291 I'm sure they're afraid of the mouse
Drew is celebrating the release of "Hollow Knight: Silksong" and apparently a lot of other people are too. Paul has some exciting(?) news regarding his favorite browser, but he's very conflicted, and Drew is... ambivalent? Paul asks Drew: "Would YOU buy a folding iPhone?" Drew issues a challenge to the listeners.
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This transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors.
Drew 00:00
True, how the hell are ya? Happy Hollow Knight Silksong Release Day.
Paul 00:06
I saw that came out today. Uh-huh. I also saw that it broke like every game store it was on. Uh yeah.
Drew 00:15
Yeah. It's uh uh I don't know if we've ever talked about Hollow Knight before. I've never played it It's exceptional. It's exceptional. I will tell you right now it is a very hard game. Yeah, that's why I have not played it and probably will not play it. Yeah. But It is fair. I I'm reluctant to compare it to games like Elden Ring or um Dark Souls or something like that. Um I will I will tell you that it takes a little time to master, but once you really get yourself in tune with the controls. It's phenomenal. A hundred percent phenomenal. And today's release of Silk Song ends a period of suffering. I don't I don't know if you've it it's it's a it's it's it's a meme at this point. It's been in development for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. with very little details and the people who maintain that subreddit have been just coping and coping and coping and holding out hope against hope that they would get some news that this was being released. And then just like that, at a game show earlier this year, they said, hey, we've been working on it. Oh, by the way, it comes out September 4th. And there was much rejoicing. And then today it released. It broke steam. Mm-hmm. And and
Paul 01:57
And the PlayStation store and the Nintendo shop. Okay. I didn't I didn't I didn't hear about that. Yeah, it broke it broke it broke all three of those, apparently.
Drew 02:05
Yeah. Yeah. It is very, very good. I am a sucker for the art style and the cute little bugs and the way the game plays and Hornet. plays a very very special part in the first game and now you get to play as her. I'm very very overjoyed. This is putting a big crimp in my Metal Gear Solid Delta. play okay okay but this is a phenomenal phenomenal game and the soundtrack is also very good team cherry just absolutely knocked it out of the park You can get if I I I know that there are probably many ways you can get your hands on Hollow Knight, the original. You you owe it to yourself to really try. The first couple bosses suck because you don't have a lot of powers. It just really be it really tests your patience and your skill. But once you get past that, at that point you sort of have the game and the controls figured out. And I just remembered I struggled mightily. against the first couple and I'm like, this game is supposed to be amazing. Why is this so hard? And then just all of a sudden I understood what the game was trying to tell me and it was great. So Silksong is very, very good right now. Uh I'm I'm thrilled that they did it. It's living up to everybody's expectations, the art style, the gameplay, the soundtrack. Everything is just so good. you you should really go play one of these games. Okay. And that that's all I can really tell you. There is a really kind of touching and sad story. That goes along with the first game. I haven't played enough of Silk Song yet, and I'm not gonna read any spoilers about it to know what happens in this game. But without spoiling anything in the first game, there's a very, very touching story. And the characters you meet along the way are really motivating. Really, really, really motivating.
Paul 04:12
I have heard from multiple people and multiple podcasts that the hollow night story makes no sense. Um is that true, true-ish Not true.
Drew 04:28
The game the game is the the game's story is told through you finding plaques and books throughout the game. And you get these little snippets and you have to infer a little bit. But if you're paying attention to the places you visit, And the mechanics that the game is putting in front of you, it's not that hard to figure out. Now, I have read the wiki and I I had like an eighty-five percent grasp on what the actual plot was. I I you understand what the what the pro the problem, capital T, capital P is. Okay. You understand what you have to do to defeat it and why you can defeat it That's all you really need to know. And everything else is just kind of flavor, but very, very compelling flavor. So I don't know why those people had such a problem. I mean, get good. I don't know. But it's good. And Silk Song so far, the the story is very straightforward. It's just like, hey, go go to this place. And uh I I don't know how to get to that place yet. We're gonna We're gonna figure it out together. And Hornet is just a really cool character, very, very well designed. Whereas in the first game, the the Hollow Knight, the little guy you control. is very, very small compared to everything. And he cannot jump very high. He cannot move very fast. But the controls are very tight and he can swing his sword very fast and he's strong. So you sort of have to learn how to maneuver him so you don't get hit. And get past different little puzzles and find the little bugs, uh, the little collectible guys that are very, very cute, the little baby larvae. Uh but Silk Song, uh, Hornet is very nimble. It's it's almost it's almost like they're turning the game a little bit sideways on you because she is so fast. And it makes it so that you can avoid enemies, but you you shouldn't, I guess is what I I'm learning. So it's it's it's really good. It it's very good. Yeah. Five hundred thousand concurrent players in its first four hours. Yeah. I I think I think the part of Steam that it broke was the checkout system. I don't think it broke the content delivery network because that would be crazy, but it apparently broke the checkout system. Mm-hmm. So the internet today. Yeah, yeah. A little bit. But I'm I'm very much enjoying it. So go go check that out. Okay. Uh all right. We have a couple we have oh wow, I see you added a very interesting topic here.
Paul 07:20
Yeah, I do.
Drew 07:22
I do. You looks like your dreams are coming true, Paul. I don't know about that, Drew.
Paul 07:28
So I continue to be a huge fan of the ARC browser by the titular the browser company. Uh the company that you want to give money to. Let's be clear. Okay, so there is a way to give money to them right now. Okay. Okay. Okay. So at some point, ARC pivoted. And they're all like, hey, we know Arc's a great browser, but uh it's it's too complicated for people. It's a power user browser. I believe there was a post where like the the CEO of browser company said, My grandma will never use ARC and that bothered him. Uh
Drew 08:11
Interesting.
Paul 08:11
And of course, that was also during the time that a AI was becoming very popular. So they pivoted and they started a new browser called DIA. D-I-A. D N I A. D I A. Uh yeah, Dia Browser. I'll put a link in there. And the the What Dia is, it's a it's a web browser that is infused to the core with with AI stuff. You can Chat with your browser and ask it questions across different tabs. You can have it pull information from one tab and put it into like a Google Sheet. You can do all kinds of interesting things with it. Uh I tried it. I got invited to the beta maybe maybe two months ago before it became uh a subscription product. Uh and and I tried it. And it was like when I tried it, they did not have one of the things I like about ARC is the sidebar, this the the the vertical tabs on the side. They added that to Dia after I had already given up on it. Uh for me, I tried the AI stuff. I just didn't have enough use cases. And I and I'll be blunt. I already have a workflow that works for me when I need to do AI stuff.
Drew 09:39
Is it primarily through ARC or are you using other tools?
Paul 09:42
I'm not using ARC at all for AI stuff. Well, not not well, so I I pay for a Chatty G subscription. Right. And I also pay for the AI tools inside of Raycast. Uh Raycast is my application launcher. It's a spotlight replacement. It's so much more than an application launcher. It can do so many things. But you can start AI chats from it. It's got plugins, so like Uh if I want to I like for example, I take my notes in Bear. Uh Bear is a uh Apple only markdown focus note taking up. One of the things I can do is I can fire up Raycast, start an AI chat, and I can say at bear And then I can ask it a question and then it will basically funnel my the that AI question through my bare notes and give me a question, give me an answer. It's great. I really like it. It's a great tool. I love Raycast. It's great. Uh but I kind of decided like, hey, Dia just is at least right now, it's not for me. And and honestly, now there's there's uh like perplexity has what comet Their web browser that they're building, uh Google keeps insisting that Gemini needs to be everywhere. So they're gonna be they're putting Gemini in in Chrome. So they have competition now. Uh but Dia is, it's it works. It's a fully fredged product. Uh and I believe they started a subscription of like, I think it's 20 bucks a month to get access to all of the AI tools. Uh So you can give the browser company money now if you want. I just choose not to because it's not the product for me. Today it was announced that Atlassian Is going to buy the browser company. Alaskan of great products Jira, uh Confluence, uh, what PagerDuty? Uh I don't know. No, no, they don't have Pager Duty, it's that they own the other one. Uh Whatever. Yeah. At last scene, for those of you who don't know, and you probably do know, let's be honest. You're probably if you listen to this, you're probably vaguely in the IT field. Atlassian makes basically product management tools for enterprises. I've been using Jira and Confluence Atlassian products for years now. Uh though I will I will take a moment here to say I don't know whether you use them or not, Drew. I hope you don't. They recently pushed a new UI. this navigation thing. It is a f is it is an affront to usability and anyone who has any any taste or design sensibility, it is literally the worst thing I have ever used. That is not hyperbole. It is bad.
Drew 12:41
Uh now quick quick sidebar there. Um we have both where I work. I do not spend time in Jira, but I spend a lot of time in Confluence. Now is the are you speaking of the UI in Confluence or the UI in Jira?
Paul 13:01
It is less awful in Confluence than it is in Jira, but I think someone took the challenge of how little white space can I use to indicate indentation? That was their chat was their ch it's it's it's bad. It's you can't find anything. It's I they had a perfectly ugly but work it workable navigation thing that they threw away. It's uglier, it's worse. I don't know. But anywho, anywho, that's not the point of this. Well I guess it is the point because they have no taste. Uh but a lot of companies, a lot, a lot of companies use Atlassian products. Yep. Yep. So uh The browser kind so a fun fact, the CEO and president of Atlastian is a big ARC user. Has loved ARC, was like the first person to submit bug reports for ARC, loves ARC, has always kind of just had their eye on the browser company. Okay. But they they they are saying that they bought the browser company for Dia, their new AI-infused web browser. The goal was to make it a, you know, browser-based operating system, whatever the fuck that means. They are continuing to work on Dia, uh, but what they're saying now is uh they get access to a much broader sales channel because Atlas Enhan has people that do sales. uh they are the the the vision isn't the same but they're going to start focusing on uh tools for uh Workers, enterprise workers, more more than I have to imagine at some point there'll be a uh a LASIA in integration for all of that stuff. Uh I have I have a link to uh a verge article and uh the Substack where they announce this I do I do want to read a little bit of of this this this letter that I found in my inbox this morning, Drew. Okay. I'm gonna put I'm gonna pick and choose here, but uh uh it the the tone the tone kind of bothers me, okay Okay. Go off camera at the simplest level, we did this to win. Uh And uh in short, okay, so then they talk about the deal and why Atlassian and 80% of the 80% of Fortune 5 companies use Atlassian. And then he goes on to continue. In short, this deal is about winning together, and we are not ashamed of our unwavering desire to win. That's why we're unapologetic about teaming up with a partner who is world-class in the ways we are not, bringing real advantages to Dia at the exact moment they matter most. just as the AI browser wars begin.
Drew 16:06
Okay. Uh I have so a quite question and a comment here. Maybe maybe I missed it when you were describing this, but I'm I now I'm looking at the webpage where I'm assuming this is the letter. So if I'm reading this correctly. It sounds like Dia is the focus from now on. The browser that you did not like. Like. I was gonna I was gonna say did not find a use for.
Paul 16:34
Exactly. Yes, yes. At least not yet. I tried it. I wanted to like it. I mean, and it does work. Like If you if you do like AI things and you don't have a perplexity account and you're just kind of to try comet and you're curious about it, it is it is very interesting. Like You can like basically you can have a an AI chat with your browser. You can like at mention tabs. You know, like once you get access to your Google account, you can ask it questions about your calendar. It's got some agentic features in it. So you can say like, hey, send this email to these people about this stuff. And it does work. Like I won't just say, like, it is not vaporware. The features, it's not fully featured yet. They're still working on it, but the features are there, do work, and do work well. I just, again, when I first did it, they did not have the vertical sidebar they do now. Uh but for me that's a big thing about ARC. And I don't use ARC because I want AI in it. I use ARC because of all the other power tools, the split view, the the command palette where I can hit Command T and do a bunch of stuff. Uh that that's that's why I like ARC. So for me, Dia wasn't something that I needed. Uh they do say that ARC and ARC Search, which is their uh mobile, the their their uh iOS browser is going to continue to exist and they'll be sharing a quote long-term plan soon. Does that worry you? It does. It does. So They have they have said the things that I've heard so many companies say before when they get acquired. We're not changing. We're gonna run independently. We're just now getting more help and more resources from the company that buys us. And that all that always sounds great and it Then it maybe lasts six months, a year, until some bean counter goes, this isn't making enough money, and then either it just becomes full enterprise crapware, or they go. Thanks, but no thanks. Bye. And it's gone. Right? So like so to me, if Dia doesn't catch on in the enterprise I'm afraid Arc is going to go away. Ark, the product that I use for free. Yeah, yeah. It's uh but they want to win, Drew. They want to win. When win what though? They really believe that the AI, the quote unquote battle for AI prominence is going to be fought in the browser. That these AI browsers is how people are going to interface with you. They believe that the the day of going to Chat GPT or open AI or whatever, having a ChatGPD app and asking it questions that way is going to be over. You're going to open up your web browser, you're going to have a conversation with your web browser. All of your interaction with AI will be through the web browser. I mean that that's that's their fo that's you know that's what they're doing, that's what Perplexity is doing with Comet, that's what Google is trying to do with Gemini and Chrome. Like I know, maybe they're right. Maybe they're right. Uh, but I sure don't see Atlaskin winning that battle.
Drew 20:14
Yeah, this is interesting. Um the more I'm reading of this letter, this is this is interesting. Yeah, there's mm-hmm.
Paul 20:24
Yeah. But like, you know, one thing that is interesting is now that they said, like, hey, we have the resources, we're gonna bring Dia to It's going to be a multi-platform product sooner than we expected. You know, the Atlas wants to bring it to Windows, to Android, to iS, everywhere. Things they had planned to do, but now those plans have now been accelerated. They're gonna start another round of hiring and get more people on board so they can get stuff done quicker. I expect in the short term, this is if you like Dia, this is probably gonna be really great for Dia, right? They're gonna you're gonna get more features faster, you know, you you're gonna see stuff going, but like The the problem with like okay, so like being a startup has like A, you're burdened through money, no one cares if you make a profit, but as long as you can keep funding, you can keep you can keep your dream alive. Now that it's been purchased by a public I believe that last scene is a publicly traded company. I believe so. At some point, someone's gonna have to call bullshit on this and say, okay, uh, either you're profitable or you're not. And what is it it what happens if they're not? It's yeah. I mean we know what we know what that is. It's yeah.
Drew 21:39
So I found I found two statements in here that I have uh that I have profound Okay Uh a profound uh objection against we were a group of people who grew up loving the internet, but also felt how much it had let us down. Instead of connection, it gave us noise. Instead of creativity, it gave us endless notification and busy work. Something had to be taken from us. Something had been taken from us individually and collectively. So let me just pause there and say Isn't that kind of AI right now? Yeah, I think so. Like we we all want AI to be something. But I think what we're realizing is that it's just not. And I and I I'm cautious using the term bubble because everybody I there there's so many people out there that are actively rooting for an AI bubble. I'm not one of those people. Let me be clear
Paul 22:31
I'm not either, but I think it is overhyped, overvalued right now. Yeah. It is.
Drew 22:39
Is there a potential there? Yes. Yes. And what troubles me is this statement says, hey, we had such high hopes for the internet to let us down. Well, you're throwing your lot in with something that is part of that same hype cycle right now.
Paul 22:52
Yeah, right.
Drew 22:53
So that that's a little cognitive dissonance that I can't get around.
Paul 22:56
Mm-hmm.
Drew 22:57
And again, this kind of goes back to what you were saying. There's a statement underneath there that says with Atlassian, we get the resources to keep pushing without compromising who we are and what we stand for. Oh, you sweet summer child.
Paul 23:08
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. For for what, six to eight months maybe?
Drew 23:13
Uh Until until the until they start placing product managers as Trojan horses in your development teams and sprints, keeping an eye on you. Uh, you know. the injecting their development staff, kind of gently nudging you in a direction and then, you know, slowly taking over your product. It's it it it smacks of naivete when this playbook has been run so many times. And and again, just like the AI thing, I'm not rooting for this for these guys to fail. I'm not. No. But This is such a this this letter is such a fucking cope.
Paul 23:54
Yeah, yeah. I I I mean I I figured at some point, right? Like it's a startup with lots of press and at some point the like no matter what th the founder, quote unquote founder says They're gonna be looking for their payday, their the what their exit, you know? Like and and they knew that was coming at some point. It's just it's just I don't know, like
Drew 24:23
It says it's an all-cash transaction. Yes. So they're getting paid immediately.
Paul 24:29
They're not getting stock. Not getting stock. Yep.
Drew 24:33
Not getting equity. Mm-mm. Yep.
Paul 24:35
Which is a couple different ways to look at that. Yeah. Yeah. I look at it in the like I don't I don't Yeah. I look at it as Atlassian doesn't fully believe in this. Like they're buying it to give it a try to see whether or not it takes off. Like It's a it's a calculated play in this market. If this if this browser-based agenc web browser thing is going to be a thing, well, Atlassian were like, well, hey, we might as well, you know. But then again, I also don't understand why why Atlassian's interested in this in the first place. They sell product management tools to companies.
Drew 25:22
I don't know how also having a web browser fits into that, but um at the risk of sounding like technology is passing me by I do not use AI tools every day. Okay. Um the company I work for has invested in building their own AI tools and also purchasing some off-the-shelf things. The only I I don't use Chat GPT. Okay. I don't use Perplexity. I don't use some of the tools that I have at my disposal. Now There there's an increasing uh what's the word I'm looking for? There's an increasing overture that's being suggested to people like, hey, use this stuff a little bit more. And I'm not for just using a tool for using this for using a tool. I, again, kind of echoing what this article says is I am a child of the internet. I know how to find information. I know how to research things. whether it's doing development, reading about dishwashers, uh, reading about new game announcements, like I I have a workflow about how I consume information, how I learn new skills with the internet. I've been doing that for the better part of I don't know, how old am I now? Like almost 30 years at this point. Yeah. I feel comfortable with the things that I have. Now it doesn't mean I'm opposed to new technology. However, the the one the one good use case for for AI tools in my workflow today is my company has several repositories of information at Lassian. Yeah. Confluence, right? We have Confluence, we have Jira, we have Google. We have Google Workplace. So we have Google Docs and Slides and Sheets all over the place in all sorts of different things. We have Slack. We have our public-facing web pages. So we have a tool that we use um that is called glean. Have you ever seen have you ever used glean? I have not. Never even heard of it. Okay. So Glean is a really interesting tool because what it attempts to do is it attempts to wrangle all of that information so that you have basically A search box that you can go to, you can type a subject, and it will scour all of the sources that you plug it into to deliver you search results. So if I'm looking for a particular project team that is working on a feature that I want to talk to a customer about, I could go to Glean, I can type in that term, and I will immediately be presented with the relevant Slack channels where this is being discussed or if there is a if there is a Slack channel that is dedicated to this team. I will find confluence pages that list documentation or roadmaps or FAQs. It's a very, very good tool. They introduced not too long ago basically a LLM that uses the context from all these sources so you can ask it questions. And I'm not asking it questions about how to do something. I'm asking it questions about what is the current status of feature X. And it's pretty damn good about giving me the correct answer. That to me, summing up internal knowledge bases and giving you an easier way to decipher Because look, I I don't know how it is for you guys, but I worked at Microsoft before we had all this stuff. The the internal company SharePoint At a company that large, you can't find anything. And even if you do find something, you have no way of knowing if it's the current version. You have no way to know when like the last time something was updated by somebody. This this does a really good job of that. Like that to me is the workflow that I'm after.
Paul 29:16
So I don't know if you've tried this or not. Or you have access to it. So Elassian does have their own AI thing in their products called Rovo. Now granted, it only f it searches Jira, your your tickets, your work items, and confluence. But it is really good at it. Like You can do things like obviously you work the same company I'm in. You could say you could you encounter a lot of acronyms. Uh-huh. So one of the great things that I've used, uh I've used is like, hey, what does this acronym mean? And it will go in search and it will say like, hey, I'm pretty sure it means this. And here's here's the stuff where I've seen it being used in the context. And it gives you, you know, it gives you all of the references and what it looked at. And it does a really good job. You also can do things like, hey, who is this person? And it tries to figure out like what that person does based off the documentation they wrote. It does, it's it's it's it's good. It's good Uh yeah. See I I do use AI just about every day for personal and work stuff. Like I've I've I probably could be using it more for things, but I've I've you know I've I've bought in I found I found some things that work well for me and I use it. Uh I pretty much exclusively do all of my like Uh heck, when I was looking for dishwashers, uh, you know who helped me uh get through all the dishwasher shit? Chatty G. My daughter wanted a longboard for her birthday. Uh guess how I figured out what shape and style of longboard would be good for a beginner that I'm not entirely sure is gonna stick with it. No offense, Arabelle. Chatty G. So yeah.
Drew 31:03
And and and there there are an increasing number of I I will say they trend to be they tend to be younger members of staff that are using various tools like MCP servers and agent frameworks to do and automate parts of their job. Part of me is like, that's cool. But that's not where I spend most of my time. Like I'm I'm not I'm not getting a huge amount of benefit by outsourcing that somewhere else. I like, well, like is a strong word. I derive knowledge and understanding from doing those things myself. Now Here's a perfect example of where I think AI could help me if I were to hunker down and do this. I have dabbled in. NET. Like C sharp. net for years. Yeah. I don't I don't I don't know enough. I still don't know how async works. Like I just like I think I could go to a Claude or I could go out to a Chatty G and I could say, hey, write me an you know an await or an async function that does X. And I think it could probably spit one out for me. Yeah. And so to to comment a little bit. But but but but before you do, here but the but the reason I don't is I'm not asking it to write one for me. I want it to explain it to me. And every time I've asked it to explain it to me, it's not any different than what I've gotten from Reddit posts or online books or anything. Yeah. So I don't I don't s I I can't quite wrap my mind around the benefit.
Paul 32:42
Yeah. So from my point of view, being someone who does who understands that stuff and was a software engineer. for a good chunk of his career and still does that per you know, like I'm working on an app. I think uh you know generative AI is gr is a great tool for people who understand software engineering already. And the big reason is, I mean, I'll be absolutely blunt. When you write code, say you're no AI, you're just writing code. There's probably a 50-50 chance that code works, compiles, does what you want it to do anyway. You're already in the habit of not trusting the code that you write, looking at it, testing it, observing it, seeing what it does. So when you ask uh an AI like, hey, write me a function that does this or refactor this to make it more efficient or whatever, you already are untrustworthy of that code. Right. So you're gonna look at it, you're gonna make sure that it works. Like this whole like vibe coding build me an entire app thing, I that's gonna like People are going people have done it. People are going to do it. And I just can't wait for like the next six months of all the security problems that was happening. Oh, it's happening now. Yeah.
Drew 34:11
It's happening now.
Paul 34:12
Right. Do it at scale. Do it cost effectively at scale. You know what uh all the other shit like what happens when you fuck up DNS? Because you will fuck up DNS. Like you like Just throwing error messages into Chatty G is only going to get you so far.
Drew 34:40
Yeah, you you you need you need to understand. You need to understand. I I I very firmly believe that. That's why I have a hard time getting behind some of that stuff, just because I don't I I I think it is taking it's it's taking our human desire to learn and we're just trying to make we're just trying to go faster. Yeah. And I don't think we're going faster for the right reason. I don't know. Again, maybe maybe I'm showing my age. Maybe this is the technology trend that finally turns me into an old man. I don't know. I I can't I can't quite wrap my head around it. So okay. Well I'm I I hope they keep supporting your favorite browser. I by the way, by the way, I installed it again. A ARK? Yeah. Okay. I I I have I it has become my main browser on my iPhone for some time now, but I did install it on my Mac and I'm using it more. Yeah.
Paul 35:38
I I I'll be the first to tell you it is it's a it's a weird it's weird. It's a weird web browser. It's gonna not gonna be for everybody. You know, like I like it because like I'm already extremely Like I'm not afraid of my mouse. I use my mouse. But when I go to start something, I start it at the keyboard, right? Like if I'm going to launch an app, I don't find the icon on my dock. I hit command space, search for the app, launch. I do that too. I do that too. Right. So for me being able to hit Command T and uh Like you know, being able to search or open a link or open things in split view. I mean, heck, so like one of the things in the sidebar, right? You have different spaces so you can keep things organized. I use some of the macro keys on my keyboard to switch between my most used spaces. Right, like so for me, like because it's so keyboard driven is why I like it. Huh. Yeah, so that's yeah.
Drew 36:51
Oh well, buddy, uh that's interesting. I mean I would have never known. I would have never known that.
Paul 36:58
Yeah.
Drew 36:58
Yeah. Okay. So let's let's keep let's keep on the technology trend here. So there's a big Apple event coming up. Yeah, I don't want to talk about that. Oh okay, okay, okay. So the question the question posed in the doc is
Paul 37:15
Mm-hmm. So, yeah. So th there are rumors of not this year, not not the event that is coming up, but next year. So twelve months from now. Apple is going to ship their first folding phone. And there's some there's a collection of rumors. and stuff I put together I s I put a link in there to the Mac rumors article about everything they they and all the rumors and leaks they have heard about the the iPhone fold. I'll call it that for lack of a better name. And I was just kind of curious, like I wanted to ask you. Obviously the Android space, lots of folding phones, Samsung has I don't know like four or five of them for sale in any given time. I just kind of want to get your feel for the folding phones, if they have any interest for you and What would they need if you don't find them interesting? What would they need for you to find them interesting?
Drew 38:23
Okay, so it's uh any folding phone is a hard pass for me. Okay. Why is that? Size. Okay. So I I have I I know that you know Samsung or whoever has had folding phones. Oh, Vito's up there crying. I don't know if you can hear him. Um yeah. Enjoy that every day. He has a really hard time going to bed because he's just so excited. So excited to be with us. And then he's, you know, he's been getting up at four because that's when Mandy gets up. So guess who else gets up at four?
Paul 38:58
Um.
Drew 39:00
And then I I play with him and feed him and hang out with him while she works out and gets ready for school and then I go downstairs whenever she's ready and is having her breakfast. But I am watching him on I bought a Google I bought a Google Nest Cam. So you can watch him. Yeah. I'm I I have him up on the monitor here. He's just kind of pacing. So after this I gotta go deal with him. Anyway. No, yeah. Um, which by the way, in in I mean I know, I know that there's a million other little wireless cameras you can buy, but after experimenting with those, I don't need another app, I don't need another login, I don't need a different service in my life. I I'm already in the Google ecosystem because of Nest. This is fine. Don't at me. Yes, it was more money. I I don't give a shit. Don't don't yell at me. Okay. Okay. Yeah. That's fine. Yep. So anyway, back to the folding phone. I actually got to see one in the wild. Okay. So my uh my wife and I, we have a we have Orcan as a service because we're very much not a spider house.
Paul 40:02
I understand that fully, yes. Yeah.
Drew 40:05
So they come and they come and they treat the basement and You know, um, I also like the fact that we've had some pretty gnarly ant heels in our yard, like in our in our mulch beds, and they'll treat those. So for us, the service is worth it, uh, just for keeping track of all that stuff. And the technician that is uh assigned to us has a folding phone. And I had seen pictures of them online before like when I've been on the ATT website thinking about upgrading phones, like they're always shoving that in your face. Like buy this. And I'm just like, ugh. I didn't appreciate just how thick that thing is. And I think that's my biggest problem. I think the I think one of the coolest things that I loved about the original iPhone and continue to still love about the iPhone is that the form factor is perfect for my pockets. I don't know if I could cram this big honkin thing into a pocket
Paul 41:00
Yeah, I mean they are getting thinner, right? But like you're right, at the end of the day, it can be like it can be really thin when it's open. But it's literally going to be twice that thickness when it's close. That's that's that's that's how that works.
Drew 41:16
And you know, and you know what I want to do when I take my phone out of my pocket? I love That it wakes up and realizes that I'm looking at it and I can immediately unlock it with face ID and go. I know that this is probably going to have dual screens. It'll probably have the screen on the inside and the screen on the outside. Yes. But I if I have the screen on the outside, what am I getting by unfolding it?
Paul 41:39
Yeah, so I'm I know I'm probably gonna piss somebody off. There are no tablets out there that are any good that's not an iPad. Android tablets are bad. Yeah. They don't they don't they don't sell enough. They don't invest in that ecosystem Apple has, they sell a lot. I mean, I still remember the one like and Android Central was like, hey, the best Android tablet you can buy this Christmas is an iPad. So th there there's there's that possibility of the fact that Apple has been good at making tablet devices. No, I don't know whether this thing like yes, you're right. It's going to be a fold style, right? So it's gonna have a screen on the outside. And you open that bad boy up and there's going to be a screen on the inside that's big. Roughly, you think maybe iPad mini size, maybe a little smaller, maybe a little bigger. Who knows? Uh Whether that's going to switch from like iOS to iPad OS or they're gonna re-integrate them or something new, who knows, who knows, right? But Apple is good at making tablet-size interfaces. you know, they've already invested a lot in their software development kits around uh different screen sizes and stuff. It makes it easy for developers to deal with all that kind of thing. So there is potential there that it's going to be uh extremely like capable a capable device when you open it up and have the big screen. You know, it's like switching from an iPhone to an iPad in the same device.
Drew 43:18
So let me turn it around on you. Would you buy this?
Paul 43:23
So I am I am extremely curious about this device. The thickness uh does not necessarily bother me that much. There is one one rumor, one rumor, and you touched on this. There's one rumor that, if it is true, is probably a showstopper for me.
Drew 43:45
Okay.
Paul 43:45
And that rumor is the folding iPhone is not going to have face ID. It is going to go back to touch ID. And the reason for that is they'd have to put two face ID arrays in the device. one for the the out the out the out the outward display and one for the inner display. And they have chosen they have decided that's too much money. This is from this serves from Mark German and all of his all of his rumor links. Because of the cost, they have decided to just stick with touch ID for this device.
Drew 44:20
So that's interesting, right? So that means if you want to use face ID, you need to take out the phone, unlock it, and then unfold it versus just Unfolding it.
Paul 44:28
Yeah. I think what they're going to do is like what they do for like the iPad airs, they're going to put touch ID on the lock button. Okay. I am I mean one of the reasons I buy iPad Pros is because they have face ID.
Drew 44:41
Yep. It's such a big deal. My iPad mini not having face ID, yeah.
Paul 44:46
Yeah. It's it's It's amazing. And I know Android, like, well, you know, we have touch ID on fingerprint readers under the screen and stuff. Like I get it's not the same. It's not the same. To just grab your device. Unlock it and start using it and knowing that your phone has done millions of calculations, shot laser beams at your face to re- the to make sure that it is you blast my face daddy yeah you bla yeah just just blasted your face with those beams uh And it works so fast. It is incredibly reliable. It's they use it, you use it like When you do payments, it make sure that your you have face ID. I love Apple Pay. Yeah. It's yeah. It's just it's so good and you get used to it so quickly and have this idea that I'm gonna have this phone and for I mean I imagine I would get used to it eventually, but like you you take this new phone out of your pocket, you go to start using it. And it's like, oh shit, the phone's locked. Fuck. All right, now it's unlocked. Now I can go.
Drew 46:04
Yep. Yeah, that I mean Yeah, that I I could see that being a problem. I I mean I just I I that I I would whiff real hard on that. I would whiff real hard on that if they offered it. So I I hope I hope they don't. I I just Oh, they definitely will. I hope they don't. I just I just don't know how I mean I don't know how they look at the market and say, yeah, there's a big enough market for that. Like Samsung someone enough of these that there's obviously a market. Maybe they are. I don't know. I don't I'm not in tune with like mobile sales. Is that something people are buying? Because I don't feel like I'm out at restaurants or places where I see people have folding phones.
Paul 46:44
I see more and more of them. As I am out. It's still not the majority by a long shot.
Drew 46:51
And I know. And I know that's an I know that's anecdotal, but Yeah.
Paul 46:54
And the reason that it is is because they're expensive And uh I think as a rule, not uh not all, but I would say Android users are generally more price conscious than than Apple users. Mm-hmm. That's a that's a polite way of saying poor, yeah. Uh So Apple has already been training us to pay lots of money for our iPhones. So I definitely think there is a possibility when this i this this you know folding iPhone comes out and it's really expensive. It outsells all other folding phones, like just just just puts just destroys them because I think Apple customers are willing to pay more money. They just spent we we just are. Whether you think it's worth it or not, it's not up for debate. Yes, we we're willing to spend more money on our phones. In fact, we'll talk about the new phones that Apple comes out with next week when after the announcement. Uh I assume we'll talk about the Apple event next week.
Drew 47:51
I hope we do.
Paul 47:52
I hope we do.
Drew 47:53
Because I'm starting to I'm I'm starting to adjust my antennae. Starting to plug in a little bit to start to plug in a little bit more. Yeah. After you said orange iPhone last week, I I yeah.
Paul 48:06
I just I hope it's not yeah, that may be what gets me if it's a good orange. Uh this week's Accidental Tech podcast, uh when it comes out for non-subscribers, uh Which I think should be today. I don't know. I don't they have really they have a really good discussion about the new phones and stuff. And and one of the things is like Marco Armit, who's notoriously bad with money. He is interested in the the the air, the thin phone, but he's like, man, if that orange is good, that could get me.
Drew 48:41
Yeah. I'm right there with him. Mm-hmm. All right, so because my dog is being a little bit of a nuisance here, um, this would be a good time for us to do two things. Let's let's wrap up here. But before we do, I have a challenge for our Five and a half listeners that we have?
Paul 48:59
Okay.
Drew 48:59
Six.
Paul 49:00
Six or seven. Six or seven.
Drew 49:01
Six or seven.
Paul 49:02
Yeah.
Drew 49:03
So um the gym I belong to does little mini challenges and things. uh from time to time. And right now they're having a strict pull-up challenge for the month of September Okay. And I won't bury the lead. It's called pull-ups, pull-ups for puppies. I love it. I love it. Okay. Now The way this works is, and this is open to everybody who is a member at the gym I go to because the gym, like everything else, has an app. That's how you sign up for class, it's how you can track your progress. Stuff like that. Basically, everybody who's in the gym, they're gonna have the ability to log their strict pull-up work for the month of September. So this is this is very much the you know uh overhand grip, pull yourself up over the bar. It's not kipping, it's not it's not a it's not a not oh no kipping, okay. No kipping. It's it's it If I'm reading the challenge correctly, it's only for strict work. So it's no kipping. Um, and there's a difference between a pull up and a uh chin-up. This is a this is a this is the former, not the latter, which means it is not a supinated grip, meaning that you know your fingers aren't facing you, your fingers are facing out. So you have to like pull yourself up to the bar. Uh so what we're doing is if collectively everybody in everybody who logs this is able to log 50,000 pull-ups for the month. Okay. Okay. Collectively, right? And we have we have a few we have a few hundred members, right? So as long as people were clocking some numbers, it's not totally obtainable. Okay. The gym will donate $250 to a particular foster group here in Columbus. Okay. And for every 10,000 pull-ups beyond that, we'll they're gonna chip in another $50. Okay. Now, obviously this is it's they're calling it pull up for puppies, but yes, cats are included too. Okay. Um and they're going to have one of these challenges in October, November, and December. So October will be breast cancer awareness month. November will be November, which we've talked about before, which is men's mental health and prostate cancer, which uh that's when I'm getting my prostate exam. Uh I call it Oscopy. And then December is like families and knee type thing. But anyway. So the reason I'm bringing this up is uh I enjoy a good pull-up. Uh one thing that I've worked really hard on and uh hard on One thing that I've worked vigorously on in my time at the gym has been my gymnastics work, body weight movements. I am proud of my ability to do pull-ups and workouts, mostly kipping high heart rate, high, high capacity movements on the bar. Strict pull-ups are still difficult and they're a great way to build strength. So I'm putting this out there for everybody here to let you know that one, I am participating in this. But for every listener that either uh reaches out to us on Blue Sky or sends us an email, I will commit to doing an extra 200 pull-ups this month per person. Wow. Per person who actually listens to this and reaches out to us to say Drew, you owe me 200 pull-ups. I will make I will make TikTok content of me doing the sets because I can't listen. I can't just crank out I can't just crank out 200 pull-ups. The idea would be is either before or after class, that's a great and and again there will be pull-ups in class as well, but I will commit to this being Outside of the workouts, I will I will record myself doing extra sets of pull-ups for everybody who who listens to this and reaches out. So Could consider the challenge tossed out there. It's for a good cause. You know me, I love I love dogs.
Paul 52:58
So dogs are good. You heard it here first. Awesome. Well, hey, get on that. Get on Blue Sky and
Drew 53:04
and add him and get make him do some port or emails or emails, doesn't matter.
Paul 53:08
However you want to do it, reach out to us. Yeah, send it to uh you guys send it to uh if uh contact at doing their best dot com. Uh I get the emails, but I'll let Drew I'll let Drew know that we get them. So uh Yeah. And with that, let's call it a night. Uh doingtheirbest. com. You can find all the links we talked about there today. Whatever I said that wrong. And hey, thanks for listening.