AirDrop Finally Comes to Android

Summary

Waveform: The MKBHD Podcast

Episode: AirDrop Finally Comes to Android

Release Date: November 28, 2025
Hosts: Marques Brownlee (MKBHD), Andrew Manganelli, David Imel, with Adam, Harper, and Ellis

Main Theme

This episode covers the landmark arrival of Apple’s AirDrop-like file sharing to Android via a new interoperability between Google’s Quick Share and Apple’s AirDrop protocols. The team breaks down the surprising cross-platform development, the technical and regulatory factors that made it possible, and dives into other recent tech news—ranging from generative AI and camera hardware to meta controversies, Black Friday deal skepticism, and a spirited "Tech Hot Takes" roundtable.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Airdrop/Quick Share on Android: The Cross-Platform Moment

(03:09 – 13:00)

• Surprise Announcement: Google quietly enabled cross-platform file sharing, integrating "Quick Share" on Android (starting with Pixel 10) to work directly with AirDrop on iOS and Mac devices.
• How It's Possible:
  • Regulatory Catalyst: EU’s Digital Markets Act forced Apple to adopt the Wi-Fi Aware open standard for device discovery—something Android has supported since 8.0.
  • Technical Details: Wi-Fi Aware carries Apple’s previously proprietary “extra bits” to make it AirDrop-compatible.
  • Google’s Rollout: Initially exclusive to Pixel 10 for data collection and smooth rollout, but planned for wider Android support.
• Live Demo (07:51):
  • Marques, David, and the team successfully send files between Pixel and Mac, verifying metadata transfer and seamless operation.
• Key Quote:

  “If you have a Pixel 10, you can make sure you’re fully updated … and you’ll see a bunch of your Macs on Quick Share now.”
  —Marques [07:40]

• Security: Google clarified implementation was solely their own, with third-party security vetting.
• Implications: This cross-platform AirDrop could not be easily “killed,” unlike tools such as Beeper Mini.

2. Generative AI & Image Tools: Nano Banana Pro, Gemini & the MKBHD Likeness

(09:37 – 15:54)

• AI Image Generation: New tools can create eerily photorealistic images; Marques notes Gemini regularly outputs images resembling him as a “generic YouTube tech reviewer.”
• Training Data Concerns: The AI models are clearly scraping YouTube/tech influencer likenesses, sometimes outputting explicit references such as “KBHD.”
  • "Somewhere around half the time, it makes someone that looks exactly like me ... it’ll say KBHD on the thing." – Marques [10:10]
• Wider Legal/Copyright Questions: Discussion on copyright risks as AI tools “don’t care anymore,” exemplified by generating copyrighted characters (e.g., group photo with Mickey Mouse).
• Other Models: Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4 noted for code generation; discussion touches on how AI coding tools are shifting developer workflows from grunt coding to system design.

3. DJI Ban in the U.S.?

(17:18 – 19:58)

• US Government Scrutiny: DJI (major drone/camera tech company) risks an imminent US ban if a security audit isn’t completed under the FY25 NDAA.
• Scope:
  • Not just drones—possible to affect all DJI products, including cameras and perhaps even Hasselblad (which DJI owns).
  • "This is like actually ... people are going to lose good products from this." – Andrew [18:34]
• Black Friday Angle: If interested in DJI products, consider buying now.

4. Camera Nerd-Out: Hasselblad X2D, Internal Storage, and Lenses

(19:58 – 22:42)

• Camera Review: Praise for Hasselblad’s X2D Mark II, especially its built-in 1TB storage, autofocus, and UI.
• Prime vs Zoom Debate: Marques expresses happiness with the zoom, arguing that the fun of spontaneous shooting is increased.
  • "Having a zoom and having that camera actually autofocus opens up a whole new possibility." – Marques [20:47]
• Wider Point: Why don’t more cameras have built-in storage? Only a handful (e.g., Leica M11P) currently do.
• Foreshadowing: Plans for a bonus camera-focused episode.

5. Podcast Embeds on Threads

(22:48 – 24:39)

• New Feature: Threads now lets users link podcasts/episodes to their profiles, but only via Spotify, iHeartRadio, or Apple Podcasts (not RSS).
• Critique: Open standard RSS should be supported for wider compatibility.

6. Meta Lawsuit/Leak: Social Media Harm and Addictiveness

(27:41 – 37:10)

• Major Lawsuit: Ongoing litigation alleges Meta knowingly ignored their products' negative psychological impact on teens, hiding studies, and optimizing for engagement regardless of harm.
  • "There was an internal study … People were happier, less anxious, less lonely, lived better lives when they quit Facebook … and [Meta] just sort of killed the entire project." – Adam [30:25]
• Damning Quotes:
  • “Oh my god, y’all, [Facebook] is a drug. We are basically pushers.”
    – Anonymous UX Researcher [31:32]
  • “It’s a social comparison app—get used to it.”
    – Meta Growth Team, Project Daisy [32:45]
  • Meta countered that the documents are "cherry picked."
• Engagement Above All: Despite public claims, time spent in-app is revealed as Meta's key revenue driver.
• AI Integration: Brief mention of how TikTok’s business model via TikTok Shop may place less emphasis on time-in-app.

7. RAM Price Volatility and Dynamic Pricing

(37:10 – 40:40)

• Humorous Take: RAM prices are so volatile, some stores (e.g., Central Computers) now price them daily on demand—"catch of the day" style.
• Parallels to Other Commodities: Comparing RAM to gas or oysters—some things we accept fluctuating prices for, others feel wrong.

8. Tech Hot Takes—Rapid Fire Debates

(41:21 – 80:31)

8.1. Apple Vision Pro: Most Exciting Product of the Last 5 Years?

• Debate: Is the Vision Pro launch the most genuinely exciting product in recent memory—or is that title better suited for Apple Silicon (M series) or ChatGPT?
• Consensus: ChatGPT may be more transformative to a wider population; Vision Pro wins for pure hype/interest.
  • "If you want to go by total mass ... our parents all know about VR headsets now." – Marques [44:44]

8.2. Does More Customization Ruin Everything?

• Take: "User defined customization makes everything worse."
• Both Sides: User customization lowers the "floor" (makes worst cases uglier/less usable) but can raise the ceiling for personal utility/satisfaction.

8.3. Are In-Box Chargers Necessary?

• Take: "We don’t need a new charger with every new product."
• Debate: With widespread USB-C, reusing chargers makes sense; but new high-speed charging standards justify inclusion for high-end, high-wattage devices.

8.4. Are Three Cameras Overkill on Phones?

• Take: We rarely need all three (main, ultra-wide, telephoto). Most agree that while some use cases truly benefit, the average person is fine with two lenses.

8.5. Wireless Charging: Overrated or Essential?

• Take: Wireless charging's efficiency is poor, but the convenience is huge. Many misunderstand how useful it is until they live without it.

8.6. "AI is Just Silicon Valley’s Labubu"

• Explainer: Pop Mart’s Labubu is a collectible toy fad, mostly about trendiness and gambling on "blind boxes." Likewise, AI is trendy, opaque, and sometimes feels like a blind gamble.
• Metaphor Extended: To outsiders, both seem weird and overly hyped.

8.7. Camera Control on Phones

• Take: Recent camera shortcut features are less useful than advertised—essentially just glorified quick launchers, underused in practice versus older, simpler shortcuts.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On EU-enforced AirDrop Interoperability:
  “The European Union, as part of the Digital Markets Act, forced Apple to adopt this other standard that Google has actually had since Android 8.0, which is kind of crazy.”
  — David [03:59]

• On AI’s Ominous Power:
  “This is so good. It’s a problem.”
  — David [09:36], after generating realistic MKBHD images with AI

• On Meta’s Internal Leaks:
  “Because our product exploits weaknesses in the human psychology to promote product engagement and time spent. We need to alert people.”
  — Meta UX Researcher [31:32]

• On Customization and Ugliness:
  “The further you stray from a defined aesthetic, the … more even worse you can make it.”
  — Marques [53:54]

• On Hot Takes Culture:
  “We can probably all agree that user-defined customization always makes the floor lower. And sometimes it also makes the ceiling higher.”
  — Marques [57:04]

• On Wireless Charging:
  “Everyone’s always like, it just takes one second to plug a phone in! … we are at a level of … shaving milliseconds off of things.”
  — Andrew [71:00]

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:09] – Airdrop on Android: announcement, technical/regulatory backstory
• [07:51] – Live Airdrop/Quick Share demo between Pixel and Mac
• [09:37] – Generative AI, image generators, and copyright riffs
• [17:18] – DJI facing US ban: background and implications
• [19:58] – Hasselblad X2D Mark II, camera hardware talk
• [22:48] – Podcast embeds on Threads and the limits of RSS openness
• [27:41] – Meta lawsuit: internal studies, ethics, and engagement economics
• [37:10] – RAM price volatility: “catch of the day” dynamic pricing
• [41:21] – Tech hot takes: Vision Pro, customization, chargers, phone cameras, wireless charging, analogies, and camera controls

---

Recurring Themes & Tone

• Playful Debate: Much of the show is good-humored, poking fun at themselves, each other, and the absurdities of tech trends.
• Critical but Enthusiastic: The team isn’t afraid to call out the pointless or ethically dodgy, but their enthusiasm for innovative tools (or clever hacks) is infectious.
• Tech Industry Insiders: Frequent references to review units, industry contacts, and personal anecdotes from years of covering technology.
• Listener Engagement: References to Reddit, Twitter, and podcast listeners’ own hot takes throughout.

---

Summary for New Listeners

In this episode, Waveform dives deep into the overdue but game-changing arrival of AirDrop interop on Android, using it as a springboard for wider conversations on standards, openness, and the forces (regulatory and market) driving big-tech decisions. The episode balances technical explainer, real-time demos, cultural commentary (on AI, meta controversies, and product design), and a lively, participatory “hot takes” segment that leaves no modern tech topic untouched.

You’ll walk away with an insider’s understanding of why Android-to-Apple AirDrop is happening now, what it means for the broader ecosystem of tech, and where the team sees the next big debate—whether it’s the ethics of AI, the banality of RAM prices, or the right number of lenses on your phone.

Don’t miss the banter, demos, and spontaneous mini-rants that make Waveform a must-listen for gadget fans and critical tech thinkers alike.

Transcript

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[David]

I'm pretty sure what they're doing is they are going to put it in all of Android like they always do.

[Andrew]

Sorry.

[David]

Airdrop to you.

[Adam]

Why would you airdrop it to the computer that runs the soundboard?

[Andrew]

Sorry.

[Marques]

It's actually hilarious that that worked. Yo, what is up, people of the Internet? Welcome back to another episode of the Waveform Podcast. We're hosts. I'm Marquez.

[Andrew]

I'm Andrew.

[David]

And I'm David.

[Marques]

This week we have Airdrop on Android. That's the news. That's the whole thing. That's all we're going to talk about for the next hour.

[Andrew]

That's the whole thing.

[Marques]

And then maybe we'll have some time at the end for some hot takes. But first, a quick psa. If you are watching this on the Friday that this episode drops. Number one, we are closing in on 500,000 subscribers, and one of our goals on this Waveform podcast channel is to hit that by the end of 2025. So if you haven't subscribed yet somehow and you're watching us on the day it drops, do yourself a favor and get subscribed so you don't miss it. And number two, that also means it's Black Friday. Congrats. You've made it to the biggest holiday shopping day of the year.

[Andrew]

I heard the subscribing to the podcast was 50% off today. I believe it's as good a day as ever to do.

[David]

Yeah, I heard it was 100% off.

[Marques]

Oh, yeah.

[Andrew]

Damn, we really like those deals.

[Marques]

Free.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Harper]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Sick.

[Harper]

Normally it's a million dollars, so this is a steal.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

But Black Friday psa, we have some tips. Chances are you're looking at a bunch of sales right now and you have to ask yourself a couple questions.

[David]

Camel, Camel and Camel.

[Andrew]

Yeah, pretty much. Is this actually cheaper Download Camel, Camel, Camel or some price tracker because it's probably not. Do you actually need it or do you just want it because it's cheaper? And have you had your eye on something but now you're trying to buy an alternative just because it's on sale? I think we've all gone down that path before. It's never worth it.

[David]

Well, just yesterday I brought a kettle.

[Andrew]

What kind of kettle?

[David]

A tea kettle.

[Andrew]

Be more specific.

[David]

It was the alternate to the expensive one and it was on sale.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah. Have you used it yet?

[Harper]

Was it actually on sale?

[David]

No, but it did have good, probably fake reviews.

[Marques]

Yeah. That's huge.

[Andrew]

I feel like every time I've like had my eyes on something and then it's alternative goes on sale and then I buy that, I then wind up buying the other thing eventually because I was mad at the decision that I made on buying the thing on sale.

[Marques]

That is tough.

[Andrew]

Which is then just more expensive than it was to do it in the first place. Yeah, just. Just take five minutes before you buy anything today. Yeah, probably.

[David]

If you actually need it. Because if it's $5 cheaper and you didn't buy it already, why are you buying it now?

[Marques]

Okay, so let's talk about Airdrop on Android because this finally happened. I never thought this day would come, but apparently they've been working on this for a little bit. Yeah, the update is that last Thursday we got this random email from Google that was like a link to a blog post that was like, hey guys, by the way, we did it. We've made quick share on Android starting with pixels, pixel 10 compatible with airdrop. And the quote here is. Well, you actually asked Google how they did this and they give you a real answer because if you read the blog post, it's.

[Andrew]

They gave him an answer.

[Marques]

They said a thing that you can, you can read for us because the blog post didn't really say how they did it, they just said that they did it.

[David]

Yeah, well, okay. So they never actually announced how they did it. However, there is some European Union stuff that Ars Technica wrote an article about that is most likely how they did it.

[Harper]

Okay.

[David]

So the Digital Markets act got put into place recently which forced Apple to adopt this new standard called WI Fi Aware. So the way that Apple has done Airdrop in the past is that it has this protocol called Apple Wireless Direct Link, which is basically uses Bluetooth to find other devices, sets up a little mini WI fi network effectively between you and another iPhone, but it's again, it's a proprietary protocol. The European Union, as part of the Digital Markets act, forced Apple to adopt this other standard that Google has actually had since Android 8.0, which is kind of crazy. And it forced Apple to actually put a bunch of the airdrop extra little protocol stuff inside of the standard called Wi Fi Aware. So that was sneakily added to iOS 26. Apple obviously did not advertise that they switched over to Wi Fi Aware.

[Marques]

Of course not.

[David]

Obviously.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[David]

And nobody really made a big deal about it. I was reading that Google probably didn't make a big deal about it because Google has also been kind of trying to repeal the Digital Markets act because of stuff that it is doing to them that they don't like how. However, Wi Fi Aware is an open standard. So Google, who has supported Wi Fi Aware for a very long time, basically just updated to the newest version of the standard, which includes Apple's little tiddly bits and Official Term. Official Term. And now you're able to Quick share to iPhones. It's kind of weird because it still is called Quick Share on Android and you can. It's still airdrop on iOS. Yeah, the other kind of strange thing.

[Marques]

So crazy seeing Max in here. Now.

[David]

Originally this Ars Technica piece was speculating that it wasn't going to work on Macs, but it does. So now you can effectively airdrop to any Apple device from a pixel 10. The thing that is interesting is right now it is only available on Pixel 10 series. A lot of people were upset about this because they were saying like, oh well, is if Google is locking this to Pixel 10s for now, isn't that just as bad as Apple locking it to iPhones? I'm pretty sure what they're doing is, is they are going to put it in all of Android like they always do. Sorry, airdrop.

[Andrew]

Did you just.

[Adam]

Why would you airdrop it to the computer that runs the soundboard?

[David]

Sorry.

[Marques]

It's actually hilarious that that worked.

[David]

So it's on Pixel 10 series right now only I think the reason that they're doing this is because Google kind of just dropped this out of nowhere. Assume.

[Andrew]

Oh my God, it's the same one. No, I did the. No, you Marques did it.

[Adam]

It's the pie.

[Marques]

Oh, you.

[Andrew]

Oh, I dropped it to you. That's my speaker. Sorry, Andrew.

[Adam]

Just. Pixel dropped me a. I'm so sorry, David. The Mountain Dew. Baja Blast High.

[Marques]

Oh my God.

[David]

Okay, well I think the reason that they're doing this is because they, you know, own the Pixel 10. They use the Pixel 10. Yeah, they're not. They want to basically prod it on a wider Variety of people. Right. So they're like, okay, we control the Pixel 10, we can take in the data logs if it fails for Pixel 10 devices. They don't want to push it to all Android phones because then that's too big of a swath of people. That's my assumption. Um, but I did ask Google when it happened because like you said, we got a random email on Thursday. That was just casually like by the way guys, you can now, you can now airdrop quick little update. And the quote that they gave me because I was like, did you work with Apple on this or did you do it solo? They said, we accomplished this through our own implementation. Our implementation was thoroughly vetted by our own privacy and security teams and we also engaged a third party security firm to pen test the situa the solution.

[Marques]

Wow.

[David]

So I don't know, people were saying they're going to kill it by the weekend like they did with Beeper, but this seems like it is just a standard that is that they cannot really get around.

[Marques]

So yeah, it is. So now it's. The update is out.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

If you have a Pixel 10, you can make sure you're fully updated and go in and open any file. Anything you want to do sharing with, hit quick share and you will see

[David]

you got to switch it to everyone for 10 minutes.

[Harper]

Yeah.

[Marques]

And you will see a bunch of, a bunch of your Macs.

[David]

I'll do a live demonstration.

[Marques]

Oh yeah, sure.

[David]

Something with me.

[Marques]

Yeah, let me go share. All right, we're doing it live and then quick share.

[Harper]

We did it live twice.

[Marques]

Yeah, send.

[David]

Yeah, we didn't.

[Marques]

And then I got to look for you. Is it David's M3 Max David's PDA. Oh, let's see. I see Andrew's Mac, Marques's Mac, Waveform's Mac. I'm just going to do David's.

[David]

Yeah, you can send it to my Mac if you want.

[Harper]

All right.

[Marques]

Okay.

[David]

Marques would like to share a photo airdrop save to downloads. Boom. And it's a photo of the sky that I took and the side of a building that Marques took.

[Andrew]

Let me use your phone before.

[David]

And it's cool because it sends all of the metadata and everything. Yeah, it's very good. It's awesome.

[Andrew]

Yeah. I don't see your phone for some reason.

[David]

That's weird.

[Andrew]

But yeah, I see everybody's computer in here.

[Marques]

Have we tried the other way around? Have you tried sending something to this picture?

[David]

I don't think you can do that.

[Andrew]

That's what I wanted to ask You.

[Harper]

No, you can. Rich and I, when this was going on Thursday, spent like a solid 20 minutes just setting each other things back

[David]

and forth for no reason. Okay, so I have. I'm airdropping right now.

[Andrew]

Oh, here we go.

[Marques]

I just missed it. There it is. Except David's PDA is sending something to me. It's an image open. It's a Polaroid. It's a film photo.

[David]

What do you think of. What do you think about that photo, by the way?

[Andrew]

Right.

[Marques]

Think of this photo. Yeah. Looks pretty cool.

[Andrew]

Is it cooler because an iPhone sent it to you?

[David]

That's a photo of. Of me, my dad carrying me.

[Marques]

That is that you in the. The baby in the picture?

[David]

Just kidding. I generated that with Nana Banana 3.

[Marques]

Yikes.

[David]

Yikes. Nana Banana Pro. It's bad. It's bad that.

[Andrew]

It's bad that.

[David]

This is too good. This is so good.

[Marques]

It's.

[David]

It's a problem.

[Marques]

Okay.

[David]

So the misinformation is going to fly everywhere.

[Marques]

We knew this was going to happen. Nano Nano Banana Pro. This is part of Gemini. It's their newest image generation tool, if you want to call it that. And you can just put your prompt in and it'll just generate an image. And it's like photorealistic images now, and they're quite good. What I noticed because people started tagging me, is if you ask it to generate a YouTube tech reviewer, somewhere around half the time, it makes someone that looks exactly like me and it'll look like me and it'll say KBHD on the thing. It's like making. It's clearly trained on some sort of YouTube videos and has like a good sense of what this.

[Andrew]

Is it trained on your YouTube videos?

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

There's no denying.

[Marques]

Right. And it's Google, so it's like they probably can just decide to do that. But it seems to alternate between me and then like three or four other somewhat like I was going to say Tyler Stallman ish looking, sometimes Andrew looking. Sometimes you like. They'll look like slightly different characters we've seen in the YouTube universe before. And then you ask it again for a YouTube reviewer and it's like, oh, okay, I'm KBHD. Here it is.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Which I thought was interesting.

[Harper]

This is why they did not flip out when ChatGPT was doing it, because they knew they were working on it too.

[David]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Normally, though, in the. In the past, we've had to be like, oh, what is it? Stealing from tech. Like, remember when we first started seeing the little plant that all tech YouTubers using we're like, okay, it's definitely using Sora. YouTube stuff.

[David]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

This is just. It's just you. Some of the other ones maybe are a little bit of people, but this is just straight up you. The little profile says MKBHD. Yeah.

[David]

Just says it.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Also only gives you 1.8 million subscribers. So Nice.

[Adam]

Disrespect you.

[Andrew]

Yeah. But, like, this is. Yeah, this is messed up. Like, there's no other way to say this. Right. This is just.

[David]

What is the generative part of generative AI again? Also, it's background. It uses the exact same wallpaper from the iPhone 16 that it came with.

[Marques]

Oh, yeah.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[David]

I don't know. It just feels like I thought you were supposed to use a wide swath of data to generate something quote, unquote, new. Isn't that the argument? And, like, sure, this isn't a new scenario, but it's just Marquez.

[Marques]

It's j. Yeah. It's generating me in different, random, various

[Andrew]

environments with a red camera, full logo, a Samsung Flip, an SM7B, which it's wrong about because you're using a.

[David]

The electro voice is right.

[Marques]

Come on.

[David]

Yeah. Anyway.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Harper]

But Disney's gonna sue them into the ground.

[David]

Disney. Well, I'm waiting for that time. Yeah, I did. I'm going to Disneyland. This is relevant. I promise.

[Marques]

Go on.

[David]

I am going to Disneyland. Thank you.

[Marques]

I know.

[David]

It's exciting.

[Marques]

Cool.

[David]

It's not. I've only been. I've been there once before. Anyway, I'm going in late March just for one day before I do this California photography trip. And why'd I bring that up? Oh, yeah, the profile phot. The photo of our group photo for the people I'm going with. I put a photo of all of us in Banana Banana Pro. And I said, make us all Mickey Mouse, and it just did. So, yeah, the copyright is. It's out the window. These companies do not care anymore. I think we're at the. Where there is so much of this stuff that companies have just given up because they're like, if we're going to win this race, we have to not care.

[Harper]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

So don't ask for the bubble. Ask for forgive fast and break things.

[David]

Nobody's gonna forgive you.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

I promise you, we will never forgive you.

[David]

We will never forget. So never mind.

[Marques]

I just typed in MKBHD reviewing a horse and hit enter and it just made it.

[Andrew]

Your haircut is exactly the same.

[Marques]

It just made it.

[Andrew]

It's not even horse review.

[David]

The ultimate workhorse.

[Andrew]

It's.

[Harper]

No, it's you A horse and an F1 car.

[Marques]

It says MKBHD on the camera. It's me, it's my hair, it's the black sweaty sweatshirt and it's. It is a horse.

[Andrew]

It used to be like, what things did it get right when most of it is wrong and now it's like, what things is it slightly getting wrong and it's not really getting anything wrong.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Wow.

[Andrew]

We just, we just steal it now, folks.

[David]

We are just stealing. Just a couple days later, I think Only like two days later, Anthropic did release their new bestest model, Opus 4, which is apparently extremely good at software engineering and coding. It probably will not make an image of Marquez reviewing an iPhone 16 Pro.

[Adam]

I don't think, I don't think Claude can generate images at all.

[Andrew]

Wow.

[Adam]

Yeah, they would not give.

[David]

That's good because there is no utility to generating images besides screen people over. So.

[Adam]

Yeah, I mean sometimes it's for the meme. Like when I, like when I made that fake polymarket thing for you, David, that was pretty good, right?

[David]

You generated that?

[Andrew]

You generated that? When I was making polymarket stuff, I was photoshopping it like a real man.

[Adam]

No, no, I went to. I went to like I just googled fake polymarket generator and then I got. I got a good result. So yeah, no AI, but it's still fake. I'm just going to stop.

[Marques]

So Claude 4.5 will code really well. Yeah, that's great.

[David]

That's great.

[Marques]

Are are people who code. I've actually seen two versions of this.

[Andrew]

I've seen.

[Marques]

I've seen two versions. I've seen one version where people who code are using the out of it and like loving it. Yeah. And then I've seen one version where they're like, oh, this is kind of just better than me yet.

[Andrew]

I'm trying to think of how we could respond to this as non coders that wouldn't make everyone mad at us. And I.

[Marques]

It's kind of in the same way that like when we see Sora making a video and people go, ooh, are YouTubers cooked? It's like, well, it's not that good yet. And that's probably mostly true about a lot of these tools is like it's a good brainstorming tool. It's a good foundational like base before you actually build more on top of it. Sure. But it's not taking your job yet. But the trajectory is there.

[Andrew]

If I had to say the safest statement possible, it would be, I bet you most good coders know how to use it as a tool to help them, but it's not going to replace them. Sure. Yeah.

[David]

There. We talked about last week, Google Antigravity, which is something they launched with Gemini 3, which is just an IDE that you can code in, and it can do almost all of it for you. So you just sort of tell it what you want, and then it'll give. It'll make a checklist. It'll say, these are the things I

[Marques]

want to work on.

[David]

Here's what I did. Do you approve? Yes, yes, yes, yes. And it'll just code you an app. Like, I coded Pina Colocator with it. That's sort of my. My benchmark that I've started using.

[Harper]

My friends that are, like, in the industry and software engineers and stuff, they've basically been using these tools to do all the grunt work. And then what's more important for them now in their current roles is, like, the system design of it all. So they're, like, trying to figure out which services plug into what. But the actual, like, coding the API, you just. Or like running the unit test, you just have, like an AI do that.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[David]

So.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[David]

I don't know. And with the acceleration that we're at right now, you know, the Will Smith eating spaghetti video was not that long ago.

[Marques]

Dang. Wait, I should.

[David]

It's much better now.

[Andrew]

They'll be, like, making whole Coca Cola commercials with it or something.

[David]

Yeah. See what she did there.

[Marques]

Will Smith eating spaghetti. Sorry.

[Andrew]

This is.

[Marques]

I'm doing a Gemini banana thing.

[David]

I tried to. And it said I. I can help with pictures of people, but I can't depict some public figures. Is there anyone else you'd like to try? And I said mkbhd and then just did it.

[Andrew]

Just. Why don't I got it. Why?

[Marques]

They just steal my life.

[Andrew]

That's such a good burn. It's just like, he ain't no public figure.

[Marques]

It did Will Smith for me.

[David]

What?

[Marques]

It did Will Smith for me. Wow. So maybe it has. No.

[David]

Literally also said Will Smith.

[Adam]

85 80.

[David]

It just didn't let me do it. Wow.

[Marques]

Shout out to Will Smith.

[David]

DJI is possibly getting banned in the United States on December 23rd unless the US government completes a security audit, which will most likely not Happen under the FY25 NDAA, the Federal Year 25 National Defense Authorization Act. Unless the audit is done, it will. DJI will automatically be added to the FCC's covered list, which would effectively banned new DJI products from entering the U.S. new ones, yes. But they also probably Would not be able to sell within the United States either.

[Marques]

Gotcha.

[Andrew]

And so this. At first I was like, hasn't this happened 20 times? But that was only for drones. Right,

[David]

sorry.

[Harper]

So we try to run a show here and be professional.

[Andrew]

And you guys usually mind's muted.

[David]

Yeah, I was muted and I unmuted it so that I could.

[Adam]

I thought one of you texted me. I was like, why is this keep happening?

[Andrew]

Okay, I keep thinking this has happened already. But the differentiator here is this is just all DJI products. And previously it was just drones, right?

[David]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[David]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

So that is kind of like they do sell a lot more stuff now.

[David]

The OSMO is extremely popular.

[Andrew]

So. Good.

[David]

The OSMO too.

[Andrew]

This is like actually, I mean, yeah, people are going to lose good products from this. And you have a question in here?

[David]

Yeah. So I'm wondering if this includes Hasselblad. I don't think it will. But I think that DJI is terrified of the US government realizing they own Hasselblad. Oh yeah.

[Adam]

Because don't they do a lot of scientific imaging and glass stuff too? Like are they a NASA supplier?

[David]

I do not know.

[Andrew]

Zeiss is like all over the place.

[David]

Probably Zeiss. But yeah, I'm interested. I'm curious about that. So we'll see. Considering it's over the holidays that the government would have to do this audit. I don't think they're going to. And they've been talking about banning DJI forever. So I think they're just gonna get banned.

[Andrew]

So if there's any hot DJI Black Friday sales.

[David]

Yeah, gobble them up now. Honestly, if you want something, forget everything

[Andrew]

said before and buy all DJI products.

[David]

Yeah, so that's. That's fun. They will go the way of Huawei.

[Andrew]

I guess your X2D Mark II is way cooler now. Cuz it's contraband as well as a sick funny.

[Marques]

Because I don't have the one I bought yet. I just have the one you still

[David]

don't have the one you bought.

[Marques]

That's December now, apparently.

[Andrew]

I hope it's before.

[David]

Before the 23rd.

[Marques]

Really iffy. Really dicey on that one. Yeah, I have a review unit as of right now.

[David]

Okay. Yeah.

[Marques]

Okay.

[David]

They sent me one to check out finally. And yes. Really dang good.

[Marques]

Do you want to talk about how great it is?

[Harper]

It's.

[Andrew]

It's just sick.

[David]

So good.

[Marques]

It's so good. Yeah, it's truly an incredible. And do you have the 35 to 100 lens as well or. No. Okay. Yeah, that combo Is like.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Did I get my hot take on Primes yet? Did I say that here?

[Adam]

Yeah, you did so many times.

[Andrew]

Okay, perfect.

[Marques]

This is a great opportunity to run that back. I would. I love that this is a good zoom. I would. I am so happy that this is like the opposite direction of like Hasselblad in the past, which is, you know, fun. Very deliberate. One shot at a time.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

But it really removes like a big fun element of using cameras, which is just in the moment, shooting street shoots, random things that happen that you weren't expecting to shoot. And having a zoom and having that camera actually like autofocus.

[David]

Well, yeah.

[Marques]

Opens up a whole new possibility of things you can shoot with it. And it's great.

[David]

For me, the big things are like, the UI is so good. It's so fast. It has a terabyte of storage built into the camera. You can just connect it to your computer and transfer all the files really quickly.

[Marques]

So good. Yeah, it's.

[David]

It's pretty incredible camera.

[Harper]

It's.

[David]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

How are we not at a point where a terabyte of storage is in? Literally, my remote should have a terabyte of storage built into it. I. Yeah. What's the hold up here?

[Marques]

I'm kind of surprised that more cameras. I mean, that's the funny thing though too about the Hasselblad is it doesn't. It doesn't even shoot video at all. So you kind of already know what's the file size you're gonna get from whatever people start to shoot with it. So. Yeah, terabyte is plenty for photos.

[David]

It's like 36 megapixels per photo, though.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[David]

I mean, megabytes.

[Marques]

But if it was a camera that's capable of video, then maybe you'd be not as sure, but like also a lot. Just like iPads. I can buy a terabyte one if I want, or I can buy a lesser storage one if I want. They should just have an A7 with a terabyte built in or an A7 with four terabytes built in. For the guy who wants to just shoot all the videos internal. And it's fast enough to shoot whatever the Highest bit rate 4K video that it shoots. That should just be a product that exists. Yeah, you're welcome.

[David]

Very few camera companies are doing this. Like Leica in the regular M11 had 64 gigs, which is not that much when you shoot 60 megapixel photos. The M11P has 256 gigs, which is much better. But basically no manufacturers are Doing this. And I don't know if they're just terrified that eventually the internal NAND will break and they have to, like, get it replaced or something.

[Andrew]

I mean, it still has an SD card slot, right?

[Marques]

Yeah, Yeah.

[Andrew]

I guess they would still have to repair it, but.

[Harper]

But considering this one, the Ricoh GR IV has 53 gigabytes of internal memory.

[Marques]

Okay.

[David]

So I guess everyone's moving over to it because the GR4 is, like, brand new, so X106 does not canon.

[Andrew]

Sony.

[Marques]

Yeah, yeah. Doing it.

[David]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

We have an idea for a bonus camera episode coming up.

[Marques]

Oh.

[Andrew]

Hopefully next month.

[Marques]

Okay.

[Andrew]

But we'll see.

[Marques]

Oh, right. Yeah.

[Andrew]

No spoilers.

[Marques]

I'll keep shooting, though. In the meantime, I love the camera.

[David]

Well, potentially.

[Marques]

Rip.

[David]

Dji, one last thing. Pour one out that I wanted to mention real quick. Threads just added the ability to add podcast embeds to your profile.

[Marques]

This is true. That's good. This is good for us.

[David]

It is good for us. It's a very random update. But now if you have a podcast or you just want to, I guess advertise a podcast that you like.

[Andrew]

That was my question.

[Harper]

Like this one.

[David]

Yeah. You don't have to verify that you're the one that does it.

[Andrew]

Yeah. You can just do it.

[Harper]

You just link it anywhere.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[David]

So you can link a specific episode. You can also link an entire podcast. My one big down, like, big annoyance with this is that you have to pick between Spotify, iHeartRadio or Apple Podcasts.

[Andrew]

Wait, like when you click on it or when you add it to your.

[David]

When you add it to your profile.

[Andrew]

Oh, it's not an rsso.

[Harper]

No.

[David]

Yes. This is very annoying because podcasts specifically are transferred over rss.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[David]

And that is this open, really simple syndication. You don't have to deal with any of those. You should just be able to add the RSS link and then it opens whatever podcast player you use. Because I use Pocket Cast. A lot of our listeners use Pocket Cast. Yeah. And. And also, you know, Spotify is basically the only multiplatform one because literally nobody uses iHeartRadio. Why do they even add iHeartRadio?

[Harper]

This is just like the most threads way of implementing this. Like, it's open question mark, but question mark, not really.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And this is not on Instagram. Just threads.

[David]

Just threads.

[Andrew]

I wish it could be on Instagram. So then all the people who steal all our content could. We could at least be like, yeah, put the link in your description so we get some actual views out of it.

[David]

Yeah. So I don't know it's a feature. Instead of focusing on this, I would really love if you just completed your Fediverse integration, which you have not done

[Harper]

or let us do, like, anything. Like, it would be cool to also put a YouTube channel there. Yeah, I would like that.

[David]

That's true.

[Marques]

Yeah, good point.

[David]

Anyway, trivia. The edit on this is gonna be wild.

[Andrew]

What do you want us to say, Adam?

[Adam]

When I wrote this trivia question, when I wrote my first trivia question, I realized I had written the exact same Black Friday trivia question that I had written last year. So we've officially been doing this so long that I. It all blends together. But I have a new question, a banger, because I am finally looking into and get this. Retiring the 12 mini.

[Marques]

Oh, I've heard this before.

[Adam]

And so I was like, guys, Black Friday is coming up. I should be able to get a cheap iPhone. Turns out you can't. All of the iPhone Black Friday deals are frankly pitiful unless you sign up for like an $100 a month Verizon contract. But they weren't always this bad. And in researching this trivia question, I found a Black Friday deal from 1994 from a retailer that doesn't exist anymore

[David]

for the cheapest iPhone from a retailer

[Adam]

that doesn't exist anymore called Comp USA that was offering this. Get ready, guys. Are you ready? An Apple Performa 630 CD with a 14 inch color CRT monitor and. And an HP inkjet printer for how much in $1994?

[David]

That's like a lot of things.

[Adam]

That's a lot of things.

[David]

Many things bundled together.

[Adam]

And if you know what I'll be. I'll be kind. If you can give this to me in $1994 or you can give it to me in September $2025, because that's the last. That's the last month we have inflation data for.

[Andrew]

Do we have to signify which one? We're guessing yes.

[Adam]

Oh, trying to pull a fast one on me.

[Andrew]

Maybe. Pixel 10 is on sale right now. 200 off.

[Adam]

Oh, and I guess I could finally

[Andrew]

airplane the most pixel thing ever on Google.

[Adam]

I think. I think what I saw was from Apple, if you spend like $1200 on the iPhone 17 Pro, they will give you a $75 gift card after the fact.

[Andrew]

That is nice.

[David]

AirPods 4 are $70 right now.

[Marques]

All right, well, we'll think about this one. Answers will be at the end like usual. And we'll be right back.

[Andrew]

So good, so good, so good.

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[David]

Cause I always find something amazing.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Just so many good brands.

[Marques]

Cause there's always something new.

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[David]

All right, welcome back. For more depressing content, we go to Ellis. Today, there are.

[Adam]

Hey, I'm the sad guy.

[David]

There was a big thing that came out against Meta again for the one millionth time, but this one's even more depressing than usual. So Ellis is gonna break this down.

[Adam]

So the one. The. Yeah, so this. This happens every now and then. Like. Like there's a leak or whatever. And we find out that people at Meta. I'm trying to choose my words very carefully.

[David]

Don't care.

[Adam]

Allegedly. No, it's not that. No, that's the thing is they find out they. They do care, and they're powerless to stop it, to stop the not caring of other people at the company.

[David]

Careless people, as they say.

[Marques]

Long.

[Adam]

Long story short, there is a law firm called Motley Rice. They are suing all the big social media companies. I think it's four of them. I forget which four, but Meta is one of them. TikTok is another. I think it's Meta, TikTok, Snapchat, one other one. I don't know. The important thing is that as. As they're doing on behalf of school districts alleging that these products are really addicting for kids, and obviously they are, and. And the companies knew that they were addicting and decided not to act on that information. So what happened is there's a bunch of filings, a bunch of discovery. I'm not like a legal person. And a lot of these documents and pieces of evidence got unsealed. So we got to see a bunch of internal communications and deposition transcripts and other stuff from this court case that was really illuminating. And before you go read this stuff yourself, just know there's some, like, unfortunately, some, like, kind of dark stuff in here that, like, that we don't really want to talk about on waveform. It involves, like, kids being hurt. It's, like, not what we're interested in. But there were some really funny quotes by Meta employees that I did really, really want to share with a little bit of context. And before I share these quotes, I feel obligated to say that Meta has already responded to this. And Meta said, and I'm going To read the exact Meta spokesperson quote, we strongly disagree with these allegations which rely on cherry picked quotes and misinformed opinions in an attempt to present a deliberately misleading picture. The full record show that for over a decade we've listened to parents research issues that mattered most and made real changes to protect teens.

[Andrew]

Most of this filing was from an investigation in 2020. Right.

[Adam]

It's an ongoing court case that has been going on four years. Some of these depositions were from as old as 2021. I want to say. I don't know when these DMS came out, but they are investigating things that happened at Meta as far back as 2017.

[Andrew]

Cool.

[Adam]

I believe so. There's some things that you know, are pretty easy to understand that we, I think we've all heard about before. For example, there was an internal study at Meta called Project Mercury that was Meta Hire, the company Nielsen that does media research to investigate what the psychological effects of quitting Meta products, specifically Facebook, were on users. The results were resoundingly peak. People were happier, less anxious, less lonely, lived better lives and they quit Facebook and Meta just sort of killed the entire project and made sure and hid all the findings. And their reason was like, oh, you know, like there's so much, there's this narrative in the media that Meta products are bad. And so, you know, if you're going to quit Facebook, of course you're going to feel better because everyone already believes that Meta products are bad, which is a crazy argument to make in my opinion. But you know, it sort of, I guess works. Then there were a bunch of stuff that came out of Meta staffers sort of being like this Nielsen study really does show that, you know, people are.

[Andrew]

There's an impact on social comparison. Yeah, unhappy face emoji was the exact.

[Adam]

Yeah, there's an impact on social comparison. Unhappy face emoji was the, the thing. Another Meta staffer wrote, this is like the tobacco industry doing research and knowing SIGs are bad and then keeping that info to themselves. That is an exact quote. Another user experience researcher wrote, oh my gosh, y' all is a drug. We are basically pushers, which is crazy thing to write about the company that you work for. Another UX researcher was recommending that Meta release this info to the public and wrote, because our product exploits weaknesses in the human psychology to promote product engagement and time spent. We need to alert people to the effect that the product has on their brain.

[David]

But we still give it up, but

[Adam]

we still did not. It is worth noting that Meta does not study addiction. They only study Problematic use. I don't know exactly what that means, but what they did consider problematic abuse is, I guess, up to someone, the lawyers.

[Andrew]

So another thing I don't know if

[Adam]

you remember so does anyone remember what. I don't. I didn't know this code name, but something called Project Daisy where Instagram hid like counts.

[Harper]

Yeah, they.

[Adam]

I was one of the accounts selected the beta test that and none of my friends were. And I sounded like a crazy person being like, there's no likes on Instagram anymore. This is really weird. And the goal of that was to try to make teens feel better because teens were sort of being encouraged to compare themselves to others, which is, you know, not easy when you're a teenager. And that got killed because it, you know, affected engagement and time spent in the app. And one of the quotes that came out, I can't even. This one is so crazy. One of the quotes that came out was someone on the Growth team insisting. And this is an exact quote. It's a social comparison app. Can get used to it. Incredible. Incredible. Care for your children. Here's. Here's another crazy thing that came out is this. And I'm just going to read. This is from Time magazine. I'm just going to read this exactly as Time wrote it. It meta used location data to push notifications to students in what they called school blasts, presumably as part of an attempt to increase youth engagement during the school day. As one employee allegedly put it, one of the things we need to optimize for is sneaking a look at your phone under your desk in the middle of chemistry. Smiley face. Just fantastic stuff right here. Time has a great article on it. Reuters has a great article on it. And if you're not okay, that's fine because just know to me and I'm going to wrap up this very sad story like this. I feel like there's this narrative that meta has been pushing that time spent in app is not the most important metric to their business. They've said this sort of roundabout ways that they, they value other things. And to me, all of these leaks indicate that that does not seem to be the case. That time spent is still the most important way meta makes money off of their products.

[Andrew]

Which I it's that every company is time spent on app because more time spent on app equals more time to sell you things.

[Adam]

No, but here's the thing. I'm actually going to push back on that narrative a little bit because of how big and I cannot believe I'm like, I don't want to sound like I'm defending TikTok, but the TikTok shop really does change that for that platform. I can't remember where I read this, but I've read a bunch, a bunch of different articles about how the TikTok shop is so huge globally that they're able to make money off of that and they don't. The ads part of TikTok is not as big a part of their business in the same way meta is structured.

[Andrew]

Yeah, but if you're on TikTok for longer, you can get more things on the TikTok shop and make more money.

[Adam]

I need to find this research. It was really, it was really clear that while they do want you to stay on TikTok for a long time, what they more prioritize is you sending products to your friend, engaging with products and not just being on the app all day. Whereas in this meta thing we found out like where. What time are kids not on the app? Oh, in class. Like we should optimize the app to get them on the app in class.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I, I guess last thing I'll push back on that as being one of the main functions of TikTok is when you're kind of done and you hit back to exit the app, it refreshes the feed and tries to hook you on another. Like ultimately all of that boils down to like they might prioritize this specific way of making money, but in all of those ways this is probably why meta meta says we're not. Our primary goal isn't time spent on app but it's like, like they have a primary goal that they put the way that goal gets hit better in every single scenario possible is more time spent on the app. I think it's just logical.

[Marques]

Same with YouTube to an extent.

[Andrew]

Same with everything. Same with this podcast.

[Marques]

Probably like more time spent.

[Andrew]

I mean I know you want to spend more time with us because we. But like yo don't.

[Adam]

But we will say conclusively if you're in class right now, turn off the podcast.

[Andrew]

You got plenty of dishes at home. Yeah, chill.

[Adam]

Yeah, we'll be there later. Dish podcast. Anyway, like I said, meta refutes these claims. They claim they're, they're cherry picked. This is ongoing litigation. This is all alleged. But I thought it was pretty crazy and I wanted to talk about it this week.

[Andrew]

Can I talk about a crazy, more light hearted article headline I read today? Yeah, this is from PC World and I just thought this is very short but I thought it was too funny. It says RAM prices are so out of control stores are selling it at market prices. So basically as a seafood lover this is crazy. It's so a store in California called Central Computers and people have also seen something similar like this at micro centers. But they're essentially not pricing RAM at stores right now because of how much the prices are fluctuating. They have to just put up signs that basically say ask a sales associate or just bring it to the counter and find out catch of the day. Like we ram is seafood right now because of.

[Adam]

Never heard of farm to table.

[Andrew]

Compute to table is not cheap these days. But this, this just gave me a good lap laugh. It just says like due to a global shortage of memory chips, RAM and related components have recently seen an increase in 20, 50%. They're fluctuating daily because of this we can't display fixed prices on certain products at this time.

[Adam]

Didn't correct me if I'm wrong. Didn't Wendy's experiment with this? Oh they did Wendy's experiment with dynamic pricing.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I think so. They. Yeah they basically did like peak pricing.

[Adam]

Yeah. First they came for our baconators.

[Marques]

It is interesting in certain, in certain commodities we like gasoline is like we are okay with market pricing in certain cases but when it's certain things it seems ridiculous that it's market pricing. Like obviously if you're also this is like I'm pretty sure this is a small company. Like Central Computers is probably small enough that they don't have a ton of supply and like a very reliable like inventory supply. They probably have to do something like this where if you're best Buy or whatever and you have a ton of suppliers and you can sort of account for that, you probably aren't doing this ridiculous like market pricing thing and you can eat some of the dips in profit. But yeah, it is fascinating.

[David]

I feel like they could just. Just price it to a certain like price. It's a certain amount higher than they buy it for though.

[Adam]

Right?

[David]

Couldn't they just do that?

[Adam]

It does seem like Central Computers is a pre local chain to the Bay Area and so yeah, they probably don't have scale on their side and they're at the whip of their distributors.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I bet that's one is like it coming in and with not just like demand but also potentially tariffs. I'm sure this could be changing literally by how much they pay for it. And also if you. Everyone loves scalping these days. I. I don't know why Gary Vee but like everyone loves to just buy stuff and sell for more exp because heaven forbid anyone gets a deal. So, like, if they sell this at a normal price, I'm sure someone will come in, buy everything, and then just go resell it and make the money. Anyways, I. I'm sorry. I hate scalping.

[Adam]

So I. I think it's. You brought up a really interesting point, Marquez. Cuz like, if I'm like. If we're talking about like oysters, you know, something that Eggs, milk. No, no, I want to do oysters because oysters are something that, that have like such a short shelf life. Like, like you, You. You are eating them intrinsically, like within a week or two after they came out of the ground. You know, you can't. You can't stockpile oysters. You know, that's something I'm okay with being market price. A baconator, which was clearly made three and a half years ago and stored in some underground.

[Andrew]

I like how you could have used the RAM example. We have it right here. But you're like, no ram.

[Adam]

RAM gets. Don't we get a new DDR number like every year or something like that?

[Andrew]

I would argue that DDR Ultraman next.

[David]

I.

[Adam]

Anyone on. On Twitter, if you know what is made sooner or like, what has. What spends longer in storage before being sold. Baconators or sticks of ram.

[Andrew]

Wendy's is fresh, never frozen.

[Harper]

Ah.

[David]

Is that allegedly.

[Adam]

Check their whole thing.

[David]

They probably keep it at 33°F.

[Andrew]

It's not frozen. It's not technically frozen.

[Adam]

It's not frozen. It's not. I'm not touching you.

[Marques]

Never frozen. Never frozen. That's funny.

[David]

Yeah. We were thinking we got a fun game coming up in the next segment, so why don't we do like a little teaser?

[Andrew]

Let's do one of them.

[Adam]

Yeah.

[David]

Before we actually get into it.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[David]

So this is our Tech Hot Takes game.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Marquez is doing his Tech Hot Takes video this week.

[Marques]

I think it's a lot of fun.

[Andrew]

It's super fun. We do it like once a year at this point. But Harper and I just collected way too many. Usually do like five or seven. Harper and I probably grabbed like 50, so I figured why not bring some over to the pod.

[David]

Yeah, let's.

[Andrew]

Let's let us talk about it and whine for a little bit and you can enjoy our whining. So I sold it, right?

[Marques]

Yeah. So we're gonna. We're gonna evaluate these takes and see if they're hot or not and if

[Andrew]

they're good or not and if we agree with them.

[Marques]

If we agree or not. So you Wanna do the first one?

[Andrew]

Which? Pick one. Pick which one you like the most.

[Marques]

Let's go top to bottom.

[Andrew]

Let's go first.

[Marques]

All right, first hot take from Gregory McFadden. Apple Vision Pro is still the most exciting tech product release in the last five years. Okay.

[David]

So 100% disagree.

[Marques]

Well, that's what makes it hot is it's very easy to disagree with. But let's go with if you do agree. How would you justify it? Apple Vision Pro is the most exciting.

[Andrew]

I'll try and justify it semi anecdotally. Yeah. Look at our. It's already the most viewed video on the MKBHD channel. That's a fact.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Which means there's maybe the most. It's maybe the most interesting, it has the most interest.

[Andrew]

I think exciting is the key word. Like I think this is not most successful, this is not most useful. This is not necessarily totally game changing. But in terms of excite on the Internet, okay. It's hard to argue against it.

[David]

I have a slight counterpoint that we could maybe talk about Apple M. Apple M series chips. Right? M1.

[Marques]

That is exciting.

[Adam]

Five years.

[David]

It is past five years. Because it came out in 2020. Yeah, yeah, it came out in 2020. So you know, I feel like that the M series chips, Apple silicon is the most like.

[Marques]

It's a lot of superlatives in there.

[David]

I mean it is exciting.

[Marques]

It's a lot of superlatives. It's. It's probably their best product. It's probably their most impactful, most improved product.

[David]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marques]

It's probably the most powerful product.

[Andrew]

How many TikTokers were making M5M series videos when it came out? When the Vision Pro was like the only thing on. In like broken outside of the tech space on TikTok.

[Adam]

When it came out like I, as someone who is like y' all are

[Andrew]

in, in our niche right now, I

[Adam]

was getting completely throttled by the, the last in generation of Intel MacBook Pros. And I remember when they announced that, that, that M1 MacBook Pro dude, it

[David]

was like define exciting.

[Adam]

It was like every single thing you've ever wanted.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Cool.

[Marques]

Causing.

[Andrew]

I don't think any of us are disagreeing.

[Marques]

I think to your point, in smaller communities there are more exciting products. But if you want to go by total like mass, like I'm trying to think of a product that came out in the last five years that's new, that more people know about and know exists. Like our parents all know about VR headsets now like all. Every. You probably don't know anyone who's been sentient for the last five years who hasn't heard of the Apple Vision Pro where I think even some of the most popular and best products from the last five years aren't quite on that level. Which is crazy to say. So I think this might be a valid hot take. I'm trying to think of a more exciting tech product to the masses that actually hit.

[Harper]

I think Gemini right now most people that. That bought a MacBook in the last five years. Chat GPT don't know what chip is inside.

[David]

ChatGPT did come out in 2022.

[Marques]

ChatGPT is a tech product.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Is it exciting to people? Kinda.

[David]

That's true.

[Adam]

And knows what I'm about.

[David]

Controversial

[Adam]

Mother bird buddy.

[David]

True. Oh. So Gemini says that Chat GPT is the most exciting new product.

[Andrew]

That's crazy. Gemini said that?

[Marques]

That's hilarious.

[Andrew]

That's really funny.

[David]

It said that the most exciting hardware product is the Steam Deck.

[Andrew]

That's not even. You shouldn't have said that because it doesn't help your first point by being that wrong the second time.

[David]

Number three says Apple Silicon.

[Marques]

Okay.

[David]

Number four, it says Apple Vision Pro. Number five, it says the mature maturation of foldable phones.

[Marques]

Foldable. Some people. Yeah. Is that that exciting?

[David]

So it's a summary verdict. Most Transformative ChatGPT Most Fun Steam Deck.

[Adam]

This Steam Deck I think might give Apple Vision Pro a run for its money. I feel like so many people.

[Marques]

Are you excited in total generated excitement for humanity.

[Adam]

I thought gamers were like so.

[Andrew]

But that's. You're keep you. I feel like you guys keep saying like this is so cool in this niche right here. That goes against everything.

[Adam]

I would argue outside of the tech bubble. Like. Like if you just go up to random people on the street and you said Apple Vision Pro, they'd be like, oh, that stupid useless thing that nobody has.

[Andrew]

And you'd. And you know, and you'd say and what about the Steam Deck? And they'd be like the.

[Adam]

No, no, no, no, no, no.

[Andrew]

A regular person would be like the Steam Deck.

[Adam]

A regular person plays video games. A regular person does not care about a $4,000 VR headset.

[Andrew]

A regular person knows about that headset and is like Steam Deck. Is that Xbox or PlayStation?

[Adam]

No, I'm pushing back on that.

[Andrew]

I think I. I don't think you.

[Adam]

I don't.

[David]

I think you just did. Google search trends. Apple vision Pro is about 3x the search volume of.

[Andrew]

I don't think there's a single metric.

[Adam]

Maybe I'M wrong.

[David]

Although. Look at this. Look at this.

[Marques]

Wow.

[David]

This actually shows how badly Vision Pro failed. So when Vision Pro first came out, screenshot this. It was stupidly popular, but it died immediately and had no search volume. I think that's the M5 version came out. Oh, no, no.

[Andrew]

Is that. No, no, that's announcement and release.

[David]

Announcement and release. While the M5 version didn't do anything reg. So they like the search volume for like a week was 3x. What Steam Deck has ever been. However, Steam Deck has continual interest over time, much, much higher than Vision Pro.

[Andrew]

I take 18 steam decks before I would buy a Vision Pro. I think it's way better of a problem.

[Adam]

Pretty excited.

[David]

It says. Oh, it does say average Steam Deck is way more popular than Pro.

[Andrew]

That's what it says over time.

[Marques]

I guess that's one metric. I'm just trying to think. I'm trying to quantify this as total excitement generated for humanity and like how many. That's a combination of total exposure and total excitement per person that sees it.

[Harper]

By that definition, then I would go chatgpt over the Apple Vision Pro.

[Marques]

Yeah. Because it just has hundreds of millions of people.

[Harper]

The whole economy is moving on ChatGPT right now.

[Andrew]

I think that's it.

[Marques]

That's actually probably the real answer.

[Andrew]

I want to think of it. I guess I. I definitely thought more gadget.

[David]

Physical gadgets, exciting means by Oxford languages causing great enthusiasm and eagerness.

[Harper]

In this essay, I will.

[David]

I wouldn't say that Vision Pro causes enthusiasm, but it. Eagerness.

[Marques]

Maybe eagerness in a cheaper version. Like there's a. There's. Yeah, yeah. It is definitely interesting.

[David]

An exciting breakthrough. Yeah, yeah.

[Marques]

It's definitely.

[David]

I think it's going to be chat GPT.

[Marques]

ChatGPT is probably the correct actual answer, but Greg, that's a good hot take. It's a good hot take.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

All right, we'll take a quick break. We're gonna have way more hot takes after the break. But that of course means we have time for one more trivia question.

[Andrew]

Trivia, dude.

[Adam]

It's trivia, dude.

[Andrew]

It's trivia, dude.

[Adam]

Before I pass it to my co worker Adam, I just want to say someone posted in the MKBHD subreddit, I feel like Ellis would like this video and it got zero upvotes.

[Andrew]

I just want you to know that

[Adam]

I watched it and I did like it.

[Marques]

Wow.

[Adam]

I don't have a Reddit account, so I think Hot dogs. It's about AI overview. It was about AI overview and it might have also been about hot dogs. It was like two of my interests.

[Andrew]

All you can eat buffet.

[David]

That was it.

[Adam]

It was an all you can eat buffet.

[Andrew]

That was not that far off.

[Adam]

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So, man, I feel seen. Thank you.

[Harper]

Nice. Okay.

[Andrew]

Sorry. I'm watching it right now. The AI overview is. It's. They searched all you can eat buffet near me. The overview says you can use online search engines like Google.

[David]

Can you? I don't know.

[Adam]

I guess you can't.

[Harper]

All right, so before the podcast, before we sat down to record, David and I were talking about aluminum os, which is Google's new project to bring Android and like, desktop computers.

[David]

Chrome os.

[Harper]

Chrome os. Thank you. But we're not going to talk about that this week because it's just a rumor, so.

[David]

It's not a rumor. They have a job listing.

[Harper]

Yeah, it's a job listing. Who knows if it'll ever come out? Like, projects are canceled all the time.

[Marques]

There's also a job listing for the Tesla Roadster.

[Harper]

That's true.

[David]

Is it really?

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Harper]

Got him.

[David]

Shouldn't have that done by now.

[Marques]

That's what I'm saying. You're just now hiring.

[David]

You should be firing Pao after it's done. Yeah, yeah.

[Harper]

So I forget why David made a joke at my expense and I was like, okay. Every question on today's trivia will be about Aluminum.

[David]

Aluminium.

[Harper]

Aluminium. So this question is about aluminium. That's not it.

[Marques]

But.

[Harper]

But nice.

[David]

42 electrons.

[Harper]

Close. What is the atomic number of aluminum?

[David]

42.

[Andrew]

Can I ask a follow up question?

[Harper]

Depends what it is.

[Andrew]

What is an atomic number?

[David]

It's how many electrons it has. Protons.

[Marques]

Weight of protons.

[Harper]

Yes, thank you.

[Marques]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[David]

Protons.

[Harper]

Which actually is also the electrons. The electron number. Unless it's an ion.

[David]

Yeah, exactly.

[Marques]

You knew that.

[Andrew]

Wait, you know, like it's a little number on the little box.

[Adam]

Yeah, you know, about like the periodic. Okay, you've seen Breaking Bad, right?

[Marques]

All right, well, we'll think about that one too. We'll be right back.

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[Marques]

All right, welcome back. We got some more hot takes to talk about. That didn't quite make it into the MKBHD video, but that are still hot takes that were sent to me when I asked for them. Next up, we can talk about this one from hey, Pollock on threads. Who says user defined customization makes everything worse?

[Andrew]

I picked some of these because they're like, man, I want to agree with you so bad, but I feel like

[Marques]

I, I think there's, I think there are definitely two sides to this camp. There are people who look at. Whenever Apple allows you to customize their home screen more, everyone's home screens get uglier. You've noticed that.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Marques]

Like, they used to all look the same and they looked fine. Okay.

[David]

But they also, the options they give you are horrible.

[Marques]

They give you like tinting now they give you like the ability to put the icons everywhere. They give you widgets, they start to let you do more stuff. And I've seen some of the worst home screens in the history of the iPhone in the last two years. So there's a valid argument for this. But also it gives you the ability to make everything better.

[Andrew]

It's hard to ever want to take things away from the user. But I also agree that sometimes I'm like, that's yucky look and I don't like it.

[David]

Be cringe, be free. That's all. Look makes everything worse. It makes everything look worse. Absolutely.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[David]

But I would, I would argue that it makes it better.

[Harper]

Could you make the argument fried liquid glass?

[David]

Oh, yeah.

[Harper]

It's terrible.

[Marques]

You can't use it.

[David]

That's not user.

[Marques]

But it's not customization. It's not custom. They don't let you. The only thing unless you customize is do you want a glossy or do you want it like kind of not that glossy?

[Harper]

Yeah, you could change like when you do customization, make like the glass where they're all see through and everything. Like you can't even tell what the icons are. That's from Apple.

[David]

I wouldn't say that's user defined. Yeah, I think they're talking about that's like Apple's.

[Adam]

No, I know. I think they're talking about like Android.

[David]

No, we're talking about like you get

[Harper]

to pick because you're saying basically that Apple's direction is good.

[David]

No, it's horrible.

[Harper]

Well, that's what I was saying.

[Marques]

But the further you stray from a defined aesthetic, the. The more even worse you can make it.

[Andrew]

That's a good point. If the base is bad and then you let people color on top of already bad.

[David]

The floor is lower.

[Marques]

Yes, exactly. The floor drops out. From underneath.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

And like the ceiling gets a little higher because you can make it a little better. But like how many times have you looked at someone else's home screen on their ph been like, I'm happy every

[Harper]

time I look at Andrew's phone.

[Andrew]

Okay, what?

[David]

Maybe hot take. But like we need uggo stuff. You know, we need stuff to be ugly.

[Harper]

You can't appreciate the beauty if you don't know what the ugly.

[Marques]

Damn.

[Adam]

Then why are you hating on the boo boos all the time?

[David]

Cuz they're ugly.

[Andrew]

Oh my God. This is why. Okay, I honestly think this is the best one out of everything because it's just like, like it is the perfect amount of argumentative.

[David]

Like Labubus are not user defined. Labo's were defined by a designer who had awful taste.

[Marques]

But like, okay, think of, think of, think of a croc. Right? A croc is just a blank, horrible looking shoe. Yeah, right. If you couldn't add anything to a croc, it would just be like, wow, another ugly shoe. Whatever. Yeah, but then you open up user customization to it.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

How many crocs do you think look better after customization or look objectively worse after you customize?

[David]

Worse.

[Marques]

They all look worse.

[Andrew]

Have you seen the Squidward?

[David]

They are personal.

[Marques]

That's. And that's exactly what this is. It's user customized and it's personal. And that one person will feel it's better and everyone else will go, we

[David]

don't talk about who cares my croc. I don't care what you think about my crop.

[Andrew]

You can tell everyone on this podcast is formal for function because there's so many people create. Like, it's pretty obvious that all the user defined stuff. Stuff, even though people make what we subjectively think is ugly, probably works really well for them. And I shouldn't be putting them down. But here we are on a podcast saying just look at the screen one more time. Is that really what you want people to see? You know what else?

[David]

But they don't see it. You see it.

[Adam]

You know what else? User customization. We need to get rid of car wraps.

[Marques]

No, highly disagree.

[Adam]

I don't know, Marquez.

[Marques]

Highly disagreeable. Especially because when the cybertruck came out and they all just looked like a dumpster refrigerator, you definitely had a higher ceiling from being able to wrap that ceiling. The floor of course went down. No, the floor went down. I admit it. No, I have. I've seen lots of like gray and black and like other regular colored trucks that look better than the stainless Steel dumpster that it looks like without the wrap.

[Adam]

But how is that different than the iPhone? Tennis ball phone.

[Marques]

Well, like putting a case on your phone, you're saying.

[Andrew]

No, no, no, no. Remember during the.

[Adam]

When they announced the. The customization, they were like, if you love tennis balls so much, you can make your own tennis ball just like human beings do.

[David]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Well, it's funny because it wasn't if you like. It was if the photo of your dog likes tennis balls so much.

[Adam]

Is that what it was?

[Andrew]

It was. It took the color from a dog with a tennis ball in its mouth

[David]

and it made them all.

[Andrew]

And it made them all yellow, which I kind of.

[David]

It looked horrible.

[Marques]

Pretty hilarious.

[Andrew]

Great.

[Adam]

It made them all. Lemon cello.

[Marques]

I think this is a great take because you can probably. We can probably all agree that user defined customization always makes the floor lower.

[David]

Yes.

[Marques]

And sometimes it also makes the ceiling higher, but because the floor always goes lower, you can say, God, it's just worse.

[David]

But I'm also happy for the people living in the basement.

[Marques]

Yeah. Do what you want. I agree. Do what you want.

[David]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

We all agree that this is a great take because we kind of agree with it, but would never, ever want people to lose customization.

[Marques]

I can't publicly endorse.

[Andrew]

I will never. Like, I will.

[Marques]

Pretty funny.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Adam]

I especially as like a kid, like an electronic. Needed to be customizable for me to enjoy using it.

[Andrew]

Otherwise, we're all probably sitting here today because we probably customized too close to the sun.

[David]

You know how much they've taken from us. You know how much they've taken from us.

[Adam]

You know, I'm sure, like at least 40% of the people listening to this podcast right now got yelled at by their dad because they changed the cursor on their own PC. I taped the computer a virus.

[David]

100%. That's right. Yeah.

[Marques]

That Aeroglass theme on Windows XP went so hard. Okay, that's a good one. Well, we got another one from Threads.

[David]

Okay.

[Marques]

From jdwayt.

[Andrew]

A lot of these are threads because all the ones on Twitter were just like, crypto is not at its full potential yet.

[Marques]

Yeah. I made the mistake of asking people to upvote their favorites, which I thought would make like, the hottest takes go to the top. It actually made the coldest takes go to the top because it had the most people agreeing with it.

[David]

Oh, yeah.

[Marques]

So you had to kind of dig a little bit and thread. There was plenty of like, ask on

[David]

Reddit and then sort by controversial.

[Marques]

Exactly. That's the hottest. That's the real way to get.

[Andrew]

The real way to get it.

[Marques]

Okay, so this person on thread says, I don't get why people are so upset that tech companies no longer ship chargers in the box. You do not need to get a new one with every new product. I still have and use the USB C charger from my Nexus 6P. What are you all doing with your old chargers?

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Agree.

[David]

100% agree.

[Marques]

Okay, so this is hot.

[David]

100 agree with that.

[Harper]

Really hard. Disagree.

[Marques]

This is hot because at least to me, charging has gotten way better than the last few years and you need the new charger to take advantage.

[David]

The companies that are shipping like the 100 watt phones give you a hundred watt charger.

[Marques]

Agree.

[David]

They do.

[Harper]

Well, not even that. The new iPhone, new Watts up to 45 now.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Harper]

If you have the old charger, what's that? What are you gonna do?

[Marques]

That's actually valid. I think the ones that have changed the most in charging still include the charger.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

And the ones that have changed the least in charging are like, yeah, you can use your old 6P charger and be fine. Actually that's, that's true.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Damn. This.

[Andrew]

I agree this is one of those ones where like, I agree with this. It's one of where a company can make a statement saying this is like for the environment in E waste, which I agree with. But I also think the alternative motive is it's make it's money. More money for them. And so like I want to agree with it without giving them the credit of thinking this is some spinning it. Yeah. Like some gift to us.

[Marques]

I, yeah.

[Andrew]

I think every new phone should not come with the charger but should have a redeemable code. So if you really need the charger and if you need it enough, you'll go out of your way to order it or go to a store and get it. You should be able to get it for free. And then that eliminates all of this

[Marques]

debate of if I ran a phone company, that's what I would do.

[David]

You know, Apple would say, they'd say we'd have to ship the charger in a box to you and you know how much waste that causes, you know how much pollution that creates.

[Marques]

But it's for those who need it. You know, Tim Cook, I know you're trying to optimize your, your pallet sizes by shrinking the size of the phone box, but like only 5% of people are going to order that charger. It's going to be great.

[David]

I love that with the new Apple watch, they Were like We can add 50% more Apple watches per shipment. And it's like so you're saying that's for the environment, but you're just saying we can sell more app, we can save more money.

[Adam]

I think it's kind of interesting that when you buy music gear or a lot of audio gear, they never come with any cable. Obviously they'll come with power cables, but there's no.

[Andrew]

If it has like USB C power.

[Adam]

No, no, no, not even like, like if you buy like an audio interface, it won't come with mic cables. Or if you buy a microphone, it'll never come with come with a mic cable. You know what I mean? Like that's you're like expected to buy that stuff inside. And the reason I say that is because I was thinking about the most mad I've ever gotten unboxing a tech product and it was when I spent over $1,000 on my Blackmagic Ultra Studio 4K and it didn't come with a Thunderbolt cable.

[Marques]

I recently did that.

[Andrew]

Holy.

[Adam]

Oh, you bought a Blackmagic Ultra Studio 4K.

[Marques]

So similarly I was having issues with my Apollo twin with the old Thunderbolt 2 at home and I finally upgraded and I spent $900 on an AP Twin with the new Thunderbolt. And I opened it and there was no Thunderbolt cable. And I was like, thank God I have a Thunderbolt cable right now and

[David]

Thunderbolt cables are expensive.

[Marques]

It made me so mad.

[Adam]

Yeah. But then it's funny, it's like I've never bought a mic and been like why no XLR cable? And frankly I wouldn't trust to include.

[Marques]

I feel, I think that's exactly where the distinction is though, because there are certain products that are expected to work out of the box and there are certain products where everyone buying them is expected to customize it to their liking in some way. And you let them. Like a microphone. If you're buying a nice expensive XLR microphone, that's the exact type of person who knows which usb, which XLR cable which.

[Adam]

Yeah, any other brands they like or in length.

[Andrew]

Like if I get an SM7B and it comes with a three foot cable, it's like there's a 90% chance that cable is now waste.

[David]

Did the Game Boy color come with.

[Adam]

I'm push back and said because since XLR cables have jack and pin or pin and hole different, like you can daisy chain them together.

[Andrew]

So would you. Is that what you would do if you then needed to buy a longer cable afterwards?

[Adam]

Cuz like we have daisy chain cables in here?

[Andrew]

Yeah, but never mind. Yeah, sure.

[Adam]

If, and if you're getting mad at me about grounding or whatever, then you know that, you know that you're too

[David]

smart for this question. Did the Game Boy color come with come with batteries? Like double A batteries or. Because a lot of products that you buy that take batteries, which is not that many because most of them are rechargeable now come with like generic, you know, Amazon brand or whatever.

[Marques]

That's fine though because that's expected to work out of the box.

[David]

Well, if it didn't come with batteries though, in like 1995 or 2000. I agree that people shouldn't be upset about not getting a charger, but I

[Adam]

do think if you're buying a peripheral, a thousand dollar plus peripheral and it doesn't come with a Thunderbolt.

[David]

Yeah, that' different.

[Adam]

That's, that's.

[David]

We all have a million chargers, but we don't all have a million Thunderbolt cables.

[Marques]

Fair enough.

[Andrew]

So still be mad, but still be mad at all the companies for pretending.

[Harper]

My mom has one charger, Jess, my fiance has one charger. We have 600. Regular people do not just have chargers lying around like they take them with them from place to place, but regular

[Andrew]

people in the US generally because of how carrier systems work, upgrade their phone every two years.

[Harper]

Years.

[Andrew]

So in the life cycle, even in an Apple life cycle, right now most people will have a USB C charger already.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

So like you, I, I would argue regular people have a USB C cable.

[Adam]

One counterpoint.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And that's all you need.

[Adam]

I, I could not find a lightning cable in this office this morning.

[Marques]

That's because I threw them all out.

[Andrew]

Really?

[Marques]

Yeah. Why would we do lightning cable?

[David]

Lightning cables.

[Andrew]

The trackpads.

[Marques]

Yeah, I'll throw those out too.

[Andrew]

Also.

[Adam]

Also, that's lightning. Oh yeah.

[Marques]

All right.

[David]

I would say that I agree with it. I'm not sure that it's super hot, but I do agree with it.

[Marques]

I think it's fair.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

All right. Another take From Ross Hancore 1 on Threads. We don't need a third camera in phones 90% of the time. Disagree. First of all, I think it's a cop out to say 90%. I think you can to own this hot take and be like we don't need a third camera, but okay. He says we don't need a third camera 90% of the time. Why do you disagree?

[David]

Cuz sometimes I need long, sometimes I

[Marques]

need wide, sometimes I need regular 90% of the time. Do you need all three yeah, I think so.

[Andrew]

Marquez, commit on your.

[Harper]

Yeah, I think I agree with this

[Adam]

take ON I. Yeah, Mr. Zoom Lens,

[Marques]

I would say the 90% is pretty accurate. I was. I, I also recently, by the time you watch this, was working on my what's on my phone video and I'm a two phone person. On my right pocket I have my main phone, it's an Android phone. And on my left pocket I have my secondary phone. It's an iPhone. And for months I've been trying to make the iPhone air my secondary phone.

[David]

Really?

[Marques]

Months I've been trying to do this. And the two things that always hold it back are the camera and the battery. I can overcome the battery because I'm manning the other phone. I can't overcome the lack of an ultra wide and a telephoto. I just can't. You can't. It's impossible. And the OnePlus 15 on maining also has a pretty bad camera. So I'm just without good cameras and it's just too much for me.

[David]

You're apparently not alone because the reason that they are shifting production away from the iPhone air is because the lack of the second camera is making people not want to buy it. Yeah, I think more than the battery.

[Harper]

Wait, I thought you got nine cameras with the iPhone air.

[Marques]

You've got the equivalent of 27 focal length. Yeah.

[Andrew]

All anecdotally fight points back. I was so excited that the Pixel 10. Right. The base versions have three cameras now because they haven't. Every time I take a zoom or an ultra wide picture, I hate it.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[David]

I mean, it's bad.

[Andrew]

It's just so bad.

[Marques]

But if you didn't have those cameras, wouldn't you be more mad?

[Andrew]

I think I would be upset that I don't have them because I wouldn't be able to take the picture and then realize I'm never going to use that for anything or really look at it.

[Marques]

Every time you zoom and it's like, dang, this is not that good of a zoom photo. If you didn't have of that zoom camera and you zoomed, it would be an even worse zoom photo and you'd be more mad.

[Harper]

Unless you give me a good zoom lens because you got rid of the third lens.

[Marques]

So you just want two?

[Harper]

Just give me two.

[Marques]

No Ultra wides.

[Harper]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

Who needs two Zoom, as you're saying.

[Harper]

And ultra wide is just for fun.

[Marques]

You know what's funny? There's like a generation where I think that totally changed. I saw a. I think it was an Instagram Reel. But it was probably a TikTok where there's a kid holding his phone and then there's a photographer who's doing like this really high end sports photography.

[David]

I saw that too.

[Marques]

And the kid goes, yo, switch it to 0.5x. And the guy, 70 to 200. And he's like, no, I can't. What are you talking about? And he's like, man, there's no point five. This thing sucks. And he's like, this is, I can't, I can't talk to you.

[David]

I mean, if he was at 140mil and he could just switch it back 70 and say it was 0.5.

[Harper]

Yeah, I like the ultra wide. It is a fun lens. But as far as like the one that I need every day, I need a regular lens just to like, quick take a, take a picture. And then I need a good zoom lens lens so you can see things from far away even if it's not a good picture.

[Marques]

Just like for memory.

[Harper]

Yeah. As a tool, like, I need the lens.

[David]

In my opinion, the 0.5x is the wor. The most pointless camera.

[Marques]

I, I have two very, I have two specific thoughts. I think anytime I'm trying to take a good photo, I definitely get them out of the zoom way more than the ultra wide. But anytime I'm trying to, like, functionally, like, take an ultra wide because it, I need it for this photo. It's never about the quality of the photo, but I, I, that's when I need an ultra wide. I can't fake an ultra wide. Like I can with a zoom.

[David]

Right.

[Adam]

So, yeah, ultra wide is objectively hilarious. On the iPhone.

[David]

It is bad.

[Adam]

I want them to make a 0.2 camera. Like, like, why stop?

[David]

Yeah, you just put it, just put an insta.360.360 cam, yeah,360 cam, yeah.

[Marques]

So anyway, all right. I think this is a reasonable take. It's not particularly hot. I think we all kind of agree with it. But if they'd gone all in and said we don't need need three cameras, that would have been pretty spicy.

[Andrew]

True.

[Marques]

All right, next take. Dennis on Threads says wireless charging is overrated.

[David]

You still on that? I can't believe we still talking about this.

[Harper]

Because it's right.

[David]

It's not right. Wireless charging 100 is incredible.

[Harper]

It's awesome. It's overrated is the specific quote.

[Andrew]

I don't think anyone underrated. I agree with you.

[David]

Yeah.

[Adam]

I will defend this take.

[David]

I love losing heat.

[Andrew]

You'll defend this thing?

[Adam]

I recently, I love I love overheating.

[David]

Spending 45 watts to get 27.

[Adam]

I recently received as part of my employment at this job a channel Channel sponsor Channel partner Ridge Portable battery Bank.

[David]

Pretty incredible.

[Adam]

Which because of my phone, never leaves my side. In fact, it is, it is, it is glommed onto the side of my phone like a remora.

[David]

Nice.

[Andrew]

I just love that your iPhone mini has to live with something twice the size of it all the time.

[Adam]

It literally looks like a barnacle. It's so funny. That being said, now that I'm charging my phone all the time, I have seen how inefficient wireless charging is because I can either choose the. The wireless charger or the built in lightning cable.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Adam]

And I thought I was like, oh yeah, it's just like a little less efficient, you know? No, like I can, I can. It's the difference between I'm going to get these numbers wrong. But it feels like the difference between being able to charge my phone twice, like dead to full on the. The wireless versus like six or seven times with the lightning cable. And I. It's like now it got to the point where I actually feel bad when I charge my phone wirelessly like that because I'm like, I'm just. I'm wasting this battery. I'm wasting this lithium. I'm wasting electricity.

[Harper]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

I'll counterpoint two things to that.

[David]

Yes.

[Andrew]

One, your phone sucks. Like, why are we comparing it to a phone that dies four times in a single day? That of course it's not going to be beneficial for that.

[David]

Got it.

[Andrew]

Two, I don't think anyone is wireless charging for efficiency.

[David]

It's.

[Andrew]

It just becomes the placeholder on a desk or a nightstand. It is a thing to just rest a phone on and happens to be charging.

[David]

Yes.

[Andrew]

And at any point I can just pick it up or put it down without having to undo a wire that is now hanging on my desk. Or it's. And falls underneath the bed, falls behind in all my cables.

[David]

Like, like I have one of those mats on my desk at home that has the wireless charger built in. And like while I'm working at my computer, I just have my phone on it and it just happens to be charging it. Otherwise I'd be just be sitting there. Right. And yes, I could like, I guess get a cable and do that.

[Marques]

God forbid.

[Andrew]

No, this is my thing. This is my other thing that Ellis didn't say. But the most. Sorry. I'm amped up about this one. I think it comes from like four trivia extravaganzas. Ago where it was like, like what's things you need in a phone? And wireless charging wasn't on it. And I'm still salty about it. But everyone's always like, it just takes one second to plug a phone. It's like we are in the tech space where literally every single thing we do is to shave milliseconds off of things. I'm sure the person saying you can just plug it in also bought a 5090 so they can play old school runescape like we are at a level of.

[Adam]

I am also the person that said recently that the. The best product Apple has released in the last five years. No standby mode, which is part of MagSafe, which is. Yeah. Which is a wireless charging feature. So I get that I'm being a little hypocritical. I mean but I. I think overrated is acceptable.

[Andrew]

I just don't think that many people rate it.

[David]

I think a lot of people underrate it. People like to hate on it.

[Andrew]

I overrate the. Out of it maybe.

[Harper]

But people rate it because when a phone comes out that doesn't have wireless charging, it's like a knock on.

[Marques]

That's. That's the main thing. I think I'm hypothesizing that this person who is saying wireless charging is overrated does not have or use wireless charging.

[Andrew]

Agree.

[Marques]

And I think once you have the convenience of wireless charging and then you get rid of it, then you're like, ah, I actually really like wireless charging. But if you never have wireless charging, you look over at the other side of the fence and you're like, just plug it in, bro. It's overrated. Yeah. That's my hypothesis of about this.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Anyway.

[David]

On my bedside table, I love when I officially stop doom scrolling and go to sleep four hours after I was meant to. I can just like lean over and drop it and then fall asleep instead of like, where's the wire? It's over here.

[Marques]

Well, you need the magnets to line up.

[David]

Yeah. But it's Magsafe, so just slap.

[Marques]

That's.

[Andrew]

That's why MagSafe is awesome. Because then you never have the.

[David]

How do they work?

[Marques]

Takes me away. When I put this phone on the charger, I go.

[Andrew]

I mean that there is a case. Right. That has chi ready.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[David]

It's a pain.

[Marques]

It's a. It's.

[David]

And your house shakes a little bit.

[Harper]

Yes.

[Marques]

And then I wake up and it's 50.

[Andrew]

That is old one.

[David]

If that was the case, then yeah, maybe it's overrated.

[Marques]

Fair Enough. All right, all right. This one might age some of us a little bit. Once SA on Threads says, AI is just Silicon Valley's Labubu.

[David]

I don't even know what that's supposed to mean.

[Marques]

It's a weird new sentence that I keep saying. AI is just Silicon Valley's labubu.

[David]

What is.

[Marques]

Can someone explain what a labubu is? And like, $3,000 little doll?

[Andrew]

It's.

[Adam]

Do you know what Popmart is?

[Marques]

No.

[Adam]

Okay, so Popmart is this company in China that sells toys. Toys that are primarily delivered via blind boxes. So you buy a box. Oh, it's gambling which one it is.

[David]

Okay.

[Adam]

The Booboo. And it's. It's very big in China. It's very big all over Korea.

[David]

Right.

[Adam]

I don't think.

[David]

I thought it was like, more most popular in Korea.

[Adam]

No, it's definitely most popular in China. But there is a K pop group called Blackpink. They're not. It's their K Pop, right?

[David]

Yeah.

[Adam]

Demon hunters called Blackpink and Lisa, one of the members of that group, I think publicly had a labubu, which helped kick off the whole thing. But I'm not an expert in any of this stuff. But yeah. So Pop Mart is a big Chinese toy company. They sell lots of different lines of toys that are primarily delivered via blind boxes. Labubus are the ones that have taken off internationally.

[Harper]

Thank you, Ellis, our K Pop correspondent.

[Andrew]

I can't wait for the comment. That's like, it's just so painful hearing these guys try and talk about Labubu,

[David]

who, based on an artist who grew up with Nordic fairy tales and made some fairy tale books that look like Labubus. That's what they're based on.

[Harper]

So how does this relate to AI?

[Marques]

I was just going to say my only connection that I'm drawing is these are extremely trendy. And maybe AI is extremely trendy.

[Adam]

That is what they're going with. I. I would. I'll do. I'll take it in a different direction. The boo boos primarily come in blind boxes. And a blind box is an experience where you put lots of money into something and then you don't know if it's going to pay off.

[Marques]

Damn.

[Adam]

And by that logic, I would say. I would say AI guy is definitely the Labubu of tech.

[David]

Everything is gambling.

[Marques]

I have another parallel that Labo boos to those not in that world look pretty silly. And I'll be honest. So does talking to a chatbot to a lot of people who are not in this world. I I rest my case.

[David]

You're absolutely right.

[Adam]

My girlfriend is having trouble doing this like complicated Microsoft Word formatting thing. And I was like, do you want to ask my Claude? And she shot daggers at me.

[David]

My cloud.

[Marques]

Yeah, I think this is a wonderful analogy encapsulation. And perhaps not a hot take at all. Reasonable take.

[Andrew]

All right, I'll do one more. Camera control is actually very useful.

[Marques]

Very useful.

[David]

It's the most annoying feature Apple has put out in a long time. I use it to open the camera. That is it.

[Harper]

That makes it useful. That was exactly what I was going to say.

[David]

That's what I was going to say. You could long press on your screen. You could.

[Harper]

But how often do you do that?

[David]

Well, not now because I have camera cut.

[Andrew]

Exactly.

[Marques]

So you're saying you use it.

[David]

I mean making it. I would prefer this was a touch id.

[Andrew]

Wait, hold on.

[David]

What are button.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it would. That'd be a weird place for it. But what are your two long presses on your home screen?

[David]

Right now it's flashlight and Gemini voice mode.

[Marques]

Those are also mine too.

[Andrew]

So it's not camera anymore.

[David]

I could get rid of the flashlight or I could. Or you could do the pixel twist.

[Marques]

You know, camera control also. Okay. So you use it to open it. The camera is open, but once you've opened it. Do you ever use camera control? No. Then it just slide tone. All it ever does is interrupt things. Yeah.

[David]

Accidentally. And then I'm like, oh, 2.3x. Horrible image quality. Yeah, that's what I want.

[Harper]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

It sounds like if it was just a button, you would be okay with it. Not a camera button, not a capacity.

[David]

I just want it to be touch id. That's all I wanted to.

[Marques]

I think this person made it a great flaming hot take by calling it camera control. But really all we find useful is the ability to open the camera quickly once you open it. The rest of the camera control features are kind of annoying. They're just in the way.

[David]

I think that a lot of smartphone companies have made like a million ways to open your camera faster.

[Marques]

Well, so for the longest time you just double press your power button. On like 90, 97% of Android phones, double press power button would open always.

[David]

There used to be the iPhone has double tap.

[Marques]

The double tap accessibility. Is that still a thing?

[David]

It's still a thing.

[Harper]

It doesn't work for me though. It's so hit or miss it.

[Marques]

It's kind of finicky. But then there would be Android phones where they would add a specific camera button that would also Be a shutter button. Like Sony phones did this for a little bit. I think an LG phone had a custom like a G5 or something back in the day. So there would be like a hardware button to open the camera, which is cool if you take a lot of pictures.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Nowadays it's like I kind of still just double tap my power button on most Android phones. And then on the iPhone, the action button came along a few years ago and that's what I would map it to open my camera.

[David]

Oh yeah, action button.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Marques]

What the heck?

[David]

There's so many buttons. Yeah, you don't need this button. Yeah.

[Marques]

But now it's not a button, it's camera control. My action button is one thing. My camera control button is the camera. My two shortcuts on the home screen are two different things. I have my flashlight, so I got all kinds of customization going on. Maybe we're back to the customization. Customization.

[Andrew]

As a non iPhone user who's never used camera control, I think we have one piece of evidence from someone who knows quite a bit about iPhones of how useful camera control is and that is Apple. Because it seems like they've completely forgotten about camera control.

[Marques]

Also true.

[Andrew]

They didn't even mention it a single time in the last.

[Harper]

It's because they just one shotted it right out the gate.

[Marques]

You know, it's the best indicator that it's not very useful. Oppo and the Find X9 Pro Pro didn't copy it did a perfect clone of camera control on their phone and nobody talks about it or cares because nobody uses it because it's not that useful.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Because you can still double tap the camera button or double tap the power button to open the camera.

[Harper]

What would it have to do to become useful? Like what would make you be like, okay, now this is cool.

[Andrew]

Not be annoying is what it sounds like.

[Marques]

It would have to have more functionality like granular. Not granular. I don't know what the word is. But like when I swap swipe and it goes from 0x to 2.2x or whatever, that's annoying to me. If I could have more, fine, control over, just boop, notch me over to 2x. Notch me to 4x. If that worked better.

[Harper]

Yeah.

[Marques]

I would be happier and probably use it a little bit more.

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

But I think it's too late to save itself. I think I just use this screen because it's a huge, beautiful screen. Why would I not use the screen?

[David]

Yeah.

[Marques]

Decent take.

[Andrew]

Wait, is it?

[Marques]

Well, because.

[Andrew]

Well, it's hot. Because no one agrees with it.

[Marques]

Exactly. Yeah, it's hot because no one agrees with it. But it's decent because we actually all used to open the camera, so it's arguably useful.

[David]

Yeah, we just make it a regular button, not a capacitive. Whatever the heck.

[Marques]

That's what we really want. Cool. Okay. Well, that was it. Trivia.

[David]

Trivia.

[Adam]

Dude, I don't want to argue about this, but I saw a really funny hot take on Twitter Twitter this weekend where a bunch of people talking about nuclear energy and how silly it is that nuclear energy is just a new way to boil water. And the hot take was that it's crazy that humanity essentially one shotted the best way to generate electricity in the 1700s, and we've just been figuring out slightly better ways to do it since then. Guys, trivia. As I open the trivia document.

[David]

1700s.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Adam]

The industrial Revolution.

[David]

Oh yeah.

[Andrew]

Dust.

[Adam]

Steam engines. Engine.

[David]

The steam engine.

[Adam]

Gabe Newell's been cooking for a long time.

[Andrew]

True.

[Harper]

No one.

[David]

Now I got a steam. And he bought the. The cruise ship. I mean the. The. The yacht company.

[Adam]

Guys.

[Marques]

Yeah.

[Adam]

In 1994, if you wanted to go to Comp Comp USA and buy an Apple perform a 630 CD with a 14 inch monitor and an HP inkjet printer on a Black Friday Friday deal. How much would all that cost? And you have to let me know if you're giving this in $1994 or September $2025.

[David]

I don't have a pen.

[Adam]

Does anyone know why September 2025 is the last year there's inflation data available?

[David]

Because they decided to just pretty weird. It doesn't exist. Pretty.

[Adam]

Pretty interesting, huh?

[Andrew]

Wait, September 2025.

[Adam]

September 2025. Right before October 2025. 5. Pretty weird.

[Andrew]

Assume the website's not updated well enough.

[David]

Oh, cuz the government shut down.

[Adam]

Probably cuz I was trying to be cheeky and. And infer.

[David]

Wow.

[Adam]

Read them. Wait, I never said. I guess we're doing Delta because I never said prices right rules. Did anyone think we were doing prices right rules? Just in the interest of fairness, I think I.

[Andrew]

Not even when we're doing prices right, I go Delta anyways because I want to be dead on. We're.

[Adam]

We're doing Delta. It's slightly complicated math, but someone read me answer.

[David]

I wrote 2525. $2025. September.

[Adam]

And you wrote 3000.

[David]

3000.

[Adam]

Okay, cool.

[Andrew]

In $1994. 700.

[Marques]

And I put in $1994. $294.

[Adam]

And the winner is Andrew Manganelli by about $100 off from David. It was $2,000 in $1994. You were 1300 off. Oh, and it was. Wait, it was 30 or excuse me, $4,340 in today.

[David]

Close.

[Adam]

Which was 1430 off for. Yeah, you beat David.

[Andrew]

What's the inflation on the delta?

[David]

Yeah, that's.

[Andrew]

I mean, you shouldn't have to do that. I should get the point. But yeah, the smarter move was to guess the 1994 price because the money, smaller, smaller delta away from it.

[Marques]

That's where my head was at.

[Adam]

Strat, good.

[Andrew]

Strat, good.

[Harper]

Strat that quick update on the score mark has with 10.

[Andrew]

Oh, nice.

[Harper]

Andrew with 12 after that correct point.

[David]

Nice.

[Harper]

David with nine.

[David]

I'm catching up.

[Andrew]

I know, embarrassing.

[Marques]

I got passed.

[Harper]

Ooh, it'd be a shame somewhere to happen to those points. All right, Aluminum, what's the atomic number?

[Andrew]

Go.

[Marques]

Ah,

[Harper]

just visualize the periodic table. Where do you think it is?

[Marques]

Aluminum.

[Harper]

Aluminium.

[David]

Aluminium.

[Andrew]

The periodic table is in alphabetical order, right?

[Harper]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why it's periodic.

[Adam]

Do you guys want to hear a fun waveform fact?

[David]

Sure.

[Andrew]

Is this closest delta?

[Marques]

Is this closest?

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Harper]

Yeah.

[David]

What?

[Adam]

Yeah. Did you know that the Waveform podcast has 0.8 mics per host?

[David]

Wow, that's pretty fun.

[Harper]

All right, flip them and read. What do we got?

[Marques]

They're all exactly even from each other.

[Andrew]

My goal is to not name a number that's not on the periodic table.

[David]

So we are actually periodic. Yeah, because I put 12.

[Marques]

Okay, I put 16.

[Harper]

Uhhuh.

[Andrew]

Mine's not periodic.

[David]

No, we are periodic.

[Andrew]

What's your number?

[David]

Cuz we're periodic with a. A delta of 4 between us.

[Andrew]

2020.

[Harper]

The correct answer is 13, so the closest is David. David gets the point.

[Marques]

I'm not visualized very well.

[David]

What is 12 to be?

[Adam]

Magnesium is 12.

[Marques]

Well, anyway, that's been it for this week and all of our hot takes and air dropping various files between Android phones and Macs and iPhones. It's been a really good time. Let us know what you think in the comments. But of course, make sure you're one of the people who subscribe before we get to 500,000. It's very important that you do this because once you get to 500,000, the door shuts. No more subscribers is what I heard. So. So make sure you get in now. And I believe it's free as of Black Friday, so appreciate you. Thanks for watching. Catch you guys in the next one. Peace.

[Andrew]

Happy Thanksgiving. Oh, that happened already happened.

[David]

If you're in America, Leave it in

[Andrew]

Waveform by Adam Molina and Ellis Roven. We're partnered with Vox Media Podcast Network and our TR outro music is created by Vane Sil. Bingo.

[Adam]

If you don't like and subscribe, I'll never get back to the producer's table.

[Harper]

Do it.