Solid State Podcast

Episode 93 - Things are happening in the CPU and AI chip space...

Quite a ways back, we did an episode about our first computers… Cody’s was recent enough to almost be usable today, Eric’s was long enough ago it arrived as spare parts that more resembled a TI calculator, and mine was right in the middle… the hallmark of mid-90’s computing it was an off-white beast of a tower with dual disk drives, fans you could hear from the driveway, and enough RAM to almost run 3 programs at once… as long as one of those programs was Calculator… 
I remember everything about that computer because it was “mine”, but the one I remember possibly even more fondly than it came several years later… they had a lot in common… the tower was still obnoxiously large (just black now with a glass see-through panel on the side), it still had two disk drives but one was a DVD player now, and at the heart of it was an Intel Core2Duo “Allendale” series CPU. It had two cores (hence the “Duo”), was built on a 65 nanometer processes, and consistently hit temperatures normally reserved for the molten core of a small moon or large planet-killing space station… 
All of those specs are burned into my brain because this particular computer was the first one I built entirely myself, from scratch. I had upgraded and modded my PCs for years of course, but my freshman year of college I saved every dollar I could find and built one part at a time what felt like a colossus of gaming and computing horsepower.
Today, the phone in my pocket would literally run circles around that beast many times over. But the hours I spent on that one component at its heart, choosing that “perfect CPU” was a labor of love that obviously is etched into my memory even today. 
So as we look at the computing landscape right now of AI chips, “Copilot Plus” PCs, and an arms race of cores, nanometers, and TOPS figures, the common thread is the beating heart at the middle of it all. The CPU wars are in once again in full swing, and frankly there are already a few casualties. Let’s dive in…

Episode 92 - The thing about Starlink and "Space Internet"

A couple short years ago I sat down in this very chair, in front of this computer, and recorded the intro for an episode of this show. It would have been a pretty normal “day ending in Y” had it not been for the rising sound of wind outside and the fact that I couldn’t see through my office window due to the solid metal storm shutters in place. 
Hurricane Ian was mere hours away from its historic landfill just miles from where I sit. I remain grateful to this day for every one of those miles, as they were in large part the difference in my ability to consider myself a responder and not a victim of what was about to come for my home. 
We talked that day about “disaster tech” and the kind of gear and gadgets we would always recommend to have around for just such en event. Solar generators, cellular hotspots, and the like were all on tap. But less than twenty four hours later, my own solar generator steadfastly keeping my phone and laptop charged and at the ready, what became immediately clear was that with all the backup power in the world, the mission critical tools of our trade were effectively paperweights without one key lifeline… the internet. 
This is obviously no great revelation, the reliance of business and frankly day-to-day life in America has been near wholly reliant on internet access for many years at this point. But to have it effectively and so completely disappear in what felt last an instant was technological whiplash nonetheless. People would huddle in groups at a nearby Target because one bar of cell signal was allegedly working, others would send SMS texts from internet-enabled vantage points to others that had no such access to provide sorely needed weather, recovery, and resource updates. 
It wasn’t until far too long after Ian had moved on that a relatively new option started to appear in some places we sorely needed it most… a rectangle piece of metal and plastic, emblazoned with the word “Starlink”, and a single Ethernet cable coming out the other end with a promise of restoring communications for those that needed it most in a time where minutes counted for hours. 
Thankfully this morning, there’s no wind to be heard and I can clearly see the beautiful morning through my un-shuttered window. But, in all reality, it will happen again. This time, though, in at least one small but very important way, we’ll be ready…

Episode 91 - Samsung's Summer Unpacked Event with new Galaxy Foldables, Watches, Earbuds, and Ring

This week on the Solid State Podcast, we tricked ourselves into thinking this would be a “quick one”… 
See, at first you can’t really blame us… Samsung had their (formerly “Fall”, now very much Summer) Unpacked event focused on their foldable phone hardware plus a smattering of other devices and, on paper at least, it seemed like kind of a snoozer…
Screens got a little bigger, hinges got a little tougher, and some earbuds suddenly got very familiar looking… but other than that “business as usual” sure seemed to be the name of the game this year. 
And honestly, that still might end up being the case, but as we’ve seen happen several other times across the industry and the years, we can’t help but wonder if the sum total of the changes, additions, and updates add up to… I don’t know, “more”! 
Throw in that on top of all that AI keeps shoving itself to the forefront of the “feature list”, and Samsung frankly just lobbed a ring-shaped grenade into Oura’s back yard, yelled YOLO, and added yet another seemingly-compelling reason to pitch your tent in their every-growing walled garden and hope for the best. 
We say it around here all the time, two companies “competing” isn’t a healthy field of competition, but at the very least Apple and Samsung do keep incentivizing each other to do one thing better and better… as long as that thing is “looking more and more alike”…
Again, there might just be more there than meets the eye, or it may be a year to kick back, keep enjoying last year's phone, and hope next time things get a little more interesting. Let’s see if we can find out which one we’ve got on our hands here in 2024…

Episode 90 - Film Photography is back and we review Meta's Ray-Ban Wayfarer AI smart glasses

This week on the Solid State Podcast, we mix things up a little bit…
Not just by constantly going off the rails, because let’s face it you just expect that at this point. Instead we’re opening up with what’s “in the news”, specifically on a relatively sudden resurgence in the physical film photography industry. New camera bodies to choose from, old and new names returning to the table with novel takes on film roles, and yet another perspective on our ongoing question of “what is a photo” in this world of generative AI, computational photography, and more. In a world where every other post to Instagram is more fiction-than-fact, is a cell of film that (for better or worse) captures a moment “as it really was” suddenly more valuable than ever? 
On then to our feature topic this week, and it’s none other than a “what’s in the box” style review of Meta’s seemingly fantastic Wayfarer AI-powered smart glasses. These are hardly a “new” gadget, in fact they’ve been on store shelves for quite some time now but it feels like the true moment around them is just now starting to heat up. Meta continues to steadily improve the software, add features, and somewhat-quietly build out one of the most compelling wearables on the market today. 
Last but certainly not least, Eric and I wrap things up with a heartfelt nod to one of our industry’s greats with an homage to the very moments that made the intersection of technology and the humanities the core of what we do…
With no further ado, on to the show…

Episode 89 - We review Microsoft's Surface Copilot Plus PCs

I’ve unboxed a lot of gadgets through the years… maybe too many? Okay, that’s a lie, and one of them I sincerely will never forget was shockingly almost 12 years ago when a box arrived on my desk from Microsoft that contained, in their minds at least, the next-big-thing in Personal Computing… 
See, just a couple years prior, a certain company in Cupertino changed the landscape with the announcement of a slab of metal and glass that ran apps, had a decent(ish) web browser, and a battery that lasted seemingly forever. In all honesty, they couldn’t actually do all that much compared to even a run-of-the-mill laptop of the day, but there was still something there. Something new, special. 
Microsoft, of course, had to have a response to in the Fall of 2012 Surface was born. Now, because it is Microsoft after all, it couldn’t be a total reimagining of what a computer does because, well, a lot of people use PCs and they expect their software to run even if it was last updated during the Clinton administration…
So what made the box that arrived that day special was that this was, even for Microsoft, something different. This particular “Surface” device, as it was called, was the “RT” model… a name almost as confusing as the device itself. It ran Windows… kind of. It could run many of the applications I needed… sort of. And the performance should be top notch… occasionally. Because beating at the heart of this “RT” model was an ARM based processor unlike any seen in a Microsoft device before, the same core type running in Apple’s now-wildly-popular iPad. 
Sadly what we did get was a hot, slow, incompatible device, but one that still represented the beginning of a journey, that so far has now led to the launch of Copilot Plus PCs, a series of both first and third party offerings in Microsoft’s latest Windows-on-ARM attempt. Battery life? Check. Compatibility? Pretty darn good. Performance? Oh yeah…
It was a long road to get here from that ill-conceived paperweight in 2012, but man, this is getting interesting…

Episode 88 - (Almost) Everything from Apple's WWDC 2024 announcements

If it hasn’t come up before (and I’m pretty sure it has), we really love to cover tech events around here… they’re gadget-fueled bonding experiences that have a history littered with moments ranging from the first iPhone to the Surface RT, game changing shows of force like the original Nintendo Switch announcement to the “less than well received” debut of the Xbox One… there’s just something electrifying about the origin of a new product, service, or category that (for better or worse) are going to impact millions of lives, guide the course of countless businesses, and one way or the other take their rightful place in the history of our industry…
Apples World Wide Developer Conference is a literal breeding ground for exactly these types of moments… From the addition of copy/paste on the iPhone (no, I’m not kidding) to a literal on-stage funeral for Mac OS 9, the intersection of showmanship and spectacle are not uncommon here. This year is both a continuation of that tradition, and a stark reminder of how much things have changed all at once. 
You can’t kick off an “event” with several Apple Executives alleging to jump out of a plane to a rock music score and not feel at least a little like a kid in a silicon candy store… but on the flip side, these are now fully pre-produced, scripted, and rendered infomercials that, while still almost two hours long, lack the personality and dire stakes of an on stage demo of a feature that may or may not quite work if the Wifi crashes in the event hall again…
But, in the end, another WWDC is upon us, and with it the cardinal direction for one of tech (and the world's) largest companies along with glimpses at what will fuel our gadget-centric experiences in the coming year.
Flip those updates to “Beta”, let’s check it out…

Episode 87 - We review the Apple iPad M4 Pro and M2 Air

It’s no secret, we’ve talked a lot about iPads lately… first it was what did we want Apple to announce… then it was what did Apple actually announce… and now, today, we’ve spent the last two weeks hands-on with those very devices and guess what… we still don’t feel we’ve got the whole story… 
I’ll cut to the chase… these devices are great. They’re thin, light, fast, rock incredible displays and in every measurable (physical) way… they’re the best iPads ever made. But then something funny happens… you actually start using the device. Apps might load just a little bit quicker. My favorite streaming shows might be just a little more vibrant. The battery life… is still “fine”. But it is, at the end of the day, still an iPad. I still can’t load the applications I want, drag windows where I want them, or come up with a single thing to actually make this M4 processor break a sweat. Because… it’s still an iPad. 
It’s entirely possible that’s exactly how Apple wants it, too. For us to keep strolling through the walled garden, downloading apps and paying for more iCloud storage until the end of time. But if that’s the story, then why do some of these models exist in the first place? Do you need an M4 processor to play Candy Crush? Or an aluminum-decked keyboard with haptic touchpad to scroll through Facebook? 
There remains a contention here, between what we know full-well these devices seemingly can do and what they’re actually (and artificially), able to do…
WWDC looms just a few short weeks in the distance, and with it hopefully some answers. In the meantime though, the products have shipped, they’re in our hands, and the only question we can actually pose now is, was it worth it? 

Episode 86 - We recap Google I/O 2024 and Microsoft's Surface / Copilot+ Event

I will admit, some weeks I struggle more than others to come up with this intro… occasionally though, the struggle is still real, but very different… how do I keep it shorter than the podcast itself?
This is absolutely one of those weeks, because with Event-season in full swing and announcements coming in left and right, to say we’ve got plenty to talk about is beyond an understatement. OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft have all had major events in the last week, and the implications of those announcements will be felt for the next year or more. Throw in the impending collapse of Humane and its AI pin, a slew of new laptops dropping in just a few short weeks, and Google has a very unique suggestion for my next pizza recipe… what more could I ask for? 
Well, see… that’s where things continue to get interesting. As exciting as time as it is, there also seems to be a cloud hanging just in sight over it. Major companies are simultaneously announcing the products that will usher them into their next era… at the same time they’re quietly performing massive layoffs. Tentpoles of our daily technology life are re-inventing their core products… possibly at the cost of the very user experience that made them a gold-standard in the first place. And to top it all off, AI in general continues to be the only measure anyone wants to apply to a products viability in the market while those same products continue to stumble on the most basic of tasks while having little-to-no remorse for the half-baked errors…
What we have here, is a good-old-fashioned market shift… the bets are all down, the hands are dealt, and the biggest question remaining is… does anyone have the guts to raise, or is it time to show our hand? Let’s find out…

Episode 85 - Apple's "Let Loose" iPad Event with the M4 iPad Pro and M2 iPad Air

This week on the Solid State Podcast, we engage in a bit it of loose “deja vu”… You might remember last time we were together it was all-things-iPad, but more specifically what we felt the future of the iPad should look like. No true predictions, certainly nothing based on facts or even strong rumors, just if Cupertino were foolish enough to turn their iPad factory over to three gadget nerds for a year, what would come out the other end? 
Fast forward just a few short days, and the world watched as Apple… published a pre-recorded video to tell us what they see as the future of the iPad. 
Fancy new displays that are supposed to be the new gold standard in content consumption? Check. 
Fill out the middle of your lineup with bigger, cheaper models that still have enough horsepower to run a small datacenter… so you can play Candy Crush a bit faster? Oh yeah. 
A top-end price point that literally made my wallet shriek in fear? Sadly… can confirm. 
See from Apple’s point of view, it seems the iPad lineup is “right where they want it”… a shape, size, and price point for nearly everyone. But looking back to our episode just a couple weeks ago, we can’t help but ponder the question “why?” as we consider the most capable of these new offerings. Do you really need an OLED display to watch the next season of House of the Dragon? Is an AI-focused M4 processor the missing ingredient to faster scrolling on Instagram? 
We just keep coming back to one conclusion… this announcement, well its Part 1…
The other side of this cliffhanger seems to be looming in June’s WWDC, but in the meantime, there’s new iPad hardware to play with and for better or worse, let me go find my wallet…

Episode 84 - What if the 2024 Apple iPad was good?

This week on the Solid State Podcast, we grab our crystal ball and do our best to tune in to the future… a future of one device to rule them all, a single metal and glass slab that pops into a keyboard case, runs every app imaginable, and seamlessly transitions into a productivity workhorse at the literal push of a button… 
See, Apple would happily have us believe that this exact device already exists on store shelves across the world… if you’re willing to buy an iPad Pro, snap it into their “magical” case, attach an Apple Pencil, take out a second mortgage on hour hose to afford all the above… and use Stage Manager to do some semblance of multi-windowed work… yeah, we’ll pass on that last one too...
All kidding and crystal balls aside, there really is an Apple event coming up in just a few short days and we found ourselves dreaming endlessly this week about, if it were up to us how would this event go? Not based on predictions, supply chain rumors, and hard research… just… what if? 
What if the iPad had a case that allowed your tablet to sometimes… be a tablet? What if the camera wasn’t seemingly positioned to deliver the single least-flattering angle in consumer tech? What if the operating system could actually run this amazing, world changing application called a real browser? We realize some of this is bordering on science fiction… but dare to dream, right?! 
Truly, the iPad feels at a crossroads… with no new devices in 2023 at all and mounting competition for “what is a computer” across the technology landscape… is Cupertino going to trot out a slimmed down chassis with a fancy new screen and call it a day? Or is there potentially more at play here? It seems we’ll know for sure week after next, but in the meantime, let the dreaming commence…