I wasted $1,000 on old junk at the Apple Store!

Apple is often considered to be ahead of the game, but I just returned from my local Apple Store with a $1,000 charge applied to my credit card and everything I bought is old, tatty and weird, why is it still Do you sell any of these things? I'm going to show you what I have and what better place to start than with one of the oldest things that Apple still sells in the Apple Store, the USB superdrive, so in 2008 Apple released the original MacBook Air and had this great presentation that probably remember Steve's

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s. I pulled it out of a manila envelope, it was an incredible demo and frankly a little ahead of its time, I mean the MacBook Air was largely a flop until the 2010 redesign, part of that was thermal, part of that was form factor, but a big part of it was that in order to fit it inside that incredibly small envelope they had to get rid of the disk drive, which in 2008 was still a pretty bold move, so Apple needed some way to offer some kind of CD or DVD support now somewhat futuristic and what they talked about in the keynote was something that is still available in Mac OS 10 today, the remote disk that allowed you to use a separate disk drive from Mac or PC and then access the contents of the drive remotely over the network via Wi-Fi on your MacBook.

It was kind of cool, but the reality is that people who were working with a lot of drives just opted to use the Apple USB superdrive instead, oh this thing has been in their Lan pack for so long that I just ripped out the tab, This is actually a big setback. I mean, look at the gray Apple logo and all this old stuff, they still have plastic in this, which hasn't existed on Apple packaging for quite some time. Check this out, you even have a textured lash which is crazy. here we go, launched at $79 and this is still $79, it hasn't changed literally since 2008, it's made of aluminum, it looks very, very attractive, but other than that, I mean, there's not much going on, there's a little rubber pad here on the bottom so it doesn't slip off of course it's slot loading instead of tray loading and wow look at this there's a USB A port overall but it's got this wrapped connector that It doesn't want to come out, it's okay, there you have it, you see the single.

The USB port was and still is an issue seen on almost every external drive that has shipped before and has since shipped with two USB headers because the power consumption required to spin up a drive and then the Moving laser generally consumes power. more than the 5 watts which is usually the maximum supported, but since Apple makes both the computer and the drive, they can do some power management magic to make this work and allow the drive to draw more and, well, it worked , I mean this. This didn't work with hubs, docks, and displays because it broke the typical convention of USB behavior, but it always worked plugged directly into a Mac until Apple forgot about it on my Mac Studios, a USB port on a new Apple computer that's supposed to drive. an accessory still sold in the Apple Store crashes saying it doesn't have enough power to calibrate the laser and then when I go into Mac OS 10 to close that dialog window it just clears itself completely.

I thought these problems were probably just Macos. I have trouble burning all recordable media because honestly who does that nowadays, but no, because I went to Best Buy and bought a cheap old Blu-ray drive and it works perfectly without any software or drivers, better than the Super Apple drive, which is slow and not supported. Blu-ray yada and this thing hasn't been a good value for years and now that it doesn't support Blu-ray and is legitimately broken on most Apple silicon Macs, it's time to ditch it. Apple is getting rid of it, literally. The oldest bias that has been in the Apple Store for 16 years without an update and you can tell it's shit, the next one is literally crazy.

I've been doing YouTube for 15 years, okay, but I took a 2 year break living abroad, away from technology and when I came back I spent some cash that my YouTube channel had earned in my absence to buy it, wait for it . Mac Pro 2013, what a mistake, uh, the trash can has not been available for sale for 7 years. Parts and accessories. because the trash can has not been available for 6 years and you can still buy it in

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s today. Mac Pro Security Lock Adapter check this out. This thing is so old that the plastic has turned yellowish. There is no sunlight in Apple stores.

So this thing. It's been slowly withering on a shelf and I'm going to open it now, it's $49 and I seriously don't know if I can open this it's like, oh my god, it's like closed soldier, here we go, it's $50 for this. little piece of metal has a pull tab oh yeah there we go and there's this little nugget what is this and how it works well let me show you this is my trash can from 2013 Mac Pro one of the cool design elements that you may not remember that you can slide this lock and reveal the computer, you can open it, that's obviously a problem if you're a school or a company that wants to prevent people from playing with the machine or B stealing it completely. and this thing is literally a deadbolt lock.

I've never used one of these so I don't know how it works, there you go, maybe oh, that's a little sketchy, oh, that sound, oh, that sounds bad, okay, slide that into the fan inlet. oh oh this doesn't sound like it should be oh I didn't close it all the way didn't I H oh there we go oh my goodness oh my goodness that's hard to do okay it's on and then what you would do is take a lock compatible with Kensington, just stick it there, twist it to lock it in place and then no one will be able to open the machine anymore because it's locked in place and then you can also tie it to a desk or a table so no one would steal it Why does this still exist and B Is it actively sold in stores?

It is not like this. The metal doesn't even match. It's like aluminum and they tried to make it like a little bit of space gray, but no. It doesn't match the beautiful Darth Vader look of the trash can, why isn't this

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good for a toothbrush? But if they did, it would be this, this is the sponsor of today's animated wave and look at this packaging. Needless to say, I think it's heavy. The inspiration has been borrowed from Apple and that's not even just in the packaging, look at this, these post lashes are identical, it's so premium, the box is beautiful, let's remove the lid, oh yeah, look, look at this, this It's like this is Johnny IV.

I made this, look at that beautiful recycled packaging, there's literally a symbol right there, okay, I mean, look at this. I have to admit that I already unpacked one of these two months ago. I've been using this toothbrush for a while, but I'm doing this again. It makes me laugh like I'm surprised there aren't any stickers here. This is exactly the same and look at this. This is where the heads of your toothbrushes are located. It's beautiful, premium and recycled. Look at this cable packaging. It's not just this cable. The packaging is literally exactly the same as look at this, okay they used adhesive there, which Apple wouldn't do that, but the cable braiding is identical and the connector looks mag safe, literally the same thing, look at this, okay, like I mentioned .

I've been using this toothbrush for a couple of months and it replaced my very expensive Sonic Air. Not only does it vibrate ultrasonically just as much, if not a little stronger, which basically no ultrasonic toothbrush on the market does. That's why I stuck with the Phillips it's very long but it also oscillates look at this up to 60° I press the power button it vibrates but also oscillates which means you don't have to move it up and down. These bristles are soft and tapered, they are very gentle on your gums and this button is amazing, so I have mine, this one is mine, it has fallen off a couple of times so it has seen better days, but it has this sensitive button pressure, not capacitive, and when I say non-capacitive, that means when your fingers are wet it will still work like it's metal look at this I don't know how they do it because this thing is completely unibody there are no gaps or holes and that's one of my favorite features there's no moo on most toothbrushes you know this little one A gap here and you get all that nasty little crust so gross and you have to take the head off and clean.

No, this thing is tapered in such a way that water goes in there and just removes it completely. I haven't cleaned this base in forever. I love it. Okay, there is an iPhone app on this that allows you to choose the intensity of the cleaning modes and which cleaning mode you would like to select. There are three that are pre-programmable and most importantly, these heads are not a scam unlike other toothbrushes. on the market you get three of these for only 10 bucks and if you want six of them you can get them for as low as 17, the ABS version is $79, this thing is a great value, I think the performance of this is equal to the brushes Nicest Sonicare on the market the battery again I haven't charged it I mean it's low now but I haven't charged it in over 2 months and when you need it just plug it in via mag saave for 2 hours and it's ready to last many more months It comes in plastic It comes in alum and of course it comes in stainless steel for $99 it is an incredible value it is a beautiful toothbrush and it literally makes Johnny IV cry this is probably my favorite accessory sold in stores because it basically only three iPad Pro models supported it.

This is Apple's Lightning to USB 3 Camera Adapter and camera adapters have been around for a long time, actually dating back to the dawn of the iPod. Okay, this is great. The idea was that cameras and other USB accessories could be connected that would ingest data into the photos application. It was originally some kind of very small looking USB2 dongle. I think I have one somewhere. I'll post it if I can find it. In fact, they still sell the original adapter today and sell the similar SD card adapter. You grab your camera, plug it in, ingest the photos into your Photos app or your iPod and go, but when the iPad launched in 2016 and the Files app in 2017, it was clear that more speed, more power and more compatibility, so this thing was released and despite being called a camera adapter, which is an understatement, it can do a lot more, first of all, there is lightning power that doesn't just charge your device. iOS, but it also supplies power to devices connected to it for things like USB microphones and audio interfaces, and when you transfer literal files, whether from an SD card or a USB drive or from your own camera, you can do it.

So with USB3 speeds thanks to the high-speed controller found in the a9x and a10x Fusion S, the fact that the Lightning is restricted to USB 2 was often cited as the reason Apple moved to USBC in the iPhone, but this shows that years and years before they were wrong. USB 3 was around for a lightning bolt so long story short I suspect when the iPhone 16 gets the iPhone 15 Pros a17s the USB 3 will come with it but that SOC is called A7 Pro will they put the a17 pro with the usb3 driver? on the regular iPhone maybe not but if not I'm going to totally slam Apple because they've had usb3 on iOS devices since 2016 and they better not get rid of it okay this is the only thing still on she is ready. designed for current generation products, but I couldn't not talk about it.

I recently sold my 2019 Mac Pro literally a few weeks ago, which is a shame because I would like to show how they work because I could never justify or afford them, but yeah, that's it. right, they are the Mac Pro Wheels, you say you can't afford them, could they just be some wheels for a computer, how much could they cost? 700 $700 $699 dollars, these things cost, so I'm expecting an amazing unboxing experience, okay, we have this bag. I have the documentation and look at this. It is a QR code to learn how to install Mac Pro Wheels. That certainly includes a video.

They included two of them by accident. Well, I guess they're worth about $700. two QR codes, this is a nice paper. Maybe it could have been $698 if they hadn't included it, okay, here they are, you have this beautiful, of course, little cardboard insert here and there, there are the Mac Pro wheels. I've never actually seen them. Life seems to have at least not touched them, let's take one out, oh my goodness, it's hard to say how heavy these things are. This could be almost as heavy as the Apple Vision Pro, which is actually very heavy. Come on, where are you?

Oh, here we are. Wow, we can peel off this little cotton that's here protecting the stainless steel underneath. Wow, that's really extra and then you also have a little plastic tip here, okay, let's see how pretty they are, yeah, they're super pretty, okay, so all this. stainless steel and it's stainless steel like a huge piece of metal, it's a unibody structure so the only moving parts are this top part that spins so well it's based on friction, there are no roller bearings because of courseOf course, there are and then each side has its own little rubber and it is a very hard rubber, but it still has grip and is soft.

It has its own wheel. What this allows you to do is basically hit Vector to give you a super tight turning radius. Look at this, you could probably put in a car. about these wheels um it's surprising it's stupid I mean they don't have to be this expensive frankly it should have come with them I mean let's go with the $6,000 Mac Pro what I'd like to see is how easy or difficult is In fact, install them. See, you have a little Chuck as a good impact driver. You probably won't use it, although I don't know, maybe that's what it's designed for because it has a little impact driver.

A little bit here and then of course there's a little hex wrench on the other end that you would use to remove the legs of your Mac. because this is a professional product. Apple trusts you, the end user, to upgrade something that's on the outside, but you have to access the actual screws from the inside and as you may remember, when I took it down, it was actually quite difficult to access those hex screws, so I would be interested to see if they were really very easy to change. I bet they were a little annoying, they offered to do it in the store.

I think for a while you did buy the kit from them. H, in any case, they should not be sold in stores anywhere, not because they are not yet available. They work with the current generation Mac Pro 2023, but since that computer itself shouldn't sell let alone the wheels and $700, I mean, come on, that's a shame, although now that I sit them down, it makes sense, does it? OK? The most famous, one that everyone will recognize, yes, is the 30-pin dock connector cable that is still surprisingly sold in Apple stores. I say surprisingly because this cable now has two generations of outdated tab oh yeah, oh yeah, okay, okay, this was used on every iPod in storage.

For select Shuffle models, all iPhone and iPad models until Lightning debuted 12 years ago, Lightning is old, making this old. The iPhone 5, I guess technically was the one that switched to Lightning, this connector is very old, but it's actually very, very interesting. Because the original iPod was only compatible with Macs and actually synced over Firewire 400, a much faster protocol than the USB 1.1 found on the Max in the early 2000s, but Firewire 400 was huge and inelegant, so the 30-pin cable came out in 2003. with the 3rd generation iPod to support not only better charging and syncing, but a bunch of different things, so it kept Firewire compatibility.

The third generation iPod actually came with a USB and FireWire cable, in fact I think even the iPod mini. I also did what I got out of the box with Austin Evans years ago, although don't quote me on that H. This thing was cool because not only did it have Fire Wire but it also had a serial interface to interface with the iPod doc. A remote control could be used when the iPod was docked to connect it to your stereo system, and of course, to handle the audio, it had line-in and line-out support to pass through the dock to your stereo system.

Firewire support was generally maintained until the fifth generation iPod video was released which used new pins for composite and S video output support. They also added this authentication boat which only allowed authorized documents and cables to work with the iPod to receive video, but of course, within just a few months, it had been reverse engineered by third parties. party and escape accessories, okay, some weird little things have been added to the remaining pins over the years, like the iPod camera connector I mentioned earlier, which allows you to download photos from your digital camera to the iPod and then when the iPad came out in 2010, HDMI output. was added to this awesome little connector, but it did so with the help of some handy conversion circuitry inside the dongle because they were limited in the number of pins at the end of the life of the 30-pin base connector, almost all 30 pins had been assigned to anything, except the eight that were originally designed and assigned to Firewire data and power remained unused for the vast majority of this connector's lifespan. 30 pins were not reversible, you plugged in one way and that was it, but it was easy to insert and didn't unplug very easily because originally it had locking teeth, you know you had to press buttons to release it, that lasted throughout the iPod era Until the launch of the iPhone in 2007, when this model came out, it was released with a much thinner connector that was only used. friction based latches um it was revised again in 2010 and that's what was done here because they had that old rounded style connector and then in 2010 they sharpened it because it's premium and yes this cable has probably been in a box for longer or less most of a pretty amazing decade.

I miss 30 pins. Do I want to use it now? No, but it was an amazing connector that served its purpose like a lightning bolt and now I'm happy they're both dead and we've moved on. to USBC, where 3.0 speeds are what we get on every Apple standby shit, let me be very clear. Apple's chargers aren't good value for money and honestly aren't particularly good quality, whether they use Japanese Rubicon or Chemicon United caps. just use normal capacitors that you'll find in cheaper products, there are better options available, but there is one Apple charger that I like, it's this one, the 35 Watt USBC Dual Port Compact Power Adapter, that's its official name. debuted alongside the MacBook Air M2 in 2022, it supports a USB PD 3.0 specification that offers four fixed pdos, there are two power circuits, it's actually a pretty clever design, two power circuits that connect in parallel if you have a only USBC device plugged in, so it can give you the full 35 watts, but if you have split power, it will actually distribute power independently based on the specifications and requirements of the device you have plugged in.

It's a good charger, but it's not Gallum nitride. It's not particularly small, it's incredibly expensive at $59 and it's only 35 watts, but it's a good charger, so what the heck is this? This monstrosity supports a 35W power adapter with dual USBC port, the specs would suggest it's the same thing but that can't I'm right, I mean wait, they sell the same thing twice in the Apple Store? Yes, this is the international version that works with different types of plugs. Now the British in particular go on ad nauseum about how good their plugs are, but they are wrong.

They are huge, they are ugly and horrible. Now Apple sells a foldable adapter in the UK that has basically the same design as this compact one, but it's even bigger and only has 20 watts at the same price, $60, basically no reason. For this to exist in the United States, all it does is allow you to remove this classic part that you have seen on your laptop chargers and add an international adapter and in non-domestic markets, so in the United Kingdom, in Europe, in Australia they just sell this different piece attached to the charger, they don't get the cool one we have again.

The UK gets a similar one, but it's only 20 watts, there's no reason you should buy it in the US. This one is bigger, it's less convenient, it's uglier, it's heavier, it's stupid. Honestly, I don't know why they sell it in stores to begin with, because I like it and I guess the argument could be, well, we sell the travel adapters so yeah. you're travelling, you can put that big ugly one from the UK, not just buy it as a travel adapter and then you know, don't buy any of these, but if you get the slim boy model and not this undersized plug monstrosity too I can complain about the price very quickly.

This thing costs $59, which is crazy for a 30-watt non-gallium nitride dual USB port adapter, but now that I've made fun of all my friends across the pond, let me empathize. real quick with my favorite UK um because I think their charger is £79 which is like $90 for this thing with the different adapter. Why is it the same? This is the same price for the UK version. Well, maybe not because it's like. there's a little more metal, but come on, you're screwing with our friends Apple, the iPod's white earbuds are as iconic as the iPod itself, literally, entire commercials focused on these things, the white wire that runs from the outside of your clothes to your Ears wearing them were a status symbol, it meant you had an iPod, but the reality is that the classic round iPod headphones were actually pretty rubbish.

Check it, the first generation iPod shipped with pretty good headphones, but quickly with the second generation they were revised. they sounded good, they were super uncomfortable, but they were fine and shipped until the 5th generation iPods, then they were ruined and sounded like shit for the entire early iPhone era until 2012 when the headphones were released and they haven't been modified for basically 12 years old, oh that's interesting, that's how you know it's old, it's not a lid like all modern accessories, it slides on, oh yeah, thanks to this cardboard insert, remember when you used to get them with your iPhone, plus a charger and a case. and a dock and a belt clip and that was a different mistake, there we go, it says headphones, headphone jack, they actually still carry them, not just on Lightning, but they even made a new version for USBC.

These things have been around the corner and, well, the shape will look familiar because it's basically the same as the original airpods, in fact it's similar to the third generation airpods that I still have and use occasionally. The inline microphone was said to be amazing and it makes sense that it's pretty close to your mouth and uh. in many ways it probably sounds better than airpods here is a comparison test with modern airpod microphones. Okay, the microphone on the wired headphones creaks against my beard, but when I hold it like this, that's how it sounds and that's what the microphone sounds like. like they come from the 3rd gen airpods honestly pretty good they also have an inline volume control which is fantastic this was absent on the 1st gen airpods and the 2nd and 3rd gen and the airpods pro , it didn't come back until the airpods Pro 2 and it's nice to have them here now, sound wise they sound good, they actually sound pretty similar to the regular airpods when they were released, they were pretty good given they came free with an iPhone or iPod and even at $19 they really aren't bad at all, but they're still $19, which is nice, but you can get some absolutely amazing chaii for next to nothing.

These are the tangu one a that are basically the same price as these headphones and just take your breath away. the water, so these things hold up today not really, but Jenzy and whatever they're using these because that's cool or something to not have wireless headphones. I don't know, but since the USBC version came out, it doesn't seem like Apple is breaking down. of them in the short term, although I think they should, it's raining very hard, how electric, how the magnetic Mag Safe 3 returned to the first Apple Silicon Mac Pro. It was great, but Apple still sells an adapter released 12 years ago in stores today to turn Mag Safe into one.

For Mag Safe 2, the truth is that Mag Safe had a rocky start. The Mag Safe 1 used a T-type connector just like the Mag Safe 3, but there were tons of frame issues that resulted from overheated connectors. How did this happen? Questions, well, let's open this. box and discover, oh, there is no explanation, so let me tell you that these Poco pins are not only constantly supplying tons of DC power, which would be very dangerous. All versions of Max Safe are basically the same, the five pins are these first and the second pins have continuity with their mirror pins, making the connector reversible, so the outer pins are ground, the middle pins are they are the VCC power and then the center pin which is smaller than the others, it is a single wire serial protocol.

This connector always provides a very low current, low voltage signal at all times through these power pins, it's low enough that when you touch it you won't feel anything, but it's there and when it finally makes contact with a Mac, The Mac provides a resistive load that draws enough power for long enough that after 1 second the charger flips a switch and the 16-bit microprocessor switches to full voltage on the power rails. It also sends a charger ID to the Mac with a serial number or class ID and a couple of other pieces of information. chains and when the Mac decides it's happy with the charger and when it decides the charger is safe, it turns on its own power input circuit and draws all the charge out of the charger and then the charger changes that little green light to orange using thatsame driver found in the connector, okay, some of the original chargers didn't have tight enough tolerances on the Pogo pins to make good contact before pulling the entire charge into the machine, so it would fail and simply not work at all. times with a bit of spicy smoke or slowly arcing inside until they literally burned the connector and the end of the laptop was not good, these problems were not widespread but they existed and Apple quickly redesigned the entire Magsafe connector to use a L-style connector instead, it blocked some of its ports when I was in One Direction, but it helped seat better against the magnetic mating surface and there wasn't as much leverage that could loosen that connector.

Maxafe in its redesigned form worked very well for years and was integrated into cinema and Thunderbolt. screens and other accessories, but in 2012 magsafe was redesigned to this mag safe 2 to electrically accommodate the thinner retina MacBooks. Everything remains the same, but Apple did not want to break compatibility with the screens and accessories they were still actively selling. So they made this a $10 adapter to convert Max Safe 1 to Max Safe 2. This is completely passive. It's just a magnetic sandwich with some pins in the middle. It's great that they didn't break compatibility with the first generation chargers, but they didn't either. an adapter that goes in the other direction, which is why Apple stores today still sell mag safe 2 and mag Safe 1 chargers compatible with MacBooks since 2006, pretty wild and well, that's it, it feels like you

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$1,000 Look, it's not the worst thing in the world that these things are still sold in stores.

It's better to have more things than you need than not enough. At the same time, there are some things that I would really like Apple stores to have that they don't. They have them and these things leave me wondering if Apple has really reconsidered its in-store product portfolio for a few years now. Thanks so much for looking. Subscribe. Let me know what your favorite Apple accessory has been in the past, whether in the store or not. The most important. as always stay stylish