I'd Like to Sell You a Big Ball

Welcome to Comfort Zone, a podcast all about pushing your hosts, well, outside of their comfort zone. I'm Christopher Lawley, and each week I am joined by two incredible co-hosts. And as always, I'm joined by Matt Birchler. Matt, how are you doing? I'm doing great. Perfect. And we are also joined by Neneon. How are you? Hey, I'm doing well. And I have stickers. Let me show you my stickers. Ooh, I love a good sticker. These are made by Adam from omg.lol, who makes stickers, and I got them.

I'm going to show them to the camera. It's an SMTP sticker, HTTP, and DNS, and there's also glittery versions of them. Oh, my gosh. You're triggering me. You're triggering my IT. SMTP servers were like the bane of my existence in my first IT job. So you're saying you want me to send you this one, the SMTP one. You want it. I actually do kind of want it the glittery one ideally if you could buy these can you send me the link to buy these

because I kind of actually do want that I don't know if you're still selling them but if it's still open I will check it after the show if it's still open we'll have the link in the show notes SMTP servers if you've never had a deal with them you are a very very fortunate person alright Let's move on to some tiny topics. I got one for you guys. So lots and lots and lots of discussion has been happening about liquid glass.

And will the normal people, the people that don't install the betas, the people that aren't super techie, will they even notice it? Well, I took my phone and opened up the Photos app, which is probably one of the apps that is the most liquid glassy. And I gave it to Danielle, my girlfriend, who is not a tech person at all. And is not the most observant person. And I gave it to her. She didn't notice a thing. She didn't even notice the tab bars were separate.

She was just using it. She just started using it and didn't realize the up and down scrolling thing is gone. And their tabs are back. She just used it. She didn't notice a thing. She didn't care. I'm so curious how this is going to go in the fall. It's one data point. I didn't, what I forgot to do is I forgot to open up the camera app and give that to her. Because I still think, and I stand by this, on our last episode I said, this is going to be the thing that normal people lose their minds over when this update comes out.

It's going to be the Photos app of last year. The new thing is going to be the camera app this year. People are going to be mad about that. All right. Danielle's review of iOS 26 when? It's weird that you picked the Photos app. I will say that. Because there's not much liquid glass in there. It's all glass. Really, there's a ton of liquid glass. Really? I don't know. All the tab bars, the scrolling at the top, like the select and filter button. Like, if you're in the library view, you have the year, month, and all button.

You have the search button. There's the tabs at the bottom between library and collection. I thought that was like the best app because it's something that she's used. Okay, sure. Okay. It's something that she's used, but it had a lot of liquid glass elements. Like I thought about giving her music, but she uses Spotify. So I don't think she would have noticed anything. Right. Yeah. I would show them music, but if she's not using Apple Music. Yeah. So I kind of thought photos was like the one that had the most liquid glassy elements, but it's also something she uses.

So anyways, I don't think the liquid glass thing is going to be that big of a deal for normal people. I think it's going to be the camera app. Place your bets. All right. Nihon, you got something for us. Yes. It's kind of a life update. I have a new ISP at home and this never happens we have had the same one for years and I personally have had the same

one since I arrived in France, like literally so the one we had, it was orange the most popular one I think the historic one I would say before it was it used to be a fully nationalized company even but now it's mostly private anyway so we were paying pretty good price for it like our fiber plan was 29 euros per month

it was capped at 1 gig down 1 gig up symmetrical already face-polled me. But it was too expensive. Like, you understand these guys, right? I don't understand at all. That is... We thought, hey, we have this plan, and most of our friends, they pay less than this, and they have a better plan. So we should switch. So I looked around, and we switched to another ISP, a very popular one that's called Free.

Like, literally, Free. It doesn't mean it's free. They're called Free. And so now, what's nice with them is that the router that they provide out of the box is a really good one. Like, most of our ISPs, they provide a router, and they're mostly bare bones, and they're all right. But, yeah, if you're a techie head like us, you want to switch to a better router. But yeah, Free, they have a really good router and it's a Wi-Fi 7 one.

So I was excited about that, getting Wi-Fi 7 at home. And so we set it up. Like, it's amazing. This thing does everything, by the way. It's like it can act as a NAS if you plug in drives. It has built-in BitTorrent client. It borders on encouraging you to pirate all the things. No, it's for downloading Linux distros, obviously. Of course.

The ISP's router has a built-in BitTorrent client. That's correct. It's different over the hand. The firmware of the router that they have, it has built-in BitTorrent client, plus it lets you use the router as a VPN when you're away, Plus, it lets you use it as an as, so you can connect and advertise it as a package. If you connect drives to it, you can use those as a time machine destination, as well as destinations for your built-in BitTorrent client.

It borders. They're really saying, hey, don't worry about it. Just use our stuff to download stuff. But that's okay. So, yeah, the better plan now is now we're paying 25 euros per month. So, about 5 euros less. And it's a 10, not 10. I thought it was 10 at first, but I think it's 5, the plan we got in the end. So, 5 gigs down. 5 gigs?

Yes, 5 gigs down and 900 megabytes per second, whatever. up and oh my god so that's really good like we're feeling uh at peace now like we feel that we're not paying too much now and yeah i'm happy and so i you remember i ran a cable from the router in the living room to my desk here so now i can take advantage of that there was one thing like it was plugged into my thunderbolt 3 dock but that dock has a one gig ethernet port and it's not

enough anymore so that was capped like it was maxing it so in the speed my speed test it was maxing it so now i got a usb c to ethernet dongle and it's a 2.5 gigs one so now i'm maxing the 2.5 and that's really I'm happy it's a good good feeling it's truly insane salt wound mealy on it just rubbing that salt and maddenized wound like yes so so just just for for context I love talking about internet service with

Europeans and British people because it's insane I don't it's insane like it's it's a masochistic thing like it's I just enjoy of it. My service is one gigabit down and 20 megabytes or megabits up. So like 2% of your upload. 20, that's, yeah, yeah. And I pay as much per month as you do in six months. Yeah.

So mine is technically supposed to be 1,200 megabytes down, but I only get about a gig down. and I get 30 megabytes up and I pay $150 a month. Yeah, I pay about $180. Ouch, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's crazy. I could do a cheaper service, but it would be like $100 a month and it would be about like a quarter of the speed. And you get a data cap and your upload takes a huge hit and what we do, you need a decent upload.

And not to say 30 megabytes is a decent upload, But it's literally the best I can get. Yeah. So, well done. We feel bad. I don't understand America. I have one more way to make you feel bad. Oh, great. Oh, good. This new ISP, free. They can also provide phone plans, like data plans for your phone. So we switched to that as well. Because when you have their fiber plan, you get a discount on the phone plan, on the data plan.

So we switched to that as well. And now it's so much cheaper than what I had before. Like it's a night and day difference here. It's not just 5 euros. I used to pay 25 euros for 200 gigs of 5G monthly. Now I'm paying 9 euros per month, 9.99 to be exact, per month for unlimited 5G. It's crazy. It's crazy difference. But Matt, we have the freedom internet.

Yeah. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Here we have to. Yeah. Here we have Macron. So obviously it's worse. Yeah. Yeah. So you don't have freedom internet. We have freedom. So I think. Anyway, I'm done. I just like, yeah, it's a good life update. I'm happy. Man. I think I might be happy for you. I don't. I don't know. I'm definitely jealous. I got to move to Sweden. That's the only solution. No, you're banned from there. You're not allowed there.

All right. Well, let's get in the main show. Matt, you're first up in the document. What do you got for us this week? I have a product and a small conversation topic. So I have a new product. You look very cool, Matt. Thank you. This is actually how I'm going to record all of Comfort Zone forever now. So, yeah. Visual description, Matt just put on some sunglasses. Yes. So this is not like the time I brought a tea kettle and was like, this is my tech thing.

Very early days. I forgot about that. If it plugs into the wall, it's eligible for comfort zone. So these, if my camera will focus, these are the much talked about Meta Ray-Bans from, Obviously my favorite company in the world, Meta. You have a poster of Mark Zuckerberg in your bedroom. You fall asleep looking at him every night, right? Oh, yeah. You told me that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I told you that in confidence, but okay.

Oh, wow. Okay. So I got these because I've been very curious about them. They are very simple in many ways. So basically, if you don't know exactly what they do, they're sunglasses. They're sunglasses. That's their primary function. You put them on and they're just normal sunglasses. There's nothing funky or fancy about them. These lenses don't have screens in them or anything. They are just sunglasses. There's a version of them with transition lenses so you can wear them inside if you want.

Or you can just be a blues brother and wear them inside or at night whenever you'd like. But what they do is they have a couple features. So number one, they Bluetooth your phone and they just act as a Bluetooth device. Also Bluetooth speakers. So there's little speakers on the bottom of each arm? Post? I don't know what these are, things that are called. The things that go around the side of the head. I can ask Danielle, who is an optometrist. Ooh. But yeah, there's little speakers in there.

So they act like Bluetooth speakers. So when I'm wearing these, I don't have to wear like AirPods or anything. Like I can just have these and they play. They're not the bone conducting thing. I was kind of curious if they're going to be that. But no, they're just speakers. They also have a camera on it, which lets you take stills and videos. The videos I learned max out of three minutes. But it's actually surprisingly good quality. Really? It's not iPhone quality, but it's pretty good. Yeah, they're pretty good.

In the range of iPhones, going all the way back from the original iPhone to the iPhone 16, where would you say it kind of falls? Oh, boy. Don't hold me to this scientifically. I would say iPhone. No, I'm going to. You're saying it on a podcast. I'd say iPhone 12 era. Okay. Okay. Like, it's still fine. Like, it's pretty good, and it does dynamic range pretty well. I tried to test where, like, I started, like, a video recording while I was driving in the bright sun, and then I went into a parking garage, and it transitioned nicely and has good dynamic range.

You know where I see a ton of video shots on the Meta Ray-Ban is on Instagram. Like when people post stories using the meta-ray-bans on Instagram, the stories, they have an icon. They have a meta-ray-ban icon, like a glasses icon. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you know immediately that they shot this using their glasses. When you take a photo or a video with these, does it shoot it in horizontal or vertical orientation?

I'm glad you asked. It takes it in, I don't know the exact ratio. I think it's a 4 by 3, so it's a little wider than your typical thing, but it is a vertical orientation. Ew. I kind of like that. It makes sense. This really breaks, Chris. He does not like vertical videos. It's probably at 30 FPS, too. I don't know that for sure. But it makes sense. You're posting this on Instagram on MasterDone, of course.

Okay. There's a lot of reasons to be mad at Meta. A lot of reasons. Lots and lots and lots and lots of reasons. Absolutely. Just blanket statement. Sure. Like lots of reasons. But one of the things that has just absolutely pissed me off is they've changed the grid on Instagram. Oh, my God. Instead of everything being squares, it's now vertical or portrait. Sorry, I said vertical and horizontal, but portrait, not landscape, orientation for everything. So my grid, my carefully curated grid is all f***ing up now.

Editor Chris. Yep. It looks fine. There's a saying in France, by the way, guys. And I love it. It's a saying where tu fais le Marseillais. So it means like you're acting like a person from Marseille. And so it's a Marseille city in the south of France. And there's a general stereotype about people from Marseille. Like they are people who exaggerate things.

Right. So Chris, you are from Marseille. If you talk to any photographer, I guarantee you every single photographer, like proper photographer, not just like, you know, somebody that took a black and white photo of a lawn chair one time. A proper photographer. And you asked them about this change Instagram did. They will all go on a minimum of a five minute rant about it. I guarantee you. I would be willing to put money on that. I agree.

Anyways. Chris, you always have a rant. Whatever I bring, there's always some rant to have. Matt, are you looking at his... I'm looking to the side right now because I'm looking at his Instagram creator. It looks just fine. No, it does not. It looks really good even. What are you saying? Look at the top middle photo. My poor Mustang is all not cropped right. Okay. The iPad mini photo is not cropped right.

The Vision Pro one's fine. The one with the iPad and the iPad mini that were stuck to each other when I did that experiment doesn't look right. It's just, it's disappointing. You know who's really allowed to be mad? It's me. Because, it's me. Because our organization, we have an Instagram account, of like many lobbying organizations, let's say they have an Instagram account and we post things that are text heavy, right?

So what we post on Instagram is like text heavy and there's a layout, specific layout. And for years, we've formatted those posts to be square, right? And suddenly Instagram, they changed it and now it's no longer square. It's some weird aspect ratio. And it means now if you scroll back in our Instagram account, nothing looks right. It's all cropped in.

Whereas it used to look just to the pixel. It was formatted to the pixel it used to be. So I'm allowed to be mad because our grid looks like crap. Yours looks fine. It doesn't look fine. My grid's last photo was in like 2016. So who knows? Anyway, thank you, Matt, for this topic about Instagram. Let's move on. Yep. Yep. Thank you for letting me rant. That was the whole purpose of this. Obviously. Chris's rant corner.

One more feature in these. And then I want to get to our discussion. There's also, you can kind of, it's, they're oddly placed, but they make sense. In the little thing that's right above your nose, there are two little microphones. And so you can also talk to them. And so just like normal Siri stuff, but also you can say, hey, Meta, and it has Meta AI, which I found terrible.

I don't know. I was literally asking it some pretty simple questions while I was walking my dog this morning just to like get an idea for how it worked. It was not impressive and I just opened chat GPT and it did much better. So yeah. All right. So my question for you two is why, why, why do they keep making face computers? We have this, which is a very minimal kind of face computer that has cameras on it. You can also ask, like, what am I looking at?

So like kind of the same thing with visual intelligence, that sort of thing. AirPods are a kind of side face computer. I don't know. Side face. Side face. Yeah, yeah, sure. But I've got Vision Pro down here. I've got a Meta Quest 3 down here that I should probably dust off every couple months. I saw a headline about Meta's revenue call or financial call that they did for the last quarter and their Reality Labs continues to lose money

and Quest sales are down. These sales apparently have doubled or tripled or something from last year, from the first half of the year. So like the Ray-Bans are propping up that whole division. Yeah. Or they've tripled since the first half of 2024. So doing well. But do we want face computers? This is like a Tim Cook obsession as well that he's been talking about for years. Like AR classes are kind of like. You mean besides Trump?

Yes. His obsession that. Yes, exactly. I don't know. Are you waiting for the right face computer? Or is this like a weird thing that's just not resonating with you? So, okay. First off, real-time follow-up from our in-house optometrist, the Comfort Zone's official in-house optometrist. Those arms on the side of glasses that go over your ears, they're called temples.

Temples? Okay. That's what those are called. Oh. Face computers. I don't... I'm not super excited about that. I don't want a heads-up display in front of me the whole time blocking my view of the world. I don't mind sitting down at my computer and doing work then, and then closing up my computer and putting it away when I'm done. Mark Zuckerberg, Matt's favorite person who he falls asleep to looking at his poster of every single night.

Marky Z. He knows. Marky Z. He knows. Marky Z and the Funky Bunch. Recently said, anyone that doesn't use smart glasses will be behind, which is rich coming from the guy selling smart glasses. So I hardcore disagree with it. Like, we've had Vision Pro for a year and a half now, and I don't feel I'm any more productive or any better off with it than I would be without it.

Vision Pro 2 could be announced tomorrow and fix a lot of features, but it wouldn't fix the fact that, like, I just don't really need... I don't want a face computer. Like, okay, so I hear people talk about the MetaRaybans and how great it is to be able to just quickly capture a photo. But I've never found that, like, I need to take my phone out of my pocket, especially now with the camera control button. Like, I could take my phone out of the pocket, hit the camera control button, and take a photo.

I just literally did it. And I don't see how that's any slower than using glasses. You do get better photos out of it, yeah. What I will say is, again, I'm like a week into this, So consider this the classic, I'm a week into using a face computer and it's awesome. Cut to three months later and it's like, I haven't used it in a while. But I will say it feels kind of like going from like having to put your key in your car door to unlock your car to having a, like a fob and kind of like going from a fob to having

just like it detects you're at the door and unlocks for you. It's not like, obviously I can put my key in the car and I can turn it. It's no big deal. But it is slightly easier and it is slightly nicer. So I actually have the two killer apps, I think, for me personally with these is the photos. While I'm just walking, I can just raise my hand up, hit the thing, and I have a photo. And it is easier than using my phone. So that's one thing. And then also I'm going to see if there's any uses for me doing this in YouTube videos.

Because there have been a couple YouTube videos where I'm reviewing a physical product. where I'm like holding my iPhone in my mouth trying to like get a shot. I've done this for a MacStory's article. I needed to film something from the FPS point of view. Yeah. These would actually probably be the device that would solve filming the Apple Watch problem. Filming the Apple Watch is the hardest device I've ever had to film in my life.

because I'm sitting there with a big bulky camera like this holding it one-handed while trying to demo the Apple Watch and, oh, wait, I don't have a hand-free to tap. Yeah. And, like, it's a nightmare and a half. So I could see this solving that issue. That would actually be kind of cool. We'll see. My production on A Better Computer Season 4 starts on Monday next week, so I'm excited. But, yeah, like, oh, yeah, the Apple Watch is tough because you have a tripod even, and you're kind of, like, going around the tripod and trying to use it.

And then you still got to hold it in frame and worry about focus. It's a whole freaking thing. So I'm hoping it's a production tool as well sometimes for me. But yeah, I do think the camera thing is nice, but I'm with you on the Vision Pro. It's cool. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. But I don't know. Vision Pro 2 is announced tomorrow and it fixes all of your hardware gripes that you have with it. Would you pre-order one tomorrow?

Here's what I'll say. I think if this was the Vision Pro, I'd be interested in it a little bit, but I don't necessarily love the idea of always having a computer screen in front of my face. Like, I like the separation. I like that there's a window over here that I can look off into and not just, like, be locked into my computer screen. I like that I can put my phone down and not get notifications. I guess I have the watch that kind of keeps me close. But like, I feel like the vision for these is that you're always going to have a computer.

And it's going to be too much. And I don't know. I don't know if this is just me being used to what exists today. Because like I know in the 90s, people thought similar about cell phones. Oh, they can contact you at any point. You're always going to be like, like, I was just unavailable most of the time when I was a teenager. Like, you just couldn't get in contact with me. didn't know where i was no gps no phone calls i was just out in the world and now that's like literally not a thing and so i don't know if we'll get used to it but like i'm not

instinctually drawn to it i guess i like the separation i think um meta are misinterpreting two bubbles at the same time um there's the ai bubble like they like they see that this product has is being successful like the ray-bans they're successful they're selling a lot of them and they're looking at okay how come that's successful

what's in it there's the ai so obviously people love ai conclusion number one and it's glasses on your face with our os on it so obviously people want os on their face conclusion number two but I think the only analysis here that's really real is that it's a camera on your face and people just want a camera on their face and that's it because it's easy to use and I kind of want that

because like lately I've since the pandemic I believe I've taken a lot less pictures than I used to and i don't know why i i don't know why even when i go on vacation i come back from vacation i realize hey i only took so many photos that's not a lot and i think like things like something like this on my face would help just to take more pictures uh not having to think about taking them just because they're on my face i can just do that it's easy to take more pictures and i think that's what people like.

It's just, it's a camera on your face. It's not, people are not buying this for meta AI. People are not buying this because they can listen to music in their ear. No. I'm pretty sure most people who are aware that the meta Ray-Bans exist, they don't even know that they have speakers. I didn't know until I got it. Yeah. There you go. So, it seems to me like people only care about one feature that's the camera and yeah, Meta is looking at this

and others are looking at this and they're like, yeah, people want computers on their face. So let's start from on end, from the glasses end. Let's start from the Vision Pro end and at some point we'll merge them together and the Vision Pro will look like glasses and that's what people want. Maybe I will be wrong in 10 years, 20, 30, never because we're all going to die. But I don't think that's that. That was bleak. Yes. But I don't think that's going to happen. I think people just want cameras on their faces and that's the end of the story and those companies are just deep in their in their bubbles and they can't see the end of it yeah I I kind of agree I

I don't love the I I don't love the idea of having a computer strapped in front of my face for you know all day long like I don't I don't I don't need that I don't want that like it's Like having one in my pocket is fine and I can look at it when I need to and I can put it away when I don't need it. Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. I think the thing that's cool about these is the simplicity of them. Is like you put them on and they're just sunglasses. Like if Meta could go out of business, the servers could go down, all of these things could break.

The internal battery could just die. And I mean, I'd still just wear them. They're just sunglasses, right? I think that's a huge thing for these wearables. I will say, like, they did a great job of making them look just like sunglasses. They don't have, like, some big battery pack or something like that strapped to them. Like, if you were just walking down the street, I wouldn't be like, oh, he has Meta Ray-Bans or smart glasses or anything like that. I'd just be like, I wouldn't even give you a second look because I just assume they're just whatever, normal sunglasses.

And my understanding, I think so. I think I read a story that says this. Most Meta Ray-Bans are sold through a store where you get glasses. Yeah. Like a sunglass hut or something like that. Yeah, but it's not a tech product that people buy. They're mostly sold where you get your glasses. So it seems to me like they are just like an upon a cheap product.

Like people are getting glasses anyway. That's happening. Whatever you do, people will need glasses. And when they get the glasses, they get offered this. And like the employee is telling you, hey, so you need glasses. If you add $50 more, you can get those with cameras. And that's, I think, it seems to me like most people view this as just fancy glasses and not computers or whatever.

Yeah, I think so as well. Yeah, it's really not that, I mean, Wayfares are stupid expensive. It's not that much more than normal ones, so, yeah. Interesting. One last question I have for you, and then we should probably move on. But how do the speakers sound? Are they loud? Like, can people around you hear them? Like if your wife is sitting next to you on the couch, can she hear you playing a podcast? They are effectively the same thing that the Vision Pro has. So people sitting next to you can hear you. And if someone was like on a quiet street walking by you, they could probably hear it very subtly.

But they sound pretty good. Like, yeah, they sound fine, especially if you're listening to like podcasts or whatever. Like they sound great. Okay, cool. Cool, cool, cool. anything else on that or should we move on nealing on let's move on i'm excited about nealing on's topic all right nealing on what do you got for us this week i knew it uh okay so for some reason this summer i'm spending like i'm spending my tech summer fleeing apple's apps why would that be for some reason like probably that i don't know which one but there's a reason

probably so i moved away from safari apple notes i can't stand anymore and apple podcasts for some reason since early june i hate it suddenly i don't know why so i started looking for the podcasting podcast players uh mostly on the iphone but also on the mac because i don't know about you guys i I want my podcast player to be both on the Mac and the phone and to be synced between the two.

And there's not a ton of options where you get that experience. So Apple Podcasts, obviously, is the obvious option. But Apple Podcasts, I don't know. Something's gone wrong. so i tried overcasts and overcasts is still fine like i used to use overcasts still really fine but that's just it like it's not evolved much so i want to just experiment with something

experiment with something else so i tried pocket casts and pocket casts so you get a uh i think i am grandfathered by the way into pocket casts like i'm getting the subscription yeah yeah i never paid for the subscription and yet i have it so it's probably because i bought the app years ago yeah i think it was like ten dollars or something many many years ago and if you bought it then you got lifetime access which is crazy it's a crazy deal yeah it's crazy especially considering it's been passed around and bought and sold and all sorts of different things so

right so yeah you still get the when you get podcast you have the player on your iphone and You have a web player, a web client, and you can download it on your Mac. And the Mac version is basically the same thing. It's the web client in the wrapper, but it has chapters. For some reason, the web client doesn't have chapters, but if you install it on the Mac, it has chapters. They have a support page about this and, I don't know, technical issues.

Anyway, so I tried again Castro, finally. And I tried again Castro because I got into the beta and they were testing something that's now come out, which is they have sync. Castro now has sync. So Castro was still, until a few days ago, an iPhone-only app. Now it's also an iPad app. And it's the same UI as before. Or Castro is, and it's why I love it so much, actually, because the UI is still so good.

So it's got this very specific, like a very identifiable logic where you triage your podcast episodes into the queue with gestures, or you can just tap the buttons that appear and move around in a funny way. They look bubbly. They're very good. and you drag from the bottom to show the player and it's very full-featured player. You've got chapters. You can uncheck chapters.

So you can... That's really useful. For example, I'm a big fan of accidental tech podcast, ATP, but lots of topics in there. I don't even have the context for them because they talk about many topics, like cars or whatever. When there's a car topic, I look for it in the chapters and I uncheck it. So it automatically skips the car segment because I will not get anything when I talk about cars. This is the exact example I was going to bring up.

ATP. They just have so many chapters and some of them are like 45 seconds long. And so I will, yeah, I'll do the same thing. I'll uncheck a couple that I know. To be fair, love the guys. But they do talk about electric cars a bunch. Oh, yeah. I'm not quite there yet. You hate, yeah, you hate your... Look, it's the most problematic thing about me, but you'll pry my V8 engine out of my very cold, dead hands. It's the most problematic thing about me, but it makes me so happy. But it's a good thing to be said about ATP is that they have a lot of chapters that's really useful, and it's what makes me stick to them.

Anyway, so Castro is great for that, and now it's got sync, and it's on the iPad, But there's like one small footprint that makes it even better and good for me, which is that you can install the iPad app on the Mac. Oh, that's nice. They have enabled the... There's a checkmark probably somewhere in App Store Connect or whatever. And you can install it from the App Store on the Mac as well. Which means, because I don't have an iPad, so I don't care about the iPad app.

It means that I can install Castro on my Mac. And I have what I wanted. The same app on both devices. They sync. And it syncs really fast, by the way. It's really nice. Really reliable so far. It's been a week. And yeah, I still love Castro. What do you guys think? I've been... I downloaded it. I haven't been able to give it a shot just yet. Because I've been busy with some other stuff. But I saw the news that they put out a big update and there's an iPad app now.

And I am very excited to see developers making iPad apps again. Just because it really feels like it's been a long time since a big new specific iPad update or iPad app has come out. So that was really exciting to see. So I'm going to give it a shot. I love Overcast. I love the way I have my playlist. I've talked about it before. My playlist, the way that's set up, you know, it auto-prioritizes a few shows. I can sync everything. It works really well with how I want podcasts to be played. And Castro has this whole triaging

management system that I haven't been a huge fan of in the past but I'm going to give it another shot again. I am excited to see this. Yeah. For me, Castro has been my go-to podcast app for a few months. I'm always bouncing back and forth. Do not read into anything I post. If I post a screenshot from Overcast or Castro or whatever, don't even worry about it. I'm always changing. That's like me with task managers. Yes. It always gets a comment though. People are always curious. But yes. Yeah. So I've been favoring Castor lately.

And yeah, this update is very nice. And works pretty well. I just installed the Mac app because yeah, it would be occasionally nice. I typically listen on my phone, but it would be nice to have it on the Mac as well. And I see it synced in all of my episodes. That's great. And yeah, this is good. it's a good update i love to see castro getting some love and some updates because i chris you mentioned pocket cast has been changed ownership once or twice like castro every like two or three

years i feel like it's sold off to somebody else and it seems like these new people are actually around for a while no like a year or two it's not been a year or two i think yeah okay yeah it really hasn't been that long like when they took over they were they were very clear about like it castro had a ton of development debt and like it was going to take them a while to get that cleaned up and like just get it to a usable spot um okay i was dating that to the pandemic but it's more recent yeah i think yeah i think it was after that um but uh yeah they they uh

the new owners were very very clear about like it's going to take us a minute to get it cleaned up and get it back to a usable space but it seems like they've got it there and i mean they're adding new features like an iPad app. And Sync. Sync does not seem like it's a simple thing, especially for a podcast. God, no. I say this as someone who tried to add Sync to my quick reviews app and just abandoned it because it was too hard. Maybe one day. Chris, you will be a little disappointed here. I'm playing with the Mac app. It is the quintessential iPhone app blown up.

It's just the iPhone app widened. It doesn't have a three-column view. No column view, no. So, hey, it's a first step. I mean, okay, to be fair, iPadOS 26 enters the room. That's true. Yeah. You can shrink those. Like, you're not stuck with them. It is disappointing because Overcast, like, has the three-column option, and I really do enjoy that. I really like that. But it's not the end of the world, but it is a bummer that maybe they'll update it in the future, but I don't know.

Maybe it'll get a glassy redesign. No, okay. So hear me out. Hear me out. Hear me out. Castro developer, whoever you are, wherever you are in the world, hear me out. You don't have to do it. You don't have to adopt the glass. No one wants the glass. Those guys, they're weird. Don't listen to them. Look, I have a mix of test flight betas on my devices right now and, you know, app store shipping versions. And the test flights that have liquid glass feel a heck of a lot newer than the shipping app store ones right now.

They feel very dated. That's all I'm going to say. I can't wait to do our episode whenever iOS 26 comes out. You're just saying this because it's different. It's object-based. It's not. It is different, but also it feels more modern. Different doesn't mean it looks modern. It just means it looks different. Let's bring it home. Let's bring it home. Sure. Okay, okay. Yeah, I'm happy with Castro. It's helped me get back in, actually helped me get back into listening to podcasts.

I'm mostly joking about liquid glass and all that. I'm fleeing Apple's apps. But there has been a real consequence, which is that since June, I've not listened to much. I'm literally avoiding Apple podcasts. I'm literally avoiding Apple music. I was already avoiding Apple Music, but now even more. And because of the UI and the design decisions in those places. And yeah, getting back into Castro means I've been listening to more podcasts. And that's really good. And it says something about Castro.

Yeah. Interesting. All right. Anything else on this? Or should we move on to our challenge? I mean, the sidebars. Okay, no, I'm going. Here we go. All right. Let's get into the challenge. And it was my challenge this week. and I was kind of riffing off of a previous challenge Neelion had. And this week, I wanted you guys to compete to sell me a new physical accessory, but it had to be under $100. Because, look, I know I'm a little more bougie. He's a big bougie boy. I see the comments on YouTube videos and stuff.

Like, look, I get it. People say you're bougie. People, yeah. I think I'm saying bougie as in the nice way. Some people really want me to do the $5 iPad accessory video, but I'm like, those aren't good. I don't like those. I get sent those, and I'm like, this is crap. I don't want this. I tend to go... There's an old saying that I kind of... My parents used to say it, and it's really stuck with me.

We're too poor to buy cheap. I didn't grow up in the most wealthy family. And the idea behind this is if you buy the cheap option, you know, whatever, it's probably going to break on you. And then you're going to have to buy it again. And then it's going to break on you again. And you're going to have to buy it again. Whereas if you buy, like, the middle option, not the crazy high-tier one, but the middle option, it'll probably last you. It's like the Toyota Corolla, which was my last car before I got my Mustang.

That car lasted me forever. I put so many miles on it. and it wasn't that expensive. It was the middle option, and it lasted me forever. So anyways, that's two-poor-by-cheek. What are we talking about again? Sorry. Anyways, I have no idea. I just rambled. Anyways, our challenge. You guys have accessories you need to find and pitch me on them. Who wants to go first? I want to go first. Okay. Is that okay, Matt? Please. Okay. So, Chris, don't click the links in the notes just yet.

Hands up. I've even written in the document, Chris, don't click the links yet. I literally didn't look. Like, we have it under a spoiler tag. I did not look. So, I will just say that the product that I want to sell you on is a big ball. And we'll use that pseudonym for the next few minutes. And I will, to convince you, I have a strategy, which is that I will read you the top Amazon review on this product.

Okay. And in this Amazon review, I will replace every mention of the product name by Big Ball. It's a Big Ball. All right. Is that clear? Yeah? Yes, absolutely. Every time I say Big Ball, it's... That's the product name. Yeah, they're actually saying the product name. Okay. So I bought, five stars, by the way, I bought the big ball because I wanted to feel like a wizard. Let's be honest.

I bought the big ball because I wanted to feel like a wizard, summoning mood lighting with my phone. Turns out, this big ball delivers minus the wand, plus a lot of ooh and ah from guests. I'm just reading. I'm reading the comment. The review. Setup was so easy, I almost missed the thrill of reading a 40-page manual. It's Apple HomeKit enabled, so if you're in the iPhone club, you're golden.

Just tap, name it, and start bossing it around with Siri. Enjoy its users. Sorry, you'll have to settle for the basic on-off button and a few color presets. It's like being invited to the party but not allowed near the snacks. This review is so good. And they're saying next, is it pricey? A bit. A bit. Is it worth it? If you want a portable, stylish, privacy-focused big ball.

I have no idea what this is that plays nice with Apple absolutely it's worth it just don't expect it to double as a disco big ball for your next rave unless your rave is very chill in short, like they have a TLDR, the end is really good in short, the big ball is the kind of gadget that makes you smile every time you use it. And if you ever get bored, you can always pretend it's a crystal big ball and predict that your lighting game

just got a major upgrade. So, now with this very straightforward review out of the way, I will tell you the price. It's $99. $99. Wait, $99.99, right? $99.99. Yes. That's it. No, $99.95. Very important. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And there you go. So first, can you guess what it is? No idea. I literally have no idea. No idea. Charging cable. It's a charging cable. No, I shall reveal it to you. You can click the link and discover for yourself what it is. What is the big ball? Tell the audience. I clicked the wrong link. Hang on. Yeah, it's the second link, the one that says big ball. What? Obviously. What is this?

It's just a, okay, so, okay, I see. Okay, so it's an LED lamp that's just a ball that has RGB controls so you can shift. Okay, okay, I can, you know what? I actually know where this kind of thing would go. I could see this being in the house, and I could see... Oh, it has wireless charging, Bluetooth, and thread. Yes. The support thread. That's nice. So this is the Eve Flair.

It's a HomeKit Smart Light. It's in the shape of a big ball, like you said. It's got a magnetic... So a static base that you place in your house. Magnetic base. You can pick it up from the base and move it anywhere. It's got a built-in battery, so you can move it around in your home and place it back on the base when it's charging. And otherwise, it's just a HomeKit lamp in the shape of a big ball. You know, I don't know if I'd feel like a wizard, but okay.

All right. People say you would feel like a wizard. This is a good option. I like this. I'm curious to see what Matt has. But I could see this being in the house. And more importantly, I could see this being in the house and Danielle not saying no to it. So, okay. I like this. This is good. Good luck, Matt. I already won this. I don't know. Matt could have a charging cable and really pull ahead. If he has a good, solid charging cable, you never know. I did think about bringing a charging cable.

I almost did. Okay. Well, I have lost. However, I think I can maybe get you to buy two things this week. That's the best this could go for me. So I have brought, and you can click the link if you want. Okay. Mine is thoughtful. Mine is personalized. And maybe you need it. So what I have brought is the Nomad leather wallet, magnetic wallet that uses MagSafe to connect to the back of your phone.

It comes in crisp black, I would say. And it holds up to four cards, which is nicer than most of these. Most of them cap out at three. And it supports Find My. So if you lose the wallet, you can still find it. I'm now panicking and wondering if Apple's new wallet also supports Find My, but I hope it doesn't. And this is actually an upgrade. It does, but not really. It's not the good one, but I will say.

Oh, no. And maybe I should go grab it really quick. Oh, no. I have, maybe it's Nomad Goods? Because there's Nomad and Nomad Goods. Nomadgoods.com. Okay, maybe it's Nomad. Hang on one second. I will be right back. on hold music. Okay. So, I think he already owns this.

If he already owns it, do I actually win because he bought it months ago? No, no way. I think maybe I win. No. I think this is a loophole. No, no loophole. I think it's a loophole. Chris, have you already purchased the thing? Have you gone so fast that you just bought it? Yes, yes. No, I have an upgrade. So I have this from Nomadic. And hang on, let me take this out so I don't accidentally share credit cards.

There's another company called Nomadic. That's the one that was confusing. And it's an iPhone wallet. And what I love about this is you can put a bunch of cards in here. It has this pull tab so your cards come out. And then there's this backside right here so you can get even more cards. And I'm trying not to show my ID. Okay. So I have an iPhone wallet that I really love already. I love this guy. This does not look good for me. I'm sorry, Matt. I don't think this right here, it looks good, but the four-card limit is a little too much because I have five in my wallet.

Oh, this has gone horribly. It's getting worse by the minute. Also, the Nomadic one is $20. Mine is $80. I think this might be the bougier Nomadic one. Okay. Is it just me or does it? Is the one you're looking at, does it have like a poll tab? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well. Yeah. Okay. We'll put a link to both wallets in the show notes. No, this one's $50. The one I have is $50.

Okay. It's the phone wallet. I mean, I still lost horribly. I will text you guys a link right now so we can put in the show notes. I mean, this would be like if Nelian pitched the big ball and then you went off and grabbed an even bigger ball and brought it in. And cheap a big gun. Yeah. Oh, technically, hang on. Oh, no. Hang on one second. No. If he comes back with a big ball. A big light ball. What is he doing?

Is that Sauron? see him. Is that? Oh, that is. That is his tower. Oh, man. Baradour. Baradour. Baradour. What is he doing? What could he possibly have? Oh, no. He's given up. He's back. Defeated. He's considering giving you the win. Sorry about that. Okay. So, I was trying to be funny. For audio listeners, I have the Lego Bauer door set behind me, and in there is the plantier, which is the crystal ball thing in it.

So I was trying to pull that out, but I couldn't find it in there. It's kind of hard to reach back there, but I was trying to be funny and pull out the plantier, but yeah, no. Anyways. Well, who wins, Chris? Sorry. I'm so sorry, Matt, but I will be ordering the big ball. Dang it. I am sorry, Matt. I just don't have a need for another iPhone wallet right now. That makes sense. If you are in the market for one, what I love about this Nomadic one versus other ones is this pull tab.

It makes it so much easier to get your cards out quickly. Yeah, that is nice. It makes a big difference. So let me buy now. This will be here on Wednesday. Oh, wait. Hang on. Oh, I'm not signed in. Hang on. He's getting the big ball, guys. yes so you know what I really want this big ball the Eve flare I really want it I'll get it at some point come to America you can have this one when I'm done with it okay ordered it was technically $105 with tax

but I think the sticker price of the challenge was under $100 but I'm sorry Matt you put up a good fight you just didn't quite know that i have an iphone wallet that i absolutely love i like this thing i i hope they never stop making these honestly i've had this one for over a year now or about a year now and it's held up really well so to be fair i don't go places but yeah it's held up i have a question did the amazon review reading help like convince you that oh yeah absolutely

That was good storytelling. Yeah. Well, I couldn't win this twice in a row. It's amazing I won anything at all. Maybe the second time ever. But next week, I will have a full review of The Big Ball. Yay. Okay. Perfect. Well, that was a fun challenge. I really enjoyed it. But Matt, it is your turn to challenge us for next week. Yes, I do have a challenge. so my challenge is compete to sell Matt on a new physical accessory it must be under $1,000 no it's not that

I thought he was going to do it for a second I was like yeah big money birchler and full MacBook Air I literally was going to find something that was $999 of course you would this would be a punishment No, I have a real one. I would like us all to adopt a European app or service for the week. Ideally, one you don't already use. Define European. What do you mean by that? The company or person who makes it should be from Europe.

Okay, so primarily made in Europe. Yes. Okay. It's not like a European bus app. You could, but I don't know how much you're going to have to say about it. They have no routes for me. No routes in my area at all. You know what? Even American buses don't have routes in my area. True. Farm country. Woo-hoo. So, yeah. So, if you use, I don't know, Spotify is European.

Proton, I think, is European. I'm sure there's a bunch of indie devs. the timing is so perfect you have no idea. Because I got into a beta today for something really specific. Interesting. But will you be able to talk about it next week? Oh yeah. Okay. I'm looking forward to this. This will be interesting. I'm going to have to do a bunch of research. Don't go crazy but find something a little fun.

Alright. Well that brings us to the end of the show. But we have an end of the show question. And last week, I asked for people to write in in the feedback form. Like, if you have any questions for us, please, please send them in because this is always the hardest part of filling out the show notes every week is coming up with an end of the show question. And I'm kind of out of ideas. Like, I ended up accidentally recycling a couple. So, Jonathan wrote in, I would love to know what your favorite non-tech podcast is.

Love from your Mac Stories brother, Jonathan. Who is that? Jonathan. Just kidding. F-Goss. F-Goss. F-Goss. Jonathan. Are you doing a bit? Okay. So, anyways, do you guys, I'm curious. We didn't ask for any follow-up from Jonathan, but do you guys think video game podcasts count as this? Like, do they count as a tech podcast? I'm going to list two so you can bend the rules as well.

I think games are adjacent. I don't know. I guess they're not technically tech. Okay. All right. Matt, it seems like you have an idea. What do you got? The two that I have are number one is The Town with Matthew Bellamy, which is all about Hollywood stuff. It's like a twice or three times a week podcast. I love a podcast that comes out multiple times a week. I love getting that little dopamine hit every couple of days. love it that's just a personal thing the other podcast is kind of the opposite it's on an irregular schedule but is i adore it when it comes out and it is if books could kill which is a show that goes

into books typically they like to do like airport style books productivity books or celebrity books that are really bad and uh it's very very fun very funny nice uh neilian what do you got okay i have two of them. The first one is the Layover podcast. That's a good one. This is the behind-the-scenes podcast from the guys who do Jet Like the Game on YouTube and Nebula.

They have an after-show podcast where they go into the behind-the-scenes, how the episode went and how the season went and where they discuss also other things. It's fun. and another one is hang up and hang up is i have fallen in love with this show it's by uh caitlin pierce i believe maybe uh it's kind of a reality tv show but on a podcast

and a reality dating show but on a podcast so like oops sorry basically every season there's only been two seasons so far, but every season there's one person who's basically the datey, like people want to date her or them and they have calls with people and they have to get to they have to know each other to get to know each other over the phone only without ever meeting in person they only meet in person at the very end and it's really fun and it's like it's not a toxic dating show like it's really well thought of and well thought out and like it's wholesome it's really

wholesome and there's so many queer people on this show you have no idea so if you're looking for queer representation in a podcast this is a very condensed melting pot of queer people so dig into it this is really nice. That reminds me of, Matt, maybe you know, what was the old TV show where it was like there was like three people and then one person would come out and ask a bunch of questions, but they couldn't see the other three people.

Oh, that was like the dating game or something? Yeah, something like that. That's what it kind of reminds me of. I mean, that was before my time as well. Let's not give the audience the wrong impression. I'm not 60 years old. But like every sitcom in the 90s had like some rip off of that. that they would do. Cool. Well, I don't listen to a ton of podcasts anymore. My podcasting time, I just don't have a ton of time. So I do listen to a lot of our friends, tech podcasts and stuff like that. But I have two for you.

The first one is a video game podcast. It's Into the Aether. It's by a fellow Mac Stories person, Brendan Bigley and Stephen Hilger. I really love it because it's very chill when it comes to video games. It's not all uppity 360 no scope, bro. It's very chill. They just talk about things they like. I love media that is like, hey, I just really love this thing. Let me talk about it. I can't stand the whole, I'm just going to bash this thing because I don't personally like it, even though, you know, Coldplay.

Okay. I just had to get a dig in there. But no, I really love it. It's chill. It's very relaxed. It's very nice. And they do these really massive episodes where they go really deep into a specific system. They have a PSP one coming out. Their GameCube one is probably one of my favorite episodes of a podcast. And it's like six hours long. It's wild. So they do a really good job with that show. They put a lot of work into it. And then the other one that I would pick is not one I actually listen to regularly.

Basically, anytime Danielle and I do a road trip or any kind of travel, well, road trip mostly, we have a tradition of she has a podcast she listens to. And she flags some really good episodes and then saves them for a road trip. And it's called My Favorite Murder. So it's just another murder podcast. But the hosts are incredibly funny. They're comedians. And, like, they just basically they do research on a murder or a crime. Like, they had a whole episode about the cocaine bear and stuff like that.

they they did all yeah r.i.p. to the real one um the but like they go into it and they just talk about like these wild wild stories and it's really funny um they do a really good job with it and it's just kind of like a tradition for me and danielle whenever we do a road trip she pulls up a bunch of those like when we went to disneyland a few months ago we listened to um one on the unseekable molly brown uh which was really good and that one wasn't even murdery that one was just like a really interesting story. So, yeah,

that one's pretty good. Real quick, my wife used to listen to that one when she was getting ready for work in the morning, and she'd be upstairs, and I'd be downstairs, and I'd just hear, I'd just look upstairs at, like, these just god-awful descriptions of murder. I'm like, Jesus. It gets pretty gruesome. Yeah. They have one on Typhoid Mary, which is really interesting if you don't know the history behind Typhoid Mary. But, yeah. That brings us to the end of the show. Let's wrap up here. A big thank you to MacStories for having us.

We are a MacStories podcast. Be sure to go check out all the other writings and podcasts and everything else they got going on. It's coming close to September, so I know they have a bunch of stuff coming out like they always do. Matt, Neelian, anything you want to promote, wrap up, say anything before we leave? Liquid glass is really bad. Liquid glass is very good. Okay, got it. And liquid glass is, I'm just in the middle of it.

You know, we're the three bears of liquid glass, you know. All right. Thank you all so much for listening. Have a great day.