Rabbit R1 Review (It’s Bad), M4 iPad Pros, and What Is Happening at Tesla?
Download MP3Stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Welcome to Primary Technology, the show about the tech news that matters. Today we're talking about the R1. Yes, I have it here in hand, and it's not great. I posted a review.
Stephen Robles:We're gonna talk all about the updates. M4 iPads, could that be coming next week? Mark Gurman thinks they're getting the newest Apple silicon chip, some updates to iOS 18 calendar reminders. The EU is forcing Apple to bring changes to the iPad, and Tesla is struggling. This episode is brought to you by you, those who support the show directly.
Stephen Robles:I'm one of your hosts, Steven Robles. And joining me as always, my good friend, Jason Aten. How's it going, Jason?
Jason Aten:I'm good because living in Michigan, it's finally warm enough to wear a short sleeve shirt when we record this podcast.
Stephen Robles:Oh, my word. I can't even talk about it. It was 90 degrees yesterday here in Florida, which some people love. Less so, but that's fine. I don't.
Stephen Robles:I would like a temperate spring.
Jason Aten:I don't love 90 degrees.
Stephen Robles:We go right from winter to spring for to summer. Like, we don't get a spring in Florida. It's, like, 50, 60 degrees, and then it's 90 degrees. Which One day after the other.
Jason Aten:50, 60 degrees, by the way, for the rest of the world is spring. So you just get a spring in a summer, just to be clear.
Stephen Robles:That is true.
Jason Aten:You know that the only time my family will come to Florida is in November because it's, like, warm enough. I mean, it's it's 70, which is compared to here where it's 25 or 30, and yet it's not 90. We will not come when it's 9.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. And I also whenever I complain about temperature, basic Apple guy on social media then sends a screenshot of his weather, which is, like, 1 degree, 2 degrees, but it's Celsius.
Jason Aten:So that makes sense. You have no idea.
Stephen Robles:Oh, so
Jason Aten:it's the same. It's just as hot there, apparently.
Stephen Robles:Yes. Exactly. I mean, I do see little, like, snowflake symbols sometimes on the forecast. I'm like, okay. Well, that that means snow, I
Jason Aten:guess. I I do have one weather pro tip. Sorry to derail this so early. Oh, weather pro tip. So so early in the show.
Jason Aten:So No. It's good. My my weather pro tip. No. No.
Jason Aten:This is not an app pro tip. This is just in general weather. My pro tip is do not say yes to an invitation to go to Dubai in July, which rhymes. So that should be easy to remember. But my first time in Dubai was at a conference in a July, a July, in July.
Jason Aten:And it was a 117 degrees and you literally would walk out the doors of the hotel. And before you got in your Uber, you had sweat through all of your clothes.
Stephen Robles:No. That's crazy.
Jason Aten:So yeah.
Stephen Robles:That's wild.
Jason Aten:No Dubai in July.
Stephen Robles:I thought I thought you were giving, like, a tech tip. So I'm gonna give a tech tip, which is if you're in the weather app on your iPhone and you go to, like, the precipitation map, you know, it shows you your location down here, but you can actually tap and hold anywhere on the map, and it will show you the forecast for where you just tapped. It'll show you, like, the approximate city or whatever. So, you know, if you're traveling or whatever you don't feel like adding it to the, weather app is like one of your locations, you can literally just pinch and zoom somewhere, like, here's California, tap and hold and look right there in Sacramento and then you can add it to your location. I thought that was cool.
Stephen Robles:That was in one of my tap and hold tip videos Mhmm. On my YouTube channel. But anyway, it was too early to plug something like that. I wanna give some 5 star review shout outs and then shout out our community, which is amazing. J0knoxville, battery percentage off.
Stephen Robles:Thank you, j0knoxville. One more for the team. We're gonna do a poll on this in the community too. We're gonna find out. Tigzola, battery percentage on.
Stephen Robles:Nobody's perfect.
Jason Aten:Yes, thank you.
Stephen Robles:He enjoyed your ethernet story.
Jason Aten:Yes.
Stephen Robles:In our bonus episode. Yeah. That was very good. Old Duke and kid 15 c, who's kid b in the community. So here's what I wanna say.
Stephen Robles:If you haven't heard yet, there's a community now where many primary technology listeners and viewers, we've now converged in a place where we can comment and interact and have lots of fun as a community. Last week, we just launched it a day before the podcast, aired, and I said, right now, we're paying for it. If we reach a 100 members in this first weekend, I will upgrade our account so we can have unlimited members, And incredible, we have now a 120 members just in the 1st week. So thank you all for showing up, for being a part of the community so quickly, everybody coming there. It's just awesome, and so a 120 members.
Jason Aten:Steven's like, if we get more than a 100 people, it would cost me money, and everyone was like, hold my beer. Let's do this. That is true.
Stephen Robles:Maybe they just wanted me to spend money. That's fine. But we have a 120 members now, and honestly, it's been amazing this 1st week. You know, one of the reasons we started this is because interacting on social media, algorithmically driven feeds, you just don't see everything, and here we can all interact, and it's been great. We have a post per episode.
Stephen Robles:It's like last week, you know, post whenever there's a new episode, and we have 44 comments on that post, which is amazing. Jason actually had a very cool conversation here. I pinned it to the side. So this is what it looks like, by the way, if if you're watching on YouTube or you can go to social.primarytech.fm. Jason, you posted one that said, show us your setup.
Stephen Robles:And so you got a picture of your setup here, and now there's, like, 91 comments and a bunch of people sharing their setups, which is it's just awesome. It's very cool to see that engagement. So it's totally free to join. This is just a place where we created so that we can interact, where listeners and viewers where you all can, like, meet each other, which has been amazing. Apparently, there's, like, a 1000 of you in, Indiana.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. So if we ever do a meetup, I guess we have to go to Indiana.
Jason Aten:A thousand of our 120 members live in Indiana. It's amazing how the math works. I can't even do that. Yes.
Stephen Robles:That was hyperbolic. Anyway, you could go. There's a place where you could introduce yourself, and, I've been organizing the space over the last week or so, and so there's a place if you wanna see the videos I post on YouTube, there's a whole section just for that. We won't go everywhere, and then there's a place where Jason's publishing his articles. So it's really fun.
Stephen Robles:I encourage you to go. There's a link in the video in the podcast description and the video description, or just go to social.primarytech.fm. And we're gonna do something fun next week. This is an iPad event. We might get we're gonna talk about what we might get, but we're gonna do a live stream recording recapping the event.
Stephen Robles:It's gonna be our 1st live stream recording. It's probably gonna be around 3 PM Eastern on Tuesday, but stay tuned. If you join the community, you'll be the first to know. You'll get all the updates, and and all the links will be there. So go join the community, and we'll share how to watch it live.
Stephen Robles:This is exciting. We're gonna do our 1st live show. Amazing.
Jason Aten:I just assumed this was live. I mean, I have take a shower before we do this regardless, so it's really no different.
Stephen Robles:It's no different. I do need you you to prepare a monologue if you would like a tonight show, host.
Jason Aten:Well, you just be careful what you ask for.
Stephen Robles:Do some jokes. Need you to do some jokes. I wanna talk about the rabbit r one because this has been, I'm still wearing the humane eye pin. I think I've asked it maybe 3 things in the last week, but now it's just like a fashion accessory. I'm just wearing it there.
Stephen Robles:Now my Rabbit R1, I I've not seen it do this yet. If you're watching, I tried to turn it on this morning, to order DoorDash. It's gonna be my, what, 12th day trying to order DoorDash on this thing, and now there's a rabbit running on a hamster wheel, which I feel like is strange.
Jason Aten:Steven just hasn't eaten in 12 days. He's been trying to order DoorDash
Stephen Robles:from this I'm still waiting. Literally still wait.
Jason Aten:He's wasting away.
Stephen Robles:Yes. Exactly. So I did a review and I basically showed everything the rabbit can do and not do, and the video did well. I just want to thank personally John Gruber for linking to my rabbit r one review video, one of his articles. This is my application to maybe one day be a guest on the talk show, John Gruber.
Stephen Robles:I'd I'd appreciate that. Have me and Jason on. We love we could do a trio. Love to do that, but anyway, thank you for linking that. So I've been trying to use the Rabbit r one for the past week.
Stephen Robles:You still didn't get one. Right? You don't No. You you you've you've abstained for many of these ridiculous
Jason Aten:Well, Anne, they're they're like, we're not sending them to reviewers. You can buy one. I'm like, no.
Stephen Robles:So I will say yeah. They did not send it to me. I had to buy it. They did expedite my order, which maybe they regret now because I've just been kind of not not trashing it, but I'm just trying to I'm trying to use it. And I posted this video a couple days ago.
Stephen Robles:It went a little viral on Twitter and threads. This is me in a real time video trying to order DoorDash. The video is over 6 minutes long, That's how long it took for me to apparently to pause a threads video on the desktop. You just click away from the window. Oh.
Stephen Robles:That's how you pause it.
Jason Aten:That's helpful to know actually.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. It is actually helpful to know. So if I if I click away, it just pauses. But anyway, I shared this video. It's been shared a lot.
Stephen Robles:I it has failed multiple times. I cannot get the Rabbit r one to actually finish a DoorDash order. It fails at checkout every time. I've tried it multiple times. Every time I try it, it takes about 10 minutes, because that's how long these loading screens are.
Stephen Robles:And if you didn't know, I'm not sure if we talked about this on a previous episode. A large action model that the Rabbit r one uses is this bizarre, like, virtual machine situation, where when your little rabbit r one device is saying, alright, we're opening DoorDash, it's basically communicating with some other device in a server room that is then going to try and virtual machine click around on the DoorDash website as you do things on your little device here, which sounds completely insane. Privacy and security is a concern, and but then it also just it just keeps failing on me. I can't do it.
Jason Aten:It is hard to believe that a $200 piece of plastic will not bring you food. I this is unacceptable in 2024. It's
Stephen Robles:supposed there was an update. There was a software update. I updated maybe that's what it's doing now. Maybe there's another update. It's still running on this little treadmill.
Stephen Robles:I just really don't know what's happening. I updated it. I tried again, didn't work. I wanna give a little bit of credit, because on Twitter, they had a lot of replies. A lot of people were like, this thing is a piece of garbage.
Stephen Robles:But this one guy, Chris, said he managed to order some tea from DoorDash, so I guess it works in some places. But I
Jason Aten:Was it Quinn from Snazzy Labs who said something I I don't know if it was him for sure, who posted, like, that they were able to get it to bring them a burger, but that it, like, auto selected the largest tip amount or something like that. It's, like, at least ask me first.
Stephen Robles:Yes. And, you know, and this was funny because if you think back to the launch event, this was announced at CES, a few months ago in January, and one of the things was, like, one day this thing is going to be able to book an entire European trip for you, including flights and hotels, and it's, like, I can't I can't I can't even see my DoorDash order. I don't think it's going to book anyway, there's that. But the reason I wanted to talk about is get to this point because Android Authority, this is Michel Raman, he actually got the APK, which is like what an Android app, like the the file, the packaging for an Android app. He actually got it off the r one and was able to then install it on an Android phone, a Google Pixel 6 a, and he's basically running the Rabbit r one OS, quote, unquote, on an Android phone, which basically means, like, this is an app.
Stephen Robles:Like, this is an app on just some cool hardware. Now the Rabbit r one team was upset about this. They they No. They issued a they issued a statement to The Verge, and they were, like, listen. We're this is not just an app.
Stephen Robles:There's a something something firmware and the large action model something something, and that's so you can no. It's not just this, and it's, like, it really just feels like this this is an app.
Jason Aten:Yeah. And you got teenage engineering to make you a really cool thing to put it on.
Stephen Robles:It's weird. I've I've posted one video about comparing the Rabbit r one to the Human App in and Siri, and I didn't give the Rabbit r one, like, much screen time. And people called me out on it, which is fine. I had had it for, like, 2 hours, so it was just I was, you know, just trying to do some quick comparison. And it was interesting how to how people, like, came to defend this device.
Stephen Robles:Like, there were a lot of, I guess, people who really believe in this thing, and they're like, you didn't even do the large action model stuff. You'd you know, you're supposed to give it a shot. It has a teach mode. It can learn and and whatever, which by the way teach mode is not out yet. It's quote unquote still in development, so you can't even try it.
Stephen Robles:And I was surprised, like, how much backlash there was on that. So that's when I posted my in-depth video and then posted the 6 minute video on social media of trying to order DoorDash, and then all those people got very quiet.
Jason Aten:Yeah.
Stephen Robles:I'm not sure where they went, but they got very quiet. And overall, it just feels like I I think the AI gadget did it is the error already over, Jason? Is it No. Is it done?
Jason Aten:I don't think it's over. I think we just aren't there yet, but also all of these things should just be smartwatches that connect to your phone already. Like I'm, I'm super optimistic that if anyone at apple is paying attention, that we'll just be able to do all of these things because, you know, if, you know okay. Back up for a second. Yes.
Jason Aten:My understanding, and I think that this was the understanding when they announced it at CES. By the way, I have 2 that we're we're backing out like onion layers here.
Stephen Robles:You just interrupted yourself twice, such
Jason Aten:as I just wanna I have 2 regrets in my journalistic career. One is I wish I would have gone to CES this year because I wish I would have been at that demo that announcement. My other one is 2 years ago, I was at it was in when I was in Portugal, CZ, who's the chairman of and founder of Binance, was giving a press conference, and this was 3 days before FTX collapsed. Okay? And I and I had a chance to ask a question, and I wanted to ask the question because CZ is the one who had like sort of drawn attention to this article that ended up leading to this.
Jason Aten:I wanted to say, aren't you worried about drawing attention to yourself? Like if you're pointing the finger at this and he just got sentenced to 4 years for 4 months in prison because over over, like, I don't remember exact money laundering. I think it was. So I have 2 regrets. That one, I didn't ask the question.
Jason Aten:And then this one, I didn't go to the r one, the thing. But at c e s during the demos, I think it was pretty clear that, essentially, there is just, just, like, a stack of cheap Samsung a series Android phones in a room somewhere, and you're just logged into one of them. It's kind of like the, the way the was it beeper that was doing that where you're, like, logging your Imessage onto, like, a Mac mini in the cloud or something like that? So, like, you were just doing that, and it's just so it's just running on an Android phone. What their software is doing is controlling the Android phone.
Jason Aten:But, like, that's a thing that has existed for a very long time where you can have software that can interact on a UI. They do it in, like, a lot of industries do that kind of thing. Rabbit's just not doing it very well. Right. They could have just bought a software off the shelf that does that better than it.
Jason Aten:And I think I think it was MKBHD video about this, which was slightly less brutal than his humane AI pin. I think the title was something like barely reviewable. And his point was not that it's a terrible idea or a terrible product. The point was all of the things they talked about during the demo. It just doesn't do hardly any of them yet.
Jason Aten:Right. There's like 4 apps you can log into. You can't take photos with it. You can't get them somewhere, like, look at them later. And it has a touchscreen that you can't touch except for the type on it in terminal mode.
Jason Aten:It's like instead of using this weird scroll wheel button thing to pick things and to go back, why can't I just, hello? It's got a touch screen. I don't it's just weird.
Stephen Robles:It is very strange. I discovered the touch screen when I put in my WiFi password when I first got it, and I was like, oh, this is a touchscreen? But then you can't touch anything on it.
Jason Aten:Because they don't want you to think it's a smartphone.
Stephen Robles:Which Dave 2 d is also on YouTube, and he basically did this thing like, you know what I would change about this thing? I would put some volume buttons on this side, and then I would maybe just get rid of the click wheel because, honestly, this quick click wheel is infuriating.
Jason Aten:Like, you
Stephen Robles:have to scroll too far to do it. He's like, I would make it a little longer and then make it a oh, wait a minute. That's a smartphone. Right. It's like,
Jason Aten:but, you know, if what it's doing is controlling an Android device in the cloud, you know what would be, like, perfectly equipped to control another smartphone device? Your Apple Watch. Like, how, like, if I could I'm not kidding you. I thought about this the other day. What I really wanna do, like, more than anything is when somebody sends me an email or asks me, hey, could we meet or could we do this?
Jason Aten:I wanna just say to my watch, hey, watch. When's a good time for me to schedule a 30 minute meeting next Thursday? Because guess what? Apple has access to my calendar, all of this stuff. Like, I just want it to be smart enough to do that.
Jason Aten:And if if it could say to it, bring me a cheeseburger, that would be amazing as well. But the it's like all of the pieces are already there. The apple just hasn't been using the large, the large action model yet.
Stephen Robles:Alright.
Jason Aten:But there's just zero chance that this is gonna succeed outside of the ecosystem of our smartphones. It's just it's just not.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Which the other AI gadget that I'm wearing, strictly for fashion purposes because I watched that Gucci video. Yeah. My you may have been that it had an update too. It's now on software 1.1.3.
Stephen Robles:The update process for the HumanAI PIN is completely obscure. You have to, like, make sure you're logged in. You have to make sure your the PIN is unlocked, and then put it on the charger overnight and hope it updates. And there's no, you know, there's no way to, like, force update or anything like that. It supposedly, it improves some things, like video stabilization, contacts and messaging, which I have yet to use, like I'm not gonna use that.
Stephen Robles:The vision prompt approves such and such. So here's the thing. I've I've had both of these AI gadgets, I guess, for over a week. I've had the Rabbitar one for over a week, the HumanAI pen for maybe 2 weeks. I will just say having a device that you also have to carry around in your pocket immediately makes this more frustrating Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Because I I already have my phone, and so to have a second device that is so close to being phone like but so bad at so many things is infuriating. Whereas the human AI pen, while really expensive and no one should buy, as a wearable, to your point, it just makes more sense like an Apple Watch is something you put on at the beginning of the day, and then hopefully don't think about it until you want to use it or want to need it. The AI pin is closer to that kind of it's just with you all day and maybe provide some value sporadically. And if you're not using it, it's not a pain in the neck because it's not in your pocket, it's not taking up space in your bag or whatever. So I do think this the human AI pen form factor is a little closer to, like, what could an AI gadget be that's maybe more useful.
Stephen Robles:I don't need another screen to interact with because no screen is gonna beat my iPhone screen. So I do think, like, if this could do something with voice that's compelling and I have asked it random things, like, when I'm with my kids, many times a topic will come up and I don't like making stuff up. I want my you know, I want an actual answer if we're talking about space or we're talking about, I I don't know, water treatment. We didn't talk about that, but I just I don't know why that came to mind. I wanna be able to just ask a thing and have it explain it, and so there is some there is some value to that.
Stephen Robles:Whereas the Rabbit r one, I have received no value Mhmm. From this yet, and I think that's as to also the no picture and video thing is kind of it's just really frustrating too because it has a screen where you can preview what the camera is seeing. The human eye pin doesn't even have that, like you can't see, but it can take a picture and a video. But this, that has a vision, like I'm looking at a thing and it didn't it just can't do it.
Jason Aten:I mean, it's already doing all of the work. It's like it's super the Seinfeld reference about the reservation. It's like you can see the picture. You can display the picture on the screen for me. You just can't keep the picture.
Jason Aten:You can't keep it.
Stephen Robles:Just, just hold onto it. Just hold on to it.
Jason Aten:Take those bits and put them into storage or something like that. I don't, I don't know. I do think it's, I, it seems obvious that the reason that these aren't succeeding is that they're trying to build a thing that is dependent on something else. And so they're having to recreate the something else. And that's hard because the companies that have, like, other than apple and Google, who has been able to do that, create the software stack required for all of that kind of thing.
Jason Aten:And so it's just kind of bananas that you that anybody thinks that they're gonna be able to do that outside of that ecosystem. Right. I think these are great, like, concepts, but it's like, have you ever have you ever been to an auto show before? You know, we get the North American auto show here in Detroit. Right?
Jason Aten:Big thing. It's amazing. You walk through there, and you're like, that's cool. That's cool. Never gonna see that because it's just a like, that's what these are.
Jason Aten:These are concept cars that are supposed to inspire things. And and maybe 6 years down the road, you actually see they're not supposed to be products. Right? They're not supposed to be things you take money from people for. Now the rabbit is a little bit less egregious in that in that particular area.
Jason Aten:But I I think, like, yes, we should keep companies should keep trying these things. They should just stop trying to sell them.
Stephen Robles:That that I think is what makes people the most upset. It's like these are products that you can buy. Like, anyone can buy these and you get them, but it does not do the things it purports to do. Yep. Which which is the problem.
Stephen Robles:And look at least, I don't know what's happening. It's still doing the the wheel. It's still on the hamster.
Jason Aten:Is it like a screensaver?
Stephen Robles:Well, there's a percentage like it's doing something. It's now at a 100%, but it's still on the wheel. And it it's been doing this for an hour. I just want it to specify. And it's not told me what it's doing.
Jason Aten:Is that the charging indicator that the wheel is generating electricity?
Stephen Robles:Is that what it is? No. Well, before when I plugged it in, it just shows a little lightning bolt. I've now unplugged it from the charger. Now it doesn't turn on.
Jason Aten:It angry.
Stephen Robles:I think I just bricked it.
Jason Aten:You just made it angry.
Stephen Robles:Let me plug it back in. I don't know what's about to happen.
Jason Aten:And is it true that it didn't even come wait. It doesn't come with a charger. It doesn't come with a charging cable, any of that?
Stephen Robles:That is true. No. No. It doesn't. Oh, Jay, I just plugged it back in, and now it's at what does that say?
Stephen Robles:0 again? Oh, it says it's charging, but the rabbit stopped running. Oh, no. The rabbit
Jason Aten:The rabbit disconnected him from his energy source.
Stephen Robles:Oh, I guess that's the Energizer oh, there could have been so many Energizer bunny like references.
Jason Aten:Yeah. That
Stephen Robles:would have been fun.
Jason Aten:Okay. Real question, though. I know you I know you wanna talk about your software update, but not your software updates.
Stephen Robles:I wanna get to iPads.
Jason Aten:Okay. Let's talk about that. But I do wanna ask one question. You talked about, like, the the humane AI pen is coming handy when you're hanging out with your kids and you just ask it things. Are you, like, just wearing this around the house?
Jason Aten:Like, is it a thing you actually because that's my problem with it. Again, watch, great. People been wearing watches for 100 of years. I can just put one on my wrist. If you put a strap on that, I would wear it on my wrist, but I would never put it on my shirt.
Stephen Robles:I've I've been wearing it, most days. I wear it but I don't think about the battery because if you start thinking about the battery you get real mad because it doesn't last very long. So I just kinda put it on and I'm like, this is gonna work as long as it's gonna work. And when it dies, it's just gonna be on me and I'll just take it off and I'll be done for the day.
Jason Aten:When it dies, I may have to start writing down my questions for tomorrow. Exactly.
Stephen Robles:Exactly. So I so if I do that, it's less frustrating. When I was trying to manage, like, keeping it charged and active the whole time, it was it was annoying. Uh-huh. I did show it to somebody last night.
Stephen Robles:I was in a with a group of people and I showed the laser projector and that was actually that felt futuristic to them. They was like, wow, that's kinda wild that you could do that. And, honestly, while it's frustrating to use and, like, opening the settings is really weird, it is kind of a cool different idea
Jason Aten:Mhmm.
Stephen Robles:For how to solve the problem of no screen and, obviously, you don't like, they don't want you to interact with that laser projector a lot, obviously, because the thing also overheats and stops working if you do it a lot. But it is it is a cool different idea for a UI. And so kudos just for trying it. But
Jason Aten:I mean, the other way you solve the problem of not having a screen is you just give it a screen.
Stephen Robles:Anyway, I I I yeah. AI gadgets. I think they're yeah. We'll see. Anyway
Jason Aten:Speaking of AI gadgets
Stephen Robles:Oh, see. Thank you for the transition. Yes. Speaking of AI gadgets, Mark Gurman over here at Bloomberg is saying the iPad event next week, which a reminder is Tuesday, May 7th, happening at 10 AM Eastern, 7 AM Pacific. He is saying that we might see the M4 Chip be launched at this event in the new iPads.
Stephen Robles:And correct me if I'm wrong, but this would be the first time a new m series chip debuts in an iPad.
Jason Aten:I think that's true.
Stephen Robles:Because the m two came out first in the, I think, MacBook.
Jason Aten:MacBook m
Stephen Robles:2 MacBook Pros, and then we got the M2 Mac Mini, and then the M Threes came out with MacBook Pro and Imac. And so this would be very different for Apple to launch the next series of M chips in an iPad, skipping the M3 generation, the newest iPad, the one that you could buy today, which, to be clear, don't buy an iPad this week because new ones are coming next week. And even if you don't plan on getting a new one, old ones get cheaper when new ones are released. Right. Just wait.
Stephen Robles:Don't buy an iPad. You'll be able to get better deals next week. But a m 4, so there'll be no m 3, iPad Pro. They think Mark Gurman is saying they'll go straight to m 4 and then be an AI powered device, which is a curious prediction, I'll say, for Mark Gurman because this is not WWDC. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:WWDC is literally 1 month away. We're 30 something days from WWDC where Apple is going to announce all the software features. I wonder, and this had this has happened in the last couple years with Apple, where they'll kind of release and announce some of the accessibility features coming in the next version of iOS. They might even, like, preannounce some things that could have been at WWDC, but to save time, like last year because the Apple Vision Pros announced at WWDC, they did things earlier. I wonder.
Stephen Robles:Do you think they will preannounce or maybe tease some iPadOS 18 features with the event? Not that it would come out with these new iPads, but that they say it will be like, these features will be coming?
Jason Aten:I don't think so.
Stephen Robles:Okay.
Jason Aten:Apple is relentlessly disciplined about that sort of thing. Right? They like, WWDC is when we talk about the next operating systems, and they almost never will talk about those things in advance. It's like we don't talk about things until we're ready to talk about them. Right?
Jason Aten:And if you talk about it now, it makes it less compelling to talk about it later. I mean, I know that sounds obvious, but they don't talk about pieces of
Stephen Robles:it now.
Jason Aten:I get it. I don't I mean, I'll be real interested what they mean by the m 4 iPads are an AI device. Because if you remember at the October Mac event, it was the first time Apple started talking about AI, period. And what they basically were saying, these m 3 MacBook Pros are the best devices for AI stuff. Like, that wasn't the exact quote.
Jason Aten:And, again, all of the things that they referenced are like, you can run Copilot, which runs on Azure in the cloud. It's like so it has nothing to do
Stephen Robles:with the chip on the
Jason Aten:machine. Right? Not really. And, I mean, when you think about the AI on device stuff, you're talking about things like, you know, face recognition in your photos app. That's like that kind of a thing.
Jason Aten:And so it'll be interesting. Like, what do they mean by the embroidery? I don't think there's going to be any software features that they're talking. I think they're going to just be talking about like, look at what we did to this chip. So it is super ready for whatever it is we're going to announce in terms of software stuff.
Jason Aten:I don't, I don't understand the idea that the M4, because we just in October, got the M4 MacBook pros. We just got, I mean, M3 MacBook pros. We just got M3 MacBook airs. We still don't have M3 Mac Studios, Mac Minis, Mac Pros. We do have I guess we have Imacs, whatever.
Jason Aten:But I feel like Apple's in Apple, I envision right now, Johnny's chimp lab is a lot like Lucy and Ethel at the chocolate chocolate factory. The stuff just, these chips just keep coming down the conveyor belt so fast. They're like, you know what, take these ones and put them in the iPads. I don't even care anymore. So, cause it's like, it doesn't make a lot of sense that the, that the iPad, presumably we're talking about the iPad pro will be the most powerful base chip in Apple's lineup.
Jason Aten:And if that's the case, what are they doing with the iPad Pro? Like, what will that thing do? Right?
Stephen Robles:Well, that's why I'm suggesting how could they do an m four announcement, brand new chip. Yes, Johnny Serugio will talk all about the chip itself in his lab, but then to just announce hardware features, and you could say AI powered device, but all you can say, like, what you mentioned is, it's ready for AI features, and it's like and then not say what those AI features are for. Now maybe this chip will also play into the, updated Apple Pencil, which has different features. I've seen haptic feedback as a possible feature and redesign, you know, with the camera moves and all that, which we're gonna talk about, like, what might we actually see at this event. But, I mean, those aren't, I mean, AI features, I'm not sure.
Stephen Robles:And they could show off some third party apps. Like, I think in a previous event, they actually showed DaVinci Resolve on the iPad, actually saying, like, you know, this is the full video editor or whatever. I guess they could talk about some third party things, but it just seems odd to do it right before WWDC and not talk about software. But
Jason Aten:Yeah. I just think that, like, that there's definitely a story that they're gonna wanna tell it at WWDC about, presumably, Siri, maybe, about things that it can do. I don't think that they wanna spoil that story by giving away too much of it. They may like wink and nod in that direction, but kind of, you know, and they may even do a, you know, w John turn is within, there's one more device to make the transition. And that's a story for another day.
Jason Aten:Like I, maybe, but I don't think there's going to be a, and there's one more thing. And it's like, and now we can do, you know, iPad LS 18. I just, I don't know because iPad OS is the, I mean, maybe vision OS, but vision OS and iPadOS are the same thing. Essentially, it's just, but that's the low, I mean, it's iOS, macOS, watch OS, tvOS, and then there's iPadOS and vision OS. I mean, that's not exactly that's not really true, but
Stephen Robles:What is it? What is it? What is the list that you are saying those are in?
Jason Aten:Priority of like the, yeah. Level of that they care. Like we're gonna, they, we're gonna start with iOS because that's the 2,000,000,000 users. Mac OS is like, well, we have to keep supporting the Mac. And then it's like, what are the accessories?
Jason Aten:Well, the watch OS, but then I mean, I don't think I, they didn't even introduce a new iPad for a year. And did, did iPadOS get any features that weren't already on the iPhone?
Stephen Robles:No, no. You could do, could you, could
Jason Aten:you do multiple timers? Maybe. I don't even know. Like, I think there was some weird little thing, but like, we should throw a token to the iPad people.
Stephen Robles:It might get a calculator app.
Jason Aten:There's also, what is it called? Stage manager. That's it. Stage manager exists, and it's terrible.
Stephen Robles:That was was that was that 17?
Jason Aten:I'm just saying it exists on the iPad and not on the iPhone. That's that's the only thing I can think of that you can do on the iPad.
Stephen Robles:I don't use it anyways. Yeah. I'm I'm curious what the what the story is going to be then. Aside from iPads, we'll talk about the split between iPad Pro, Air, and maybe the base model. Do we think we'll see anything else besides iPads at this event?
Stephen Robles:I've had people actually ask me, like, should I should I buy AirPods Max? To which I say no. Don't do that.
Jason Aten:Even if they update them, then no. You should not buy them.
Stephen Robles:I say, well, just just in the off chance that this event on May 7th includes anything else besides iPads, maybe it's an AirPods Max, one of the longest in the tooth devices. Could maybe they'll actually throw the m 3 in a Mac mini at the beginning of this event just because? Do you think we'll see anything I mean, obviously, it's a very iPad focused event. The invite has a pencil in the image or whatever. Do you think we'll see anything besides iPads at this event?
Jason Aten:I'm trying to remember. There's so there were some events. It was a 2022 when they did, like, the 3 events in the fall. They did, like, an iPad or something event, then they did, like, the iPhone event, and then maybe they did I I don't remember, but they did, like, a September, October, November. And that was the year Yeah.
Jason Aten:That the iPhones were delayed a year and or not a year. They were delayed, like, a month, but they released all the things they were going to do with the iPhone ahead of time, and then they did the iPhones and then they did whatever. So and so in those cases, that just, they did introduce, I think, more than just the iPad, but it was like, let's clear the deck because we wanna get these things up there already. We don't have the iPhones ready. I don't think that they're gonna like, and now we have the Mac mini with the M3 or the M4.
Jason Aten:I just don't think that that's a thing that they would do in this particular event because it does seem super focused. Like they went out of their way to be like, this is an iPad. Tell me this is an iPad event without telling me this is an iPad event. That's basically they did that. I I do think and I I know you think I'm joking.
Jason Aten:I do think that they are going to talk about the Apple Pencil working with the Vision Pro. Like, I I think that so? Yep. I think a 100% that that's gonna be a thing. I don't think they're they're not announcing a new Vision Pro.
Jason Aten:They're not going to deep talk about it at all except for to say it still exists as a product in our lineup, and here's a pencil you could use if you wanna draw on a free form board. I actually think, listen, you know, it would be the killer app. And this has happened to me 4 or 5 times. We wanna remodel our kitchen someday. I wanna be able to put on the vision pro, have it scan the space and then move things around or draw like, you know, you know, like you, do you ever watch those home redesign shows?
Jason Aten:Like, you know, fixer upper and hometown and stuff. And they do the, like the scene where like they show the thing and then they, then they show the sketch of the 3 d rendering of what it's going on. Like, why I wanna do that on my vision pro, like so bad. Like I would actually no. I wouldn't go buy 1, but I would keep this review unit lots longer if I could do that.
Jason Aten:And I think having an Apple pencil would be awesome. You could just, like, draw on your environment.
Stephen Robles:I think the year you're thinking about is is 2020, and here's why. Yes, that was the pandemic. But on the April 20th 2020 event, they announced I'm trying to make I wanna double check that this is the one I'm thinking of. They announced the new color of iPhone 12, AirTag, updated Apple TV, the redesigned Imac. This is when they redesigned the Imac.
Stephen Robles:I'm sorry. This was 2021. April 20, 2021. IPhone 12 color, AirTags was the launch of the AirTag, updated Apple TV, Imac, that was the first m one Imac, and the m one iPad Pro. That was all in the same event.
Stephen Robles:And then it I think it was the fall of 2020 when they had, like, the Apple Watch and iPad base model event in September, the iPhone 12 event in October. It was the high speed event because it was, like, the iPhone 12 and 5 g or whatever. And then the November was the 1st m one Mac event. I think that was the 3, in a row.
Jason Aten:Yep. It was yeah. It was those 3 in a row. And they, actually, the funny thing is that that November event, if I remember correctly, the tagline was one more thing. Like, they just branded the whole event one more thing, and it was the m one MacBook Air.
Jason Aten:Right? I think. So
Stephen Robles:Yes. So, you know, this April 20th event still looms large in my mind because, I mean, this was a lot of things that they announced at once, you know, iPad Pro, Imac, AirTag, which was long rumored. But I feel like I feel like there's a chance. I feel like there's a chance of that we might get a couple little little things, maybe like throw in a updated HomePod mini, which is also very long in the tooth. I don't know.
Stephen Robles:I'm holding out that we might see something a little extra. But when it comes to iPads, I could see them refreshing the entire lineup. I wish the iPad Mini was a part of that, but I have a strong feeling it won't be. I I don't know. How what's the over under on the iPad mini?
Stephen Robles:You think we're it's gonna get updated?
Jason Aten:No. Or no? I mean, I would love them to. I don't think I would
Stephen Robles:love them to.
Jason Aten:I don't think that I just, yeah, I don't it's kinda like the it's like the iPhone mini or whatever. What do they call that? The what what was the small iPhone called?
Stephen Robles:IPhone mini. The iPhone's what I do.
Jason Aten:Yeah. I just don't think I mean, it lasted 2 years. I just don't think it's gonna happen.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. I'm afraid you're right. So I think we're gonna get m 4 iPad Pro, 2 sizes, OLED screen, hopefully on both, ProMotion, new pencil, new magic keyboard, all of that. I think we're gonna get iPad Air. This is interesting.
Stephen Robles:I'm curious what you think. IPad Air maybe with an m two, so it separates it from the iPad Pro but still updates it. Camera moves to the landscape side both on iPad Pro and iPad Air. And the new iPad Air, I think, will also be compatible with any new accessories that launch, kind of keeping it in tandem with how it is now. And then an updated base model iPad I'm not sure if this will happen, but I'm hoping that the touch the home button iPad goes away and the base model iPad drops to maybe, like, 399, maybe 349.
Stephen Robles:So then that can like, the entire iPad lineup is home buttonless. And then in addition to all of that, we'll get an updated Magic Keyboard, updated Apple Pencil, and maybe a couple other accessories for, like, the base model iPad.
Jason Aten:I think that they're gonna keep selling the 9th gen iPad. I just don't. There's just no they're gonna keep selling it.
Stephen Robles:It has lightning.
Jason Aten:They're still lightning. They're still selling the m one MacBook Air at Walmart. That's really the only indicator you
Stephen Robles:can Walmart, but they're not selling it first party.
Jason Aten:They're making them, though. They're still making m one MacBook Airs to fulfill that channel.
Stephen Robles:I thought that Walmart announcement was that it was just to sell off when
Jason Aten:the stock was I asked. No. They're They did. They are still sell they're still making them for that distribution channel, and we'll continue to do that.
Stephen Robles:Cook is like, we got
Jason Aten:all these m one chips laying around. It's Lucy and I on the conveyor belt. They're just keep coming down the conveyor belt.
Stephen Robles:Not wasting anything. Not wasting a single gumdrop. I
Jason Aten:I had no idea Lucy was running the, chip lab at Apple. But, anyway, I think they're gonna keep us on the the 9th gen. I I think that the 10th gen will be basically be the same. They'll just, I don't even, I guess
Stephen Robles:Updated chip.
Jason Aten:Maybe do what does that even have? The a 7 whatever. It's got an h I'll
Stephen Robles:look it up.
Jason Aten:It's got some h up in it. And so they'll put whatever the next h up is that would go in that instead. I don't think or maybe they put an m one in it. They just got them coming down the line. They'll put the m one in that thing.
Jason Aten:I don't know. I think I I don't even know, and I don't even care if they update the 10th gen iPad. Like, if there's no 11th gen, just iPad, I don't know that anybody will care because that that thing is fine. Like, they they did what they were gonna it's what?
Stephen Robles:It's it's running an a 14 a 14 bionic chip on this. It's 449 right now. It has the weird Apple Pencil thing. That's what that new Apple Pencil USB c was. I think it was last year.
Stephen Robles:So this is the the base model iPad, and I feel like, you know, we're on an a 17 Pro in the iPhone. I could see that guy at least going up to that 8.8 chip
Jason Aten:bump. I'm fine. I'm fine. Give it a chip bump. But other than that, that thing is the that's gonna just stay the way it is because they're not changing the pencil for it.
Jason Aten:They're not changing the case. They're not doing any of that stuff because it's just not worth it. Right? They that's just they wanna sell that thing in volume, and they can't do much to it because you're right. They need to get the price down because they've still got that other one.
Jason Aten:Like, we bought a new iPad not that long ago, and we did not buy this one. We bought the 9th gen because guess what? It's perfectly fine. So I
Stephen Robles:Listen. But this screen right here, like, one of the things this event needs to do is clean up the Apple Pencil stuff because, like, the fact that you get to this screen when buying a 10th gen iPad where you have to choose between the USB c Apple pencil and the 1st generation lightning pencil, how like, how are they even selling that with as an add on in the new purchased 10th gen flow? Like, that seems
Jason Aten:That that's not even the worst thing. I want you to think about something, Steven. A week from now, Apple will be selling 4 Apple Pencil.
Stephen Robles:No. I can't
Jason Aten:They will.
Stephen Robles:Buy.
Jason Aten:They can't now. This is why they can't bring
Stephen Robles:the lightning.
Jason Aten:How can they possibly not? Get rid
Stephen Robles:of the lightning. Get rid of the lightning iPad, and then you can have at least USB c and then maybe the 3rd gen. I don't know if the 3rd gen is gonna be backwards compatible. Probably not because they're gonna have to, like, move magnets around and charging or whatever. But they can have, like, the 3rd gen USB c Apple pencil and maybe the 2nd gen?
Jason Aten:No. They're gonna be selling for Steven, I'm sending you a link, and you need to scroll to the bottom of this link because this is the only thing that you need to understand here because this chart is just going to get bigger in in a moment. Scroll down to the features, scroll down to the Apple Pencil features. If I could, if I could take over screen sharing right now, I would just do it. Keep going up.
Jason Aten:Scroll down. Keep going. Keep going. How about you? Just Nope.
Jason Aten:Go back up a little bit. Go back up right there.
Stephen Robles:This is the chart mark thing.
Jason Aten:Yeah. And there's going to be one more. There's going to be a 4th generation Apple pencil there that I don't know what will be different about it, but it's going to have a button apparently. It's like, so you just have to under they can't get rid of that first gen one because first of all, even if they stop selling the 9th gen, there are schools that need to replace those. Right?
Jason Aten:They have to.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. But they cannot have it in, like, the you're purchasing a brand new iPad as a consumer flow and offer the lightning one just just for schools. That's fine.
Jason Aten:No.
Stephen Robles:I'm telling you this this
Jason Aten:this page is gonna be updated next week, and there will be 4 of them.
Stephen Robles:Alright. That is that that okay. That's the prediction. We're gonna at our at our follow-up episode, our livestream after the event, we're gonna see, was Jason right? Are we gonna have a 4th pencil on this ridiculous chart?
Jason Aten:I mean, to be fair, it's possible that the page won't actually be updated by them, but they will be selling 4 Apple Pencils, I'm sure of.
Stephen Robles:I gotta take a screenshot in case this page goes away.
Jason Aten:They're gonna destroy the evidence. Did you hear was it was it Phil Schiller that says that no one at Apple takes notes? They're just destroying evidence. Really? It's not true, but that is what he said.
Stephen Robles:That is funny. Okay. So but the base model I've had right now, which you could still buy brand new. What is it? It's 329.
Stephen Robles:The iPad so look at look at look at how
Jason Aten:It's also fine. 329. It's fine. For peep people who are buying that iPad Yeah. It is you're doing, like, nothing.
Jason Aten:You're just, like, giving it to a kid to play, like, pokey go and, like, Minecraft. And I have a kid who plays Minecraft on it, and he has no complaint.
Stephen Robles:A 13. Listen. I do give Apple credit. The fact that you can buy this, whatever, 5 year old iPad and it still is great today and runs iPad OS 17 and it can run a bunch of games, like, could like, it's that is great. But lightning, it still has a lightning.
Jason Aten:So make it make it 2.99 and make the other one 3.99 and everyone would be happy.
Stephen Robles:But this one's already 2.99 for education. I feel like I
Jason Aten:know, but just make it 299 for people, not educated not education people, and then make the the 11th gen iPad 399 as a starting price. I think that that, I mean, it doesn't solve the fact that yes, the iPad, it's ridiculous. And I do think that they're going to, this is it. Here's the crazy thing. This is not even the worst part of the lineup, to be perfectly honest with you because the iPad air and the iPad pro are where things often make very little sense.
Jason Aten:Right? Because I don't understand. I mean, the iPad, if somebody asked me what they should buy for an iPad, I mean, I love my iPad Pro, but I don't, like, I don't recommend it for basically anyone. I would just say buy an iPad Air, and you can use it for 10 years. And you don't even need like, my mom bought an iPad Air instead of, like, a laptop.
Jason Aten:I mean, and it's fine. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The the iPad Air, I do it needs a little more differentiate.
Jason Aten:Well, I got the iPad Air Pro. I yeah. Yeah. I don't think they need to differentiate the iPad air more. They need to, like, give people a reason, like and right now there's an m one versus an m two.
Jason Aten:But for most people, the difference between an m one and m two is negligible in a tablet. Really it's negligible in a laptop, but it's definitely nothing in anything. So I think that I think it's like the iPad air becomes the base of the iPad Pro. They're gonna look the same. They'll have different cameras because that makes sense.
Jason Aten:Give the pro version more more cameras. The screens will look the same. It's just the pro will have fine OLED or or mini led. I don't care, like OLED or mini led, whatever, but it'll have a better screen. It'll have the promotion, and then it'll probably be like M2 versus M4 or even if it's M3.
Jason Aten:That's great. Like that's fine. So other than that, I don't think that I think they'll, if they move the camera on 1, they'll move the camera on the other one. Like, I think they'll just look the same. And especially since the rumors are both will be available in both sizes, then they have to just differentiate it based on the features.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. I do I do think we're gonna see a bigger iPad Air because I think that would draw another segment of consumers who want the biggest screen possible, but for the cheapest possible, and if they could get it for whatever the iPad Air right now is 5.99, $600. So maybe 6.50, it'd probably be 700 for the bigger size. But
Jason Aten:What is the what is the premium between the iPad Pro and the big iPad Pro?
Stephen Robles:That's a good question. Let's go in here. So it is 1099 for the no. No. A 799 for the 11 inch, 1099 for the 12.9.
Jason Aten:It's a $300 difference. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:$100 difference.
Jason Aten:Difference. Now the well, the 12.9 has a mini LED, so it's not just bigger. There's a better screen there. So probably $200 is gonna be the difference in the price. You're probably right.
Stephen Robles:So 7 yeah. But I think people will go for it. I think people would want that bigger Air with a Magic Keyboard because that is Apple's great at this pricing stuff. It is, like, right on the edge of, like, do I get an M2 MacBook Air, or do I get a big iPad Air with a magic keyboard, and it's literally gonna be, like, the same price.
Jason Aten:You don't buy that, by the way. It'll weigh £3 more. Because if what you want is an iPad air that you're going to primarily primarily use on a 350 well, no, that was 399. Right? Or 3 2349.
Jason Aten:I don't know. Whatever. If you're gonna use it on a keyboard more than $300, you should just buy a laptop at that point.
Stephen Robles:Yes. But maybe. I mean, the magic keyboard, you know, that is we should get an updated one. I'm hoping function row keys, maybe they'll make it lighter. Maybe they'll make it lighter and more portable.
Stephen Robles:Maybe. It is very heavy.
Jason Aten:Mine sits in a drawer because I never take it away from my desk because it's just it's like if I'm gonna put that much weight in my backpack, I'm just gonna take a laptop.
Stephen Robles:That's why I was just talking, with someone on threads from The Verge, Chris Welch from The Verge, basically talking about how he still loves the keyboard folio. And I have to say, I did an entire video on it last year about why I think the the Folio is probably one of the best keyboards for the iPad because it is incredibly light and it folds back if you wanna use it as a tablet. It doesn't have a trackpad but it's okay. Like, it it just has, you know, 2 angles or whatever.
Jason Aten:I'm trying to model it for you. See? It's right here.
Stephen Robles:Oh, okay. Let me turn let me turn off
Jason Aten:the screen. There you go. It's perfect.
Stephen Robles:There it is. Yeah. That's what like, so light. Like, it's barely adds any weight.
Jason Aten:And it's not a bad keyboard, honestly. Like, it's not a great keyboard. I'm a writer. I use a keyboard more than just about anybody, and I can use this. Like, it's fine.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. I've I've done a lot I did a lot of writing because before the Magic Keyboard came out, that's what I used full time on my iPad. I wrote many, many long form things, on that keyboard, and it was great. And I also like that the waterproofness
Jason Aten:Yeah. I'm a little bit happy. Coffee all the time, and it's fine.
Stephen Robles:Wait. You spill it all the time?
Jason Aten:I spill coffee every day. Every day. It's a dis
Stephen Robles:How are
Jason Aten:you spilling that much coffee? Disability, man. Leave me alone. I don't know.
Stephen Robles:Wait a minute. Are you knocking with your hand inadvertently? No.
Jason Aten:I I apparently, my depth perception or whatever it is that, you know, like, bringing the cup to the mouth is complicated. I don't know. Like, I just, everyday I look down and I'm like, oh, spilled some more coffee. I I just do.
Stephen Robles:Oh, okay. So it's not it's not like you're spilling it across your desk every day. No. You're saying you you get, like, drips and drabs.
Jason Aten:I'm not a Neanderthal. No. I'm just sloppy. I'm like
Stephen Robles:Just every day at some point, you just knock it over.
Jason Aten:I get really mad, and I just I'm starting all over on this article. And I can't, like that's what I need. If I got a typewriter and I could slam that thing across, then that'd be fine. But instead, I throw my cuff. That's not true.
Stephen Robles:Okay. Alright. Any other predictions for this event?
Jason Aten:No. I think I don't. I mean, Steven Hackett on connected predicted that there would be Macs, but I don't see I don't see that. If they maybe the Mac Mini, but I just I don't I think that they wanna do that. May either probably a w w if it wasn't so close to WWDC, that's the thing.
Stephen Robles:But that would be that would again, the chip situation, I feel like, is a little weird. Yeah. Because if they do announce an M4 iPad Pro, that'll be the debut of the M4 Chip. Okay. Cool.
Stephen Robles:Last year at Dub Dub, we got the Mac Pro and Mac Studio with M2 Ultra. So are we gonna get an M3 Ultra at dub dub, which that feels likely, you know, it matches last year. Get the Mac Pro and Mac Studio to an M3 Ultra, but with an M4 already announced and they've done this before. Like, I understand, you know, they've they've done this whole, like, announce the M 2, and then the M1 Ultra comes out after it or whatever. Like, I understand the chips are different, but it just feels weird.
Stephen Robles:Like, I liked the nice and neat, alright, everything's m one. It's the m one generation. You can get it in an iPad. You can get it in a a Mac, and now now it's m two, and now it just feels a little more confusing, and I understand most consumers probably don't even think about it or care, but as me, someone's like, what? What?
Stephen Robles:There's m4s out there. I want the m4 in my my Mac, just like I have it in it's in my iPad, but, yeah. I guess that's
Jason Aten:Steven Steven, you're the only person who thinks that 2021 was peak Apple Silicon. Okay? Like, it's it's getting better.
Stephen Robles:I'm not saying I I want them to be slower. I just I liked the neatness. The organ I'm very I like to be very organized. I like to be very systematic. You know, everything moves along.
Stephen Robles:Because one of the things that I really disliked about the Intel era, because I wasn't super into that, but it was, like, very confusing to buy a Mac then. It's like, I don't know the difference between the i7 and an i9. And I guess if you don't know the difference, maybe you don't need the difference. But I was still doing video editing stuff back then, but I didn't know the ramifications. Like, I didn't realize if I wanted to run, like, an LED wall, getting an i5 is not like you know, that that connection just doesn't it just didn't work back then.
Stephen Robles:So I I don't know. Hopefully, Apple just makes it easy to understand what you should get. That's all.
Jason Aten:That will definitely not happen. But I do think I do think we can be confident that iPads are coming next week. I think there's a slightly better than 50% chance that the pros will get the m fours instead of the m threes. I still think I still think it's more likely they get the m three, just to be perfectly honest, but I don't think it's a I don't I don't discount this particular report from Mark Gurman, especially because he's pretty well sourced. But I think I think, yes, it'll be confusing.
Jason Aten:The 2 things, I think, there's a good news, bad news. If the iPad Pro gets the m 4, I think that that's good news for people who like the Mac Studio and Mac Pro because I think that they'll be going into the they'll probably go into those 2 devices at WWDC. And I think it's also slightly bad news for the iPad because I think that if the iPad Pro gets the m 4, we may not see a new version for another 2 years.
Stephen Robles:And may maybe that's the cycle Apple is trying to get to is is that kind of because, honestly, I mean, it's really the software that needs work on the iPad Sure. Because the hardware is amazing. The hardware has been amazing since 2018. Yeah. Like, people still have 2018 iPad Pros that are, like, amazing.
Stephen Robles:Yep. You know, performance wise and running all the stuff. So we will see. So Tuesday, May 7th, the event is at 10 AM Eastern. We're gonna do a live recording recapping the event that afternoon, so stay tuned for information on that.
Stephen Robles:There's a couple other short Apple things and then I need Jason to explain what's going on with Tesla. We might put it as our personal tech because Jason actually owns a Tesla. Okay. Great. That would make sense.
Stephen Robles:But before we get to that, we do wanna thank all of you who support the show directly. If you wanna get an ad free version, meaning this section is cut out, then support the show $5 a month. You can do that on Memberful. Go to primarytech.fm and click bonus episodes. Which you get bonus episodes every week.
Stephen Robles:I think I'm gonna ask Jason about more media library stuff, because I reviewed the recent sofa app, and I'm curious if you keep track of all that. And also, I have another question for Jason. The streaming box that you recommend that's not Apple TV, though you could be thinking about that.
Jason Aten:I do appreciate that. Okay. I click on a link and it's you start talking. I need a warning when I click on links that it's a video because you need to autoplay. But I do appreciate that you're telling me now that I need to have answers to these questions.
Jason Aten:That's good. I no.
Stephen Robles:That's good. That is helpful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:So that's gonna be our bonus episodes. So if you wanna hear all the bonus episodes, you can hear the entire back catalog, including Jason running an Ethernet cable across his lawn, so we have good Internet for this podcast. Support the show. You can do that directly in Apple Podcasts or do it at Memberful. And, of course, we would love for everyone to join our community that's completely free@social.primarytech.fm.
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Stephen Robles:Leave a little written review. Tell us if you have your battery percentage on or off if you don't know what to say in the review and we appreciate that as well. So thank you to all of those who support the show. Alright, real quick, this this can be our lightning round. I just wanna mention Apple Insider, my alma mater there, there's Marco Zivkovic, actually uncovered what could be one of the changes coming to iOS 18 which is integration between Apple's calendar and Reminders app.
Stephen Robles:This seems like a small feature, but would make sense if Apple is going to be introducing AI features where maybe the assistant can do things for you across apps, like you're in your calendar and you wanna do a to do or see both. And this is a feature that a lot of third party calendars app apps have, like Fantastical. You can literally see your stock reminders to dos in Fantastical in the calendar app, so a little integration there. I will say it the calendar, mail, and contacts apps, it would still be great if Apple showed a lot of love to those at wwdc because I feel like it's they're still lacking in a lot of ways. But interesting, I'm curious to see what Apple's gonna do with these integrations across apps and stuff.
Jason Aten:Yeah. I've started to think about the mail the stock mail, and calendar app especially. I actually think reminders is really good. Mostly because I can just talk to my watch and people tell me to I I guarantee you that at some point in the next hour, there'll be, like, 3 or 4 reminders that my wife just told me this morning, and I knew I wouldn't remember after we recorded this. And so I just tell tell my watch.
Jason Aten:So that's, like, that's great.
Stephen Robles:I do that all the time. By the way, I I can't do a reminder with the Rabbit r one, and it's still on the, treadmill. Mhmm. I just wanna point that out. That's all.
Jason Aten:We should have recorded this as, like, a 37 minute video of the rabbit on the thing saying this is how good this thing is. Okay. But the I've started to think about the stock calendar and the stock mail app is kind of like they have the Microsoft problem. What I mean by that is like Microsoft products often like have to appeal to the broadest common denominator. I was going to say lowest, but that's just insulting, but they have to appeal to you to like legacy use cases.
Jason Aten:And I feel like if you're going to put a mail app on the phone, 90 what, 8% of people are just gonna always use that. Right. And 98% of 2,000,000,000 iPhone users are not you and I who want like a power user mail app. The same thing is true with the calendar. There are 3rd party calendar and third party mail apps that do all the things that we want them to do.
Jason Aten:The stock ones cannot get that complicated. Now would it be nice if the mail app had a share sheet? Like, so that you could like send it to different things. That'd be amazing. I don't, That seems like that would appeal to the broadest common denominator.
Jason Aten:But at some level, I think they're just like the people most of the people who are using this don't need that. And the people who are, who, who want those features, like I use spark. And one of the main reasons is it's easy to share mail, emails, snooze them, you know, or reschedule them to show up at a different time. And it's it's super easy for me to, like, create filters and organize them in different ways. But the people who use the stock mail app don't care about any of those things, and so I don't think that Apple is gonna ever do that.
Jason Aten:This does seem like a no brainer, like being able to create a reminder from your calendar app. That's great. But, again, I don't I don't know. Like, I would think it was a terrible idea if they just combined the 2. It seems like based on this report, the reminders will still go to the reminders app if if I read this right.
Stephen Robles:I will I will say too, I am not one to put reminders in my calendars. Even like, I use Fantastical on all my devices. I do not display any tasks or reminders in there because I am under the firm belief. I think I got this from Merlin Mann. Like, calendar is for I have to be at a place at a certain time or I have a call or meeting at a certain time, and that's it.
Stephen Robles:Like, I don't put tasks. Like, I know a lot of people put tasks as like events and they'll say, oh, well, I need to, whatever, like pay my taxes on April 15th. And so I will create a calendar event for that, which maybe that's a bad example because I could understand why you might also wanna do an event. But if it's like I have to take the trash out every Tuesday night and they put, like, a calendar event instead of using, like, a reminder, I feel like that actually muddies your productivity workflow. And I find actually just using the calendar for events and places you need to be or calls you need to take and using reminders or whatever things to do just your tasks, I I like that separation.
Stephen Robles:And so that's just how I function.
Jason Aten:No. I agree with you. I don't need I don't use them. I do like that fantastical allows you to sync reminders, and then you can create a calendar set that either includes that or does not include that so that you're not staring at it all day. Because, I mean, that is kind of a nice thing to to have, but I agree with you.
Jason Aten:Like, I don't use my calendar for a task list because there's already enough nonsense on there that I don't need to get in clouded up with other things. I use things for things 3 for work related tasks, and then I use reminders for personal stuff. So
Stephen Robles:You know, can I just say, that's exactly what I do too? Yeah. I I do the same thing because there are personal things. Like, I put my take out the trash, water softener, salts. I do all that in reminders because I don't wanna see that during the workday, and I just want it to pop up at the time that I had scheduled, and things is just my, like, these are my work tasks.
Jason Aten:Yep. This is
Stephen Robles:what I do at work.
Jason Aten:Yep. I totally
Stephen Robles:agree. Real quick, iOS 17 dot 5, the latest beta came out and there's one feature that I think is actually great. It's actually going to introduce a repair state where if you're bringing your iPhone in to get repaired, assuming like other devices too like an iPad, that you'll be able to set it into repair state, meaning you can still use Find My, even on your device that's being sent away by Apple to repair, and you don't have to disable Find My and stolen device protection, which now stolen device protection, like, I couldn't imagine if you go into an Apple store and you have to disable that, but you have to wait an hour because you have the whole, you know, you can only, you know, wait an hour in order to turn it off.
Jason Aten:Because you're not at home. You're not at home.
Stephen Robles:Right. You're obviously not at home. So then you'll have, like, a ready for repair on the device. I think it's just a great feature. It's coming in 17 dot 5 repair state, and and it should make the whole process a little easier.
Stephen Robles:Finally, Apple, the Digital Markets Act in the EU, they have said that iPadOS needs to adhere to all of the DMA restrictions and laws that are applying to the iPhone. So things like third party browsers, third party app marketplaces, being able to sideload from the web, all those changes that previously were iPhone only, the EU has said iPadOS has to comply as well. So you'll in the EU, you'll be able to do all those things on your iPad in addition to your iPhone, which I felt like this was probably coming. Like, the EU, they're gonna they were gonna do this.
Jason Aten:Yeah. They're
Stephen Robles:gonna do this either way. So
Jason Aten:Yeah. It seems weird to most of us because we're like, iPad OS, really? It's a gatekeeper. I I mean, on the other hand, it's like it's the same. Why it would make no sense that you could download an app or subscribe to something outside of the App Store on the phone and then not use any of that on the iPad.
Stephen Robles:Right. If you hear a high pitched squeaking, Jason's neighbors are getting siding. Just wondering if It's
Jason Aten:not actually squeaking. It's a saw.
Stephen Robles:Oh, it's a saw?
Jason Aten:The the high pitched squeaking is the little mice that are high put putting the siding up. Yeah. My neighbors are getting siding. So, unfortunately, they did not put on their calendar, don't use a saw today. I should have asked them to add that to the reminders app.
Stephen Robles:Oh, my word. Okay. Well, I I do need you to speak through the squeaking and tell me what is happening with Tesla. You have a Tesla. I'm gonna put this as a personal tick.
Stephen Robles:But you had an article talking about all the rounds of layoffs, and then I tried to sneak this next article in on you, which is Tesla laid off the entire team behind its brakes, which is not true. That was actually an Onion article. I thought it was I thought it was really funny.
Jason Aten:I mean, it's not true yet.
Stephen Robles:Well, when I saw this headline, I was like, I didn't know it was The Onion at first. I just saw the headline and it totally comported with my what I've been seeing in the news about Tesla recently. So I was like, oh shoot. Is that real? Turns out that's an Onion article.
Stephen Robles:But there have been ridiculous layoffs and Elon is struggling and so, listen, you you have a Tesla in our community. You actually asked a question to our listeners and viewers like how does this affect like the supercharger team I think was was one thing that they Yeah. Laid off or, you know, that's the thing. So like how does this affect your process that as a Tesla owner or maybe someone who's looking at getting a Tesla, which I've talked about, I've I've been eyeing model threes. I don't know if that's a bad idea now.
Stephen Robles:I don't know. So tell what has been going on with Tesla.
Jason Aten:Okay. I'm gonna make this quick, and I'm gonna try to speak between saw using. But Tesla laid off about 10% of its workforce, or it announced it was going to lay off about 10% of its workforce. And that was like a month or so ago. And then it seems like some of the executives at Tesla were like pushing back on, hey, I kinda need some of these people on my team.
Jason Aten:And so they were kind of dragging their heels in terms of the speed of the layoffs. And Elon Musk is like, no, we have to be absolutely hardcore, which is kinda like the thing he says. He said that I think he said extremely hardcore at when he when he took over Twitter, but he's using it.
Stephen Robles:In these offices. Not leaving.
Jason Aten:Now he's using absolutely hardcore because people aren't quite as extreme. I don't know. So he he lay so he let go of 2 high level executives. And actually then another report came that the head of HR is also leaving, which is sort of ironic. But anyway, the part in one of them, I think it was Rebecca Tanucci.
Jason Aten:I'm going to have said that name wrong. It's in the article. So I, but but I don't have it in front of me. Who is the head of their, charging? Yeah.
Stephen Robles:He's Yeah.
Jason Aten:Rebecca Tanucci, who is the head of charging. And then also, I don't know his name, but he's the head of new cars. So like, seems like 2 relatively important roles, but it sounds as though maybe they were pushing back on some of these layoffs or at least the pace of them. And so Elon Musk wanted to make a point and he's like, no, I'm serious about this. And if you don't do what I say, I'll just get rid of you and your whole team.
Jason Aten:And so judging by the LinkedIn posts and that kind of stuff, it looks like most of the EV charging team was laid off now. Oh, you're right. We, I asked people in our community what they thought and most of them like, it doesn't matter. And I think that if you're an existing Tesla owner and you've had a Tesla for a while, it is less of a thing for you. I have a charger in my garage.
Jason Aten:Like, I charge it up every night, but it's not a big deal. We never use a supercharger unless we're traveling. But if you're buying an electric vehicle and you've never had one, the entire reason that the supercharger, I think the supercharger network was Tesla's greatest marketing coup and maybe one of the greatest marketing coups of all time, because it took away the anxiety of how far can I drive this thing before I have to sit in it for days to wait for someone to bring me a battery or something like it just, it took away that anxiety because it's in it? And originally, if you bought us, if you bought a model s back in, like, 2013, it included unlimited free supercharging. Like, it just, you could charge it anywhere.
Jason Aten:And Tesla has built out their charging network. It's bigger than everyone else's. Most of the other charging networks are run by relatively small operators or there's like, I think it's electrify America. That was like basically court ordered by, for Volkswagen. If a diesel gate, It's like you polluted the air so much.
Jason Aten:Now you have to make electric chargers and they don't really care. Like it's just not a priority. They just are doing it because they have to. And so the supercharger network was the best thing about driving a Tesla. It's the reason that that, like, for me, Tesla, yep, that's the only electric vehicle I'd I'd consider.
Jason Aten:Now that's changed because every automaker has now said we're gonna adopt Tesla's standard, and Tesla has been opening up the supercharger network to Ford, for example, and to all of these other companies.
Stephen Robles:Rivian.
Jason Aten:Yeah. Well, it's actually, like, you can actually now plug your car in if you're a Ford, and it'll just do it. I think you're right. I think Rivian is the same way, and it's coming to other vehicles in the future. I think it makes it like a little bit of there's some uncertainty there.
Jason Aten:Like how committed is Tesla to this? And some of the reports I've seen is that Tesla's still committed to the supercharger network. He just Elon just wanted to make a point. And the problem with that is I think last week, I described it maybe as a clown show, and I think that, like, Elon Musk is like, yep. Let me show you.
Jason Aten:Like, you mess around and this is what's gonna happen without considering, hey, like, this was the thing. I mean, I'm sure that Elon Musk thinks that the reason people buy Teslas is because of him. I I think that that's probably what he thinks. I think the reason that most early adopters bought Teslas was because of the supercharger network. They wanted to drive a Tesla or they wanna drive electric vehicle, and Tesla is only one that had a good charging network.
Jason Aten:So I think I think it's gonna be interesting to see how this pans out. I really hope that I really hope they're not giving up on the supercharger network as it exists right now, and I hope they continue to expand it because there's gonna about to be a whole lot more vehicles using it. So
Stephen Robles:I was surprised when, was it court ordered or did Tesla just say, yeah, anybody can use the Supercharger network?
Jason Aten:So there was the Biden administration passed it. I think it was, like, you I think that the you I think that the key was you couldn't be proprietary to only one type of vehicle. You had to open up to multiple types of vehicles. And so that was when they first said, yeah. We'll we'll open up to to other vehicles.
Jason Aten:So
Stephen Robles:because I I know right now, like, if you have a Rivian r one s or r one t, you can order, like, this adapter. I saw Quinn Nelson from Snazzy Labs, like, do a little video where he, like, put this adapter on his Rivian on the charger at the Tesla supercharger station, and then he could plug it into his Rivian and charge that right now. And then the r 2 and r 3 that Rivian announced recently will have just the the same port.
Jason Aten:Yep. The NECS plug in. Yep.
Stephen Robles:Right. So that's interesting. So someone you already have a Tesla, so I mean, you're you're kinda there. I have been looking at used Teslas because you can actually get them for very reasonable cost now. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Like, if you wanna get, you know, a Model 3 or even model s.
Jason Aten:You can get a new one for a pretty reasonable cost right now. They keep lowering the price.
Stephen Robles:Which I just keep waiting because I'm, like, all this news about Tesla, maybe these prices are just gonna keep going down. I don't know. But, do you think in 2024, as we are now, like, is if you're looking at electric cars, how much should you be weighing the supercharger thing versus the layoffs versus, like, is Tesla still, like, one of the better, not apart from Elon himself, but just, like, as the car? Like, is this still good?
Jason Aten:Yeah. So, like, arena that the model 3 competes in especially, I still think the model 3 is a fantastic option for anyone. I mean, because of the availability of the charging network, you know, and it's great that you, like you can plug your Ford F150 lightning in, and it will just charge same thing with your Rivian. But the interface is still always better with the Tesla, the Tesla app. The Tesla interface will show you like the availability of the charger, how many stalls are available.
Jason Aten:If if there's any that are down, what speeds are available, all that kind of stuff. There's still gonna be some slightly better integrations there. I think that the there are enough model threes on the road that there's such a large community around it that you are gonna have a lot more access to that kind of kind of thing. I don't think that Tesla is necessarily better at a lot of the things. Like, you know, Ford has been selling cars for a very long time.
Jason Aten:They have dealers. They have subs they have maintenance people. They have all that kind of stuff. Those are that's gonna be fine too. Like, I know people that have Mach E's and love them.
Jason Aten:Like, that's great. But if you can find a used model 3, there's just so much more supply of the of the secondhand market for Teslas because they've existed for so much longer that I think you can find a really good deal on them. And people have been driving them for a long time. You just like, you know what you're going to get. You know that if you buy like, I have a 2018 model s.
Jason Aten:If somebody said to me, should I buy a 2018 model s? I'd be like, yeah. It's great. Like, it'll I mean, it'll be fine. Like, just drive it.
Jason Aten:It'll it'll do really well. So I still think that if you can set aside all of the antics, like, I would still recommend anybody look at look at a Model 3.
Stephen Robles:And Tesla, the app has shortcuts actions, which I think is the only car model that has and just for me personally, I mean shortcuts. One of my things.
Jason Aten:Yeah.
Stephen Robles:So do you use any of them?
Jason Aten:No. I'm no. I don't use any of them, but I do use the app, and I just have a widget on my on my, home screen that has, like it'll show me the current state of charge. I can unlock the doors. I can see where it is if somebody else is using it.
Jason Aten:I I think I think all that stuff and, like, Tesla, a lot of the people knock it because it doesn't have car play. Most of them I think Polestar's might be the only electric vehicles that have carplay in them. I don't maybe the f one 50 lightning does. I don't know. But it's fine.
Jason Aten:Tesla software's fine. It's not it's not, like, amazing, but it's fine. It it like, it does what it's supposed to do. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Okay. Like, keep buying them. I keep going on that pre owned Tesla website, and I'm, like, man, some good deals. Yeah. And I don't know.
Stephen Robles:Do you think I also look on Facebook Marketplace because there's even better deals on there.
Jason Aten:Sure.
Stephen Robles:But I mean, do you think that's that's still I might have asked this already before, but like the process of, like, taking ownership of a Tesla, like, private owner to private owner, is that pretty seamless process?
Jason Aten:You just you just they remove it from their app and you add it to yours. Like, that's it.
Stephen Robles:That's it.
Jason Aten:I mean, there's, like, the paperwork you have to do with the secretary of state
Stephen Robles:or whatever. Title
Jason Aten:or whatever. Yeah. But, yeah, the transferring ownership from that perspective is just as easy as removing it from an app and adding it to someone else's. Okay.
Stephen Robles:If you wanna talk more about the, Tesla, either current situation or if you're considering getting one, I'd love to hear your experience in the community. So go to social.primarytech.fm. Let us know there, and I'm gonna start another thread. I might call this, the personal tech section redux. Just real quick before we go to the bonus episode, what charger do you use on your nightstand for your iPhone and Apple Watch and all that?
Jason Aten:I have whatever the Anker round looking thing that flips up at the top.
Stephen Robles:Oh, you use that one on the nightstand?
Jason Aten:Yeah. Because I can use, what do they call it, standby mode, display mode, whatever the Yeah. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Yeah. Nightstand.
Jason Aten:Standby. Standby. Tell me the time at night mode. I don't know what it's called. But yeah.
Stephen Robles:Well, night stand is like what the Apple Watch does when you turn it on the side. Standby is what you the iPhone, which they should have saved night stand night mode for the phone.
Jason Aten:Yeah. So I use that one because you can charge the AirPods right on the little top of it, and then you can flip it up and put the phone. And then I actually just use, like, the cord that came with the Apple Watch to charge it for because it does I mean, it doesn't have a charger, and it it's fine. Like, I don't care that they're not all in one. It's fine.
Jason Aten:Like, I I I doesn't need to be that fancy for me, but the only thing I really wanted was the ability to use the nightstand mode or whatever. We're not calling it again. Names are hard.
Stephen Robles:Standby. Standby
Jason Aten:mode. Is it really called standby mode? Yeah. Okay. I believe you.
Jason Aten:It just that seems weird because it's like, is it it's not really in standby, but I guess they do call it standby mode. So
Stephen Robles:Standby mode. Standby.
Jason Aten:But I wanted to be able to use it, and I was using a a different, like, stand that was like, you had to put the puck in it, which was fine. It's just that if you don't take it off exactly. Right. Like you ended up bringing the puck with you and all of a sudden you yank things out of the wall and it's, it's messy.
Stephen Robles:I'm obsessed with chargers, and so I'm gonna be doing a review video soon. But I just got this ESR one, another 3 in one.
Jason Aten:That's too much.
Stephen Robles:No. No. No. It's just enough. I'm gonna I'm gonna there's this one.
Stephen Robles:There's the Belkin. I got an anchor. I'm gonna do a comparison, so I'll I'll follow-up. Right now, I use
Jason Aten:If it looks like an accessory from a Star Wars movie, it's too much. Like, that looks like, I don't know, next generation Ad Ad or something like that. I don't know.
Stephen Robles:Oh, this thing? Anyway, yeah, I'm gonna be reviewing those. But I use the 12 South High Rise Deluxe 3, if anybody's wondering. But I'm gonna cover them all in a video.
Jason Aten:Lots of words.
Stephen Robles:Anyway, I'm gonna start a poll or another comment another post in the community too about what chargers everybody's used. But join us there at social.primary tech.fm. Again, you can support the show. Here's the bonus episode. We're about to talk about streaming boxes that aren't Apple TVs and why and which one you might recommend to someone.
Stephen Robles:We're gonna get into it. So if you wanna listen to that bonus episode, support us directly in Apple Podcasts or at primarytech.fm and click bonus episodes. And there'll be future benefits as well and so you can hear about those soon. And livestream May 7th at 3 PM EST around then. And we're gonna talk about the iPad event recap.
Stephen Robles:Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. We'll catch you next week.
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