Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast - The Next iPhone and Pixel BOTH Leaked!

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

This week, Marques, David, and Andrew play Headlines in a Hat! There were so many unrelated news stories that we decided to put them all in a hat and pick them at random to discuss. Topics range from the new iPhone and Pixel leaks to cryptic Rivian teasers and even YouTube-viewing habits. Lastly, we talk about tech that we miss. Of course, we wrap it all up with trivia! Enjoy. Links: Home gym video playing Waveform YouTube viewership grows on TV CEO Boom XB-1 Pixel 9a Leaks PhoneArena Spigen pictures of iPhone Music provided by Epidemic Sound  Shop the merch: https://shop.mkbhd.com Socials: Waveform: https://www.threads.net/@waveformpodcast Marques: https://www.threads.net/@mkbhd Andrew: https://www.threads.net/@andrew_manganelli David Imel: https://www.threads.net/@davidimel Adam: https://www.threads.net/@parmesanpapi17 Ellis: https://twitter.com/EllisRovin TikTok:  https://www.tiktok.com/@waveformpodcast Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/mkbhd Music by 20syl: https://bit.ly/2S53xlC Waveform is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When you sit on your aeroplan points, it's like you're sitting on your next trip, like a sunny getaway by the sea. But instead you're sitting on your aeroplan points. So the only sea you get to sit in is a sea of traffic. Use your points and go from smelling your ocean breeze air freshener to smelling the ocean breeze. So stop sitting on your next trip and start enjoying your aeroplan points. Does human nature push us toward freedom or control? You know, what is really universal is people don't like living under dictatorships. I'm Preet Bharara, and this week week political scientist and philosopher Francis Fukuyama

joins me on my podcast, Stay Tuned with Preet to discuss the evolution of liberal democracies and what's going on with ours. The episode is out now. Search and follow Stay Tuned with Preet wherever you get your podcasts. The How Do You Train Your Dragon movie just looks like an animated movie. That's what's weird about it. The How Do You Train Your Dragon movie just looks like an animated movie. That's what's weird about it. But I guess that's what's kind of cool is like, it'll feel super on brand because it's

already like that. Well Toothless looks exactly the same. Just with like RTX on. Yeah. Yo, what is up people of the internet? RTX on. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. What is up people of the internet. Welcome back to another episode of the waveform podcast. We're your hosts. I'm Marques. I'm Andrew. And I'm David. Whoa.

All of us. Oh. Well we were all here. Because Ellis is back. Oh yeah. I'm chewing. Why'd you have to do it right now? We're all back and there's been a lot of stuff

that's kind of all over the map, sort of unrelated stuff. So what we're gonna do is exactly what you think we're gonna do with a whole bunch of unrelated stuff, headlines and a hat. We're just gonna talk about that stuff because we have opinions and thoughts and hot takes about all of them. The waveform Slack, which is where we all post things

over the week, just felt like it non-stop for like the last seven days It's just like leaks and rumors and teasers and all sorts of little small things that we will all cover today and then we're gonna end with a Valentine's themed game that Adam where we all kiss for all you How'd you know I'm also realizing, state of the end. I'm also realizing it's headlamp's in a hat and Andrew, you're the only one with a hat. I am the only one with a hat.

So I think we have to use your hat. We do, but there is one thing I want to talk about before the hat. Okay. Which is every year around this time, we talk about things that happened at the Super Bowl because there's usually a lot of tech commercials at the Super Bowl. True. I found almost nothing interesting at the Super Bowl. True. I found almost nothing interesting at the Super Bowl this year,

except for two small things that I want to bring up. And if anyone has anything else, the commercials were more boring than last year. Yeah, I heard they were kind of bad. It was pretty crazy that OpenAI used Sora to generate their commercial though. Did they really? No, it was made by a guy.

Wow. In After Effects. Nice. Okay, so the two things that I noticed, the scoreboard design was atrocious. It was atrocious? It was awful. It was polarizing. I saw a lot of people saying it was great.

I didn't see a single person saying it was great. I thought it was perfectly fine. Really? That's where I landed. It was definitely fine. It wasn't terrible. Wait, why was it atrocious? It was big.

It felt so, like, there's a point of minimalism where it just feels unfinished, and that's what I, I thought at points I was gonna see the, like, PNG checkered background behind it, like they had forgotten to actually, like, export it correctly. I think that looks cool. No, it's good.

No, it's not that. So they had a very subtle dark gradient background behind it. A little dark. Yes. Yeah. It's just two boxes that say KC, PHI. I love that. I think it's so boring. What I don't like is that the scores are inverted, depending on what side you're looking at. So it's kind of confusing to know how many points Philadelphia has. What do you mean? Like it's like something inside. They put the score on the right for Kansas City

and on the left for Philadelphia. If you watch the game, it wasn't confusing to know how many points Philadelphia has. Yeah. It's very clear. Go birds! Right. I think it's fine.

Okay, maybe I would like to hear what people think in the comments. I thought it just felt super boring, because there's so many other good animations and design throughout the game, I think it's fine. Okay, maybe I would like to hear what people think in the comments. I thought it just felt super boring because there's so many other good animations and designs throughout the game. Like at the desk they sat at, they had these really beautiful,

there are logos that had sparkles and things going on behind it. Oh, you wanted the logos. I wanted anything. Something. Something, it just felt so boring. What if we tried to make these two teams look as similar as possible?

Like where's the fun in that? It just felt weird. One is red and one is green. Oh. Okay, my second one, one commercial that I will talk about was the Gemini ad, which was if you remember, so it's essentially a man standing in his kitchen using Gemini to like practice for a job interview that he has coming up.

And it asks him the question of like, what is a previous job and how did you feel successful in that and what he winds up describing is him being a dad and kind of like in job terms all these ways of like, he worked with a small team and he worked long hours and all this stuff. It was really adorable. What?

He found product market fit with his newborn. He really learned how to raise investor capital with his daughter. Investor capital is his daughter's name. But maybe as a dad, it felt really nice to me. I thought it was well done, but I can't help but think it's the culmination of learnings from their Olympic ad, which was the exact opposite of like,

I have a daughter who wants to write a letter, but I don't feel like writing it with her. Gemini, can you do it instead? Which they then pulled off the air. They took that down, yeah. There's a lot of pushback on it. Yeah, I think they went from going, let's do something very emotional that people will like

to let's do something practical like a job interview. But they, no, do something very emotional that people will like to, let's do something practical like a job interview. But they, no, it was more emotional. Yeah, but the thing itself that he was using it for was a job interview. That's a good point. The actual task was not like, help me raise my kids. Yeah, that's a very fair point.

Let me do a task. Yeah. So I thought it was really good. I thought it was probably the best ad outside of like the Nike ad, but after that, I can't think of, I think there was a Tim Robinson one later, but I had stopped watching at that point. That was really good. I thought it was probably the best ad outside of like the Nike ad, but after that, I can't think of, I think there was a Tim Robinson one later but I had stopped watching at that point.

I think I saw parts of it online because Tim Robinson can make anything funny, but. The Google commercial made me think of this comic that was getting like passed around Reddit and Twitter and Blue Sky and all that stuff by Tom Fishburne. It's two panels. And the first panel is this guy sitting in front of a computer and he says,

AI turns this single bullet point into a long email I can pretend I wrote. And then the second panel is a different guy in a different computer. And she says, AI makes a single bullet point out of this long email that I can pretend I read. Yeah. That's pretty awesome.

They should have just posted that for the Super Bowl ad. That would have worked pretty well. Honesty sells. No, it doesn't. Today is also a special day. Today is Valentine's Day 2025. By the time you're listening to this, it's coming out on Friday, Valentine's Day 2025,

which means that it is YouTube's 20th birthday. It also means if you're listening to this that it is YouTube's 20th birthday. It also means if you're listening to this at 5 a.m. on your commute and audio wise, you still have time to stop and get a card and flowers for whoever you forgot about. You're welcome. Go get that done. But I figured in honor of YouTube's 20th birthday,

and I've talked about YouTube a lot on this podcast, usually pretty positively. They're very stable, long-lasting social networks. But this time. No, so this time, they're not perfect, obviously, but I figured I would give you guys some things that are younger than YouTube. So these are all things that didn't exist

when YouTube was founded. You might have already heard the story. YouTube was originally a dating website. It was founded so that you could upload videos of yourself as part of the experience. Online dating. Very interesting. Anyway, things that were not around when YouTube started Valentine's Day. Twenty twenty twenty two thousand five when it started. Vine. Tick tock.

That one's pretty obvious. Instagram. Yeah. TikTok. That one's pretty obvious. Instagram. Yeah. Reddit. Snapchat. Zoom. The iPhone. And everything that came from that,

the App Store, the iPad, all that stuff. WhatsApp. Uber. Airbnb. I think the most surprising one is the iPhone and Reddit just feels like the internet. Or they used to feel like the internet, now it feels like hot garbage.

But that one surprises me the most. A lot of the- Reddit? Yeah. What? You think Reddit surprises you the most? Yeah, I think so. I remember when it came out and I was like, this is sick.

I don't remember when it came out. I remember when I started using it and my friend that got me into it. There's a lot of social networks that started in 2003, 2004, 2005, that was right around that boom when a lot of them first, the mega sites got made. Gmail came up around then, Facebook. But yeah, YouTube's still around,

arguably at the peak of its power still, 20 years later, if it was a person to be old enough to vote. It's pretty sick. If there's, I need something in there that's like a staple food item, or like, I need a- That didn't exist? Yeah, that didn't exist. Bread.

Prime. I don't have any food, but I have a few more to add to this, so I think I'm pretty good. Yeah. Spotify. Yeah. The Nintendo Wii. Oh, wow.

It's older than the Wii. And, get this. So is the YouTube app. Blu-ray discs. Oh, yeah, damn. Blu-ray discs were not around. They came out the year after YouTube. Yeah. And they've already gone to the not around. They came out the year after YouTube. Yeah.

And they've already gone to the wasteland. Oh, I have another one. Windows Vista. Yeah, because I remember I had XP and I was doing tutorials on how to make your XP computer look like it ran Windows Vista without actually running Windows Vista. Nice.

Because Vista was bad. Yeah, this is. One more. The news feed on Facebook. Oh yeah. I forgot they didn't have that at first. OG Facebook was a wild place. Yeah.

I wasn't there. Walls were arguably the most confusing. If you pitched how old Facebook works now, you'd get nowhere, because it made no sense at all. Yeah. That's YouTube's 20th birthday. It is one of the headlines currently in my hat, So we'll skip that one when it comes out. Oh, sure

But who would like to pick the first headline? Where's where are the headlines there in my hat? How do I get? I'll take it Wow Joe dirt with the Joe dirtirt. I'll take it. Joe Dirt with a Joe Dirt base. Wait, what? Who's Joe Dirt? Joe Dart. Wait, what?

I don't get that reference. Who is Joe Dirt? He has a hat glued to his head. Joe Dirt's this crappy movie with David Spade where when he's a kid, he has a head injury and they put this mullet wig on him and it fuses to his head. So for the rest of his life, he has a mullet because it like fuses to his head. So for the rest of his life he has a mullet

cause it's fused to his head. That is a bad movie plot. That's not the whole plot. It's pretty much the plot actually, just kidding. So Andrew unfortunately, I got YouTube on TV. I already put the hat back. Perfect.

No, no, no, that's right. That's a different one. That's a different one. Cool. Okay. So the CEO of YouTube put out this sort of annual, I guess it's annual, a letter to creators where they talk about what they're doing,

what they're hopefully focusing on going forward, and we couldn't help but notice that there was a solid focus on YouTube on TV, how YouTube is growing on TVs, how it's actually surpassed mobile. So there's more YouTube viewership on TVs than on smartphones, which is pretty crazy, but then I went and looked it up, and this is obviously dependent on the audience

and where people are watching, what type of stuff they're watching. To me, someone who does not watch any YouTube on TVs, I thought this was fascinating. I always hear about the living room experience, YouTube taking over the living room, and this is very interesting to me. So I went and looked up the MKBHD channel demographics.

45% mobile phone, 27.5% computer, 18.5% TV, 8% tablet. So almost 20% of you watch MKBHD videos, not the podcast, but MKBHD. It's almost exactly the same. It's 21% for the podcast. Okay, so about a fifth of you watch this on TVs. Oh.

I think that was about what I thought, maybe a little higher than what I expected, but then I went and pulled on Twitter, just curiously, and asked, do you actually watch YouTube on TV? And the three options I gave were all the time, sometimes, or rarely slash never. And it was almost an even split. It was almost an even split between,

yeah, all the time, what are you talking about? I love watching YouTube on TV. A lot of people's replies were, yeah, I almost always watch YouTube on a TV. And then a lot of other replies were, including me, I can't remember the last time I put a YouTube video on a TV. Can I make an analogy with a hard enough cut

so where Adam might be able to edit this part out? Yes. You discovering that people watch YouTube on TV this often is like, have you ever seen when two people talk about going to the bathroom and they're like, you stand up to wipe, you sit down to wipe and both people are amazed that the other option exists.

People stand up to wipe? No way. That is like, are you kidding me? Welcome to the Waveform Poopcast. That is so disgusting. That is so gross. Who does that? Or like, de-wash your legs, people.

Like, it's always shocked. Wash your legs? People are shocked, yeah, see, people are like, like do you wash your legs and half people are like wait? No, of course the water runs down exactly that's half the people and the other half of people are like no you wash Obviously you wash your legs. So there's two halves you Realizing that people watch on their TV often to me and I saw Ellis's face before when you mentioned this like zero I watched so much of my YouTube on TV. I would argue outside of work

or when I just happen to try and listen to YouTube videos as a podcast in my car, I'd say 90% of the YouTube I watch is on TV. So describe, so you get home, it's the living room TV, you pop up on the couch and you grab that remote and you start typing with that arrow key. I mean, do you, every time you go and watch YouTube video, do you type in the search bar?

Actually, that's fair, I can just be home. So homepage. So like so much of his homepage, subscription page, recommended afterwards, when you do have to do that, it is a pain. I think there's a lot of UI changes that could be way better. I usually don't type, you can talk on your remote. And it does a pretty good job voice recognition,

but I saw this great video the other day that I feel like kind of talks to this where it's like, finally got home so I can turn on the big screen while I scroll my little screen as reward for looking at the medium screen all day. But yeah, I do it all the time. That way I can look at my phone and do stuff.

I can have stuff up on the background or just like I have a nice TV. I know you have a nice TV. Yeah. Like I wanna watch. Oh, I agree. I mean, so I have a lot of home iPad YouTube use. Actually, honestly, my iPad is 50% a YouTube machine.

Wow. Wait, real quick, how iPad is 50% a YouTube machine. Wow. Wait, how, real quick, how often do you watch YouTube on your TV? So I have a projector, I don't have a TV. Let's count that as a TV. Sure. Hey.

Alice. Okay. You have a projector running Android TV. Yeah. Yeah, so that'll show up in analytics as a TV. Yeah, I watch almost exclusively YouTube on it. So, and I watch probably more YouTube on that than I do on my phone.

Aren't you also a 2X person? Yes. So you're, you're sitting back. I guess I watch it on my computer a lot too. I will say my phone YouTube usage is not that high unless I'm like on the subway or something or on an airplane. Yeah, same. What about you two? Buh. I'm like on the subway or something or on an airplane. Yeah, same.

What about you two? I'm the same as David. I pretty much exclusively watch YouTube on my TV. So much so, and this is a little embarrassing, but I have been known to watch shorts on my TV. It's a little embarrassing. It's not, I'm not saying, I'm. It's a little in there, I think? It's not. There's a shorts carousel on it? I'm not saying I'm just sitting there, but you know.

What are you doing? You have to. It's just one short flying over. If I go on the homepage, and you know a short thumbnail catches my eye. Oh boy. Sometimes I'll click it. Is there a shorts carousel in the YouTube TV app?

Yeah. It's harder to get to, I think. You sit there, and you feel like you're one of the guys in WALL-E, you just in the YouTube TV. It's harder to get to I think. And you feel like you're one of the guys in WALL-E. You just point the remote TV and down arrow, down arrow. Down arrow. Yeah, that is a lot. Okay, Adam.

It's an experience. I was looking through my YouTube just now to see if it gave me this information, which it does not and I wish it did. But I feel like I rarely watch YouTube on my phone anymore. It's mostly on TV or computer. Those are the two that I'm split between. Yeah.

I would say I think our audience is skewed. I'm sure a lot of our audience watches on phones versus TV because we're like such a phone focused channel. Yes. I also am surprised, one thing I don't watch on TV is podcasts. I'm surprised we have- I would think that would be the thing you watch the most.

Really? How many feet is your TV from your sink? I was- It's nowhere close. From the sink? I was just gonna ask everyone who- Oh, big, big Rockefeller over here. I was gonna ask everyone who watches YouTube on the TV

or a projector, how far away are you sitting from the screen 10 feet pretty close? I have a pretty solid I have a solid living room. So it's like across the room It's a feel like if it's a big nice TV like I when I'm I guess I'm the only one when I'm watching on my iPad That's the big nice screen in front of me and it's close enough to me that I can see and appreciate little details. I'm watching reviews, I'm watching car videos, tutorials, random how-to, that home gym build I sent you guys the other day.

I want to- Shout out that channel, because he was listening to Waveform on his TV in the video. I watched a home gym video. We'll link in the show notes, and if you look in the background long enough, you'll see a clip of the waveform podcast. So that was sick

But that's like me going watch in 4k and like full screen and like that's me enjoying a high-res Why not do that on a TV because the TV is too far away. What is your what? Okay for me to experience like by the time it's 10 15 feet away. It's small again Sounds like you need a bigger TV or a smaller living room. Just grabbing optics. Yeah. So your iPad is something it isn't. I got the food in front of me and then the,

I'm the iPad kid, it's like right there. Wait, even when you're eating and watching YouTube on the TV is like, my food will go cold sometimes. So I'm trying to figure out what I'm watching but it's bad But I was the best way to do it that because like longer form content is like much more popular now than it used to Be and is kind of the meta on YouTube that probably correlates with TV usage going higher because most of the content that I watch on my TV is like 25 minute videos about city development.

I think that's a sweet spot for TV. Because I think there's like hour long podcasts that people throw on in their car and like mostly listen to it. And I think there are short videos of people scroll vertically on their phone. But I think for like a 20 minute meal time video, like the meal time subreddit meal videos.

Meal time videos. Meal time videos. What? 25 minute videos. Wait, can you guys send that to me later? I need that. It's literally just like, I'm about to sit down and eat. Let me watch a video that's about the length of it.

I put that on my TV. A meal. Yeah, yeah, interesting. Okay. Well, there you go. I agree with you on the longer form stuff. I think I've gotten like really into, I watched like video game things,

whether it was like the making of the Lego Island game a long time ago, there's a documentary on YouTube about that. It's really good. And there's another one about Simpsons Hit and Run speed run records, which was really awesome. That's the kind of stuff. And that means I can scroll on my phone at other times.

You're also on your phone. Also right now it means I can like, if Lane's off to the side playing with something else, I'm not like right in on my phone. You play Pokemon TCG while you're Open documentary. I learned a lot today. Hmm. Oh wait, I want to issue a challenge before this. Okay Do back up until next podcast. Mm-hmm. If you are in your living room. Mm-hmm And no one else is using the TV. You have to watch any YouTube you want to watch on the TV Okay, yeah, I mean, okay just like experience just experience yeah, I'll play with the app look honestly anytime

I use that app which is a few and far between it's not very good Like in order to change resolution, which I habitually do every time I watch a video to max it out It's a bunch of clicks. Yeah versus a Mobile experience in their defense. It's also a bunch of clicks on mobile You have to like click the little gear additional settings when you yeah, but it's all right there in front of me I'm just poking it versus like going on a remote. Anyway, I'll do it do it I want to hear next week. What'd you think about it? I don't spend a lot of time in the living room

But if I if I do find myself there and I was gonna watch it on the iPad, I will watch it on the TV. I feel like watching YouTube on mobile is such like an active experience, versus- Cause you're holding it. Cause you're holding it, or like it's right in front of you,

like you can't do anything else, versus I feel like when I watch a lot of YouTube, I'm kind of like relaxing. So I'm lounging, I'm kicking back on the couch, and that's when I put on YouTube on the TV. Yeah, I heard somebody describe it recently as sit back versus sit forward viewing.

Like lean back. Oh, I'm laying all the way down with a blanket on. I am a on the couch blanket kind of guy. I think the TV watching is mostly laying back, and I think that's also what the iPad is for me. But I think the lean forward computer TV, or computer or smartphone experience is different. And that's all I really have locked down.

You know what's interesting about this? I just want you to relax, man. I feel like a couple years ago, I remember listening to someone at, I think Reed Hastings at Netflix, someone like that, say like their main competitor is YouTube. Yeah. And I remember like hearing that and be like, okay,

like what are you talking about? But I kind of see it now. Because it's an attention economy. Neil says in here for the last two years, they're the most watched streaming service. Yeah, that's crazy. On TVs. That's the thing, YouTube, and we'll end on this,

YouTube is so massive, they are both the number one watched streaming service and the number one podcast player. Which is why Netflix is exploring adding podcasts. It's true. Yeah. Do you think they're going to compete with YouTube podcast? They're going to try.

They don't have an explore engine quite like YouTube yet. No, but I bet you they're going to try to do what Spotify did getting like Joe Rogan exclusively. They'll probably try to get a video podcast exclusively. I'm not going to like sit down for a commute and open a Netflix app for podcasts. People do it for the games. People play the Netflix games. They actually. I know they do, but I refuse to believe it.

I agree with you. Apparently the YouTube games are also popular. I do see them when I scroll. I've scrolled past them every single time. I've never clicked on it. They get horrible. But I see them. No, whoa, they're pretty good.

You should play them. Oh my God. All right, next headline. Okay. Also sorry, I keep putting the hat back on, but I have're pretty good. You should play them. Oh my God. All right, next headline. Okay. Also, sorry, I keep putting the hat back on, but I have some pretty brutal hat hair and it needs to go back on. This headline's a hat.

We gotta pick another headline. Next headline. Uh-oh. The Pixel 9a is leaked a little bit. Now, usually pixels don't leak. A little bit. So this is kind of rare. It's a new experience.

Yeah, this never happens. No, there's a couple colors, the Pixel 9a. I guess we are expecting to see this come out around Google I.O., which is May. Did they just say the date? This rumor says March. Oh, because the A series? And they just announced the Google I.O. date

as May 20th, right? Oh, so maybe before I.O. Cool. Well, yeah, in that case, we see see the rumors it looks like it's mostly flat I don't know if you guys remember the essential phone, but it's giving me a central Oh, yeah, yeah Good vibes to have in terms of look essential phone was a huge battery. Thanks for clarifying Says the the rumors a 5100 million power battery. Do you want me just run through all the rumors?

I gathered up really quick? Sure. Okay, again, rumored by multiple different places. So the potential for anything here to change is very high. But yeah, four colors, which are black, white, pink, purple, essentially zero camera bump. There is a little tiny camera bump, but it is essentially flat, two cameras.

What I have, the side rails are flat and it matches colors. Yeah. Sorry, you guys are. I just showed Ellis the picture of the purple one and he's freaking out. It looks very similar to the iPhone Mini that Ellis has. All right, okay, spec rumors, 48 megapixel main camera, 13 megapixel ultra wide, 13 megapixel selfie camera,

5100 milliamp hour battery, potentially 499 for the 120 gig model, 599 for the 256 gig model, six point inch, six point three inch screen, 120 hertz refresh rate, Tensor G4, eight gigs of RAM. So they did the thing that everyone's been asking for. They just made the phone thicker, put a bigger battery in, and now there's no camera bump. Ta-da, it's what we've been asking for.

Allegedly. Allegedly. Allegedly, but that seems like, I mean, an easy way to be a crowd favorite. 499, 120 hertz, still not tiny, 6.3 inch screen, but you know, people want big phones, so. Big battery. Yeah. I'm not mad., so. Big battery. Yeah.

I'm not mad. I think it looks cool. Yeah. I think it looks good. So are we in the position again where it's like, why would you buy the Pixel 9? Just like we were last year when it was, why would you buy the Pixel 8 when the 8A is-

Well, how much can you buy a Pixel 9 for right now? I guess- That's a valid point. Probably the same price? The difference would be maybe some camera stuff. They both have the Tensor G4, right? They're gonna have different cameras. They're both gonna be 120 hertz.

They're gonna be similar screen sizes. Pixel 9 128 right now is 649 on the Google store. But there's a President's Day sale going on as well. The Pixel 9 battery is also only 4,700 milliamp hours while the Pixel, rumored 9a is 5,100. So this is probably gonna be a pretty sick battery if it does end up being this. And correct me if I'm wrong, Pixel 9, triple cameras?

Double. Only dual? Okay, so they're both dual cameras and an ultra wide. Yeah, great. Yeah, okay. It's 640, this Pixel 9 is great. Yeah. Okay. It's 640 This pixel 9 is currently 649 on Amazon. It's a hundred and fifty dollars off I have a hot take so if this pixel 9a ends up being even halfway decent is this phone of the year?

It's definitely made a choice that Qualifies it for fun of the year, which is like that thing. We've all been asking for just make a thicker phone Yeah, like what if it lasts like three days, but it's February. It'd be awesome. It is, it is early, but I mean, it's never too early to start. It's like, it's 24 ultra one, right? First three games of the NBA season, we've got like an MVP ladder of like, who's the MVP this season. It's been three games. We have no idea. But I think, in our way too soon power rankings a phone of the year Technically one plus 13 came out last year. Yeah, so it doesn't qualify but it kind of set the tone

but this would be like be like Lucas got a chance of winning MVP because he he might scores. I don't even know how much is a lot of Like yeah, these are rumors. It doesn't even exist. He's saying if it does come out like It would be a it would that would qualify., yeah, it doesn't exist. Like, these aren't rumors, it doesn't even exist yet. But he's saying if it does come out like this, it would be a, it would, yeah, it would qualify. Luca also wasn't the affordable option. So, well, they got a hell of a deal, so I guess they kind of was. They had a good trade-in deal for Luca. Yeah, a good trade-in deal, exactly.

That's fair. All right. I like it. Next headline. That's the 20th birthday one. So I'll throw that out. Rivian teasers. I remember my 20th birthday. Rivian teasers. Yes, so Rivian tweeted out yesterday, I believe.

So this is also kind of rumors. Yeah, it's just a tweet that says, February 19th, sign up for updates and four photos. The four photos are sand with tire marks in it. A sand dune with what feels like spikes coming out of it. A black and white photo of essentially like the bottom of a Rivian driving through the sand. And then the last one is a view through a gear tunnel

to see sand dunes. This is either one of two things. One, it's either a crazy unannounced new vehicle, like an R2T, or it's an extremely underwhelming like random like desert drive event that you can attend. Oh, I was gonna say, sorry. Don't they have a soft sand drive mode on the R1T? So what if they're just releasing

like a hard sand drive mode? That R1T? So what if they're just releasing like a hard sand drive mode? That would be even more underwhelming. Yeah. Here's my underwhelming guess, which is some addition to the Rivian Adventure Network or Rivian Waypoint charging system that's in a national park that has to do with Sand Dunes. So maybe like, or Great Sand Dunes National Park.

Because they have one in Yosemite already, they had a cool announcement for it. They hyped it up a lot that like, Rivian's whole vibe is kind of like, being able to adventure more. They wanted to add more to national parks because those are harder places to get an EV to, because of lack of charging stations.

So I wonder if this is gonna be an addition to a national park that has sand dunes. Yeah, I'm like, I'm trying to read, just like how we like look at Apple event invites and like read way too far into it. This is four images. So I'm going to overanalyze to the max, the four images, right?

First of all, if you click the link and it says sign up for updates, if you click the link, it says sign up for updates on upcoming product launches, special events and what's next for Rivian. So this is either a upcoming product launches, special events, and what's next for Rivian. So this is either a product launch, a special event, or what's next for Rivian, right? The fourth photo is a gear tunnel.

So this will, in some way, involve a pickup truck. Not the R2, not the R3. It has to be either R1T or some other pickup truck, right? All four photos have sand in them. So the theme here is clearly the desert and the sand and something with this environment. And I think that's as far as you can go, which means it's either one, a special event

where you can drive them on sand, or two, a new product that specifically involves driving on sand, which seems unlikely. So I'm gonna go with special event. I have another theory. The only photo in which they actually show any of the body of the car is in black and white. So what if it's just a special color, like a sand color?

The other question was, is this just them re-announcing the quad motor Rivian, like the R1T quad, which is the only one that you can get with the blue colored brakes, I believe. They have the yellow accent on the launch edition and the blue accent on the quad. So maybe it was black and white to hide the blue.

But the brakes aren't shown in the photo. That's true. Just the body. Can I give you why I think it's a charging network? A charging network, yeah. Based on the photos. Photo one, tire marks in the sand. Being able to drive towards the sand,

which could be a great sand dunes national park. Chicks out, okay. Gear tunnel, looking at this. I mean, most of this has to do with like, look, there are the sand dunes. You can go to this place. It's generally outside of it. The photo with the spikes popping up

and the shadows, those are charging stations rising from the sands. There's no scale to this photo. There is no scale to this photo. Those are charging stations rising from the sands to introduce the new charging network place. That sounds- Well, I mean, we're being a little abstract here.

Oh, okay. I thought this was just them announcing that the next Dune movie will have a Rivian. All I'm saying is that they don't have a sand colored Rivian currently. So I bet you they're probably gonna announce a sand colored Rivian. A khaki Rivian would be pretty sweet. I'd be into that. I want it to be R2D. I want it to be the maverick. It won't be. Rivian. We should place bets, but there's just no way. Sand color. I'm going with either special event or sand mode. Sand mode? Yeah. Like the hard sand mode. Sand mode. This is too much of an announcement for sand mode, I think. No, they would do that. But is it too much? There's only like four modes.

Yeah. I think that's more visually pleasing than sand mode. I think the tire tracks implies more than a color. So it's something to do with driving in the sand. It's either the quad or driving in the sand event or or a sand mode. That's all you got. So you're saying sand mode, David, you're saying sand color. Yeah. Andrew, what are you saying? Rivian, what is it called?

Rivian Adventure Network? Or they're not all, because technically the one in Yosemite isn't Rivian Adventure Network. It's just a Rivian Waypoint, but charging system inside of some popular. Charger. Like sand-based national park.

I actually could see it being quad, because quad on the buy page is the only one that's coming 2025. Yeah, quad's not technically- It could very well be quad motor. Yeah, and they're just saying you need the quad motor to drive through sand for some reason. Yeah, maybe the quad motor launches with sand mode.

Maybe that's what it is. And you can experience the drive in this national park where we're also launching a new charger. Boom, we all got it right. You're right. You know what? It's probably that. It's probably...

I don't think they're launching the charger, but we'll see. We'll see. Well, we should take a quick break. We got way more headlines in Andrew's head, believe it or not. But before we get there, trivia time. ["Sweet Homework"]

Wow. I haven't spoken in three weeks since that is the audio equivalent of knocking the rust off. I'm back everybody. Alice has severance but for for waveform missed me. So before we get into trivia, we wanted to give a quick shout out this week to our friends at Retrospect because someone put in the Slack yesterday

that Urban Outfitters is selling iPods, real iPods, and we were like, what the heck? And then it turns out they were refurbished by Retrospect. It was like first gen iPod Nano, or no, iPod Shuffle and iPod Nano. no iPod shuffle and iPod Nano. No, it was the mini. Mini. Yeah.

They're not new, right? They're like refurbished. They're refurbished, yeah. They probably, I don't want to say anything without knowing, but I would imagine they have a new battery and potentially a new hard drive. I don't know. I haven't looked it up.

What I looked in there is retrospect sells like a hundred things on Urban Outfitters. Oh. Like like a hundred things on Urban Outfitters. Oh. Like almost their whole inventory on Urban Outfitters. Or like Retro Outfitters, am I right? Go Retrospect. Anyway. It comes with a 30 pin cable and the OG ear pods.

There's a. What? Yeah. There's a craplet of Retrospect stuff on here. They rule. That was awesome. Cool. All right, trivia. I missed a few weeks, I was on vacation,

but I wanted to come back with a classic Ellis banger question. So tell me guys, which of the following companies is not real? And instead of giving you a description of what they do, I'm just going to read you the company's Twitter bio. These are all tech companies. A, Scewo, sell subscriptions without ripping your hair out.

B, Fruit, F-R-O-O-T, Swift conversion, automate legacy migration ship faster See keek Keak keek we are automating conversion rate optimization or D Coho giving Canadians the tools and knowledge to make their money grow. I Made up one of those made up one of those ski. Oh fruit keek or coho Kiki just watch it on him Lee. Yeah What about do do?

Woofoo you watch do do standing up now. What's on PP? Okay. I think that's our Take a break answers will be at the end like usual, we'll be right back. So, so so so so so so so so so

so so so so so Support for waveform comes from Hostinger. Making your presence felt on the internet can be a challenge. Sure, you can try to make all the viral TikTok videos

you want, but if you want to have a place where people can interact with you and be able to check out your product directly, you need a sort of home base. And not just one of those cookie cutter ones that you've all gotten used to, this is your brand, your aesthetic, and your footprint on the internet. So that's why you might want to check out

what you can make with Hostinger. Whether you're looking to create a website or an online store, you can do it using Hostinger AI website builder. Just describe your site, name it, and get a personalized site in seconds. And we're not just talking about design. Like you'll have the ability to generate content

that matches your style and tone and tailor it to the length and topic that you choose. And you'll be able to launch your business with a free domain and professional email included with your plan for the price of a cup of coffee. Plus, Hostsinger provides you with intuitive tools that anyone can use and 24 seven support if you get stuck. Take your big idea online today with Hostsinger.

Head to hostsinger.com slash waveform and start your website today. Use code waveform for an extra 10% off. Support for waveform comes from Coda. So imagine this, you're starting a new project at work and your vision is clear. Not only do you know exactly who's doing what, but you also know exactly where to find the data you need

to do your part. In fact, you don't have to waste time searching for anything and neither do your coworkers because everything your team needs from project trackers and OKRs to documents and spreadsheets all lives in one tab, all in Coda. So with Coda's collaborative all in one workspace, you get the flexibility of docs, the structure of spreadsheets,

the power of applications and the intelligence of AI in one easy to organize tab. That means one organized workflow without the daily scramble to figure out who's doing what or where that important piece of data is hidden. Coda connects tools and teams so that you spend less time switching gears. More than 50,000 teams trust Coda

to keep them more aligned and focused. So to try it for yourself, go to coda.io slash wave today and get started for free. That's C-O-D-A dot I-O slash wave to get started for free. That's coda.io slash wave to get started for free. Coda.io slash wave. This is an ad from BetterHelp Online Therapy. We always hear about the red flags to avoid in relationships, but it's just as important

to focus on the green flags. If you're not quite sure what they look like, therapy can help you identify those qualities so you can embody the green flag energy and find it in others. BetterHelp offers therapy 100% online and sign up only takes a few minutes. Visit betterhelp.com today to get 10% off your first month.

That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P.com. All right, welcome back to Headlines in a Hat. We've got more headlines in Andrew's hat. They could say anything. They're from the past week. David, fire away. Here we go. Are you ready?

Yeah. Power Beats Pro 2. I keep forgetting to write the actual headline. I just write what we're gonna talk about. So maybe I should fix that next time, but. Apple announces Powerbeats Pro 2. Thank you. Powerbeats Pro 2.

My new favorite headphones. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that. Oh wait, do we have them? I do. I want else to listen to them. Should I go get them? Yeah. Show them on camera.

You threw them away? No, I threw out the. They're my favorite headphones ever. I tossed them. No, no, no. I mean, so we reviewed them. They are the sequel to the Powerbeats Pro that came out five years ago.

I reviewed those five years ago very positively. They're in a lot of ways to me, to me better than AirPods Pro. They stayed in my ears better. They had better battery life. They're more durable. Fast forward to five years later, and for 250 bucks, which they came out at,

you're not trying to buy like a lightning charge, like non-wireless charging old set of earbuds. So they came out with the Sequel, and they're basically better in every imaginable way. They are the same exact launch price, but they added noise cancellation and transparency mode and adaptive EQ and spatial audio and the H2 chip. They are still IPX4 certified.

The case is smaller. The battery life is longer and charges more and has USB type C and has wireless charging and has better colors and the buds are lighter and more comfortable and they sound better. They did everything. If you already mentioned heart rate tracking and heart rate tracking,

which is actually kind of the least important thing, but it's cool. It's convenient if you don't have a, if you don of the least important thing, but it's cool, it's convenient if you don't have an Apple Watch then. It's like, if you work out that much that you're buying $250 earbuds to work out in, I strongly suspect you already have a heart rate tracking solution, but if you happen to not have one,

okay, then yeah, you can do that too. Can I play super, I think they're great. I do really like them. If I can play super quick devil's advocate. Yeah. All of those things are like the bare minimum of what a good pair of truly wireless earbuds needs right now.

Like it's adding all this stuff because five years ago, it was like on the verge of if everything needed those. But like at this point, any pair of truly wireless earbuds that are over a hundred dollars should have active noise canceling and transparency mode and like half of the things you just mentioned. It's totally true. I think qualitatively after you get like past the spec sheet,

it's like these have really good noise cancellation. They're a smidge below AirPods Pro, but like overall they sound really good. The sound character is fun. Like when I work out, I'm listening to like, I'm bumping like good like hip hop and beats and things like that. And I don't mind the extra flavor in the sound

and the beat, the bass is strong and they're loud. I love that. They're very comfortable too. So they stay in my ears, which is already pretty impressive to me. And then they stay sealed in my ears, which is another thing. So like AirPods Pro will stay in my ears,

but the seal will like slowly weaken over time because of the rubber tips. These with the hooks, they just stay in my ears. They stay sealed. They sound great. The battery lasts like almost a month, arguably, with two hour workouts every single day. It's awesome.

So qualitatively on top of the specs, they're just fun, they're great, I like them. So, yeah. The color is awesome. I think they're super comfortable. Electric orange is one of the colors. There's also a purple color, black and white, also options if you're a little more low key.

Hyper purple is the color. I'm saying this to someone who, my current favorite earbuds are the Beats Fit Pro, because I don't like the whole hook, but I do like the wing tips. I love something I love about these, which is my least favorite thing in truly wireless earbuds are,

I want it to be physical, some sort of a physical button, not touch control stuff, because anytime you adjust in your ears, I hate that. So Beats Fit Pro is a physical button. These have an up and down switch on both sides and physically, like you have to actually press

in the button where the Beats are volume. A clicking button. Yeah. So it has volume up at the top. And then if you tap the Beats logo, that's your play pause. If you hold it, that's your switch to transparency or noise cancellation. And it's an actual click that you can feel.

Oh, it's in my backpack, that's fine. I also like that you don't have to, because what I don't like about the ones you like, Andrew, the Beats Pro, what do they call it? The Beats Fit Pro. The Fit Pro is that, one, the wing tips eventually start hurting my ears, but maybe that's just my ears.

I think that's a personal thing. Yeah, but the other thing is that the physical button, you have to push it into your ear, which usually also hurts my ears. So I like that these have buttons on the side of them so that you kind of like click them in. There still is one you can see right here. Well, it's almost the same button as the Beats Fit Pro,

but it still has the two volume buttons on it. I do think though these, the hook for, if the wing tip hurts inside your ear, I think the hook will if the wingtip hurts inside your ear I think the hook will be the it's more comfortable. It's more comfortable and Feels like it's gonna stay there. Okay for sure. I have a question about the using of these headphones mm-hmm so one of the issues I have with my AirPods Pro is that sometimes I'll throw the the AirPods back in the case and It just won't charge and I won't know that until the next time I pick

them up like occasionally one of them will just like be loose or something and then one earbud will be charged up to 100% The other one's like 29% and whatever I've had that experience also with earbuds like this that have the hook because it's more things that could potentially get caught on like the case and like not properly hit the magnets correctly or whatever uses the charge. Yeah, the contact. Did you have any of that when you were using this? Is it kind of annoying to put it back in?

No, so the case, I think, improved a lot of things. The magnets are strong. When I put them back in, it was pretty obvious when they would lock into place. And I think if you didn't quite get them right and tried to close the case, it wouldn't close. So then I correct them and then close it and it would close, you'd know they're charging.

And that was the other thing is like, they had this feature where if you put the, like let's say they die and you put them in the case for like five minutes, that gets you 90 minutes of listening time, which sounds really convenient, but also in what world are you just letting the earbuds die like outside of the case? Like you take them out of your ears and just like

put them down and walk away. Well that's what I mean, that's what happens to me because I think it's back in the case but the case didn't close correctly or something and that's what ends up happening. No, if you put them in the case, these, I mean, I had no issues, they seemed to charge every single time perfectly.

And then I kept forgetting to test battery life because I would habitually get done with them and put them back in the case and be like, oh, dang it, they're 100% again. Like I forgot, because they just charged you 100% every time. So yeah, the battery was just like something I didn't have to think about at all.

How are the ANC and transparency modes? So I would say if AirPods Pro 2 is a gold standard, 10 out of 10 for transparency mode, these were an eight and a half. Okay. Pretty great transparency mode. But they have the H2 chip. They do, and I think that that's a little bit to do

with a physically different driver and maybe different microphone arrangements. It's not exactly the same as AirPods. That was my follow-up question is, how are they different? Because they look so similar. I mean, shape-wise they are different. They don't have a stem,

so the microphones are in different places. So they are processing it with the same chip, but maybe with not exactly the same results. Real quick, I'm not going to listen to these on the podcast. And the reason is, is remember a few months ago, I put out a video about speakers and kind of like the

big gist of the video is like, the driver is really important in a speaker, but so much of how a headphone sounds or how any speaker sounds is about the cabinet, right? Like the box the speakers in that resonates all these low frequencies, spits out frequencies, does all sorts of stuff. When you put a, an-ear earbud with a gel tip in your ear, people talk about the seal being really important, right? That seal we can call acoustic coupling. And that means now you have like this chamber that energy doesn't leak out of.

Your ear canal and the earbud itself have effectively formed this closed area. Boom. That functions a lot like a speaker cabinet. But everyone's head is a different shape. And the inside of everyone's head is an even more different shape. I hear that the ear is as unique as your fingerprint.

Exactly. So think about all the weird length differences and angle differences and all the different ways someone's ear canal could be shaped. That has a ginormous impact on the way earbuds are going to sound. So two people could wear the exact same earbuds and one person could say, the base in these is insane.

And the other person could say, these literally have no base and they would both be right. I have a question about that. Yeah. Is it so that's I that makes intuitive sense. Would it also make intuitive sense that once they're calibrated to their own ear, that the differences in either direction will stay the same. So if one person thinks the beats have no bass and one person thinks they have a ton of bass and then I give them both

The shocks earphones which have more bass. Will they both hear more bass? I Think And I don't know this is like sort of a pretty intense question, but I I'm inclined to answer with It there's more there's too many asterisks to that for there to be one answer to that question But I'm inclined to answer with, there's too many asterisks for there to be one answer to that question, right? Like what frequencies are the dominant frequencies of the material you're listening to?

What key is the song in? So therefore what is the lowest fundamental note you will hear? Because it's not about, you can describe it as more bass, less bass, but it is also as like your ear canals have a bend that make them resonate more at 50 hertz, whereas mine resonate more at 65 hertz. And depending on what key the song is in, we could perceive more or less bass. Yeah, because there are reviews of certain headphones that

definitely are very bass heavy, where universally everyone's like, oh yeah, these have a ton of bass. And I like them because of that. Like I have songs that I listen to where there's a ton of sub bass and I listen to them on these headphones and it sounds great. And you read the reviews and everyone's like, yeah, these are really bassy. So there's some sort of directional agreement, even though everyone's probably sounds slightly different per person yeah so I listen to these beats and I think these sound

really good I don't say that about beats very much it's been you know years of reviewing beats and I'm finally saying beats sound like exactly how I want them to so that's great so that's why I like them no and it's also why earbud arguments literally drive me up the wall. Because the true answer of what the best sounding true wireless earbud is, the one that sounds best to you. Literally, there is an IEE standard for measuring the frequency response of earbuds. And in some respects, frequency response

is more important from an earbud than a speaker because there's no room. But at the same time, it's actually way less important because we have rooms built into our noggins and everyone's is different. Anyway, so. Because someone could say the PowerBeats Pro 2 are all about that bass and no treble,

but another person might say that it's all about that treble with no bass. That's what you're saying. Yeah, exactly. That's interesting. I really wish I had something that clever. Wait, I have a question. Yeah.

Did the original PowerBeats have adaptive EQ? No. Do you think that's why it sounds a little better? The constant monitoring with microphones? So I didn't invest in adaptive EQ mode very much. So it's a third mode. So there's noise canceling mode, transparency mode, and adaptive EQ mode.

Oh, interesting. In adaptive EQ mode where it's not doing all of the noise canceling stuff, the battery life is the longest, 10 hours of charge. If you do ANC or transparency, something like eight hours of charge, or sorry, I said 10 for the first one, eight for that. I mostly listen with noise canceling on

because it's good enough, and this is to answer your previous question, like if AirPods Pro are a 10 out of 10, I know they're not, but let's say that's where they're at, these are also like an eight, so they will get rid of white noise mostly, and they're best at that, but you'll still get keyboard sounds

and like other handling sounds. And they'll still get through. I realized in the video when you said that, it was like keyboard sounds might come through, and I was like, he's talking about my keyboards, which might be a little louder than the average. 20 feet to the left of you, that will make it through. Yeah, but I think in general, if you're turning the music up and you have the left of you, that will make it through. Yeah, but I think in general,

if you're turning the music up and you have the ANC on, you're just gonna hear music. So yeah. Can I say one last thing about these? Whoever designed the website did a great job because David's been spinning around the virtual. It's basically a fidget spinner. It's basically.

There's a 3D version that you can look at and whatever angle you're at when you change color, it snaps back to the original. It's really well done. Very nice. Wow, that's pretty good. All right. Better than Apple's website.

Next headline. Wait, wait, just, okay, preliminary findings. They both have the same inside the ear optical sensor, just the power beats is rotated 90 degrees. The heart rate optical sensor not present on this guy. AirPods- It's a rumor that the next AirPods might get one. I could totally see that.

The vents are different. Big, big giant vent on the side of the AirPods Pro not present on here. I can't even find the internal microphones on this thing. Like the microphones that listen. Yeah, I think they're behind the mesh, possibly. I think what we need is for someone like Zach or iFixit to do a teardown on these.

And then I'll be able to tell you more about if it's just a rehoused AirPod Pro 2. But I like the orange. The orange is really nice. The orange is sweet. Electric. That is Ellis's audio corner. Audio corner.

Aren't you guys so happy I'm back? Next headline. Next headline. It's hat time. Is it me? It's you. All right. A few left.

Dua Lipa interviewed Tim Cook. This headline says, boomless supersonic plane. We just finished one rant right into the next. I'm not ready for this rant. I am ready for this, cause I'm kind of a fan. I talked about it on the last podcast. We did talk.

So the update, so the supersonic plane that's being developed and tested in public and making all these headlines had another update. And the update, so the supersonic plane that's being developed and tested in public and making all these headlines had another update. And the update was that, and I don't know if this is unique to this plane, but essentially they've found that there's an altitude and a speed that you can fly where you can fly supersonic and not cause an audible boom on the ground. Now for those of you who may remember the Concorde or maybe you're just a nerd

and you watch it on YouTube videos, you probably know that an airplane flying fast in the speed of sound creates a sonic boom on the ground, which is it passes by you and then at some point later, the sound wall catches up and this high pressure wave hits you and it's a boom. And it's kind of annoying if you're Just living in an area where you hear booms all the time used to live right above an Air Force base

Oh, wow, where the you lived above the Air Force base? Yeah Not below on the mountaintop with the rattlesnake then we were right above Beale Air Force base Yes, I heard sonic booms like every day. Okay, so perfect example So that's a that's that's a downside to supersonic planes The upside is you can go from here to London in two hours or whatever like every day. Okay, so perfect example. So that's a downside to supersonic planes. The upside is you can go from here to London in two hours or whatever. The downside is people on the ground having to deal

with loud booms that may even damage things or like break windows or be really annoying to pets. So the science is that there is a cutoff speed and altitude where you can fly. And essentially because of refraction in the atmosphere and temperature and a bunch of other factors, the supersonic, the boom actually bounces off the bottom of the clouds or bounces off and back into the air and doesn't reach the ground.

The point is it doesn't reach the ground. So it depends on temperature and it depends on where you're flying and a bunch of other factors. So it's not consistent. It's not gonna be perfect every single time. That's not great. But the fact is this exists. This rough area slash speed slash combo exists where you can fly supersonic

and not cause a sonic boom on the ground. I'm just trying to stall as much as I can while Ellis furiously types into Wikipedia and researches physics. Does this mean my flight's gonna get delayed because it could cause a sonic boom if it's too warm? Look, most of these flights are over the ocean, so it's actually not that big of a problem, but if you're doing, you know, here to LA, that's over land, so they've gotta fly

in an area at an altitude where ideally it's not an issue. But yeah, the fact that you can do that at all is pretty sick. There's a strong irony to the fact that the company is called Boom, and their whole thing is how they're boomless. Yeah, boomless. They should just have called themselves boomless.

I think the Sonic Boom is famous for old fighter jet videos on YouTube. You've probably seen them, and you've experienced them real life. But yeah, yeah, Sonic Boom is pretty crazy yeah, they're annoying to see to have a boomless supersonic craft is is also great before supersonic booms were popular because Chuck Yeager Famously broke the sound barrier and stole my childhood When he bought my road, thank you. I was going to say you're going to have to explain that. Yeah, Chuck Yeager. It's just lore at this point. It's lore. But my dad was living in the area the first time the

sound barrier was broken. And he said everyone called into the local news stations because they thought aliens were invading because they'd never heard a sonic boom before. So everyone freaked out. So. Yeah. That's terrifying if you have no idea what's going on. Yeah, you just hear in the sky like. Yeah, it just basically sounds like, yeah. You can play a clip of it, you'll understand.

So yeah, exciting. I also have no idea if this plane will ever actually be real or if anyone will ever actually ride in one. Oh, there goes the headlines. You can't take that off over and over. Yeah, so that's the update. I know nothing else about this other than the science is pretty sick.

Boomless. I'm a fan of not the company, but the science that they keep exposing us all to. Very cool. That's a me, it works. Very cool. Just. This drives me insane.

This story has been like eating me away because they're doing the Silicon Valley thing where they're like, we changed everything and we're like, great. And they're like, that's it, period. We'll see you next year. And it's like, nothing else? I have a feeling that the way you feel about this company

is similar to the way I feel about startup EV companies I would hmm Here's what I'll say that The plane that flew this week and got retired this week is called the XP one. It is their proof of concept aircraft they said they flew Mach 1..14 at about 35,000 feet and there were no audible sonic booms from the ground. And that's great. So now they're going to continue development on their actual airliner called Overture. In order to do that, they need to develop their own,

I think they're going with a low bypass turbo fan engine that they're calling Symphony, that they have to develop themselves because all the major engine manufacturers were like, we can't do that, we don't. I don't know man. We will see. I did think it was interesting that they did a lot of this

with the XB1 with off-the-shelf parts, specifically the General Electric, I think it's the J85-15 afterburner variant. I don't know, we'll see. I'm curious. And if you're an aviation engineer and want to talk about the mock cutoff effect and help me understand why you don't need like a 50 foot nose cone to get it, please let me know, because I am not an aerospace

engineer and confused. You did forget one other thing, and it's the new plane they're developing. Also, live translates. I was going to say, I was literally going to say, LS three words, Microsoft live translation. How do you feel? Yeah, you're right that if you read their website, which is like very much me not caring about the product

anymore and just reading the science, boomless cruise is what they're calling it, but basically supersonic travel without the boom hitting the ground is possible between certain ranges of speeds depending on conditions. And so they were saying like, oh yeah, we could get you to LA maybe 90 minutes faster with no boom if the conditions are right.

But if we're going over water, we don't care about the boom and we could go mock 1.5 or something. I think it was in between 1.72 is what they're shooting for. Am I right about that? Yeah. I'm, yeah. I, here's the thing, right? Did you watch the live stream?

No, I haven't watched any. Actually, I watched a replay and I scanned through it for like five seconds. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was fine. I just felt like they were doing their best SpaceX impression. 100%, yeah, that's what I got too. And I was just sort of like, is this, you know what?

Whatever, great. SpaceX has cool streams. I feel like the live of that, SpaceX caught a rocket, they're flying a plane that doesn't produce the thing that we would see anyways. Well, they have no boom. They have a live speed tracker thing. So, oh, they're supersonic now, that's cool.

Counterpoint though, Andrew. The test pilot that works for Boom is named Geppetto. And so during the whole live stream, they were like, I think Geppetto is about to hit the afterburners, which I just thought sounded really, really silly. That's a great sentence. Counterpoint to your counterpoint, I know nothing about aeronautics. All right. So I can't contribute on anything.

Hear me out. Faster flights. That would be. You in? You in? Hear me out. Driverless cars. Next year.

Wait. Hear me out. His name is Tristan. His name is not Geppetto. Geppetto's his nickname. They call him Geppetto. And on the stream they were like, Geppetto, he's hitting the after, but no, his name is actually Tristan.

I'm not sure. I'm not sure. His name is not Geppetto. Geppetto's just his nickname. They call him Geppetto. And on the stream they were like, Geppetto, he's hitting the after, but no, his name is actually Tristan. I- They also refer to him as Geppetto. No, no, no, no. But I just didn't want to be like,

there's this guy Geppetto, and meanwhile Tristan's out there like angry. Sorry Tristan. Yeah. All right, next headline. Next headline. Oppo Find N5. Whoa! Wait, do we have it?

Oh yeah, I should have brought it. Well, we can show it if we don't turn the screen on. It makes no difference, I can't. No, we can't. Okay, here's the headline. And this is literally the headline. Oppo Find N5 is revealed to be the world's thinnest book-style foldable.

That's all we get. That's all we get. And so I got this email, I got the device, I got someone reaching out from Oppo. And so I have the phone and what we are allowed to show slash confirm is that it is in fact very thin. We are not allowed to show the device with the screen on. We are actually only allowed to show either photos

that they have provided for us or our own photos. Now, this is a video podcast. I tried to convince Marques to put it on video and just say, what is a bunch of photos? I'm with you. I am with you. I'm erring on the safe side here because 30 pictures every second is just where we're at right now.

But fine, okay, it is very thin. It's got me pondering a whole bunch more thoughts and feelings about it, but I can't really get into those because all we can really talk about is, wow, very thin. It's super thin. The other thing is, if you look at these pictures, there's a slightly modified USB type C port on this thing. That's basically the entire thickness of each side

of the book foldable. It's like four and a half millimeters. Counterpoint. Counterpoint. It's full of them today. Microsoft Surface Duo. It feels super similar to the launch of that. The embargo, okay. This is inside baseball. Microsoft Surface Duo. I talked about it that the embargo. Okay, this is inside baseball

Microsoft Surface Duo, I talked about it in the video. Did you okay? Yeah when I reviewed it famously very annoying embargo on this phone I think it has well this phone quote-unquote phone. Yeah Three. Yeah had like three embargoes. We had an embargo where we could show the hardware but not turn the screen on Mm-hmm, and then there was a separate embargo where we could show the hardware, but not turn the screen on. And then there was a separate embargo where you could actually review the device. I think it was like a first impressions embargo and then the full review embargo. Because I think the second one you couldn't show photos from it.

And there's like some small things like that. Now, Oppo is obviously on the fifth version of its Find N devices. I seriously doubt that them making it thinner is going to make it as buggy and horrible as the original Surface Duo. So it's probably fine, but it always feels a little bit weird. It is a huge red flag.

Yeah, when they're like, you can show pictures of the hardware, but not talk about anything else. It is designed to create a wave of headlines in one style before a wave of headlines in another style. The first wave of headlines is this is a very thin phone. Verge brought up a good point too that they were very specific in calling it the world's thinnest book style foldable,

because while closed, it is still thinner than the Mate XT, while open, each individual segment, the Mate XT is thinner. The triple fold phone. The triple fold. Yeah. Sorry. Wow. So the triple fold, each one of those slices is a little thinner. But I will say. It is thin. It is thin. Yeah. Can confirm it is thin.

We're going to have the same conversation about the Galaxy S25. Slim edge. Oh. Yeah, when that actually comes out. Yeah, that's a weird thing that's happening this year is like that is happening. There's a rumor of the iPhone 17 Air happening and maybe one or two other like ultra thin phones.

Yeah. Which is funny because we just finished talking about the Pixel 9a being like finally what we wanted, a thicker phone. Yeah. Yeah. Assuming all these companies are using the new battery cell technology that allows you to pack more energy in a smaller package, they're probably just making thinner batteries that have the same amount of capacity as existing phones, which is not what we want.

We want the same size, but with better battery life. Yes. C.Oppo Find 13, or C OnePlus 13 review. Exactly. You say that, but when this thin Samsung phone comes out, I bet it's gonna be sick. Here's my question, because it sounds like you're optimistic about that phone.

I'm very optimistic. Do you think this is gonna be priced ultra high? No. You don't think so? I don't think so. Because the way they teased it, and they were like, this is gonna be an amazing phone, it's the edge, Because the way they teased it and they were like, this is going to be an amazing phone. It's the edge and we're bringing it back.

To me, sounds like it's going to be an $1,100 phone. I think it'll be $1,100. I think it'll be like $900, something like that. Because they're not saying it's going to be like the Ultra or something, you know? It's not like giving you any crazy performance. It's like, you're getting this because it's thin. Where do you think?

But we don't think it's going to be like a you think, so, but we don't think it's gonna be like a $500 phone. No, I don't think so. Do we think the iPhone 17 Air is also in that upper echelon? I think 17 Air will be in the iPhone Plus category. I think it's in the Pro Max category. You think so? I think Apple, the way they operate, they're gonna try to make this the exclusive,

interesting one. And so it's gonna try to make this the exclusive interesting one And so it's gonna be the one with the special battery technology developed to be super thin It's gonna be the one with you know a couple extra You know fun cooling bits that they invented to make a phone this thin I could see it going either way because that's what they That's the approach they took with the iPad Pro they made it super thin Yeah, and they were like this is the thinnest iPad Pro and it's awesome Yeah, but I could also see them being like no if you want the pro get were like, this is the thinnest iPad Pro and it's awesome. But I could also see them being like,

no, if you want the Pro, get the Pro. Like this is something else entirely. Apple specifically, the Air has always been a less powerful, you're making sacrifices on performance to have a thinner. If they call it the Air, yeah. If they call it the Air, that's a good one. Like the MacBook Air.

It would be dumb if they didn't call it the Air. They finally, they actually have a good name for it. It's not Pro Max. Pro Max Slim. 5G UW. actually have a good name for it. It's called Pro Max. Pro Max Slim. 5G UW. No, Air is perfect for this. I think, yeah, Edge also kind of works because it's so thin.

You could say it's like an Edge, whatever. I think, what do we think screen size for the Edge is? Like 25 plus for Samsung? Or like 24, 25? It looked like, so, I mean, I got to check it out. I didn't get the whole other phones up to it, but it looked like S25 plus sized. Yeah.

Only dual cameras though, instead of triple cameras. I think S25 plus price, but with one less camera and some performance sacrifices, but the same price because it's thin. That's my guess. Performance sacrifices. Yeah. Because less cooling.

Cause they're probably still gonna have the Snapdragon. They just have to fit more in a tighter spot. So like, it almost makes me think of like S20 FE kind of thing, where it's like, what are some small sacrifices we can make for something else? Right. Yeah, it's like, we're trying to think of other devices

that it'll be close to. I like how the Oppo phone was this boring that we are no talking about. I was just gonna say, let this be a lesson to all future embargo creators that this is why these embargoes are stupid, because we just spent this whole section talking about a different phone.

I mean, they got their headline. They got their headline on a bunch of websites. It's the thinnest bookstuff, blah book style foldable, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, it'll come out later this year. But the thinnest thing is what we're like focusing. Like do people want a super thin phone? Which leads us down the road of, no, there's other super thin phones coming out this year.

And we think, do people want them? And how bad do they want them? Would they pay 900 bucks for it? I would like to see the thinnest books style foldable. That's what I thought when he said that before. That would be better. Book style is this. Yeah.

He means the E Ink version. Clank shell. Yeah, the books. Yeah, I know. I'm picturing like the iPhone 17 Air, if it's as thin as the edge, right? Mm-hmm. Does it still have MagSafe?

So then you can like slap a magnet. I mean like a wallet on there. There's no way Apple releases a phone that doesn't have MagSafe going forward. Right, so then it's as thick as a regular phone, but I feel like that's the benefit. And you put it in a case, and now it's the same size as a regular phone.

That's what I think. Oh yeah. In a case is now the same size as a phone without a case. They gotta launch this phone with a super thin case or something, because it's gonna be really funny when people go wait in line for this phone, this super, super thin phone that they've made sacrifices for and paid a bunch

of money for and then immediately put a case on it and it's just another normal size phone. Otterbox. With worse battery. I'm just saying. Put an Otterbox on it, dude, wow. Otterbox is gonna make a case for this phone too. It's gonna be really funny.

I'm just saying optimistic because I think these super thin devices are actually gonna be pretty cool. Why? Because I think we haven't explored that before. Well, we've explored that to failure before, where phones were bad. The Razr, back in the original, remember the, there was these two Razrs that Motorola made.

The original Razr? Disgustingly thin. No, Motorola, is it? Oh, the Razer Edge. The Razer Edge. Is that what it was called? They had those two modular phones, the pins on the back. Yeah.

And they were the thinnest phones I've ever seen. And terrible battery life, like not a lot of great things about this phone. Well, that's the thing, if they suck, then none of this matters. But if it's like a decent phone. It feels like this is maybe the first time that the compute is mature enough

to give us razor thin phones that don't suck. I'm just curious to see whether something like the Pixel 9a going with a bigger battery and slightly thicker is how that's gonna hold up overall with like in the head space of people compared to something that's dropping that's gonna be super thin. Yeah.

Dropping. I think, I think it's all gonna be price related. I think that A phone is gonna come out and it's gonna be 500 bucks and it's gonna have an all day battery and everyone's gonna be like, yes, that's good. Yeah. And then this premium phone is gonna come out

that's super thin, that has a worse battery and all the headlines are gonna be no. Yeah. This bad. I like the two different directions we're going in though. Like I'm curious to see what happens. I'm realizing some of these directions semi lead to this last headline in this hack.

Really? Save the best for last. Is this a segue unintentionally? Not really. I just wanted to talk about the next thing. iPhone SE4 has leaked a lot. Nice. Yeah, there's rumors about this one too.

iPhone. Yeah, it's more than rumors about this one. So, there's still the possibility, Mark Gurman originally said that it was gonna come out this week. We record on Wednesdays. If we don't. No, no, he said this morning it's next week now.

There's still the possibility, Mark Gurman said this morning it was gonna come out next week. Okay, I hope it's by Wednesday. Anyway, this phone has leaked in full many times over in very funny ways. Spigen, I don't know if that's how you pronounce the company's name. I think it is. Yeah, but they're a case company. They accidentally leaked the entire design by putting the case for it up for Sale temporarily which had photos of the phone in it So we basically know exactly what it looks like assuming that wasn't just a placeholder that speak input online But effectively this is the most Frankenstein looking iPhone. I think we've ever seen Yeah, interesting. It uses a ton of parts from a ton

of different generations of phone. That's the first thing that struck me is typically the iPhone SE has been, and this isn't even that bad of a thing, it's just what lets them make it so cheap, but it's been a parts bin phone. Meaning we put this really, really fast chip from this year's phone in this body from this older iPhone.

And we're like, oh, yeah, now it's cheaper, great. And that means it has a worse screen and a worse battery and a single camera, but it's a cheaper iPhone, so it's successful and it's fine. And this one looks like it's not actually a previous body. Well, in some ways, it's using a bunch of parts from older phones. It has a notch, so there's no dynamic island nestled

in an OLED display, so it's kind of like an iPhone 13 kind of situation. 13 have OLED? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Or the pro or did they all have, they all had OLED. Yeah. Is this not, I can't tell the sides of it.

It feels like a 10R. I think it's square. Is it square? Yeah, cause 10R was rounded. It was rounded, but it was single. Oh yeah, that does look like flat. So it's more like an iPhone 12. It's similar to an iPhone 12 body.

The back kind of looks like a XR. Because it's a singular camera. Because it's a singular camera and it has sort of that sheen of the XR color. It has an action button. Oh, I didn't notice that. Yeah, so it's updated to have the action button. These are also all alleged like the Pixel 9a. Yeah yes it's got the 48

megapixel rear camera and it has a much bigger 3279 million power battery over the 2000 million power battery of the iPhone SE 3. Apple A18 chipset and 8 gigabytes of RAM which suggests they are going to add Apple Intelligence. Yeah, so there was also a 10 second hands-on video from this leaker that was posted on X a couple of weeks ago that shows it from basically all angles. Oh, okay, yeah, this changes what it looks like. So yeah, it kinda looks like an iPhone 12

mixed with a bunch of extra parts. Yeah. It looks nice. Oh man, we haven't seen the notch in so long. Yeah, I know. It's part of the size. Also remember the iPhone SE was 399 and then it was 429, right?

The newest SE, well at least at launch, was a little bit more expensive. Sorry. I'm curious if the, the newest SE, well at least at launch was a little bit more expensive. I'm curious if the new, new SE, when it finally does come out, will still be, cause it's now more RAM, and maybe it's a little bit less parts binny, maybe it's more expensive. They might do, so yeah, it's 429,

the iPhone SE 3 is 429. They might do 499, cause that's what Google is selling, the Pixel 9a series at anyway. It's a popular price. Yeah, $500 seems like a popular price. I could see Apple doing $500 for that, just because it's using, and it's apparently gonna have an OLED screen

instead of that LCD one that they had on the. Oh, but it's probably gonna be 60 hertz. Oh yeah. Aw. It's Apple, of course it's gonna be 60 hertz. I know, I know. I'm on 16, it's still 60 hertz. Yeah, dang it, okay.

That would be wild. Yeah. That'd be, yeah. Pro-motion in the SCU9. Yeah. Okay, yeah, well, I mean, we're expecting that to be pretty soon. Again, by the time you hear this,

maybe we know more, maybe not, who knows? Yeah, another alleged phone. Yeah. Rumor mill, it's happening. Very fun. I think that the Rivian is gonna be a color anyway Somehow the Rivian did the best teasing out of all Yeah, good job Rivian if you are listening to this podcast on your date with your significant other You're a real one send us a like and a tweet and a comment

Blue sky take your phone out on the date and leave a comment. Sorry, sorry, one second. Thank you. But if you're not, we're about to do trivia. ["Trivia"] Trivia, dude. So, second question. Please do something I know.

In honor of Ellis being back on the pod, another Ellis style question. Which of these is not a real streaming service? A, Phoebe. Oh my god. B, Acorn TV. C, Mubi. M-U-I, M-U-B-I.

Mujee. D, Fubo. E, Tubi. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I.

M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I.

M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I.

M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. M-U-B-I. or something like that, all of these services end in E, except for one. So I'm going with the one that doesn't end in E. Also doesn't God not end in ah? No, ah, vowel sound. Oh. And I'm just going, oh, one of them doesn't have E at the end, so. Phoebe, mooby, foobo, tubi.

Yeah, the one that's not E, yeah, that's my answer. Acorns. Acorns, Phoebe. We will think about this one. Answers at the end, like usual. We'll be right back. Get groceries delivered across the DTA from real Canadian superstore with PC express shop online for super prices and super savings.

Try it today and get up to $75 in PC optimum points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. This week on ProfG Markets we speak with Alice Han, China economist and director at Greenmantle. We discuss the potential impact of tariffs on China's economy, how Tesla is fairing against BYD, and how a Trump presidency could shape China's economy, how Tesla is faring against BYD, and how a Trump presidency could shape China's foreign and domestic policies. Trump is the biggest dove in a house full of hawks. Everyone else around him wants to push him

towards being more hawkish on China, on trade, on tech, on military. And I sense that, you know, whether it's Rubio or Hegseth or Woltz, they're going to try to push the agenda of being tougher on China and having more deterrence vis-a-vis Taiwan. You can find that conversation exclusively

on the ProfGMarkets podcast. Welcome back. So today is February 12th, a Wednesday, the day of recording. You guys are listening to this on February 14th, dear listener, which is Valentine's Day. So in honor of Valentine's Day, I thought it'd be fun to play a little game called

Tech That Ghosted Us. So the way this is gonna work is we're gonna go around and we're gonna each talk about a tech that is either discontinued or that went out of business that we miss, that it just disappeared. I got ghosted once. Yeah, me too. A long time ago.

We listen and we do not judge. Still in? Who wants to go first? I can go. Yeah, I got ghosted. Lead us off more. I'm still waiting for that text back. You have one?

The year was 2020. For every Frisbee team I've ever played on and just among my group of friends, I'm usually the one that knows the most about the weather. That tracks. But in 2020, That tracks. Apple bought Dark Sky.

Womp womp. And they bought Dark Sky to buy all of the technology and the real time sourcing and whatever. And so they immediately removed the app from the Android app store, and they shut down the iOS app shortly thereafter. And they brought some of those features into their own weather app,

but my life just hasn't been the same since I was ghosted by dark sky. I really miss dark sky. What are you using? You're using that? So I use Carrot Weather right now. It's the closest we've come. They even have literally a dark sky clone layout option

for those of us who aren't over our apps. I mean, over a dark sky. And on Android, there's not really anything close. I've gotten some use out of, what is it called? Shadow Weather is okay, but there's another one that's... I do not have a weather app that I enjoy yet. And I got tired of looking. There's honestly not, they're kind of not all, they're all not good. Yeah.

It's a shame. Some of them are aesthetically pleasing, but don't over-drop, I think is aesthetically pleasing, but isn't the best like accuracy. So yeah. So yeah, that's definitely my one that I thought of. I have one that I just kind of thought about the other day because with Powerbeats Pro being $250 we were trying to find some other comparable active headphones like wearable active headphones, like workout-based headphones. And I was having a hard time finding some. So I remembered an old favorite of this channel, J-Bird, and tried to look up J-Bird headphones

and realized they are just don't seem to be a thing anymore. And I missed that completely. I thought they got bought by Logitech. Yeah, they did. And then Logitech just said, later. J-Bird headphones used to be like the workout headphones. I loved them. Like some of those old ones, Marques brought me onto them.

I remember before I started working here and I was playing ultimate with Marques. He was always testing like new Jbird headphones. Without looking it up, how much do you think Logitech bought Jbird for? Less than a billion. Correct. Can we ask a year for this was? Yeah, you can 19 20 16 16. Mm-hmm

Well, how's that long on 20 million? Yeah, I'm gonna go like under a hundred million I'll go 50 50 million. Yeah. Yeah. Oh like good. Yes. Very nice. Yeah, I thank you I thought that was a nice discount 50 It sounds good. Yeah, I mean they just got rid of them. Yeah to not do anything Why do you come when did they stop doing that? Yeah, I think it was several years later that they stopped making them But I remember like the Jaybird x4 is not that I guess it was kind of long ago

Being pretty great. Mm-hmm They kind of fizzled out right before like the truly wireless earbuds started happening. Like they would be the earbuds that were connected by a cable so you'd have wireless earbuds but still have a cable between them. And then right as we started getting truly wireless earbuds everywhere, Jaybird disappeared. They did the Jaybird Vistas, which I loved.

I used those for so long. Like they started in, they like got into the truly wireless category and then I loved them They had some cool colors. They were like great. They fit my ears good little wing tips But like I loved those things and it seems like they were kind of the end of the line for him dang What was the really popular one that had the they were connected with the cable? That was x4 x4 the x1 2 3 4. Yeah. Yeah, I think I had the x2 So yeah, Jays on my,

it literally felt like ghosting because I tried to find them and realized I just haven't looked for that long. It's been a few years and they're just gone. Yeah. Do you guys remember Quibi? That's not mine, that's not mine. I'm joking.

I'm glad that's dead. Damn. Okay, so there was a service called Scroll. I don't know if you remember I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you.

I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you.

I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you.

I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm not gonna lie to you. God about that. Holy crap, yeah. It was awesome. It was an ad-free subscription service service where you would pay $5 a month and basically news organizations that signed on would give you an ad-free experience and it basically distributed the subscription revenue to all the news organizations that would sign on to it.

Isn't that just Apple News? Also, yes, sort of. But they had a lot more publishers, like all the Vox brands are on it. Android Police was on it for some reason. It was very cool. I really liked it. I liked being able to like support the brands that I liked Twitter bought it I believe it got integrated into Twitter blue temporarily Before before Twitter got purchased It was great, and I really liked it and there were a lot of questions about the scalability of it obviously because They were like well does one user who's pays five dollars a month

because they were like, well, does one user who pays $5 a month, if there's a bazillion news organizations now on the service and they're all getting like three cents from a user, is that better than the ads that they would see? There were a lot of questions that were left unanswered, but for the period of time that it was around, I really enjoyed it. I feel like this is what people wanted when it came

to skiing is like, you want to ski at a bunch of different mountains How can I buy like a season pass to go to a bunch of them? And then what happened was veil just bought every single mountain and you can do that But now they have like total control over like just they own an absurd amount of like the skiing mountains in the US Huh? I did not know that it's a huge point of Contention in the skiing world, but it's sort of like class pass to you. Do you know class pass? Huh, I did not know that. It's a huge point of contention, I think, in the skiing world, but. It's sort of like ClassPass, too.

Do you know ClassPass? No. ClassPass is a service where you pay a monthly fee, and then you can go to a bunch of different fitness classes from a ton of different types of fitness classes, and you use credits that you get through ClassPass, and ClassPass pays the gyms to be able to let you use them. That's kinda cool.

So it's kinda interesting. Yeah. Like a Tesla Supercharger network. Ellis, you got one? Back in the day, there was this product that I loved so dearly, my whole family actually loved it just as dearly as I did. It was sold at an unlikely place.

Do you guys remember the store that was mostly in malls and airports called Brookstone? Yeah, that's right. Is it? Brookstone was after sharper image. Yes. Brookstone sold almost exclusively garbage. Yeah. It was like the airplane magazine stuff.

Exactly. In a physical store. Oh, complete. Oh. Oh my God. And like a weird amount of massage chairs. That's like, I Googled every mall. First thing that came up.

Yeah, like you'd be at the airport and you'd be like, I really wanna ship this massage chair. I don't know, but they did make one thing that came up. Yeah, like you'd be at the airport and you'd be like, I really want to ship this massage chair. I don't know, but they did make one thing that was amazing. It was called the Brookstone Weathercast. It was an unbelievably simple piece of tech. It was an LCD screen, like a black and white calculator style liquid crystal display that connected either via 3G or radio frequency or something for free to this network and it would just pull

AccuWeather forecasts and you'd stick it on your fridge and it would have a five day forecast. And you cannot buy anything, anything that does this, except for one thing, and I'm gonna get there before anyone says anything. But any single time you look up weather clock, you get the weather stations where you put a thing on your roof and it'll be like, this is what the temperature,

I don't wanna know that. I don't wanna know that. I wanna know how hot and how cold it's gonna be today. Damn it. And no one make, I mean, yes, I can look at my phone, but I like the ability to walk into my kitchen in the morning and just see while I'm drinking my coffee. This is pretty awesome.

It's amazing. I'm looking at it now. And literally, it was like my mom's favorite tech product of all time and every year for Christmas and her birthday, I look around and I cannot find a single thing like this that exists until this year. A company called Terminal built sort of like an open source wifi version of this.

And I bought one for my mom and it still hasn't arrived yet. And I need to reach out to them to figure out where it is. But once it gets there, I'll let you know if it's the real deal. Terminal has no vowels because it's a tech startup. It's Terminal. You're not getting that. The amount of vowels is how likely you get it.

You're at zero. But I'm excited for this. I'm excited for this. I'm excited that this product, after like a 10 year hiatus, has still has come back. And yeah, Brookstone Weathercast, incredible product. No notes. Yeah, I've seen this terminal thing. Yes, Quinn got one, Snazzy Labs got one recently.

And he loves it. He said it was cool. I'm really excited about it, but I can't get too excited about it until it's actually in my mom's hands, which it's not yet. Anyway, that's my thing, Brookstone Weathercast.

Bet none of you remember that. I have a question for you. Why not just use a Google Home or something? Home Hub. I don't want that. That's fair. Fair enough. Yeah, I don't want-. That's fair. Fair enough. Yeah, I don't want-

That's what I got my parents. I mean, look, if you got a Google Home, that's great. There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't want a computer. I just want a little- Computer? No. It's going to steal a computer.

It's my computer. No, no, no, no. The Brookstone Weathercast will never ever show you an ad. It would if it was live today. And you cannot say that with confidence about the Google Home. You will never get home from work and be like, oh, what a day.

And then you look at your Google Home and it will just be like, Bluetooth. I don't think my Google Home's ever shown me an ad. And I can say with confidence, it will eventually. That's fair. That's true. Okay, mine, speaking of Google, that I have been ghosted on is-

Don't you- What? Aloe? Oh no. Oh, David, why? Aloe? I'm changing mine. Aloe?

Google Aloe. No, mine was a, damn, that's a good one. Inbox as well. Oh my God, I hate you for this. Sorry, Google could just be a whole category. I was gonna say Google Stadia, but I kinda wanna change it to either one of those. Or Stadia.

You actually like Stadia. I loved Stadia, I remember when it came out, I was so excited, the controller was perfect. It was good. And I regret getting rid of it after they shut down because now it's just a Bluetooth controller you can use for like anything. And I got rid of it because I was like,

ah, what am I gonna need this for now? And I should have kept it. It was perfect. I would argue Stadia broke up with everyone. They didn't just straight ghost. Yeah, that's fair. They refunded everybody for every game they ever bought. Yeah, but I'm in denial still.

So is that not ghosting? That's like if your partner gave you back all your stuff. They broke up and brought all your stuff back. And paid you back for all the dinners you paid for. That's tough. That would be pretty sick. That would be pretty sick. I miss it because I think they were a little too early

to this whole cloud streaming thing. I mean, I don't know, because Microsoft xCloud is still just like doing a thing. Right? Is that what it's called? xCloud, Microsoft like streaming service? Xbox. Xbox Live. Xbox Cloud.

Yeah, whatever. No, it's... Alice uses it. It's called something different. Well, whatever that is. It's called Xbox Cloud Gaming. No. And it's still a thing.

So like Google could have done it and they just Xbox cloud gaming beta beta what there's a lot of Google things like that that were a little ahead of their time oh yeah but you know that rhyming Google Plus also a little ahead of time in box that you mentioned box also I'm so good the one that I just thought of though that wasn't necessarily ahead of its time. So good. The one that I just thought of though, that wasn't necessarily ahead of its time, it's just not, it doesn't, I don't think it works anymore and it just died is Google Reader.

Yeah. Google Reader, I used to use that every single day to like follow all the sites that I read. There's a bunch of other RSS readers. RSS readers. Yeah. I talked about them last week. I switched to Feedly and I like tried a couple others

and even Flipboard had some stuff, but I just never quite got back into it after Reader died. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got ghosted. Didn't we all? Yeah.

Did they get rid of Reader? Yeah, I just Googled it instead. But they still have Blogger. It's from Google. I think it's an 80% chance if you ask if they got rid of it. It's true That's true Well, I feel like now that we're all sad about things we don't have anymore

Maybe we should have started with this No time for trivia. What better time time to be sad that we get none of the trivia, right? Yeah, i'm not getting either of these Trivia. Dude. But first I just wanted to say, as a follower of sports YouTube, one of the most talented creators in that space, Kofi, just left Vox slash. Toobie?

Is that his secret base? Yeah, it's Kofi's. His last year. He just left Vox slash secret base. Oh, I saw that this morning. He said he got laid off, very sad. But you should go check out his channel and support him in his solo venture, because if you even remotely like sports,

you will like that. Can you help? Can I say so? Can you spell his name? Because I'm trying to find it. I probably should have done that first. His name is spelled K.O.F.I.E. Kofi. You have almost definitely seen him in a secret base video or something in the past,

but talks about video games, talks about sports, talks about things that, he's one of those YouTubers where even if you don't like sports, there's something for you. You know, like me and Bug YouTube. Like I don't like bugs. But you know. Wait, did you see Ants Canada connected all of his?

Of course. Okay. You act like- I haven't seen it yet, but tell me about it later. I want to hear what happened. I have notifications on for Ants Canada. I need to know. I also just want to say, now I'm just riffing here, but whenever he builds a new like terrarium aquarium,

he like has this community panel, community channel vote thing to like decide the name. And I wanted so bad for him to name it the splash zone because it's an aquarium. But alas, the splash zone did not make it. Anyway, question number one, I have four tech company. I don't want to say startup because last time I used to use startup people got mad. But I have four tech companies in front of me. Adam hit that music.

A. Skiyo. Sell subscriptions without ripping your hair out. B. Fruit. FROOT. Swift conversion. Automate legacy migration. Ship faster. C. Keek. K-E-A-K, we're automating conversion rate optimization, Jesus. D, Coho, giving Canadians the tools and knowledge to make their money grow. Also, Ski-O is spelled S-K-I-O, Ski-O. We all have a 25% chance of getting this right.

Why, because you all know one of them's real? No. Oh, and which one is fake? The three of them are real, one of them is fake. Wait, how did you arrive at 25%? Because there was four answers. We're just guessing. Shot in the dark.

And we're guessing. Wow. God. Don't cut it. Let it hang. You made me think for a second. I was like, David made me think for a second. I didn't try to.

I would have been thinking for a lot longer than a second if you guys weren't here. Anyway flip, yeah, flip those boards. How did you arrive at 25%? All right. Who would like to read their answer? Marquez and I wrote the same thing. I picked A. Which is? Ski-O.

A, Ski-O is incorrect. Ski-O is a real company. It's a really boring Twitter bio. It is. It feels very made up. David put B, and before I tell you if you're right or wrong, David, can you take me through your thought process? What made you arrive at B? What was B? It sounded the most fake? Well, yeah, which one was B? I don't know

It was like automate Something that was C. Yeah, but I was David you are correct. I made up fruit No fruit, right? Yeah, I was trying to- Because I thought it sounded too much like looped, that early Sam Altman company. We don't talk about that here. Also, he had his looped- That's where he had the dual collar at WWDC. Exactly. With the pink in there.

It was the Fruit of the Loom kind of vibe. Sam Altman. Yeah. That was Sam Altman. Yeah. Anyway, congrats on your point, David. I'm now gonna turn it over to my co-host. He's really running away with this. He's really running away with this.

I'm really getting out of hand. Is he more than Marquez and I combined? We're about to find out. Quick update on the score. Marquez with five. Not only is he more than you and Marquez combined, but Andrew, we could double your score and it's still more than you guys combined.

Andrew with two. And after that point, David running away with it with nine. But it's okay, cause none of the points matter when we get to trivia extravaganza. I'm mad it just keeps us up. Dude, this is insane. This is a heater. Yeah, but I've lost every trivia extravaganza.

Not this season. All right, question number two. Which one of the following is not a streaming service? A Phoebe F.I.B.I. B Acorn TV. C Mubi M.U.B.I. D Fubo F.U.B.O.

Or E Tubi T.U.B.I. This is so hard because we joke about these. I just make them up so often that I don't know which ones are real I mean, yep, exactly. I already forgot all All right, flip them and read. What do you got? David and I have the same one a which is Phoebe Phoebe. Yeah. Yeah Correct. I almost Marquez would you put? He put acorn.

I put C, which is movie. Movie. Movie is like a, it's like a criterion collection competitor. What? No, it's, they're sort of like trying to split the difference between being an actual film distro company and being a streaming service. So like Grand Theft Hamlet is distributed.

A movie production. And you'll be able to stream it there. I don't know. And Phoebe makes. Phoebe makes Tubo, which is the broadcast arm of Grupped Up. Of Grub Hub. Oh my gosh.

Of Chick-fil-A. Which is all owned by the Shine Hardwood Corporation. Which is all owned by BlackRock. Which is all owned by Alphabet. Yeah. Well, we tried. We tried to answer them correctly. Some of us got some right, some of us didn't.

Thanks for watching. Next week, probably not headlines in a hat. Actually, I can't guarantee that. There may be more headlines in more hats, but there will be more headlines for watching. Next week, probably not headlines in a hat. Actually, I can't guarantee that. There may be more headlines in more hats, but there will be more headlines for sure. The hat, TBD. See you guys next week. Peace.

Waveform is produced by Adam, Alina and Ellis. We're partners with Vox Media Packets Network and our triad for music is created by Vane. You can do what you want kids. Bingo. You can, anything. Damn, I don't know geography very well.