sick. I think this is sick. I don't really give a damn about local AIs or anything. So, this is too much.

I mean, I think it'll be a sick computer, but I don't see me ever spending that kind of money for it. Yeah. Because of that. I think a big part of this, and reviewing these, obviously, is where this comes in, is who is this for? Yeah. And did I talk about this last time? When we were thinking about, we have the M5 Ultra Mac Studio and the M6 Mac Mini, like, three or four years ago, all the ads from Mac Mini and Mac Studio were creative workflows.

Yeah. Look at how much faster Premiere and After Effects are. Look at how much faster Final Cut is. Look how much faster it is to render this 3D scene, or to edit a ton of photos, or all this stuff. There's a lot of creative workflows in their examples. Yeah. And people would always give shit to YouTubers, because it 'd be like, all you ever do to benchmark is, like, export videos.

Like, that's not the only use case. But it's like, well, that's one of the reasons people are buying these things. Like, that's what it's for. Now, if you go to M5 Ultra Mac Studio's website, or if you go to M6 Mac Mini's website, a lot of it is time to first token, time to generate images, time to generate videos.

All the stuff, like, compiling and all the stuff that you do in AI land is much more center focused for these products, because that's now who it's primarily for. It's obviously still really good for creative stuff. But that's also true about a lot of these, the Surface Ultra, the ProArt.

The ProArt, a lot of the ProArt line for a long time has been, like, the nicest screens and the nicest creative tools. Yeah, the creatives. Yeah. So it's still probably targeted for that. But again, you see... ProArt. Yeah, Pro... It's in the name. It's ProArt. But it's going to have a lot of AI token generation benchmarks, too, because that's what these chips are great at.

And that's what the buyers... These buyers are making a purchase decision based on how much money they think it will make them back. They're thinking, should I spend the extra $800 to get the 128 gigs of internal memory so I can run the larger model so I can have that model work more to make me more money later?

Yeah. That's the purchase decision they're making. Yeah. So when we're buying these laptops and we're not doing that local AI stuff, it doesn't mean anything to us. But there are some of those people who are trying to buy these laptops. One of the examples they gave in this event was they're like, oh, here's the Surface Laptop Ultra running GitHub Copilot.

And then he's like, and now I'm just going to alt-tab to like, I'm mastering this movie in DaVinci Resolve. And then he's like, alt-tabs again. He's like, and I'm playing Gears of War the entire time. This is the experience of being a freelance creative. You're doing all these things at the exact same time. Yeah.

Which is a good... I mean, that's impressive. Including playing Gears of War. It's just very funny that it's just like, I'm going to do some AI coding and then master this film. And now I'm going to play Gears of War. Yeah. It is crazy capable how good these machines are. Some of the demos that these companies give us, I make fun of Apple all the time for these.

They'll be like, and here's my final cut timeline. It's like a three-minute video with a bunch of clips. And they're like, I'd like to add a LUT to all of my clips. And I'll just spam just a bunch of things. And they'll be like, and now I'll export it. And now I'm done. And now it's got captions. And now I'm moving on. And I'm like, what? Nobody edits like that. But sure.

It's like a general fast way of demoing how powerful and how quick something works. How quick. Yeah. Yeah. So I can extrapolate my own workflows based on their insane demos. Yeah. Yeah. You want to talk about the search functionality? Yeah. There's one other thing in here, which is just like a new update to the Windows search experience that I found, which I mentioned previously when Ellis said he was having all his network problems.

But it seems like Windows is adding a much better search function within their taskbar search, which is essentially what we've been talking about in a lot of other things, which is like a search feature that just understands you better, can deal with typos and synonyms, and makes finding files and settings and everything on your laptop so much easier, including inline previews of docs and photos and videos and quick actions inside the like dialogue on the taskbar,

which seems like something Windows has needed forever. Thank God. I know. It's just like now I can be like, why is my sound driver not working anymore? Or like, why can't I get the Wi-Fi? You can run commands and stuff. I just feel like it has always been a pain in the neck to try and find things on a Windows computer, even as an experienced Windows user.

And having this will make everyone's lives easier. If it works. It was a nice demo. We'll see how it actually works in the end. I mean, it can't get worse. Everything in this world can get worse. We've been doing this podcast for 300 episodes and we've seen a lot of things get worse.

Almost 400. Yeah. Closer to 400. So yeah, I just want to shout that out. I'm excited to try that and see if it actually works as well. And I'm very excited for that actually. It used to be a society. Okay. Okay. Well, after the break, we're going to talk about a new Fit bit that is, I just want to preview this.

What if the Fitbit air, but with a screen? Huh. Never seen that before. Now you're thinking. Now we'll, okay. Well, I would, I'm interested. Now I'm thinking with local AI. I'm excited to get there. We need to hire people with bright ideas like this. Yeah. That's right.

All right, Alex. All right. All right. We've been talking about computationally intense Windows products, specifically hardware. I want to talk about what at the time I assume must have been an insanely graphically intense piece of software, MS Paint.

Yes. Nice. A classic, right? Classic. MS Paint actually comes from a predecessor called PC Paint, which originally was built to complement what piece of computer hardware? Complement? Complement.

Oh, wow. PC Paint. To complement a piece of hardware? I can't find a lot of info on PC Paint. It seems like it's effectively MS Paint. Like they just sort of bought it, rebadged it. Oh. And republished it.

So it came out after MS Paint? Oh. No, it came out before MS Paint. When Microsoft was like, we need this to complement a piece of hardware we're making, they just picked it up. Okay. Do we need to name the exact name of the piece of hardware or just like what it is? Just what it is. What it is. Oh, really?

What it is. What it is. It's definitely an Etch-Sketch. Cool. Okay. Okay. I just guess. It's before my time off. Etch-Sketch. But I'll make a really good guess, I promise. Okay. We'll be right back. Support for the show comes from Jira by Atlassian.

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Download Gemini, Google's AI app, or visit Gemini.google. com to learn more. All right, we're back. Lastly, though, I wanted to cover what David mentioned before, the Fitbit Edge, which is a cool but kind of confusing product.

And I think the only reason it's confusing is because how everyone's titling all the articles about it, which is we all know Google acquired Fitbit a few years ago. Google and Fitbit have made it nothing short of extremely confusing by keeping both of the names and continually going back and forth. It really, it reminds me of like Google Home and Nest, where I still don't know if I'm supposed to call things a Nest thing or a Google thing, or if it's in the Nest app or the Google app.

It's all very confusing. Because they change it every other month. It really feels like it. Yeah. So they just announced the Fitbit Edge, which a lot of people are calling the Fitbit Air with a screen. But you have to use Google Health, not the Fitbit app. Yeah. I don't even know that part. Well, they got rid of the Fitbit app. Okay. So Fitbit app is gone.

Yeah. Everything's in Google Health now. So I'm confused why people are calling it Fitbit Air with a screen because that's what a Fitbit is. That's what a Fitbit always was. In 2013, they had the Fitbit Force, which was just a rubber bracelet with a little tiny screen that could show things like step count.

Yeah. And like since then, we have just seen that generally Fit bits are these watches in quotes that are just a tall, skinny screen that show fitness metrics on it. Right? Yeah. So that's what this is. And I think in that sense, this is actually pretty cool.

It does slot in between the Pixel Watch and the Fitbit Air. Yeah. It's $179. It is a much smaller screen, a much smaller form factor. It is updated because the Fitbit Charge 6 is, I believe, the last Fitbit we really got, which was in 2023.

And this looks way nicer than that. Yeah. And it's almost the same price. So I'm assuming it's got all the new updated sensors and everything. 1.34 inch AMOLED display, seven day battery life, 100% charge in 90 minutes or five minutes for one day of battery life, 1.35 grams, side button, GPS, and all the fun fitness tracking stuff you'd expect out of a Fitbit.

I'm assuming probably still a garbage app. Like the... Oh, wait, no. Because it doesn't. Because it can show things. Update it to make it less broken. Okay. So got to note that. Cool. But so like, yeah, my really fast take on this is I think it's kind of cool.

I wouldn't want it. But this is a modernized Fitbit that fits in the lineup much better. Fits. Hearing it called the Fitbit Air with a screen reminds me of how White Claws started making non-alcoholic seltzers. Like you are now just making the thing you originally based your weird thing off of.

Yeah. So does this one show like notifications and stuff? Yeah. Okay. This is... I think they basically said this is the Fitbit Air if you want the notifications and some of the updates you would have on a screen without having a full-blown watch screen on it.

This is my ideal watch. I think this actually looks kind of nicer than the Pixel Watch. 100% by the seven-day battery life? That's pretty good. Yeah. It has real watch faces. Wow. Yeah. It's a whole... I think it's interesting. Yeah. Why are they selling the Pixel Watch then? Why would I spend $400 on a Pixel Watch when this fits my wrist better?

How many days of better life does the Pixel Watch have? Less. But it's a much bigger screen. Pixel Watch 5 is 40 hours with always... It's like every regular Apple Watch. 72 hours with a battery saver mode on the Pixel Watch. This is so much better. It's funny that this is about the same amount of battery life as the Fitbit Air.

But that's probably because it's got a bigger form factor to fit a larger battery in with the screen. But this isn't that big. This is kind of nice. This is great. I would genuinely buy this. This looks like a good product. You should. Yeah. It's $179. I also want to note that the band team has been cooking.

Yeah. I was going to say, there are a lot of good bands for this. Ever since the Fitbit Air came out, which had a couple of bands and they all sucked, these ones are actually pretty good looking and they have some fancy ones. They have a... I don't even know what you call it. A Milanese kind of thing.

Metal Lynx. Yeah. Metal Link band. They also released two new bands for the Fitbit Air with the Fitbit Edge. And those look great too. So that's been good to see because I have been, you know, this thing has gotten real dirty.

Air Metal Mesh Band is what they're called. Metal Mesh. It looks... I mean, I saw photos of it on some people and it looked really nice. Yeah. It was... I don't know how I feel about that. It kind of just looks like a bracelet. That one feels like it should have a watch attached to it. Well, it kind of just feels like a fashion bracelet. Like a thick fashion bracelet. Yeah.

It's not even... Huge news. I mean, I know nothing about fashion, so... Is that Fitbit Edge is going to have Google Maps coming soon? Wow. Oh, it does have its own GPS, which is great. It's... Okay. Question. Dedicated GPS in this? Seven-day battery life? Garmin freaking no screen?

Yeah. No dedicated GPS? I mean, see what they're doing? $400? Yeah. It's kind of surprising. I... Very surprising. I wonder how much it's used. It's probably just in active workouts that require GPS tracking, minus like... Yeah, but still. I guess maybe Google Maps will be able to use it too, but ... This says dedicated GPS?

It's not just when it's connected to your phone? It says GPS on. It says GPS in the specs. I don't really know when it's used or how often it's on, but... Oh, it has Galileo too. It's there. That's crazy. Wait, in? He's in the... Dog. It comes with... I have so many more questions.

The man himself. Anyway, yeah, wow. Okay. This seems good. I think it's awesome. I think just... This is mostly me just ranting about stop calling it a Fit bit Air of the screen, because that's just what... A Fitbit Air is a Fitbit without a screen. Yeah. Fair enough. I do think it's cool that they offer now, like, multiple screen shapes and sizes.

But yeah, seven-day battery life with better bands, half the price of the price of a Pixel Watch. I feel like for people that want the screen but want the Fitbit Air, this is a really good in-between. I do kind of, like, wish there was a version that was, like , the current Fitbit Air, but with this screen of the Fitbit Force from 2013, which is literally just, like...

The dot matrix. Essentially, yeah, what, five different... Enough for, like, five characters. Yeah. Like, maybe be able to... I really like this little OLED. Yeah, it looks nice. It's a little OLED, yeah. Black bezels, this little OLED. Just, like, give me a couple things. Step counter, time, temperature.

It's a good lineup if you look at it from Air, Edge, Pixel Watch. They're cooking. Can I ask a dumb question? It's probably not. We're talking about... You should be asking dumb questions. Are the other Fitbit products iOS compatible? Yeah, with the Google Health app, yeah.

Okay, cool. Because this one is as well. I was just curious. Yes. I want to throw back to an older version of the podcast, which I don't remember, but was anybody in here on team no Apple Watch allowed at the wedding? We were all here. Oh, wait, like, you said you shouldn't wear one?

Yeah. Yeah, that was because you went to the Met Gala wearing one . Well, I was obviously on team, like, wear the Apple Watch at my wedding. That's fine. I thought, didn't you... Weren't you the one who was, like... No, no, no, no. Wow. Throw her under the... Was anybody? Was anybody fully against that? I think there was two...

I think the Met Gala and this were separate episodes, because... The wedding was about a tweet that was, like, popping off. Oh, that's right. There was some guy who was like, don't you dare. Yeah. No, I was anti... I was anti it at the wedding because I was thinking it was going to feel outdated, and the whole point of weddings is to feel out of time.

Okay. Can I ask you then? Yeah. How do you feel about the Fitbit Edge dressed up with a nice metal band at that same wedding? It's still got a screen on. You gotta say yes, David. Why? Let us just wear what we want. Oh, yeah? Okay. No. I wore the Fitbit Air to the wedding I went to last weekend .

Yeah. I think you should be allowed to wear anything you want. It's close. It was hidden underneath. Just add a little OLED on there and then. Yeah, you're good. It's the same thing. It was hidden underneath my cufflinks. They should make a cover for the top of them that just has a fake analog of hands, and then you can just cover it up.

This is like when people are talking to their pets and like , okay, you can have a little salami. It's like, okay, you can have a little smartwatch. You're not giving your pets salami? I don't have any pets. Well, maybe that's why. I have the freaking mouse that won't go into traps, but. I don't know. I forgot what team I was on, but I think at that point we were doing that fitness competition and I had to wear it.

I didn't have to, but in order to win the fitness competition, I had to wear the Apple watch and I crushed my rings that night. So it was worth it. Yeah. Okay. No, I'm fully on team wear what you have. Wear your kicks. It's a time capsule. It's a time capsule. If you take the photo on a 5D, is that dating the photo?

Because it's taken with a camera of the time? I think everything is of the time. No, it's because emails come on that thing. That's the reason. Emails will show up in 30 years when I'm looking back at these photos. Email likes. No, no, no. I'm saying like the reason the Apple watch at the wedding is a bad thing is because you're going to get an email.

Like weddings are an email free space. If we've culturally agreed that any space is a email free space, it's weddings. I would even argue you could send an email at a funeral and it would be more appropriate. I think do not disturb is all you need. I should have the Apple watch on and it's on do not disturb .

But I get to track my calories for the dancing. I get to all the other stuff. It's still there. I think that should be fair game. I think at a wedding, if they're the people getting married and they ask you to do something, you should probably just listen to them. What would you do if the person officiating your wedding was wearing an Apple watch?

And reading the script off of their Apple watch? Scrolling on the little side. That would be a little much. Hang on. I don't know where the line is. I just know that everything in the wedding photos is a sign of the times from the outfits we're wearing to the phones, the rat tails, to the grandma holding their phone like this, taking pictures.

That's a sign of the times, like the watch I'm wearing. It is very common for officiants to say, please put your phones away. I hear that all the time and I always see phones anyway. You got to call them out then. I know. Grandma. It's always the grandma. I don't want to call out the grandma. You got to. She's taking the pictures. You got to call out the grandma.

Grandma, fingers in front of that lens. You'll never learn if you don't keep calling them out. Let her have this one. She doesn't have that many more weddings to go to. That's fair enough. Yeah. It's just a fun question. But yeah, I think Fitbit is, the edge is kind of fire. Yeah. It's kind of fire. I'm on the edge of my seat waiting to see if this is good.

I'm also on the edge of my seat waiting to see if I get the trivia questions right. I'm not going to get them right. Neither am I. Especially the second one. I don't need to guess on the line. I'm excited I have a guess. The second one? Yes. I'm sorry, guys. This is your fault because you didn't know what Chumby was.

Yeah, that's my fault. He's that guy from Pawn Stars. Yeah. Before there was Bixby, there was what? Did you say it's the guy from Pawn Stars? That's the craziest shit you've ever said. That's Chum Lee.

Okay. Put some respect on his name. That was a deep cut. That's crazy. That's the guy. Shit. Oh. The dead silence of trivia and then you're just going to have to bleep that is going to be really funny.

What do we got, fellas? This is either really dumb or really smart. Okay. Who wants to go first? I wrote the Samsung AI Assistant because I don't know what it is. Well, that is different than David's answer.

What did you write, David? Oh, my God. It was. I don't think it is, but. I wrote Samsung Assistant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wrote Dex. Why would it be called Dex? It's not Dex. I don't know. That's another thing. I know it's another thing, but this is way before, so I was like, maybe that's where it came from. That's true. No, it was called S-Voice.

Oh, I knew that. I did know that. Me too. I knew that. No, it's because Siri, it was such an obvious copy. Siri, S-Voice, Samsung Voice, Siri, it's all on the same. Damn, I knew that. I should have known that considering I contributed. That's a good question. I should have gotten that. It should have been called Galaxy Brain.

I appreciate that. No, I remember that. Galaxy Brain would be a sick name for that. I remember the little logo, too, for the button with the S on it. Damn. Yeah. I should have gotten that. Before I read the next question, quick update on the score. Mariah, can you open it on your computer? Quick update on the score.

Marquez, you got 10 points, meaning you're right behind Andrew at 11 points. Oh. David is still somehow lapping everyone at 16 points. We're catching him, though. We're catching him. I'm going to stroll in Latifi over here.

Now, quick correction. I read the question the first time I accidentally said PC Paint. What I meant was PC Paint Brush. Not that that matters to any of you guys. Just a different program. PC Paint Brush was the thing that came before Microsoft Paint.

However, they're all in the same fork of one another. Anyway, MS Paint, also known previously as PC Paint Brush, was released. Here, I'll give you a little more hint. As part of the driver package for what piece of hardware for Windows computers?

Hardware? Hardware for Windows computers. What would you... What would you... What would be really exciting? I just got a brand new blank. Now I can use MS Paint. Let me try... Let me try something. Can it be a category? Let me try...

You can be pretty vague with this one. Okay. I'm just trying... This is a shot in the dark. Shot in the dark. But you're to blame. If the thing that I erased was the right answer, I'm going to be pretty mad. I... I feel so bad. All right.

Wow, I'll put different things. That's what I wrote in CrossFit. That's what I was... That was my other guess, but now I have a third guess, too. David, what did you put? Drawing tablet. Unfortunately, drawing tablet is not correct. I'm sure someone's going to be like, actually, they did release a drawing tablet. So please let me know, and then I'll give them the point. Marquez? I wrote mouse and crossed it out and wrote stylus.

I'm so sorry. And Andrew, would you please... The best part about trivia now is based on who Ellis calls on first. I wrote mouse. Mouse is correct. I also wrote that before all of your hints.

So when they invented the mouse, they released that software. It's not exactly that simple, and who invented the mouse is a little bit of a convoluted. It was one of those people were sort of racing towards it at the same time. However, there was a company called Mouse Systems that bought some simple art software and then bundled it with their stuff and then released a Windows driver for their mouse.

Microsoft was like, why are we not making a mouse, too? So they... Because they never made mouse one. They also developed a mouse. Gotta start somewhere, Microsoft. They licensed the art software. They bundled it. It made too much sense. I'm sorry, guys.

The vibes of PC pain pressure is so good. I wrote mouse in all caps. Next week, I'm just going to start making stuff up again. We got to go back to Trivia's Roots Man, where I just start ... Which of these is a real tech company. Yeah. Chumbie would have been an excellent candidate for that. I don't know. Maybe. There's a chance Mariah cuts the entire Chumbie section, and people have no idea what I'm talking about when I say Chumbie.

Equally funny. Equally funny. Incredible. Who wants to read us out? Hey, it's still October. By the time you listen to this, Techtober is still cruising along. So thank you for watching and listening to this week's episode. Get subscribed, if you haven't already, to be first in line to wash your dishes to next week's episode, because it's still going to be fire.

Otherwise, catch you soon. Peace. Bye. There's so much stuff next week as well. We're from... We're produced by Mariah Zink and Alice Rovin, we're part of the Fox Media Podcast Network, and our intro, outro music was created by Vain. So...

Bingo. Let's go. There's the bingo button. Bingo. Let's go. Damn.

Guys, what is this called? As far as I could tell, this was one of the first home dashboard sort of ecosystem screen things that was ever made. And when the Home View came out, I saw a bunch of people on Twitter being like, damn, we had this in 2006.

Can I... I did not have this in 2006. First of all, it kind of looks... I thought it was a ham at first. A ham. Like a ham. Excuse me. For audio listeners, can you please describe what you're looking at? I think ham, like tech ham with a loosely... Leather ham. Have you ever played that game, the DS game, where you got to...

You draw stuff and then... Yeah. What's it called? Scribblenauts. Yeah. It sort of has a Scribblenauts-esque interface. I love Scribblenauts. But picture that on a ham. Yeah. The two screens. One has Pandora and one has something called Facemaker. Yeah. So it's like an old home hub kind of thing, but it kind of just looks like a stuffed leather purse upside down.

And there's a screen in the middle. I definitely have never heard of this, but I will do my best to guess. 100%. Marquez, damn it. This is the one where... I didn't own a home in 2006. I know, but you were reviewing TV remotes. I thought this might have made it across your desk.

06? I assumed one of you would be like, oh, I totally remember that. I have no idea. You want a different question? Can I guess who made it? Sure. Myspace. No. It's called The Chumbie. Yeah. The Chumbie? No, no. I'll never get that. All right. I'll let you decide if you want to keep that catastrophe of a trivia question.

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