Tesla’s Robotaxi Test Takes to the Streets

This week, there's a ton of news to go over! Marques, Andrew, and David start with off talking about Mario Kart World before digging into Samsung Galaxy Unpacked rumors. Then they talk about Apple CarPlay Ultra and Tesla's Robotaxi event in Austin before trying to explain the NBA Finals in tech terms to David. Links: Videogamedunkey - Nintendo Switch 2 video t3 - Samsung Galaxy watch leaks Evan Blass leaks HellahGood - Running watches video Adobe - Project Indigo paper Studio video - Leica M11 Monochrome Music provided by Epidemic Sound Shop the merch: https://shop.mkbhd.com Social: Waveform Threads: https://www.threads.net/@waveformpodcast Waveform Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/waveformpodcast/?hl=en Hosts: 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 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

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Andrew Manganelli?

  This episode is brought to you by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each week, host Lizanne Saunders, Schwab's Chief Investment Strategist, and Colin Martin, Head of Fixed Income Research and Strategy for the Schwab Center for Financial Research, bring your fresh insights on what's happening in the markets and why, and what the implications might be for your portfolio. Join Colin and Lizanne as they explore questions like, how do you evaluate corporate bonds that look interesting? And what sectors are on the move right now? Download the latest episodes and subscribe at schwab.com/oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  Support for the show comes from Jira by Atlassian. AI is only as useful as the context it has to work from, but when that context is scattered across tools, threads, and DMs, that means your team and your AI agents end up flying blind. That's the problem that Jira solves. What's the goal tied to your project? What got decided last week in Slack? Atlassian's teamwork graph pulls all these pieces together, from Jira, Confluence, Slack, GitHub, and more, so nothing falls through the cracks. With Jira, you can actually share that context with the AI agents you already use, like Claude, Cursor, and GitHub Copilot, assign them work directly, or connect your agents through MCP. Spend less time digging through endless links and DMs, less time chasing down what got decided and by who, and more time actually shipping. Learn more at jira.com.

• 1:18Speaker 01

  That's J-I-R-A dot com.

• 1:21David Imel?

  I'm also vibe coding an app right now called Pina Colloator.

• 1:24Speaker 03

  No, you're not.

• 1:25David Imel?

  I have a working version of it.

• 1:27Speaker 03

  What does it locate? The nearest pina colada?

• 1:29David Imel?

  It locates the nearest pina colada, and it rates, it has ratings.

• 1:33Speaker 03

  That is insane, dude.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  I've actually mapped my action button to a Siri shortcut that just goes on Yelp and searches pina colada and sorts by nearest to me.

• 1:43Speaker 03

  See, but if we released-

• 1:44David Imel?

  Dedicated app.

• 1:45Speaker 03

  If we released a phone that had a dedicated Pina Colloator button.

• 1:49David Imel?

  Totally dedicated.

• 1:54Speaker 01

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

• 2:00Andrew Manganelli?

  I'm Andrew.

• 2:00David Imel?

  And I'm David.

• 2:01Speaker 01

  This week, uh, we've got, let's see, a Samsung unpacked event date and some leaks of what might be announced there. A quick explanation on why we haven't done video on Spotify yet. We also got some brief, early robotaxis. I'm doing air quotes for audio listeners. Robotaxi tests, uh, Fairphone six. And we're also going to try to explain to David the NBA finals in tech terms.

• 2:22David Imel?

  And I have a small camera segment that I want to rant about.

• 2:25Speaker 01

  It's all happening.

• 2:26David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Right now. But first, Mario Kart World. You wanted to talk about Mario Kart World.

• 2:31Andrew Manganelli?

  I know Adam also wants to, and I'm sure David probably does too.

• 2:34David Imel?

  I played, I played some.

• 2:36Andrew Manganelli?

  Have you played?

• 2:36David Imel?

  I did play Knockout Tour. It is quite fun.

• 2:39Andrew Manganelli?

  Is Knockout is the most fun I've had in Mario Kart ever, I think.

• 2:43David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  Good format.

• 2:44David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 2:44Andrew Manganelli?

  It's so much fun.

• 2:45David Imel?

  Yeah, it's 15 ish minutes of just complete chaos.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:50David Imel?

  I enjoy every second of it. I love it.

• 2:51Speaker 01

  So for people that don't know, generally, when you're doing a pre in Mario Kart, like generally, you play like four different courses. And it's just four different races and you go around like three times each course. This one in Knockout Tour, you just drive the entire time and you go through multiple courses and the courses blend into each other. And it's like 15 minutes long and it's quite fun. And it's like Fortnite at the same time. Yeah. Marques Brownlee, if you're playing with Marques.

• 3:13Andrew Manganelli?

  That's a good point. It's basically Mario Kart Battle Royale because

• 3:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:18Andrew Manganelli?

  Uh, there's like checkpoints that start knocking out X amount of people throughout it. So I think the first time is like, you have to be top 20, then top 16, then 12. And it keeps saying like, make sure you're in the 12. Um, and because there's so many people and the like, the way it always seems to be split up is one or two people out in front. This huge group of people in the middle and then like a couple in the back.

• 3:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:38Andrew Manganelli?

  If you get hit in the front with like a blue shell or something, there's just like a beehive of players and items behind you. The, you can go in first place by a mile to like 20th place in a couple of seconds. It feels like.

• 3:52Speaker 01

  I like that they also added a way to avoid blue shells now.

• 3:55Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, there's, they've always had the speaker which can avoid.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, yeah. But you can like, you can stop and then like reverse right before it hits you.

• 4:01Andrew Manganelli?

  Can you really?

• 4:02Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 4:02Andrew Manganelli?

  I did not know that.

• 4:03Speaker 01

  What?

• 4:03David Imel?

  They added a bunch of really insane tech to this game like yeah, you can like jump off walls now and you can do all this.

• 4:10Speaker 01

  They added a lot of insane tech like.

• 4:12David Imel?

  Not technology, like reverse.

• 4:14Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, some of the like speedrun videos that are out right now just don't even look like they're playing Mario Kart.

• 4:19David Imel?

  Yeah, it looks like a totally different game.

• 4:20Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, they like cut across the middle and wall ride and like ride the invisible wall into a grind, grind, grind and stuff like that. But knockout feels just so chaotic that like anyone kind of feels like they have a chance. My only thing I don't love about it is it seems really like straight. There's not a ton of turning and maybe that's the like comment, the between maps thing where it's just kind of like keep going. But I wanted more drifting.

• 4:46David Imel?

  Yeah, that makes sense. I have a complaint about Mario Kart.

• 4:49Andrew Manganelli?

  Cool.

• 4:50David Imel?

  Okay, so in where I live, my friend David Kogan has this cafe called Coffee Check and it's great. And in the back, he has this giant 100 inch TV. It's a really big, so.

• 5:02Speaker 01

  Dude, it's huge.

• 5:02David Imel?

  It's really big.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  I saw it a few weeks ago, too. It's, it's like.

• 5:06David Imel?

  It's big. So we, we've been having Mario Kart nights back there. They limit you to four people on one, on a TV. And if you want to, like, we had a party of like 20 people, right? On a 100 inch TV, I want to be able to have like 20 different racing, like players, right? And you can connect a bunch of Joy-Cons to a Switch. But you, you can only do local Mario Kart with a lot of people. If you have the main Switch hooked up to the TV with four people. And then each individual other Switch can only have two people per Switch. So you have to have, instead of being able to play on like a giant TV with like a ton of different mini screens.

• 5:48David Imel?

  You have to basically have a bunch of extra switches and you can only put two people per extra Switch. And it's just like, it just feels like a waste of space. And I understand that the Switch does not know the screen size of the TV.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  It's like, there's no way you have 100 inch screen.

• 6:02David Imel?

  Yeah. But what if I have a seven inch screen and I want to put 20 races on it? I feel like that should be okay.

• 6:08Andrew Manganelli?

  Let them suffer that part.

• 6:10David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 6:10Andrew Manganelli?

  It's like still that somebody picking to put eight screens on a 30 inch TV.

• 6:15David Imel?

  Exactly.

• 6:15Andrew Manganelli?

  Which is not gonna make sense, but I do agree. The only game I've ever found that can put more than four, and I'm probably wrong, but Bomberman is super fun to bring to a party.

• 6:23David Imel?

  How many can you put on that?

• 6:24Andrew Manganelli?

  I think you put eight because it's all on the same screen. It's not.

• 6:26David Imel?

  Yeah, it's the same thing with Super Smash Bros. You can have.

• 6:30Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, true.

• 6:31David Imel?

  You can have up to eight players now, but it's all on the same screen as well.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the multi-screen, it might be a compute limit thing. Like you can't have eight different races happening on, or eight different perspectives on the same screen. Because of the compute, not because of the UI.

• 6:44David Imel?

  But I thought it was the fastest game console.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Or potentially.

• 6:48Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, you can hook up multiple, like Bomberman, you can have eight controllers on.

• 6:51David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 6:51Andrew Manganelli?

  So.

• 6:52David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 6:52Speaker 03

  I, I haven't played Mario Kart. I haven't, I haven't, I haven't gamed like that, but when I was watching other people do the four player split screen, the frame rate was definitely kind of eating it.

• 7:02Andrew Manganelli?

  Really? I didn't notice when we played and we're on the like 85 inch 8K television.

• 7:07Speaker 03

  When you guys were, when you guys, no, when you guys were playing here the other night, I kept being like, that is not 30. That is not even 24.

• 7:14David Imel?

  Really?

• 7:14Speaker 03

  It would like fluctuate, like there would be certain, I don't know, maybe it's because I wasn't locked in and driving, but watching like the background elements go by itself. I was like, this thing is chugging. I can tell it's chugging to render four cameras.

• 7:25Speaker 04

  We didn't even notice.

• 7:27Speaker 03

  You would, I think so.

• 7:28David Imel?

  You were locked in for greatness.

• 7:29Speaker 03

  It wasn't subtle. It was like, oh, like.

• 7:31David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  That's the perfect description of Switch gaming. It's like, it's not really about the fidelity and like having the most incredible specs and, and highest compute. It's just like, I like this game.

• 7:43David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  I'm gonna play this game.

• 7:43David Imel?

  The new, the Switch 2 though, like they really, you know, they took that idea, but then they were like, but what if also it looked like Unreal Engine? Which is kind of nice.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  A lot of frames.

• 7:52David Imel?

  But, you know.

• 7:52Andrew Manganelli?

  Do you know what my biggest complaint about Mario Kart is?

• 7:55David Imel?

  What?

• 7:56Andrew Manganelli?

  You can't change the wheels on your kart.

• 7:58David Imel?

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:58Andrew Manganelli?

  Like you used to be able to pick kart, parachute, wheels and character. Now you only choose kart and character, right?

• 8:05David Imel?

  I also don't think there's enough courses. There's like seven different worlds with four courses each or something, and I feel like that's not enough.

• 8:12Andrew Manganelli?

  I haven't gone that deep into it, but eight was around forever, right? And just kept adding, so.

• 8:16David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 8:17Andrew Manganelli?

  I'm sure there'll be more.

• 8:18David Imel?

  Yeah. So also, uh, Dunky put out a full actual review of Mario Kart World.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  It was so good.

• 8:24David Imel?

  It's so good. He's so good, but it's very funny. You should go watch it. Anyway, now that we're done with the Nintendo Switch 2 gaming podcast, it's time for the phone show. Yeah.

• 8:38Andrew Manganelli?

  It's time for like the stuff that this whole podcast was built off.

• 8:41Speaker 03

  Come on guys, we gotta kick up the energy, okay? This is a, this is a phone. We gotta get excited, come on, let's.

• 8:46Andrew Manganelli?

  First waveform episode ever was about the second unpacked event.

• 8:51Speaker 04

  Second ever?

• 8:52Andrew Manganelli?

  No, no, no, like, do they call both of them unpacked?

• 8:55David Imel?

  Oh yeah, they do.

• 8:55Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, yeah, like the secondary.

• 8:57Speaker 03

  This was a trivia question.

• 8:58Andrew Manganelli?

  Was it really?

• 8:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:00Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, I get a point, right?

• 9:03David Imel?

  Not anymore. See, I mean, they do the Galaxy S unpacked at the beginning of the year and then they do the foldables in like August or something.

• 9:11Andrew Manganelli?

  It used to be August.

• 9:11David Imel?

  Earlier now.

• 9:12Andrew Manganelli?

  Now it's, yeah.

• 9:13David Imel?

  But they should call the second one, uh, unpacked to electric boogaloo or galaxy boogaloo, something like that.

• 9:19Speaker 03

  Or to Sam to Sung.

• 9:22David Imel?

  I like that.

• 9:22Speaker 03

  Unpacked.

• 9:23Andrew Manganelli?

  That joke never gets old.

• 9:25David Imel?

  I like that. I actually tweeted that joke six years ago.

• 9:29Speaker 03

  Get me, get me. Wait, did Andrew show you the Photoshop template he made?

• 9:35David Imel?

  I'm never gonna live this down.

• 9:36Speaker 03

  I'm sorry.

• 9:37Andrew Manganelli?

  What are you saying, dude?

• 9:39Speaker 03

  Andrew made a Photoshop template so that you could just type anything in and it would come up as a tweet you made six years ago.

• 9:48Andrew Manganelli?

  I'll save this.

• 9:50David Imel?

  I hate everything. Okay, well.

• 9:53Andrew Manganelli?

  Anyway, Samsung unpacked.

• 9:55David Imel?

  Yeah, we're expecting some foldable phones like usual. Fold and flip seven. So that's not like, that's not shocking. We, we get, we get the fold and the flip the same time each year, so we're expecting those. Yeah. But also in the invitation, they're saying ultra unfolds. Yeah, so maybe. Ultra fold.

• 10:11Andrew Manganelli?

  I'm so excited.

• 10:12David Imel?

  It's gonna be like the fold seven ultra. Yeah.

• 10:15Andrew Manganelli?

  What does that mean? Do we think so? Yeah, I don't.

• 10:17David Imel?

  Okay. Right now, it looks like it's potentially thinner. I think that they should put the S pen in it finally, because we have been saying they're gonna do that for like literally forever. And it's for.

• 10:28Andrew Manganelli?

  But now they made it thinner.

• 10:29David Imel?

  And if the eighty fold, eighty-five year old woman at the airport can use a fold with an S pen that was probably attached to the case on the outside. Yeah. They should add it to the inside so she can use it. The more I think about that, the more crazy that sounds. Isn't it make sense, though? Makes sense, old people should use Galaxy folds. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's gonna be three trillion dollars. I'm gonna run my next Merrill campaign on that.

• 10:52Andrew Manganelli?

  The, so, the reason we think it's thinner is just the way the like invitation kind of opens with like it looking?

• 10:58David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 10:58Andrew Manganelli?

  Or has there been reports of it being thinner?

• 11:00David Imel?

  I don't think so. I don't know. Better camera. That's what they said it was, right? I think that's what people are saying.

• 11:06Andrew Manganelli?

  Did they? All my rumors are on the flip.

• 11:08David Imel?

  Cause the folds never have the, the actual S cameras. They always have like worse cameras because they're, because they're thinner.

• 11:16Speaker 04

  Cause Marquez always says that like, that's pretty much the only difference now between like a pro and a non-pro is like how many cameras it has. But the, the ultras have always had the best cameras, right? In Samsung devices and then the folds do not.

• 11:28David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 11:28Speaker 04

  So the rumor is that this will have the ultra or will have.

• 11:31David Imel?

  I don't know if it'll be the ultra camera, but it's def- I think it's supposed to be at least better than the, the regular fold cameras, how they usually are.

• 11:37Speaker 04

  But if it's gonna be like an ultra phone, why not put the ultra cameras on?

• 11:40David Imel?

  Yeah, might as well. Because money.

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, you can charge more. People will probably still pay for it.

• 11:45Andrew Manganelli?

  That is a rumor I have. It does seem like they're probably charging more because there was a Italian electronics website that accidentally leaked the prices. I guess they like put the prices up on their website with the code names for it, but someone found out. And it seems like the fold is 200 euros more and the flip is 100 euros more expensive than last year.

• 12:07David Imel?

  Interesting. Is there, there's not a flip ultra though, right?

• 12:10Andrew Manganelli?

  No, but there, I do, I think Evan Blast may have tweeted about it, but a Galaxy Flip 7 FE. So a cheaper flip version, which makes sense because Razer did that and actually made a like super reasonably priced. Or Motorola, sorry. The Motorola Razer had.

• 12:28David Imel?

  699.

• 12:29Andrew Manganelli?

  Two years ago?

• 12:29David Imel?

  Yeah. They still have a cheap one. They still have a $600 one.

• 12:33Andrew Manganelli?

  I, that's like the, the flip, that style feels like the folding phone for like the regular people. So I think having the cheaper version of that makes a ton of sense.

• 12:42David Imel?

  They're, they're quite popular in New York. Yeah.

• 12:44Speaker 04

  I've been seeing a lot more folds lately too. I had not seen any folds for the longest. I've only seen flips. And recently I've been seeing like random folds in, in the wild.

• 12:53David Imel?

  Like shirts that are un- steamed?

• 12:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, like they need ironing out.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  The Samsung Pete.

• 13:01David Imel?

  Crumple phone is coming. Yes.

• 13:03Andrew Manganelli?

  But yeah, $2,000 Fold 7 this year. Do we think it's?

• 13:08David Imel?

  Fold 7 Ultra.

• 13:09Andrew Manganelli?

  Fold 7 Ultra.

• 13:11David Imel?

  Do we know, is there gonna be an Ultra in a regular one, or is it just gonna be the Ultra?

• 13:15Speaker 01

  It would be very Samsung to have both, to have a Fold 7 and a Fold 7 Ultra.

• 13:19David Imel?

  That'd be so ridiculous.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Cause it's just two different price points.

• 13:21David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  $17.99.

• 13:23David Imel?

  $19.99. They should make an Ultra Fold 7 FE, but the screen comes broken when you get it.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  That's.

• 13:31David Imel?

  As I call back to the original Fold?

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. Fan Edition, only fans want it.

• 13:35David Imel?

  Uses the original Fold screen.

• 13:36Andrew Manganelli?

  So you think we're gonna get four phones at this event?

• 13:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, that wouldn't check me.

• 13:40Andrew Manganelli?

  Seven Ultra, seven regular, seven Flip, seven Flip FE.

• 13:43Speaker 01

  Listen, if this was an Apple event, we'd be like, whoa, four phones, that's slow, like.

• 13:47Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, but this is the second event already.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's Samsung.

• 13:50Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 13:50David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Who already has 90 other phone models.

• 13:53David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  So this is, just what's four more?

• 13:55Speaker 03

  What do you think like the, like, do you think we're gonna get the seven edge Flip FE Ultra?

• 14:01Speaker 01

  Pro?

• 14:01Speaker 03

  Pro.

• 14:02David Imel?

  Max.

• 14:02Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, why not?

• 14:03Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know?

• 14:04David Imel?

  I really, really hope that the Ultra is like a significant bump, because every single year, every Samsung phone is like, it's the same.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, the past couple of years of folds have been very small improvements, little tiny bit of a hinge dimension improvement, a little bit of a thinner bezel. But yeah, the flips, definitely, but the folds for like three or four generations have been very similar, so. Curious to see how that turns out. I'm expecting the Snapdragon 8 Elite, hopefully other stuff also gets better as well.

• 14:33David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 14:34David Imel?

  Uh, yeah.

• 14:35Andrew Manganelli?

  It's crazy we're on Fold 7 already, to think about that, actually.

• 14:39David Imel?

  Old. We're old. And we're on the Watch 8. Maybe they should adopt the Apple thing and just say, "Watch 2026."

• 14:48Andrew Manganelli?

  I mean, they're gonna do it.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  They did it with the phones already.

• 14:51Andrew Manganelli?

  They did it with the phones already, you're right.

• 14:53David Imel?

  I think it kinda makes sense. I mean, Razer does that, not Motorola, but the, the gaming company Razer, with their laptops, they just call it like Blade 2025 or whatever. I think that's smart.

• 15:04Andrew Manganelli?

  It is. Well, do you want to talk about something actually visual, which is we we've seen the whole Galaxy Watch 8 lineup? And it's quite a bit different, at least the regular Galaxy Watch 8. We're going all squircle, baby.

• 15:19David Imel?

  Hmm.

• 15:19Andrew Manganelli?

  We're here.

• 15:21David Imel?

  The regular one?

• 15:22Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, look at the regular one compared last year was, I mean, it's always been just pretty, or maybe not always, but the last few generations have been just normal circle. Now we've got kind of this like.

• 15:32David Imel?

  Do you consider that a squircle?

• 15:33Speaker 03

  No, but the Ultra is squircling.

• 15:35David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 15:35Speaker 04

  The Ultra is extra.

• 15:37Speaker 03

  The Ultra is like.

• 15:38Andrew Manganelli?

  Ah, I feel like it's not that much different, just thinner. It's got like, they all have circular screens, but these little extra

• 15:46Andrew Manganelli?

  rounded edges on the outside of the screen.

• 15:49Speaker 04

  The case is squirky.

• 15:50David Imel?

  The case. Oh, I see. Yeah. Yeah, that's weird.

• 15:53Andrew Manganelli?

  That's totally new.

• 15:55David Imel?

  That's pretty weird.

• 15:56Andrew Manganelli?

  I think it looks good.

• 15:57Speaker 03

  I think it was pretty cool. I'm in the market for a new watch right now and seeing the Watch 8 Classic. I was like, maybe that's what I want.

• 16:03Andrew Manganelli?

  Man, the Classic has always been Samsung's best.

• 16:06David Imel?

  The rotating bezel is fire.

• 16:07Andrew Manganelli?

  Bezel is so good.

• 16:09David Imel?

  So fire.

• 16:10Speaker 03

  The golf, bro, the golf.

• 16:11David Imel?

  The golf edition.

• 16:13Speaker 03

  I think that's the cleanest one they've made. As someone who.

• 16:16Andrew Manganelli?

  Plays golf.

• 16:17Speaker 03

  As somebody who doesn't play golf, doesn't use a Android, has never owned a Samsung phone, other than my very first phone, and also.

• 16:24David Imel?

  The minimal phone's Android.

• 16:26Speaker 03

  Uh, sorry, I meant Samsung, not Android.

• 16:27David Imel?

  Okay.

• 16:28Speaker 03

  And, uh, so yeah, I'm probably not the best, but when they dropped the golf, I was like, I, I like it.

• 16:33David Imel?

  That's how they get them. Well, the watches, you know, Adam, can you tell me, how do you feel about these watches?

• 16:40Andrew Manganelli?

  Race the three of these.

• 16:41David Imel?

  I feel like you're the watch boy.

• 16:42Speaker 04

  I was just looking at, so I'm.

• 16:43Speaker 03

  The Watch 8 Classic, like this white render, looks like a gift you would give a stormtrooper on his wedding.

• 16:53Speaker 04

  That it does.

• 16:53Andrew Manganelli?

  I think it looks sick.

• 16:54Speaker 04

  Classic, it reminds me a lot of like the Seiko Turtles. So any watch people out there, there's like, oh, a brand called Seiko that makes a billion watches. There's one called the Turtle, which has like a squircle cushion case thing.

• 17:06David Imel?

  Sure does.

• 17:07Speaker 04

  And it gives me that vibe.

• 17:08David Imel?

  Oh, yeah, true.

• 17:09Speaker 04

  Because especially because it looks like, that's what I was trying to figure out in these pictures. It looks like there's a rotating bezel on it.

• 17:14Andrew Manganelli?

  There is.

• 17:14Speaker 04

  There is, right? On the classic, yeah. So then on the Ultra, there isn't, it looks like.

• 17:19Andrew Manganelli?

  No.

• 17:19Speaker 04

  No. Okay. So in that case, I like the Classic a lot more than the Ultra this time around.

• 17:24David Imel?

  Oh, so you do like the rotating bezel?

• 17:25Speaker 04

  I love the rotating bezel.

• 17:26David Imel?

  Then why did you do that?

• 17:28Speaker 04

  I didn't do that.

• 17:29Andrew Manganelli?

  No, that was Alice.

• 17:29David Imel?

  Wow.

• 17:30Andrew Manganelli?

  You just can't see what their new board is.

• 17:32David Imel?

  Yeah, they got it.

• 17:32Speaker 04

  It's too tall.

• 17:33David Imel?

  For video viewers and for audio listeners, they have a giant new mixer.

• 17:38Speaker 04

  What? No, what were you talking about? We've been here this forever.

• 17:40David Imel?

  You can barely see their shirts.

• 17:42Speaker 03

  Everything's exactly the same.

• 17:47Andrew Manganelli?

  They're not gonna hear that, right?

• 17:48Speaker 03

  No, no, no, we can record that now.

• 17:50Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, we're.

• 17:50Speaker 03

  Yeah. New board!

• 17:53Speaker 04

  Okay. Um, yeah, so the classic is, would be the one that I go with just because it has that aesthetic. And I really love the, the whole diver watch aesthetic.

• 18:01David Imel?

  Do you use the Galaxy Watches or like what?

• 18:04Speaker 04

  I used the Ultra when it came out after Marquez's review. I borrowed it for like a week or two and I tried it. Um, I liked it. It's just the battery life was not great.

• 18:13David Imel?

  Oh.

• 18:14Speaker 04

  In, in my usage.

• 18:15David Imel?

  What do you use now?

• 18:16Speaker 04

  Now I'm, I'm using a, a Moon Swatch.

• 18:18David Imel?

  Ooh, very nice.

• 18:19Speaker 03

  That's cute. Who got you that?

• 18:20Andrew Manganelli?

  Is that Android?

• 18:21Speaker 04

  You guys did. Um, no, this is a, a Court Swatch. But my, the smartwatch that I use is Pixel Watch 3 and Garmin, depending what I'm doing. Those are the, the two, but Garmin, you don't have to charge like ever. Like that's what I want out of an Ultra. If they're gonna do another Galaxy Watch Ultra like this, let me not charge it for two weeks.

• 18:38David Imel?

  That was supposed to be the selling point. They were like, it's got a good battery.

• 18:42Speaker 04

  The Ultras just don't have the battery life to match anything else.

• 18:46David Imel?

  They're like, it's two days.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  Cause every time they improve the things on the inside, they also give it a bigger, brighter screen than ever before. And they just neutral it out. They neutral each other out and they go, hey, it's all day.

• 18:54David Imel?

  All day. It's like, how about all multiple days?

• 18:58Andrew Manganelli?

  It is. It sure is.

• 19:00David Imel?

  All seven days.

• 19:01Speaker 04

  It's called Ultra, but actually Hella, who we've spoken to on the podcast before, he had a video recently where he was talking about his experiences using all of these different watches while running actual Ultra marathons.

• 19:11David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 19:12Speaker 04

  And the Apple Watch Ultra was the only one that died.

• 19:14David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 19:14Speaker 04

  Like, he doesn't even like.

• 19:15David Imel?

  Well, remember when we interviewed him, he said that he would basically like be running and he'd take it off and hand it to somebody to charge while he was running and then he'd put it back on.

• 19:23Speaker 04

  And he literally only uses it because that's where his like streak is. Cause he has like a crazy 4,000 day streak or something, but that's where he, uh.

• 19:31David Imel?

  I mean, Apple added a feature where you can pause your streak.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  They did. The newest version. They're like, would you like to pause your rings? It's like, uh.

• 19:38David Imel?

  Yeah, you can just pause it.

• 19:39Andrew Manganelli?

  For how long? And how many times can you do it?

• 19:41David Imel?

  As long as you want.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  Indefinitely, you can just pause them.

• 19:42David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, completely defeat the purpose.

• 19:44David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Sounds fun, right?

• 19:46Speaker 04

  If you're gonna, like, if you're sick, or you break your leg off a bit, and like, something happens and you can't keep your streak.

• 19:51David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 19:51Speaker 04

  You lost your streak.

• 19:52Speaker 01

  You lost your streak.

• 19:52Speaker 04

  Just like.

• 19:53David Imel?

  That's true.

• 19:53Andrew Manganelli?

  What if I'm in the middle of some good One Piece arc, and I don't have time to run?

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Buy streak.

• 19:58Andrew Manganelli?

  Pause.

• 19:58David Imel?

  Just watch it while you're running.

• 20:00Andrew Manganelli?

  No.

• 20:01David Imel?

  Okay. Well, regardless, we don't really know much about these watches. They look mostly the same. Um, hopefully, the people out there that are big fans are, continue to be good, big fans.

• 20:12Speaker 03

  But speaking of watching things.

• 20:15David Imel?

  Oh. Meow, meow, meow. That's right. Well done. Very nice. Spotify video. People have been asking us about this for...

• 20:23Speaker 03

  Every, I literally can't read about anything without people being like...

• 20:27David Imel?

  Why isn't the video on Spotify?

• 20:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, why can't I watch this on Spotify?

• 20:30David Imel?

  Spotify just doesn't have good search. That's like, the number one reason I would not put video on Spotify.

• 20:34Andrew Manganelli?

  I would say the number one reason we don't do it is, like, we put a lot of effort into our production quality, and like, we think YouTube is the best place to watch.

• 20:41David Imel?

  Then you also have to...

• 20:41Andrew Manganelli?

  The effort that we put in.

• 20:42David Imel?

  Well, we also need to make money.

• 20:44Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, yeah, okay, so that's the other large reason. We're talking it to a little deeper, but like, for real, we put a lot of effort into the production of this, and YouTube's the best place to watch that.

• 20:52David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 20:53Andrew Manganelli?

  Production.

• 20:53David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 20:54Andrew Manganelli?

  So that's what we trust the most.

• 20:56David Imel?

  Um, I'd rather watch it on my, uh, smartwatch Spotify app screen. So, that's the best way to watch Waveform.

• 21:03Andrew Manganelli?

  I don't, yeah, I think all of us here would agree. Does anyone here use Spotify video?

• 21:08David Imel?

  I do not. I don't even use Spotify podcasts.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  I do sometimes.

• 21:14David Imel?

  But yeah, I, I don't watch the video versions.

• 21:16Speaker 04

  I will say, it is nice to have a video ver- I think this is the thing that people want. When you're listening to the audio, and the host, like, we do sometimes, is like, pointing something out, or we show a render on the screen, to just be able to, like, glance at your phone and see the video is pretty helpful, and I think that's more what people want.

• 21:31Andrew Manganelli?

  Agreed.

• 21:32Speaker 04

  I don't think that people are necessarily, like, clamoring for YouTube in Spotify. Like, it's just like, to have the extra context of things where your player already is.

• 21:41Andrew Manganelli?

  Mm-hmm. Another reason, and this has been an ongoing thing for many months, um, and, uh, a website called DigiDay just did an article about kind of how the creator partner program in Spotify has been working, and why it's, you know, really good for some people and really bad for other people. So, we happen to be in the bad scenario, which is, we're kind of, we're in the bad, well, we're not in the bad place, we're avoiding the bad place. Um, I'll do a really quick breakdown of this, but... Basically, if you are a podcast not associated with a network, it's probably an awesome thing because you're not using dynamically inserted ads. You're not really selling much ad space, probably, or if you're independent, not doing that. There is a Spotify Partner Program where if you get views on your videos, you will get paid for it. We are part

• 22:24Andrew Manganelli?

  of a network, kind of like YouTube. We and a lot of other podcasts are part of a network, and the main way a lot of these networks make money is through dynamically inserted ads, which can be obviously inserted differently depending on wherever we put ad breaks.

• 22:39Andrew Manganelli?

  So like, we are under Vox Podcast Network. We were under Studio 71 before. The reason we're with these is because we started a podcast when we'd never done a podcast before. They've been a ton of help, helping us succeed in the podcast world, which is awesome because they have no say in our episodes. All they do is sell ads here, and we work with them to do that, and they've helped with a lot of stuff in terms of, uh, why can't I think of the word?

• 23:02Speaker 04

  Like the live show.

• 23:03Andrew Manganelli?

  Distributing, and the live show and stuff like that. They're great partners in that sense. The problem with uploading videos to the Spotify Partner Program in this is that it removes our opportunity to put in dynamically inserted ads, I believe even in the audio section of Spotify. So for a lot of people like us who, this is one of the main ways we make money and keep this podcast afloat, you know, we have five people working here on it now, it would severely cut revenue in that. And that's why a lot of people are super hesitant, especially because Spotify doesn't have the best track record of paying people on their platform very well when it comes to partner program stuff like that.

• 23:45Andrew Manganelli?

  Musicians, at least, from what we've seen. So, you know, this is ongoing. I'm sure things will change. I know Vox is probably working with Spotify in some sense and keeping up to date with everything, but really quick, that's why we are not on Spotify Video right now. Could change in the future. We'll see how it goes, but that's like a really big risk. And from what I know, I don't think you can go back once you do it. I might not be totally sure on that.

• 24:10Speaker 04

  But I also think it's just like the use case. Like, in YouTube, the reason we upload the video for YouTube since the beginning is the searchability and discoverability, and podcasts do not have that. And Spotify, right now, anything that they, it's pretty much like what they decide to push is what gets discovered. For better or for worse. So if we upload video, it's not necessarily going to be added to this giant search engine that's going to surface our podcast to people that we don't normally reach. It's just going to be for our immediate fans that can see it, which is good. But then, like you said, we miss out the dynamically inserted ads and it opens up a whole other can of worms that we haven't quite figured out yet and that Spotify quite hasn't figured out yet.

• 24:51Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, and we don't want to risk our good show, a good thing going with that.

• 24:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, still pretty early.

• 24:57Andrew Manganelli?

  We're YouTubers first.

• 24:59Speaker 03

  We think a lot of our audience, even if you listen to the audio podcast, like you are also probably a YouTube consumer. We like interacting with you guys in the YouTube comments. We like to keep you guys in this one place where we can have this fluid conversation. I think in the future, there is a way, there's probably some sort of way that we can allow people to get out of the Spotify app and quickly look at something. I wish you could just put like a slideshow with your Spotify podcast so that when we need to show someone a picture, they could stop doing the dishes, pull out their phone, look at it. But.

• 25:32David Imel?

  You know, if we made a federated version of YouTube.

• 25:36Speaker 03

  I was just thinking that six years ago. It's so crazy.

• 25:40David Imel?

  That's actually crazy. You were ahead of the curve.

• 25:43Speaker 03

  So ahead of the curve.

• 25:45Speaker 04

  I will say, I do think it's interesting how hard Spotify is attacking this, though. Like, they keep adding features to their podcasts, like

• 25:52David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 25:52Speaker 04

  section of Megaphone, which is their service that we use to upload audio and stuff.

• 25:56David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 25:56Speaker 04

  So like, for example, the comments, you can comment on Spotify. And I do read those. Those are pretty, pretty funny. People, people are pretty clever in there. But again, like, the amount of comments we get on Spotify versus YouTube is just like, not even comparable.

• 26:09David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 26:10Speaker 04

  It's like insane. And I also get all the analytics and the number of Spotify, the number of people listening to the podcast on Spotify is like, pretty much the same slash going down. We have other people like Pocket Cast doing good work. That's like dragging people away. And YouTube Music, whatever they decide to take podcasts seriously, will be another competitor. So it's just like, there's so much up in the air right now.

• 26:31David Imel?

  It is interesting how many people listen to podcasts on Spotify now. When I send anyone a podcast, I'm like, listen to this, they always open it in Spotify. And I'm like, wow, that's crazy. Cause it, it seems like, at least in America, we're more, we, we, we want more dedicated stuff. Like, we don't like super apps here as much. Like, in China, they have WeChat, which you can do everything. And you can call your taxi in it, you can pay your taxes in it, you can do freaking everything in WeChat.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:58David Imel?

  But here, it's like, you know, one company having all that data about you, people are not that comfortable with. So it's, it's interesting to me that people have, you know, I guess it was a good move by Spotify to like, push into the podcast space, because every single normal person that I talk to, uses Spotify for podcasts. Which, but I just don't like, something that's annoying for me on Spotify podcasts, when you listen to one podcast on Spotify, it starts like surfacing podcasts in your like, you should listen to this, and it's like, I just wanna listen to music in my music app.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:27David Imel?

  You know what I mean?

• 27:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do want like a separate section for podcasts usually.

• 27:31David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 27:31Speaker 01

  When I think of Spotify, I think of music typically.

• 27:33David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 27:34Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, yeah, agreed.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  Also, YouTube is still the number one podcast player.

• 27:37David Imel?

  YouTube's the number one everything. They're bigger than Netflix. They're bigger than everything.

• 27:42Andrew Manganelli?

  Search is just so good. That's what, they're do, they're, trust me, they're doing plenty of things with podcasts that I have no idea if they're gonna work or not, but it's still discoverability seems like the best thing.

• 27:51David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 27:52Andrew Manganelli?

  Wait, can I take back something I said about Spotify a few weeks ago?

• 27:55Speaker 01

  No, you cannot, that's it.

• 27:56David Imel?

  No takeaways, Andrew.

• 27:58Andrew Manganelli?

  I said I was starting to enjoy Spotify DJ, and I regret.

• 28:05Andrew Manganelli?

  I tried, I continued to keep using it, it played me the same songs like, three weeks in a row. Every day, it was just like the same five songs. It, things I love, Forgetting Myself by Third Eye Blind. And then this morning, it stopped that and went,

• 28:19David Imel?

  Do not.

• 28:19Andrew Manganelli?

  "I'm gonna bring you back to something you've had your eye on, Semi Charm Life," right after.

• 28:26Speaker 01

  I think David hacked your algorithm.

• 28:28David Imel?

  Greatest song of all time. That's the first song on bangersonly.net every, every week. Okay, so, um, that's it for now, for the Spotify stuff, but I think we're gonna take a quick break, and when we're back, we have a lot of stuff.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, which means it's time for trivia.

• 28:50Speaker 03

  Welcome back to another exciting episode of Waveform Trivia. So guys, in the news today, we had I/O and I/O getting mad at each other, legally speaking, about which vaporware company was gonna not release products harder. But today's question is in fact about this, and whoever on their whiteboard can name the most acronyms or definitions of I/O gets today's point. And I just a few rules. I will accept places, but I will not accept like people's names, and I will not accept, I think that's the only thing I won't accept. I think I'm

• 29:31Speaker 03

  looking for acronyms, definitions, places. Just no like, you can't say like Ingrid Orinson. I don't know. That's like an imaginary Swedish person I just made up. Thanks. Or no, I don't know. You guys get, you guys get the idea. So yeah, most I/O definitions and acronyms.

• 29:53David Imel?

  Can I also say something?

• 29:54Speaker 03

  Absolutely, David.

• 29:56David Imel?

  Johnny Ive, the whole I/O thing with Johnny Ive, the, the purchase of OpenAI by buying their own company with Johnny Ive slapped onto it is still happening.

• 30:08Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:08David Imel?

  But they removed all the I/O branding from the company.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  While this lawsuit.

• 30:12Speaker 03

  While this lawsuit happens. No one's, Sam Altman is like, we, like, they wanted to get bought and we said no. And it seems like I/O was like, they wanted to buy us and we said no. And no one can agree. And it's fine, because they're both making fake stuff anyway. Allegedly, allegedly.

• 30:30David Imel?

  I think there will be something from the OpenAI thing, but I, but I don't know if it'll be good.

• 30:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, it'll be love.

• 30:37David Imel?

  That's true. Love from Johnny Ive.

• 30:39Speaker 03

  That was goo- well, because his design firm is called Love. Well, you know what? We'll see after the break.

• 30:46David Imel?

  Okay.

• 31:00Speaker 01

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• 33:09Speaker 01

  I have another story. Um, this is a story about cars and it's, it's actually kind of a, a fighting story.

• 33:17Speaker 03

  Be really careful because the last time I talked about cars on this podcast, I didn't hear the end of it for like six weeks.

• 33:24Speaker 01

  Oh, I got you. No, this is all, this is all real and this is all interesting. You remember CarPlay Ultra?

• 33:29Speaker 03

  Ultra.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Remember last WWDC when they first showed us CarPlay Ultra?

• 33:33Speaker 03

  I think that was two WWDCs ago.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Was it two?

• 33:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:35Speaker 01

  Two years ago they showed us CarPlay Ultra and they were like, "Trust us, it's coming to a bunch of carmakers." And they told us, you know, "People don't buy cars unless they have CarPlay."

• 33:42Speaker 03

  Right.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  And we went, "Hmm, really? Interesting?" And then that we moved on. And I don't know if you remember, but there were a whole bunch of like manufacturer logos on those pages. And Apple is essentially through these, these presentations, promising that it's going to be coming to more cars and more car manufacturers soon.

• 34:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  This latest update, you know, it's been two years now, uh, is essentially a bunch of car manufacturers going, "Hey, yeah, we, we don't want that. We're not doing the CarPlay Ultra thing." The announcement is now the, the latest three are Mercedes, Audi and Volvo are, are out on CarPlay Ultra. CarPlay Ultra being specifically the version of CarPlay that also takes over the like dash and the, the tachometer behind the steering wheel, all that extra stuff in your car. And all the comments are kind of just along the same lines of like, "Yeah, why would any car manufacturer want to support CarPlay Ultra?" It's bad enough that they're getting, giving up full control over that entertainment screen.

• 34:41Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:41Speaker 01

  Why would they give up the whole car? There's a great quote in here from, uh, one executive at Renault, uh, who's developing a vehicle mainly controlled by software.

• 34:51Speaker 03

  It's pronounced Renault.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Renault. And they told Apple, quote, "Don't try to invade our own systems."

• 34:59Speaker 01

  So it's pretty clear. A lot of car manufacturers are not into it. The only ones that seem to still be in are, and we don't have all the models yet, but are Porsche, Aston Martin and Hyundai Kia, that like sort of company. And that's it. And the only ones we've seen so far are just the Top Gear video of them showing it to us on that Aston Martin DBX 707. I think that's the only vehicle I've seen running CarPlay Ultra.

• 35:24David Imel?

  Yeah, the one that no one can afford.

• 35:26Speaker 01

  Since two years ago when they first showed it off.

• 35:28David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  So CarPlay Ultra kind of running up against a wall here. I don't know if you guys are like expecting to try to run CarPlay Ultra. If you're interested in CarPlay Ultra or if you just don't care. Seems like most people don't care.

• 35:41David Imel?

  I think it's vaguely interesting, but I'm also not very interested in something that requires one platform.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  An iPhone?

• 35:48David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Fair enough.

• 35:49David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 35:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:50David Imel?

  Do you think this is what Apple did for their Apple Car platform? They were like, we're gonna make the car. And so they designed the software for the car and they were like, oh man, designing like the rest of the car.

• 36:00Speaker 01

  Manufacturing cars is hard. What if we just took the software we made and put it in other people's cars? That's a whole other can of worms because if you're gonna design a car on your Apple, people also expect it to be electric. They expect it to be fully self-driving, which we'll get to in a second. So there's a whole bunch of more stuff that comes from a high-tech car.

• 36:17David Imel?

  Gave up on it. Also the whole manufacturing part, which is like what bankrupts most companies.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. So yeah, I think as far as being a car, a high-tech car startup, there is a lot of variables in play and Apple can do software.

• 36:30David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  But what if they just took over the software without making a car?

• 36:32David Imel?

  No.

• 36:33Speaker 01

  Ah. You sound like Renault. So yeah.

• 36:36Andrew Manganelli?

  Do you know a company, funny enough, does see, still seem to be going forward with CarPlay Ultra?

• 36:41David Imel?

  Aston Martin.

• 36:42Speaker 01

  Which one?

• 36:43Andrew Manganelli?

  Take a guess, one you wouldn't expect.

• 36:45David Imel?

  Well, the ones that I know about are Porsche, Aston Martin and Hyundai.

• 36:48Andrew Manganelli?

  So what's one you wouldn't expect because of the software it already has?

• 36:51David Imel?

  Oh, Tesla and Rivian?

• 36:53Andrew Manganelli?

  Polestar?

• 36:54David Imel?

  Oh, well.

• 36:55Andrew Manganelli?

  Not that you wouldn't expect it, but their whole base is already as Android automotive. But it seems like they're still in on CarPlay Ultra.

• 37:01David Imel?

  I think that they're just like.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  No, they're, they're one of the ones out.

• 37:05Andrew Manganelli?

  They're one of the ones out?

• 37:06Speaker 01

  Or at least Volvo's out.

• 37:07David Imel?

  Is Polestar in today?

• 37:09Andrew Manganelli?

  No, this is from like two weeks ago.

• 37:11David Imel?

  That's not from today.

• 37:13Andrew Manganelli?

  But still, seems like they're still possibly in it?

• 37:17David Imel?

  I would say that they're probably out.

• 37:20Andrew Manganelli?

  I would assume they were out.

• 37:21David Imel?

  They're in a quantum superposition of in and out.

• 37:24Andrew Manganelli?

  The shrugers of CarPlay.

• 37:26David Imel?

  When you buy your next Polestar, because you have to.

• 37:28Speaker 01

  Observe it yourself.

• 37:29Speaker 04

  The moment you look at it, it becomes Android automotive or.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  This article from today says that Mercedes, Audi, and Volvo, and Polestar, and Renault are all distancing themselves from.

• 37:41Speaker 04

  So lots happened in the last two weeks. So just kidding.

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:45Speaker 03

  You know what's hilarious? Who hasn't said that they're they're leaving CarPlay Ultra? Jaguar. Because less than a year ago, the Jaguar design team was like, we have no idea what anybody wants from us.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  That's very true.

• 38:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  They should just accept that.

• 38:03Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:03Speaker 01

  It doesn't matter what they do.

• 38:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, they should. They should just be like, Apple, please design stuff for us, please.

• 38:08David Imel?

  Copy nothing.

• 38:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:09Speaker 04

  Okay, I have a very stupid fundamental question about all this.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 38:13Speaker 04

  That you guys could maybe help me with.

• 38:14Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 38:14Speaker 04

  So if I get a car.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:16Speaker 04

  And it has Android automotive.

• 38:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:18Speaker 04

  Mm hmm. But then I buy an iPhone.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 38:20Speaker 04

  Can I? And it supports.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  CarPlay.

• 38:22Speaker 04

  CarPlay Ultra. Can I plug in and it just takes over the car?

• 38:25Speaker 01

  Does the car, this theoretical car supports CarPlay Ultra and runs Android automotive?

• 38:30Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:30Speaker 04

  CarPlay Ultra or CarPlay in general? CarPlay Ultra, specifically this one.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  Which is what the, I don't think it's exclusive, right? It's what it's what the.

• 38:37Speaker 04

  That's what I'm wondering.

• 38:37Speaker 01

  Star was going to do. Yeah, in this theoretical world where that car exists, yeah, you plug in your iPhone or you connect your iPhone, and it takes over all of the screens in the car.

• 38:46Speaker 04

  Like buying one doesn't lock me into the phone.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  That's the big question, yeah. Um. It's a question.

• 38:52Speaker 04

  Like the Aston Martin right now, if I have an Android phone.

• 38:55Speaker 01

  It doesn't do Android auto. It will not do Android. It will not do CarPlay Ultra.

• 38:58Speaker 04

  It will not do CarPlay Ultra.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, CarPlay Ultra still relies on the iPhone.

• 39:04David Imel?

  But Aston Martin does do a CarPlay Ultra, right?

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Right?

• 39:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  But you need an iPhone to do that.

• 39:09David Imel?

  Oh, is that.

• 39:09Speaker 04

  So if I have an Android phone and I have an Aston Martin because I'm awesome.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:14Speaker 04

  When I plug in.

• 39:15Speaker 01

  When you plug in, you will get the normal Android auto experience. You do not get CarPlay Ultra. CarPlay Ultra is if you have an iPhone, you connect it, it takes over all of the screens.

• 39:24Speaker 03

  No, no wonder car manufacturers don't want to be involved in this, like. Dude, why would you make the most expensive product you own lock you into a phone ecosystem? That doesn't make any sense.

• 39:35Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, there are lots of cars that have one or the other. It's less common now, but there have been plenty that have been like only CarPlay or only Android Auto.

• 39:43David Imel?

  Yeah, there's like different levels of connecting your phone to your car. You can just connect via Bluetooth in theory and then just like play whatever audio coming from your phone. And put your phone in the dash and that's whatever. But the in-car software usually sucks.

• 39:56Speaker 03

  What if your house was like this? What if you're like, damn, I really want to try the new ROG phone, but I have an Apple house.

• 40:02David Imel?

  Well, that's not entirely fictional. Yeah, because think about HomePod and the HomeKit.

• 40:08Speaker 03

  No, no, totally. But I mean, like, I just spent, you know, half a million dollars on a house. And now in order to change my thousand dollar devices ecosystem, I would literally have to restructure the entire financial future of my life, which I get a car is not half a million dollars, but also

• 40:25David Imel?

  It could be.

• 40:26Speaker 03

  It is oftentimes something you pay off over the course of decades. So it's like

• 40:30Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, still does have its own UI though. Like the Aston Martin still has its own UI. If it's not, if you have an Android phone, it's just the Aston Martin UI or regular Android.

• 40:39Speaker 03

  My house has light switches, but I still want to use the HomePod, you know?

• 40:43David Imel?

  Well, this is, this is HomeKit, basically. This is why matter is important.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  There are people who, who move into super fancy high rise apartments with iPads embedded in the walls.

• 40:53David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  That's kinda, kinda like that.

• 40:56David Imel?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  Sort of locked in.

• 40:58David Imel?

  And honestly, like, most people are fine. Like, they are not upset that they are locked into the ecosystem. You know what I mean?

• 41:06Speaker 03

  I guess I'm that way.

• 41:07Speaker 01

  They actually bully people who are in other ecosystems.

• 41:09David Imel?

  Right, exactly. Like we

• 41:11Speaker 03

  I'm also that way.

• 41:11David Imel?

  We cover all, that's true. We, we cover like all this stuff. So we're interested in like, we want to try something, but it's hard for us to even try something when it doesn't work with the ecosystem that we're locked into. But most people like, most people like, oh yeah, just give me the new iPhone, give me the new AirPods, give me the new MacBook.

• 41:27Speaker 03

  You're so right, David. Like, yeah, I will admit on the podcast, just so everyone knows, I've been curious about the S Pen for a while. I've really wanted to try it. Never going to.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  Unfortunate.

• 41:39David Imel?

  Because you can't.

• 41:40Speaker 03

  Yeah, because I literally can't.

• 41:41David Imel?

  That's exactly what I'm saying.

• 41:42Speaker 03

  Because I'm staring at Adam's S. Pen right now and I'm just like, [BLEEP].

• 41:45David Imel?

  If there was a smart pen protocol for your phone.

• 41:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, exactly.

• 41:50David Imel?

  Saying.

• 41:51Speaker 03

  A federated smart pen universe.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  Well, speaking of, uh, speaking of cars and fantastical future stories, uh, there was also an event, or at least some happenings, in Austin, Texas this past week. Did you, any of you guys see what happened in Texas?

• 42:06David Imel?

  I did. It was pretty funny.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  I was, I was tagged about a thousand times in tweets about what was happening in Texas, most of which, uh, lacked reading comprehension skills, but that's okay. That's okay, because we can still talk about it, because it was interesting.

• 42:21Andrew Manganelli?

  Grok context, please.

• 42:23David Imel?

  Is this true?

• 42:24Speaker 01

  So here's the context. Uh, Tesla finally started doing test runs that the, quote, "public can use" of robotaxis in Austin, Texas. It's a small, geo-fenced part of Austin, and these are Tesla model-wise. In fact, I can pull up all the stipulations of exactly the restrictions. Um, it ran from, ooh, I need my, my tab open here. So if you wanted to do one of those robotaxi rides, you could, uh, pick an area in this defined geolocation.

• 42:55Andrew Manganelli?

  You're already missing one. If you were an influencer selected to do one of the rides so far.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Is that part of it? You have to be selected?

• 43:02Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, they were like.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  Oh, you gotta get invited.

• 43:03David Imel?

  Invite only.

• 43:04Andrew Manganelli?

  I think it was invite only.

• 43:05Speaker 01

  Okay, so for this test, it has invite only, but essentially, this was model-wise where there was nobody sitting in the driver's seat, but there was a Tesla employee sitting in the passenger seat. We assume that that is required for some reason.

• 43:21Speaker 03

  We know the reason.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  Well, you know, we don't.

• 43:23David Imel?

  They had a kill switch.

• 43:24Speaker 01

  It's a safety monitor. There's some speculation about what they're doing in the front seat. There is some UI on the screen that allows them to tell it to stop or pull over, and they all seem to always have their hand on the handle. We don't know why or what that means. Tesla hasn't told us, but the point is, there's a Tesla employee in the front of the car, but not the driver's seat. Very important. Not the driver's seat. You could call the car. It runs from 6:00 AM to midnight. It doesn't run in all weather situations, but in the perfect weather that we saw videos of, it was taking people to, yeah, various restaurants.

• 43:52Andrew Manganelli?

  Not the airport, though.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Not the airport. Well, this is a small area, didn't have any highways in it. It was up to about 35 miles an hour, but it was taking people around. It kind of resembled what you might see from a Waymo, except a Waymo doesn't have someone in the front seat. It's just a different system altogether. But this is Tesla's thing. All rides were $4.20, just because it was easy to, you know.

• 44:15Andrew Manganelli?

  Because there's like 20 people that were allowed to do it.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Promotional flat rate. We don't have to charge people. We're not making money from this yet. Onboard cameras would monitor passenger behavior, apparently. And if you're under 18, you can't do one of these rides. But it is a big step theoretically towards this future of what Tesla is imagining, which is robot taxis all over the world, or at least all over the parts of the world that allow it, that will just drive people around with no driver.

• 44:39David Imel?

  Didn't they also have a car that was like driving behind it to make sure that nothing would happen?

• 44:43Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 44:44David Imel?

  I thought I read that on The Verge.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  I was watching videos from the people who were there. One from Dan from What's Inside, one from Kim. And it was just called it in the app. You get into the backseat, there'd be a Tesla employee in the front seat, and then you'd hit the go button on the screen. And from that backseat, you'd just have the car drive you. And if anything weird started to happen, the employee could stop the car or pause it or take over, or whatever they had to do. But they...

• 45:08Andrew Manganelli?

  Did you see any videos of anyone stopping it?

• 45:10Speaker 01

  I saw two videos. I saw one video of the car following a UPS truck. The UPS truck pulled up to clearly start to reverse into a spot. The robot taxi didn't get the signal and just continued right into the path of the UPS truck. So the employee reached over and stopped it to allow the UPS truck to back in. I saw that. Then I saw another video where there were no interjections, but it fully went to the wrong side of the road and like wiggled and then came back to the right side of the road. And that was kind of weird, but nobody interjected.

• 45:39Andrew Manganelli?

  It was in a turn lane, went into the turn lane, started to turn left, then just went straight. But ahead of it is the opposite side of the road.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:48Andrew Manganelli?

  And then continued going forward until it got into the next turn lane. But that means for half of a block, it was in the wrong lane of traffic.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, but, but no intervention. Success.

• 46:00David Imel?

  This article says in some cases Tesla is using chase cars and remote drivers as backup.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  Okay, I never saw, you know, I'm watched going by the videos that I watched from the influencers who were invited. I don't know the criteria for the influencers invited. I was not invited, so assume whatever you want about the criteria. But yeah, that was, that happened. Uh, there's two ways you can interpret this. One, wow, big step. Tesla's on their way. Robo taxi coming soon. Marquez, get the clippers ready. Or two, you know, I watch that and I see marketing. It's like another very beautiful Tesla showy thing to do. If someone's required to be in the front seat,

• 46:41Speaker 01

  why not put him in the driver's seat? Because it looks way better when no one's in the driver's seat. If that person's not going to intervene at all and is not going to grab the wheel, don't put him in the driver's seat. Put him in the passenger seat. But for some reason, you need them still in the front seat. That was kind of a damper. The reason they're doing that is because they're being extremely cautious and extremely safe about every, any little incident that could happen. They want to make sure everything goes smoothly. A very small number of people get invited to use this thing. Perfect conditions, geofence location, small area, no highways. You know, great weather, only during the daytime. Like, there's so many things that they're trying to do to make sure this, this little experiment goes well. So that they can build out on it and build out on it and build out on it. And maybe one day it's all of Austin. Maybe one day it's all ours. One, maybe one day, there's nobody

• 47:26Speaker 01

  in the front seat. But that's all maybe one day type stuff. So if you want to read into this as being a successful test with a few interventions, you can, but that's a really hard extrapolation to go all the way out to like robot taxis all

• 47:40David Imel?

  I also implore you to get in a Waymo because they're really, really good.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's funny.

• 47:45David Imel?

  For a long time.

• 47:46Speaker 03

  But also use the same tricks at like remote drivers, like constant monitoring bike, like centers internationally, you know, it's not, it, the, the goalposts are not that far off.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's a lot of resurfaced talk about Waymo because of these tests, because of the things that Tesla has said about geofence testing before. You know, Waymo being a, a lot of more Jaguar eye paces with a bunch of LiDAR sensors on top, much more expensive to make a bunch of these taxis. But yeah, they operate around a whole bunch of cities and without a driver in the front seat. And so naturally, there are lots of instances of them screwing up. And people are bringing back up the footage now of, oh, look at what this Waymo couldn't do. Oh, look at This weird incident that this Waymo pulled off or oh, look at all these things that Waymo has been doing behind the scenes. So this is a very difficult technological problem to solve. I think as a fan of tech, I'm just interested in hopefully these tests going well.

• 48:40Speaker 01

  And it's actually like working. I think a lot of people are like picking a horse. Like I only support the Tesla vision way, or I only support the LIDAR way. And you will see these like sides fighting each other about like, oh, LIDAR is stupid. It's overpriced. What a dumb idea. But as a fan of tech, I just want them both to get better. Just get better. I want them to actually work. Instead of fighting each other. So that's, that's kind of where I'm at. They're both not quite good enough for me to just want them to be everywhere yet. Waymo is pretty damn good. Waymo is good. It's in a couple cities. I don't think they're anywhere near the East Coast yet. So I'm like not taking them regularly. They're gonna test in New York again soon.

• 49:17Andrew Manganelli?

  There's plenty of videos of Waymo just being an absolute nuisance.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 49:21Speaker 03

  And the, the data they put out on their own, like service is, doesn't line up with the data collected by independent observers either. So it's like not actually clear statistically how, how good Waymo is.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. There was a neat article about how if you watch all of the videos from all these people invited to the Tesla event and you go, okay, well, there's only a few days of recording and two or three major instances, then you extrapolate that to however many millions of miles you want them to drive. And how many major instances that is, clearly it must get better before it scales up.

• 49:55Speaker 03

  Yeah. I just, Ellis's crazy corner moment, I just want to press like, even if Waymo does work really well on an individual level, it is not clear what mass adoption of Waymos will do to a metro area. You know what I mean? It's not clear what it will do to traffic. It's not clear what it'll do to accidents. There are lots of studies that say lots of things on both sides of the argument. I heard a really funny Waymo story this week of someone in either Austin or LA, who has a Waymo who operates like that Waymo's territory is his neighborhood. And it has chosen the parking spot right in front of his house as the wait for my next ride spot. And so every day he comes home and there's a Waymo in his parking spot with no one in it, just waiting for a ride to call.

• 50:40Speaker 03

  And if you wait next to the Waymo for like 10 minutes and it detects that you're waiting, it will go and find another spot.

• 50:45Speaker 01

  That's still annoying.

• 50:47Speaker 03

  But yeah, every day.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  He needs to invest in a large cone.

• 50:49Speaker 03

  Every day he comes home and has to wait for a Waymo to move.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Wait, just buy a huge cone. You'll be fine.

• 50:55Speaker 03

  Yeah. I don't, I don't know if you're allowed to do that.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:57Speaker 03

  Anyway.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  I don't know. Also Elon says that on June 28th, there will be a Tesla that drives itself from the factory all the way to the customer's house.

• 51:07David Imel?

  I'm so tempted to make another bet.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  I have so tempted to make another bet.

• 51:12David Imel?

  Yeah, he's not very good with dates.

• 51:14Andrew Manganelli?

  This is also like three days away with that. Yeah. This is when he originally said tentatively, the 22nd is when RoboTaxi would roll out. It did.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Well, this is only 15 days ago that he created this. Not that long.

• 51:27David Imel?

  So maybe they're planning like a specific customer with a specific thing happening.

• 51:30Andrew Manganelli?

  I'm not sure.

• 51:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe someone lives right next to the factory and they're like, we're doing this. It's happening on this day.

• 51:36David Imel?

  They sleep in the factory.

• 51:37Andrew Manganelli?

  They have an RV in the parking.

• 51:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, anyway, if you're one of the people on Twitter expecting me to shave my head, just go back and watch the original video. If you're wondering what the bet was, it's not about a Model Y with someone in the front seat driving around Austin. It's about that little gold RoboTaxi.

• 51:53David Imel?

  There still is a chance.

• 51:54Andrew Manganelli?

  Cybercab.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  Cybercab.

• 51:55David Imel?

  Cybercab. I personally would like to see it.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  I thought it was RoboTaxi.

• 52:00David Imel?

  Your head shaved?

• 52:01Speaker 01

  RoboTaxi is a service. Cybercab's a little gold two-seater thing.

• 52:04David Imel?

  Dude.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:06David Imel?

  But.

• 52:06Speaker 01

  Get it right, or you know nothing.

• 52:09David Imel?

  We'll see if they can do it. It'd be fun for the content.

• 52:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:12David Imel?

  For me personally, but.

• 52:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:14David Imel?

  Not for you, though.

• 52:15Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, well, they've got a year and change to ship one for 30 grand.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:19Andrew Manganelli?

  There you go.

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Well, speaking of things that are going to go on sale for an interesting price, the Fairphone. There is a new Fairphone.

• 52:28David Imel?

  There's a new Fairphone.

• 52:28Andrew Manganelli?

  Is it $30,000?

• 52:29Speaker 01

  Then thankfully not. So the whole point of the Fairphone, I reviewed a Fairphone a couple of years ago, and the Fairphone, as you can probably tell by its name, is intended to be extremely repairable, and you'll be able to replace parts if one of them breaks. If like the screen breaks, you can pop it off and replace the screen. Key distinction here, not upgradable, like if it was modular, but you can stay at the same level of phone forever by replacing parts anytime they break.

• 52:57David Imel?

  Right.

• 52:58Speaker 01

  New Fairphone comes out, new level. This one's a Snapdragon 7S Gen 3, so a little bit higher performing. It also has a 120 Hz dynamic AMOLED display.

• 53:07David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 53:07Speaker 01

  And you can again, replace those parts over and over again and hopefully keep the phone for longer.

• 53:13David Imel?

  Right.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  So this is not like, like if you have a Fairphone 4, it's not like you buy a Fairphone 6 parts or something like that. That would be a totally different concept.

• 53:21Andrew Manganelli?

  Perfect for someone like Ellis, who just keeps his phone forever.

• 53:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:26Speaker 03

  I don't need no fair phone. I've told you guys, I've replaced every single individual part of my phone.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  So it's a fair, it's basically a fair phone.

• 53:33Speaker 03

  It's it's basic, it's the ship, the ship of Theseus i fair phone.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:37Speaker 03

  It's perfect.

• 53:38Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, the idea, I guess of this one with this new design and with this new chip is to feel a little bit more flagshipy. It's IP 55.

• 53:45David Imel?

  Right.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  Uh, it's got, I think, I don't know if the battery is bigger, but it's a 6.3 inch, it's an OLED, it's, it's, it's nicer than the previous fair phones have been.

• 53:54David Imel?

  Yeah. And to be fair, like, huh.

• 53:59David Imel?

  Thanks. Uh, I didn't mean to do that, but that's good. Um, a big point about the fair phone is it's, it is about repairability, obviously. But a big part of their thing is also about like, fair, like fair resource development trade stuff.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  Sourcing.

• 54:13David Imel?

  They support.

• 54:14Speaker 03

  They make Dua Lipa mine her own lithium.

• 54:17David Imel?

  That's right. That's right. Yeah, they, they support a lot of, uh, ethical lithium mining stuff and try to like promote, you know, better consumer choice through that kind of stuff. It is, it also has these accessories, which I really hope, they're, they're very similar to the CMF phone accessories. I really hope that you can use them when the fair phone seven comes out because the CMF phone one, only a couple of them work on the CMF phone two. Uh, which is a whole accessory ecosystem that only works for one really cheap phone is insane. So, and that's just like a lot of wasted plastic and stuff. So another interesting thing about it, um, it has this new switch on it that basically turns it into a dumb phone.

• 55:01Andrew Manganelli?

  I actually think this is pretty cool.

• 55:02David Imel?

  Really interesting.

• 55:03Andrew Manganelli?

  That is really cool.

• 55:04David Imel?

  It's like a minimal phone switch.

• 55:06Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, basically there's a switch on the side that turns it into the moments UI, which makes everything monochrome and then has like five of your essential apps. So calendar.

• 55:15David Imel?

  It's a list for you.

• 55:16Andrew Manganelli?

  Meet Gmail Chrome phone.

• 55:17Speaker 03

  Sounds like a launcher switch.

• 55:19David Imel?

  It's basically a launcher switch. Yeah.

• 55:21Speaker 03

  That's absolute gas.

• 55:22David Imel?

  Yeah, it's dope. Like this is a good, like, why didn't they just do this on more phones?

• 55:27Speaker 01

  I feel like you can do this from the App Store.

• 55:29David Imel?

  Well, yeah.

• 55:30Speaker 03

  No, no.

• 55:31David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 55:32Speaker 03

  It's not integrated, having it integrated.

• 55:33David Imel?

  Having it integrated is cool.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  I think a slider is a cool.

• 55:36David Imel?

  Is that the fact that it's a slider?

• 55:37Speaker 01

  I could map that to a double press of a random button on almost any phone.

• 55:40Speaker 03

  No, but it's so different, dude, because it's like, that is, that's a lifestyle choice. That is like, that is like, okay, laugh all you want, but I'm telling you, it's like, that is a choice you make because of the impact it'll have.

• 55:51Speaker 04

  Phone before the end of this episode.

• 55:53David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 55:54Speaker 03

  You guys aren't hearing me, right? It's like, as soon as you bake it into software, it's not reflective of the impact it'll actually have on your life. This is a design thing, that's cool.

• 56:02David Imel?

  I love that it's a switch, so like, you're using your phone like normal and then you're like, time to go hang out with my family and...

• 56:08Speaker 01

  The beauty of Android is I could just do this.

• 56:10David Imel?

  I know.

• 56:10Speaker 01

  I don't need it built into the phone. I don't need the dev-

• 56:13Speaker 03

  I'm so sick of you green bubblers. I've been hearing this for like a decade. The beauty of Android is that all you have to do is spend three hours banging your head against the wall with this, like a separate Google Cloud server that you forward all this data to, just so you, it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

• 56:28David Imel?

  It's a launcher. Isn't this great that they're baking into hardware?

• 56:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 56:31David Imel?

  Like, I know that everyone will always say this could have been an app. It's like the Fuji X half, right? Everyone always says, oh, this could have been an app, it's just a, why, but it's cool.

• 56:42Speaker 01

  How is this-

• 56:42David Imel?

  It's dedicated hardware.

• 56:44Speaker 01

  Different. You're saying it's baked in. In what way is it more baked in-

• 56:48Speaker 03

  Well, it has a physical hardware switch.

• 56:50Speaker 01

  Right, and so a lot of phones have a customizable button where you can map it to whatever you want, in which case, you would map it to whatever launcher you grab from the Play Store. In what way is this more baked in than me mapping a custom button to a launcher from the Play Store?

• 57:03David Imel?

  Well, in one way, it is-

• 57:04Speaker 01

  Matter of fact, that's probably exactly what this is.

• 57:06David Imel?

  It is vertical integration.

• 57:09Speaker 01

  In that it's the same company that made the phone made the launcher.

• 57:12David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 57:12Speaker 01

  I guess I give you that.

• 57:15Speaker 03

  It's-

• 57:15Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 57:16David Imel?

  And the switch is, is teal.

• 57:17Speaker 03

  It's because it's a conscious design-

• 57:19Speaker 01

  That's cool.

• 57:19David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 57:20Speaker 03

  It's a conscious design choice.

• 57:21David Imel?

  That's not teal.

• 57:22Speaker 03

  You know what I mean? The, the, the, like David said, it, because it's a vertically integrated choice, you can have other features and other design, I don't know the phone very well, but you can have everything support this one decision.

• 57:31David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 57:32Speaker 03

  Whereas, and we all know, we all know, you can map anything you want to anything you want on an Android phone, but it is always annoying and it's always stupid and it never works exactly the way you want to. I love iPhone shortcuts. I could probably come up with something genius like this with an iPhone shortcut, and even those barely work.

• 57:51David Imel?

  I think your view of shortcuts might be tainted by how bad the iPhone shortcuts are. Cause iPhone shortcuts are bad and, and are frankly, almost unusable compared to what I found. Like on an Android phone where

• 58:04Speaker 03

  I agree.

• 58:04David Imel?

  On the Zen phone from a couple of years ago, or even the last Zen phone, you'll literally, you'll hit the button for the first time and it'll be like, what in all of your phone would you like to map this button to? And I go, this app. And then it goes, okay. And every time I press that button, it launches that app. And it's great.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:18David Imel?

  And I just, I feel like that's all that this is.

• 58:20Speaker 03

  I feel strongly about this. I don't know if I'm articulating my argument very well. But I do think selling a phone with, with a dumb phone switch is very different than, also, the only iPhone shortcut I've ever gotten to work consistently well is one that I made when I first got here where I'd press an app on my home screen, an icon on my home screen, and it would search for a random, I would search GIFs for the word poop, and then pick a random one and text it to Adam.

• 58:46Andrew Manganelli?

  That was a slider.

• 58:47David Imel?

  That worked?

• 58:48Speaker 03

  Dude, if I had the poop button on my phone, totally different experience.

• 58:54David Imel?

  Well, I mean, tech, okay. I mean, there is an action button.

• 58:57Andrew Manganelli?

  I give Fairphone credit here because their dumb phone UI, the five apps are ones that you actually need, where half of these dumb phone apps like, don't let you like, look at your email.

• 59:09David Imel?

  Right.

• 59:09Andrew Manganelli?

  So giving you Gmail here, thank you for realizing that some of us have to work.

• 59:14David Imel?

  Yeah, they still.

• 59:15Andrew Manganelli?

  And look at our Gmail.

• 59:15David Imel?

  They still realize that this needs to be a phone. They just made the UI so that it's, it's less like there's stuff everywhere and there's a lot of choices. It's just like a list with the time and essentials and stuff like that.

• 59:27Speaker 03

  Anyway, do you guys know it has 1400 nits of peak brightness?

• 59:30David Imel?

  They made a privacy focused version that does not run Google. It's de-googled. A de-googled version of Android called EOS that is made by Muwerna. And that is $900. The, the normal Fairphone is 599 euros.

• 59:48Andrew Manganelli?

  This says Fairphone sells only the EOS model through its local partner, or in the U, okay, so in the US you can only get it through a partner.

• 59:56David Imel?

  Yeah, it's 599 euro in about 700 US dollars. Which is still a lot, but you know.

• 1:00:03Speaker 03

  Would you put a SIM card in an EOS phone and ask if you want to initialize the media? Anyone canon joke?

• 1:00:10Speaker 04

  Canon.

• 1:00:10David Imel?

  Canon.

• 1:00:11Speaker 01

  Initiate.

• 1:00:11Speaker 04

  Joke is.

• 1:00:12Speaker 03

  Really, I'm like 0 for 3 today.

• 1:00:14Speaker 04

  You guys.

• 1:00:16David Imel?

  They have to be stupider, you know?

• 1:00:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, I guess.

• 1:00:19David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:20Speaker 03

  Too smart. It's no Google Drive.

• 1:00:21David Imel?

  They're too smart. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Um, okay, so besides that, uh, they are gonna send me one. So I should have one probably for next week that we can look at and talk about and

• 1:00:34Speaker 03

  Sweet.

• 1:00:34David Imel?

  switch on and off.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  Crap out of that button.

• 1:00:36David Imel?

  Let's see what happens. Yeah, it's a, it's a switch. Up and down. Up and down. Okay.

• 1:00:41Speaker 04

  Um. Wait, last question about that.

• 1:00:43David Imel?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:00:43Speaker 04

  Can I remap that switch?

• 1:00:45David Imel?

  I don't think so.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  It's probably worse than your usual Android phone. You can't remap it.

• 1:00:51David Imel?

  I'm guessing.

• 1:00:51Speaker 03

  I'm assuming. Counterpoint, the switch is pina colada colored.

• 1:00:54David Imel?

  That's true.

• 1:00:55Speaker 04

  Damn, that is good.

• 1:00:56David Imel?

  If you have a, well, it's more yellow. Okay, anyway, they're gonna make, uh, right now, they have four accessories for it. So there's a case accessory, which I don't know if you could really consider an accessory, but it does have a slot out for the other accessories. There's like a finger jammer thing where you put your finger in it so you can hold it easier. There is a wallet case that looks pretty good. And there is a lanyard, which, um, is a choice. So, uh, yeah, I, I don't know. I'm excited.

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  Wallet phone cases terrify me. This is an episode for another day, but I can't understand putting everything on your phone and then losing everything at once.

• 1:01:34David Imel?

  I will say.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  That's mainly what I'm worried about.

• 1:01:38David Imel?

  What kind of pina colada is that? Okay, I got one last thing. Um, okay, there is this new Adobe Project Indigo camera app that got kinda like stealth launched. Um, this is quite interesting. So Mark Lavoy, who is the person that invented, uh, HDR Plus on the Nexus 6.

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:01:56David Imel?

  Um, I've talked with him extensively over the years. He is very smart. He basically created computational photography.

• 1:02:02Speaker 01

  He made the pixel cameras good.

• 1:02:04David Imel?

  Yeah, he really defined the pixel camera look. Um, so.

• 1:02:08Speaker 04

  He also said that they made it based on art, which is interesting.

• 1:02:12David Imel?

  Well, the Pixel 6, yeah. They used Renaissance art. And Pixel 7 and 8, they moved away from that a little bit, but... Uh, so anyway, in 2020 or so, Mark left Google to go work at Adobe, and he said that he was gonna be working on a universal camera app at Adobe. It made a lot of sense for him, considering he like invented computational photography, right? So, we were all kind of like waiting with bated breath to see, what is this universal camera app that he's working on? It's been a long time, it's been like 5 years. And last week, he dropped with Adobe this new app that's in super beta, called Project Indigo. The cool thing is, you don't actually have to have an Adobe subscription to download it, um, which is nice. Uh, it is currently only available on the iPhone, which is not nice, but, you know, it kinda makes sense in some ways. Uh, anyway.

• 1:02:57Speaker 04

  Hard disagree.

• 1:02:59David Imel?

  Well, I don't know, they have to develop, whatever. Okay, so, basically, I read the technical paper on this, because they released this whole, this whole paper about it. And effectively, what it is, is just a intense, ramped-up version of what HDR Plus was doing on the original Pixel phones. Um, so I just wanna give a short primer about computational photography on smartphones. Generally, HDR on smartphones, the way that it does it, is that it takes multiple really short frames, and then it aligns them, and then it boosts the overall exposure of those frames. And generally, when you don't get a lot of light on a pixel, uh, you have more noise, which is just random pixels that don't get the information.

• 1:03:43David Imel?

  And when you up the exposure of all the pixels, you see the noise more. You know, there's this thing called the signal-to-noise ratio. So what they do with computational photography is, because your phone has a gyroscope, it's able to know exactly what the pitch, yaw, and skew is of your phone at all given times. And so it can align the exact pixels over the course of like, 7 frames? And that allows it to have a better pixel, uh, signal-to-noise ratio, because it takes the average of every single pixel, does that. So what smartphones have done for a while now with computational photography is it's taken like, 7 frames, and aligned those. But when you do that, when you're not getting a lot of light, you also have to do a lot of noise reduction, because you're upping, you're taking these really short exposures, you're upping the exposure,

• 1:04:26David Imel?

  you have to do noise reduction, that basically smoothes out the image, and then you have to apply sharpening. That's what's like, led to this like, smartphone plasticky look that we've had for a very long time. And so Mark's vision for this new Project Indigo app was to try to like, kind of counteract that plasticky look. Also because it's HDR, it like crushes the highlights down and it brings up the shadows and it kind of creates a really flat sort of like tone curve. So what the new Project Indigo app does is a few things. One of the things is that it takes 32 frames of even shorter exposures, which will lead to lower noise, which is really cool. And then they also, and I guess they can do that because they have faster processing in phones now. You know, when the Nexus 6 was out, it was like,

• 1:05:10David Imel?

  it took a while. Once you pressed the button, it would like process, process, process. But now these ISPs are like super fast. So you're able to take way more exposures and align them more, which reduces noise significantly, which is quite cool. They also did this, they have this new way of processing RAW files. So Apple's Pro RAW on the iPhone, basically will take, it's like a semi RAW image. It's not true RAW, because it's doing the demosaicing to push out the like Pro RAW file. This creates a new type of DNG that doesn't do the demosaicing, which is, I have a whole separate, we have a whole separate video on the studio channel about demosaicing that we can put in the show notes. Practically what it means is that

• 1:05:53David Imel?

  you're going to be able to get like way more color dynamic range, which is really nice. You're going to get way lower noise. And then it also has all these new features with like long exposure photography that looks really good. That also uses like 32 frames of one second exposures. That looks awesome. It's going to have Pro controls. Adobe's adding all these Photoshop AI tools, like removing reflections in the mirror and stuff. So this new Project Indigo app, overall, it's like basically they, they let Mark Lavoie cook for five years. And they were like, do what you did for Google, but do it for us with the new technology that smartphones now have. And then they're also integrating all of these other AI tools that Adobe has developed over the last few years. So it's

• 1:06:35David Imel?

  going to be like a test bed for a lot of these features. Currently free on the App Store. You can download it. You don't have to have an Adobe subscription, which is really nice.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  Do you need to have a test flight or something?

• 1:06:45David Imel?

  Nope.

• 1:06:45Speaker 01

  While you were describing all the computation. National photography and stuff. I downloaded it and started playing with it and it's pretty nice. I mean, UI is pretty intuitive. I've taken a few test images. This podcast studio has perfect lighting, so I'm not going to be able to actually see what it's good at yet, but I want to play with it.

• 1:07:00David Imel?

  Yeah. The one thing in the, uh, the white paper that I was like, eh, is that they're really in on HDR stuff and doing like tone mapping. They developed this new type of JPEG that basically can like apply a tone map later and I just think HDR looks bad. I just think it looks bad. It always looks bad.

• 1:07:17Speaker 01

  A lot of HDR.

• 1:07:19Speaker 04

  I forgot that he left to go to Adobe to do this.

• 1:07:22David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:22Speaker 04

  That was so long ago, but I am kind of excited for this. This seems.

• 1:07:26David Imel?

  Yeah, it's cool. I mean, it's interesting. And, um, if you look, we can also put the, um, the article, not, we can also put like the white paper in the show notes. There are some samples in the white paper. Some of them are like, eh, but then you look at the long exposure stuff and it looks really good. It looks very, very good. Part of the paper is he was saying like smartphone photos can look like good on your phone, but as soon as you put them like on a big screen or try to print them, they look awful. And so they specifically were thinking about how can we take photos that are going to look good when you blow them up and not look like plasticky and horrible. So that's a nice, uh, nice little thing. So I'm pretty excited about that.

• 1:08:01Speaker 04

  How long until you need a Adobe subscription?

• 1:08:06Speaker 03

  Two weeks.

• 1:08:06David Imel?

  Yeah. I mean,

• 1:08:07Speaker 04

  That's the thing I'm most surprised about this is you saying here's an Adobe product that doesn't need an Adobe subscription for it, which is wild.

• 1:08:14David Imel?

  I mean, funny enough, when you download the app, it has the like test flight looking icon where it has like the, the like blueprint chart thing that goes through it. Um, so it's clearly like an alpha app, but it is interesting.

• 1:08:27Speaker 04

  And also it's weird to me because this is like, at least in my opinion, clearly a pro app, you know? So like the fact that it is free without a subscription kind of is confusing to me.

• 1:08:36David Imel?

  Yeah. I mean, it's got, you can just point and shoot, but it does have a lot of pro controls, but yeah, regular people are probably not going to download this.

• 1:08:42Speaker 04

  It takes all your photos and puts them into their AI, um,

• 1:08:45David Imel?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:46Speaker 04

  research library.

• 1:08:47David Imel?

  I kind of want to go test some of the long exposure stuff because it looks really good. So anyway.

• 1:08:52Speaker 04

  About to Montauk?

• 1:08:53David Imel?

  Ayo.

• 1:08:54Speaker 04

  We'll all play with it.

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

  We'll report back next week.

• 1:08:57David Imel?

  Yeah, we'll play with it. Yeah. So.

• 1:08:58Speaker 03

  The last time David and I drove out to Montauk to take pictures, it was so cloudy. We didn't even take any pictures.

• 1:09:04David Imel?

  Last time Adam and I drove out to Montauk to take photos, we got home at four in the morning.

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  And then Google threatened me after I published my article.

• 1:09:11Speaker 03

  Oh my god.

• 1:09:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, nice.

• 1:09:13Speaker 03

  But you know who will never threaten you?

• 1:09:16Speaker 04

  Trivia?

• 1:09:16Speaker 03

  Me doing trivia.

• 1:09:18Speaker 01

  I feel like you would. I feel like you'd have.

• 1:09:21David Imel?

  David, if you get this question wrong.

• 1:09:25Speaker 04

  You can't prove it. Uh, next question.

• 1:09:28Speaker 01

  I might be able to.

• 1:09:29Speaker 04

  So we spoke a little bit earlier about Mario Kart World. In Mario Kart, you can choose between 50, 100, or 150 cc races. But also in Mario Kart, what does the CC mean?

• 1:09:45Speaker 01

  Credit card.

• 1:09:46Andrew Manganelli?

  Subaffia.

• 1:09:49Speaker 01

  Well, think about it.

• 1:09:50Speaker 03

  Are you a Yankee fan?

• 1:09:53Andrew Manganelli?

  Yes.

• 1:09:57Speaker 01

  Fair enough. Answers at the end like usual. We'll be right back.

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

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• 1:10:56Speaker 01

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• 1:11:01Speaker 07

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• 1:11:43Speaker 01

  Or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up require compatibility and availability varies 18 plus.

• 1:11:57Speaker 01

  All right, welcome back. All right, so this is actually the last episode of the month of June, which is where we usually do our crown and clown. We thought about it, we didn't have too much to say there. But in honor of the NBA Finals, which ended in the month of June, we are going to attempt, as a group, attempt, to explain to David, who I assume did not watch the Finals.

• 1:12:18David Imel?

  I did not.

• 1:12:19Speaker 01

  What happened using tech terms.

• 1:12:21David Imel?

  I don't even know who's in the Finals.

• 1:12:23Speaker 01

  This is perfect. This is how we want to explain it to you so that you can appreciate the chaos that it was.

• 1:12:28David Imel?

  The only reason I knew the Knicks were in it is because the people outside my window wouldn't stop screaming until 4:00 in the morning.

• 1:12:34Speaker 01

  Which is perfect because the Knicks lost right before the Finals.

• 1:12:38Speaker 03

  They were not in the Finals.

• 1:12:39David Imel?

  They were in the semifinals.

• 1:12:40Speaker 01

  They were in the Finals, yes, the Eastern Conference Finals.

• 1:12:42Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, yeah, they were in the Eastern Conference Finals.

• 1:12:45Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, um, my method, I think, is actually a throwback to earlier this episode.

• 1:12:52David Imel?

  Oh.

• 1:12:53Speaker 01

  I think it would be easiest if I explained it in terms of Mario Kart. So you know how in Mario Kart, there's like a bunch of races? Imagine there's like a series of like seven races and whoever wins four races first gets the gold. Right? And there are some characters, obviously, on each side. There are teams.

• 1:13:13David Imel?

  Cow.

• 1:13:13Speaker 01

  And I think, you know, some of the biggest, uh, characters for this particular NBA finals would be, so the two teams were the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers. The Oklahoma City Thunder have Mario on their team. He's like the main character. He's the MVP of the league. Everybody knows who he is. He's having a great year.

• 1:13:35David Imel?

  Is that the guy that was like, oh, they traded him? What the heck?

• 1:13:38Speaker 01

  No, so his actual name is Shay Gilchrist Alexander, SGA for short.

• 1:13:43David Imel?

  How I've not, oh, I did hear that.

• 1:13:44Speaker 01

  But, okay, this is Mario. The other side has, uh, yeah, you know, teams expected to win.

• 1:13:52David Imel?

  The other side have Bowser.

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  They have Mario on their team. The other side, how would you, who is Shay? Waluigi.

• 1:13:58Speaker 03

  Definitely Waluigi.

• 1:13:59Speaker 01

  Shay is Waluigi. Not everybody, it's an acquired taste, right? Uh, some people would say he's overrated.

• 1:14:05Andrew Manganelli?

  Wait Shay is?

• 1:14:06Speaker 01

  No, no, no. Waluigi.

• 1:14:07Speaker 04

  Halliburton.

• 1:14:08Speaker 03

  Tyrese Halliburton is Waluigi.

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:14:10Speaker 01

  So they have this player, his actual name is Tyrese Halliburton, but we'll call him Waluigi.

• 1:14:14Andrew Manganelli?

  Wait, wait, you know, he's the guy who made that crazy shot against the Knicks to go to overtime in that one game? Remember you said, you saw that clip of the guy who like dribbled up, dribbled all the way back, made that shot and it sent to overtime?

• 1:14:27David Imel?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, and then they lost.

• 1:14:28Speaker 01

  And then the Knicks lost.

• 1:14:29Andrew Manganelli?

  The Knicks lost, yes.

• 1:14:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:30David Imel?

  Yeah. You know, I turned on my projector and the first thing that happened was that and I was like, whoa? And then I changed the channel.

• 1:14:40Speaker 03

  No, that, so like, Halliburton is Waluigi because it's like, most people, a lot of people, think he's a little bit annoying. A lot of people think he is vastly overrated. A lot of people, a lot of people can't really stand the vibe, but the contingent of, of Waluigi fans are like, there's no one else.

• 1:15:01Speaker 01

  What about Wario?

• 1:15:04David Imel?

  Like is he more like Mario?

• 1:15:06Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:15:06Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:15:07David Imel?

  So he's

• 1:15:07Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:15:08David Imel?

  He's like more like Mario's evil brother.

• 1:15:10Speaker 03

  Maybe Waluigi isn't the right one. That was who I went to

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  I like that.

• 1:15:13Speaker 03

  First.

• 1:15:13Speaker 01

  I like that.

• 1:15:14David Imel?

  Is he tall?

• 1:15:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:15:15Speaker 01

  Six five.

• 1:15:16David Imel?

  Well, I guess they're all tall.

• 1:15:17Speaker 01

  They're all kinda tall, yeah.

• 1:15:18David Imel?

  Maybe like

• 1:15:19Speaker 01

  And lanky.

• 1:15:20David Imel?

  Is he tall, is he tall and lanky? Okay, whatever. Okay, so Waluigi.

• 1:15:24Speaker 01

  So the races are happening.

• 1:15:25David Imel?

  Is he evil?

• 1:15:25Speaker 01

  It's a team, uh, it depends on who you are.

• 1:15:27Speaker 03

  Alex thinks so.

• 1:15:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's a, they're team races, but obviously first one to win. Mario's team is expected to literally win every race. They're such overwhelming favorites. It's not even close.

• 1:15:37David Imel?

  And what team is that?

• 1:15:38Speaker 01

  And that's the Thunder.

• 1:15:39David Imel?

  Thunder.

• 1:15:40Speaker 01

  They had an all-time season. It was great.

• 1:15:42David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:15:42Speaker 01

  But what weirdly happened was the first game, Waluigi's team won. And I was like, oh!

• 1:15:48David Imel?

  That's not common.

• 1:15:49Speaker 01

  That's not, that's, alright, we got a series on our hands. Second game, okay, Mario's team won, so we're back to 1-1.

• 1:15:56David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:15:56Speaker 01

  Third game, Waluigi's team gets another win.

• 1:16:00David Imel?

  Ooh.

• 1:16:00Speaker 01

  And the theme for a lot of these wins is like, you know how when you're like last place in Mario Kart? And you are kinda so far behind, it doesn't really matter, but then you start getting all the best power-ups? And then you start surging ahead and you go from dead last all the way to suddenly first in the last like half of the last lap?

• 1:16:16David Imel?

  Right.

• 1:16:16Speaker 01

  That's like the, their thing. That's like Waluigi's thing. He'll be in last place, he'll seem like he's out of it, and the whole team's like kind of not going to win? And it seems like they've accepted they're not gonna win? And in the last half of the last lap, boom, power-ups, giant blimp thing, surge to the front, first place, they win. That's how they win their games.

• 1:16:36David Imel?

  Did they win the third game, the fourth game that way?

• 1:16:38Speaker 01

  That's how they, yeah, that's how they've been winning

• 1:16:40David Imel?

  They won three games?

• 1:16:40Speaker 01

  All playoffs. So they've, now they're up 2-1. And then Mario's team wins again and it's 2-2.

• 1:16:46David Imel?

  Ooh.

• 1:16:47Speaker 01

  Then

• 1:16:47David Imel?

  We got a series.

• 1:16:48Speaker 01

  Mario's team goes up 3-2. So like, alright, it's been a nice Cinderella run. We kinda thought Waluigi's team had a shot here. But now it's 3-2 and Mario's team's probably gonna win the next game.

• 1:16:59David Imel?

  Okay.

• 1:16:59Speaker 01

  And then, uh- The fourth, this is the fourth game, then this sixth game. Waluigi's team just smacks Mario's team. It's not even close.

• 1:17:09David Imel?

  Really?

• 1:17:10Speaker 04

  Blue shield.

• 1:17:10Speaker 01

  So, yeah, big time, leading the whole way, no one behind him ever had a shot. So he gets to the finish line and it's like, okay, now we've got a critical game seven. Whoever wins this race wins the whole series.

• 1:17:23David Imel?

  Dang.

• 1:17:24Speaker 01

  Mario's team or Waluigi's team, who you got?

• 1:17:26Speaker 03

  And in the first lap of this final race, Waluigi's controller breaks.

• 1:17:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Really, really sad.

• 1:17:36David Imel?

  Wait, he broke something?

• 1:17:37Speaker 01

  Waluigi's controller breaks.

• 1:17:38David Imel?

  In the game?

• 1:17:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so from that moment, his team never really has a shot.

• 1:17:44David Imel?

  No way.

• 1:17:44Speaker 01

  Mario's team wins going away. Kind of a muted celebration because A, if that controller didn't break, it would have been a lot closer. But.

• 1:17:52David Imel?

  Wow.

• 1:17:53Speaker 04

  And before that controller broke, he was in first.

• 1:17:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:56David Imel?

  Not just first.

• 1:17:56Speaker 01

  He was cooking.

• 1:17:57Speaker 03

  But Waluigi, like three separate times during this playoff run, had been down by one point and at the very last second made a huge bucket and ended up winning the game. Like he was, people were literally calling him the moment because he just like.

• 1:18:13Speaker 01

  Gold coins.

• 1:18:14David Imel?

  So did he break his?

• 1:18:15Speaker 01

  Red shell.

• 1:18:16Speaker 03

  He tore his Achilles.

• 1:18:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:18David Imel?

  How'd he do it?

• 1:18:19Speaker 03

  Falling too hard?

• 1:18:20Speaker 01

  He was.

• 1:18:21David Imel?

  Was it during the game?

• 1:18:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, during the game. He was, he was kind of playing through a half injury and then.

• 1:18:26David Imel?

  So did they like bring him away?

• 1:18:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:28Speaker 03

  I think he got surgery before the game was over. Like I think they just took him straight to the hospital.

• 1:18:33Speaker 01

  He was, yeah, on crutches. But the next day, he's got a picture with surgery.

• 1:18:37David Imel?

  Oh my gosh.

• 1:18:38Speaker 01

  So yeah, pretty dramatic. Hopefully this analogy helps you appreciate that while Mario's team won.

• 1:18:44David Imel?

  Poor guy.

• 1:18:44Speaker 01

  In the back of everyone's head, if Waluigi's controller didn't break, I know not everybody's a fan, but that could have been a crazy game seven.

• 1:18:52David Imel?

  So it would have been an upset if they won. It would have been an upset.

• 1:18:56Speaker 03

  Cause there's, there's also like, I'm not gonna say that Mario's team was like the most stacked team ever, you know what I mean? But it was sort of like Mario Bowser Peach Luigi versus Waluigi Dry Bones, the like, the fishing rod guy who like pulls you off. You know what I mean?

• 1:19:15Speaker 01

  Koopa Troop is in there.

• 1:19:16Speaker 03

  That Koopa Troop is in there, like a second Dry Bones for some reason.

• 1:19:20Speaker 01

  I can't wait to edit this because I'm putting all of them right next to their players.

• 1:19:24David Imel?

  Berto, what about Berto?

• 1:19:26Speaker 03

  Berto was definitely on Waluigi.

• 1:19:27David Imel?

  Nemar, Nemar is Koopa Troop for sure, I think. What about the new Cow player?

• 1:19:32Speaker 03

  Uh, not, not that. Who's Alex Caruso?

• 1:19:37David Imel?

  He's got a bringer already, so maybe.

• 1:19:38Speaker 03

  Dude, he's toad. Alex Caruso is 100% toad.

• 1:19:42David Imel?

  Okay, well, that's really depressing for everybody involved.

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:46Andrew Manganelli?

  That does sting.

• 1:19:47David Imel?

  Like, even if you won, you'd be like, yeah, okay.

• 1:19:51Speaker 01

  Mario actually, Mario actually went to Waluigi's locker room after the game and, and like patted him on the back and was like, it's, it's gonna be okay.

• 1:19:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:19:58Speaker 01

  That's gonna be.

• 1:19:59Speaker 03

  It's gonna be okay. I'm gonna go back to my trophy.

• 1:20:03Speaker 01

  Everyone who likes Mario was like, see Mario's so classy, what a great.

• 1:20:06David Imel?

  I think what they should have done is they should have stopped the game, waited for like six months for it to heal and then, and then played it.

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  Interesting take.

• 1:20:14Speaker 03

  That's so funny.

• 1:20:14Speaker 01

  That is an interesting take.

• 1:20:15Speaker 03

  I think you should be the commissioner.

• 1:20:16Speaker 01

  I've never heard that.

• 1:20:17Andrew Manganelli?

  I think that's messed up.

• 1:20:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:19Andrew Manganelli?

  They basically got a free win.

• 1:20:21Speaker 01

  It's interesting because, you know, Waluigi's team beat another team who, a different player's controller broke on that team, so now there's.

• 1:20:28David Imel?

  Oh, really?

• 1:20:29Speaker 01

  There's, it's a whole thing.

• 1:20:30David Imel?

  I mean, just like how Bowser gives Mario a free win in the game is because he's like, oh no, my tail's so long, you can spin me around and throw me at the wall, you know?

• 1:20:40Speaker 03

  I think, uh, one of the cool, unique things about basketball compared to other sports is that playoff basketball is also an endurance sport. Like it's, it's like, it's not just about can you play basketball better than the other team? It's can you play basketball every other day for four weeks?

• 1:20:56Speaker 01

  That's.

• 1:20:56Speaker 03

  And your body's still holding up.

• 1:20:58David Imel?

  Yeah, that's crazy.

• 1:20:58Andrew Manganelli?

  The end of the NHL playoffs are basically like, what? What is, what tape is holding you together after like the end of finals?

• 1:21:06David Imel?

  Last team standing.

• 1:21:07Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah. There were multiple people this year who were like, oh yeah, my foot was broken. Like I had like rib cracked and like muscles tearing off.

• 1:21:16Speaker 04

  That's true, but there's still something going on with the NBA lately because this is like the third Achilles rupture in like six months or something like that. Something like that where it used to be like once a season. Now it's like, I think there was eight this season alone, some crazy number.

• 1:21:31Speaker 03

  I'm cutting off because we're about 30 seconds away from someone using the phrase pace and space and this is not a basketball podcast.

• 1:21:39David Imel?

  Yet, yet.

• 1:21:41Speaker 03

  So David, do you feel like you understand the NBA finals?

• 1:21:46David Imel?

  Yeah, but you could have just told me what happened.

• 1:21:50Andrew Manganelli?

  Are you rooting for Waluigi next year?

• 1:21:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:21:52David Imel?

  Yeah, dude. You hope Waluigi comes back stronger than ever. You know, the whole idea of the anti-hero, you know, it's like based around.

• 1:22:00Speaker 03

  And Tyrese is to- excuse me, Waluigi is totally the anti-hero of the NBA right now.

• 1:22:05David Imel?

  It's like in The Incredibles one, you know, with.

• 1:22:09Speaker 03

  Frozone.

• 1:22:10David Imel?

  No, no, no, no, Frozone's a good guy. With the bad guy who has the big hair and he's the kid.

• 1:22:18David Imel?

  Syndrome.

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  Never watched that movie.

• 1:22:19David Imel?

  Like he's the entry anti-hero, but you like have sympathy for him.

• 1:22:23Andrew Manganelli?

  He's not that bad. And I'm a Nick fan. I don't think Halliburton's that bad. I think he's just like.

• 1:22:29David Imel?

  I was talking about Syndrome.

• 1:22:30Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no, no. A few weeks ago, Adam, you came to work and you were looking kind of nift and I was like, Adam, what's up? And you were like, I just, I just hate him so much. But that picture of Tyrese Halliburton in the Gucci loafers, man, it's so dope. His vibe is so good, but I hate him.

• 1:22:46Andrew Manganelli?

  With his dog, how could you not like him?

• 1:22:48David Imel?

  We got to take it back to technology with the trivia section of the podcast.

• 1:22:52Andrew Manganelli?

  Do it.

• 1:22:54David Imel?

  I need a pen.

• 1:22:56Speaker 03

  Question one, IO versus IO was in the news today, but I need you to give me as many IO definitions and acronyms as you can give me, starting now.

• 1:23:20David Imel?

  Like just things it could mean?

• 1:23:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I won't accept people's names, like initials don't count and um I'm I yeah, I guess that's my only rule. I thought of more rules, but I don't care too.

• 1:23:34Andrew Manganelli?

  I don't think any of us have very many to break the rules.

• 1:23:37Speaker 03

  I I have like ten ish on my.

• 1:23:40Andrew Manganelli?

  I have one.

• 1:23:41Speaker 01

  Marquez should have gotten and I'm interested.

• 1:23:44Speaker 03

  David, you should at least know two. David, you should definitely know two.

• 1:23:48David Imel?

  Could be like the Google?

• 1:23:51Speaker 03

  I thought. Oh, I didn't think about that. Yeah, I'll accept Google I O the event as a.

• 1:23:54Andrew Manganelli?

  Oh, really?

• 1:23:55David Imel?

  Well, you can't write it now.

• 1:23:59David Imel?

  But that's not an acronym.

• 1:24:00Speaker 03

  David, we made a whole.

• 1:24:02David Imel?

  But that's not that, but Google I O just means Google.

• 1:24:04Speaker 03

  I said definitions or acronyms, but also, David, I was talking about the I O acronym that we made an entire bonus episode about.

• 1:24:13David Imel?

  What is that?

• 1:24:15Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay.

• 1:24:16Speaker 03

  Are you serious? All right, Marquez, you go first.

• 1:24:18David Imel?

  What are you talking about?

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  All right, one, two, three, four, five. I have five here.

• 1:24:21David Imel?

  What?

• 1:24:21Speaker 03

  All right, let's see, let's hear it.

• 1:24:22David Imel?

  Wait.

• 1:24:23Speaker 01

  In, out. Input, output.

• 1:24:27Speaker 03

  Uh, that's the same one.

• 1:24:27Speaker 01

  That's the same thing. Okay. The state of Iowa.

• 1:24:30Speaker 03

  Yes, that is correct. The state acronym for Iowa.

• 1:24:33Speaker 01

  And iota.

• 1:24:34David Imel?

  That's not an acronym.

• 1:24:35Speaker 03

  Uh, that's that's not an, I would never use.

• 1:24:39David Imel?

  Hold up. I O is not.

• 1:24:40Speaker 03

  I O is an abbreviation.

• 1:24:41David Imel?

  Iowa is not an acronym. It's an abbreviation. If you had said. Come on.

• 1:24:48Speaker 01

  That's.

• 1:24:48David Imel?

  You said acronym. No, it's not.

• 1:24:50Speaker 03

  It's not, but I feel like I feel like it was it was fine. I I specifically said place names are accepted in both the first got to the first cut to trivia and just now, so. Whatever. I I'm not going to give you iota, though, because I don't think that is really short for that. So we have two for you, Marquez.

• 1:25:10Speaker 01

  Uh, last one, Old McDonald had a farm, E I E I O.

• 1:25:15Speaker 03

  All right.

• 1:25:16Speaker 01

  Dang, I might have given you that on creativity.

• 1:25:18Speaker 03

  Uh, if if that's the tiebreaker, I'll give it to you, Marquez.

• 1:25:22Andrew Manganelli?

  Okay.

• 1:25:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:25:22Andrew Manganelli?

  How many did he get?

• 1:25:23Speaker 03

  Two.

• 1:25:24Andrew Manganelli?

  Wait, what tiebreaker?

• 1:25:25Speaker 03

  As if if you guys also get two.

• 1:25:27Andrew Manganelli?

  But we have tiebreakers for that?

• 1:25:30Speaker 03

  Is this like hard? Am I? I don't get why this is so much harder than any other.

• 1:25:35David Imel?

  Well, it's usually not competitive.

• 1:25:36Andrew Manganelli?

  Input, output.

• 1:25:39Andrew Manganelli?

  And in Ultimate Frisbee, an inside-out throw is called an IO.

• 1:25:43David Imel?

  That's true.

• 1:25:44Speaker 03

  I will accept that. It was not on my list, but Andrew, so unfortunately, Marquez is still winning because he does have the old McDonald tiebreaker here. I said only one of you would get points. I explained all of this.

• 1:25:56Andrew Manganelli?

  I missed that. I'm sorry.

• 1:25:57Speaker 03

  See, see.

• 1:25:59David Imel?

  All right.

• 1:26:00Speaker 03

  All right, David.

• 1:26:01David Imel?

  Input, output. And then I wrote Google IO in cursive after the thing.

• 1:26:06Speaker 01

  Well, after the buzzer.

• 1:26:07David Imel?

  But I didn't know.

• 1:26:08Andrew Manganelli?

  Well, it doesn't matter anyways, because Marquez gets the.

• 1:26:10Speaker 03

  Let me fill you out on some other definitions, abbreviations.

• 1:26:14Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah, please.

• 1:26:15Speaker 03

  Acronyms for IO. We have the top-level domain that we did the whole episode on, .indianocean. We have one right there.

• 1:26:24David Imel?

  I didn't think about that.

• 1:26:25Speaker 03

  When you're writing legal documents, you end in IO, which is, is the acronym for the Latin phrase, meaning, or Latin phrase, in ilo ordine, which means respectively. You have IO, the moon of Jupiter. You have IO, an islet in Greece. There's a few other place names that don't really matter. There's a freshwater snail called an IO that I did not know about until researching this.

• 1:26:50David Imel?

  Nice.

• 1:26:51Speaker 03

  There's actually a lot of them. But shout out for getting Iowa, Marquez.

• 1:26:56Andrew Manganelli?

  Thank you.

• 1:26:56Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:26:57Andrew Manganelli?

  Shout out to Kane Clark.

• 1:26:59Speaker 03

  Wait, is Iowa not IA? No, it's Indiana, right? No, wait, hold on.

• 1:27:03Andrew Manganelli?

  It's IA, yeah.

• 1:27:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:27:07Andrew Manganelli?

  So I win.

• 1:27:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, so Andrew wins. Andrew wins.

• 1:27:10David Imel?

  What about me with the Google IO thing?

• 1:27:11Speaker 03

  There we go. Wow. That's funny, because when I Googled IO.

• 1:27:14Andrew Manganelli?

  I thought so, and then I was, what is, oh, Idaho's ID.

• 1:27:19David Imel?

  Adam. Idaho.

• 1:27:21Andrew Manganelli?

  And Indiana is IN.

• 1:27:22David Imel?

  Idaho's ID?

• 1:27:24Andrew Manganelli?

  ID.

• 1:27:25Speaker 03

  You know what's really funny? Is you know what told me that IO was Iowa's state abbreviation? I just believed it. The Google AI search summary. Yeah.

• 1:27:40David Imel?

  Idaho's ID?

• 1:27:42Andrew Manganelli?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:43Speaker 03

  Anyway, that question was painful and annoying, and I'm kind of mad at you guys for making that so tough. So it's.

• 1:27:50David Imel?

  I mean, I were the problem.

• 1:27:51Speaker 01

  Old McDonald would have given me credit.

• 1:27:54Speaker 03

  In Mario Kart, what does CC stand for?

• 1:27:58Speaker 03

  I'll give you a hint, it stands for the same thing it does with real life motorcycles. And what, it's, how, why would it be anything different?

• 1:28:05Speaker 04

  I'll get to it in a bit, but while we do this, quick update on the score. Marquez with 26, Andrew with 16, David with 30.

• 1:28:14David Imel?

  I feel like it came to me.

• 1:28:16Speaker 03

  Isn't that much of a hint?

• 1:28:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:28:19Speaker 03

  Really?

• 1:28:19Speaker 04

  That's what I was trying to avoid.

• 1:28:20Speaker 03

  Ah, sorry.

• 1:28:21David Imel?

  That's exactly what I thought.

• 1:28:23Speaker 04

  Yeah. Okay, flip it and read, what do we got?

• 1:28:25David Imel?

  Why would it be a trick question?

• 1:28:27Speaker 04

  What did you guys say?

• 1:28:31Speaker 01

  Cubic centimeters.

• 1:28:32Speaker 04

  That's correct.

• 1:28:33Speaker 03

  No, what?

• 1:28:34David Imel?

  Whoa, you were laughing at him just.

• 1:28:36Speaker 04

  Andrew, what'd you say?

• 1:28:37David Imel?

  Cubic centimeters.

• 1:28:38Speaker 04

  Correct, David?

• 1:28:40Speaker 01

  I said closed circuit.

• 1:28:41Speaker 04

  Wrong, so Andrew and Marquez got the point. It is cubic centimeter. The reason, I didn't want them to know that, is because that, I was trying to trick them with, specifically in Mario Kart, but it's the same thing in real life.

• 1:28:54Speaker 01

  Explain to me why it's that?

• 1:28:56Speaker 03

  Engine displacement.

• 1:28:57Speaker 01

  Size of the engine, yeah.

• 1:28:59David Imel?

  So, when you're in Mario Kart and you have 50, 100, and 150, why is it that it's harder?

• 1:29:03Speaker 04

  It's faster.

• 1:29:04Speaker 03

  It's faster.

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  150cc engine with more displacement is more powerful, so that everything goes faster.

• 1:29:10Speaker 03

  Really?

• 1:29:10Speaker 01

  There just, everything's faster together.

• 1:29:12David Imel?

  I've been incorrect my entire life. I really thought that that was like the difficult.

• 1:29:16Speaker 04

  There might be people learning this in real time.

• 1:29:18David Imel?

  Yeah, I thought that was the difficulty level.

• 1:29:20Speaker 04

  It kinda is too.

• 1:29:21Speaker 03

  Guys, I apologize, I think I might be the problem.

• 1:29:26Speaker 04

  Nevertheless, hopefully somebody.

• 1:29:29Andrew Manganelli?

  We don't update the score the day Andrew gets 2 points, just saying. Just end it, please end it.

• 1:29:34Speaker 04

  On that note, hopefully someone learned something from the last half hour of this podcast. I know that I did, I learned that Iowa is not I-O, but I like the state anyways, pretty cool. Lots of corn, thanks for watching, thanks for listening. Maybe we'll be on Spotify videos someday, but not now. Catch you guys later. Peace. Wait, from a spruce by Adam Alena, Ellis Rovin, and partner with Vox Media Podcast Network, and a trash music creator by Vansel. Bingo. More words.

• 1:30:12Speaker 01

  Wait, you see that over there? It's the rails. We're way off the rails. We should, we should bring it back.

• 1:30:18David Imel?

  Okay, fine. Okay.

• 1:30:19Speaker 01

  One more thing.

• 1:30:20David Imel?

  None of that's making it in, so I can get a clean cut.

• 1:30:22Speaker 01

  No, absolutely not.

• 1:30:23David Imel?

  No, you gotta keep that in.

• 1:30:24Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:30:24David Imel?

  Everyone loves our rambles.

• 1:30:27Speaker 07

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• 1:30:57Speaker 07

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