Have You Heard the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?

Welcome to Comfort Zone, a podcast all about pushing your hosts, well, outside of their comfort zone. I'm Christopher Lolly, and every week I am joined by two incredible co-hosts. First up, Matt Birchler. Matt, how are you doing? Chris, I am feeling unprecedented this week. Ooh. Yeah. Yeah, because nothing's going on this week. Yeah, expressed with no context needed. Yep, yep, moving right along. And we're also joined by Nelian. Nelian, how are you doing?

I'm doing well, and welcome to the club, guys. No idea what you all are talking about. Just got back from vacation. Clearly, I was on vacation. Nothing happened. Moving right along. I can't talk about this. Neilian, you're first up in our document. Am I? Yeah, you are. You're going first. All right. There will be a theme throughout my interventions today.

Okay. That theme is I'm going to be giving out my first impressions on products that I've been out for a while. I love it. And I'm late to the game. And that's it. That's the game. So, yeah, I picked up last week a pair of AirPods Max. Ooh. That's it. Although there's a twist, I didn't buy them. Oh, okay. A very nice soul that maybe listens to the show donated them to me.

Nice. And that person has had them for a few months, so they're still pretty new. And they were feeling like donating them. So, yeah, I stepped up, gave it to me. nice yeah that's the best way to get them nice yeah because i i was gonna say i'm like aren't we expecting new ones like at any minute now like or sometime this year like yeah so i was gonna be like wow that's a that's uh that's that's a gamble right there but yeah how do you how are you liking them so i i like them they're really good i would have never bought them like ever um and i'm a fan of

Bluetooth headphones. I've had a bunch of them. I'm a big fan of the Sony line, the WH-1000XMX345. My latest ones are the XM5s. They're really good, really comfy and really lightweight. So yeah, but the AirPods Max are really nice. I think my first impressions with them is that they are really heavy when you first pick them up but they feel less um annoying on my head than

the sony's for some reason um so that's probably a testament to how they're built um yeah but i have a question for you guys yes yes what is the deal with the smart case it's so unbelievably bad uh i i don't even know so for those that are watching the video i'm wearing airpods max right now whoo uh these are my only over the ear headphones i um have lots of mixed

feelings on them but the smart case i don't even know where mine is legitimately don't know where it is i don't don't use it i don't i don't put my air um um airpods max in them um i have like a little headphone holder thing that sits on my desk that i just set these on when i'm done with them i don't even mess with that i do have the smart case from waterfield or not the smart case but the airpods max case from waterfield which has the magnet in them to put them in the standby mode um it's really nice they sent it to me i didn't buy it so disclosure um they're legitimately

waterfields sf bags whatever you want to call them one of the best companies ever to work with like um i got a bag of theirs for christmas and they saw i did a review on it and this was like before i even had 10 000 subscribers maybe even before i had 5 000 subscribers nobody watched my stuff and uh they reached out to me and like they were they like sent me stuff and like supported me great company to work with anyways i have that one when i have traveled with these in the past use that bag um but these are really annoying to travel with because they don't fold up

yeah although the sony's that i'm coming from they don't fold up yeah it's a new trend in uh yeah he's like 300 to 500 noise cancelling headphones they don't i had the old sony ones the old style ones before the airpods max the ones everyone got that with the big over the ear noise cancelling ones and those did fold up if i remember right like i think they were the ones that ended in three yeah the threes did and then the four they and the four as well yeah okay yeah matt do you have them i do so i'm in the same boat as you i've got i'm wearing the sony's right now the xm5s

um okay i i love them these are kind of my go-to noise cancelling headphones um or over the ear headphones i use them for this podcast because they have a nice line in that works for me um but i do agree with you on the airpods max feeling more comfortable even though they're heavier like noticeably heavier um and i think it's because of the head strap the head strap on the airpods max is so wide that it i think distributes the weight better um so i do find those a little bit more comfortable than the sony's the sony's have a really thin kind of

headband thing and it does if you don't wear it right or adjust it it does kind of dig into your had a little bit more than you'd expect. Yeah. Um, but apart from that, um, my audio impressions is that they're really good. I'm really impressed. Um, with one caveat, um, spatial audio is, um, I don't know what word to use. It's, it's why, why is it there? Okay. All right. And why is it

by default everywhere okay i can solve this for you okay you're going to um after the show is over you're going to open up apple music and you are going to search pink floyd the dark side of the moon and they did a remastered version of one of the greatest albums of all time in spatial audio and you will you will understand spatial audio after that um i was not okay just trust me on this one it is it is your homework for the week um just everyone if you're if you're on the fence about spatial audio or don't like it go back and re-enable it and go on in apple music pink floyd

dark side of the moon the remastered version we'll put a link in the show notes uh but it there's i have heard that album a hundred times before the remastered come out no no joke like listen i love that album there are things with the spatial audio version that you hear that i've never heard before um one thing i i like i i just absolutely absolutely adore that album it's it's amazing um i am a spatial audio believer now uh apple invited me uh over a year ago probably about a year ago something like that to a little a little thing like it really wasn't much but it was this thing

in san francisco where they partnered with mercedes-benz on their next car and they actually brought spatial audio to the car and it just sounds amazing because in the car they they had a like a crap ton of speakers in there so you had true spatial audio with airpods they're they're kind of having to fake it with delay and pan in order to fake like to get you proper space because there's only two speakers and airpods like you no matter what airpods you're wearing pro max whatever there's only two speakers a left and a right so they're having to fake it with pan and delay um but with like a proper spatial audio setup it sounds amazing but even still i big spatial audio believer now

there's an issue there was an issue when they started rolling it out where like music studios were cranking out yeah a ton of low quality just as fast as you can spatial mixes to get the badge yeah so which sounded horrendous and i like for me too i i turned it off because i hated it i thought I thought basically everything I listened to sounded worse. A few exceptions. But yeah, it's definitely better now. And I do have it turned on. I don't like the head tracking. But anyway, we don't need to get into the spatial audio too far. Oh, yeah. No, I turn off the head tracking.

Especially when I'm going like on a walk, like when I'm walking the dog and I like turn a corner and then the music kind of like shifts around. I don't like it. 100% turn off the head tracking. Head tracking is horrible. I can't stand it. It's no, but. All right, for normal people who don't listen, who listen to anything else but the Pink Floyd, I think it's bad. Guys, I'm sorry. It sounds echoey. Earlier today, I was watching something on the TV.

And, of course, it was on by default because Apple wants it on by default everywhere. And we got to manually turn it off everywhere. and tv shows just sound worse i i this yeah you are describing a very weird thing because there's the spatial audio where like it's doing like the 3d audio around you and then there's the spatial audio where it's like when you're like playing a video on your phone it makes the audio sound like it's coming from your phone in front of you yeah which that's not i don't understand and i don't i

don't like that either i i agree well and then on then on top of that um well i guess the airpods max don't support it but the airpods pro have uh dolby atmos which i think actually helps quite a bit uh because dolby atmos like everything is mixed for dolby atmos now not a ton of i i i'm guessing outside of apple tv plus stuff nothing is mixed for spatial audio all right um anyway i'm right um i do have a question for you about your airpods max did you buy the world's most thinnest an expensive cable the lightning 3.5 millimeter no latency cable i did order it uh they're not yet

there yet but i did order them yeah i i have one right here plugged in for recording this podcast and it legitimately does help all right all right um one last thing is the controls the buttons coming from the Sonys again which have touch controls on the right cup I think, on the right ear cup they're awful I always disable them so I'm so used to just not being able to control my music without pulling out my phone

yeah, I never use the touch controls on those, they're horrible especially if you have long like me. For some reason, my hair triggers it. That's a deal breaker. I don't know what to say. My hair skips the music for me. That may sound magical, but it's awful. So yeah, the buttons on the AirPods Max are a really good surprise. The crown, especially, I think feels really good, although it's a bit too sensitive. But I think it feels really good.

And yeah, but that's it. The person that donated the headset to me donated them with the best colorway. The pink reddish ones. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. So I think that's good. What else can I say? I mean, apart from what is the deal with the smart case, I have no idea. I'm thinking of picking up one of those stands that have the magnets in them to put them to sleep on my desk.

If you aren't planning on traveling with these, that's probably the best thing to do with them. Because then you don't have to mess with the smart case. You have a place to store them at your desk. Yeah, totally 100% get that. Like I said, I don't even know where my smart case is. I think I'll stick with the Sony's for traveling anyway. Yeah. Now, if you know how to sew magnets, you could probably get those into a T-shirt. Oh my God, I wanted to make that joke.

I forgot. There's an opportunity for the cheapest, worst looking, most practical. Okay, let's roll back. Hey, guys, I found a way to store my AirPods Max. Video is off for while we record. I can only imagine Chris is seething right now. I have my head in my hand right now. I quit. I quit. Honestly, actually, these things are pretty durable. I was going to say they are actually very durable.

Like the few times I have traveled with these, I just throw them in my backpack. Like I've used the water filled case. But like if I'm just going to like a coffee shop or something, I just throw them in my backpack. Neilion, what do you think about the noise cancelling and transparency mode of these versus regular AirPods or even the Sonys? So, compared to the... I have the second generation AirPods Pro. Compared to the AirPods Pro, they're a lot better, I think, in terms of noise cancelling.

Transparency mode, I think it's about the same thing. Compared to the Sony's, though, I feel there's a big jump with the noise cancellation compared to the Sony's. It's a lot quieter in general. And I think it's able to cancel out a wider range of frequencies. I'm not sure. I've not gone out for longer than an hour with the AirPods Max.

I will have to try them out on the train and see how that goes. But yeah, compared to the AirPods Pro, it's a big jump. Transparency is the same. Compared to Sony's, it's a big jump as well. Nice. Yeah, I definitely like the noise cancelling of the AirPods Max the best. When I really need to focus and if I have anything distracting going on around me, you know like construction or gardeners or dogs or whatever like if there's something really like

airpods max are my go-to i think the thing that finds me the the thing i'm the most frustrated about is it's the it's one of only three devices i have left that are still on lightning and literally if apple came out yeah tomorrow with a new version of airpods max and the only thing different was usbc i would still i would buy those because it would make my life so much better the the only other two devices i have left are the magic keyboard and the magic trackpad that i use for vision pro that drives me nuts we'll talk about that a little later but yeah i i'm just like why

do these still have lightning once again i am a few years late because i still have the 14 pro So I still have a lightning cable with me at all times. And actually, to me, it feels better to just have a lightning cable on me because the Sony's, I have to have a USB-C cable with me. So, yeah, I mean, it's good to be a few years late. You should try it.

I'm usually late to appointments, not to tech. There you go. Just spend the money and buy the thing. Or, yeah, no, I'm glad you got these. I'm glad you seem to like them. Overall, you know, you give them thumbs up. Would you, if there was a new version to come out, you know, in the next year or so, not tomorrow, but the next year or so, would you buy them? I don't think so. I've looked up the rumors, the latest rumors.

I don't think it's going to be a big enough change to justify buying a new pair, especially because I haven't spent any money on these ones. But even if I did, I don't think I'd upgrade because it doesn't seem like much is going to change about maybe from the USB-C port and maybe a chip upgrade, maybe not. Apparently, a bunch of rumors are pointing to the chip not. I would be shocked. There's so many features that the AirPods Max don't have that the AirPods Pro do, like the adaptive audio.

They don't have the adaptive audio feature because they have the older chip. I would be absolutely shocked if the AirPods Max didn't get the new, at least on par with the AirPods Pro 2, because again, this is another year at WWDC. I'm already blanking on what it is, but I remember there is a feature that, again, is just coming to AirPods Pro 2 and not to the regular AirPods line or the AirPods Max. And the AirPods Max are double the price of the AirPods Pro 2. It should be getting all the features that those get.

Yeah. But even if it did, I don't think it'd be worth it for me. I'm mostly hyped for the Sony line. I've been a fan of that line for years, all the way back to the XM3s. I am in a way bringing a success, a successor to some of you've talked about previously. So a few episodes ago, we talked about framework laptops. Neil, you brought that and we kind of discussed how they have this idea of modularity and you can kind of build the computer you want and you can upgrade components at a later date.

And. I think we were a little. a little down on the idea of this and like I was yeah I was as well and like they haven't proven out that they're going to support this for years and years so yeah a little bit of a risky purchase probably and today I wanted to bring a relatively new thing in my life which is a new graphics card for my gaming pc and i wanted to talk about this in relation to the framework kind of modularity

thing because we talked about how like the modularity is kind of this like nice idea but is it actually going to work out and i'm just like staring at my pc on under my desk right now and this is exactly the modular dream uh that we were theorizing or like framework wants to make happen but like it already exists in desktop pcs um so i had a graphics card and it was getting pushed a little far by the highest end games out today and there was a successor to that graphics card it's the one i got is the nvidia rtx 4070 super for anyone curious uh it came out a few

months ago and i didn't have to it's like 15 to 20 faster than what it's replacing for me So not a huge upgrade, not a huge like life changing difference in performance for like the games I play, but a notable update. And I didn't have to buy a whole new computer. I didn't have to like do anything crazy. I literally just bought the thing. I opened up my case. I unplugged the old one. I plugged the new one in and it worked. There was nothing else to do.

And I just I think that's so awesome. like while i was in there while i was in there with the computer open um kind of poking around and unplugging things and everything it just hit me like oh yeah all of this is modular right like i've if i want more ram i can spend a hundred dollars and get more ram if i want a new cpu within some restraints on like what my motherboard supports i can upgrade one second you a hundred dollars for more ram has anyone told apple the price of ram has gone down yeah i uh yeah i bought this computer with 16 gigs of ram and i upgraded to 32 gigs

about a year ago and that must have cost you a thousand dollars 90 dollars and it's great it's very fast ram it's fantastic um so yeah like this whole modular like computing thing is great and uh as someone who okay so let me back up one more one more time um two years ago i bought the m1 pro macbook pro their first like 14 inch uh with the the apple

silicon generation i loved it it was super fast it was super performant for me but i goofed when i bought it i bought it with two little hard drive space um it just turned out for the final cut projects I was working on, it was not enough space. It was a constant pain point. And I needed more internal hard drive space. And my only recourse was to buy a new MacBook Pro. I didn't need the extra speed. I didn't need more RAM. Basically, everything stayed the same. But I ended up buying an M2 MacBook Pro just with a bigger hard drive. I didn't need anything else,

but I had to buy a whole new computer to do that. And that really stung at the time, like it really annoyed me that I had to do that. And it's just nice to have this other world where you can just spend a little bit of money and improve your experience without having to buy a whole new thing. So I just, I just really appreciate that. And yeah, I wanted to talk about it today because I think it's kind of awesome. Yeah, it is. Do either of you guys play PC games or even Mac games or anything?

Well, I have the Legion Go, and I've still been playing with that and fiddling with that. I got it to work, I guess, a little bit of follow-up since we talked about it last. I got it to work a little bit better. I'm kind of embracing this as not playing modern games, but maybe games that are from, like, the previous console generation. So I've been playing a lot of, like, Xbox One and PS4 era games and stuff like that. And it seems to work out great for that kind of thing. so um yeah i've been playing that the nice thing about the legion go and if you listen to our sister podcast in bc mpc you will hear what federico has been doing and it's absolutely wild he's like

built his own custom e gpu and like has like and the legion go compared to other handheld pcs kind of allows for that to happen because it has not one but two usb 4 ports which supports usb 3.2 two by two which is like 40 gigabits per second which is almost basically on par with thunderbolt it's wild what you can do with that but yeah so that's that's mostly what i've been doing um you can open up the legion go you can replace like you can add more storage and stuff to it i have not done that but yeah nice neilian do you do any any gaming at all on a computer um not

really i i've said it i've said this before i play two games in my life uh that's minecraft and euro euro truck simulator and that's it uh and and for euro truck simulator i play it via nvidia geforce now currently although it runs pretty good on my m2 macbook air um yeah decently i would say it runs decently nice but i can max out the specs the video settings on geforce now so feels a lot better yeah so i'm definitely the biggest gamer among us um well

hang on hang on hang on greatest gamer are we gonna have to have a mario kart race here like I can beat you to that I've got hundreds of hours in Mario Kart I will destroy you all You know what, I think we just came up with a bonus episode idea that the three of us are going to throw down a Mario Kart How does that work? And then maybe Smash Bros. after that We'll figure that out We'll figure out a way to make that work Should we describe what's happening in the audio form? Well, there's capture cards and stuff We'll figure it out I think that's something we could work on.

But I don't know about Matt taking the title of biggest gamer. I mean, I play quite a bit of video games myself, you know. I make the Super Mario jump, if you know what I mean. Oh, God. If we do this and we have to describe what's happening on screen, I will lie. I know. I was thinking the same thing. I'm ahead right now. Don't believe their lies. They're not winning.

I dodged the blue shell. Yeah. We would need to get like a third party in order to like be neutral. We need to get like a non-forkies or somebody and just be like, okay, we need a neutral third party. But no, I think we could get like capture cards or something. We can figure this out. We could figure it out. Okay. The last thing I wanted to mention that I also think is really, really cool. and again, very different from the Apple world, is when I bought this new graphics card, it cost like, I got it on sale, so it was like $500.

But I wasn't out $500 because I'm replacing a graphics card. That graphics card is totally good, very good, and useful to other people, so I was able to sell it. And so it cost me less than $100 to upgrade my performance significantly, like to the level of like an M2 and M3, like in graphics performance. It cost very, very little money in the grand scheme of things. And I just, I like that about PC, the PC world as well, in that you can upgrade components and those components you are replacing are going to be useful to someone else.

And you can sell them, they can get them at a discount. And I just think it's a really cool ecosystem that's out there. And yeah, wanted to celebrate it a little today. Yay. That's awesome. Yeah, it's been a while since I've built a PC or anything custom like that. But I have definitely been considering like, like I, most of the games I play right now are my Xbox Series X. That's, that's where I play most of my games. And like, it's great. It's a fast console, but there's definitely limitations to it.

there's also you know sony bling brings their um games a couple of years later but they will bring their exclusive games to pc but they don't bring them to xbox so i have definitely been considering building my own gaming pc and like hooking it up to my tv and stuff like that but uh i'm just not not quite there yet i'm kind of waiting to see what ends up happening with like the rumored xbox series x pro yeah that'll and they're and they're rumored portable you might get everything you want honestly if they come out with a portable that would be killer because i want an xbox portable

because most of the games i own i do have a ps5 but i don't really play it that much i got it for like to play a couple of games with some friends and stuff like that but um most of the games i own are on xbox and i would love to just have my library sync between my place i play video games at home and my place i play video games whether i'm traveling or sitting on the couch because somebody is watching something on tv or something like that whatever i would love that that would be absolutely killer yeah for sure so we've been pretty tame so far in our topics airpods

graphics cards better graphics are better uh chris what did you bring this week so we're in the middle of summer there's there's not a lot of tech news that happens in the middle of summer it's probably a weird time for us to launch this kind of a podcast to be honest but we're pros we knew what we were doing are we about to talk about joe biden yeah strap in everybody this is yeah we're gonna get political uh guys did you know the moon landing was fake i'm kidding i'm kidding people please don't at me i don't i can't no i anyways we're

i i kind of when we were talking about the show i always thought like you know yes primarily focused on tech but it might be fun if there's like been a movie or show or game that we're all planning to talk about it as well. There is one show in particular that I believe all of us have watched, and we all have some strong feelings on it, and I kind of wanted an opportunity to yell at Matt even more. But I am bringing the episode The Acolyte to the podcast. This is a Star Wars show that just recently wrapped up on Disney+, and oh boy, do I have lots of thoughts about it.

I'm going to give a quick premise before we get into anything spoilery. But the whole idea is about... Actually, you know what? It's all spoilery. If you haven't watched it yet... Matt does a great job at creating chapters for this podcast. If you haven't watched this yet and you do not want to be spoiled, hit the next chapter. I'm going to give you like 10 seconds here to like pull over, pause, whatever. I'm rambling right now to give you this time that you can just skip ahead. Okay, we all good?

Literally your last chance to pause the podcast. Okay. Alright, so the core idea of the show is that the Sith is trying to find an acolyte, an apprentice. And that there are these two twin sisters, and stuff happens, and they get separated. One goes off to be a Jedi, but then fails. The other one is presumed dead, but ends up training with this Sith, and she's having to kill these Jedi. The original, I remember when the show was pitched and announced, and it was pitched as like this mystery.

And I don't really think there was much of a mystery there. Like, I kind of had it all figured out by episode two. Or even episode one, I think. Oh, no, it was the first two episodes aired at the same, so it was the end of episode two. But I liked it for the most part. For the most part, I found it very interesting. It was the first time we've stepped out of the Skywalker era of Star Wars in a movie or television in a live-action form. Or even animation, too.

This takes place in the High Republic era of Star Wars. And for those that are unfamiliar, the High Republic era is about 100 to 200 years before Episode I. It's basically the peak time of the Republic when they're at their strongest, the peak time of the Jedi when they're at their strongest. And I enjoyed this era. I really did. We saw some really interesting stuff. I mean, a Wookiee Jedi. Who doesn't want to see a Wookiee Jedi? But there was also some weird stuff about this show.

Like, there was two flashback episodes. And when you only have eight episodes, doing two flashback episodes. and the second of the flashback episodes which was the second to the last episode it's the only episode i walked away from going i didn't like this because half the episode was rehashing what was in the first flashback episode and when your episodes are like they're they're only like 30 to 40 minutes i i walked away from being like this could have just been edited into a movie and it would have been great uh but you know it was pitched as a mystery it really wasn't that much of a mystery it was more of a dark side drama uh where you know we're kind of seeing the groundwork

for some cool stuff but uh before we go into some stuff that i was really like i just got really stoked on what did you two think of the show i so for me the show was a very solid seven out of ten sort of show you know what i would agree i thought i was gonna yell at you i would agree yeah um again without getting too into the weeds or specifics i would say i mean we can't we give

the spoiler warning we did we did uh but i just don't want to go on too long um my overall thoughts uh are i liked a lot of it i liked a lot of the ideas and things that they introduced um but some of the execution was a little awkward i think especially like you mentioned in those flashback episodes i don't think they were terrible or anything like some people just like lost their minds over especially the first one um but the delivery was a little weird some of the like actions the characters took didn't feel as motivated as i would have liked them to be but

i love this idea of like um the big thing that really connected with me is this idea that there are other groups out there who experience the force and who um like agree that it's a thing and it's real but they have a completely different take on it and like this coven of witches is like so compelling to me and so exciting to me and i'd love to see more from this like if there's a book coming out soon that kind of goes into this i will buy this book i haven't bought a star wars book in like 20 years but i will buy another one to spend more time uh with this group so the high rep i've been reading the high republic series of books and they are very good um if you're interested in more

from this era but the coven of witches isn't a new idea it's it's kind of based on the night sisters so if you're interested in that the clone wars um series really explores that oh it's always the clone wars okay come on man and a little bit of rebels as well also go into that as well and and the ahsoka show but all of those three things they're they're clone wars rebels and ahsoka those that's kind of like its own trilogy matt have you not seen clone wars no it's i every single time i say something about star wars everyone's like oh you haven't watched the 200 episodes of the clone

wars well of course you don't know this it's like not having seen revenge of the sif or something no that's that's a two-hour commitment but but to be fair the clone wars there they were they were tv traditional tv episodes so they're only about 20 minutes a piece there are episode guides So the Clone Wars show doesn't take place linearly. Like, there are some episodes that skip around in the timeline. Towards the end, it starts taking place a little more, like, straightforward through the timeline.

But it does kind of skip around. But there are a lot of really good episode guides out there. So you could just watch, like, the good stuff. Because there are some really bad arcs in there. like uh like like four episodes of like hey we're gonna follow these droids and this short little soldier guy that thinks he's really in charge but the only reason why he got sent on the mission is because he's like super small and can blend in but um yeah apparently that one was written by george lucas is what i've heard and that makes a lot of sense anyway uh moving on oh boy uh hey i like

George Lucas. I like him, but some of his ideas... Han shot first. That's what I'm going to say. His word is gospel to me. I don't care. What did you think of the show? Alright, I didn't say anything. I liked it. I think I agree with you with your notation, 7 out of 10. I think that's good. The flashback episodes, I disagree.

I think they're really good. I think, I mean, I like in general when a series does this, when you've got a flashback and it's a pivotal flashback where it's a subjective point of view that you're getting to see through different point of view, of course. And I like that they did that here. We don't have that much in Star Wars. The only time that we did have that was with Kylo Ren's origin story when he confronted, or was it Luke?

Yeah, in the Jedi Temple when he was young. So there was Luke's point of view, and then there was Kylo Ren's point of view. And I think it's good that we have that here, because I think it gives a lot of potential for developing the plot. So I disagree. I think they're really good. They're well executed. I think I wouldn't take them away because a lot relies on those. And I also disagree with the idea that there wasn't much of mystery in the show.

I was asking myself questions all the time. And I think that's a good basis for mystery. Yeah. Okay. The cast was really good. I'm really impressed with pretty much everyone on the show. And I liked that it didn't go, it didn't run too long. It didn't run too long. I think we got from point A to point final of the season.

And really fast. And that's good. I think it could have run too long. And final point, the High Republic stuff. I've read two books from that era. Yeah, I'm a big fan. I like that era. And I was really happy to finally something live action in that era. And I really want the Acolyte to get renewed only for this reason, because I want to see more of it.

I want to see more of most things happening that lead to the end of the high republic era. Yeah, and I agree with what you said about like the flashbacks, like the ultimately like we like it provided the different context and that's good. But what I just my point like I didn't like about them is like the second flashback episode rehashed a lot of what we already saw. And, like, it could have just been edited a little bit neater. And they could have put some other stuff in there to make, like, the thing that I, there's, like, certain characters I just didn't feel connected.

Like, I didn't, I wasn't rooting for certain characters. Like, I wasn't, I didn't feel that, like, gravity towards characters. Because it didn't seem like there was a ton of, like, character, like, there was character development for, like, the core, like, the two sisters. The Jedi, the main Jedi, I forget his name. um soul soul yeah but like there there were other characters that like master vanestra and uh the the matrix lady uh i'm forgetting her name um like there could have been a little bit of more

character development to like kind of like let's see their motivations and stuff like that like but there's a lot of really cool stuff like the the the middle episode with the light that's like basically a whole lightsaber fight that episode was brutal and i loved it i i love a good brutal lightsaber fight we haven't had one of those since like the prequel era yeah and yeah and it's it's set the stakes for the rest of the show um i like it when a show goes ahead and kills main characters

especially when you aren't expecting it like it wasn't a season finale it wasn't anything like that it was just like episode four or five or whatever and we lost two three like named characters who we'd been with and kind of felt like the core main cast um so i just it raises the stakes for me when when they killed x23 the apprentice um you you know that was the the same person from the same girl from logan right that played x23 uh uh yeah when they kill i was like dang they are not pulling any punches and then the uh i i don't know how to pronounce this but

this is from the eu stuff but the crotosis crotosis metal but the the helm the the material the helmet of the stranger was made from is from the eu and the whole idea of it is like if a lightsaber touches it's like disabled for a little bit and that was that i was like yeah that's that's awesome and then like we saw a bleeding of a kyber crystal like how cool is that good that was good we saw the bleeding the the the just you know the the pulling it to the dark side like oh i love that i absolutely i think the only other time like it was i think the first time that was described was

in the darth vader comic books when uh the emperor sent vader right after revenge of the sith um to hunt down a jedi and get his kyber crystal and get his lightsaber so he can build his own and then we saw a little bit in the recent jedi game the jedi is it jedi survivor no jedi survivor was the first one jedi i don't remember anyways the recent jedi one like jedi survivor is the new one yeah like Jedi Fallen Order was the last one. That was it. You're right.

Yeah. But like the biggest gamer on the pod. Yeah. Which is not good with names. But the like I love the idea of a Sith isn't given a lightsaber. It's taken. And like I love that. Like there's something like that. But there's something I wanted to ask you guys. Have you ever heard of the tragedy of darth plagues the wise no i thought not it's not a story the jedi would tell you i

mean matt hasn't seen clone noire so maybe he hasn't seen revenge of the sith i have no idea really you okay so so that person that was peeking out of the cave yeah no idea who that was that's darth plagues the wise are you for real matt yeah are you serious really are you are you That's Darth Plagueis the Wise. Oh my god. I was literally, when he showed up, I was yelling. I was like, holy bleepin bleep, that's Darth Plagueis the Wise.

Yeah, I screamed, that's Darth Plagueis with my partner who was watching with me and they were like, who? Who's that? This is what I'm talking about. So, So I'm going to go spoiler within a spoiler. So if you don't want to know probably what's going to happen in season two of the Acolyte, Neelion knows. And you know what, Matt? You're here. So you're just going to get spoiled. Just go ahead and skip forward to the next chapter. This is your chance to pause and skip.

Okay. You didn't pause and skip. So you clearly know. Darth Plagueis the Wise is the one that comes up with the idea of basically creating Anakin Skywalker. and putting Palpatine in power and stuff like that. Palpatine ends up killing him. In Revenge of the Sith, when Palpatine is telling the story of Darth Plagueis the Wise, he's telling the story of what he did. He killed Plagueis in his sleep. But Plagueis is the one that came up with the idea of creating Anakin Skywalker.

And if we go back to episode one, we know Anakin didn't have a father. Shmi Skywalker had no idea where he came from. She couldn't explain what happened, blah, blah, blah. That is because, and I love in the Acolyte how they do backflips to avoid saying midichlorians. They just say M count. Yeah, they do. They do it in Mandalorian too, but they're doing backflips to avoid saying that word. In Bad Batch as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they basically, Plagueis influences the midichlorians in order to create Anakin Skywalker and just gives him, you know, gives his midichlorian, like an off-the-count midichlorian count.

so he's super powerful blah blah blah but yeah so he's the one that kind of puts into motion that whole plan and then um he doesn't get to see it fulfilled but uh yeah yeah that's so that's who that is and that's what is interesting is because as we know there's a rule of two when it comes to there can only be two uh and uh the um uh the stranger was trying to take on an apprentice so We'll see what happens there next season. Hopefully it gets to next season. I think he's just spying on them.

You don't think the stranger is actually his apprentice? Yeah, I think Kaimia is not even aware that he's there. Okay. That's my theory. Interesting. Okay, interesting. See, I think he's actually his apprentice. And that Plagueis sent him to find this virgins in the forest. Because as we found out, they were created through the forest. There was no father. created through the force just like anakin skywalker so i'm guessing that plagueis is trying to figure out how that was done so he can do that himself because as we know the whole thing for

plagueis is he figured out the secret to immortality and uh defeating death but yeah thank you guys for letting me rant about star wars yeah see you next time on the comfort zone star wars pin-off yeah oh honestly yes i would totally be down for that um but yeah we probably wrap up this and get to the challenge unless either of you have anything more you want to say about the acolyte yeah just one thing i think my favorite um how do i say this the the favorite thing that i've seen acolyte haters say online is oh my god the lightsabers are thick

why are they so thick i think that's so funny do you know the actual reason why they did that i think because they're practical things that can light up and it's yeah better light effects yeah of course yeah lightsabers actually put off light now wow who would have thought of that uh yeah no that that doesn't really bother me uh it is a little weird to look at like when you first see it but it's not like something that i'm getting hung up on like oh yeah they're they're a little bit thicker that looks a little weird but yeah they have they have the bat the actors have battery

packs they're wearing battery packs uh oh no no i'm sorry these actually have the batteries in them yeah i think they're inside yeah it was the sequel trilogy that the the actors were wearing battery packs but these actually have the batteries on the inside out of all the things that people could hate on i think that's the funniest yeah yeah no that's that's the most ridiculous completely agreed i never even thought of this i'm just a filthy casual fan though so what do i know i've only watched like 12 movies and three tv shows but you you didn't even know of the tragedy

of darth plague is the wise i think you're making it up i don't think that's real oh my god everyone at matt birchler on this one just email him on this one um anyways do you guys feel that feel that disturbance in the force challenge yeah it's the heat it's the heat yeah it is the heat oh we can keep going anyways this week it was my challenge and i challenged you all to do something with vision pro neilion i wanted you to just go out and try it because france you know you guys finally got it and uh matt and i were meant to do something new with it so let's start with

nilion because i'm i'm really excited to hear your thoughts on like using vision pro for the first time yeah so that was a there was a trip because um so i was in paris last weekend or was it before that i don't remember um i was in paris for work for work thing so i yeah i job to an apple store in Paris, the one in Saint-Germain, the Marché Saint-Germain. It's a really cute one. It's cozy compared to others in Paris that are huge and packed with people all the time.

And last time I told you guys that apparently the demos, you could just walk in a store and they could give you a demo because nowhere was booked, basically. But actually, when I was there, the store was packed. There was a lot of people trying on the Vision Pro, which was such a weird scene, by the way. Just you walk in an Apple store and there are a bunch of couches and so many people on the couches just wearing the headset and flicking at stuff in the air.

It's really weird. But because the store was packed, I actually had a premium experience because they had to bring me to a room in the back, a conference room in the back. So I was alone with the Apple Store employee. First off, the very first impression is that this thing is heavy.

I don't want to wear this again. I do not want to wear this again. Did you have the solo knit band or the dual loop band? That was the dual loop band. Yeah. But yeah, it felt awful right away. So we spent like five minutes trying to adjust the band. Yeah, that was nothing we could do so I could feel better. So I think, yeah, so that's one thing.

Second thing, I think it was really impressive to finally see in real life what everyone has been talking about, the UI. The fact that it's, everything is very stationary. Like, that was impressive to me. The fact that when you press the home screen button and you see the apps float in front of you, the app icons float in front of you and cast a shadow on the table. That was pretty impressive.

One thing that felt a bit disappointing to me is that the eye tracking wasn't super precise. I had read people say that it's not as precise as you might think. But I didn't think it was this bad. Like, I felt like I was having to focus really hard with both my eyes, which is not something I've ever done before. So that's really weird. Like, having to think about both your eyes to look at something, that's a new feeling that I've never had before.

So the guy was telling me, yeah, can you just click on panoramic pictures in the sidebar? So I was looking at it and did not highlight. And he told me, literally, he told me, look at it harder. So I was like, what does that mean? Look at it harder. So I really tried to focus on both my eyes. That was so weird. But apart from that, so I must say the demo, it went on longer than I thought it would, probably about 40 minutes or so.

And I had a wider range of freedom that I thought I would have. So he showed me a bunch of stuff, but he did let me poke around the OS a little bit on my own. The special photos, I remember feeling like it was, I was not feeling at ease looking at them. Especially if one of the demo pictures, I'm sure you may have seen, is a picture of a kid's birthday party.

And there's a big cake in front of you on the table. and a bunch of kids around it. And it feels like the point of view that you have from the picture, it feels like you're right up to the cake with your face, like you're about to munch on it. Yeah, I don't see anything here. And when the picture popped up, I was like, hey, I need to back up. This is not correct. Politeness to do this, to be so close to a kid's cake.

yeah he showed me a bunch of immersive videos as well the one that stuck out to me was the one where there's a tightrope that's the one I don't like that one I do not like that one I have a huge fear of heights and it makes my stomach very unsettled I'm going to be on Magic Rays of Light tomorrow I'm recording it tomorrow and Sigmund asked me to watch the new air balloon one and that made my stomach very unsettled for about an hour.

So if you have a fear of heights, it can trigger that. Yeah. Apparently, I'm not triggered at all by this because... So the guy made all sorts of warnings before he launched the thing for me and instructed me to launch the thing. And sure, I went ahead. I didn't feel anything. I don't have fear of heights. I've never had that. But it did feel very impressive to just look below me and see the void, basically.

Yeah. What else? Safari. I never want to browse the web like this again. Was it snappy? It wasn't super snappy, actually, because, again, I have to focus with both my eyes to click on anything. But, yeah, actually, I don't think I want to use the web like this again. It feels like so much work to browse the web, to move my eyes around and not have things highlight as you look at them.

That was one of the first things that I noticed too is the way that the UI in general, VisionOS, the UI in VisionOS highlights everywhere you look. It feels like things are blinking in front of me all the time. And I was feeling this, especially when he let me browse, poke around the OS on my own. Because then, of course, you're scanning through the UI. You're not instructed to click on something specifically.

So when you're browsing on your own, you're just looking at stuff, looking at the menus, looking at the UI. And yeah, the fact that every... Why did they... I'm ranting now. Why did Apple make the sidebar in VisionOS apps rollout? You know what I mean? Why? Yeah. Yeah, I know what you mean. It is weird. It is a weird choice. You just glance at the sidebar and all of a sudden it becomes huge and everything's blinking in there because you're looking at the menu.

The thing I don't get, it's not like you don't have space. It's not like you're on an iPad where you have a limited amount of space. and okay, yeah, let's hide the sidebar and you can tap the button to reveal it. You have plenty of space with Vision Pro because literally you have all the space. Yeah, it is a weird choice. Yeah. And I guess that's it, my impressions on the demo. I do have a question.

Did you get to use it with a keyboard and trackpad? No, I didn't. I did try the virtual keyboard. He wanted me to try it, actually. I didn't think he would want me to try this because I've not heard good things about that virtual keyboard. But he was like, hey, go to the address bar and just try to type a URL. And yeah, that was terrible. That was a weird feeling as well because visually it's impressive because the keyboard feels like it's right in front of you.

It feels like there's really a keyboard there, right? And then he's instructed me, just poke at the buttons, poke at the keys. So I go ahead and my figure goes right through it. And I ask him, what am I supposed to do? And he's like, just find the right spot and you will be able to press the keys. And yeah, that was, but that's probably just a first time thing because you probably get used to it. but you kind of do but it's much better to do the the eye tracking and pinch gesture to type on the virtual keyboard than it is to like use your two because you can only use your two pointer fingers

like i when i did the demo um down at apple's uh offices like i was trying to do like traditional typing and i put my whole hands up and i was trying to type but you can only do your pointer fingers and it doesn't it doesn't track with my brain uh i will say using vision pro with a hardware keyboard and trackpad drastically different experience uh that being said at that point why don't you just go grab a mac or an ipad and you can do more with it but yeah yeah yeah the thing you said you do get used to some of these things the more you use it

um the one thing that i think is still an issue for me that you mentioned is how uh how much work it feels like almost to do things because you have to like look around and you have to move your hand and you have to like really focus on what you're going to interact with that's still a thing for me where i feel like all the time i'm in the vision pro i'm having to think harder about what i'm doing and be more intentional and like as well for me i didn't realize how often i'm not looking directly at the thing i'm trying to interact with on my computer and like having to do

that on the vision pro is is still an annoying thing for me sometimes so that may not go away yeah the one thing that i did feel like i would like to use this I would like to have this at home is the watching movies and stuff like having a giant screen in front of you. That's the one thing that I was feeling like I want this. But apart from that yeah the funny thing I want to tell you. The funny thing is when the demo was over the guy looked at me

and so he asked me what did you think? She had my impressions, very impressive, etc. And then he said, we have them in stock, if you want. You can go home with it right now if you want. And this one, the demo unit is configured for you. So, yeah, we have your settings and everything. So my thinking was like, I'm sure you have it in stock. I'm sure you have it in stock. And I was really nice of him.

But nope, nope, nope, nope. yeah well matt and i are suckers and and did by uh them matt what did you what did you use yours for so i i think i've said previously i basically just used my vision pro on the weekends to watch movies um when i'm watching movies alone and i was like let's try to use it for real work and one of the things that you can't get real work done on a vision pro i'm just saying i just had to be that

person i just might scream i'm just i'm on the other end of it all the time i just wanted to say at one time um so i was like i'm gonna i'm gonna build up the courage to do what i haven't had the courage to do yet i'm gonna do a work video call with my spatial persona yes you did yes well let me explain oh my so i i was like i'm just gonna deal with it it's gonna be fine maybe no one will

notice and the good news is nobody noticed no nobody said anything they were all texting each other the bad news is that the reason they didn't know is that safari on vision os does not give websites access to the camera properly or maybe it's possible this is a vision os2 bug so it's possible vision os1 works but i was using google meet which is what my company uses for video calls

and google meet saw the camera safari asked me for camera and microphone access and i gave it and my microphone worked great that was perfect it showed a camera as my like input but it had like this notification that says it looks like you have a privacy shade down on your camera and so we can't there's no video to show and i tried in a couple different web apps and every single one gave me the same message so i think it's just the way safari's doing it so i took the call in the vision

pro the microphones are great in the vision pro so i sounded really good but they just saw me as camera off because apparently personas don't work in uh web apps so if i had a zoom call i could have done it because zoom has an app but yeah in google meet and microsoft teams which are huge in the corporate world uh yeah not an option yet can't you install uh the ipad app for google meet um i could have done that i didn't think about it so okay homework then yeah try it try it and report back but i don't know if the ipad app would do spatial personas because there are no

spatial personas on the ipad i'm not sure how that would work my thinking is the it should report just as a webcam yeah yeah but maybe not does it but i mean i guess what we what we saw with the web is that it does show as a webcam but it doesn't quite know what to do with it so maybe yeah there is um stuff i'm sure it's also a different format too like it's probably not just some like regular video stream it's probably something a little different because it has depth and all that stuff

it's not just so i i don't know i don't know for yeah i mean it should just output like a video you would think because like other people aren't going to have vision pros on the other end even if you're doing like a facetime call like that's true i don't but i don't know well well i'll try if you don't want to do it for a work thing i'll try it with you but um yeah that's i i'd be curious if the google meet app even yeah first i'd be curious if the google meet app is even on the app store for it uh but let alone if it works so yeah i feel like google would have been one of the

companies who goes through and is like just flip all of our apps to know until we know that they work exactly or just you know be spiteful yeah so everything else about the call was great audio was great it worked like google me showed me other people's video uh just this one complication so i kind of failed and it was too late before recording for me to do anything else i had all my eggs in this basket and uh it let me down all right so so far i'm winning the this week's challenge yeah but i think i'm gonna win i think i think i'm gonna win i think this week's mine

so i i brought a bunch of different things that's why i think i win um i brought some hardware stuff and some software stuff so first off um i ordered some accessories like literally right before the new iPads came out so I may have tried these for like 30 seconds but to be since like a little bit before the new iPads came out I haven't really used my Vision Pro except to watch movies and tv shows when like it's a show like the Acolyte my girlfriend did not want to watch the Acolyte so I watched it on Vision Pro by myself um but uh so I ordered a couple accessories hadn't really

used them until this week and when i really got back into vision pro the first one is air cover it's the open face system so it takes the light shield out and basically instead of having the light shield you have something that kind of just rests on your forehead so it keeps the vision pro at a proper distance but you have peripheral vision which is really interesting because you feel like you're much more in your space and not like trying to be in a separate virtual space and i kind of like this for the most part except it sort of takes away the magic of environments

and i love environments environments were the thing i think it was the most excited about when it came to vision pro because i have adhd you know i know you have adhd we've talked about it before um and i get very distracted very easily especially like when there's stuff going on around me and with environments you can spin the reality dial and you can literally change your reality change what's around you and just be focused on uh you know the work the apps in front of you and be sitting in yosemite or mount hood or bore bore with vision os2 or something it's i actually really really like them but with this you do kind of lose that because you're able to see your world in your peripheral

vision but you're you know also looking at mount hood so that's kind of weird um i don't think the air cover is going to stick around on my vision pro uh because of that very reason but i do like it if you're somebody that's not using environments that doesn't need environments i think i would go with the air cover over just using the regular light shield the other thing i the other hardware thing i have is the solo top uh accessory and this is the accessory that uh somebody made to give you

the ability to use two solo knit bands so um by default when you buy a vision pro you either get the solo knit band or the dual loop band and i right away went for the dual loop band uh when i did the demo at apple's offices back in i was like november december something like that before it launched um they immediately like they tried the solo knit band with me because it's the comfy one it's the nice one they clearly want people to do that but because i have this really stubby nose that doesn't stick out very far like if you're watching video you can see like it's it's it's really small um

vision pro with the just one solo knit band just doesn't stay on my face it kind of like it kind of like sags a little bit uh so i've been using the dual loop band and i don't mind the dual loop band i actually think it's really good because you don't have to fuss with it you can just take vision pro off and put it back on uh the straps because it uses velcro the straps always stay in the the right spot the spot for your head so you never have to adjust it every time you take it on or take it off you just leave the straps where they are and just pull it off and pull back on

um but the solo top i wanted to try because everyone's been talking about it so i ordered a second solo knit band and if you do this you need to get the size smaller than the regular solo knit band so if you're using the solo knit band for the back of your head whatever size you have if you have medium get small if you have large get medium whatever and I like this I actually think it's really comfy it's much more comfortable than the dual loop band but it is more fussy because with the solo knit bands you have the dial to tighten it so you need to loosen it and tighten it every

single time you get it on and when you pair it with the air cover getting it to be positioned just right on your face so that it's not the vision pro isn't too low or too high it takes a little bit of fiddling uh in order to get that so that's why i think with the the face shield and the solo top i think is kind of the perfect combo for me uh before i move to software do you guys have any questions on this how so the the solo tap is it is it noticeably more comfortable yes it is

noticeably yes absolutely noticeably because the solo knit bands that they're just they're they're just they have more cushion they have more padding they're just nicer the dual loop band does not look like something that was made by apple it's just like a straight velcro strap um i'm honestly kind of surprised apple put that out uh because it doesn't look like something that would come from The solo knit bands obviously look like something from Apple, but if you need that over-the-top headband, which is what you get with the solo top dual system, which is what I need because of my stubby nose, it is much more comfortable.

It's just a little more fiddly to get on and off. Okay. Nice. Yeah, I've been eyeing this because I don't find it super comfortable. I find them about equally comfortable, the dual loop and the solo knit or whatever. um so i use the knit one just because it looks a little nicer and feels like again the same to me so this idea of having two of them is a little compelling but also expensive yeah it is yeah but if it made it noticeably more comfortable that would help a little bit with my usage it is noticeably more comfortable if you're one of the i i have heard from a few people

and i've heard a few people talk about this that they primarily will do the solo knit band if they're just doing like quick interactions but if they're going to watch a movie or spend more than an hour using vision pro they'll put the dual loop band on and if you're one of those people i would just go full solo top uh and just use that a hundred percent of the time um does it feel like warmer having two solo net bands because they're noticeably bigger right they cover

a bigger area on your head yeah i don't think it's warmer i think it's um i i honestly it's more comfy to use and especially because of my stubby nose uh i it stays it fits on my face a little bit better so i think i i i don't i don't think it's warmer or anything like that um but i i would definitely um it's one of those things like i would give it a shot if you're if you're a dual loop band person i would give this system a shot because it is comfier uh yes it's more fiddly yes you have to buy a second solo nip uh band which they're like a hundred bucks which i

just looked it up a hundred yeah yeah yeah i'm rolling my eyes at the camera at that price right now but um if you're planning on using vision pro a lot and keep in mind you just spent 3500 on a computer why not make it comfy so yeah um i also have a software side to the challenge as well when i got back to vision pro so like i said i haven't used it since like a little bit before the new ipads came out and when i say it came out i mean like before they were announced because i flew to new york got review units and all that stuff so um it's even longer since their shipping

date so it's it's been a while since i really used vision pro i was expecting to go into the app store and see a lot of apps like at least ipad compatibility apps show up there but i still like my rss reader app which is reader r-e-e-d-e-r is not there raindrop.io is there alternatives to those aren't really there there are a couple but like there's not great ones there are some ipad compatibility ones like Lear is there I was just kind of disappointed that the lack of apps on

Vision Pro is still the the key thing that's holding it back um and the only way I can see Apple really getting around this is if Apple went to and I would say indie developers and been like hey here is a Vision Pro bring your app to it like make a deal with them give them a Vision Pro in exchange for bringing their popular app to it. And maybe RSS readers and stuff aren't the case, but even Apple, like Final Cut still isn't there.

I so want Final Cut to be on Vision Pro because that's the big thing holding me back from actually using this for many real work. Lightroom is there. It's the iPad version of Lightroom. It's really hard to use. It's so hard to use. It's so hard to use. you got it you i only use it with the trackpad and honestly any ipad compatible apps is hard to use with the pinch gesture because uh it's meant for physically touching the thing and dragging it and not the eye tracking and the eye tracking is where it gets off like obsidian obsidian is extremely hard to use borderline impossible yeah borderline impossible unless you're just using it

with a trackpad and keyboard and even still it's really hard the nice thing that i did notice is it looks like obsidian solved a lot of the bugs that were plaguing it when it when vision pro first came out uh like the dark room or like if you use dark mode um it would always jump back to light mode but then there's still issues like i can't get my custom fonts on vision pro so i'm stuck using like the built-in fonts and not jet brains mono um oh we're really having the same it's really going

through the ipad journey of it doesn't have all these things and we have to wait for them to come aren't they yeah yeah exactly but it's about three thousand dollars more well and and on top of that it's built on top of the ipad so that stuff is built there they just have to tweak it and make it work for vision pro but vision pro is built on top of the ipad like 100 um but uh i installed vision os2 um i love the keyboard pass through with the environment i put put the light shield back on best feature uh that is something i really like when i talked to apple about my experience using

it i was like that is the thing that kills me the most is like there's like i want to live completely in the environment when i'm working but i can't see my keyboard and i can type without looking at my keyboard but it's arranging my hands and making sure i'm in the right spot or like hitting the arrow keys or hitting like you know like needing to know where like the asterisk key is or something like that it's like stuff like that it's like those little things that you just need to be able to look at your keyboard for so that's nice it's annoying so freaking annoying

that it's only for the Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad. That drives me nuts that they will not support third-party keyboards for the pass-through or even the Quick Type bar. Like, the Quick Type bar will just pop up if you're using a hardware keyboard, but it only pins to your keyboard if you're using the Magic Keyboard. Drives me nuts. A couple other really quick things because we're going long, so I just want to jump up. A feature that I love in Vision OS 2 is if you turn off your Vision Pro where the battery dies um once you bring it back on and turn it back on and all that stuff the apps

that you had open now open back up into your same spot so much nicer such a nice feature and then the gesture to quickly open the home view and the control center view so then now there's this gesture where you can kind of bring your your pointer finger and your thumb together and you can it'll like a little circle will pop up you can click that and you can bring up the home view or you can flip your hand over it'll give like a little mini status bar you can click that and it'll bring up control center that's a really nice touch but uh yeah that's kind of yeah that's that's kind of my experience with uh what i've been doing with vision pro this week i think i win well you did

the same thing that neilion did last time which was not follow the rules the challenge is very clearly do something with vision pro i did do something i did a lot of some things you did some things oh boo that's semantics you can always go you can always do extra credit oh my goodness all right well every every week i am i am losing and i never see it coming i mean i love that the rules are nowhere to be seen exactly we're making them up as we go declaring ourselves the winner like we're like somebody else uh anyways moving on quickly

moving on neilion it's your week to challenge us what do you have for us yeah so i've had this idea for a few weeks i'm happy that's finally my turn um this week i want you to dig up an old piece of and try to revive it. Oh, I love this. Love this. Okay. I have an idea in mind. I can't wait to see yours. Me too.

I have a very me idea in mind. But I don't know if it still works. So we'll be trying it out. The key word is try to revive it. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. It's going to be a story for the show. How old does it have to be? I think it's okay if it's not that old. I don't know. Three years old? Wait, what? Are you going to dig up the AirPods Max?

Yes. No. I would say five. Five are older, right? Yeah. Three seems a little too recent. Three seems a bit too recent. What would you say the age range Needs to be then I think you were right I think older than 5 years old Works Alright that's doable And we're all just bringing one thing right No funny business Where Chris brings like 7 different

Old things attack I have no idea what you're talking about I have zero idea what you're talking about I'm in it to win it Now that this is a competition I'm here to win I don't have the killer instinct for this podcast second place is first loser just saying what's third place second loser oh no but uh yeah so that's it for this week I'm I'm very excited for next week because I have some ideas uh but we we kind of started something last week and we had an interesting

suggestion for for doing dating questions at the end of the episode and we got a great app recommendation so I have a question for you two to wrap up the show if you could have an ai assistant what personality would you want it to have i think i'd want it to be angry all the time matt i think i would want it to be oh i don't know can i opt out no you have to okay

I I I my thought was okay first British butler like you want like a proper British butler like you know stereotypical Alfred from Batman but I do like Neely on suggestion of like just constantly being angry at you yeah like why didn't you get this done today I wanted to be angry at the news all the time I wanted to give me the news and i was thinking i was thinking like angry at myself like like why didn't you do all of your tasks today like why didn't you finish that video you were like hey hey assistant tell me the news

and it's like oh you would not believe what is happening yes yes exactly i love that okay all right man you got to give us an answer we can't hang up i want my assistant to be frustratingly vague with me at all times i wanted to always kind of tell me what's on my to-do list and to imply when my meeting is but not actually tell me oh that'd be great i guess something coming up on the calendar yeah what is it oh i'm sorry what's what's what did you say i have no idea that's that's what

i want i want to be frustrated by it oh i have a bad answer i want i want it to be janet from the good place oh that's good too you know i've never finished the good place i got through i've gotten through season one twice and i just i've never finished it i need i need to watch it oh you really should yeah i know i know it was so close to winning this week no no no this is outside of the challenge no we can't know because then we're just gonna like start doing like well i hung out with Tim Cook this week.

Anyway, thank you all so much for listening. If you're interested in where you can find our work and stuff like that, it's in the show notes of your podcast or the description on YouTube because there is also a video version of this podcast. Our thanks to Max Stories for hosting us. We are a MacStories podcast after all. Neilion, say goodbye. Bye. Matt, say goodbye. Ciao. And I'll see you all next time. Have a good week.