mergeconflict232
James: [00:00:00] Frank Kruger. All right, let's do it. Let's talk about the air pods 
Frank: [00:00:12] max. Is that it? I can't wait. We're going to do a two hour episode on these amazing, wonderful. I'm just kidding there. They're kind of funny looking through my eye, uh, headphones, what an opener change. It really caught me off guard there.
James: [00:00:28] Well, you know, it was either that or talk about the M one Apple silicone processor for the 14th time before, before we do continue on some of the Apple announcements today. Is there any  updates that you want to give us, Frank? You did apparently. Get your, you got it right? It's it's here. Yeah. 
Frank: [00:00:46] Yeah. Um, I, I, I swear, I'm not going to take over the show.
So set a timer. Um, I did successfully get the computer. I had a wonderful, gorgeous road trip. Uh, weather was perfect. Computer is perfect. James, my favorite feature of it, you can charge the laptop off of like a standard two amp USB charger. I think that's my favorite feature of the new computer. 
James: [00:01:10] Beautiful.
Cause it was just USBC, I assume. 
Frank: [00:01:13] Yeah, this is my first USB-C portable device. Yeah. So hello, 21st century, to me, 
James: [00:01:21] that was the cool thing that, that, you know, in the USBC world or just, just any standardization of things. I would say that really amazed me about the Mac book. If you remember my Mac book, um, that thing.
Good. I could use the same charger to charge my Nintendo, switch my phone, my Mac book. I only had to carry one charger with me anywhere I went, you know, and that was a quite magical moment. 
Frank: [00:01:46] Yeah. And I've already bought it a dongle baby's first dongle. So I got the, I got the simplest cheap one, which is HTMI two USB ports and card readers.
It seemed like a good travel dongle. Hopefully that's all I'll need. 
James: [00:02:01] Give us your two minute. Review of your, you got the, the Mac book air, correct? Yes. Go. 
Frank: [00:02:13] Oh, um, it's a very nice keyboard. It has, uh, that like Finney kind of keys. I'm really good at describing things. I like the theny kind of keys. The bezel is smaller.
I really liked the Buzzle being smaller. Uh, it seems to run everything that I want it to the battery seems to be about infinite. Rosetta can definitely be slow on some things, but in general has been just fine. All the software I wanted to run has worked on it. Um, um, um, it's a little bit weird when it comes to going into clamshell mode and being a desktop computer, but you know what laptop is and yeah, that's my unbiased review.
It's a great computer. Highly recommend it. Get the six pack. I think I 
James: [00:02:58] need to buy one. I don't, I don't need to buy one, but I think I want to buy one. I'm not sure 
Frank: [00:03:04] than I thought I, cause you know, I've been using iPads this whole time and I've gotten used to the weight of the iPad. So I came in, I was like, wow, you are not as light as I thought you were going to be, but it is smaller than my last 13 inch.
So I'm happy. 
James: [00:03:18] Would you say that it doesn't quite feel like air. 
Frank: [00:03:22] I guess sundown bump. 
James: [00:03:24] Well, you know, that was the magical moment of the maca book. When I, when I would carry that thing around, you felt it when you carry that thing around, you're just like, this does this thing even exist. Like it's like the surface go.
You're like, what. Is this even a device, like what is this thing? My, my, my iPhone is heavier than it. You know what I mean? 
Frank: [00:03:42] Well, my hopes is that the errors, motherboard and processor are the size of an iPhone and the rest of the case is just battery. Um, cause ideally that's all I really want in a laptop.
James: [00:03:54] Well, I've heard rumors that the they're already working on, um, eight core, 16 core, like a 64 core version for Mac pros. I 
Frank: [00:04:04] heard rumors. I don't know which rumors to believe, but sure. I'm, I'm in, I'll buy it too. 
James: [00:04:11] I mean, 
Frank: [00:04:12] I, I made that argument actually that it really should be the higher processor account because there's no sense in doing something smaller.
We've been trapped in the small world too long. 
James: [00:04:21] Yeah, I'm excited just to see how you use it, and if you make it your main device, um, day in and day out, because I hear it's just magical to use, to be honest with you and to understand, and how development life is like, what is development life on these new processors currently living inside of a Rosetta two world compared to, Hey, I have an iMac pro.
Right. That's a, that's a good comparison that I'm not gonna make you break it down yet. Cause I think we're gonna, you're gonna need some time to actually develop your applications, see how it works. But I am excited for that because that is, you know, to me, it's, it's a big jumping point to where.
Developers would have to spend a lot of money to get high performance, um, for a long tail device. Right. So I would always say buy the highest end Mac book pro 13 or 15 inch by the highest end surface book that you could buy. Now. It's like, actually it is by Mac book, air. You're good. Right? I mean, if that's, if that's reality, the barrier of entry for developers to get in building software, uh, I think is, is really awesome.
Frank: [00:05:23] Yeah. And I would even add that if you're not traveling, get the mini because it's $700 and it runs just fine. Um, yeah. Might want one upgrade to it or something like that, but it's definitely a good time to buy a Mac. They're cheap. We can get away with it. Yeah. All that good stuff. I am watching the clock like a Hawk because I really don't want to turn this into another M one episode.
I am so scared. 
James: [00:05:47] So Apple made some mystery, December announcements and. Today out of nowhere, I saw handsome and tweet something about buying a, an air pod AirPods max, or, um, um, or two iPads or something. And I thought that was funny, but the. I used to be, uh, used to be a headphone junkie. You know, how you have sneakerheads sneaker junkies.
I was a, I was a head phone junkie. I had the really high end Nokia ones that had like NFC and crazy stuff in it. I had beats in there. I had all of these, you know, high end. Um, devices. Cause I used to travel just absolutely tons and I would be on planes and I wanted to hear nothing and I wanted the high quality.
I listened a lot of hip hops. I want those deep DBAs and to me at the time, that's what I cared about is I loved having. And just beautiful, amazing sound surrounding my eardrums all the time. Now I just want little pods that cost 
Frank: [00:06:46] 10. I was just about to compliment you because you've always had good headphone tastes.
I don't know how they sounded to you, but they always looked good on your head. So I was going to agree with you there. I have no idea which brands I'm even talking about, but for me, um, yeah, I'm mostly just, uh, um, your pod kind of person. Well, yeah, smaller is better. That kind of thing. But when I do travel, I like to have those noise canceling ones and the kind of gold standard, at least in the tech community.
Everyone I know has, um, or the, um, Bose quiet comfort, three 60 something. I don't know. I don't even remember. Mine are so old. It's, I'm probably a few models behind, but those were kind of. Um, the standard for you're in an office and everyone annoys you or you're on an airplane and you hate the sound of the jet engine and that kind of stuff.
And I, I live by those. They probably helped me, uh, while traveling to sleep and all that stuff. So I love those things. It's interesting to see that, um, It's still not a perfect market. I feel like technology wise, things are improving in that market. Technology's getting better and, you know, okay. So I want to keep going on about like the quiet comforts and all that stuff.
But one thing that I've noticed with the AirPods is you get really special Siri features when you're using AirPods. And one feature that I really love and iOS 14 is that. Text messages get read to you. It's such a basic feature. We, we, we should have had it for 10 years, but as it currently stands, if you're not wearing AirPods, if you're just wearing a Bluetooth headset, then you don't get that feature.
You have to be wearing the AirPods and it's so awkward. And now I see a, I see why they can charge the premium price. 
James: [00:08:37] Yeah. You know, these things that people came out and, you know, they're like 500 and I don't know how much are they? $580, $550. It's very expensive, beautiful colors. I love the colors that they have here, but it's, it's, you know, it's an Apple device.
It's going to fit into all of the Apple things that you use, like your Siri stuff, but, you know, surprisingly at $550, it's not that far off from the bows. The highest on bows, not on sale are $380 and yes, Some people will say James, $170. You can buy a lot with $170. Heck I just got a spin bike with a bunch of sensors and stuff on it for under $400, which we'll talk about this, but it's like, You know, you're using these every single day, you get these crazy battery life of 20 hours on it, and you're getting the stuff.
And again, if you are a headphone junkie and you want the optimal thing and your, you know, this is what you're about, these things look beautiful. They look very, very comfortable and I bet the spacial audio and all the crazy stuff in the Siri integration are probably great, you know? Apple bought a company called beats and they have been making like Apple has been technically making headphones over the year, like this for a long time because of beats.
And they haven't been perfected other types of technology, um, with the AirPods, you know, over, over the time. And. I think that some of the cool stuff that mayor, mayor, or pairs with the iPhone or iPad, like the spatial audio, like the Siri integration, they're going to do special things. And like you said, Frank, yeah.
They're going to do special things because it's not just Bluetooth. It's going to be using probably their M or their w whatever chip is on there. Right. Um, I dunno, I don't want to throw shade at, um, At, at all that, you know, I think that it's a very expensive pair of headphones. And, um, if you have the money to spend on the headphones, I can go for it.
And then you're good to go. 
Frank: [00:10:38] Whatever. I think they're a little bit high. I was expecting them to be the same price as the bows. I thought they would enter the market. At that point, I thought with the home pod, many, they had learned, you know, maybe people like cheaper products, but now they're going to, they're going to keep the higher price on it.
Yeah, I, I'm not going to be buying them out of the gate. Uh, these quiet comforts I'm actually, I just realized that I'm wearing them right now. You know, that's just how a part of my life they are. The battery is still great, all that stuff. So we've had some good options here. And this is definitely a long time coming.
They've owned beats forever. So it's kind of amazing that we haven't gotten over the ear headphones from them until now they make good products. There's no argument there, but it's a bit of money to spend. But then again, I just bought, um, a new pair of AirPods. For no other reason than the battery was starting to get kind of flaky on the old ones.
And I was shocked at how expensive they were. I had forgotten that they're, you know, they're over $200. I don't even remember how much I paid. So. Just, you know, if you go from mass, I'm like, put it on a scale. How much more are you getting? That's probably a terrible way to measure it, but, uh, you know, it's not unreasonable given the price of their other products.
James: [00:11:59] Yeah. When you think about be the power beats pro, which are they're wireless kind of little tiny ones that go over your ear, those are two 50, the beats studio threes. Those are three 50. When you look at, um, if you look at just even. Um, AirPods AirPods pro, right? What are AirPods pro, which are these little tiny things, which are also impressive, $250 comparatively, the amount of audio and the amount of extra stuff that they can put in these things are relatively impressive.
Um, so again, they're very expensive headphones. Well, I be buying them, no, but I will tell you will James from 10 years ago, buy these. Yeah, I would totally buy them. Th 
Frank: [00:12:41] this is a terrible discussion because I came into the show having zero negative one interest in these headphones. And now I'm sitting here on like, are they worth it?
This is terrible. What w what are we doing? No, they're not worth it, but if you have 500 extra dollars, go for it. 
James: [00:12:58] Yeah, totally. Well, then you told me that Apple also announced something else. Frank, what did they announce? 
Frank: [00:13:04] Well, are you talking about dates? Is that what you're referring to? Yeah. I only heard this through the great vine.
So for me it was like a room. Yeah. Or just kind of traveling on the wind here. So you're going to have to confirm this for me, but something that you've been waiting for for a very long time, Apple fitness, plus the thing I keep forgetting about, but you're very excited about has actually gotten a release day and the wind had told me it was December 4th.
Is that 
James: [00:13:34] true? That is correct. That is it. And also I can guarantee that on December 14th, we are going to get an iOS and a watchOS update because. Apple fin is plus requires a, uh, iOS 14 dot three and the brand new, um, AirPods max that we just talked about also required iOS 14 dot three, which those come out on December 15th.
So I wonder if we're getting an iOS update. 
Frank: [00:14:04] Quick. Yeah, I think I just saw that beta came out like, uh, yeah, whatever day this happens to be that beta had just come out. So you'll probably all be able to grab that, grab that thing. Uh, what's not a good time because I think the store shuts down the 23rd. So hopefully if you have some fitness apps out there, you've already been looking into it.
How to support this stuff. I don't know. What are the developer implement implications for Apple fitness? 
James: [00:14:32] So it was very fascinating. I've been entering this world and we are going to be a little dev talk into this because, um, I've been really laser focused on Apple has plus now you know that in the spring, summer and fall, I ride my bike outside and you know, this Frank, I also hike like you do, but I also ride my bike outside while you're one wheeling.
Frank: [00:14:50] Uh, yes, you are doing the physical version of what I'm doing. I still think I'm getting a little more joy, but yes. Um, in terms of physicality, you are a good bike rider. I also am wearing a helmet now because you are sometimes not a good bike rider and you scared me. So now I wear a helmet 
James: [00:15:07] should always wear a helmet.
Yes. My scars remain from my recent bike fall and, um, they are, they are very prevalent. I shaved yesterday and yeah, my chin does not look good. And I'm like, wow, I don't know what, what maybe keeping 
Frank: [00:15:21] a beard for a few more years. Huh? 
James: [00:15:23] Well, here's the thing is that the hair doesn't grow over the scar. So it's just like a blank space.
It's weird. I guess if I grew 
Frank: [00:15:31] up as a wave. Yeah. 
James: [00:15:32] It has a wave. So I've been tracking Apple fitness plus because I. Like to cycle outside, but I also love spin classes. Frank, these are two different things because spinning is not the same as is like, um, riding your bike or even just riding an indoor bike or a trainer or something like that.
A spin class is resistance of the wheel. That's on it. It is. Intervals. So you're going so fast. You're standing at some points. You're like racing, you know, it's usually to music. I listen to a lot of hip hop. So my, my main boy, Alex Tucson, um, Peloton is my boy. Um, You know, picks out music. So you're going to a rhythm.
And I used to go to flywheel in Seattle, um, MIP three to four times a week, um, which, which gets very expensive. Those classes are kind of 20 bucks a pop. So, um, you could buy a plan. That's cheaper obviously, but, but that's cool. Oh yeah. 
Frank: [00:16:28] Club. I mean, and I'm, don't even mean in a sports club. I mean, in like a music clubs, it's like, they don't have a bar, but otherwise it's basically a club because there's a DJ.
There's just, I don't know. Dancing, but not dancing. You're biking. It's a whole thing. It's very interesting. I, as an anthropologist, I find it fascinating. I'm more of an outdoor biker, but I totally get that you wanting to ride indoors because it's dry or. Most of the time, half of a year here in Seattle.
So a lot of good reasons to bike indoors. Uh, uh, how far do you get into it? Because it seems to be a binary system. People who get into indoor biking really get into it. Is there a, is there like a intermediate level that people are chill with or is it zero or a hundred percent in that field? 
James: [00:17:19] No, I think it's super chill.
I think, I think the thing with, you know, Peloton came out and when they came out with their bike, they were the first ones to really offer the all in one package. Right. You buy their bike. It has all of the sensors, all of the gizmos, all the gadgets and it's live classes and on demand. Um, I think that going into a studio, you kind of gotta be all in on it.
However, the at-home experience, you can find your trainer that you like. And you can, um, you know, like their style, right? So maybe they're more chill. There's usually levels of difficulty that they have. That are on there, but, but at the same time, the nice thing about a at-home bicycle, like an indoor bike is that there's other types of apps out here.
And in fact that there's a plethora of opportunities for developers to really integrate into this world. Because I think what you just said is very fascinating is do I have to be all in, do I have to not be in where's the in-between and nobody is tackling this in-between right now, because I feel like what I see on the market is either.
Um, Peloton clones, which is his spin classes. So there was a bunch of spin studios that do it. Um, Apple fitness plus is going to have obviously spin classes or you see really intense training applications. Like zoom lift is very popular. This is wifi, not Swift, but Swift with Aziz Swift. And that is. Um, a really cool app where it's more like, um, long distance, um, like tour de France type of, you know, fitness.
Right? What is missing is you don't want to go to the gym and you go on a stationary bike. Like that experience is missing, which is like, I'm just going to cycle for a little bit, and I'm going to have a great time. You know, that type of experience is missing most at a hard time, finding them, they seem to be, you're either competing against other people that are, you know, people in quotes, computers.
Like you're, you're going across country thing. You a game they've gamified it. Where, what if I just wanted to get on the bike and beat pretend I'm outside, but it's a foot of snow outside. So I can't, and that is, um, Sort of missing from this world. Um, and I know this because Frank, I put together my own DIY spin 
Frank: [00:19:36] bike.
Fantastic. I am all about the DIY stuff. So I am super excited to hear about this. You sent me a video to prime me and I'm just like, Oh, okay. We are definitely getting deep into a hobby here, but if I can interject. And add some perspective here. I remember seeing these, um, bikes with the TV on them, in this movie from the eighties where there was this terrible business guy, this tough guy from New York.
And then he loses all his money and has to go through a hard time. And then he has a revolutionary idea of. Putting a TV on an indoor bike sickle. So anytime like anyone talks about these things, I just want you to know that I'm always thinking of this 1980s movie. If anyone that's listening can actually remember what the heck I'm talking about.
I would love to know that. Um, but I would say that I've actually always had an interest in this stuff. Definitely not from the physical activity side, mostly from the kind of VR immersive experience side, because, um, I. I don't mind riding a bike. I certainly liked doing it outdoors, but I don't want to do it too.
Um, racing a computer. That's going to beat me every time, but if I'm like in a Tron universe and I can cut people off with my light trail, Ooh, maybe I might, might be interested in that. So please let me know when there's a Tron version of all this stuff. Please with your DIY version, make a Tron version of all of this stuff.
James: [00:21:04] That was really cool. So here's my DIY version. I'll put links to all the things that I purchased here. 
Frank: [00:21:10] Lots of money, 
James: [00:21:11] Frank. I did not spend a lot of money. I promise you this. 
Frank: [00:21:14] Good. Good. I keep I'm accumulating, not expensive hobbies, but mildly expensive hobbies during this whole virus thing. I really need to cut down on hobbies.
And this one's vaguely interesting. So I like to know that it's not too expensive. 
James: [00:21:28] Yeah. Did a lot of research on these different bikes and there's sort of like the Peloton level, which is like over $2,000. Very expensive. All the gizmos, all the gadgets. There's a lot of bikes in between, which are in like the, you know, you know, five to $1,000 range.
And then there is, this is the basic, like it is a bike and that is it, no sensors, no anything. And I bought one of those, these a sunny bike in it's, uh, got a 49 pound flywheel, which is the big wheel on the front. And it was $330 delivered to my door by Amazon, which is quite impressive. Now. That alone for 
Frank: [00:22:06] a 50 pound plus crate jeepers before delivery person.
James: [00:22:11] Yeah. They carried it over and it was very impressive because the entire package was 112 pounds. And I know it's, it's crazy. Um, so here's the thing. This bike again, has no nothing on it. And, and the idea here is that I wanted to use this with Apple fitness, plus, which again requires no hardware. It doesn't integrate Apple is not selling a bike.
Right. So I was like, ah, well, you know, I don't want to buy something that already has a. Bunch of sensors and a bunch of tablets that I am locked into an ecosystem. And what if I hate that experience? Well, then I wasted a thousand bucks compared to $400 and, you know, I'm there. So 
Frank: [00:22:48] I just wanted to interrupt the, as far as I understand, uh, any indoor exercise equipment.
It's really just, how long does it become like a coat rack or a shirt rack or something? So you don't want to, I can understand. Not wanting to do the thousand hour gamble because it might be a coat rack in a month. 
James: [00:23:05] And I know it's one 
Frank: [00:23:06] possibility 
James: [00:23:07] and I know once the spring and summer come, I'm going to be outside again.
Right. Like I was going to be my jam. Yeah. So, um, so yeah, I put this together and the key thing that I got here is an iPad stand that kind of latches onto the bars. So I can put my iPad on there, which I already had an iPod iPad. So that was very lucky. And then, um, or a phone, you can put your phone on there too.
And then I bought this little sensor, it's a cadence sensor. There's um, it straps onto the sort of, um, crank. Um, of the, of the pedal. And this gives you the rotations per minute, and that's really important because that's going to tell you how fast you're going, Elsie. You don't really know, and that sort of a mix.
But once I got into this world of, you know, I just use the Peloton digital app and you can do this and I'll display that cadence over Bluetooth. Cool. I found that as a developer, I was like, well, what else can you do with this? Right. And I immediately thought, well, I have an Apple watch. Like how come I can't get my, my health data and I can't get my heart rate on there.
Like, how does this work? And there's, there's all these sensors, right? There's the opportunity. Slow down 
Frank: [00:24:14] too much, too much sensor overload. I want to go back to, um, your magical, uh, RPM sensor, because this thing's very clever. It's such a simple device. We've had this technology forever. It was just someone clever put it together into a good package.
So as far as I understand it, James. It just has a gluey sticky side and you can stick it to anything. And it'll tell you how fast that thing is spinning. It it's that kind of versatile, isn't it 
James: [00:24:43] even more, not even a sticky thing, basically a big rubber band that 
Frank: [00:24:49] love it. I love it so much. It's, it's funny because I actually wrote a blog entry about this today, and it's been something I've been adopting with my robots when you're driving wheels on robots, it's really beneficial to know how fast that wheel is spinning, but there are 1,000,001 reasons why it's a pain in the.
In the rear end to find out that information and what I've kind of resorted to is I just put a gyro and accelerometer onto the wheel itself. And that way I can get accurate, I'm not even sure. Not even just rate a rotation, but position, because this thing could probably even tell you if you're holding your foot up or holding your foot down, it's just that information irrelevant.
But I just love how general purpose it is. Just a little Bluetooth device, strap it on to anything. And it tells you RPM. I love that a lot. 
James: [00:25:41] Um, and I'm looking at your blog post right now, which I'll totally put in there, which is so funny, but yeah, I totally see your little RPM gauge and little. Um, yeah, the graph on here.
This is crazy. 
Frank: [00:25:51] Yeah. Yeah. I actually building robots. I don't like to have too many sensors because sensors break and all that stuff. And I really haven't been doing we'll speed angular velocity of the wheel, just cause it's, it's a bit more work, but my robots keep falling over. They're not very good. And I want my robots to be better.
So I've been working really hard on adding these kinds of rotational sensors to them. 
James: [00:26:15] Well, and I thought right away, what's cool. Is that, you know, these sensors, there's a bunch out there. There's some from different companies. I bought mine. I was $17. I mean, great. 
Frank: [00:26:26] Yeah. 
James: [00:26:27] Crazy. You know, I could 
Frank: [00:26:29] build it for its Bluetooth, Ellie, I'm assuming.
Right. So it would cost you. Yeah. I mean, parts would be $7, so that's a good price. I like it. 
James: [00:26:40] Yeah, not bad. Right. There's there's some that go up to $40 if you want them smaller, more compact things like that. And you know, for me, the first thing I thought in my mind was, wow. Like, I didn't realize that.
There's a standardization of this data for, for it. Right. And cause because I installed four apps in all four apps immediately connected to it over Bluetooth and read all the data like pretty fast, like really accurate. And I was like, that's cool. 
Frank: [00:27:10] Yeah, I think that's why as a developer, I really love Bluetooth L and E because it's a very simple protocol of advertise some services and post some data to it.
And so all you need, you don't need a, uh, a real consortium with, you know, Europeans meeting in Brussels or anything like that. You can just have a bunch of hackers say, Hey, we're going to use code. 42 to represent RPMs. All right. You know, everyone buys in pretty quickly. So I love the, uh, these little micro standards are coming out and I hope people are documenting them somewhere because as a D as a dev, I want to, I want to play.
James: [00:27:48] Yeah, exactly. And there's another sensor you can get to, which is speed sensor. And I don't really know exactly how that differs from cadence sensor, because one goes. I'm assuming the difference is that one outputs, a different data on a different Bluetooth frequency type of data, because the cadence will tell you, obviously, between like 50 and like I say, 120 RPM rotations per minute, and then speed will tell you like miles per hour, kilometers per hour, which they usually put that like on the hub of the wheel, in the front, but on a spin bike that doesn't exist.
But I'm imagining it's doing similar things. 
Frank: [00:28:26] Oh, yeah. It's a very simple conversion between those two. It's just a multiplication factor of your gearing ratio. It's uh, that, one's fine because I, again, I'm still imagining Tron here. I want, you know, people to be able to go fast and have absolute positioning within the world.
And if you want absolute positioning, you need to know speed and things like that. So good. The light cycles, the light cycle idea is still sound sounding valid. 
James: [00:28:51] I think it is in fact, you know, if the light cycle, if you're powering a light cycle via your RPM, you connect it up and boom, you now have the speed of your life's light cycle based on your real world, RPM 
Frank: [00:29:06] gladiator tournament.
We'll just make it massively multiplayer. It's a goldmine here. 
James: [00:29:11] I'm just saying like the potential here is untapped. I, I have not seen anybody really, that I know of. Connect physical things in the world. I'm just saying like everything's AR based or whatever, but like I'm connecting a physical bike, transmitting data to this iPad.
And I want to be immersed in a really different type of experience. And like with this tiny sensor, that's actually kind of oddly possible in a way. 
Frank: [00:29:43] Yeah, and it always comes down to that. It's, it's always new sensor technology, new battery technology, that kind of stuff. I agree with you wholeheartedly.
It's how I got into software was working on cars. It was, it was never good enough for me to have software running in a computer. It had to affect the real world, or they had to merge in some way. I wanted to create lawnmower, man. I wanted to create Tron. You know, this is my long-term goal. I'm definitely doing the cyberspace thing.
So I, again, I still don't know if I want. 160 beats per minute heart rate while I'm in cyberspace. But you know, it could be a fun version of cyberspace. 
James: [00:30:20] It could, it could be exactly because that kind of leads to the next part because, well, this thing is giving you RPM, the Peloton app and other applications can read your heart rate.
They have, they have a way of, you know, getting a heart rate monitor, which there's tons out there that you can buy. But also we have a Apple watch on our. You know, wrist that is giving us our heart rate and, um, was really fascinating about this is I did a bunch of research and, and, you know, the heart rate, sensors, monitors, including the Apple watch, they all have the ability to sort of transmit the data in that's also standardized.
And this is what kind of blew my mind. And I was like, how is it? That the cadence thing can just be standardized and it works on all these applications and everything. Then heart rate, like that is just standardized. Like somebody randomly agreed on this. And like that kind of blows my mind that yeah, the sensors can just connect magically over Bluetooth Le all at the same time.
Right. And just work. 
Frank: [00:31:21] Crazy. Right. So you have my address, the hoc standards that I was talking about, but at the same time, the Bluetooth consortium came up with this. What seemed like a ridiculous list, honestly, in the early days of Bluetooth of like all these different, I'm trying to remember what they call them.
They weren't schemas, but you, you know, something along those lines of you would advertise the heart rate channel, and then people can subscribe to the channel. And it's funny because it's definitely one of those things that was over-designed there there's a million channels and schemas that we are not using.
No one's building hardware that uses them. No one has a reason for them. We just don't care. But then you have these little winners, like heart rate. And if it's a good thing that they actually did it, but that's the problem with those kinds of standards. You can't have a closed standard because. You can't predict what the killer app is going to be or what clever little use of a sensor is going to enable, um, Toronto and the living room.
It's, it's hard to predict that stuff. So it's good. I'm just realizing that I'm, I'm nervous because when there's a good technology like Bluetooth, Ellie, I'm like how long until it gets locked down, then we can't have all these good toys, but for now it's a good 
James: [00:32:35] time. Yeah. And, and that kinda got me into the next area, which I think would really be cool of taking advantage of which is heart rate, right.
Which is it's an open standard. And the problem with the Apple watch is that it doesn't have a broadcast heart rate, right. Basically Apple is going to control the data. However, as an application developer, you can tap into that on the watch and on your 
Frank: [00:33:02] iPhone. Okay. Right. So I've, I, I've never done these API APIs, but I know that you can subscribe to events in healthcare.
Is that how you get the heart rate? 
James: [00:33:15] That is correct. So at least what I found is I needed to cast my heart rate. To the iPad, right? Because it's on my watch. I need to get it over. So there's a trick. There's a few applications. The one I got was called heart cast. It's completely free by Sean Carrillo, who happened to be randomly following me on Twitter, which was kind of cool.
And, uh, it's really brilliant. So you install the app on your phone. Install your app, the app on your Apple watch and the Apple watch app subscribes to heart rate data, and it sends it to your phone. And then the phone broadcast it via Bluetooth Ali to the iPad. 
Frank: [00:33:56] Brilliant. I love it. I love it. I love that.
We're turning our thousand, our phones into these tiny little 12 by 16 by the broadcasters. It's great. I love it. I love it. Um, you know, part of me wants to call it a hacky solution, but at the same time, this is exactly what Bluetooth Ellie was. Designed for, I find it a little bit strange that you have to do that kind of double bounce from the watch to the phone.
You would assume that the phone could subscribe to the same events, but it's Apple. Sometimes it's a little funny how things work. 
James: [00:34:31] Well, and I think that's, what's going to be really interesting is how Apple fitness plus actually works in the real world because the big selling point of Apple fitness plus is that you have to have an Apple watch.
So that's actually not a selling point, but since you would have to have an Apple watch, it knows all of your data, right. It knows how long you've been working out your heart rate. Any of the other sensors that are on the Apple watch and it'll be. That'll be automatically broadcast to your Apple TV or your iPad or anything else, iPhone, if you will, in real time.
So I'll be fascinated there, but for now everyone's sort of hacking around this because why would I want to go buy another heart rate monitor when I have a heart rate monitor already on, but then I got me thinking, right? You and now have the RPMs, you have the heart rate and potentially the speed. And you could be a reading, all three of these at the same time.
And Frank. The possibilities to create your Tron world with those different sensors in real time, imagining the pulsing is like at the pulsing of like your heart rate or something like that. Or like enemies, you know, as you are going up or down like enemies intensify, as you lower your heart rate or increase your heart rate.
I'm just saying like, there's a lot of really cool possibilities that I haven't seen any app. Maybe I just don't install out of applications. Tap into this. Capability and it's there. It's been there, the heart, the heart rate data, the sensor data, all this stuff is there. And I, it kind of blew my mind. I was like somebody already kind of hacking and working on the system and I'm like, wow, that's just cool.
Frank: [00:36:06] Yeah. Uh, okay. I'm not going to write this game. I'm not writing a game this year, not going to do it, but boy, I want to sit down and write this game now. Sounds fun. Um, it's it's funny how the future, you can just tell everything's going to be gamified now. So I used to row on crew and so we have those great little rowing machines that you'd use indoors.
And I love those, but I never had one with like a cool TV where like, Maybe there's a shark chasing me and I'm trying to get away from the shark. I would, I would love those or, you know, the disco club with the instructor, playing music while I roll away from the shark and all those things. What other indoor exercise things?
Can we game a fight? Well, I guess that's what we're going to find out with Apple fitness plus pro. 
James: [00:36:54] I think so. Yeah. I mean, with the Apple fin is plus, or the other ones, right? You have like the ability to run. I mean, any of these sensors kind of give you a bunch of data and we're not even talking about the other sensors that you could get, which is the accelerometers, the gyroscopes, like all that stuff, those capabilities in your phone, um, are an additional factor that you could just sort of bring in.
And to me that is this potential that we've done 230, some odd things. And we haven't really talked about. Sensors and these devices are packed full of them. And these, you know, small little things that you can attach could, could really create like really odd, interesting at home experiences, especially in the time of COVID more people are inside.
More people are buying these bikes, buying fitness equipment and. The Cape, the possibilities are there because the first thing I did Frank is I literally went to the app store and I said, indoor cycling and bike spinning and stuff like that. And what I was really looking for was that sort of, um, you know, I'm going up a mountain or like I am going around a thing and they just didn't exist.
Like nothing existed and nothing brought those together. And I was like, wow, there's a huge untapped health. Industry, because there are all these really big paid and subscription things. I was like, huh. Interesting. 
Frank: [00:38:14] I feel cheated. Okay. I saw this in the eighties. That was 40 years ago and no one's written good games for this stuff.
I, I, if you had just asked me flat out, how many games do you think there are four, I don't know, biking, the grand Canyon or something like that. I would've said that's probably a whole sub genre in the app store, but you're telling me it's not right now. 
James: [00:38:38] Not that I can find I could be wrong. And if the listeners know, and you are, if you are running away from zombies and you're right, 
Frank: [00:38:46] that's what I'm talking about.
There has to be the treadmill app, the zombie attack treadmill. I mean, how could there not be. I don't the obvious one. 
James: [00:38:55] I feel like there's like this 
Frank: [00:38:56] dog, a dog chasing you. 
James: [00:39:01] Goodness. 
Frank: [00:39:02] Uh, yeah. Okay. Well, you know, I I'm all for like callbacks and that stuff and I don't want to get too fat in my hollow deck, so I'll, I'll appreciate.
That's the equipment. And honestly, I really do love that you are able to do a do it yourself. When I have a friend who paid a lot of money for an indoor bike. So it's really cool to see you find the less expensive path and the iPad stand. It looks really clever, and I really can't wait for you to report back on the cool video games you find.
James: [00:39:32] Yeah. I really hope that there are some and all of course report back on epiphanies. Plus when it comes out in a few weeks, I guess a week from today when this podcast is out or actually wait, Oh, on the day the podcast comes out, this thing comes out crazy. 
Frank: [00:39:44] I'm sorry. I, I just, I'm still thinking about the Tron game.
It's just, if it hasn't been obvious, I've just been thinking about this whole podcast. Um, the problem is on your little indoor bikes, they don't have steering wheels, right? You can't really turn the handlebars. Is that correct? 
James: [00:39:59] You cannot. No. 
Frank: [00:40:00] Okay. So we need a way to know if you're going to do your trauma 90 degree turn or not, and we can just use the front facing camera with the depth sensor or something like that.
You just lean, lean the direction that you want to turn it 
James: [00:40:14] true. Yeah. You know that that's a great point. Cause there are times you're up or you have the sensors on the Apple watch. What if you went up down to turn the saying. All 
Frank: [00:40:24] right. Well, we'll, we'll, we'll just, we'll run it through the, the user research, whatever you call that stuff.
User study we'll find out, 
James: [00:40:33] but the possibilities are endless on this weird thing. I don't even know what we talked about today. This is a very odd, weird episode of this podcast, Frank. 
Frank: [00:40:40] Fitness and sensors. It's cool. Uh, I have a lot of experience with sensors because of my robotics stuff, but, um, I don't have a lot of experience with fitness, so it's a good merging of the two worlds.
James: [00:40:51] Yeah. And in fact, you know, we did have an entire episode on your one wheel, which funnily enough is a lot of sensors. 
Frank: [00:40:59] Fair enough. Fair enough. See to Shea. 
James: [00:41:02] Yeah. It all brings it together. I'm going to get us, we'll look at that. Very minimal  talk today. I'm very impressed with us. Go us. 
Frank: [00:41:10] It's really just restraint.
Obviously I can go on and on about it, but yeah. Um, I'm not even gonna say anything more though. I do like how the screen dims a little bit at night and that's the last thing. 
James: [00:41:23] Okay. All right. There you go. That's the last thing for this podcast and it was, if you. If you thought this was interesting and I'll definitely let us know right into the show, um, head over to merge conflict at IFM and, uh, shoot us an email.
We would love to, to hear from you or you can of course, hit us up on, um, you know, Twitter, anything like that. We would love it. We, we, we sit. Basically a buyer, Gmail account all day, just waiting for someone to email us. And, um, we 
Frank: [00:41:50] would love to, I have no life. I don't really have any purpose in life. Right.
James: [00:41:55] I'm just like, please somebody tell me what to do. 
Frank: [00:42:00] Human contact, human contact. That's true. 
James: [00:42:03] I feel like that's why I've been. Uh, six days, it I've been done. Six spin classes. I'm like, that's cool. Someone's telling me to ride this bike. And, um, I'm here. 
Frank: [00:42:12] I have a friend, I'm a 
James: [00:42:14] friend. I have one of my best friends buy massage every day, but you know, it's also good to someone 
Frank: [00:42:19] diversity.
James: [00:42:21] There you go. Uh, all right. Well, I think it's going to do it for this. Week's. Podcast. So until next time 
Frank: [00:42:31] I'm Frank. Thanks for listening. 
James: [00:42:33] Peace.