Solid State Podcast

Episode 119 - A show about Nothing

This week on the Solid State Podcast, we talk about… Nothing…
No, really… Nothing actually has new headphones, and we talk about them!
In case you can’t tell, a slough of major events from I/O to WWDC are behind us and while we wait for Samsung and others to fill our lives with more gadgets in the coming weeks, we chose to take a beat and meander (as we’re want to do) through everything from the iOS 26 Beta to Switch cases and car sized, galaxy filming cameras…
So, in the market for a new pair of smart glasses? This week (shocker to no one), we’ve got you covered. Ever laid awake at night wishing your digital photos had the look-and-feel of classic, 1980’s Fuji film cameras (because who hasn’t…)? Yep, that’s on tap too. 
And if all that wasn’t enough, I still find time to take a (somewhat) abridged tirade through Microsoft’s seemingly willful inability to just listen to good advice and treat Xbox like the software platform that it rightfully is rather than a (now) overpriced, nearly long-in-the-tooth black cube in your entertainment center…
Well, considering it’s a show about Nothing, somehow we found an awful lot to say… too much even. But let’s not forget, you chose to be here, so with that let’s dive in and see what this week really has in store…

Episode 118 - WWDC 2025 (Did Apple finally hear us?)

This week on the Solid State Podcast, well… there’s just no other way to say it… it’s WWDC! 
That’s right, it’s summertime in 2025 and that means nothing other than Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference just took place and with it a slough of announcements, Beta releases to play with, and an ever-sharpening picture of where Apple at least thinks it wants to go with its broader product line in the coming months, years, and frankly beyond…
We know full well our episodes are never exactly… umm… short… But this one was a challenge even for us to fit it all into a single run. We’re not saying it was an action packed event… far from it in fact… but what Apple did bring to the table could have far reaching implications for almost every corner of their product and service offerings. 
User interface and design, power user workflows, a new naming convention across the board of their OS’s, and… dare we say it… an actual mouse pointer in iPad OS? Yeah, this isn’t exactly “put it up on a billboard” kind of stuff, but in possibly a much more meaningful way it could represent one of the most end-to-end changes in both the look-and-feel as well as the overall usability of Apple’s core products for many of its users. 
And, at the end of the day, if you’re really just here to have an iPhone, use it every day, and be annoyed once every Fall when all of your buttons move around for seemingly no reason after a reboot one night… then, well, this Fall is likely to be no different for you…
This year had all the hallmarks… an internet full of “Apple is doomed” predictions, further confirmation of Apple “falling behind” in a race that may or may not even actually be happening, and once again adding Wallpaper to one of its product was an on-stage, announcement worthy moment for team-fruit… 
Like I said, it’s WWDC, would we have it any other way? 

Episode 117 - We got a Nintendo Switch 2 and now we're happy

Technology, in a weird way, is at its best when it makes us feel like a kid again…
It’s hard to ignore the swell of emotion and nostalgia… as gamers, nerds, or whatever you want to call us… when you fire up a classic that takes you right back to sitting precious too-few inches in front of a TV playing countless hours until being told for the twelfth time that it was absolutely time to go to bed…
So it comes as no shock, based on nothing else than how many times we’ve talked about it in the years that we’ve been waiting for this very day, that it was suddenly 1991 again the moment a relatively little, red blue and black box with “Nintendo Switch 2” emblazoned on the side was (honestly unexpectedly) in our very presence…
Were the preorders nothing short of a debacle? I refer you to a previous episode…
Was a single retailer effective in communicating how one was supposed to even try to exchange currency for one of these seemingly-gold-plated marvels? It was so bad it was almost by design…
Did all of that disappear into a puff of digital smoke the moment I hit a two-second-launch perfectly on my first outing in Mario Kart World? Let’s just say my eyes hurt a little as I write this, and it’s not hard to figure out why…
Technology is special in so many ways, but one of its most foundational is its ability to entertain, inspire, and frankly distract us at moments we maybe need it most. 
Now, do excuse me for a moment, I think I just figured out a shortcut on this circuit I’ve been stuck on and I’ve got characters to unlock…

Episode 116 - Google I/O 2025 (Let's party like its 2013...)

About twelve years ago I got onto a coast-to-coast flight in the cheapest seat of the worst airline I’ve ever been on to attend a a tech event. It was equal parts Star Trek and Willy Wonka with promises of futuristic, ambient computers ready to sort your ever whim at the speak of a simple wake word coupled with literal 10-foot tall robot-arm bartenders making drinks on command… all while none other than Billy Idol performed “White Wedding” live just 15 feet from me. Yep, it was an event-slash-party done the way only Google could do, especially at a time when their geekish-whimsy was still in full bloom. 
Fast forward more than a decade and things are somehow still very much the same and also wildly different. 
Google I/O is still very much a thing… the goal of everyone in the room in one-way-or-another is still to build the computer from the Starship Enterprise… and, okay, admittedly Billy Idol probably didn’t make this one. Substitute A/I or Gemini for Google Assistant, Flow for Google Play Music, and Project Aura for Google Glass and we’re suddenly partying like it’s 2013! 
But remember that part about it also being wildly different? 
Google isn’t the teenager-of-a-company that it was in 2013. It’s many times larger, sure, but also has many times the pressure, responsibility (to shareholders), and existential threats that seem to mount more and more every day. 
Gemini is coming to Chrome… but what if Google suddenly doesn’t own Chrome? Google Beam lets you hold a meeting with someone virtually as if they’re really there… but what if more and more people are just down the hall again to have a meeting with? Google AI Search will do all the Google’ing for you… until there’s no more web pages left to search because no one visits them anymore. 
It’s far from a death knell, but it’s impossible to say that the air at altitudes that Google breaths isn’t getting a bit thin as time goes on. But, at the end of the day, Google took the stage, announcements were made, and we’re left (as always) to answer one question… what’s next?

Episode 115 - Microsoft has new Surfaces... sort of

It’s kind of funny, in the office lately we’ve been half-joking about being careful how you manifest things… it’s great when you “put out there” that a new project kicks off well… and it does… or you hope against all hope that a concerning trend isn’t here to stay… and it isn’t. So, should we be surprised that after weeks of lamenting the desert of gadget news we’ve been traversing… we are suddenly greeted by the relatively unexpected arrival of not one but two new Surface devices from Microsoft? 
It’s no secret that we review, use, and maintain a relatively vast fleet of devices made up of every brand and logo you’ve ever heard of… and several you haven’t. Dell, HP, Acer, Asus… yep they’re all there and many times they’re really good and even great at what they do. 
But some lineups… just hold a special spot in our hearts and for whatever reason Surface has just always been one of those!
From the arrival of the first Surface RT almost thirteen years ago to the latest Snapdragon-powered behemoth that arrived on our doorstep just last summer… we’ve been there for it all. A few have been great, several have been… not… and a rare couple have even been game changing (at least for the industry that was left to chase them). Like the best concept car, sometimes Surface hasn’t been about selling a certain number of units or directly moving the needle of one of the world’s largest companies… but instead about putting the channel on notice for what they could (and should) be making out of their own products. 
I’m here to tell you, the laptop you have today, regardless of what it is, is better because Surface exists. Believe me. 
So, when Microsoft suddenly shakes things up not with a “next generation” but instead with what appears to be novel entries in-and-around their existing lineup… well let’s just say we’ve found an oasis in the desert, and it’s about to get exciting around here!

Episode 114 - We didn't get a Switch 2 and now we're sad...

This week on the Solid State Podcast, we realized something… odd. 
We’ve mentioned it off-hand on several recent episodes, but it has come more and more into focus as the weeks have gone on. It’s quiet out there… too quiet. 
Sure, we’re in the post CES, MWC, etc lull that exists every year as we wade towards Summer’s more splashy, developer-focused events like Google I/O and Apple’s WWDC… but even that expected downtime is so quiet right now, the silence is honestly deafening. 
Don’t get us wrong… there’s plenty of people talking, but what’s actually being said? Switch 2 pre-orders took place… which mostly left a lot of people tired after a night of no sleep and sadly almost as many with no actual Switch 2 order with their name on it…
Companies seem to be coming out of the woodwork left and right making noise about buying a pretty ubiquitous web browser that… isn’t actually for sale yet. 
And on top of all that, prices have begun to not-so-subtly fluctuate across consumer tech… from video cards to cameras… something is afoot and we’re just not so sure it’s 100% correlated to the things dominating the daily news cycle. 
Are you confused yet? That’s okay, because we are to! So, for a stroll through what we’ve unceremoniously deemed the “un-News”… let’s take a crack and figuring out what the heck is going on out there…

Episode 113 - The thing about AI & Cybersecurity

This week on the Solid State Podcast… well there’s just no way of sugar coating it… Jet Lag reigns supreme…
See, it turns out that when you get hundreds of technology professionals together in a room on the other side of the globe for a week and tell them to turn their brains into hyper-idea-craziness mode… well the impact doesn’t fade quickly…
Events like these are special because, on paper, you have a bunch of people who are objectively "competitors" all being asked to talk freely and openly about the “secret sauce” of how we do what we do… and to be honest you’d think that would lead to a very quiet room… right? 
Ohhhhh is it ever the opposite… and it is safely what I find most magical about what we get to do and call “work” every day. Nope, instead it’s opening a pandora’s box of collaboration, idea sharing, and community that I’ve only ever experienced in these multi-day caffeine-driven pressure cookers. 
So when we had the opportunity to not only attend but participate and engage in just such an experience… well what do you think our answer was? Fuel up the plane, pack the bags, and figure out what the German equivalent of Monster is… (it’s Monster, by the way…)
And what, you might ask, was the actual moral here? Well, keep listening for the full story, but suffice to say the status-quo was challenged (as it should), ideals were re-affirmed (not that they needed it), and a reminder was starkly delivered that not only is there no competition in this room but instead we’re all connected by an imperative to, at the end of the day, be better…

Episode 112 - The (growing) Cost of our Smart Homes

Image with me for a moment, if you would, the start of a perfectly normal day in the “modern smart home”… Your alarm goes off right on time, and your start-of-day automation scene kicks in. Lights begin to subtly come up, adapting to eyes still very much wanting to be closed for at least 10 more minutes. The Air Conditioning goes to your preferred morning setting, while the living room TV kicks on with the morning news. After the tea kettle reaches the precise temperature for ideal steeping, reminders start arriving on your Home Screen summarizing the day ahead. Left over dishes go into the washer, and that last pesky load of laundry kicks off. Everything works, everything communicates, this is… “good”… right? 
That’s the thing about smart home tech or, honestly anything in the gadget-filled world we know and often times love… when it works… it’s freakin magical! 
The cost of that little slice of magic, though, is the other side of the coin… imagine once more that same scene with one vital change… last night a storm blew through and this morning the unthinkable… the internet is out…
Don’t mis hear me, we’re not talking a life-and-death “rise of the Cylons” situation here… but it’s shocking to take mental stock of everything in our homes that grind to a halt when suddenly “offline”. Will your alarm still go off on time? Automation scenes, smart lighting, and adaptable thermostats? Better be running something like Home Assistant. And more and more, even something as table steaks as that load of dirty dishes comes into question without a lifeline to the cloud. 
The cost of convenience so often is security… but more and more it also seems to be one of resilience. Maybe there’s a better way? 

Episode 111 - Selling your Tech in 2025

This week on the Solid State Podcast… Spring in the air! Okay, it’s actually 80 degrees outside already, but hey that’s life in the swamp that I call home… 
But historically, the Spring season also conjures memories of the time-honored tradition of, yep, you guessed it… Spring Cleaning… 
For some, it’s clearing out a closet of clothes you’ll never wear again, and others its about finally clearing a path wide enough in the garage for a full-sized human to actually navigate end-to-end… but for the Solid State crew, well, let’s just say things are a little more, uhh, “gadget-y”…
Yep, for every un-used sweater my wife needs to get rid of there are easily three phones, tablets, laptops, or frankly TVs I would be better served sending off to, shall we say, “future endeavors” in someone else’s service… You know, all so I can then use the money (and reclaimed space) to buy yet more phones, tablets, laptops, and frankly… TVs……
And this got us thinking, in 2025 a TV isn’t just a TV anymore, a toaster many times isn’t just a toaster and heck… a car isn’t even just a car…
Every single one of these “smart” gadgets, devices, and appliances has, by nature, our digital fingerprint inextricably linked to them… and without a healthy dose of intentionality, that fingerprint goes right out the door with it once we sell, trade-in, or dispose of it. 
As with so many things, there has to be a “right” way to go about it then, so let’s fire up those eBay accounts, clear space in the junk drawer of charging cables you know you have, and let’s see what it takes to actually sell your tech in 2025…

Episode 110 - Finding the "Plus" in Amazon's Alexa Plus

This week on the Solid State Podcast we’ve got a little bit of everything on tap… honestly just the way we like it!
Framework made a splash on several fronts this week with updates to its already-beloved 13” modular do-it-all and also expanded this year’s lineup to include a smaller, more accessible 12” model that… dare we say… they position as a “laptop for everyone?” And not to stop there, they rounded out the string of announcements with a… Desktop. Yep, you heard me… a modular, upgrade-focused… desktop. Now if that has you scratching your head for any number of reasons, A: you’re not alone… and B: just trust us, there’s more here than meets the eye…
Newer, faster SSDs are no tap from Samsung this week as well and, lets face it… faster is just faster… and that’s a good thing…
And last but certainly not least… the end of yet another era has arrived as we bid adieu to a product that in many ways kicked off a chain of events that led to how meetings are literally done today… this particular product just… wasn’t the one we use to do them…
All that leads to our feature though… and please do yourself a favor and preemptively unplug any and all smart speakers in earshot because, you guessed it (or maybe didn’t)… Amazon is finally ready(ish) to launch their AI/LLM/GenAI/Martian pixy-dust-infused Alexa upgrade known, yes you again guessed it… as Alexa Plus…
We probably spend too much time on this show talking about naming conventions, and I’m here to warn you today is no different, but I solemnly swear there’s more here than that even if Amazon didn’t exactly go out of their way to give us much to work with.
All that AND several tortured D&D references abound… what more can you ask for? Let’s dive in and find out…