Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast - YouTube Views Feel Fake Now

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

This week, Andrew and David take over the podcast while Marques is out for Ultimate Frisbee. First, it's all about the new Instagram logo before they get into the news that YouTube is changing what counts as a view. Then it's all about the newest AirPods with cameras leak and a new open-source trackball that Andrew and Ellis are excited about. Enjoy! Links: YouTube changing how views count MacRumors - Apple AirPods leak Bloopy - New A+ trackball This episode brought to you by: Shopify: https://www.shopify.com/waveform Follow us on socials: Marques: https://www.threads.net/@mkbhd Andrew: https://www.threads.net/@andrew_manganelli David: https://www.threads.net/@davidimel Adam: https://www.threads.net/@parmesanpapi17 Ellis: https://twitter.com/EllisRovin Waveform Threads: https://www.threads.net/@waveformpodcast Waveform Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/waveformpodcast/?hl=en Waveform TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@waveformpodcast Join the Discord: https://discord.gg/mkbhd Intro/Outro 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

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What is up, people of the internet, welcome back to another episode of the Wayform podcast. We're your hosts. I'm Marquez. I'm Andrew. And I'm David. Got you again. You guys are never going to stop falling for that. Marquez is once again in Ireland being hot with his frisbee. as usual. So, it's pretty rainy there. Oh, it's probably about that. Yeah. Well, he's, he's cooled off.

He's cooled off. But today, today we got a lot of, we're gonna start spitting some hot fire for you guys. We got a lot of stories. We got AirPods with the camera have officially leaked. We got a video of it so we can see what they look like. It's pretty weird. There's much of other Apple products that got like that we're going to talk about. YouTube is changing how numbers work once again because views are completely fake, as always.

And we also got an. open source project that Ellis is going to love. But first, did you see our Eclipse episode? I know we've talked about this like 10,000 times, but our clips episode is pretty cool. It released on Tuesday. 10,001 now. So if you only saw us hyping it for like 10,000 and two times, now you can actually go watch it. It's pretty good.

It's really good. I've seen a lot of comments that are like, this is the only time I've ever seen a video or like media of the eclipse that's in like real time. and that's kind of exactly what we were going for. We just wanted it to be a fun time hanging out and then like experience the eclipse as best as you can. And I think we nailed it. I think we nailed it.

I've watched it like four times already. Claire loved it. My families loved it. I think you should go watch it if you haven't watched it. And if you didn't watch it, that means you're not subscribed, so you should also subscribe. That's true.

What if we do it again? We did ask you to hit the bell icon. If you didn't do that yet, I don't know what you're doing. It's only like 45 minutes, so it's very consumable. can watch it with your breakfast cereal, you know, something like that. How long does it take you to eat breakfast?

Look, my cereal's soggy by the time I'm finishing my video, okay? But before the news, we got, did they even test this? As usual, I'm going to throw it to Ellis this time. As usual, I stop doing this because I'm always wrong. It's always my fault. Every single time, there's like, did they even test it? No, I'm just not doing it right. There's a level of that that's like, we are the tech people.

If we can't get something right off the start, like, yes, maybe we missed. it, but like, maybe it's also not programmed that well if we're missing. It's true. You're right. You're more. I'm the problem. Well, okay, so for me, I'm, I'm now the proud owner as of like two or three months ago of AirPod Pro threes. I finally switched from the twos to the threes. Interesting. And for all intents and purposes, they're AirPods. Yeah. AirPods Pro. Can't go wrong. Except I have this weird thing where when my laptop is in my backpack closed. If I don't turn Bluetooth off on my laptop before putting it in my backpack, my AirPods will just constantly disconnect from my phone. What? Oh, constantly. Yeah.

And are, do you think they're connecting to my iPad? If my iPads in my backpack, I have to put that on, I have to turn Bluetooth off before it's weird. Do you think they're connecting to the laptop? It's my best guess because when I do that, I don't have the connectivity issues. That seems to be the only thing that changes the behavior. I mean, sure it's my fault somehow. I have all sorts of funky scripts running on that laptop, but also it's like maybe the iPad then doesn't really make much sense. Yeah. And also, I just want to say it doesn't happen when I take Office iPads out for various things. Like it's only my personal iPad. Oh, sorry, I missed that part. It connects to your

iPad if you don't turn off Bluetooth. Yeah. It connects to my M1 small iPad Pro. But when I have the offices um, um, um, something newer, large iPad pro doesn't matter. You signed into the same ICloud account? Yeah,

all three of them are on my ICloud account. My thought on the laptop was if you have something running like yeah, what's it called like caffeine or something like that? No, I mean like this is part of the reason I think it's my fault. I have so much stuff running on that laptop. It looked my, I'm sure the inside of my laptop looks like a NASCAR car car.

Like there's just like stuff that I've like spattered all over it. But then like, you can't really do that. to an iPad. But then also, why are, I thought all iPads were this. Anyway, um, if anyone would like to tell me what I'm doing wrong and how much this is my fault, I'll accept it. It's always, I know, I know how this goes. This ain't my first. Did he even test this? To be clear, is your computer like doing things even though it's closed? Like you have it running. No. And to be honest, I always sort of thought that like, um, even if you have like a caffeine script,

running forever. When your laptop is closed, it shouldn't, like, the closed lid should override a lot of stuff. But I also know there's a lot of programs, like Touch Designer. If you leave Touch Designer running, even with caffeine off and your laptop closed, you will open your computer to a dead laptop. Yeah. So I'm sure there's just something running somewhere that loves. It's the iPad thing that confuses me more.

Yeah, right. I could see like a weird something happening with it, like thinking it's in clamshell mode. so thinking it's like connected and wanting to be there, but like the iPad, I can't imagine. And it doesn't happen on my pro twos. It's only the three to add another layer of intrigue to this caper. Have you tried putting the iPad in clamshell mode? Just take it like, fold in half. Right over the knee, baby. Fold it by. So yeah, that's my and you know, I'm sure they did test this. This seems like something that they would test. They probably just didn't test it with my bohemian lifestyle.

So to speak. If AirPods had little cameras to be able to tell what you're working on, it might be able to automatically connect. Just a thought, Apple, if you want. This is going to be an episode now. We will get to that. We will get to that.

We will. But first, I feel like the true, did they even test this, is the Instagram logo. Instagram, like the Shaq movie. I think the funniest part about this logo, which David's talking about, the new Instagram logo, is even when people try and

talk like enunciate it by the letters that looks like it is now because it's so bad it's still not going like Instagram it's just it's Insta-Gazam

there's no R like we keep adding extra letters because the R looks like a Z and it's so confusing at what it I honestly think someone who didn't know about Instagram wouldn't be able to say this how loud

I also think that Instagram's core user base doesn't know how to write cursive because they did stop teaching cursive in schools. So I can't believe I'm about to defend do it. But like what are you guys talking about? What are you guys talking about?

Are we really? The biggest problem is the R looking like a Z. That's the biggest problem. Dude, it's Instagram. Like everyone knows what Instagram is. There's like outside of like straight up like North Korea. I bet even in North Korea people know what Instagram is. I know that people know what it looks like.

It's one of those words that you don't even read anymore. Like when is the last like? Obviously, it's a subconscious process, but I guarantee you at no point in the last 10 years, have you ever actually read the word Instagram? You just see words that are in the vague shape of the word Instagram. And you go, that's Instagram. The wordmark is now at the top of the app. It's replaced the old logo at the top of that.

The old mark. So you still have the old one? No, it's the new one. Oh, yeah, the new one. I have Instagram on my phone because I wanted to put stuff from Spain. I redownload it. And I'm very worried. I'm not going to delete it.

You should delete it now. Do it now. Do it live on the podcast right now. Thank you. Thank you. These are the friends you need. Come on. I'm doing it.

Uninstall. Uninstall. Oh, Instagrism is gone. Goodbye. It's done. Wait, it's called Instagram. I'm not. I'm still using that up.

I never want to give this company a pass, but. Ellis approved. Ellis approved. It's in line with their other word marks. Like meta WhatsApp, like it just looks the same as those now. Does it? Pretty much. I mean, it's a sans serif, you know, evenly spaced.

It's not Chabani. It's not Chabani. It doesn't really look like that. The meta wordmark is just a regular seraph. Yeah, WhatsApp is about as plain as you could think. It's just the cursive. Yeah, it just fits in. I did see a like a rebrand thing where all they did was connect the G to the R.

The Z. Yeah, the Z. and it actually made it look normal. I don't know, guys. What I'm curious about is like, there was definitely a meeting where they were like, what part of the old logo do we keep? And someone was like,

it's not Instagram without the S and the R. And that was, I don't know. Yeah. Anyway, that's fine. I asked two of our designers in the office today to send me a quick, their thoughts on it. Oh.

Yeah. Do you want to hear Olivia or Tim's thoughts first? Olivia. Yeah. She said, New Instagram logo feels pretty static and bland. The old logo felt so much more human and personable. I think it also became nostalgic to some degree.

It's extremely hard to read. It feels too clean. It's not the worst thing I've ever seen. Things change and evolve over time, but it's definitely not groundbreaking. Okay. I think that's very fair. Solid.

What about Tim? I totally understand. By the way that, like, changes to anything get backlash. I just think the R looks like a Z, and it's hard to read. Tim said, the most Gen Z logo ever, only somewhat capable of writing a word of incursive. I understand they're trying to bridge the gap between old and new, but this bridge is broken. The logo isn't legible at the end of the day.

Bangor. Sorry. This bridge is broken. This bridge is broken. Nice. Yeah, I heard someone say, you can't go back to the classic logo for an anniversary if you never change it at least once. You know what I mean? Oh.

That's true. So. Hashtick Philadelphia 76 is. In 10 years, they'll have a week where they bring back the classic logo. go and everyone will like them again. That's true. Still won't be chronological. I mean, the young kids are apparently not even on Instagram anymore.

I think young people are probably just mostly on Snapchat nowadays anyway. Instagram's probably cringe. That's fair. At what point do young people graduate out of Snap into Instagram? I don't think it's graduating. I don't. I think Snap has a much stronger hold than we would like to believe. I agree with that.

I just don't know anyone besides Tim that actually uses Snap. Like, I knew a lot of people. that used Snap back in a day. And then everyone just, like, evolved into Instagram, but somehow Snap keeps getting new users. I have talked. Do they just stay there? I've talked to a lot of youth recently,

and they are all about it. They're like, oh, we use it for just messaging. There's group chats now. They use it for, like, all their messaging. But that's what I mean, like, how long will it stay that way? Well, I don't think it's like you graduate to a boomer app. I think you do. That's exactly what I'm saying.

I feel like you do. To the millennial app. I feel like the app graduates to a next age life shelf. I don't know what to do. Like, like it just grows with Gen Z. And then eventually, whatever the next generation goes,

but if Gen Z, when Gen Z becomes a slur, then they decide. But if that was the case, we'd all still be on Snap. Because I use Snap all the time back in the day. I'm going to go full circle here. Little by little,

all of my friends dropped off. Yeah, but that was for other reasons. Claire and I, in a couple of, of our parent friends, Snap has turned into the, like, tamer way of just sending pictures of silly things our kids are doing. Like, like, the one where it doesn't deserve a whole chat thread or, like, muck up the group chat that we have between our friends, but it's just like a, look what

Lane's doing right now. Like, look what my kid's doing right now. It's kind of funny, but, like, if you don't see this, I don't really care. That's what Snap is for for right now. I wish it was, like, email where, you know, you could just have one client and get all these different kinds of messages on uh nothing david i'm sorry is it i was thinking about something else i was like ellis no no is he federated he was baiting me yeah it should be like email should be an open protocol so you could snap between instagram and snap just so i could have like yeah communicate the communication app on my phone yeah i mean that i got everything on yeah well just move to china use we chat for everything that's the communication app um you wear you

I mean, they both have stories, so, because Meta stole that. All right. The big story this week, or one of the big stories this week, YouTube has once again changed how views work, which is, I think, a bad move. Their reasoning, so effectively what they did is that a while ago, they changed the way that shorts fuse work, so that as soon as the shorts starts playing, it counts as a view. The reason they said they did this was because that's how all the other platform to it because all the other platforms want to inflate their success in comparison to YouTube.

Now YouTube is like, okay, well, now our mainline videos are long form videos as they're put, even if they're only four minutes, needs to adapt to the way that everybody else is doing it. So now, just like shorts, the minute, the second, a single frame, the frame of video plays, including auto play is counted as a view. I, this is going to mess everything up for a while. There's going to be a calibration period. This is, I mean, we've kind of been through this already, like you said, with shorts. And I liked, at least when they did it with shorts, they basically admitted everyone else is inflating them, me too.

Like, I want to also do this. And while I didn't like it at that point, they, you know, it did kind of make sense with the other platforms, although they're admitting this, I feel like a lot of big tech companies don't like to admit there is other competition. Like Apple famously never likes to talk about anyone else. And I feel like it's the power move to just pretend you are you. Yeah. Yeah. So by admitting all that, it kind of feels like we're a little scared and they should have been scared in shorts. Doing it here is this, because they're still doing this thing where it's only public view count. Engaged views is still the thing that all of the creators still

care about and that is now hidden in YouTube studio. Yeah, so traditional views which require a certain amount of seconds of playback are now called engaged views. And that's what you're going to be paid based on. That's where all of the metrics come from when you're trying to, when you're trying to become part of the YouTube partner program, which we didn't mention last week, but they actually doubled the amount of hours that you need to have to get into the partner program. That was its own like roller coaster of both of these news things. I think you have written down here that the new requirements are 10 million short views in 90 days, or 8,000 qualified watch hours, or 20 million qualified shorts views in 90 days is the new requirements to join the partner program. So there's a, there's a separate shorts program as there is a long form program.

The shorts program is, let's see, let me find it here. Yeah. The shorts program, if you want to be paid for shorts, is you have to get 10 million short. Shorts views within a 90-day period, which seems like a lot. I'm just going to say. I know that shorts are like they're all kind of differently and whatever, but you're still just like hoping that the algorithm likes you and you're going to have to really, really, really be pumping it out.

Also, by the way, shorts don't pay for that. Shorts really don't pay that much, like at all. And then now, if you want to be a part of the YouTube partner program for the regular long form videos, you have to have 8,000 qualified watch hours. So previously it was 4,000. And it's kind of hard to get to. And 8,000 seems like a lot now. So it's going to take new creators quite a lot of time of just making things without getting any monetization before they can start getting paid, which is tough.

It is. And it's YouTube, like, I'm not going to sit here and try and defend YouTube that hard, but it is a way that people can make money off of making a bunch of content on a place that uploads and stores massive, massive, massive amounts of data. So like with so many more people coming on continually raising the requirements is something they probably have to do at a certain point. Yeah. Because they're paying out sort of a pool of available ad revenue. Especially in shorts. Like that is the pool. Yeah.

And so bumping that was like, okay, this is so much harder now. This is literally twice as hard and it was pretty hard already. Then when they did the view change, they announced this view change. People were like, oh, maybe this isn't that bad. Yeah. Because now views are going to be counted easier. maybe not twice as much, but easier. But then within the blog post that they posted

in Renee Richie's video explaining it is these requirements are based on engaged views. So essentially based on the old version of views. So actually nothing's changed except that it is all now doubled. This is also just going to be very confusing because the way that a lot of YouTubers get paid outside of YouTube is that they go to these brand partners

and they say, here's all my metrics. You can see it publicly, but also I have YouTube studio metrics that I can hand to you. Now there's going to be a discrepancy between what the brand sees publicly on YouTube.com and what the creator gives to them from Creator Studio. And what the creator gives to them is going to be way lower, which I'm a little worried will make the brands kind of be like, oh, we thought that you were getting this much,

but you're actually getting this much. I'm not really sure I want to work with you now. And I think part of that is, I mean, we've joked about it a million times on the podcast, but still in influencer marketing and brands and everyone, feels like they just really don't understand the landscape of engagement. I mean, yeah, there's impressions, there's, there's views, there's watch hours, there's all these different things. And so many of the, are subscribers, so many of them are still like, you have five million subscribers. I can't tell that your videos are getting 10,000 view now because

you haven't really been making a lot of content. So like, it's already confusing for them. We're throwing another wrench in here now. And I do think brand deals are going to be hurt on this. part of that might be because a lot of creators might take advantage of this off the riff. If you had to take a guess, what do you think the average view count percentage increase would be for like a standard popular video? I don't think it's going to be double. But the more you pop up on the like 40 to 60 percent. I would guess like 20 to 40 percent increase at first of like what a view count.

If a person might get a million views, I would not be surprised if like a 1.4 million view publicly is what might show up, whether that's just random auto plays when you're scroll. Like, it feels weird to me that I might be reaching for a video on the right side of my homepage and I might accidentally give two views out with my mouse just hovering on the way over. Yeah. Like, there's a lot of, quote, views to be put around here. And when they say this is what other people do, it's also in a weird other sense, and I'm definitely rambling here, but like, Twitter and Facebook did this because there's,

still scrolling chronological feeds that auto play and they want to boost their videos so, so much because they want to look like YouTube. They want to compete with YouTube. They want to feel competitive with YouTube. Would you say that this is basically just an impression now? No. No. It's not yet because an impression still counts any time a thumbnail served. So if I were looking at the YouTube homepage right now, there might be 10 videos. All of those get one impression. Three of those now might get a view because of a hovering auto play or just a random auto play because when you're like, I guess in mobile you are still scrolling.

Mobile has the best chance of giving random videos a ton of extra views. Yeah. But I still don't think full on impression yet. I think that number will still be higher. Yeah. Because of just serving a thumbnail. And also serving a thumbnail on the right side recommended on browser, none of those are going to really auto play.

But those are all still going to be an impression. One thing I was kind of thinking about was that generally when I get to near the end of a video, I sometimes will pause like one or two seconds before the video ends because I don't want another video to auto play. But then occasionally I think about, well, I would like the creator to get a 100% watch rate for me. So I just let it finish. But then it just starts playing another video. And so now like the amount of videos that just I watch a frame of, but they have a view is kind of going to be messed up. I don't know.

I think it makes sense for YouTube to want to show their superior. by changing the way that they count views to the same way everybody else is. But they just they just don't need to it feels like a reaction to competition that didn't really exist. Yeah, I feel like it makes them seem not superior. I totally agree. This feels like the scared move. I think before in the creator economy and I'll admit us and the people listening to us see the creator economy way different than like most average people do just looking on YouTube.

but like every person ever who makes content just considers a view on YouTube to be exponentially more like worth it or profitable or what it valuable than any other view on any other platform. I mean like you could possibly argue that a long form YouTube view is equal to like a thousand TikTok views probably even higher than that. Yeah. And that was in itself. Like every TikToker, every Instagram Reels person, every, they all want to be YouTubers because there's better money on YouTube and that all, it's nothing to take away from them.

But like, that is where the money seems to be. YouTube has figured out monetization the best. Instagram hasn't even figured it out at all. So I think by now being like, oh, we're going to be about the same views. It feels like you're, I don't know. Yeah. It feels scared. I get this whole, we want to make it easier to understand and whatever, but that feels like

tech is so good at being like technically correct on things, but very clearly, like, this is just a play to, in their eyes, have inflated view numbers, which I think is a bad thing. It's going to be interesting to see them do their earnings call. You know, it's part of Google, but I'm wondering if Google will go and say, like, YouTube had a really great quarter. Our views went up by this, or if they're going to explain how that works. Yeah, like, are they going to pitch to advertisers? Wow, we've seen a 30% increase in views on videos, and like, are they going to create their own, what do we call it, Admageddon? What was the old one where, like, Adpocalypse? Sorry, yeah. Are they going to create their own one where they're going to, like,

pitch all these increased view counts, and then, like, all these companies are going to be like, yeah, I'm all in and then see the same exact thing and no increase and those companies aren't going to want to advertise as much. I think overall there's just going to be kind of an evening out period where creators are like, hey, look at all these views that I'm getting. And then the companies will be like, wow, that's awesome. They'll probably pay them more for a short period. But eventually that will normalize. And one thing to clarify in here, August 24th, this launches, any video posted after that will have the new view slash engage view metric. Any video posted before that will keep its original views and any views added on after the 24th will be the new

metric. So that's going to be a little confusing with those things, but you might see like spikes in videos that have been posted beforehand. What I think is a little funny right now is YouTube owned by Google. I mean, this is a very tech niche funny part, but just launched the pixel. Generally our three biggest podcasts of the year are like Samsung launch, Pixel launch, Apple launch. Pixel video did great. great. I think it was a one out of 10. And then they're going to change these views. And now we're going to get the Apple thing out. And Apple's going to look like it's doubling and or tripling views because it usually does a little better already. And now it's going to get inflated views.

So publicly the iPhone is going to look so much more popular than the pixel at least to a waveform crowd. That's true. Which is kind of silly. I think we'll have to look back on this in like a year and see how things have changed. But overall, like, I do understand like the normalization taking place. That was going to happen eventually, just whether or not it happened when other companies caught up in some sense of the word

or now. I guess they just needed to do it now. I get it on shorts. That was actually something they needed to compete again, but I just really don't think anyone's competing with YouTube in long form, so it just feels like its own thing,

and this just feels like a pat ourselves on the back, pat our stats kind of. Yeah. like smurfing. Yeah. It just doesn't feel real. So views are going to be weird for a little bit. I mean,

for brand deals and stuff, we'll look pretty sick for a little while until they figure it all out. So it might be beneficial for us. That is true. That is true. Otherwise, yeah, I just don't really get it.

Okay, before we throw this to ad break, I just want us to react to this for a second. I had thrown this in Slack a little bit earlier this week. I put it in Slack again, so you can check it out now. The link to it. I don't buy Supreme stuff,

but Supreme dropped its fall in winter 26 preview and there are so many products in here that I just never thought would get a Supreme collab. The Kodak Super 8 film camera, which

I thought they only made like 5,000 of if not less because they cost like $7,000 and it's not that much better than a regular Super 8 camera. There's a Supreme version. There is a Supreme version of the classic Dyson. The Dyson one's got sick, not going to lie.

Yeah. I mean, it is kind of cool. It's like see-through red and it's got like half the Supreme logo on it. It says super for some reason. The Supreme Dyson will be in every single L.A. apartment of an influencer who like just got popular on Instagram and bought an apartment that's way too big. And they's not furnished. This will be in the side of every single one of those. videos. Okay, the one that I actually think is pretty sick is the analog pocket. Oh. If you guys don't

remember, the analog pocket is like a Game Boy color, uh, but it's made by the company analog, which also is making an N64. They're pretty, they're, there's a red one and there's a gold one. And they have like, everything is very metal. I just think they look kind of good. I don't know. Maybe I'm crazy. I think my favorite is the Christmas version of Gremlin's statue. Um, Gremlin's the movie is just the gremlin in a Santa costume with a Supreme belt holding, what is it the gremlin called before it's a gremlin? Is it still just a gremlin? I think it's just a gremlin, but non. The cute gremlin, the pre-food after midnight gremlin or pre-get wet gremlin holding a candy cane in a supreme bag. I don't get supreme. That's the most boomer thing I could have said

out loud, probably, but there is some tech stuff. Yeah, there's also like the classic JBL speaker that you bring with you to like a beach party. And the clip on iPhone microphones. It's not like a road. It's not a hollyland. These are the like very skinny ones that are like $13 and probably break after one use. Yeah. The funniest one for me, I think, is the brawn razor, which I have bought this razor probably

eight times because I always leave them at hotels by accident. But it's just a big red brawn razor. Braun or wall? Sorry, wall. Yeah, wall. It's the exact razor that I own. Yes. But it's supreme.

really funny and really ridiculous. And I didn't know they did stuff like this. David and I were talking about this at the airport yesterday. You know, this podcast like talking about random Supreme products, you know, tail as old as time. But do you guys remember? I think this was like when I was in high school or maybe college. The brick.

Yes. Yeah. Supreme Brick. The Supreme Brick. I think you said it best, Andrew. This is when you get your first like million view TikTok, you go. straight to supreme.com, baby. It's like all the people who had

like a couple viral posts on social media and they're like, I'm going to buy a penthouse in L.A. This is stuff that half-empty apartment gets filled with before they realize that they're a viral clip. When I was growing up in L.A., like they were, you know, it was like the odd future

heyday and Supreme was sort of having. It's like real moment and I had a bunch of friends that like, you know, would save up forever and we'd go to the Supreme store back when they had like a skate park in the Supreme store. It was this whole thing, but I do remember the first time a friend bought, like, an object, like, that wasn't, like,

a closer thing, and it was the most intense feeling of, like, and now what? I've ever experienced. Like, okay, you have this, and you don't have $400. That's a, yeah? Yeah. They have a, uh, they have a Darth Mall skateboard. It's the very last one. There's also a skateboard that just is, like, two German shepherds. Strange. Strange. Also, strange.

Also strange just to see such common tech products on here. But that's how it is. All right. We got to take a break. We have a very big section coming up with a lot of very interesting Apple news. So make sure you stay tuned for that. But first, we've got to do what we always do every single week. No, I'm just kidding.

It's trivia. Mark, guys, please come back. I don't know why that trivia sounded not very enthusiastic. It's just the way you said it. I'm a little tired from the airplane. Yeah, Ellis and I got off the airplane last night, so we're a little jadedly a lie. We got off the airplane yesterday afternoon. Yeah, I don't have an excuse for being this tired.

I mean, you are jet-lagged, it's fine. Yeah. Anyway, so because we talked about YouTube for so long, this first question is kind of not really about YouTube, but sort of YouTube to Jase it. But I found out something really interesting about a company called Connected Ventures, which is the company that founded college humor, and I think still technically is like the parent company of Dropout.

And for a while, I didn't know this. They had a really early investment from Barry Diller, like the old school Paramount executive turned QVC executive, just like an old school media tycoon type guy. But I also found out that engineers who like developed a lot of the early video streaming stuff for college humor and worked at Connected Ventures actually launched what other popular video streaming website that was sort of for a time the sister website. of college humor.

What year? This would have been like, I don't know if I can tell you that. Oh. I guess you know what year. It's like 2005, between 2004 and eight, I'll give you that,

you know. Live leak. So we're guessing a video platform or website. Yeah. 2004 to 2008. Yeah, somewhere in there. It's not college humor.

It's not college humor. It's not E-BOM's world. Stop. It's not. Were there videos on? I thought that was all flash. It was a little bit before my time. All right, well, answers will be the end.

Like usual, we'll be back. Support for the show comes from Shopify. I know for a fact there are people in our audience who have great ideas for businesses. If you need a friendly nudge, consider yourself nudged. By me, Ellis. Shopify makes it easy to take that leap. Everything you need to start selling is included

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That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. Elon Musk and a lot of other very smart people think we're all going to have robots at our house any day now. But when you look at where the tech is today and how far it has to go, you might reach a different conclusion.

This idea that humanoid robots are coming to live in our house, and I went and explored that, is just not true. That's Joanna Stern, the tech journalist who spent a year outsourcing her life to AI and robots. That's on channels, the show about tech and media and what happens when they collide, wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. All right, welcome back. The Apple event is in like three or four weeks, but we already got our first look at the camera, quote-unquote, AirPods.

that we've been talking about for a while now. I like this because you said official leak, and arguably it couldn't be more official. It could not be more official. Because Apple leaked it. Apple leaked it. This is awesome. This is like exciting.

We don't get this very often. It never happened. Someone at Apple is getting more than fired. Let me just say that. Yeah, but like everything on Twitter was most of the things I saw about it weren't even about the AirPods. It's just like, yeah.

This is fun again. Like this feels like 10 years ago where we got like random leaks of things and we were all excited. And the cool thing, too, is it's not like a random leak where we didn't know where it came from, right? Like, when leaks happen from Google, they feel very planned. You know, it's like, oh, it leaked. Oh, we gave this to a leaker. But when you find things in the system files, that's when it's very fun.

So in the MacOS Tahoe release candidate 26.7, which is funny because it's not Golden Gate. It's actually an older version of MacOS that is a release candidate. There was a video file that was demonstrating the new AirPods with Visual Intelligence. Now, the video did not seem color-graded or, like, done at all. It might have even been, like, a test video. I'm not sure. It also seemed very green-skewed, like, not a polished video, like, we're used to sing from Apple. If remember, the audio felt really, can I play it real first?

Yeah, sure, you can play it. With visual intelligence, your world becomes saveable. See something you like? Just ask me to save it for later. Doesn't that feel, like, very... It feels robotic. It feels like placeholder. Yeah, it feels kind of placeholder.

So what's happening in this video? is there is a man who picks up a book and he has these longer stemmed AirPods Pro. They kind of look like AirPods Pro, but their stem is almost the length of the original AirPods. The electric toothbrush top. The electric toothbrush top. And they look a little bit silly.

I mean, I think every new version of the AirPods looks a little bit silly until it eventually gets normalized. But he picks up a book and basically, based on this voiceover, it just says, just save it for later. So what we assume is happening is the AirPods are, sensing the book, they're sensing the text, whether or not that's through an infrared camera or through a regular camera, we're not sure. I really do not think that Apple is going to put

standard cameras in these AirPods where you can just take photos of your world because they are the privacy company. It would piss a lot of people off. They're going to have to do a significant amount of public relations and marketing to make people feel better about these things if they even possibly can. Because whether or not it is an infrared camera, it is still a camera. Still a camera. And MET is out here just really screwing a public perception of cameras everywhere. Yeah.

Wait, but if you can look at a book and tell it to save it to later, that's not infrared, is it? Infrared can still detect text like that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. Yeah. I don't know. No.

That'd be a good sound clip. I don't know. We really, we just don't know enough about these yet. But a regular camera, I think, would be a huge mistake from. Apple. I'm looking at an infrared camera looking at like an AC unit outside and it can read the text on the thing.

Yeah. So. That is the depth of my knowledge of infrared cameras. One Google search. In my opinion, this would be the best bet for Apple, but yet again, they're going to have to make people feel okay with that. They have to call it a camera no matter what. Which is tough. Which is...

Will they? Well, they'll call it a sensor. They'll call it an infrared sensor. Technically, a camera is a sensor. A sensor is a camera. But I think they're also going to have to do a lot of work to just say these are just for visual intelligence. You can't ask it to take a photo. You can't ask it to do this. Either way, I don't know. Having these in your ears is kind of tough. Now, I can see why Apple wants the future of their AI products to just be their existing products, right? AirPods and the Apple Watch are pretty much the best quote unquote AI device you could have because you're already wearing

them. The best way to integrate new technology into people's lives. is to put it in existing things that they use every day, and a lot of people use AirPods all the time. Also, allegedly, if hair is covering the AirPods, you will receive an alert that asks you to make sure that they're not covered, because, you know, if you have long hair or... Presumably only when you ask it the question.

When you ask it the question. Okay. Because it would be very annoying. Yes. What is this for? Well, luckily, we have none of the answers and only speculation, so... Well, like, what would you use it for, I mean? Like, I have Google lens on my phone,

and I barely use that. And sure, when I use it, it's super useful and cool. And it's like, whoa, that's a thing I can do. But do I need this on my headphones? Yeah, so you can now lean down to that dog that that person's walking, not ask them the question, say, what kind of dog is this? That was a callback to a previous. What kind of dog is that? Yeah.

No, I don't know. There's things that could. I get the idea of like save this for later. Or like, the fact that he's looking at a book in his house and saying, let me look at this later is kind of weird. but if you're at like a library or a coffee shop that has books it's like oh add this to my list of something I want to get later or like I could see that being a thing I'm not trying like I don't think I would ever use it I kind of think these are silly and I cannot imagine the price tag on these I can only assume a significant price increase with this feels like a bit like a solution in

search of a problem it or like a shareholder tactic of like this looks good for AI and we're incorporating it into other products of our things. That's everything though. I just feel like this isn't like to David's point, this isn't a user behavior thing. Like as a person walking through a library, if I see a book I like, I take a picture of it. And it would be more useful for the photos app to then know that I took a picture of the thing, pull the image, be like, hey, there's this thing, blah blah, blah. When I ask it, what book did I see last Tuesday? But like, do I need that in my headphones? I don't, I feel like that's overkill. The question also becomes, do you have to explicitly ask it to sense the world around you?

Or is it constantly developing context? That's the other question. Which would mean constantly recording? And Apple will be like, but audio as well. Because it would need to know, like, when you say require context, my guess would be like, if I'm having a conversation with you and something I say is like, I really like that watch, like, is it going to be like, oh, it likes this watch, I see watch. do I record that context? I was thinking more of like, where did I leave my keys? Which is still constantly recording.

Yeah. To be able to know where that is. Apple would probably make some talk. I would probably say something like, oh, we take frame data every 10 seconds, but we're not really storing it anywhere. No, we're just sending it to a. We're encrypting in. Yeah, I don't know.

We're there watching it. There's so many questions. It would be funny if it just went, you should really have an air tag on your keys. Yeah, this reminds me a lot of the Sony link buds And their whole pitch was like Keep your headphones in all the time And you don't have to take them out Because they've got a hole in the center of them

The original link buds remember And they just like wanted you to keep your Your earphones wireless headphones Wireless headphones Earbuds wireless earbuds They want you to keep your earbuds in all day And it feels like Apple also kind of just wants you to keep them in all day Yeah, I

to Adam's point of, like, is this something a user would do? Is it safe to say now that a lot of tech companies in order to try and get ahead is they're taking so many risks on not what the user's currently doing, but it's our job to tell the user what they should be doing, and we want to, that's how we get the forefront of things. I feel like Apple has done that a lot. I'm going to tell you how to use this. You're going to then see that I'm telling you how to use it. I'm going to think that's a cool way of using it and maybe spend an extra $100 on a

that I already own. Yeah. Unfortunately, but... Apple does have a history of being able to tell users what they want, but whether or not this is a hit is going to be a long shot. Yeah. The cameras on things are going to be the... I think the tough thing.

It's just the wrong time, guys. It's not the right time. What's funny is just going all the way back to us saying this video might not be fully finished is somebody posted what the, um, where it's located in the build. And the MP4 file is called B790, save, for later, which really makes it feel like a placeholder thing. Like almost everything about this feels like a really well-shot placeholder, but nowhere near Apple quality of...

I mean, the background's blown out, and we would normally never see that. You know, but it is August, September is right around the corner. At least the design of the headphones and the structure of the headphones is probably set in place by now. Yeah, it's fun because we haven't had like an Apple leak from Apple themselves, and that part's really fun. dystopian that it's earpods with cameras. Yeah.

Earpads, AirPods with cameras. I think what's going to happen here is that people are going to get very angry, rightfully, because I don't think anyone wants more cameras that are constantly recording them when they don't know about it. And then it's an Apple product, so it's people are going to buy a lot of them. And there's going to be a normalization period where this does eventually normalize. I don't love that. Yeah, I do think I am not, I do not like defending Apple here. Like, because of the fact that this presumably will not have a, I can record the, like,

I can be a creep record on it. Yeah. At least then publicly it might be a little more normalized to wear into a private establishment. Yeah. Like, that's not quite as bad. You still, as a person, should be worried about Apple themselves tracking what you're doing and or saying, but it doesn't seem to have creep capabilities on it yet. Creep abilities.

I will not take that away from them at some point in the future. Yeah. Hopefully these don't get hacked. Which they probably will. Okay. In this release candidate, we actually also got a bunch of other references to other unreleased products, including one of Apple's new Home Hub products, both the one that goes on the wall and the one that goes on the table, listed as J490 and J491. There's allegedly a new Apple security camera that we've talked about before. The Pebble Home OS operating system, it's probably just going to be called Home OS, but it's called Pebble Internal.

the AirPods with cameras, new beats headphones, AirPods Pro 4, which it's interesting that they're being listed separately from these. People are calling the ones with the camera AirPods Ultra, which I just, Ultra is just the general name people say when it's an unannounced. Yeah, I think that's hard with AirPods Max because it makes it feel bigger than AirPods Max, which nothing is bigger than AirPods Max, except for maybe the headphones Ellis is wearing right now. But it would be weird to go AirPods Pro, then AirPods Max are over-eared,

then AirPods Ultra are earbuds again. Yeah, yeah. There were references to the iPhone Air 2, the iPhone 18 series, including the foldable, new MacBook Pro's, new IMAX, new iPads, a new Vision Pro was also listed in there. Could have been a placeholder. Or like a chip update maybe?

Or it could have been while they were working on the cheaper one, but then they scratch, I don't know, whatever's happened in there. And then new Apple TV. So that should be interesting. That's a lot of products that they're allegedly working on. And it's interesting that they're all in the release candidate,

which means we are probably going to get a lot of products this year, if not this year and then into spring. Yeah. I mean, it is like notoriously iPhone, what is it? Like iPhone AirPod's watch will probably be September event. And then they like to do some Mac stuff in like November. They do Mac stuff in October, November, and then do like iPad and back to school stuff.

And then the E series in the spring. Yeah. And then spring. There are actually a lot of Apple events. through the year now. We don't think about that. We used to think about the fact that used to be like one big Apple event in September. Now they're pretty spaced out. But that leads us into our next little story here because the standard iPhone 18 might not launch until next spring. So there are now, there's a new report that is claiming that the iPhone 18 standard edition

is going to launch in March of next year. This report comes from, it came from Minchiko before, but Pegatron, as we've talked about various times on this point. podcast. An Apple supplier held an annual earnings call and indicated that one of its customers would be changing its usual smartphone shipment schedule. And when you have to tell your investors during an earnings call that your shipments are going to go down significantly for this quarter, you kind of know it's Apple. Yes, it clicks communicator. Wow, that's a dig. You clearly know that that's Apple. So that makes it seem like Apple is going to be pushing the standard 18. And I have maybe a hot take. I actually think it makes sense from the company's perspective

to launch the standard models later because they've been launching like the E gets launched later, right? But if you launch the pros first and you give it, I don't know, five or six months before the standard models launch, that would entice a lot more people who might have just gotten the standard one to get a pro because they want the new thing. And the thing is the standard editions of all of these phones are getting better and better and better to the point where why should you get the pro is becoming a very common question. I agree with your hot take as a capitalist. Yes, I'm saying from Apple's perspective, it makes sense. I'm not saying I'm a capitalist. Strike it from the record. I'm saying as a capitalist. To make as much money as possible, you are entirely correct.

That's what I'm saying. From Apple's perspective, I feel like it makes sense to be like, if you want our new stuff, it's only the pros, and in six months you can buy the cheaper one. And for that entire six months, you'll be on our website looking at them, dreaming of them, realizing that it's just a couple hundred more bucks. Yeah. Just a couple smackers. Just press buy. The best way to get people to buy stuff is to constantly be back on the website and add it to the car and then forget and then think about it.

Yeah. And then come back and then think about it. Yeah. This also lets the colors of the standard iPhone. be the big story when they come out. It's not like some new feature that there's on the pro. Like, oh, the pro gets all the feature, blah, and then you get to be like, ooh, pine cone or whatever they're going to do. Yeah. I have a, I don't think it's a hot take, but an irrelevant take, possibly. This is, if this happens, Google is pumped because last year we kept comparing

them to the base iPhone with the base storage issue. They did a price increase this year. Their best shot to be like, guys, see, it wasn't that bad, was the new iPhone base to release with a price increase as well at the same storage? And they could be like, see, now they have to live potentially for like six more months of being like, this is a shit deal. Yeah. So I think, uh, or even though the standard pixel is 899 this year, if there is no matched iPhone, yeah. The cheapest iPhone comes in at like $1,100 or $1,200, $1,200, the pixel is actually still going to look like a good deal. Yeah.

Everything's expensive. Everything is expensive. I do, I hate that. It makes sense to launch it with the E. I always have said, I think, I get really confused with Pixel and A series

where it's like the Pixel 9 comes out and then the Pixel 9A comes out later and the average person comes to me and says, should I get the new pixel? What new? The Pixel A, it's like, no, it's worse than the one that just, like, it's worse than the one you have. Yeah.

Like, this is confusing. That's true. If anything, the cheaper stuff should come out first. So every time it is new, it is better. But by doing this, especially by naming them the same numbers, the new thing winds up actually being technically worse. Yeah. And I think that's a weird, confusing way of doing it.

And some of the Apple users might be to the point where they just say, new iPhone and literally buy a worse phone later on. This is true. Which is bad. Yeah. Allegedly, the iPhone Air 2 is also going to launch alongside the standard 18. That is weird. to me. Yeah. Well, they

they sort of positioned the error as like alongside the standard iPhone as like, oh, you want the standard but you want the thinner standard one. And it won't more expensive? Yeah. But yeah, yeah, more expensive, but it's also like way more premium. I know. That's why I think it makes more sense. If they were going to switch regular to the E-release in the spring, it makes it feel like September

event is like best in class, shiniest, coolest, which I guess iPhone Air 2 is probably just going to be updated iPhone Air that we've seen already. So it's not that jaw dropping anymore. Yeah. So what we think we're going to see, pro, pro max, ultra, which presumably is the foldable, AirPods with spy cameras, and then new watch. Yeah, I mean, we should be getting a new Apple Watch.

There's so much stuff. There's so much stuff. Yeah. It's going to be a lot of stuff is here. It is strange, though, because, yeah, the iPhone Air 2 is like, the iPhone Air is just generally one of the most premium iPhones. I think that because the 17 was the tick of the TikTok cycle

and it kind of changed the way the iPhone looks a little bit and the 17 Pro is one of the best selling iPhones in a very, very long time, they are very worried about people actually wanting to upgrade to an 18 because it's not going to look that different. And so I think if they isolate the 18

alongside there's the 18 and then there's the fold which costs like $2,300 I think the 18 starts looking like the 18 Pro starts looking like a pretty good upgrade for some people. I think, I don't remember exactly. I think it was Mark German posted a picture of a case from Otterbox. And on it, it said compatible with iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro.

So like he, either they made a mistake or they think it is so similar that it would fit in the same case. Yeah, I would not be surprised. I don't think anything is going to significantly change on those phones. Yeah, I would agree with you on that. I don't think. I think the rumor is that there's going to be a variable aperture. on one of the cameras, but maybe it's not thicker because of that. Yeah.

It's already got the giant camera bar. Yeah. The plateau on it. The plateau. Yeah. The plateau. I'm so sorry. David,

a little bit ago, you used a term that is such deep Intel ball knowledge. Like, I had never heard it before. Can you explain what the TikTok model is? I literally had to Google it to know what you're talking about. Okay. Yeah.

So the TikTok model of technology is usually that you release like a very big kind of foundational update one year and then the next year instead of making the design doing something like that you basically release the same design but with like incremental upgrades like the s series iPhones yeah like the yeah so yeah exactly like um the apple the apple apple used to do the iPhone seven and then seven s or like four and then fours and so the second year would always just be like oh we added this like incremental feature but now they don't do that that anymore. Wikipedia says that it actually comes from Intel.

Yeah, Intel. What they would do is they would shrink a dye size. Yeah. And then use an old micro architecture. And then they would improve the microarchitecture on that shrunken dye size. Then they would shrink the die size with the old mic, like they would alternate whether they were improving the dye or the other. Yes, yes.

I was going to use that as example, but I think people are tired of hearing people say that I used to work in Intel. Wait, did you actually work in Intel? David, what was your first job? Can I give some context to potentially our younger viewers as to why it's called the TikTok? Because we have to dance. Because it has nothing to do with the app. In fact, clocks.

Grandfather. Before they were on our phones. Tick. Tick. Yeah. Talk. That's the noise they made. That's true.

This feels like how I'm going to have to describe the save button. When I used to use calculators, we had this thing called the TI-84. I'm just kidding. What do you mean used to? We still got that. And it's probably still $140? It is. For sure.

It used to be. Yeah. So yeah, it was architecture and then improvement, architecture and improvement. Sorry about that tangent. You said the TikTok process and I was like, the what? That's fair.

That's a fair question. Anyway, yeah, we'll have to see what that happens. It's coming up really quick, guys. We're ramping right into, you know, we're into September. TechTember here. I'm going to make a bet. Bet.

This is my prediction. Okay. Do you know how they do pre-filmed videos for Apple Events? Yeah. Shot on AirPods Ultra. That would be crazy.

It's all in infrared. Every now and then my hair gets in the frame. It's all in infrared so you can just see heat and that's it. Dude, picture the shot of an Airpod falling out of someone's ear. Just like, No, not funny. Oh, you mean from the camera?

Wait, would that actually be part of the feature, though, is like, oh, I lost my iPod? It's here. It looks like it's in your couch cushion. You can get a live stream of where it is. That'd be funny. No, I highly doubt that. Anyway, yeah, we only got a couple of weeks until the Apple events. So make sure you stay tuned for that.

Until then, we got to do our trivia. Trivia, dude. So I had a separate question, but after this conversation, I'm doing a different one. Texas Instruments, the maker of the TI calculators. Yeah. They had H-Qed in what city? Texas.

City. Texas. Instrument City, Texas. Instrument City. Yeah. We do have, in L.A., there's, what is it called, Ellis? Transportation City. Industry City.

The city of an industry city. There's an industry city in Brooklyn. No, that's the city of industry. That's different. No, I think you have it backwards. I'm pretty sure in L.A. it's the city industry. Oh. Okay.

Well, we'll find out after the break. Actually, at the end of the show. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca. Ready to take your investing knowledge to pro-level,

this is Fidelity Connects, your daily edge in the markets. Get deep insights on real-time market topics that may impact your investment portfolio. Listen to Fidelity Connects on Spotify today and power your next move tomorrow. Insurance is entering a new era. Policy shareholders expect a fast and flexible experience from the insurers they trust. That's why modern insurers run on Adion. From effortless premium collections to instant claims payouts, Adion's single platform automates your entire policy lifecycle. A single platform to reduce churn and claims fraud.

Drive revenue. Stay in control of how your money moves. Adion, fintech built for your next move. All right, welcome back. Ellis. Yeah. A new trackball just. just dropped and I think you're going to like this.

I think it just rolled. Probably. You're right. I also know almost nothing about this except for the article I found and then the website I read and I am basically all in on this company without knowing anything about them. But I'm not a trackball person. But after the Kikron Nape we looked at the other day, I was like, this thing's pretty sweet and I now kind of want to try one.

Partially because of how cool they look. I know that's not the real reason we should be liking these, but they look pretty sick and let's be real, half of the reason of a desk setup is just so it looks cool not so it's actually a productivity focused. So this is the A plus from a company called, I believe it's pronounced, plupy, which is, I mean, it just gets better as it goes.

I already love these people. So this is the first time I heard of them. I did a quick look over their website to see what they're about. They're from Canada. It's two guys. They started in 2019. I believe one of them kind of focuses on the hardware. one of them kind of focuses on the software and in and out they are open source everything about

them is open from the design files most of these things are 3D printed to all of the software it seems like you can essentially do whatever you want with these products which is really cool um they make a ton of different computer peripherals knobs track pads they have a mouse that is essentially four buttons and the little red knob from think pads like in the middle to use as your pointer, which is kind of awesome. That's amazing. And this is a new updated trackball they have called the A-plus. They used to have something called the Adept, which was a six-button track ball, kind of

in like a squircle shape. And this is essentially the update version of that because of how many modifications and notes people had on the previous version. Because they're open source. People just created all these different things for it, and they decided to update it. So the previous version had six buttons. This is adding two more, and those two new buttons, which are circular towards the bottom of the ball, are knobs as well that can do by default, high resolution, horizontal, and vertical scrolling, but can be reprogrammed. The modding community had designed a wrist rest rest for the previous adept.

So now there's a detachable and attachable or permanently attachable wrist rest for the new A-plus. For keyboard enthusiasts, this uses QMK for programming, but is also cool. configurable with via via i never know how to pronounce it which is awesome a couple new features they added um gestures so holding down a button and flicking the trackball and eight different directions can all be programmable to a different feature some of them they do are like media controls desktop changing like swipes um cut copy pace they have layers which is awesome one of them is just to kind of access the hardware um device configuration so left hand mode dpi LED LED brightness, whether you want high-res scrolling or stepped scrolling on the knobs. It's also 99 CAD or

70 like USDA, which is super reasonable. Pre-ordering started today. Actually, look at the website to see. But yeah, I've never used any of these products, and I know I went through that really fast, but these come in a bunch of really sick colors. Like the one I'm looking at, there's a yellow one with a blue ball, there's a white one with a blue, there's red and black on Marquez. Now, they're 3D printed, so it's very obviously the finish is like 3D print-esque, but from afar, I think they look great. Everything looks really ergonomical. Like, I think this makes me want to use a trackball.

I think it looks so sick. It almost makes me want to buy four different ones to match the different keyboard colors that I have. But I just love, even though I haven't used them, having the chance to, do highlight a not giant company, but rather what feels like a passion product. Yeah. Community driven passion product. Yeah. That's promising to keep things open source 100% of the time.

That's awesome. So this looks awesome. I'm probably going to order one. I might order one too. These look amazing. I wish they would let you 3D prints. I couldn't find anywhere to get the files. No, you can have the design files for it.

This just didn't come out yet. Oh, but I could like buy a board by itself. Oh, I don't know about that. That's what I want. I think you buy it. But then all the design files are available. So I guess if you wanted to print in different colors, but I think they really are focusing on people making their own modifications

and letting that be open. Because they have all these different things of like, obviously this is smaller, like a smaller company, but they have their soldering guides to see how things are done on here. And a modders guy or a mods index, like there's all this stuff on here, presumably by the community, which they also have a Discord and a subreddit.

for people who do all the stuff to these products. And this is the kind of tinkering I'm fully here for. Yeah, they also have like these backlight modes. Like they have a big backlight that can make the ball glow, which is awesome. And then they have just the backlides of the buttons. And I guess you can switch between them. So it tells,

it's context clues to help you understand like what mode you're in. So if the track ball itself is glowing, you're in one mode. If just the buttons in the back light are glowing, if they glow a different color. this is something that you would only get from a community open source project and I really really appreciate this. Yeah. This plus

opus and or fable five is going to be like so much fun to have at your desk. No, I'm serious. No, I know here's serious. They've got a bunch of other cool products. I feel like I could just imagine walking into the audio room. They do. They have

headphones they did that are 3D printed and open source and I don't know what on earth you would do with them, but that's cool. Right now at home, my left-hand macro is a, the Logitech MX creative thing. And I have the big knob as a jog-wheel for going between frames and Pro Tools. And then I use the vertical scroller as a bunch of different things. Like sometimes it's vertical zoom so I can do both at the same time.

But the Logitech software is kind of slow and doesn't really work though with Pro Tools. and so I prefer to use my MX master switches as my zoom in Pro Tools. But with this, I'm having the dream of being able to use the jog wheel as both vertical and horizontal zoom. And then hit a button with my pinky and have that turn into scrubbing frames. That would be freaking awesome. It seems like there's a lot to do. And QMK is like wildly accessible. No, it is not accessible.

It is fairly confusing. But there's a lot of stuff you can do in it. I have a macro project I'm working on. This white one looks awesome. That maybe I could talk about a little bit. Do it. It's not very... Because I flew through that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I wish I had more to say about this, but I... I could just see ten of these in the audio room. Yeah, I could tell you all about all the things I would want to do with that. I just don't think it would be very interesting, you know, but I'm stoked. That's the answer. It's like, I want this. I'm going to probably obtain this because as much as I love the MX master as my left-hand macro,

I think I'm ready for a new left-hand. because my right-hand macro at home just changed. Are you familiar with BitFocus Companion? No. BitFocus Companion is sick. It's open source stream deck firmware. Oh. That also works on pretty much anything that has buttons with screens on it.

And there's a community of people that build integrations into software that are really tight. And it's really, it's used all the way at like some of the highest levels. of production and broadcast. Like if you go into like NFL broadcast rooms, you will see a million dollars worth of broadcast gear being run by a stream deck because it has companion on it. Just think of it as like the dopest way to use a stream deck.

If you're not doing very professional workflows, I wouldn't recommend it. Like it's not, it would be way more difficult, I think, to like make a stream deck adjust the volume on your computer, for example. But if you're using, using like something like Resolume Arena where you're like triggering clips for a Jumbotron or something like it will automatically like bring the thumbnails of the clips into wherever that

clip's play button is on the street like there's lots of just like life things that just make it so easy anyway bunch of years ago I sort of borrowed let's say a Huawei Maypad pro that was lying around the office that like we it was essentially useless to us because you can't put any Google apps on it, which means you can't have the Play Store on it, which means the only app store that I was able, I guess now actually that's side loading and other app stores are there. I couldn't even get other app stores on it because the Huawei firmware really hates side. This thing is useless. That's like what I'm trying to get at. It's like unless you're like so bought into the Huawei ecosystem and also speak Chinese, there's just like not a lot. That's like super awesome

at this thing. So it ended up sitting in a closet at my house for a long time. But the web browser works. And I figured out with BitFocus companion, you can emulate the buttons on a stream deck in a web browser and then have it still go to your computer. So I 3D printed like a stand that sits the, it's like a full-sized landscape tablet. So it sits at probably like a 20 degree angle on my desk. And it's an 8 by 11 button stream deck now on my desk. I have 88 freaking bit focus stream deck buttons on a touchscreen right. above my keyboard and it is bliss. Every single time I'm like, oh, I did that twice.

It gets a button. It's just incredible. And so I've set it up so like every application has its own 88 button page too. So I'll like turn on my computer and it loads to the homepage of the stream deck. And then I go, oh, I'm doing Pro Tools today. Hit the Pro Tools button. I'm doing Arena today. I hit the Arena button.

I hit the Touch Designer button. Boop-Boot-boop-Doo-Boo-Doo-Doo. It is just so fun. imagining you as like the organ player with just like keyboards all around you, except that 99% of the time when you're using the computer, you're just like hunched over with like just your trackpad, like click. No, I don't use a trackpad at home. Use a mouse.

Yeah. At home, at work I'm a trackpad guy. At home, I'm a mouse guy. I can't tell you why. It's just that's the way I do it. I'm freaky like that. I like that. It's contact switching.

Yeah. Oh, fair. Yeah. Yeah. At home, I'm an MX. master person at work. I'm a magic trackpad person everywhere. Like there's a magic trackpad here and at my edit desk. I think I just like to make you guys think I'm weird and cool. But yeah, don't worry. It's working. If anyone needs a 3D file for a stand for a Huawei MatePad Pro, hit me up. I'll send it to you.

And yeah, if you have the chance to have more than 80 buttons on a stream deck, do it because it is Really fun. Yeah. And that's my macro talk. We like it. We like it. For those that are wondering, the pixels, they just drop officially. We're not going to talk about them this week because Marquez is out in Ireland being hot, like we said.

And I think that we all want to have a little roundtable discussion about them. So that'll come next week. But don't worry. We do have them. What's that color called again that you're holding? It's like pistachio? Or is that the regular one? No, the regular 11 green is pistachia.

Oh, is that like... It's like... It's like... That's not an olive. I think this is olive. Someone get it an olive. Wait, let me... This was the...

I just remember reading through the rumors and there were so many different color potential names. I think it's either pine or olive. Olive. Yeah, olive. It's not quite olive. But anyway, we'll talk about that next week. So make sure...

Yeah. If the RGB could be more than five colors. Yeah. That's a whole thing. It's a whole thing. rabbit hole we're going to get it to. I can't wait until we find out how that actually works and like what happens. It doesn't. It doesn't work. So, all right. Well, I think that's it for story this week, but we're going to get into trivia. Answers. No. Guys, while college humor

was in its early days, some developers who worked at its parent company developed what video hosting site. College humor. College humor was so much fun back in the day. I'm like, I'm just throwing a random video site out there from that era. All right, guys, two answers. Whoa. Everyone over 30 listening right now is about to be like, whoa.

You're going to be very confused by what I... I don't know. And the answer is such a letdown. All right. What do you guys got? I put Funny or Die. That was actually a way later. I put albano black sheep.

Whoa. I don't even know. I'm not even 30. I'm woeing. I'm 31. I don't know what that is. What was the, I,

was that where the Badger's song started? I don't remember that one. Badger, Badger, Badger, Badger, Badger, Badger, Badger, Badger, Badger, Badger, Badger, mushroom, mushroom. What just happened? Thank you, David, for not making me look insane. At least one person is driving right now. Homestar Runner?

No. No. You guys are so. You're having too much fun. So much stuff that we found so funny when we were like 12 is just really not funny. The correct answer is Vimeo. Oh. Wait.

But you said it only was around from 2004 to 2008. No, no, no, no. I didn't say that. I said I didn't want to tell you what year this actually was. So I just gave you a general range. The year was 2006. But I thought 2006 would give it away. So I didn't give it.

I thought you meant. Did I ruin the question? I was not getting it anyways. You don't know what Vimeo is? I know what it is. Hey, breaking news, professional YouTube, but never heard of Vimeo. Albano Black Ship is still around. Really?

Looks like it's going to give me a virus. For everyone that's been complaining for the past few episodes, we're back on one mic. All is right in the world. Wait, you had multiple mics before? Two episodes are in row. On the past two episodes, Adam and I had separate mics, and people were livid. People were like, this is so wrong. Something feels wrong.

Anyway, while Mark, while Adam gives you an update on the score and reads his trivia question, I am going to go find someone in the office to play for Marquez. Just for this question? For both questions for this week. Quick update on the score. Marquez with one. Andrew with three.

David with three. Oh. Oh. Question number two. Texas Instruments HQ. You. Where is it? A don'te.

On Donde to the bibliotheca. I actually got good at Spanish while we were in Spain. Did you? Prove it. Donde est la bibliotheca. I was looking for the library, and I found it. And did your Spanish work because you were in Portugal? No, I went to Spain, too.

I was in Spain as well. as well. Fliberman Reed, what do you got? I just picked, I don't know if this is an obscure, but I was like, I picked Plano. I've never even heard of that, but no, that is not it. It's pretty obscure. It's Dallas. The people of Plano.

Yeah, I hear you. I was like, what are the obvious ones? I don't think it's going to be one of those. I wrote Dallas. Dallas it is. Dallas was like. The obvious one. Well, either that are awesome.

But Dallas in the 80s was like. Houston. Yeah, Houston. Yeah. Dallas was like where a lot of the computer revolution happened. Oh, okay. Yeah. It just felt like, obviously Texas.

Dallas felt like the most obvious, so I thought he was screwing with us. So then I went even more obscure. Oh. I just realized something. What? Yeah, Rich knows the answer now. All right. Okay, well, he can still do my question.

All right. Yay, everyone. Give it up for Rich. Rich was just quietly sitting there like. Oh. Is that open source? Can we use that? Yeah. You think I'd play copyrighted music on this podcast? I don't know, but I've heard that so many times.

But I guess this was from you. Yeah, that's from me. I always know. Okay, Rich. Hello. Hello. The only question we have for you because I messed this up really bad. You know what College Humor is?

I've heard of them. I've heard of them. Uh-oh. Okay, great. College Humor's parent company had some. developers working for it that also started a very, very popular video hosting and sharing platform. Do you know what that platform is? Is it, wait, do I say that out loud?

Is it dropout? No. Sorry, it is not Dropout. The answer is, oh, Vimeo. Dropout is like very new. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I definitely did not know that. I'm not sure if Marquez would know that.

That's okay. He's not getting the point. Sorry, Marquez. I'm interested. We should still ask him, but not give him the point if he gets so right. All right. What a podcast this is. Yeah. Thank you very much. This has been way for, baby. We'll be back next week with everything you ever wanted to know about anything.

Marquez will be back. We'll have a great time. join us if you will subscribe if you want to hit the bell like your life depends on it i've been marquez he's been and i've been david that's been alice are we actually going to use this i thought we were that's up to adam uh anyone else have any other fun stories this week or should we i guess we already know stories we do all the trivia we're gearing up for a sick apple event yeah like and kind of started already and it about to hit. And go watch the Eclipse podcast if you haven't already. I can't believe you're still here and you haven't watched it.

I have a correction from the Eclipse pod. From the Eclipse pod. One of them is not really correction. One of them is like I am so sorry for not knowing about what title locking was. I make podcasts. I don't know everything about space and the moon and stuff. I'm not Marquez. You knew what it was.

No, I didn't. I was like, that's crazy that it's like that. And everyone's like, it's like that, it's because of this thing called title locking. And I was like, oh. In the pot, it was like, I think Marquez said because it happens to rotate the same, at the same speed as orbiting, that's why it's always facing it. But it's. Well, no, I knew that part, but I wasn't sure if they, they were that those speeds were the same just by chance or by something. And it's not by chance.

It's because of something that I, to be honest, I still don't quite. Tidelock? It's that button in the top right part of your keyboard. But then the other thing that's way more important. is in the hotel room episode. When I was introducing the question in Spanish, I said, Estabas attentio, which does mean, were you paying attention? But it's more like the specific you. Like, were you Andrew paying attention? Where I should have said, estabon. Oh, in Spain, it's bothsotros. Actually? No, it's not posodos. You've made me think about that

for a second. But I believe it should have been estabon, which is like the general you, were you guys. I think, I think it's time to drive into the sunset, fellas. Do you hear the music? This is what happens. Thanks for joining us. Marquez will be back next week. Dad will be home. Dad's coming home. We'll miss you.

Go watch the Eclipse podcast. And actually, go watch the Eclipse studio video, which is also really good. I made grinded really hard to get that out in time. That's true. We're back in Jersey, though. We're ready to rock. Yeah.

Yeah. Spain was the second most beautiful place I've ever been, Carney number one. And we'll see you next week. Adios. Good night. All right, let's go get McDonald's. No, no, Adam.

We don't eat that much McDonald's. Wayform is produced by Adam Alita and Ellis Rovan. We are part of the Vox Media Podcast Network, and our intro-outro music is produced by Vane Sil. And now you can start the outro music. Bingo! After a few more years, you should have enough soundboard clips where even when Marquez isn't here. You can just...

He can just be part of the conversation. Just be like I'm one of those talking dogs with the buttons. Two and five Canadians will hear the words, you have cancer. That's why every step and dollar raised matters. On September 19th, join thousands in Toronto for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation walk. Challenge yourself, friends, and family to walk 21 kilometers in support of life-saving research. Together, we can carry the fire and help create a world free from the fear. of cancer. Register today at pmcf walk.ca.ca.

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