AirPods are good for your (hearing) health
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Welcome to the verge cast the flagship podcast of decades of listening to music too loud in your headphones. I'm a friend, David piers, and I am sitting here at my computer doing what I call a feeds reboot. I think i've talked about the sun, the show before, basically once a year, I try to go through and just take all the stuff out of every single feed or a thing that I subscribe to on the internet.

And I define that super loosely. So I try to go through all the people I follow on every social platform. I go through all the email news letters I subscribe to.

I go through all the email news letter I never subscribed to, but i'm somehow on the list for all the channels I follow on youtube, all the podcast I subscribe you anything that just puts an ongoing list of stuff in front of me at any given time once a year, I try to go through at all, look at every single source that stuff is coming from and get rid of all the stuff I don't want anymore. Over the course of a year, you just become like a different person with different interests. And a lot of the sources you care about get Better or worse or more relevant or less relevant.

And once a year to just go through the whole list is really helpful. It's super boring, Frankly, and kind of T, D, S, because most of these platforms don't make IT easy to go through and sort of systematically unfolding things. But it's so helpful. I cannot recommend IT enough.

I tried to like put on a movie i've seen before or just a bunch of episodes of the office in row, or when the weather is, I go, like at a coffee shop and just over the course of an afternoon burn through all of the feeds that I have. I find this actually most useful in our access reader, where there's tons of things that like change a bunch or published too much or published not enough for go out of business or whatever. And going through doing a full reset of all the stuff that is being pushed me is so helpful.

Highly recommend IT. Again, not a lot of fun, but totally worth IT. Anyway, one thing you should not unsubscribe to, by the way, is the verge cast is a very good podcast.

I hope we're doing our best and we have a super fun share coming up today. Actually, we're going to talk about two things. First, we're going to talk about smart rings because I think smart rings are really interesting.

And this has been, in a certain way, kind of the year of the smart ring. We've got ten a bunch of new entrance. We've gotten new models from some of the companies have been doing this a while. This song has tested everything there is to test and has some thoughts. We're going to talk about IT.

We're also gona talk about the hearing health features on the new airports pro two, which I think you are actually pretty cool and exciting but are also big promises from a company like apple promising that your airpower ds connect as a hearing a and really make a difference in how you hear and Operate in the world. If that of works is awesome and there should be more like IT, but we're going to see if that works. Chris well has been testing IT.

He knows the answer. We also have a really fun question on the verge. Cast hot line, so much stuff to do.

But first I have to finish this feed. good. I Normally do IT in the summer, but this year just couldn't make myself sit down and do IT.

And now i'm doing IT. I mean, IT, i'm getting IT done. It's gonna awesome. This is the verge cast.

We'll be right back. Support for this podcast comes from anthropic. It's not always easy to harness the power and potential of A I for all the talk around its revolutionary potential. A lot of AI systems feel like they are designed for specific tasks performed to be a select few or claud by anthropic is A I for everyone. The latest model clad three point five sonet offers ground breaking intelligence at an everyday Price. Claude sonet can generate code, help with writing and reason through hard problems Better than any model before you can discover how claude can transform your business at anthropy c dot com slash plod.

Welcome back, right? My podcast have been pruned. The R, S, S, reader is just humming.

Everything is great. Let's get into IT. So the first thing we're going to talk about today is smart ring. I don't wear a smart ring, but I am fascinated by them because for years now, they have been this really interesting device, kind of trying to figure out what is for you. Wear IT on your finger, which gives you access to some really interesting biometric data.

You also typically wear IT all the time because it's a ring and is unobtrusive, and you just can wear IT all the time. So in theory, IT has access to all this interesting information about you and the ability to do all kinds of interesting stuff. But it's a tiny added with a tiny battery and not that much literal, physical room to do stuff.

So how do you make a smart ring that's good? And what does that even mean to make one that's good? Like I said, I don't wear a smart ring, but the song does.

He actually were six, like for months to do a test to see what the best one is. And I want to ever on both to see what he learned and whether he figured out what a smart ring is really for. So that just get into IT.

V hello.

thanks for me. Gadgets.

so many gadget.

We just we talk about watches, we talk about rings, we talk about things on your face. This is just what we do. You wear things and look ridiculous in public. And then I ask you about that.

this our lives yeah, this is, you know, it's a burden and i'm willing to take. So no one else has to look stupid.

Beauty appreciate. So the the thing I mostly want to talk about, I confess, is the new orring, uh, a device I have been fascinated by for a very long time and both think is very interesting and not nearly as interesting as IT should be. But we're going to get to that uh first I think I wants to talk about this this battle real of smart rings that you did ah and put yourself through some true like a summers s worth of pain in order to pull up so first, just like lavis stakes of this experiment for me because I think to some extent, like most people, even most people listening to this have never given one second of thought to a smart ring in their whole lives. So very curious like how you go through the process of picking the best one and wearing six of them at a time.

Yeah, so I decided that I was gone to wear six smart rings all at the same time for about, I want to say, two two and a half three months, uh, earlier this summer .

with six fingers, by the way.

No, no punky, no thumb, because those are, you know, two extremes are .

so just the middle .

three CS. I, I, I was a smart .

ring movie.

I love solid. Three months ended up with six ring towns over the summer, despite all my best efforts at sunscreen. Ah IT just happened.

You must look like you had some like unknown disease just to have set brain tense.

They're somewhat faded now because, uh, the experiment is over. I declared the winner. But yes, so, you know, IT, this idea actually popped into my had a few months before the summer because I knew that the samsung's axy ring was coming and that in order to review that, I needed to know about the entire landscape.

But you know, I didn't want to subject all of our readers to a bunch of little smart ring reviews as I was testing stuff. So what I ended up doing was taking a look at the market. What was currently available was coming out. And I decided, let's do this, got to lit. Or I test all of them at the same time and tell you which is the best at being a smart ring.

Can I tell you what's interesting about that to me, by the way? And this is, are just i'm just diving into the results before I even let you finish your question. But the thing that was so striking to me is that a, there were six of these, which I would not have guess that there were like six actual viable competitors here.

And uh, how much the same all six of these are in sort of what they are and what they are trying to be like? God help you having to review this six times though. It's it's like I feel for the people who have to like review the the five hundred dollar android phones because they're just all the same.

And and at some point, it's really helpful to be like, okay, these are basically all the same. Let's run through the like, narrow ways in which they are different. But even just reading through the thing, I surprise that have few sort of differences in ideas. These six things had.

yes. So when smart rings first were a thing, like ten years ago or so, there were a lot of ideas as to what a smart ring could be. You had something like bringing and motive.

Ringing was just a big fashion thing that didn't do too much, very unobtrusive, but just really there for people who wanted something fashionable that could also track of. And he had motive, which had some really big ideas about two factor authentication in a smart ring and tracking on top of that. At some point before they shut red, they were like, we're onna be able to authentick ate you based on your gate.

So there are a lot of weird, interesting ideas, but the one ring that survived that first iteration of smart rings was the all ring and said the second class batch of that had came after IT in many ways they're just trying to do what the ora ring got successful at with a twist right? Um so that's what I came up against uh, with a lot of these competitors. I too was surprised uh, at C E S this year when I went, I went, oh my god, why are there like a half a dozen smart rings out there? Ah I guess this popped up and has been a thing.

Okay, cool, I guess. And then you know the really big empathy was some sung coming out, but where going? Like, hey, we're getting in on smart rings.

And so I found myself in a situation where IT was okay. We got to do a deep dive into this and sea because samsung, big samsung. So I was like if they were successful in smart rings, you know, that had an opportunity to get other big tech to maybe copy them. So um that that was the whole thought process behind IT and IT was IT was real fun to just go through all of them and oh, you have ideas but they are not even a quarter bit. Forget half baked, you are you know if you watch great british uh back off and paw hollywood .

girls and he that there .

were some there were some rings that were all this. This is extremely underdone. IT was the circular ring slim that was my least favorite of the bunch.

IT just did not do what was supposed to do. IT felt really keep on the finger. They have since reached out to me since I wrote this, and they, like we addressed some of the issues and which .

is the story we hear all the time and is often not the case yeah .

often not the case. But with one of the things they said they addressed, uh, was the fact that this this was the only smarter ing that had a haptic motor in IT. So I had high hopes because it's a smart ring that has ideas about what the smart part, a smart ring should be. Uh, that have the alarm was just the nightmare because you had to tap above a very imperceptible to see logo and I just ended up smacking my hand most morning's being very frustrated why this thing wouldn't stop boxing they said you can just top the ring anywhere now and it's fine and ah we'll say.

yeah I confess that is one use kiss I think to be very cool. I I honestly like the whole reason I where the apple watch to bed is to use IT as an alarm. I just think it's a nice of thing to wake up to, especially when you sleep next to someone then having like a big loud alarm.

So the idea of being able to do on a ring and not have to wear the watch super interesting and exciting to me. Uh, also, neither of the options you just describe sound like good, useful, reliable ones. So remains in VC. Also, we've already talked too much about the circular slim, but notably neither circular nor slim.

Probably no. And is IT was the least comfortable of all of them. IT felt three printed. And that just was kind of, ha, not cool. I I was on read IT in some of the circular forms, and there were a lot of angry people on there just because there is just A A bunch of really cool ideas, but very underdone in terms of execution. So that was very easy to eliminate as like straight up from the gogo is like now you sorry.

you are not the best yeah the next one I think you probably had a harder time getting rid of if knowing the little that I knew about this research process, i'm guessing this is .

harder way yeah I really have enjoyed the E V ring. Um i've didn't talking to the company behind the movado for years because they just we're really gung. How about the F D, A clearance process? So that kind of sets them apart in terms of accuracy.

They had a very interesting idea in terms of design. IT hasn't open gap at the top, which I I will say one of the most frustrating things about smart rings as sizing h smart watches have bands you can address them is very easy to adjust them. Smart rings less so because it's on your finger, they're not adjustable ah there is a lot of tack and size.

You can get them resize. You just have to get the right size that fits you. And what most people don't realize is that you bloat. You have you have a lot of posa one night or the temperature rises you think are swell.

So you know I can be very hard to get these rings off, especially you know there you're supposed to wear smart rings on your index finger that's gonna the most uh, accurate but you know maybe that's just not in the cards for you. Maybe you want them to wear, uh be worn on the middle finger or the ring finger. So, you know, uh, just you can you can change the size that you need and you could gain weight.

You could lose weight. That will also change how to bring fits on you. Not so much of an issue with the evening because of their open gap.

Design is always very easy to take off. It's very comfortable to wear. I thought that was really clever.

Uh, IT looked so nice. I was so pretty. Um but it's it's the first gene product. And IT had some very first gene quirks and again, this going to be a theme with some of the the rings on this list.

They have gone and they said we have addressed some of eat back since the first run um so yet we'll see how that how that goes going on. But you know I really love to the hardware design, but it's not just the hardware that matters. If you're using IT as a fitness tracker software, how that data presented you also matters. And there was just some corks here that I am hoping will get smooth over in uh, second iteration.

Yeah agree you I think my my only grape with this part of your peace was that I think you, if anything, undersold how much Better looking I think it's than every other one of the competition like IT really is. You could put the six of them next to each other. That would be the other five in one bucket. And then this one on IT on right that is IT is a full like order of magnitude more stylish and attractive than the others.

Uh, so like kudo, that doesn't get you anywhere like you know that that the nico by you a cook but uh is is that a cool, interesting start, right? And you ran into one of my favorite about first change products, which is uh my pet theory forever has been that if you make a product and it's hard to update the firm where your product probably sucks, it's just it's a real like the the tiny details that matter, right? Like if you haven't fixed that, there are probably other things that you haven't paid attention to.

And uh, this is one of those things. But IT gives me great hope that there are a lot of things that E V can go get right that are easier than making nice looking hardware. And if that does those things.

that could be very problem. I I have have a bit of faith in the company because i've talked to their C E O bunch of times, and this is a dude who is very well versed in the medical space and what IT takes to make A F, D, A cleared product. So I, I, I generally give that a lot of credit because IT takes a certain level of dedication and resources to go that out to begin with.

So you know, I I wanted to give them a little more, yeah, cut them some slack. But you know, this is about a royal. We can't be too nice. So they unfortunately were kicked out second. Ah yeah .

we're going to skip over the next one, which is the ring con because you barely even talk to about IT. This thing is thread fine. Who cares? Moving on.

So this thing is five. Who cares? Moving on. Uh, the next one was the galaxy ring.

Um I was, I would have guest, probably those first three would have been the first three you would have gotten rid of. This was the first one that surprised me that I went here. Tell me why. Yeah.

the harder is great. I think that actually has the best hardware. Is the slimiest the most comfortable to wear a besides the evening? But you know what i'm saying and at the time, and have the largest size range? H and no longer does.

But IT just doesn't stand alone. The thing about the galaxy ring on its own is that IT doesn't do a whole lot. Its a fitness trucker in OK fitness trucker, the battery life will be Better if you get IT with a galaxy watch because he does like some smart sensor trade office to like which ones going be more accurate. And that bore out in my testing.

which is super cool, by the way, like cool as an ecosystem player, actually think that's really cover. But IT does like if you if you're narrowing IT down to only people have send sung phones and narrow ing IT down again to only people who have galaxy watches. You've like the number of people who get the best version of this .

product is just very small. It's very small. And then if you .

have the newest a ton of money.

if you have the newest smart a samsung n galaxy flip sex or the fold sex, you know you can also use IT as a pinching pinch gesture control for certain things on the phone. And that's something they're interested in expanding. Very cool idea.

Awesome in terms of ecosystem play, if you, you know can stomach ecosystems as as a thing that we are being locked into. But okay, so you're going to buy the the old six. You're gonna a galaxy watch on top of that, and you're gonna buy a smart ring.

There is no discount bundle getting all three of those things together. You are spending over two thousand dollars at this point, close to three thousand dollars. Uh, doesn't matter if there is no subscription because you've just paid samsung three thousand dollars to get the full benefit range of the samsung galaxy ring.

And then also, IT is very much tied to the android ecosystem only. So you know, i'm sure I got so many angry samsung people by eliminating IT this early. And don't get me wrong, it's a great little ring. I love the little charging case. I think the hardware is really excEllent, but you shouldn't have to pay three thousand dollars to get the full range of what you can do is full to unlock its full potential like in some ways, weight that cost versus subscription yeah, they don't have to charge you a substitution if you're wearying to pay three thousand dollars to get everything.

Yeah, I think to me, it's just a totally different way of thinking about a smart ring. And it's not really wrong. It's just really different, right? Like this is a thing you buy after you have bought those other devices. Uh the the ring is not the entry point into samsung ecosystem.

I onna go buy these other devices because you want the galaxy ring and if you ready have those other devices kick as I think there there's a decent chance this is the best choice if if you're like, i'm coming to this shoot yes, I already these two devices, I think the galaxy is probably wins or at least comes close. Uh, but that's not most people. You you're not and you shouldn't make those other choices just to get a smart ring.

Yes, also not most people looking for a smart ring like the people looking for a smart ring is a very kind of ah they're a defined set of people. I would say a lot of them are people who just don't like smart watches. So immediately your your kind of losing that benefit of like using IT with a smart watch and a lot of times they you know an interesting tip that that or I told me, but their user bases majority female now.

So they started out the company where you know the majority man and majority women. So I think a lot of women who just don't want to wear these bulky smart watches, who don't who want something a little more sleep or more understated, they they are the ones who are really kind of pushing the smart ring as as a farm factor forward. Like if you look at smart ring ads on social media, because lord does I got served of zilia smart ing ads on my curse algorithm, it's all women.

It's all women really kind of pushing the orring forward. So you know, I think in terms of people looking for that, samsung, great. But you know that ecosystem play is kind of their greatest strength and their greatest weakness. At the same time, it's very interesting to .

see how that i'll play out. Yeah, I told. So that leaves us with two speaking, the oral.

And we have the the ultra human ring air, stupid name. And we have the oral ring three. Which one came in second place?

IT was the ultra human ring air because .

of the stupid name?

No, it's not because it's a stupid name is because .

it's like way to focus on training and .

it's it's like close to the older human ring and that's gonna be a plus for some people yeah, but for others, I think it's just kind of too quartered. It's too much. It's I thought IT was really interesting because it'll tell you here's your coffee window and here are the drinks that you can drink during the day.

Here is like a little like a widget plugin that you can use if you want sun exposure and just very hyper focused on optimizing and A I believe there are a ton of people who would love that. I I enjoyed IT quite a bit. I like IT a lot. But uh, I also felt that I was just a little hyper focused on that aspect of IT verses, the orring, which is a little more holistic.

So if you look at um something that's really specialized versus something that is for everybody, I think something that's for everybody generally wins out, which at the end of the day, that's why I picked the ring over the alter human ring air, even though that name is a mouthful. IT was IT was quite a nice ring. I really like IT.

What pained me actually about those two paying the winners is that those two are the ones that use docks for charging. And I really like a charging case for a smart ring. So IT paints me that we have to give dogs of primacy. But IT just boils down to the ring .

itself over the two. The only one of those two that i've had is the moring and the number of times that its little duck has just slid off my bed table and fAllen onto the ground because it's not happy enough enough.

It's not great. But I great .

charging is like, you know do Better everybody, but that's not the the one of this and the Better is on all of them last long enough that like it's modify. So that means the ordering three was the winner. Yes, kind of boring outcome.

I'm not going to let you. That's not warning. It's like IT IT was like ora versus a bunch of ora imitators. And ori was rooting.

I just like if you can just imagine me as thanks with six rinking. I was rooting for all of you to dethrone or a to be quite friends. I do not want I did not want you to be the winner.

And there was there was a point rose, like should I give that to the ultra human? And just really my instinct was that, you know, it's little too training focus. If I had been a bit more holistic, then I would have happily given IT to the ultra human ring air. IT gets what also the name. And but I say one of the .

things that really struck me about this, I think this is where or a having been in this game this long, has been really useful because a lot of the things you just said about ultra human were true of, or in previous generations, that IT was really good at generating a lot of numbers and not that good at making any sense of IT or helping you in.

Sort of meaningful way unless you like really wanted to be somebody who was super intense back to sleep. And over time, they've just gotten Better IT like they they do more like wellness content. It's much more of like a thoughtful thing for how to live your life as suppose you just like a sleep score. And yeah, I think A A that's to our credit and b, that is just a thing that takes time. And so or has just been at this for so long now that I think IT has figured out how to turn all of that data and do something that makes sense to lots of people instead of just the like hustle brow body hackers who are serving some of these other bases.

Yeah so like one point i'm gona make is that we are now on an orring je or ring for they removed the je from the name and drives my O C D crazy. But so we're on the fourth generation of oring. Most of these other rings are on their first, maybe second or like and when we talk maybe second, literally just announce to make the second .

version of of the rings .

after the first one specially honest? yes. So so you know that is very hard to kind of discount experience and all of this, uh, thinking was a big issue for some of these competitors. IT took a while like again with the circular I I rage quit several times because I just would not think or a good .

at for more updates now good .

at for more updates now IT does not take a lot to think um and or ring when you open the ape like oh, it's shiny and polished. There's no like pinnaces ss with IT all the other ones there. There's a bit of there's a little bit of a lack of polis is very either basic and some people just want to care about that.

And that's fine. I'm just saying you can tell there's a difference when you open up the APP and its smooth and there's no gittern ss or there's no crashing or you know that doesn't take forever to find a connection with the rain even though they're all just using blue tooth, it's not that hard. So you know there's just a uh, degree of polish there that I can very confidently say after spending several mornings waiting for all of these things to sink uh that I can say that the oral was the best of IT yeah yeah.

that makes lot of sense. So the oral wins and then immediately, just to flex on them, they drop a new version to gennifer or a three one this, this shoot out, and then they drop for what's new in the four.

So the four goes to an alkali tinian design. And for most people, what you're gonna notice is that the inside of the ring is flat. There is no like sensor bump.

The ordering had three little bombs on the inside, and that was there for a reason that inside was a proxy. And the proxy is a type of reason where IT defuses light. In a specific way, I can get a little bit messy.

So you really want the sensors have a good skin contact in that case to kind of mitigate that kind of factor. Um also, rings will rotate during the day. Ideally, you want the sensors to be on the underside of your ring because that's gonna get at the best signal pathway to your blood and all that.

No sense. So what this new ring does is that IT recesses, the sensors, so is more comfortable. You know, when i'm bloated, this is a lot easier and less painful to take off.

And the genre was, do you appreciate that? Um and they have a new sensor algorithm, which you know they are just basically more than doubles the number of signal pathways that can be used. So if the ring is moving around on your finger, it's not gonna matter quite as much for accuracy, y and data collection.

So it's so my new it's very cool in terms is like an engineering perspective. Oh, IT also improves baty life. So very cool from like a oh, that's really nerdy.

That's awesome. I love this for the engineers but in terms of actually wearing IT, not a huge difference. Not a huge difference.

Yeah, that's fair. But I think there was a bunch of software like between the beginning of the three and the beginning of the four, also that home, the three. And again, I think this is very much two or as credit like the three is a much Better device than IT was when IT shipped, which is not always true uh, of these devices.

And the four gets all of that. And then a little more like the one I was excited about was the the sort of expanded activity tracking. Uh, yes, because for me, my problem with the all rings for a while, and granted it's been I I think the last one I war was like the very beginning of the three a, was that IT eventually got to a point where I was only sort of sporadic good at everything except sleep, which IT was very good at.

But I didn't care. I I just I have gotten to a point or sleep tracking just does nothing for me. I I know when I sleep. I know, and I don't like that pretty much. I got uh, but there was a lot of the like standalone activity tracking that IT wasn't very good at even then. And I think now IT seems like the the three and especially now the four are are pretty good at that actually that like as activity truckers that are pretty good.

they've expanded the automatic activity detection, which was a big thing because, like honey, smart watch, IT is so easy to manually start a activity on a smart ring. You have to take out your own, you have to open up the APP have to do the thing.

which is like honestly.

it's an on start for a lot of people. But now they've expanded its a forty activities uh and it's not just the warring for that's gonna a get that they're really not gate kept any of these software updates like IT might. So IT might take a bit to roll out to the three.

But you know, I asked ora and nothing is really gave kept software wise. It's just that this is like got the new sensing algorithm, so it's more accurate. But the only thing that's really true of the four versus the three. So not incentive to upgrade for people unless their batteries are shot.

Um but the automatic activity detection is, you know I don't track my walks on smart watches for a number of reasons but you know that was actually quite good at picking up when I had done the locks that includes GPS maps, IT includes the heart rate. So it's like all my little activity was I was still counted and I didn't have to worry about duplicate because I do track all of my runs on a watch and all of my track sessions on a watch. And those are just imported from, uh, the health A P.

I. So IT was very clean. IT was a very clean experience. Uh, I have yet to get housework counted, uh, in the ordering. So apparently i'm not cleaning .

cleaning with vigor.

Yeah, so we'll have to see. I would love to hear from people if it's catching their basketball all sessions or whatever. But i'm boring. I mostly run, walked and do strong training. So I D love to hear from other people how that worked out for them.

Well, I barely do that. You've got me on that. Uh but the reason ora is very happy to bring all of these new features, their old rings is uh because of the way ora makes money, which I would say cause a great amount consideration in our comments and in your email inbox after you published the the battery in particular, which is this subscription fee, I should probably just lay my cards on the table here and say, I don't think this is a problem and a six million a months subscription fee for something like this is fine.

It's fine if you don't want to have IT don't have IT like this is not I think if you're if if apple started to suddenly magically charge you another six dollars a month to have an iphone, I would have an issue with IT because that is like a thing. Everyone needs to live modern life. A smart ring is not that thing. Six dollars a month to make your three hundred and fifty dollar ring actually continue to be very good for as long as or I has done IT, I think it's fine. I'm going to get a lot of angry people.

That's just where you are going to get a lot of angry people. I have some sympathy because what basically you or a did a markets where they had what they did, that's what they did with the genre .

even though they did IT before .

markets, did IT markets. Just cats example, explain why people are mad.

Release all papers.

And so the gene, you had no subscription, they introduced with the giant three. So you had a thing that did not have a subscription that you've then added a subscribe to. And that is why ora has been catching street and has made people super angry about .

for so long that did that didn't use the money. So I I fully understand where .

people are coming from as to like why they were mad that or a has a subscription to begin with. On the other hand, I have to say that one time hardware sales does not keep the lites on for most companies, and IT really doesn't. When you have a company like ora, who is investing quite a lot and to research and development and science, that stuff is expensive to have peer reviewed studies on your device.

You know, just submitting to a journal, a peer review journal, that's like twenty five thousand dollars, that's a lot of money. And that's why you see a lot of dubious claims in the health tech space about algorithms, about all of the stuff they are. They don't have to do this really.

They don't have to test their algorithm against police annotation phy, which is the clinical gold standard. They don't have do any of this research. None of IT is required to just sell you a consumer grade device.

You're choosing to do IT and IT is expensive to do this. So in that sense, you are paying for that. You are paying for the science, you are paying for that degree of research.

Is that a good trade? I mean, or oro has won our contesting, you just give nine. Like is that is that the right trade off for or to be making overtime?

IT is IT is a again bit that they are taking, I don't know, it's the right one. They are bedding that people are willing to pay for the best and so long as they are the best, okay, sure. Go for IT.

I do think IT is worth noting that all of their competitors make a very big point about not having a subscription, and samsung can afford to do that. Samsung is big. They have other reviews, streams. They don't need. To uh charge subscription for the galaxy ring, which is crazy yeah .

because you have to spend two thousand dollars on a phone to get there yeah .

to get everything you're gonna have to spend on all that hardwork. For some people, they're not going to think too hard about that because they already have IT or what not exit except sure love that. Um but for some of the other competitors like ring on which we completely glossed over because it's fine you know if they can undercut or in terms of Price and they can deliver a decent fitness tracking experienced. And some people just going to be super happy with that and they're going to be fine with that. And that's that's great.

I just think if you want a decent fitness tracking experience, download an APP on your phone like I I mean that i'm sort of serious, right? Like you you you would be surprised, not U V. But most people, I think would be surprised at the sophistication that you can get by downloading an APP on your phone and then holding your phone in your hand.

It's not remotely within range of these dedicated devices. But if you just want to think that does a relative job of counting your steps and telling you how you slept, those are apps on your phone. They exist.

Download those things. Uh, I think the people who want this dedicated hardware mostly want the best things and should and this is like it's why ultra human and web and of these companies are going so hard. It's why garmin continues to go as hard as IT does because these are this is the customer.

And I think to some extent, the thing that apple did with smart watches was like pull that down towards everyday people in a way nobody had before and and had like taught google in samsung in a lot of ways how to make watches that appeal to regular people, but also to do some of those other things. And rings, for me, are still very much indeed. Like, unless you're serious about this, you don't even consider buying one says.

yeah, there are just very I really feel like IT appeals the most actually to wellness influencers. And like that type of person who just does not want a bulky, smart watch, they don't want smart there, you know, definitely not the average cast listener, but there I have been to parties where this very well dss well heeled woman comes up to me and she's like, OS, you have an aura ing.

I love my orring because I want to wear this designer watch that is not a smart watch. I don't want an apple watch. I don't want this and I am just been sitting there are going like, oh, okay, yeah how how much is that everyone salad that you're eating?

You like I I buy that entirely, right? Like and I think that is a really good case for smart ranks. But I think for most people, if you don't want to wear a smart watch and you don't care deeply about the fitness side of things, like my point is there's no use for a casual smart right user at this moment for most things.

for most things, it's truly just people who do not care about, like it's gona seen foreign to techies, I think. But there are just truly Normal people who do not care about anything a smart watch has to offer because if we compare a smarter ing and a smart watch, which are generally similarly Priced value for value, the smart watch is gonna give you more of everything and is, in my opinion, kind of a Better value proposition for a lot of people. But there are just people who do not care about that.

And it's it's why I get so many people just messaging me and damming me and being like, I don't understand the whole point of a smart ring and I get IT, I get what where they are coming from. But i've also talk to these other people who just like I don't get the point of a smart watch. So if you're just serving two very different audiences in in that respect, and you know it's the kim cardamine ans who isn't orring user.

IT is big as potch is a general er aniston, all of these people who are just it's a more discrete thing. So you're really just paying for the discretion, you're paying for the form factor, and we'll have to see because the thing about other companies and if apple comes out with a smart ring, I think or is cooked, I think they're potentially cooked. Maybe i'm not right away, but you know because the first apple watch wasn't anything super amazing IT was just a apple here. But like if apple was like all the apple ring for .

uh um and I mean, if apple could take the decade of stuff that has learned about health and fitness and just pull IT out of the watching into the different form factor, like I think there's reason to believe that thing could get much Better, much faster.

Better, much faster. And you know if they kind of take some of what samsung doing and pull IT into the ecosystem, oh, all of a sudden we get the smart part of the smart in because right now, we're just having a basic fitness tracker in a different farm factor that is slightly more comfortable for people to wear, especially for this one specific use case, which is sleep tracking.

And or IT does that really well? But or IT doesn't make phones or IT doesn't. It's it's a very like one trick pony kind of situation. And they have a partner with other companies in order to kind expand beyond that. so.

Is this subscription plan gonna play out long term? I say in my review, i'm not sure I slow long as are the best at this niche category. Yes, sher, I think I could I could work for them, but other people are coming. I think it's very telling that samsung came out and knocked IT out of the park with the hardware in its first go. A software is what needs work with samsung and you know not gatekeepers IT to very expensive phones and watches to get the best out of IT.

which to be clear, as exactly what apple would .

and will do with this one. Yeah, but you know, did the apple fans, they are really invested. I have already.

I have already heard .

from readers who are like, if apple came out with the smarter ing, I would get IT, but I can't be bothered with this orring in the subscription. And like noted.

really noted, to be here I V, we gotta go. Thank you so much. Here's hoping you don't have to do this again next year, because apple unit is the rain. But also, if you do.

will be back. I probably will. I already have A A struggle smart ring that I have to review you. We will see, right?

We'll see you for the next one. Alright, thanks.

All right. We got to take a break.

And then we're going to come back and we're going to talk about the new hearing health features on the airpower s pro two will beat back. I just don't get IT just wish someone could do the search. Can we figure this out? Hey, you, i'm john in hill and i'm a hosting a new podcast advice called explaining IT to me.

Here's how IT works. You call our hot line with questions you can't quite answer on your own. We'll investigate and call you back to tell you what we found will bring you the answers you need every wedding day starting september eighteen th. So follow explaining to me presented by clavo.

Alright, go back. So when apple announced all of its new stuff in september, one of the biggest announcements was about the airport's pro two. But IT wasn't new headphones.

IT was just a software update for the headphones that brought, among other things, some new hearing health features and particularly hearing a mode that could actually be a really big deal for people with hearing loss. We didn't get to try IT at first. Chris welsh has gotten to try the new features.

Now they're coming out soon. I think there's something very exciting going on here. If all of this actually works the way that apple claims that IT does. Chris luckily knows the answer. Let's get into Chris to welcome back.

IT was a pleasure to be here is this .

is we've gotten to do this so much recently. It's just it's like headphone season in a truly crazy way right now.

IT is now we here for a headphone reason, but something .

a bit different than usual 啊。 So this is a strange way to ask a question. But what exactly have you been testing on the air pods?

A swipe in testing a sweet of new hearing health features uh for the air pods pro. Apple announced to these that the event a few months ago and they are rolling out with IOS eighteen point one and some new for more for the air buddy, the week of october twenty eighth. And so everyone will be able to use their airports hearing protection as hearing aides and we'll be there's hearing tests. You can tests you're hearing because no one ever goes to the hearing. Doctor, I even been in years yeah so there's a lot to cover.

Yeah I am going to ask you to reveal some personal information. I really the reason I asked that question that way IT, seems like my initial impression of this was that there was going to be like A A hearing aid mode on the airports, right? That you would like go into settings and turn IT on and then I would do a bunch of different stuff for IT would be sort of an accessibility feature. And what is actually seems like as apple has picked this kind of hearing awareness, both of your own hearing end of the world into kind of how the whole thing works, they get much more holistic than I expected has had been has had been your impression to there is .

a hearing a more like that is a separate more that you turn off. But the rest of hearing protection is always on by default all more its now so like I was there before like the head called loud and wish reduction but this is a much brother like people like where their air pots to concerts before and apple never really like said, sure that's great, they can tell you nothing but they weren't like throw about IT and now actually I can use about the concert and they they two in the EQ see you hear stuff Better and so that's there and that can be a huge to offer. A lot of people who like, don't wear air plus of concerts, please wear your blocks of country. And so that's there yes, like a live, but just on by the fault and it's just gonna be there from now on.

okay. So the very beginning of this process is you take the hearing test, right? That's like the first thing that happens. Yeah tell me about the hearing test.

okay? yeah. I was very like emotional racking as I see audiologists since probably twenty teen pretty over to easily and has been a long, long time and like I don't listens like middle I like sad bastard singer song writers know that kind of on so like, thankfully, i'm sure that saved me a bit over the years.

I grew up with like a Sunny disk at my home and like then so many ipods and iphones. And so like, I was nervous taking in. And so it's like five minutes and here, like a series of beams, these three tone beats just, I like all sorts of frequencies and that's about five minutes.

First to do your left here, then you're right here. And the test is different for each, like a here tones, like different times that have for body years. So so you can't game IT or like that kind of thing.

But I just very intense several people here at the office to take IT and they are all like, yeah just very, you know what's a lot also hearing losses super common, like one point five billion people in the world have some level of hearing loss. And so like it's nothing to be ashamed of or extreme tize. And so it's just been a part of life. But like taking that test for the first time is definitely like a thing.

So the test is like IT IT plays these tones and it's i'm sort of imagining the the thing that you do. I've done this once that I can think of you actually sit in a after office with giant here of headphones and they're like, raise your hand when you hear the tone, you raise the the hand on the side that is on like a sort of a smartphones .

zed version of the screen when here sensual in the screen and like super faint pay, super close tension. That thing we're like, you think you are something, but you're not sure they're like accounted for all that in the testing. And so yeah, that takes about five minutes.

So long five minutes, then you get your results chart IT out. And like there are five years of hearing loss and there's little to knowledge, I feelings among which is great to me. Thank you.

There's moderate sorry, there's mild, moderate, severe and profound is the last one. And so those are the five levels. And so the hearing eight functionality is for anyone who has mild to moderate hearing loss.

So I feel like more than that than you are still have to go a seat like a professional like that here hearing aide verses this. But it's still like a big deal for so many people who don't want to spend thousands of dollars. But yeah, the test itself is it's kind of fun.

I am sort of terrified just at the prospect, thinking about this now, because i'm sort of in the position that you are. And I think about this with, uh, vision too. Like I, I have twenty twenty vision.

H, I don't reglan very proud of that fact. I am one hundred percent sure that if I go to an I doctor, they are going to make me work glasses. And so i'm never going to do IT.

I don't even have problems with my vision. It's just one of the things that like I I bet I could be Better and I don't even know. But the prospect of that scares me, and I hate.

What's interesting about hearing is that we all sort of understand the massive scale of vision issues, right, that like you, we understand prescription levels and they go all the way up and down. And you can you can go all the way from, like, barely needing glasses to being totally blind like, yes, that spector, we understand. We don't talk about that with hearing at all. And I think there is like, I don't know, decades at this point of people warning you about wearing headphones and listening to music too loud and I can still hear my parents being like turn the music down and you're you going go yes, but I don't think i've ever had someone quantify my hearing for me so I I am cares like what was that what does that feel like when you take the test process and if you get the art audio gram uh being like, you're mostly okay, like what IT is that strAngely like gratifying.

very strange. And like for some reason, like my left is a bit worse off than my right that we want to like we're in life like this. My left, you exposed like a much more sound than my right, and like, like any face of life that the place, but that's the wind .

coming .

from rushing and take away. But I going like viral tiktok and like having like a moment would be good. Like a awareness, I think IT is like private, obviously health information and not everyone is going to be comfortable sharing. But I think, you know, I could have a moment, unlike social media, just people like razzing awareness and shown their results. And like the ipod generation is gna have a reckoning of some sort, but yeah, it's gonna be something.

okay. So just to go back to one of things. You said minute o the there are the five different scales of hearing loss.

And you said the airports are only designed for the first three, basically, right? Little to know, mild and moderate like that. And for the rest, that is you. You require something different still to see a doctor.

And, O, K, I like a professional hearing, a equipped. And this is like moral, like apples counters, like all the, all these music over the counter hearing adds. This is they're on that. And so that's going to be like a super, super powerful thing like we talk about, like ecosystem lock in.

And like this is like a new whole new level of that if you think about, like you're hearing me, is like an apple device and Allen, so like what are the you are going to like leave the iphone at that point, like on the whole thing is a very good thing. Think there are some concerns about like smaller companies like why would you bother making your own hearing aid and trying to keep IT against apple, the biggest company in the world, like once to take company in this space, but on the all people are going to save at the money. Just I think a you totally.

So once it's set up and once it's tuned to you specifically, what does he do? It's easy to say, you know, I just IT makes everything loud. Dr, so you can hear IT, but I have to imagine it's more complicated than that. Like what are the actual features inside of this hearing?

It's you can tune like how loud IT is. You can tune like how sharp the sound is and how crisps. There are a lot of the customization options once actually have your results.

And so like that's important if you want to make IT sound right. And as apple has to takes a few days to adjust how IT sounds from me, I really did anything because i've little to know here in less. I didn't only notice much of anything, but I say like that can still help people who like need certain frequencies boosted.

And I haven't noticed that at myself. But but is there if you want IT battery life is about six hours now hearing a mode turned on, which about the same as their house itself. So yeah, that's pretty nice. And I mean, I don't know not sure what else there is to say about that. Like having tried to myself, i'm sure they're going to be like a deep dives about like how well that works, very just like with the .

account options there. A little part of you as a reviewer who is. I wish I didn't have worst years, so I can actually do this .

to myself yeah in some way. But for now, just glad that I should. Concerts and still still have mostly good hearing in tx.

Yeah think okay. Yes, the concert I think is interesting because they do seem to be sort of two sides of what a device like this does. Tear your hearing right? On the one hand, it's enhance things you want to hear. And I think to me that the best sort of existing thing i've heard a bunch people mention is like the the voice isolation feature that you can get on calls and self.

That is just that a that a certain bit of processing just designed to make this easy to hear, the thing that you anna, hear and like take that idea and sort of expanded ed across all the audio on your phone. And that is one version of what is trying to do, is that does that team about right to you having use IT now? Yeah okay.

But then the flip side is all the all the hearing protection stuff, which is like these things are designed to protect your years from getting worse. H, and that strikes me as something that that may actually be just as interesting to justice. Many people, even people like you, who aren't photographing concerts all the time. Uh, I I realized in just reading about this that I have no idea how that would work. Like what what is what is he doing in the hearing protection?

But just avoid loud sounds beyond a certain threshold, I think can not sure what the number is off hand, but like once things like over that level just can't like down, I bring things back to a safer level in IT. And so that works. And like all most like noise cancellation mode, transparency mode and also of the adapt of audio mode.

And like each of those was like you will here like certain amount. So like a concert, like like noise cancellation, but you're still not going to hear like much of anything that is still trying like cancell out everything. So like that's not the most enjoyable concert experience, I would say, like transparently about here pretty much everything and is still gonna fairly allowed in your ears. But it's be like a much safer level of loudness, ss verses if you didn't have them in at all. And so that makes all the difference got IT.

So it's it's basically there to just say a IT is going to sort of brutally suppress the worst noises no matter the cost. Forget the smoothing and out trying to make IT our natural like we are going to just just demolish any of these really loud damaging sounds.

I think it's too to makes they sound like natural and crisp and like detailed, so like you don't lose as much by having IT on like I was this open my nine a few ago and didn't feel like I was like really music much and seems like frequency range or anything like that. So I was impressed. Haven't used to like a big grena show yet.

Hope with this, we can get a chance to do that. But yeah, no. Like I just strange to have them in all the time. Now, like for these test that i've been doing, I think that's like a whole different thing to talk about. Like people are going to be worrying air PaaS all the time now, which is kind of unusual.

First is what we have been before. I wonder about that though. I mean, I i'm still sort of struck by you just saying so casually. Lots of people wear air pods concerts. And like at first, I was just like, oh yeah, sure, of course.

Like why on earth wear airports concert? Uh, but to some extent, I think we have really Normal ized the idea of wearing airports all the time. I think we you can argue about whether that's a good thing. I think, I think biology IT actually sucks because like the social user a problem.

like people think it's rude. But now you really can have that like assumption, like you and keep I assume I alf my attention or is now like someone could you be using and as hearing eight and you could have their full attention. And so it's not can't assume like what someone is using them for or I think that's going to be the big like sea change here.

totally. So yes, how do you see that playing out? Because this just going to push the i'm wearing headphones from the minute I wake up to the minute I go leve thing to kind of the the end degree forever like for me it's always what do I do when i'm wearing headphones s and I walk into starbucks, right right.

I think about like if i'm wearing over the air headphones, this is a thing I ve thought about too much. If I wearing over the air headphones, I will take them off them around my neck because I you like, you should assume my morrington ise cancer head funds and legitimacy. Hear you?

If i'm wearing airports, i'll usually just take one out OK uh and sometimes even like take one out while the person is looking at me as a way of being like hello I I have now paying attention to you um but again, like you're saying, there are now going to people who have an actual medical purpose to be wearing these things in order to be able to hear people Better. If I am the person beside the counter starbucks, that's just it's going to be tRicky to figure out what to do about that. But IT also just seems like maybe the only correct assumption is just gonna just talk to the people and hope to god they're not playing really loud music.

I don't know. Yeah yeah. I think it's going to take time. Obviously, I think it's going to like like at that thought of like people are being rude or I trying to ignore you can fade away.

I mean, that'll still be the case in certain like I put my airboats and two of people at times. So like that's going to keep biling, i'm sure. But like it's just like that assumption of like why someone has their airport pods and airbus zin, it's going to to change in our time.

It's going to be a while. I think I think like this going to put a lot of pressure on samsung, goole, google, take out their own like versions of these features. And like once that happens, then that was really on.

And so but he has been like a really experience at the test. Very intense hearing protection stuff is a lot of fun. It's good, I think, for everybody, because you don't realize like how loud daily life is, like come down in the subway hearing like screech trains go by, sometimes i'm just like covering my ears. And when I have nothing else available to make that stuff like that .

is you never go back once you where something that is is really good at doing that kind of work IT ruins a lot of things for you. But to that point, actually, i'm curious how you're feeling as a as a headphone guy about all this because the I think the the stuff that apple is doing for hearing health, I think is like unequipped a good thing, right?

The question is how well IT works in for how many people and and that's going to be tRicky because people are complicated and ears are different and everybody hearing is different. But whatever, I think that is mostly agreed upon a good thing to be working on. But we're also in this phase, and I think apple is out in front of this of trying to perfect every sound in every instance all the time, like the the airports pro two are probably the best example of that right there. The there's a gaming mode there. The there's stuff dedicated to just work .

well like god help .

us if the had not thing ever starts to take off like that sounds like a night there. But I just think we're headed in this place where step one is like, build a nice pair of heads phones and then step two is like, try and process IT perfectly for every imaginable situation. And I just onder if that's the right road to be going down with all of this stuff, like we're headed towards such a weird, everything is A R R O universe. And what does that make you feel as a as a music guy?

And I feel much Better about like these use cases versus like the other stuff you've seen previously. Like we may not a noise about like, you know, giving up the headphone jack, like the phony I like decides what ear buds you get basically. And like that's where we're at now.

So see, like health benefits. Like that's where i'm like, okay, this like where we've going for all these years and that's great. But like, I like head nods. And like, those can makes you they are what they are, you people are gonna them where they won't.

But like this is like the argument or it's like, okay, this is worth like giving up the phone jack going wireless only because of these are not like just year about anymore, obviously. And so that's good, I think, for the whole industry. But as far as like you know, just music is still there.

You know I want my music, I can just settle and just vibe that's not going to changing the time soon, but they do do so much more now. And so yeah, I just like to think about the process. And so this is like a huge moment, obviously, but we're going to see the same from Samson and those companies, i'm sure like how could know trying to copy this .

IT just seems like pretty clearly the next thing for all of these companies here. And again, I think it's mostly good thing.

And I do think one thing that seems apple has done well, and I want to hear more about your experience of this is kind of after that initial set up, IT doesn't seem like you have to do all that much like you take the test and IT learns about your ears and I expected be tones of you know button and knobs in your counselling have going in and and like the voice isolation is another one for me. IT is always driving me crazy that that's not just on IT just makes your calls sound Better. Just turn the thing on.

I don't understand what the problem is. Yes, uh, but apple has always sort of hidden underneath the settle. And my assumption would be that a lot of this would be hidden underneath the setting, but that sounds increasingly like it's not. And that once you take the test and understand juries are just kind of happens.

that's prety true. So like the the hearing aid mode, there's also this media assist half of IT toward tunes like your music and your phone calls and videos based duffle like all your data from hearing test. So all those things sound clear as well.

So that's nice. So it's a very comprehensive, all encompassing feature that just kind of there just always there in the background is working. And so yes, there's not much to do that you can turn at all.

Some of IT off hearing IT obviously can turn on her off, but hearing protection is just there, which should be the case, obviously. And so yeah, there's not much like, do you or talk or what they get IT wrong or mess up yourself. What I think is very important, especially like like there going to be older people using these features. So I don't want I flecked through settings, you know, thinker with stuff and so that's a big deal yeah I don't know. Just there is simple, you know what is very apple you say that a lot of historical, this mostly has just worked six americans to see, like how IT compares, like other options on the market, like people stick dives and like hearing aid functionality and and all .

that yeah what what have you heard anything from the the kind of hearing a community so far not much .

have been try to chat folks up, but I guess there a busy bunch ologies. So hopefull pretty soon to be always stand. Somebody gets some context. But this seems like quite tty optimistically and hopeful that this is going to be at least petitio industry forward towards like making all this more affordable and that whole trend.

So yes, I mean, we've been waiting for a few years now since that bill passed for this kind of over the counter hearing, a revolution that we are expecting. And I think years ago, people were expecting, ultimately, this right, like, and I think is actually very cool, apple sort of delivered the thing people have been asking for, which is, give me something that looks like a pair of head funds that doesn't scream medical device, but gives me some of the help that I need. And I think i'm going na be fascinated to see how apple communicate that line between here is who they're foreign, here is who they're not. Ah that like even where you fall on the audio gram test, if it's gonna like throw up a thing that I go to a doctor immediately about you're hearing or if it's just more gentle about IT like we can help but only so much.

it's pretty gentle. My experience, the test is very like low stress. It's like this is Normal, hearing loss is Normal, these are results.

everything's fine. But we did call nine one one on your behalf .

just now IT to a doctor if you any questions.

yes. But and IT makes me wonder if this is going to be the beginning of that movement that we have been seeing because I think there is one version of the outcome here, that is apple is actually way ahead of some of these other companies and health stuff and has been working on this a lot longer and has a lot more the experts and a lot more the corporate lock and makes I think there is some of, but also google in temps on bought to be able to do this kind of thing pretty well, pretty quickly. Is there any reason you think apple might have some insurmountable lead here? Or is this just going to become the next feature of of all of these funds?

I think next feature in time, I think I had started because they have like forest on for the integration. Other hardware are sold so long that like theyve had to jump on like these features.

But i'm sure in time like something a google, not sure I like their companies like get involved s and heizer and SONY like are they going to do like being just like third party SONY has to make over the counter hearing eat, but like that's not quite the same thing as like this thing tied your phone, only knows what you're listening to you and the caddoe make that sound Better at all times. It's curis. Second, a curious that is going to be run ads about these features I got on T V.

Like that will be fascinating. But I think there can be like a big push of like a warehouse hearing health because that you know they are easy to to take for granted until you started some of the over time. thanks.

I'm still in good shape. I got around amounts tonight tn us. However, that's pronounced right about that, that like once or twice a month or are here little like ring in my ears because that's the worst that i've had three, forty years so far. Then i'll i'll .

take that just print out and frame the audio results. There is pretty good. And before that you go anything else in the the software update here? I mean, apple basically announced these things like they were a brand new product, is a software update to a set of existing heads. You've been using the objective for a while now. Anything else report?

I mean, that's the reason that I would update H I ost eighteen dot one you know if you don't care about all the AI stuff and apple intelligence um this is a great reason to I get all new features can do on I like any previous first so you have to if you features so if you don't care about the s if what I do like the summer zed notifications and I always like eating that one. They're pretty handy.

But as far like other like airports stuff, you know, they had nodes, are there. They work fairly, have tried them. I turned them all pretty quickly.

They works. sure. I'm sure there are people who love like all these like very nh features and people like love having serious like we are unitization out out. I would never want that to to .

be my situation. No, to me it's just the the penalty for having the nod and had check on and get IT wrong. Is that like I answer a phone call that I don't want to in .

the wrong that you very clearly like your head vigorous .

ly not to answer yeah exactly like that is, uh, I know enough about this technology to know that that stuff is imperfect and just the penalty for being wrong once terrifies me like even now when i'm in the car whatever it's like so so is calling would you like to answer I I have I never have said the word no more clearly than I do those moments ah and still i'm afraid that something going wrong so I think making that stuff even simpler seems like a good idea but also I feel like raises the stakes for what could go wrong.

Uh, so will see how well that turned out. But I I do think there is probably a long route of interesting stuff to do there. I'm just not convinced it's yes and no.

right? Yeah, there's some way to like, do you like I not an A R. Am sure you know the reason was our boys with the cameras on them, which seems so hard to me, but i'm sure there's a purpose for that.

I just want to be able to, like, quickly do a double shake of my head to skip songs one like a and s. I'd immediately add that to my not interested list on spotify. Go the next one, Chris.

Thank he was always solution, been a pleasure. Thank we got to take .

one more break and then we're going to come back and do one of my favorite verge has hot line questions. In a while, we will get back.

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right? We're back. Let's go to the hot line. As always, the number is eight, six, six, verge, one one.

The email is verge cast at verge that come. We love all of your questions, and we try to answer at least one on the show every week. I've been promising a full hot line epo de for a while and that is coming.

We just do you do what going on if they could just stop with the news for a minute? I'd love to do a hot line up upset, but I think that's coming very excited about IT. So get all your questions in all of your weird technology is all of the things you want us to just ruminate and lesser on and will get to them all this week.

We have a very fun question about video games, the bird cast. My name is brian. I'm in north amErica in newish epic and limited brunn games. For context, I had this question ever since you had rightly tested on the show about delta and emulation on IOS IT came up again at the tAiling of your origins of podcasting episode apple have a gaming problem.

Why don't they just fine in tando? I know they have enough liquid capital sitting around that they could purchase the entirety of that company like your I could go buy a switch. So what's stopping them is that lena on, is that matter if the company isn't american, is if that they don't actually care about games, wouldn't then they say no to a scrutton ducks sized pile of apple cash.

So that's my question. Why doesn't apple solve this problem with gaming by eating in kendo? What stops IT from doing that? And just for fun, what would the world look like if I did? thanks.

You're talking about this. I've been sitting with this in my head for little month, and i'm more than happy for you to sit in your heads. Instead, I need to go to other things now.

Thanks by I have brought virtuous foremost intendo expert Andrew weber here to help me with this. Andrew, hello, hello so I caught you in the middle of writing a piece. Uh, would you just beautiful ly described the piece that you you're working on because I think it's a useful set up for what to .

here oh well now I have to write IT, but the the working headline is I have given up on guessing what the tender is going to do， which is the conclusion i've come to after cover them for like um fifteen years or so.

So I want to separate this into two pieces.

There is the why does an apple buying intendo piece of IT? And there is the, uh, what would the world look like if nintendo were on by apple? And I feel like in the first case, the answer seems very straight forward, which is that anyone would seems like they would want to buy an intendo, right? Like every everyone given the opportunity with including apple, I assume, would leap to buy intendo o you can get true.

yeah. I think the what's stopping them is obviously nando nantongo has scrut mcdowell piles already and they just keep getting uh more and more um so there is not really any reason for them to sell. And I do think that that point about um apple not caring about gaming is very true. I am like in addition to being the verge is foremost in the expert and also our only applicator expert. And IT is a great service that is just nobody knows about um because apple is not care and also don't think apple thinks that has a gaming problem because IT makes a lot of money from games um and not the kind of games that nintendo makes.

yeah. I think the question of like would apple be interested in making the next dezell game is actually really interesting. I think apple is very happy running a store in which IT gets cuts of the work that other people do.

And if we have learned one thing about the gaming industry in the last couple of years that you spend awful lot of money making things that mayor may not work. And I guess the appeal of the nintendo is that mostly IT makes things that work. It's hit rate. Is god to be Better than anybody? Y's, right?

yeah. And I mean, they try this. I am one of the few people who will say super maria run was an excEllent game there.

And IT was downmove, I don't know, two hundred million times, but not enough people bought IT for an intent to to consider that success. So like you've already had scare me a motto, make a game for the iphone and they never followed IT out. So um and you know apple r has a very good sell to clone so I think uh apples pretty happy yeah so before .

we put IT to the what would you look like think uh I just want to I went back after we got this question and found uh from last summer summer of twenty twenty three, there are all those emails from twenty twenty that leaked out in the microsoft case uh and one of them was from fill penser to a couple of books, his team about non tando.

And I think he pretty neatly I think some of everyone's feelings about nintendo in general, and he says, I totally agree, that intended is the prime asset for us in gaming. And today, gaming is our most likely passed to consumer release. This is they are talking about.

I've had numerous conversations with the L. T. Of nintendo about tighter collaboration and feel like if any U.

S. Company have a chance with an intendo. We are probably in the best position. This is the best part. The unfortunate or fortunate for a nantongo situation is that nantz do is sitting on a big pile of cash.

They have a board of directors that until recently has not pushed for further increases in market growth or stock appreciation. And his basic thing is like, I don't know what to give in intendo. They don't want our money, they don't want our resources. They're very happy being intendo. And I feel like that is why no one has potted nintendo because nintendo is super happy being nintendo.

Yeah, we think of nantongo as this playful company. You know, my bottle is like, happy go. Lucky guy.

But there a ruthless corporation that extracts as much money from everything as they can. Yeah, good. Like finding result on sale ever.

right? right? I mean, what the switch is, eight years old now and still doing just fine, like and that knows exactly what it's doing a and the I, I, I like to the would they accept any offer? I'm sure there's a number.

Everybody always has a number. But at some point, nintendo market cap, I think I was looking this morning, is like sixty two billion dollars and that's a that's a big number. And at some point, i'm sure there is a number, but I bet that number is essentially higher than anybody thinks this is for what they would take actually that done.

Uh, but you brought up apple kid. I just I just want to fantasize for a minute here. Let's let's say apple decides to write a check for r you know, all of the cash that has two hundred and fifty billion dollars and there knows in nintendo what do they couple would do with nintendo?

That is like i've been taking about this and I feel like there's two avenues, one of which is good and will not be successful and one of which is bad and will will make a time of money. It's not right. The one is the apple k room, which is like, yeah you can play like mario three and the mario wonder and like all these games on your and nan tando has access to the hardware in a way that they do um when they make their own hardware and can make things are perfectly suited for IT again.

mario run is good. It's a game design for touch screen. They know A M like incredible place for an intended to put everything it's ever made, including our news stuff like that sounds awesome yeah and .

that's what people say they want. But not enough people most likely would actually pay the money for IT. And what's more likely to happen is um so maria run a keeping IT up.

IT was generally a failure for them, but they have had several successful mobile games, which are there's A M crossing one this fire and one and they are just filled with all of the free play bullshit that everyone hates but they make so much money they're still running. And um even though in ten forgotten mobile gaming, they don't turn the switches off because they get money um and that is how apple makes its money from gaming. So um I think the dire scenario is no loot boxes and animal crashing right .

or loot boxes in tears of the kingdom, right that's that's where they started to get really dark yeah which of course ruins tears the king dom of a lot. And so it's like maybe there is something about the way that nintendo works right now that is the reason it's able to do the things that is like maybe it's sick IT inside of a corporation that is much more worried about maxim growth and IT changes. All of the incentives here, like maybe the way we have that is actually the .

correct way to have IT. Mario wonder exists when I talking to the directors because they were like we're not gonna a deadline. We're just gonna let people come out with ideas.

And when it's ready, it's ready. And then I was that's my on a decade. So that's what happens. Yep, yep.

So I do do think there is a world in which this ever happens in in the time that we're doing this lake nintendo on forever, we've given up guessing what's gonna en with the nintendo. Is this just intendo s if you're making alarm clocks, not worrying about like live service games, yeah. Is this just nintendo forever?

You think if you can turn IT around after the V U, I think like your safe there. They have to work about IT before I let you go.

Do you know anything about the switch to can you blink twice if you know it's going on to the switch to I? Yes, fair enough. right.

Andrew, thank you. appreciate. All right. That is that for the verge cast the day.

Thank you to everybody who came on the show, and thank you, as always, for listening. There is lots more on everything. We talked about these smart ring battle.

Real, Chris is story about all of the hearing health stuff in the airports, all of our coverage of what's been going on with an intendo u and apple and gaming and everything will put a bunch of links in the show notes. But there's lots more going on on the first com. A, B, A, A.

As always, if you have thought, questions, feelings or a phrase you think is fair to buy an intendo, you can always email us, add verge cast at the verge dot com, call the hotline, eight six 41。 We love hearing from you. I confess I recently have done a really bad job of looking at the email, Lucy, liam and the other focus on our team.

Do IT Better, but I want to be in that and box more. I love talking to all of you there, and I just suck at email, but i'm going to do Better. So good at me.

I'm very excited. Just randomly email about our feelings about technology with him. This shows produced by liam, James, willie and are IT come as verge casts is verge production in part of the vox media podcast network. The line I will be back on friday to talk about more gadgets, more A I stuff, continuing craziness and OpenAI and lots more. We'll see you then roll.

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