Primary Technology

You know the quarantine procedures.

24 hours for decontamination. Welcome to
Primary Technology,

the show about the Tech News That Matters
special show this week.

We're gonna talk about Samsung Galaxy
unpacks all the new folds and flips.

OpenAI actually had a breaking containment
situation with one of their models.

We'll get into that. Chinese models are
getting really good.

Apple might come out with a leasing type
deal for their devices and a ton more.

This episode is brought to you by Claude
Nordlayer and you,

the members who support us directly.

I'm one of your hosts, Steven Robles,

and joining us.

For the first time in a very special
episode,

special guest, Lexi Civides. How's it
going,

Lexi?

Hi Steven, I'm doing great. What an honor.

Thank you for inviting me on the show.

And I know we've been trying to do this
for many,

many moons, as they say. And I am so
excited.

I'm so excited to finally be here and make
this happen.

So I'm

Yes.

stoked.

Awesome. Well, thanks so much for being
here.

I'm excited because you have the Galaxy
Watch Ultra Two.

That's the name, right? Yes. You have
that?

That is that

is the name. I do have it right here.

~

On the wrist. And you

and you really do some great work with
fitness trackers and watches.

And so we'll get into that in a bit.

And you have last year's fold,

is that right? You have the odd that as
well.

Z fold seven, yes, I've got that as well.

Yes.

Unfortunately not the new one,

but I don't know if even on you know,

on camera, definitely not on audio
podcast,

If you could tell.

you wouldn't be able to tell the
difference.

That's the thing. But I do want to get
your take on just folds in general because

it seems like this is going to pave the
way for maybe the iPhone fold this
September

and how useful folds are. I want to get
your take on that.

So we'll do it. quick five star review
shout outs.

Thank you for all those who did that.

Dane Zero from the USA says we're the new
Fave podcast.

Doesn't know anyone in Antarctica,

and that's fine. Lexi, do you know or have
you ever been to Antarctica by chance?

No, but I did have the opportunity once to
do a fly over flight of Antarctica.

I wasn't able to actually go on it,

but I was invited on it. Does that does
that count?

I could have seen it from the air?

That that counts very much so that's

Okay.

that's all I mean, that's way closer than
I've been.

We're on a quest to get our pin for
primary technology,

which is a medieval knight riding a polar
bear.

We're on a quest to get it on every
continent,

and Antarctica is the the last one to
conquer.

And so I'll send you some pins just for
fun,

but ~ if you ever go again, we've got take
polar bear.

I pr

might know someone going on a research
trip there,

so maybe maybe

Really?

I could I could send it to Australia and
then send they could potentially take

I'm not sure if it's happening,

but maybe we can we can try. We'll see how
we go.

Listen, I will send listen,

I literally have bags of pins.

I will send as many as it takes.

So we'll send them

Ha ha.

a bunch. that would be awesome.

~ okay, a couple others. Ampheon from the
USA loves the show.

Says Steven is the optimist, Jason is the
realist.

That's our typical ~ chemistry on this
show.

Orion the Crusin the USA, thank you for
that.

And Josh sent me an email and I'm on the
iOS twenty seven beta.

~ are you on the betas by the way?

Do you have iOS devices you're running the
beta on?

I

d I do, I do, and I'm running it on the
primary iPhone that I have.

And I'm just,

Yes.

you know, normally I don't do that and I
wouldn't recommend that for most people,

but this year I just thought, hey,

I'll look I'm just gonna fly by the seat
of my pants and do it and see what
happens.

And it's actually been fine, like really
fine compared to iOS twenty

Yeah. I it

six.

it was really fine. I was getting a ton of
~ springboard crashes over

the weekend after for some reason,

like beta three was fine and then all of a
sudden it would just I would swipe

a couple of times. I had to reset my
iPhone or restart it multiple times a day.

But beta four came out this past Monday.

It is great. And Josh pointed out if you
use Apple Mail,

which I do, the remind me feature,

which came out one or two years ago.

You can set an email and say remind me
later,

but it would not leave your inbox.

It wasn't really an official snooze
feature.

But now it does. There is a setting if you
go to settings apps mail and

you can say move remind me messages to the
remind me inbox,

and it will leave your inbox until the
time that you set to be reminded.

So it's an official, legitimate snooze
feature in Apple Mail.

It does sync across your Apple devices if
you enable that remind me box

on your Mac and your iPad.

And so I'm excited because it's an
official snooze feature.

Do you use snoozing on your emails?

I don't and I don't use on my iOS devices
I don't use Apple Mail,

but I feel like iOS twenty-seven could be
the catalyst that gets me to try it.

I mean I'm I am just, you know,

so accustomed to using Gmail across
everything,

just because I'm constantly going between
iOS and Android.

So I need to have like that flexibility,

even though yes, I I know I can get Gmail
through Apple Mail.

I I just it's never been appealing,

but I th the more I hear people talk about
it and the more I

see the implementation and

Obviously it's indexed the whole device
and now I'm like,

maybe I should because then I get that
flexibility.

We'll see. I don't know. Do you think I
should do it?

I'm just I'm I'm so

Well, a lot people

on the fence.

I posted about that remind me feature and
all the Gmail users were like,

You still can't get push me mail from
Google on iPhone,

like you can't if you connect to your
account.

So I totally get, you know, if you use the
the Gmail account.

But for someone like me, I have Fastmail
as my primary.

I have a couple other accounts that I
sync,

but I I actually like the Apple Mail
interface.

So I think if you're in the dual lifestyle
like you are and you really

are testing a bunch of devices,

totally makes sense be to be in the Gmail
world.

But

I like I like Apple Mail. ~ okay,

and last thing, Ruan sent me an email.

I want to hear f your podcast app of
choice because PocketCast actually

has a few updates coming out. I didn't
realize they have this whole GitHub page

where they're talking about features that
are coming.

Not only do they have automated chapters
coming in PocketCast soon,

but they've implemented HLS video in
Pocket Cast.

And this is the open standard for video.

And so very soon, it's in a test flight
now,

and Ruan sent me the screenshot.

But you can if you're on the test flight
for PocketCast,

you can watch this app this podcast in
Pocket Cast with HLS video

and it's it's there. It's good.

And so Pocket Cast is always my it was my
main podcast app for a long time.

I think if you're cross platform,

it's probably the best option.

But yeah, it's adding some really cool
features.

Is it what what is your podcast app of
choice?

You're you're gonna really laugh at me.

It is a streaming service. It's generally
Spotify.

That's how I just am doing a lot of the
consumption of this.

I mean, again, being cross platform a lot
of the time,

it is just easier to kind of have it
consolidated rather than just in and out.

But maybe with this new feature I should
give Pocket Cast a try.

And yeah.

I was ~

I did a comparison recently and Spotify
surprisingly has a lot

of features that other platforms don't.

they did video first and they have
chapters and follow-along transcripts for
video.

Apple's adding that in iOS 27,

but Spotify had it right now. Plus you can
do things like upload a vertical clip

for your podcast episode and that could be
featured in like Discovery.

So no shame. Like Spotify actually has
some great features for podcasts.

I'm I just like the separation of having
like my podcast over here,

my music over here. But Spotify's actually
a good podcast app.

So yeah. Good call.

Yeah. I mean except I generally ~ this is
gonna be hilarious because I do

a lot of video podcasts. I generally turn
off video podcasts when

I am using Spotify. I'm like, how do

Sure, sir, and I

I get I don't because I'm when I am using
like when I am listening

to podcasts and other content,

it's generally I'm on the move,

I'm walking, I'm testing devices,

I'm out and about rather than sitting
stationary and able to like consume

a piece of video content.

So I'm I am listening audio only generally
and then turning off the video feature.

But please if you are watching this,

I totally get it. yeah.

turn it on because you know, we have this
beautiful matching background right

We do. We did not plan this.

now and I not at all.

We didn't plan it. No, no,

it's good. And I I still primarily listen
to podcasts because I'm either driving

or doing chores and so I'm a primarily
audio listener,

but you know, we do visuals, we try to
share screen and stuff,

and so anyway, Spotify's good at that.

All right. Samsung Unpacked. Samsung had
their big event for their folds.

This is not like the

Next flagship phone, like the 26 Ultra and
27 Ultra,

but this is all the flips. And so they
announced,

I'm gonna try to get these names right.

The Samsung Z Flip 8, which is their kind
of smaller,

it folds vertically, you know,

top down. So there's the Z Flip 8.

There's also the Z Fold 8 Ultra,

which is the newer version of which you
have,

the taller one, kind of the folding one
that you probably see most often.

Then there's the newest one, which is the
Z Fold 8.

Not ultra, and this is the squat passport
style foldable.

And this is if you've seen the iPhone
models circulating around of what

the iPhone Ultra fold might be,

it's this form factor. And I think it's
actually the most interesting.

But let's hit the other two real quick.

The Z flip eight. I've never used one of
these,

so I really can't speak. Have you ever
used one of these Z flips,

any?

You've

never used a flip like a clamshell star?

No. I mean, I had a Motorola Razor back in
the day,

Really? ~ these so well I mean that

but that's not this.

does that does count because that's really
just kind of like the genius

of all of it, right? It's like it that's
the the real feel of what all

of them are trying to achieve.

but obviously in in 2026 it it does feel a
lot different.

But you these I mean ~ I we have to get
you a flip.

I have to get you a flip phone.

I'm gonna have to send you one.

I have to overnight something to you,

Stephen. Like

I'm not mad about it. I'll try it.

I'll

try. I mean the small you know,

it gets real small, which I understand is,

you know, an attractive ~ feature.

And the best camera can face you and you
see the screen.

And the technology looks cool,

like the camera punch outs that actually
go through the screen.

Samsung did a bunch of updates to the flip
eight where you

can see your notifications, you can scroll
social media,

you can basically use that outer screen,

which they call some funny name.

I forget what it's called. It's not a
cover screen.

Do you know the official name they call
it?

It's like

~

don't yes. I mean I'm t look, when it
comes to Samsung marketing terms,

I I do not memorize them deliberately
because nitography,

I ~ look, I it's not a word. I will go on
and until

Not a word.

and until the end of time about how these
marketing terms just don't make any sense,

regardless. I've forgotten the name of the
cover screen.

Yeah, yeah, I don't know. It's the one on
the outside.

yes, yes, yes, yes.

It does a lot more.

But ~

No, but I mean you're right, like this it
this just been a slow evolution

of just trying to like add all of these
features.

I mean, the way that Samsung has ~
engineered the Z Flip 8's cover screen

is so it's basically bringing in a lot of
the features

and functionalities that we've seen from
like the Razor series,

for example. And so it's sort of about
time in that respect,

but you know, Samsung has had like so many
different ways in which it's kind

of been, you know, pushing the development
of these this c entire category.

So

They've got to kind of save something for
each specific generation.

But I I feel this year though,

I mean, we'll talk about the regular Z
Fold 8.

Again, it's I

Ultra now.

know ul ultra and the ultra. No,

no, because they've they've changed the
naming convention,

Yeah. ~ yeah yeah. Yeah yeah.

right? So

the Z Fold 7 and Z Fold 8 is this like
low.

Sorry, I'm even getting confused now.

The Z Fold 7 is the traditional long kind
of configuration that we,

you know, we've used to.

On all of Samsung's previous ~ fold lines.

But now they've kind of flipped the naming
convention because the Z Fold

8 is that passport one that you were
mentioning,

and the Z Fold 8 Ultra is the long one,

like the successor to the Z Fold 7.

So it is a little bit confusing in how
that naming convention has been done.

Anyway, the

Yes.

we'll talk about kind of that in a minute,

but just going back to the flip for one
quick second,

the pocketability of this is

Mm.

why.

people are so interested. The nostalgia is
also another huge element to it.

And it does feel I when you use a flip
phone,

it just feels incredibly good to use.

I it's it's

Mm.

one of these things I can't really
describe until you actually have it in
your hand,

which is why I do want to send you
something.

So you can have an experience of it.

sure. I found I was gonna send you pins.

I have to go through my drawers and see
what I have.

If you wanna send me

a phone, I'm that's fine.

Well, it's not to keep, it's tomorrow,

but we'll see what I I'll see what I have.

okay, okay, okay, very good, very good.

I might only have a really old I might
only have like a Z Fold three,

maybe somewhere in my tech drawer
somewhere.

We'll s we'll see what I've got.

But ~ you ni you do need to experience it.

Yeah. Okay.

At least

get a get a razor as well. We gotta get
you a razor too.

Okay. I listen all right.

Okay.

I'll try it. I will say I've not seen any
flips in the wild.

I've seen folds in the wild and I have
like a friend who has one as well.

Do you I mean you're in San Francisco,

so do you do you see these out and about?

I was about to say you gotta come here
that you'll see them.

You go to cafes.

Okay.

No, I mean, potentially like not as pr
prolific as you might think,

but I've definitely seen a lot more folds
here than you know anywhere else.

But really, it's it's the productivity
play that for me,

not the flip, but the folds specifically,

it's all about like kind of that working
on the go,

that kind of content consumption that is
where its kind of biggest strength is.

And so

It's interesting because I've seen a lot
of the coverage around the Z Fold 8,

the passport style form factor being all
about it's great for consuming content,

like the four by three aspect ratios on
the internal screen is just much more

optimized for video. But I think for me,

not having had hands-on with it yet,

but just looking at the specifications,

seeing all the videos come out,

the passport style foldable is so much
better for.

multitasking for productivity,

at least I feel like that's what it's
going to be like for using

and working across multiple different apps
in those internal screens than

the current configuration of the 7 and the
8 Ultra.

For me at least, I I think it's going to
be a more of a productivity play.

But again, I'll have to wait and see what
it actually feels like when I use it.

Because the aspect ratio of you know
content consumption on the longer Z Fold

7 and Z Fold 8 Ultra, you know

We'll we'll see what the new one is like,

but ~ I think the productivity play for me
is gonna be the biggest part

of the eight, the regular eight,

the z fold eight. I it's confusing.

The re the regular. Yeah, yeah.

It is it is confusing.

I just I wish

they called it like Z Fold Eight Pocket or
something,

you know? Tall Well

Tall. Tall

and they should have done they should have
done Z Fold eight Legolas and then Z Fold

Tall.

eight Gimli. And I feel like that would
have been very clear.

No.

Yes.

Okay. Yes. Let's let's go with that.

I was gonna say like pocket and well,

I actually think it was interesting
because I saw ~ Michael Fisher hit he you
know,

his his like video was great. Like if you
haven't watched his debrief

on the the folds and the flip,

definitely go see that. But his thumbnail
on YouTube was amazing because

it was like it's kind of like the small,

medium, large versions of all of them.

And that's exactly what I feel Samsung has
done is like the small one

is the the flip, the medium one is the
eight.

And the large one is the 8 Ultra.

So I thought that was like a great way.

It's like, you know, small, medium,

large. I like that.

That's it. I

will link his video. I'll also link
MKBHD's because he has compared them all.

And s the Z eight Ultra.

So this is the big one. And there have
been some improvements.

I'm linking all of the Verge articles as
well because David Imel from

~ like Waveform, he works with MKBHD.

He actually did all a lot of the
photography for these devices this week.

And the photography is amazing.

So you should go to the articles and look
at the photos because they're awesome.

But the Z Fold 8 Ultra, the big one.

Samsung made a big deal about this new
flex titanium technology,

which is going to lessen the crease of the
foldable.

The battery is bigger, 5,000 milliamp
hours.

There's 45 watt charging now. Samsung
developed this like dual charging system
where

both batteries, because there's a battery
on both sides of the Z Fold 8 Ultra,

it'll charge faster. And there was one
feature I I watched the keynote breakdown

and I really liked the fan cam feature,

which is basically a live subject
tracking.

So if you

record a landscape video and you want it
to be focused on one person because you're

going to make it a reel or a TikTok.

Samsung will just do that for you when you
edit the app or when you tell

it to do the fan cam. Like all that is
very cool.

I have I have just two questions for you,

Lexi, because you have last year's model,

you've used it a bunch, the crease.

Is it actually an issue or not?

And how useful is the folding anyway?

Well, we have to always have something to
complain about,

right? And and for many people,

Sure.

the c the crease is kind of the the one
thing ~ that really will will

get their goat, right? As they say,

right? And I for me, you know,

I don't notice it that much when I'm
immersed in the device.

And, you know, for example, using content,

watching things, if I when I was,

you know, using this as kind of my daily,

I would

watch a lot of content like at night in
the middle of the night,

~ you know, with a young newborn baby,

I would basically be using like the the
fold as kind of my daily just

to consume content, you know, at three in
the morning.

And I didn't notice the crease at all.

And I'd be using it for hours at a time,

watching things just like going,

I wish I could sleep, I wish I could
sleep,

but thank goodness YouTube exists,

right? So, you know, for me it didn't
really,

it doesn't really bother me that much.

But over time

You know, I if you think about,

you know, a a regular consumer,

I was very fortunate that this is a review
unit that I was sent from Samsung.

So I didn't have to pay the $2,000 for it.

It does go back though, obviously,

with all review review units that I get.

They do eventually go back to the
manufacturer.

But you know, if you're thinking about it
like you've spent $2,000 on this phone,

sometimes a bit less with trade-ins,

but now this year the prices have gone up.

Right. So you're spending

Yes.

a significant chunk of change.

You do want the ultra experience.

And I said this about the S26 Ultra when I
reviewed it earlier in the year.

You want like a true premium ultra
experience that is deserving of that name.

And for a lot of people, the crease in the
display is still something that

is an annoyance. Like we're eight
generations in now,

and we do want to have like that
experience.

It does feel like a true tablet when you
unfold it.

We've seen like

other manufacturers like the N the Oppo
Oppo Oppo,

I say it like the Australian Oppo,

Yeah, I buy. Yeah.

~ N6

Find. I'm sorry, I always get those names.

I'm terrible when it comes to just like
the the acronyms of model names.

I don't even know. It's not you.

They're all strange. Yeah.

But it's my job, right? Like I need to
memorize the names better.

~ the

Yeah, sure.

the crease, you know, that the the way
reduced the the reduction of that crease
like

is incredible on that device. And so we've
seen like other people have been able

to do it. So you know

I'm really looking forward to seeing how
thank you,

find N6. Thank you for pulling that up.

Yeah. Yeah.

Because

~ yeah, getting the names back to front is
is just something that I do all the time.

All the time. But yes, wanting to have
like the the features on the device that

are deserving of the ultra name.

And so having like the the reduction in
the crease,

this new ~ titanium technology that is,

you know, bonded differently, different
levels of strength to help the screen

be a little bit more durable as well.

You know, again

It's about time. It's about time that
we're doing something

Sure.

about this crease. And if the rumors
about,

like you mentioned the iPhone fold,

the rumored iPhone fold at the top of the
show.

And if that comes to fruition,

and if that's real, as it as we're gonna
hopefully see in September,

you know, if that does have a creaseless
or a like a minuscule crease

in the display, which incidentally also
might be made by Samsung display,

which I find quite hilarious. ~

That's funny.

You know, then obviously we do want to
have like the the best,

you know, preview of that right now.

So we'll see. But yeah, very long

~

winded way of saying who wants a crease?

Especially if we're on a two

Well, yeah, and

thousand dollars device.

that and if and when Apple does the
folding iPhone,

you know, the Apple pun like everyone who
follows Apple,

they will freak out about corner radii and
just the slightest design issue,

~ whether it's hardware or software.

And so I feel like i when Apple does it,

everyone's gonna be looking for that
crease.

Whether it actually bothers you or not in
use,

and like you're saying, probably in most
use cases,

like I have a friend with the Z Fold seven

And he'll open it up and do something and
like yeah,

you don't really see the crease when
you're just looking at the content

on the screen. But I think it'll just
it'll be the story if Apple

has not figured out how to minimize the
crease as much as possible.

And so we'll see. And we'll see with this
new titanium technology that Samsung has.

They showed like the cross section of the
hinge during the keynote too,

of like how you you know, the screen isn't
like f creased at the bottom.

Like it does this little loop at the
bottom of the mechanism to try

and prevent that ~

Increase over time. So we will see.

You know, we will see how good it is.

But the one that I found most interesting,

and that's most hopefully like the iPhone
fold,

is this passport style, just the Z Fold 8
squat,

we'll say. And this is MKBHD's video.

I'll link his and and Fisher's video.

But this one, you know, MKBHD shows a
couple things where,

you know, if you're looking at a photo,

it will actually fill the entire internal
display because the aspect ratio

is ideal for that. If you watch a video,

of course, you're gonna have black.

bars on the top and bottom, but it seems
like it rides the line really nicely from

nice outer screen to use that's still
usable,

and then the internal screen that is a
good aspect ratio for both watching
videos,

looking at photos, or like you're saying,

productivity, having an app on each side.

I would be really inclined to try the
iPhone version of this.

I would try the Samsung version of it too.

But the one thing that Samsung
differentiated here is it it's not an
ultra.

Meaning it doesn't have the three cameras.

It doesn't have maybe it's like the larger
battery that the Ultra does.

And so like the iPhone Air last year,

I do wonder if people are gonna have to
choose between the pros that have

the three cameras, the best cameras,

you know, the best display technology,

whatever other improvements Apple makes,

versus let's try the fold, but it only has
two cameras,

so on and so forth. We'll see what how
Apple threads that needle.

But how do you feel? And I mean you
haven't used it yet,

but

That passport style size, what was your
feelings about that?

I think I'm pretty bullish on it.

I think it's gonna be pretty good.

I am excited about it because,

you know, things like pocketability,

portability is big. I've seen a lot of
people who have particularly small hands

get very excited about the prospect of
having a device that is a little bit more,

you know, the hand feel of that is going
to be a bit better for them.

So those elements are something that I'm
looking forward to.

There ~ is also, you know, the things that
we didn't talk about that

the the the folds don't have, you know,

like the S pen support.

Can I just go on a little bit about S Pen
support and why these devices don't have

it? Because I'm

Why?

a little bit frustrated. And also the I
mean,

I know we were talking to talk about how
excited I am about it,

but I'm also like a little bit,

why haven't we got the S Pen support on
these devices?

Were you a note seven

Why haven't

apologist? Like did you enjoy that phone?

The note seven, the w the the one that
that exploded?

The one with the S Pen that like no maybe
that's why it's in my mind.

But did you like the versions of the
Samsung phones with the S Pen?

Like you found that useful?

my goodness, I am a Note f OG fan from way

Okay.

back. Like ~ I don't want to talk too long
about how much I I love

I'm the Note series and how the S series,

the Ultra series specifically,

is not the spiritual successor that I
hoped it was gonna be.

Hm.

~

I can talk about that. I have spoken about
that in length in previous videos,

And well and I will s I No,

so I I won't I won't bore you with that.

no,

and I and I will say there have been times
when I'm working on my iPad with

the Apple Pencil and I edit podcasts on my
iPad with Apple Pencil.

So I'm doing that every day. And there's
been many times where I'll have

my iPhone and I want to do something on it
real quick,

and I will take the Apple Pencil about to
do something on the phone,

thinking I can. And I'm like, ~ it would
be great if I could do that.

And so I feel I totally get.

You know, yes, it's a smaller screen,

but for note taking, like you're saying,

you know, just actual notes if you were in
a talk or whatever,

or being able like Fairright, the app I
used to edit I edit podcasts,

it's on the iPhone too. And you can use
Fairrite to edit.

And I would love to be able to use my
pencil on the iPhone.

There have been times when I'm traveling
and just using the iPad will be
cumbersome.

So I will edit on my phone and I'm over
here like thumbing these audio waveforms

and it would be great if I could just do
it with the pencil.

So I get I've never used the note one,

but I get it. I totally get it.

Well, you know, people would say,

Yes, well you can use the S twenty six
Ultra which has it the the S pen in it.

And I I I would say yes, I can,

but I I don't get mag safe charging or
magnets in that phone,

and I don't get magnets in the fold series
either.

And there's no S pen support on that
because long story short,

the working theory, even though I don't
think it's come out officially from
Samsung,

that

The reason why there are no magnets in the
S Ultra series is because

of the stylus and the interference that it
could cause with the magnets,

~ you know, basically the way that the
stylus works.

You know, the magnets in the phone,

if they were there, would cause,

you know, interference. And we've s we saw
that with kind of like some magnetic

cases providing some odd interference with
the with the S pen.

But if there's no S pen support,

And that that why can't we have magnets in
the fold?

You know, like that there's sort of this
this trade-off that I I I I just it's

the hill that I'm willing to die on.

It's the I want magnets in everything.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

I want MagSafe in everything. And and
people

often like wonder why I get so annoyed by
this.

And for me it's an accessibility thing
because it,

you know, if you have limited dexterity.

If you're constantly doing things with a
lot of things in one hand and you've

got a phone in the other and you need to
be charging it,

you don't have the ability to just like
whip out a cable necessarily and plug it
in.

Putting it on a MagSafe charger,

putting it on a stand is so much more
convenient.

It's easier. The other thing with the fold
series,

specifically, and this is one of the
issues that I had with the Z Fold 8,

is that a lot of cable like you this is
I'm so sorry.

I'm getting into the weeds here,

No, that's right. That's it. That's what
we do.

but the s

Yeah.

I go okay, good, okay, good, because I can
talk about this for such such

a long time.

The way the configuration of the sev the Z
Fold 7 is in the charging port,

a lot of USB-C cables, not all of them,

but some of them that are slightly
thicker,

~ the way the plug is configured,

you kind of have to open the device ever
so slightly,

plug it in, kind of gently shut the the
screen again.

And but then

What?

it sort of still kind of can remain
slightly open.

Depends on the cable. Not all cables can
do this,

but like a lot of the ones that I do seem
to have this odd charging configuration,

especially ~

a lot of the cables that I have that come
with faster charges on the end.

I don't know. It's just a very odd way
that because it's such a thin design,

Yeah.

the charging situation on the seven for me
has always been a a a little

bit of an annoyance. And not having mag
safe is just a big pain point

for me in general. Again, a lot of people
do ~ you know,

get mad about this on both sides of the
equation.

So ~ you can

Please don't fight me in the comments,

but I would love to hear like the other
side of why MagSafe is not a the thing,

like why why people don't want that in a
phone.

~ so yeah, the charging situation.

pick and Google put it like pick

Pixel Snap, you know, it's all over.

I actually ~ I'm gonna sp not spoil,

but I'm gonna do a video this weekend and
I just rebought a Pixel 10,

~ just came this morning actually,

because I'm gonna do some Gemini testing.

We'll just say that. and versus Siri AI.

So anyway. ~ speaking of which,

Ooh.

yeah, yeah, yeah. Let let me talk about
Gemini real quick because Gemini task

automation, ~ Samsung announced is coming
to forty more or forty apps

And if you're not familiar, this was only
the Pixel 10 and Samsung Galaxy

S26 series that had task automation.

But I actually found it to be really
useful.

A lot of people kind of poo-pooed this
feature because it's like,

your phone can use the Starbucks app.

Great. But I actually thought,

yeah, it actually was great. And I had a
S26 Ultra to test it with.

And you could just give it a complex
Starbucks order and it could use

the app for you in the background.

Do it all, and then you can just press
order.

And so now it's going across more apps,

mostly travel booking, restaurant
recommendations,

shopping, like Etsy and Expedia,

things like that. But I think that's like
the next step.

You know, that's something Siri AI cannot
do.

It's not going to be able to use
third-party apps for you.

The most third party apps can do is like
give app intents and hopefully you'll

get some actions, get some data from
third-party apps.

But I've found task automation to be
really interesting.

Have you

Played around with that at all?

Do you I mean what's your feeling on that?

Then Gemini and you because you use more
Android phones than I do,

like thoughts on Gemini in general?

Well, I've used it ~ on the S twenty six
Ultra when it first launched.

So for the f you know, the first few weeks
I was kind of really bullish on

it and I was just trying to see all of the
ways in which I could kind of

get it to work and and be useful for me.

And the the real restriction that I came
up against was just the time that

it took to complete a very simple task was
extensive.

Like it was very, very long. And obviously
being a very early iteration of this.

you know, people would say, well,

of course it's gonna take a while.

It's also, you know, cloud based in the
way that it's,

you know, basically piecing all of this
together,

even though it's doing it on device,

it still needs the cloud, right?

Like Gemini still it needs a connection to
do everything.

And that's sort of the things that I've
encountered testing the ~

the watches as well is that Gemini is
great,

but you need to be connected for the
majority of the things that you want

to do on it. So the speed was always an
issue for me.

I also ~ I mean

Again though, a lot of I think the the
things with task automation is that

it is maybe I'm expecting a little bit too
much from it in the terms

of like wanting it to be more real time as
fast as I can do it myself.

Because I would find that, you know,

I was out one day, I think I was doing the
S twenty six ultra review and I was like,

I'm just gonna test it out on one of the
apps that I know it works with,

which is the McDonald's app. And you know,

I was like, okay, let's see how fast I can
do it.

So I timed it.

Doing the same command on Gemini versus me
actually physically going into

the app and trying to place an order.

And I think Gemini took something like it
was like over a minute,

and I did it in maybe, maybe 10 seconds to
kind of do the same task.

Sure.

And again, you know, it it's it's fine
because you know,

you I think the main reason to use
automation is because you just sort

of want to set and forget, right?

You just want to get it done and go on
with your day.

But I'm impatient and I want things done
immediately.

Sure, sure.

So I will old school just go and do it
myself.

So that was the source of frustration for
me.

But I am happy to see that it is available
on more apps.

And I am hoping that when I get to test it
again now,

hopefully on the new Z Fold 8 series,

and obviously when the Pixel 11,

Pixel 11, yeah, we're up to 11 now,

when that comes out as well to sort of see
the progress that's been made there

and see if it is a little bit better.

at the complexities of tasks because it
did stumble.

I don't know why I'm talking about the
McDonald's one specifically,

but I just tr was trying to make

Yeah.

it order like a very specific combination
of things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like

it was not a I think it was like a big Mac
Meal,

but I wanted to remove one of the elements
in the burger.

And I think it sort of struggled when it
got to that stage or something.

There was some reason why it wasn't able
to do what I wanted it to do.

So those sort of complexities within
additional apps will be interesting

to see if it has improved on that front.

But as about a as an assistant in general,

you're running the beta, you said,

so I've you've played with Siri AI maybe a
little bit.

Mm-hmm.

How does that compare with Gemini just as
an overall assistant?

Well, I'm gonna be really intrigued to see
what conclusions you come to when

you do your testing as well. I mean,

Gemini, the the speed of Gemini is
superior to Siri AI at the moment.

I don't think there's any kind of question
about that.

Gemini does have a bit of a hallucinations
problem,

though, that I've I've found not
necessarily like in

kind of like task automation and things
like that.

But just in in in general, like I've just
found that Gemini does tend

to hallucinate a little bit more than any
of the other a AI tools that I have

I have used. Maybe that's because I when
I'm using my voice specifically

to talk to it, it's interpreting things
wrong because of my accent.

It could be partly to do that with that.

It also could be because it the model just
does,

you know,

hallucinate a little bit more ~ in certain
respects.

But when I am using Gemini, you know,

it works for the the the main things that
I need it to do,

right? And it is fast. Yeah. Across

Okay.

across everything. But I try not to use
it,

you know, as my kind of like go to because
the way that it's set I've sort

of set up my Samsung phones, for example,

when I'm using it is now I've got

~ Gemini is kind of like the main I'm also
using using Bixby,

would you believe as I my on device,

~ okay.

like as the as the agent that I'm kind of
on doing all of the on device

~ stuff with on the phone,

Right.

like all of the volume adjustments and all
of this the settings

and things like that. So just

Mm.

trying to kind of spread across the load
in in different ways,

because it does have strengths in in some
ways and Bixby

and Perplexity have strengths in others.

Okay, interesting. All right, well one f I
want to get to the watch because

you had a great video. You just published
it this morning as we record

on the Galaxy Watch Ultra Two.

I'll link it in the show notes.

I've not used any watches, so you'll have
to tell me,

but the brightness increased, there's
better performance.

And the one feature I thought was wild,

it will tell you when to drink stuff.

What is that? What is the hydration
warning?

It will tell you when to drink,

not ~ any just water or electrolytes,

Yeah, I'm sorry, just one Very good.

nothing nothing else. Just to make just to
make that clear.

It's not just saying, hey, it's five
o'clock,

Yeah, very good. Time to hit it.

crack open that beer. Ty

Yeah, no no.

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Yeah, not that. Not that.

Not not that. So it has a trail run
workout type and that it's exclusive

to this watch. And for trail I'm not a a
strong trail runner.

I do run on trails, but I wouldn't say I
am a trail runner.

by by choice is so when you do I mean I

It's an occupational hazard.

mean it kind of is I'm so clumsy I trip
over things all the time it's sort

no.

of the worst place for me

to run to be honest but when you are on a
trail run like you you

you know generally you're out in the
wilderness in you know environments that

are probably a little bit more harsh than
if you're just running on the street

or a track or something. And so you know
you lose a lot of sweat essentially

And so this is using ~ basically like an
AI calculation to determine when you've

lost a certain percentage of water or
sweat.

And it tells you, hey, you should drink
water and it will give

you the specific amount that you should
rehydrate with in order

to avoid dehydrating. It's pretty
interesting.

It does, it does work as advertised,

but again, it is not using necessarily
like it's not a mechanical way or like

a the scent, there's no sensor on board
that is specifically like.

For sweat loss. It's using a

Okay.

calculator, an AI calculation,

a methodology to kind of pull together
data from like your actual run,

the environment, and the bioactive sensor,

whatever it's reading from that as well,

to come up with this measurement.

And so it took me, I did 37 minutes of
running before it told me I needed

to drink a little bit more. But I was so
thirsty

Okay.

before that, I would have loved to have
had a drink earlier.

So again,

Right.

With all of these tools, you you need to
listen to your body first

and foremost rather than rely on something
on your wrist or a phone

or whatever to give you that piece of
advice.

And it's something I always try to bring
up every time I do something that

has an AI where like anything that has AI
in it that's to do with your health

and fitness, like please listen to your
body.

These are not medical tools. These are not
designed to like really

You know, give you that kind of complete
picture.

If you feel like you need to drink,

please drink some water. Don't listen to

And it

your watch if you you know, it doesn't
tell you yet.

And it can't

take into account like if you've drank
something.

So like if I drank a gallon of water,

I might still get that notification,

hey, you should drink water now.

Like it doesn't know that.

That's a good question. I actually don't I
should do that test.

I don't want to drink a gallon of water
and then go on a 30 minute run.

Not a gallon, but you know what I mean.

Like,

no, no, no. Drink like you know,

drink like a 16 ounce bottle of water at
30 minutes and see like,

do I still get a notification?

Because I though my question was gonna be,

is there a sensor specifically for this?

And you said there's not. Because I was
like,

if it's not sweat perspiration
measurements,

then it has to just be like active
calories and movement.

And that could mean a lot of different
things.

I mean, I was a very intense wee tennis
player,

~ but I was also not sweating.

So I feel like, you know, there's there's
something there.

But and like you said with AI.

There's a f funny part in your video.

I'll link the video in the show notes.

Also go subscribe to Lexi's YouTube
channel.

Everybody do it. Let's get her to like
thirty thousand today as you listen to
this.

But it says funny things like your first
workout is tops which you were just saying

it just kinda says funny things sometimes.

Who mean who does anyone say that?

It sounds like ye oldie like from the
nineteen thirties,

like good work old chap, your workout was
tops.

My good sir. Quite the run. Yeah,

Like quite

yeah, no.

quite the effort there.

Yeah, well played, huh? ~ I I don't know
why that's the only old timey thing

Ha ha ha

I can think of, but yeah.

so you've tried a bunch of fitness things,

and when we get to personal tech,

I want ask, you know, what is your actual
daily driver fitness tracker?

But the Galaxy Ultra Watch two and you're
testing,

do you find that accuracy, it is on point,

better than something like an Apple Watch
or a Whoop,

or is it all just estimation like take it
all with a grain of salt?

Like what's that part like accuracy wise?

Wow, what ~ a a big area of discussion
because this is something that is like

a real passion area for me. So first and
foremost,

I do want to say that like I haven't got
enough data yet from the watch

in order to provide like an actual
judgment on whether or not it is accurate.

From my understanding, the sensor on board
is the same as the first Ultra

in terms of things like its heart rate
measurements and so on.

But I will be doing like again another
validation of what I try to

do with every single wearable that I test
is I want to try and test like

the main metrics in terms of how accurate
they are.

So like step counting, heart rate accuracy
tracking,

and I do that against chest strap,

which is kind of like the gold standard
when you are like an athlete

or just in consumer heart rate tracking to
see if that actually matches up.

And so, like a good threshold for like a
wrist-based wearable

is generally anything from like if it's
like

within two one to two beats per minute of
the chest strap and like you know

of the average heart rate and things like
that.

And you know that's generally a good sign
and that's generally where we

are kind of on wrist-based wearables.

I would say from like my my previous
testing of other wearables that

you know overall the Apple Watch is one
of,

if not the most accurate in my t my
specific testing of various metrics such

as heart rate tracking, things like that.

Sleep tracking is another really
interesting one that again,

I don't want to go into the rabbit hole
about this,

but sleep tracking is something that
really like if you want to

get really clinical about measuring this,

the only way to do that with accuracy is
through a lab grade sleep study.

Mm.

And so the the ultimate test. I think ~ a
journalist from the Wall Street Journal

did this and I was

Annoyed because I'd kind of done this
before,

but ~ but props to her because she did an
amazing,

amazing debrief of comparing like the
whoop,

the Apple Watch, the Aura Ring,

and I think there was one more.

And she did a lab grade sleep study to
kind of compare the accuracy

of the sleep tracking and a number of
other metrics.

So it's definitely it's a great piece.

You should go check it out if you haven't
seen it already.

~ there you go. ~ it was Aura Ring,

Fitbit Air, Whoop, and Apple Watch.

Great piece.

And the Aura Ring five, which

just came out, yeah.

Yes, I'm wearing it right now actually.

Decked

~ look at that. Okay.

out in it. Yeah.

So so you found the Apple Watch is still
of all like

the wrist ring wearable types,

you find it to be the most accurate.

I wouldn't say I'm not gonna say like have
the blanket statement of it's

the most accurate for absolutely
everything.

I think for wrist based

Sure, sure.

specifically, for many of the metrics that
I'm kind of looking at,

it is very accurate. It is kind of the one
thing that I am like kind

of looking at is almost like the North
Star.

But not it there's always ve there's so
many different variables here.

Like again, for example, like

The Pixel Watch 4 is fantastic for certain
elements.

Like its heart rate tracking is fantastic.

It's really, really good at that.

But it falls down when it comes to things
like distance and route calculations

in like GPS-based

Mm.

workouts when you are doing very niche
things like doing a dog walk,

like, or or pushing a stroller.

And the, you know, it gets like things
like distance and step count wrong,

for example, even though it has like
amazing

Mm.

ways of calculating heart rate in,

you know, other respects.

Again, I don't want to go down the rabbit
hole here.

If you do want to talk about this like

That's good.

in more depth, we could do another like
breakout.

I should do a breakout video. I should do
a breakout video on this.

We should we'll do a breakout video

I should. I should.

and then come back. We could do a special
episode because I again I won't

go too deep, but all the health tracking
features as a casual user,

they're interesting, it's whatever.

But when someone is actually going to
depend on the numbers,

it becomes very important how much do I
trust these numbers?

And like my mom in recent months,

she's been having some heart things and
she's on now different medications

and she has an Apple Watch. She's had it
for a few years.

But now she's like very attuned to what
those numbers are doing.

And if she sees the notification of like
your trending heart rate resting heart
rate

has changed, that could induce some
anxiety of like,

wait, is that good? Is that bad?

Is the medication doing something?

And she was even really looking at like
the blood oxygen ~ measurements

on the Apple Watch. And I had to tell her,

like, mom, do not stress about the blood
oxygen,

because if there's any sensor on the watch
that doesn't matter as much,

like

Don't worry about the blood oxygen.

Like it's it might tell you you're at 95%
and it might not be right.

So so when you're really depending on this
stuff,

and I also had someone I've talked about
it before,

someone I knew personally, who got the
Apple Watch notification that their heart

rate was too high and found out she was in
kidney failure.

And so there are times when these are very
important and the accuracy is important.

So I I think it's valuable information.

Maybe we should come back and talk about
it again.

But

You do have to know, like, all right,

the sleep score, my Apple Watch tells me
I'm gonna feel terrible today.

Take that with a grain of salt.

Like maybe I went to bed a little late,

the sleep score is kind of ambiguous.

But like you say, the heart rate tracking,

yeah, if it says my resting heart rate is
twenty beats higher than it

was a few months ago, that's something to
maybe take into consideration,

kind of thing. Is that how you approach
some of these numbers?

Yeah, well, really like the the key thing
to remember you kind of hit

the nail on the head. These are not
medical devices.

There are some sensors and some features
that are FDA cleared,

which basically means that like they they
have been validated in that respect.

And so that maybe you could use those a
little bit more as kind of like a

a a truth that you can take to your
medical provider and be like,

hey, like my watch has told me that like
I've ~ you know,

I'm showing signs of AFib. Let's do a a
test to see if that is actually the case.

Like those are the sort of signals that

you should be paying more attention to
like you found with you know your

mum and your friends like those definitely
like do do take those into into

consideration things like sleep scores ~ I
could I can talk about sleep scores

so just really quickly sleep scores are a
proprietary measurement that each device

calculates differently it is a calculation
it is not based on a standard every

Right.

single wearable does sleep scores
differently that's why if you wear

an aura ring you wear an apple watch you
wear a galaxy watch

They're all going to calculate that sleep
score differently because they take into

account different way, like different
weightings of things,

like how long it took you to fall asleep,

how long you've stayed in certain sleep
stages.

And also the way in which they measure
like sleep stages is not the same.

There's no consistency across devices.

So sleep scores, you know, if they help
you,

great. They can be a great way to gamify
getting better sleep for a lot of people.

But if they make you stressed and more
anxious,

don't look at it.

And don't worry because sometimes like
they don't tell you how you feel

at all and they can't diagnose anything
like a sleep disorder.

You you can't do that with with a watch
unless it's potentially a sign

of sleep apnea, which is again like going
back to that medical

FDA cleared validation that I was talking
about earlier.

Those are the things that you can't be
paying attention to.

Sleep scores can be bit I just treat them
as a bit of fun,

to be honest.

I'd

say I will I will just do a for everybody
if you're concerned about your sleep

score, I'll tell you what it says.

Go to bed earlier and get seven plus hours
of sleep at night.

That's like the only thing like it's going
to tell you,

you know. And if you stayed up late,

you know, you might not feel great.

And to your point about like the sleep
score is basically like arbitrary,

calculated differently. I recommended this
app recently.

It's a free iPhone app made by former
Apple employees.

It's called trackables. Again,

totally free. Doesn't no weird tracking
stuff.

But you give it access to your health data
and it will give you

a different sleep score than you got in
the stock health app because it's just

calculating the numbers differently,

maybe not over indexing on your bedtime
and wake time,

but just on overall time of sleep.

So you can get a different score if you
just want a different score.

You know what I mean? Like it's it's not
don't don't put too much weight on it,

basically. That's it. ~ last thing,

Samsung wise, and then I we gotta talk
about open AI,

they got smart glasses coming out.

~ I just recently did a whole video on the
metaglasses.

I since returned them and now Samson's
like,

no, well we're gonna do it too.

And it looks very similar. This is
Gentlemanster and Warby Parker designs.

It's gonna have the camera, it's gonna
have Gemini built in.

It's still a camera on your face,

and so I'm not sure how that they're gonna
solve that cultural ~ issue.

But have you tried smart glasses ever?

Do you have any interest in this?

Yeah, I actually tried the Google
prototype of these at Google IO back in in
May.

It's the second time that I've tried them
actually.

So last year they showed off kind of like
the working prototype of the Android

XR in that little sandbox demo that they
had at Google IO.

And it was you could get turn-by-turn
navigation on a little display in,

you know, your vision. That was
particularly cool.

And they obviously had a camera,

they had the ability to kind of use Gemini
like you would look at something.

And ask, what am I looking at?

Like, what is this picture? And it would,

Gemini would tell you about it in your
ear.

You know, that demo was like particularly
cool for me to see.

~ the the version that I saw this year was
audio only,

though, because the ones that are gonna
ship are not gonna have

the the binocular displays, they're not
gonna have anything in your field

Mm. Yeah.

of vision, it's just gonna be audio only
and it's gonna require the phone

to be with you. They had a camera in these
ones and

It was interesting that the demo that they
asked me to try because it was

not it was really just about kind of like
having a little bit of fun with

the Gemini capabilities in photo editing
specifically.

Like you could say, you know, take a photo
of what is in front of me

and then change the back. I did something
r I did this most ridiculous

t prompt when I did it. And I think
they're they were looking at me like,

Why did you ask this really weird,

this weird thing?

Judging your prompt.

Pretty much, but it was long and complex,

and I was like

Take the photo of the of the person in
front of me,

change the background to make it look like
I'm staring outside

an airplane window and he is standing on
the wing of the aeroplane.

Like it was a very long, odd prompt.

Because I really wanted

Sure, sure.

to sort of like push the, you know,

A being absurd about it and and B or
seeing how complex I could make this
single,

single prompt with just speaking to Gemini
in my ear.

And it and it did it. Like it did it
reasonably well.

But the

The reason why I think it was interesting
was because they weren't kind

of talking about it in a way that was it
was trying to make it a little

bit more fun. And I I think that the it to
sort of like I guess dissuade people from

thinking about the privacy concerns about
always having

Mm.

like a Gemini enabled camera on your face.

So,

Right.

you know, yes, you can have a little bit
of fun with it,

but I think the bigger question is I'm
sure you encountered with with

the glasses as well, is the the privacy
question.

And is it any

you know, I I noticed that you think,

is it any better that that Google and
Samsung are doing it versus versus Meta
doing

it? And that is slightly the big the big
picture question.

I would say I need to try the the final
shipping version first.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think

that the manufacturers are really acutely
aware of the privacy issues,

but just hoping that people kind of
sideline that because it's got a cool
thing.

You can change the background of your
photo and make it look really cool that
you'd

you give it into Gemini and it sounds
really fun,

right? You can have this a lot of fun with
it,

huh? Don't worry about taking

Yeah, no.

pictures and video of people without their
notice.

Like, huh.

~

that's the thing. I may and maybe it hurt
all of the brands that Meta

got there first because of all the brands
they probably put the worst taste

in people's mouths of privacy and
security.

And I you know, whether people see a
camera on your face,

they're not gonna think, is that Google's
or Meta's camera?

Like I don't think that it's not even
gonna get that far.

They're gonna see glasses with a camera
and they're gonna feel a certain

way about it. Either they don't care or
they feel very strongly about it.

There's usually not an in between.

So

We'll see. That's this is not coming out
till the fall,

I believe, the Samsung glasses.

So we have some time, but ~ we'll see.

We'll see if glasses on faces are ever a
thing.

for real. We gotta talk about AI for a
little bit.

And we talked in the pre show,

which Lexi did do a little pre show for
us,

and so thank you for that. Open AI had a
little breach of containment.

And I forgot to ask you about the movie
quote.

I know you said you wouldn't know the
movie,

but the quote typically relates to
something we're gonna talk about in the
show.

And I said, You know the quarantine
procedure is twenty four hours

for decontamination. No idea what that's
from?

It's okay if

No idea. I'm really sorry. I am the
world's worst person to talk to when

it comes to popular culture quotes and
movie quotes specifically.

Love consuming it, it just doesn't stick
in my brain.

So I can't sit here

That's totally

and quote movies at you all day.

I'd love to. It's just that's not my
strength.

No, no, it's totally that's

totally fine. I chose an older one and ~
you're probably too young to even know
have

watched this, but it's from Alien,

the first Alien movie. And so that's
that's what that's from.

But Breaking Containment was the theme
because that's exactly what happened with

OpenAI this week. And they actually have
this press release that I'll link

in the show notes, and they explained what
happened.

But the short story is open AI was testing
their models for cybersecurity.

Specifically, they were testing Soul 5.6
and an unreleased unnamed model.

And they were supposedly sandboxed it,

limited it to not have internet access
except for this one very specific internal

use case. And the prompt that they gave
it,

the models basically broke containment.

They got to full internet access and
breached

the Hugging Face company.

And so I'm going to read something real
quick from the press release.

This is from OpenAI. They said,

quote, while operating in our sandboxed
testing environment,

our models spent a substantial amount of
inference compute finding a

way to obtain open internet access in
pursuit of solving the evaluation problem.

To gain access, the models identified and
exploited a zero-day vulnerability

in the package registry cache proxy.

With this access, our models performed a
series of

Privileged escalation and lateral movement
actions in

our research testing environment until the
models reached a node with internet

access. So basically, it broke out.

The model broke out of its testing sandbox
and was able to reach Hugging Face,

which is an AI marketplace company.

But this feels like the first time.

Where until now, every AI company has been
very clear,

like, no, no, no, we you know,

that's sandboxed, it can't do X,

Y, and Z, because these are the parameters
we have given it and security,

yada yada. Anthropics over here,

like we're only gonna give a model to the
public when it's safe to use and such.

And here's an instance where one of the
models that is publicly available,

5.6 from OpenAI, broke containment.

And actually, because of the instructions
it was given,

which was to find vulnerabilities,

it did exactly that. It found
vulnerability.

And made it out. And I I I don't know
about the people in your life,

but I have people on both sides who are
like,

AI is going to destroy us all and like
full on Terminator future

is what's happening. And then I have other
people who are like,

Chat GPT's an idiot. I don't think it's
gonna do anything.

And I I always try to like center the
conversation because it's like,

I don't think Terminator just yet,

~ but also, you know, there are some
things that we should keep an eye

on and and realize that there needs to be
some guardrails for how this

is used and developed.

And this feels like one notch in the belt
for the Terminator side of like this model

made it out of OpenAI's own sandbox.

And it seems like any vulnerability,

no matter how small, no matter how small
that like mouse hole is,

it's go like if you give the AI an
instruction,

it will do it. And this was not an
instruction that OpenAI gave it.

OpenAI didn't say find a vulnerability to
open internet access and try to access it.

That wasn't an instruction OpenAI gave it.

It was having it test vulnerabilities
elsewhere.

So I don't know, this one I'm not scared,

but I do think this is a red flag to say,

Hey, maybe we should be a little more
careful.

What do you think?

It it's a red flag. I there's sort of two
things that I'm thinking of here.

Number one, it sort of done the like it's
a test that was set for it.

And so it's kind of gone about it in a way
that almost like a someone would cheat

on a test at like school potentially would
think about like the in sort

of but in like a very movie-esque extreme
way.

Like, I'm gonna go break into the
teacher's office where they have all

of the tests and all of the results,

and that's where I'm gonna go be able to
find it,

and then yeah, I can pass it off as my
own.

It kind of feels like the model was
trained on the like a very devious like
student

in that respect, potentially. The other
thing is that yeah,

like I am I am more scared that about this
than I think many people

might be. I the reason why I think I'm I
am more scared about this is because

of the reception that it's had from like,

for example, the CEO of Hugging Face
tweeted.

~ you know, we spent the past 24 hours
working closely with OpenAI.

We strongly believe there was no malicious
intent.

That's not the part that I'm scared about.

The part that I'm scared about is this
phrase.

It's quite mind-blowing that all of this
happened autonomously.

Exclamation mark. The fact that it is
being described as mind-blowing by the
CEO,

it's language that I wouldn't necessarily
attribute to something of this scale.

I don't know if it's ~ it's yes,

it's it's it is mind-blowing in a way,

but it is also

Purely terrifying. Like I feel like the
gravity of this is not being recognized.

And maybe this is it more of the the
skeptics approach that I come from

is that I don't trust this yet.

And yeah, obviously people developing it
are very bullish about it.

of like, this is i this is exciting.

This is a this is a moment. It yes,

it's it's mind blowing, it's something
that we're working on,

but no, we we don't have the containment.

We we don't have the

the the guardrails up in place.

It's is something where it's it's moving
faster than any regulation.

It's moving faster than even the CEOs are
kind of giving it credit for.

So has this happened before? And this is
the first time that we're kind

of hearing about it publicly? That is my
other question.

Because

That's true.

it it, you know, what if it was something
a little bit more serious?

It it broke into an AI sand AI to like a
repository,

right? What if this

Sure, sure.

was critical infrastructure? What if this
was something that was

of a completely different playing field
than w w what we're talking about.

That is what to me is the scary element.

And to just sort of have like this this is
mind blowing and have lots

of exclamation marks in this tweet.

Like that that's not giving me confidence
here that that this is being treated

Yeah.

with the gravity that maybe it should be.

Ryan, like government databases or just
personal information.

I mean, how many credit card breaches have
there been from just like Home Depot

or whatever where a bunch of credit card
numbers are leaked because someone broke

into it? And that wasn't even with the AI,

you know, that was just with hackers or
whatever.

And I will link the tweet, Matt Stockton.

He says, wild stuff. Things are going to
get weird.

Which does feel like a very flippant
reaction to this thing broke.

Things are already weird. Like that is a v
the understatement

Yeah, fair.

of the century, I think, here.

Like why why are we just sort of sitting
back and being a little bit

too blase about it? We should we should be
worried about this.

We should be thinking about what is I hope
I hope somebody a lot smarter than

me who has a lot more access and and
ability to kind of think these things
through

and and has the the knowledge set is a is
actually I hope that this

is not just because I'm a ne I I you know,

I'm a tech journalist, but I'm also an
everyday consumer,

right? And I'm not

I don't have the ability to go and be
like,

~ excuse me, like I think we should set up
some better guardrails here.

We should be implementing different
policies.

This it just all seems like I I'm
terrified,

no one else seems to be on that that has
the ability to kind of

do something about this.

Yeah, I mean I struggle I I'm not
terrified because sometimes I'll ask
Claude Opus,

give me ten words that mean this all
starting with the letter S,

and it'll give me a few that start with C
because they're soft C words,

and I'm like, All right, well,

you didn't get that. But that might also
be flippant on my part.

I wanted to point I wanna link to one
other thing.

I'm linking this in my top five tech show
tomorrow,

but Jack Conti, Patreon founder and Pomple
Moose

the band, he had a talk at South by
Southwest and it's it's talking about

the future of creativity in a world with
AI.

It is a brilliant talk. I cried at least
twice watching it.

~ but he does this great comparison of
film to AI.

Namely as film technology improved and
progressed,

many times people would make films that
just mimicked what was before using

the new technology. So they would

basically record a stage presentation and
that would be the film before

we actually did different things with the
film cameras that we had.

And he's saying right now with AI,

a lot of it is just doing things we did
before,

just easier or faster. Like generating AI
footage of like he shows,

horses running in a field. That's
something you can capture with a camera
today.

Like we're just mimicking what we can do
today with the tools we have.

And we've we're so early

We don't know what these tools will be
used for once we actually understand them

and give them tasks that are unique to
their ~ capabilities.

So, and I liked his talk because it wasn't
doomsday-ish,

but it was here's like the current state
and here's what we need to watch out for.

And he also was very strong about just AI
taking people's work

and not crediting them.

And it's interesting because there was a
bunch of Chinese models that were

~ announced, I think it was last week,

and how they are very close to the models
of US companies,

basically all the way up till Fable.

It's just maybe Fable's still the best,

maybe, but these other models like Quinn
three point eight and companies like
OpenAI

and Anthropic, they're like, Hey,

don't distill our models. And it's like,

well, hey, don't take all the YouTube
videos that have ever existed

and don't train your models on those.

And so there's this just this weird
dynamic of

It's a little bit ~ contradictory and
hypocritical from these companies

who have trained their models on the
entire world's creativity and data

and now they don't want their models
distilled by other models.

And also we're still very early,

~ but also maybe put some more boundaries
in place so this thing doesn't break

containment. So anyway, that was a lot of
thoughts.

Sorry. But anything else I'd yeah.

No, I I love it. I'm interested.

Okay.

I'm interested to go watch this.

I I feel like maybe this is is this the
going back to this is

a very old reference, but ~ so the

~ the mechanical reproduction and and the
well there's a there's

a Walter Benjamin essay essay.

This is from the you know the 1800s.

It's ~ Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction and it's basically talking
about

how the aura of a human-made artwork

is something that cannot be replicated by
a machine or can it?

And so it's this big think piece.

And I highly recommend go I'm gonna go
back and look at it after after because
it's

been probably like 15 years since I last
read this.

And I feel like this is like a potentially
like a a document or something that

we that that maybe this talk is kind of
referencing and I that's why I want

to go watch it. Maybe this is kind of like
one of those watershed moments that

we have this turning point where we have
this technology we're we're talking about

like the essence of what makes

a video, what makes a photo. And I think
these discussions have already happened

in so many different respects.

And I so that's why I want to go watch
this video.

I don't have a complete finished thought
to present to you on that,

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I get it.

but I just did want

to kind of bring that up as like maybe
this is like part of that discussion
that's

happening for the twenty first century
right now.

For sure. All right. Last quick thing,

we'll get then we'll do personal tech and
a quick bonus.

But Apple supposedly next week,

German said that they're going release a
new leasing program.

And so we've had the iPhone upgrade
program for a long time.

I'm actually I use it. I mean,

that's how I don't do my main iPhone.

And that might be going away in place of
this new leasing program.

Again, this is not official yet.

Apple hasn't announced anything,

but Gurman is saying it should be coming
out like July twenty eighth.

Apple's going announce this.

It would cover iPhone, iPad, Mac,

and Apple Watch, although not the cheapest
versions of those things,

like not the Apple Watch SE, base model
iPad or MacBook Neo.

It would be leasing programs that are 24
months for iPhone and Apple Watch,

36 months for Mac, and at the end of the
lease,

you can choose to purchase it,

trade it in, give it back, or whatever.

It's powered by Klarna for whatever that's
worth.

I don't know how I feel about it.

I really liked the Apple iPhone upgrade
program for a long time.

Apple Care was included, whereas this new
leasing program

Apple Care is supposedly not going to be a
part of it,

so that'll be an additional charge.

Hopefully you can still buy it f ~ on top
of the devices.

But I don't know. I feel like maybe for
some people a leasing program would

be helpful. It's interesting that Apple
just raised a bunch of prices

and are now releasing a program to help
you get a device that's maybe less money

up front. But I don't know. I don't know
how I feel about We gotta wait till it's

official. But did you have any feelings
about this when it announced?

Exactly the same feeling that you had.

I I had the ~ w convenient timing if this
actually does come to fruition next week

that ~ because we just had the rounds of
people being shocked by price increases

and obviously you know, the September
iPhone event,

if it's September, October, whenever it's
gonna be,

I'm sure we're gonna see an increase in
the base price of

iPhone, we already saw Samsung,

and I don't think enough people were kind
of talking about the base price increase

of all of the Samsung devices.

But you know, we're in this new reality
now.

Yes, it can be very, very nice way to be
like,

don't worry about the prices are
increasing,

but you don't necessarily have to pay it
all up front.

You can just slide in $30 a month

Yeah.

and then pay your carrier a little extra
as well.

And you know, and then

Yeah.

trade in your device.

And the other the other thing,

because I remember when I covered the
iPhone upgrade program,

then this I think it was twenty fifteen
when it first made its debut.

I think it was twenty fifteen anyway.

That, you know, i the it was giving the
one of the the things that

I was most interested about was that it
was a way in which potentially Apple could

get, you know, a nice influx of older
devices to then refurbish and resell

as people kind of kept continually
upgrading and

If that is another play that we're going
to see again 10 years later because people

are holding on to their devices a little
bit longer,

even if they have like the desire to buy a
new one,

maybe this is another strategy to help
people go,

well, if I'm only leasing it, it's like a
car,

like I can upgrade it every year,

or I can trade, like I don't own it.

You know, the the thing that's the isn't
not scary,

but it's maybe is it like we're on the
starting on the road now is that

we won't have.

own we maybe at some stage we

Ownership.

won't own a physical device. You know,

like we saw the backlash against
PlayStation and everything,

like removing physical media and i are we
never are we always just are

we gonna just lease everything?

Are we gonna rent everything?

Yeah.

We're never gonna have anything even if we
have a physical device in our hand,

it's not truly ours. I mean it you can
argue that it's never really truly ours

anyway, even if you do buy it outright,

but you kind of know where I'm going with
this.

You know.

Yeah, yeah. I'm

~ I've I've been on the iPhone upgrade
program for a while and great memory
because

it did launch in September twenty fifteen.

~ I'll link the Apple Insight article that
talked about that.

But I you know, it's it's privileged if I
can actually buy it outright.

We'll see how expensive the iPhones are
come September.

But I will probably move from the iPhone
upgrade program to just buying them

outright because I'm not I don't know.

Again, we have to see the official
release.

I don't feel crazy about the lease
program.

I also wonder how trade-in values will
change.

Apple has historically had very low
trade-in values,

but I will typically do that just for ease
of not having to

go on Facebook Marketplace and deal with
whoever might be there.

Which side note, did you know that people
actually sell food

on Facebook Marketplace? That you could
just buy cooked food?

Food.

it's like like home-cooked food.

Well, there's so many different

Yes.

services that offer that. There's like
Chef,

there's S-H-E-F. Like, I always get
confused,

but like, have you tried Chef?

I Chef, what? I think it's Chef anyway.

There's all these other, there's

Yeah.

there are a myriad of like home-cooked
food services that you can kind

of get all the different cuisines,

Okay. Yeah. I did not know that.

like home cooked meals from people.

So I didn't know you could do

on Facebook Marketplace. I'm not
surprised.

You can buy like anything on

Sure.

Facebook Marketplace. You can buy like

I don't want even want to go there with
what you can buy that I'm sure

Yeah, what you could

is not moderated in any way, shape or
form.

Not at all. Not at all. But that's you
know,

so I've used Apple's trading program a
lot.

So we'll see. I might just I might just
buy them outright.

We'll see if it's announced next week

Do it.

and we'll cover it. Yeah, I think that we
will.

But anyway, all right, quick personal tech
and then one question

for the bonus episode. You could you test
a lot of devices.

For the bonus section, I want to ask what
your actual daily driver fitness tracker

is. But for this personal tech segment,

tell me what is your daily driver phone?

Computer and or tablet if you use one.

I don't use a tablet. I'm not a tablet
person.

Okay. You just open the phone.

I'm just not. I'm not I'm just

You f you unfold.

not. I just I have a fold if I want to do
media consumption and that is

Sure. Sure.

perfect because it kind of does everything
that I need.

I wish I was a visual artist, but I'm not,

so I don't need a tablet for that front.

I would like it potentially for photo edit
editing and maybe trying to

Yeah, yeah.

dabble in video editing on the tablet,

but I don't

I don't have the disposable income to get
a tablet for the the things,

the very limited use that I would need it
for.

My daily laptop is my M4 MacBook Pro,

which I love. I did a video on it.

Like it's I it was the best money that
I've spent,

even though I highly regret not getting
the one terabyte storage version,

which we did talk about in the pre-show.

And yeah,

Yes.

past Lexi, future Lexi goes back in time
to slap past Lexi and say,

just spend

Yeah.

a couple hundred dollars more and get the
better storage.

It w it would've it

it would have been way more well,

it would be much cheaper then too than
getting the storage upgrade

now because now it's all but you wouldn't
I mean you have no idea you you don't

I mean see future Lexi just needed to go
just with the lottery numbers

and everything, just go back in time and
do that.

Just do it.

So

M4 MacBook Pro and when it comes to
phones,

I you should see my desk right now.

It's it's wild. So I have a 17 Pro,

that's my daily iPhone. I have the

Okay.

S26 Ultra that is

my ~ go-to Android for like the pr the
premium tier that I'm testing

but really like my the one that I've been
really enjoying using as

my daily Android has been the the Pixel
10a was

~

random $500 phone but I and everyone hated
this phone everyone hated this phone when

it came out like when was it announced?

But it's

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

it's good. It's $500. It didn't get a
price rise.

It does everything I need the cameras are
really good for for the money.

Yeah.

~

the my only complaint is no magnets.

Really, that's my biggest

Right. ~ right, right.

complaint. And yeah, I mean Tensor,

like it does what I need. It does what I
need.

Okay. It's

And everything he

runs in the cloud anyway. And it has less
AI than the pro level pixels,

which is a plus for me.

Okay, interesting. It's Pixel Ten A.

I did yeah, okay, very cool. Well,

thank you, Lexi. We're gonna link Lexi's
YouTube and Instagram down

in the show notes. Go subscribe.

Go follow. She has great videos.

The fitness tracker videos are
outstanding.

Your videos have been doing really good
too,

like all your fitness stuff lately about
the Fitbit Air and the w it's

all really good. So go subscribe,

go do all that. I'm gonna ask Les Lexi one
more question about

her fitness tracker daily. And ~ go ahead
and subscribe to the show in YouTube,

leave us a five star rating in Apple
Podcasts.

Thanks for joining us. Lexi, thanks so
much for being here.

Thank you so much for having me.