The Apple Release Tier List

March 13, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

The Apple Release Tier List

The hosts of Waveform spent the first twenty minutes of this episode arguing about car volume knobs. Andrew's Subaru has a full-screen volume wheel that takes over the entire display for several seconds, which means he loses his navigation every time he adjusts the sound. The number goes to 38, and the halfway point is 19, which Andrew finds infuriating. Marquez countered that he prefers having a number attached to his volume because he knows exactly where to set it — 42 in his audio room, 14 in his car, though he admits 14 bothers him so he always moves it to 12 or 15. David pointed out that cars without numbers at all are actually better because you stop obsessing over the digit and just set it to what sounds right. The conversation spiraled from there into a debate about whether 25 or 38 volume steps makes sense, with Marquez revealing that Stellantis once determined 38 was the perfect number of volume steps for a car because it gives two-decibel increments across 64 decibels of dynamic range. Andrew countered that Apple products have only 16 volume steps and nobody complains.

Burger King's AI Surveillance

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What you'll learn

1 (00:00) **Show Intro & Volume UI Rant** - The hosts introduce the episode topics and immediately dive into a heated debate about terrible car volume user interfaces.
2 (13:13) **Burger King's AI "Patty" Monitors Employees** - A new AI system at Burger King tracks employee friendliness and food prep via headsets.
3 (20:34) **Apple New Devices Tier List: Personal Excitement** - The hosts rank the seven newly announced Apple products based on their own excitement levels.
4 (25:27) **Apple New Devices Tier List: Public Excitement** - The hosts shift to ranking the same products based on general public chatter and excitement.
5 (29:01) **MacBook Upgrade Dilemma & M6 Ultra Rumors** - The hosts discuss the awkward timing of the M5 launch with rumors of an M6 Ultra MacBook later this year.
6 (39:11) **MacBook Neo vs. Air: Which to Recommend?** - The hosts debate the new default recommendation for a college student or general user.
7 (44:01) **Honor "Robot Phone" with Built-in Gimbal** - A look at Honor's bizarre concept phone unveiled at MWC that has a built-in DJI-like gimbal camera.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

A lot happened this week! First, the crew falls down a rabbit hole discussing the Subaru UI and volume knobs before jumping right into all of the new Apple devices that were released. Then they talk about the Honor robot phone, Ray-Ban Meta privacy issues, and Google's 30% Play Store tax. They wrap it up by explaining the Bam Adebayo record breaking performance in tech terms.

Shop the merch:

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Links:

Verge - M5 MacBook Pro review

Verge - Honor phone hands-on

SVD - Meta x Raybans privacy article

Verge - Tim Sweeney article

The Studio - ⁠MKBHD Knockoff desk video⁠

MKBHD - ⁠MacBook Neo⁠

Music provided by:

Epidemic Sound

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