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Apple Maps vs. Google Maps, Y2k Came 24 Years Late, Has Netflix Won the Streaming Wars?

/ 01:10:34/E31 Download MP3
Stephen Robles:

Sir, he's uploading the virus to the mothership. Welcome to Primary Technology, the show about the tech news that matters. Lots of news this week. Y two k came just 20 4 years late. I was 18 public beta is out.

Stephen Robles:

New experiences for Apple Vision Pro. Apple TV Plus is cutting down some of their spending, Tesla earnings, and a ton more. This episode is brought to you by 1password. You'll hear about them in a moment. I'm one of your hosts, Steven Robles, back from the big Apple, not the con not the tech company.

Stephen Robles:

Came back from the city. And joining me as always, my good friend, Jason Aitin. How's it going, Jason?

Jason Aten:

It's good. It's so good to see you, Steven. I've, like, been sitting here for 10 days now waiting for your face to pop up in Riverside, and it's good to do this again.

Stephen Robles:

I'm, really excited to to podcast again. I missed doing it last week. And so thank you all the listeners and viewers for for hanging on, but we got a fun show for you this time. And I have some New York City stories I wanna talk about of the tech after the news. That'll be in, like, personal tech bonus stuff.

Stephen Robles:

And, Jason, he made the entire world just crash. Every Windows computer crashed because Jason has sent an update. I got the news right. Right? That's what happened.

Jason Aten:

And that's almost true. I mean, I did tell you that I'm terrible at reviewing Windows Computers and now you know why.

Stephen Robles:

That is what that is why. I thought that did you know, what movie quote I was referring to or

Jason Aten:

what movie Not really.

Stephen Robles:

I

Jason Aten:

was Something about uploading the virus. Is it Independence Day or

Stephen Robles:

something? That's right. Yes. That's

Jason Aten:

it. Alright.

Stephen Robles:

That's it. I figured, you know, CrowdStrike Windows uploading a virus. I felt I don't know. Felt apropos. We just have a couple 5 star review shout outs.

Stephen Robles:

This is Alan Keith Carver from the USA, and he's you know, over these weeks, we always tell people, leave us a 5 star rating and review an Apple Podcasts and tell us if you have battery percentage on, tell us this or that, and, he just has a a list of things he told us in his review. So he has battery percentage on. He says it's niche, not niche. He's he's pronouncing he's giving us pronunciation tips as well. R g in jif, which I agree.

Stephen Robles:

You say jif. Right?

Jason Aten:

But you just said it wrong, didn't you? Is it a

Stephen Robles:

Oh my goodness. What? GIF. What just happened? I I this is what happens when I

Jason Aten:

You're like, I agree, but I just said it wrong.

Stephen Robles:

No. No. No. GIF. I think that was the first time they come in.

Stephen Robles:

Yeah. GIF. That's that's what you say. Right? GIF?

Jason Aten:

Yes.

Stephen Robles:

Okay. Just making sure. Versus not verse, which I don't know if we ever asked for that. But okay. Thanks for that, Alan.

Stephen Robles:

And

Jason Aten:

Also, though, they're just 2 different words. You can say them both

Stephen Robles:

Thank you.

Jason Aten:

But they just mean 2 different things.

Stephen Robles:

Right.

Jason Aten:

Verse 1 is part of a song

Stephen Robles:

Or prose. Yeah.

Jason Aten:

And the other one is part of a fight.

Stephen Robles:

Which we'll get to that, maybe later. Okay. Mark Zuckerberg. But anyway and then he said, Snoopy watch face, which listen. I'm down.

Stephen Robles:

If you wanna leave us a 5 star rating review, tell us what Apple watch face you use. Yeah. We could do that.

Jason Aten:

We did talk about that, though, a while ago.

Stephen Robles:

Oh, great.

Jason Aten:

I told you I thought it was cool, and you're like, nobody uses that. Oh. And now we know that Alan Keith Carver

Stephen Robles:

He uses it. He uses it. There you go. And, also, LA Greek, he has some very kind words to say in his review. He didn't say any of those other things like battery percentage or whatever.

Stephen Robles:

He left us a dad joke.

Jason Aten:

Yes. If you would like

Stephen Robles:

to leave a dad joke in a 5 star rating review, that's fine too. He said, I don't wanna brag. I put a puzzle together in one day. The box said 2 to 4 years. It's a dad joke for you.

Stephen Robles:

So

Jason Aten:

That's good. These are our people, Steven.

Stephen Robles:

So demographic is spot on. So last week, I was in New York City. If you missed that a couple weeks ago. And so in our bonus episode today, for those who support the show directly, I want to talk about some of my my experiences there from a tech perspective. Like batteries, like I have, one of the my MagSafe batteries that I used many times you could see it has now taken a beating because, it's been dropped on city streets and it has ridden the subway and so we're gonna talk about that and some other tech stuff, but I do wanna say a couple things.

Stephen Robles:

Ben Kaye, who is a listener and viewer of the show, he worked at the he works at the Upper West Side Apple Store, and I tried so hard to get there while I was traversing Manhattan with my entire family, and I just couldn't get there. So I'm sorry I couldn't get there, Ben. I wanna go up there and visit again sometime. And also Mark, a listener of the show for a long time, Fernando Silva. I know he's in New York too.

Stephen Robles:

I didn't get a chance to see everyone, but hopefully, I can get up there soon. Maybe one day. Pipe dream. Just meetups. Primary tech teams.

Jason Aten:

You know? Let's do it.

Stephen Robles:

I would love to do it, you know, maybe if Apple invites me to an event in New York. You know?

Jason Aten:

You know I'll wander through the streets looking for a place to meet up. I've done it several times just for this show.

Stephen Robles:

That is true. You found random co working spaces. Yeah. So that's that's the pipe dream up to it. But but thank you for those who reached out and and hopefully I can meet you in person one day.

Stephen Robles:

I did, I I went to the Fifth Avenue Apple Store one day because of you know, I had to show my family. You know, the show the kids the glass cube and all that. Larger than I remember. It's a it's a big store. Didn't I don't know.

Jason Aten:

The store or the cube? Because the cube is smaller than I think most people think it would be.

Stephen Robles:

That yes. The cube is smaller, but the actual store underground, I've I don't know if they've expanded it or whatever. I mean, the last time I was in it was, what 15 years ago or so but

Jason Aten:

Oh wow. It was It has been remodeled since then.

Stephen Robles:

Right. And they have trees down there now so it's it's very cool. And then I ran into another Apple store, another listener recommend that I visit it, but totally by accident. I was walking through Chelsea markets or or the Chelsea.

Jason Aten:

Just tripped and there was an Apple store there.

Stephen Robles:

Almost. We were walking from we were trying to find a Starbucks Reserve which is like these special Starbucks stores And, there's a big one in New York City in Chelsea, and so we're walking down the streets, and I just see a little Apple thing sticking out from the building. I said, wait a minute. That's an Apple store. And so we go in and it's the Chelsea market store which is like 3 stories.

Stephen Robles:

It has a spiral glass staircase and, there's a picture oh, I should have pulled it up, but it's a picture of my 12 year old son at the Genius Bar talking up the Apple guy. He's he was asking how much per month he could pay for a a new iPhone. He's like, how much does this cost a month? And he's like, we're trying to wheel and deal him. So

Jason Aten:

So is this the West 14th Street 1 you're talking about?

Stephen Robles:

Yeah. The Chelsea one. I I think it's the West 14th Street. I don't know. I just know I was in Chelsea.

Stephen Robles:

So Okay. Yes. Three stories. I think I think it's the only 3 story one. Yeah.

Stephen Robles:

Yeah. So but but that was fun. But hopefully, I can go up there and and meet everyone again. One other tech moment I thought was interesting, and this is kind of apropos because AirPods Max were on sale this week for like under $400 which so I don't know if that's a good deal.

Jason Aten:

Still not a good deal.

Stephen Robles:

Still not a good deal. But going around New York City for an entire week, I saw many, many AirPods Max. I was surprised. Like, on the subway, on the metro north, walking the sidewalks, I was surprised to see so many AirPods Max, and I saw exactly one Sonos Ace. So one I mean, it was in the, Oculus Mall, which is like the, it's the, like, white ribbed building.

Stephen Robles:

Very It's

Jason Aten:

done at the World Trade Center.

Stephen Robles:

Yes. By the World Trade Center. Yep. And, I saw one guy wearing the Sonos Ace headphones, very nicely dressed. You know, he had, like, this cool suit on.

Stephen Robles:

He was a cool New York guy. 1 Sonos Ace to, like, 100 AirPods Max, and I was surprised

Jason Aten:

I was

Stephen Robles:

surprised to see that many.

Jason Aten:

So you could have stopped by. That's right. That the the w t the it's like a mall and a subway station and train station all in one. But that's right across the street from where offices are.

Stephen Robles:

Oh, really?

Jason Aten:

7 World Trade. So yep. But I do have 2 quick questions. Yeah. Oh, there's a big one.

Stephen Robles:

This here.

Jason Aten:

Oh, nice.

Stephen Robles:

If you're watching, this is my family.

Jason Aten:

That's the cue. Yep. There you go.

Stephen Robles:

There it is. Yep. Okay. Go ahead.

Jason Aten:

You well, my first question was you you I well, my first one is not a question. I I I think we should agree that no one should pay $400 for anything with the lightning port.

Stephen Robles:

Yeah. I agree. I agree.

Jason Aten:

Because I don't need anything with the lightning port that's worth $400. Maybe an iPhone s e. If you're, like, 2, if you're buying one for your kid, that's about it, I think. Yeah.

Stephen Robles:

But it's you can get one for under $400 now. I feel like Well,

Jason Aten:

that's true. You shouldn't be paying $400 for an iPhone s e 2.

Stephen Robles:

Right. Exactly.

Jason Aten:

But and then the second thing is hold up that MagSafe thing again because I have ridden the subway a lot of times, and I don't look like that. Like, what were you doing with that on the subway? You just thrown it to people?

Stephen Robles:

I don't know what happened. So well, I'm gonna save it for the bonus episode. I know you're you're goading me into talking about it now, but, I I used it a lot. I don't know. We did go to a skate park on the lower east side, and I was using this there, and I think I dropped it once.

Stephen Robles:

So that I think that might have been the Okay. The damage.

Jason Aten:

Curious because I have an actual Apple MagSafe battery, and it's in it's always with me in my bag. And I've taken it across the ocean many times, and it does not look like that.

Stephen Robles:

I guess, it was cute. It's a little bit of a spoiler. We'll talk about it. Okay.

Jason Aten:

A

Stephen Robles:

little spoiler, but, like, I have I brought that one too. Still pristine, but I use this one a lot. Anyway, we're gonna talk to them.

Jason Aten:

You just didn't throw it at anyone. Okay. Got it.

Stephen Robles:

I didn't throw it. Yeah. This this one's a little heavier.

Jason Aten:

You know?

Stephen Robles:

It's the anchor Yeah.

Jason Aten:

Tool. They're 10 k. Self defense tool. There you go.

Stephen Robles:

Chuck it at somebody. Yeah. So, anyway, listen. We have there was huge news in the week that we were gone. Massive news, and I think it's really important that we cover it.

Jason Aten:

The

Stephen Robles:

HomePod mini, was announced in midnight, midnight color. Massive news.

Jason Aten:

Can you tell the difference between the midnight and the space gray?

Stephen Robles:

No, Jason. No. I can't. I have, like, 5 space gray HomePod minis in my house, and I could swear this looks exactly the same.

Jason Aten:

Yeah. And I feel like the real news is not that it's midnight because no one knows what that means, but it's, like, now made from a 100% recycled materials or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm wondering I'm like, is that just like, you just had a bunch of extra ones and you just recycled them into this one or something.

Jason Aten:

I don't even I don't even know.

Stephen Robles:

I don't know. But

Jason Aten:

is that the only one, Seth? I don't understand because it's like, is that the only one that's or are they all now a 100% recycled material in the mesh? And if that's the case, is it sort of like, we just want people to, like, have this as a status symbol that you've when people come over to see your Hope Pod minis, like, oh, you bought the eco friendly one? I don't I don't understand this news.

Stephen Robles:

I think it would be hilarious if Apple just repackaged the space gray but put midnight on the packaging.

Jason Aten:

That's exactly what's happening

Stephen Robles:

right now. Exactly what's exactly. But the fact that this had a whole press release in the newsroom, I mean, that's that's saying something. But anyway, yeah, HomePod mini, available in

Jason Aten:

the next Yes. They were really trying to, compete against all of the other news that was happening in the last week.

Stephen Robles:

It was. I did feel the the vibes from that HomePod mini announcement very much felt like, the guy where he's, like, wearing the same shirt that he's holding up that he just got for Christmas.

Jason Aten:

Nice. That

Stephen Robles:

is this meme. That is this meme. Yeah. Normally, this meme meme is reserved for the iPhone, upgrade cycle, but I think the HomePod mini 1. I think I

Jason Aten:

mean, the HomePod mini upside upgrade cycle is apparently not that much different

Stephen Robles:

than you

Jason Aten:

know some of the iPhone

Stephen Robles:

ones. Exactly.

Jason Aten:

But yeah.

Stephen Robles:

Okay. So one of the big things that happened while we were while I was out the crowd strike failure. And so this was on a Friday. We were actually just leaving New York on that day, not flying, thankfully, because we would not No

Jason Aten:

one was flying.

Stephen Robles:

No one was flying that day unless you were on Spirit because they run on, Abacus.

Jason Aten:

That's true. There are benefits to stone age technologies.

Stephen Robles:

Exactly. But CrowdStrike and they met they pushed an upgrade to their service, which is on apparently millions of Windows machines specifically. And I've tried to ascertain exactly what CrowdStrike is. It runs on the kernel level of these systems. And I think correct me if I'm wrong, like monitors for malware viruses, issues, things like that.

Jason Aten:

Yeah. So it's it's antivirus.

Stephen Robles:

You

Jason Aten:

know, it's a cybersecurity security tool, and the reason it runs in kernel space is so that it can see what everything else on the computer is doing. Because in theory, like, that's the only way for something on your computer to tell if another application that's running on the computer is malware is for it to be in the in the kernel space. And so Yeah. Yeah. Carry on.

Stephen Robles:

So they they pushed an update. I guess it was late Thursday night maybe or very early Friday, like wee hours in the morning, and it took down 8,500,000 Windows machines. It was blue screen of death on all these machines, including many machines that run airlines and, like, I couldn't mobile order from Starbucks as we were driving back down from New York because CrowdStrike Yeah. Which is upgraded. So there's just many computer systems down.

Stephen Robles:

You know, Mac users, we all we all had a moment. People were posting memes about how you know, this this this didn't affect us, any Mac users, but it was a massive failure. It was, I think, what y two ks maybe would have felt like. I don't know. I I don't know if you remember y two ks, Jason, but I felt like that was anticlimactic.

Jason Aten:

Steven, I'm older than you are. Yes. I remember

Stephen Robles:

y two

Jason Aten:

ks. Yeah. That's true. That's fair enough.

Stephen Robles:

But, you know, y 2 k, I remember we were all staying up waiting for the, like, the power to go off at least, and literally nothing happens.

Jason Aten:

At least. He was hoping for but we didn't even get a power out.

Stephen Robles:

I was at high school and I was like, if some can something happen, please? I mean, I guess not. So yeah. That was yeah. That was a crowd strike.

Stephen Robles:

There there's a bunch of articles about it. I know it's about a week old, but you also had an article about the CEO's response, which I think is interesting. And so I don't know. Tell me about your take as you were covering this.

Jason Aten:

Yeah. Let me back up just a tiny bit, if you don't mind. So just like to for people who my guess is our audience, they don't care a whole lot because they're probably they're probably a little bit more leaning towards Mac. But it is important for a couple of reasons. 1, Windows well, the the irony here is no one who worked at Microsoft had this problem because they don't use CrowdStrike.

Jason Aten:

Right? CrowdStrike is enterprise level virus, antivirus, malware, whatever. People who work at Microsoft, they don't use that because Microsoft actually has a lot of this stuff built in. And, actually, Microsoft tried to eliminate the ability for 3rd party developers to what they call patch the kernel. They tried to get rid of that.

Jason Aten:

And you know who told them they couldn't? The EU.

Stephen Robles:

Uh-huh. Mhmm. Okay.

Jason Aten:

Because it would be anticompetitive for Microsoft to shut off the ability for other developers. And when they were trying to do it, it was companies like CrowdStrike and McAfee who were like, uh-uh. This is anticompetitive for Microsoft to do this. But do you is there anyone in the world who is better equipped to protect Microsoft's kernel from malware attacks than the people who work at Microsoft? Probably not.

Jason Aten:

Right? And if it's possible to simply push one little button at a company called CrowdStrike and suddenly Delta Airlines has canceled 7,000 flights over the last couple days. I feel like maybe we should just leave this one to the pros. Right? But it's the EU.

Jason Aten:

I I just wanna go on record like the the there are people think,

Stephen Robles:

like,

Jason Aten:

yeah, I'm glad that these regulators are going after these big tech companies that have too much power. And I'm like, yep. And here's what happens sometimes when you decide to mess with this kind of thing. So I I just felt like that was really interesting. But yeah.

Jason Aten:

So they literally just pushed an update, and it bricked a whole bunch of computers. And and I'll the reason I wrote about the response now he has since sort of apologized. Well, he has since more apologized than he did when I wrote that article. At the beginning, he's literally like, we're sorry for the inconvenience. And I'm like, there's 6,000,000 people sitting in airports on the East Coast right now waiting to go home because they can't get on an airplane.

Jason Aten:

And at Delta, for example, the problem was that the computer systems that were most affected were their crew scheduling. So it's not like the planes couldn't fly. The planes are not running windows. I promise you. Like, it's fine.

Stephen Robles:

That would be an issue. Right.

Jason Aten:

That would be a totally different issue. Can you just imagine the pilots up there like, hang on, folks. I gotta do a control alt delete real quick here. We gotta reboot this thing while we're flying. It's like it'll be fine now.

Jason Aten:

We We do this all the time.

Stephen Robles:

3 times a day, usually. The engines are gonna shut off just for a few seconds. Don't worry about it.

Jason Aten:

But it just shows you sort of like the downstream's effects to all these things. Now, yes, Macs and Linux, that's why, like, a lot of websites didn't go down because they all run on all web servers run on Linux. Right? Like, so it was fine. And Macs didn't go down.

Jason Aten:

Now the truth is, you know, it is somewhat of indication of Apple's strategy of trying to prevent third party developers from having this kind of access. Like, that's on the on the iPhone, this could never happen. Right? There is no such thing as antivirus software on an iPhone. It's just not a thing you could even try to you could try to sell it.

Jason Aten:

And if you got it through App Store, that's great. You might make a little bit of money before they realize it's just a scam.

Stephen Robles:

All those apps are scams.

Jason Aten:

Right. All of them. And they do exist, and they're all just scams. It's just yep. It's not even a thing.

Jason Aten:

So but the real reason that stuff like this doesn't happen on a Mac is that no one is looking for enterprise level malware software on a Mac Right. Because no one is using Macs Right. For enterprise things like this. Now that's not that's not entirely true, but on a scale like this, it's it isn't. Like, Delta Airlines is not running its cruise scheduling on a bunch of MacBook Airs.

Jason Aten:

It's just that's just not what they're what they're doing. So but I just thought it was really interesting that the guy, like, took down the largest airline in the country with one keystroke, and the response was, we're sorry for the inconvenience. And I don't know if this is true, Steven. I've actually been trying to trying to trying to chase this down, but TechCrunch had a story. I'll send you this link just because this is it's actually hilarious.

Jason Aten:

My editor sent this to me, and I thought there's no way that this can be true. Mhmm. That they were sending at that CrowdStrike was now again. This is I don't I have not verified whether this is true. So I'm just suggesting I'm what I am telling you is that Tech Crunch published this article, not that the article is true, but the article says that CrowdStrike is sending a $10 apology gift card Oh, yeah.

Jason Aten:

To say sorry for the outage. I don't I don't I don't really know if this is really true, but I just feel like, I feel like you have missed the gravity of this. Actually, that was the thing. The the the post said, we understand the gravity of the situation. We're sorry for the inconvenience.

Jason Aten:

And if that's the sentence you write, you clearly do not understand the gravity of the situation. So

Stephen Robles:

Right. Yeah. And you mentioned before we started recording, one of the hilarious things is if you're watching youtube.com/atprimarytechshow, this is the blue screen of dev. Yep. Windows users see that most of our audience probably has maybe never seen.

Stephen Robles:

No Windows logo on the Bluestem which is kind of hilarious. There's a big old emoticon though of a sad face.

Jason Aten:

It's a very sad face. Like But it's even there. It's meant to be, like, the least it's like a passive aggressive sad face because it's literally just the period, you know, open parenthesis, whatever.

Stephen Robles:

Right. Right.

Jason Aten:

Right. Yeah. There's no Windows. There's no Microsoft logo on the blue screen of death. And the funny thing about that is the blue screen of death was everywhere for for a weekend and everybody knew.

Jason Aten:

And Microsoft, it's like Microsoft was getting all of the blame, and they had nothing to do. In fact, if it was up to them, they would have prevented this from happening. But, again, thank you, EU, for your good work here.

Stephen Robles:

I have to say that that sad face emoticon, I feel like that's not a great choice for this screen. I don't know. It feels

Jason Aten:

Is there a great choice for this screen? Did you know they tried to change the screen to black a couple of years ago and they had to change it back because people, like, it was were outraged.

Stephen Robles:

Really? Yeah.

Jason Aten:

They weren't outraged that their computer kept crashing. They were just outraged that the thing that they see when their computer keeps crashing was no longer blue.

Stephen Robles:

They should just have 2 words. Just my bad. Just have my bad right there on the screen. Just leave it like that. Oops.

Stephen Robles:

Yeah. Yeah. Oops.

Jason Aten:

I think the Twitter fail whale was better.

Stephen Robles:

The Twitter fail like, there's actual affinity and nostalgia for the Twitter fail whale.

Jason Aten:

Mhmm.

Stephen Robles:

And I I remember seeing that a lot. You saw that all the time. But in the early days, that thing was

Jason Aten:

Especially when, like, something would happen in the early days, like, 2012, 2013 when, like, something big would happen in the world. Like, Twitter just couldn't handle it. I mean, it has always been a social network held together by, like, you know Duct tape. Wire and duct tape. Wire.

Jason Aten:

Yeah. Exactly. So

Stephen Robles:

I'm gonna package the, the Apple news here in a in a little segment, because a little bit of news here in there.

Jason Aten:

I like segments.

Stephen Robles:

A little little segment. Here's a segment. Apple Vision Pro, still using yours every day?

Jason Aten:

Every day. I have not used it yet today, but I will. Okay.

Stephen Robles:

The the could take

Jason Aten:

Well, we record pretty early.

Stephen Robles:

We record pretty early. Yeah. Yeah. But the, you know, I've seen on social media. People are like, the people in the day who's using Apple Vision Pro?

Stephen Robles:

And, well, I know one guy, Jason Aitin. He's using it still.

Jason Aten:

Every day.

Stephen Robles:

Every day. But, Apple announced a bunch of new immersive experiences coming soon. There's there's one available now. So and this is what gets me to put my Apple Vision Pro on my face is if there's a new immersive experience, I do wanna see it. I wanna experience it.

Stephen Robles:

So the one you can watch now is called Boundless, and it is from the Cappadocia, the hot air balloons, which is something that happens if you're not familiar in Cappadocia, Turkey. Every morning, there's, like, 100, if not thousands of hot air balloons that go up and, you know, tourists do it and stuff, and so there's an immersive new immersive experience that covers that. It's really cool. I watched it. Did you watch it?

Stephen Robles:

Did you do the immersive?

Jason Aten:

I have not yet It's good. Watched it.

Stephen Robles:

It's good. You know, the thing is, like, these are all, like, 6 minute videos. You know, I think the parkour one was, like, 12 minutes. This one's 6 minutes. So it's very short.

Stephen Robles:

This one ends, I feel, like, more abruptly than others. I was watching it, and then I was, like, the credits came up, and I was, like, oh, okay. I guess that's it.

Jason Aten:

I thought you were gonna say, like, the balloons crashed or something.

Stephen Robles:

No. No. No. Abrupt. No.

Stephen Robles:

We're not we're not talking about CrowdStrike anymore. This is Okay. It's a mercy.

Jason Aten:

They're not running windows on those hot air balloons?

Stephen Robles:

There's no windows on those hot air balloons. But it is amazing, like, those torches that they, I don't know if they're called torches, but the way they, like, manage those things, it's pretty wild. Anyway Yeah. So that was available now, but then they announced a bunch of things coming later, like another episode of the wildlife series, which you have the rhino episode available now. There's other ones that can be coming in August.

Stephen Robles:

There's a new episode of something called Elevated, which is an aerial travel series that comes in September. So we're like a couple months away from that. Mhmm. The one that I'm really interested in is this one called submerged, which is actually a scripted short film. And this is gonna be, correct me if I'm wrong, the first kind of drama, like, a first drama, like, a fictional story on the Apple Vision Pro in an immersive experience.

Stephen Robles:

Everything up till now has been very, like, documentary feeling, whether it's the the High Line or the animals or the prehistoric world and even the boundless and parkour like everything's very documentary style you know which is a kind of look or kind of filming you know you're looking at this, you're looking at that. And so to have an actual dramatic, you know, like a drama fiction story on Apple Vision Pro and an immersive experience, I'm very curious of what that's gonna look like. So that's coming, I think, this fall. I don't know if they even gave, like, a date, but then also the NBA All Star weekend. That's gonna be interesting.

Stephen Robles:

I've not, had my father-in-law try Apple Vision Pro yet because I've been waiting for a basketball thing because he's sports sports ball all day. And so I'm I'm curious for him to actually try this and see what he thinks but that, that's also coming. They said this fall. That's coming this fall and something from the weekend not like the days of the week. The the artist.

Stephen Robles:

Not the week.

Jason Aten:

What is your what is your, you said your father-in-law? Yeah. Or your father? My father-in-law. What what does he think about the fact that, you know, a third of the NBA games starting in 2025 are gonna be on Amazon Prime Video?

Stephen Robles:

I don't even know if he knows yet. I don't know. I'll have to I'll have to see. He well, he has Amazon Prime Video,

Jason Aten:

because He has Amazon Prime so everyone has Amazon Prime Video.

Stephen Robles:

Yeah. He will I will probably get a text to be like where do I watch the basketball game? And then he'll probably I'll probably have tell him to go to Amazon.

Jason Aten:

Yep.

Stephen Robles:

But yeah. So I mean, I think these immersive experiences are one of the the really key features of Apple Vision Pro that actually like make it worth it and I would love for the more like we're gonna talk about in a second how Apple is cutting their spending on some of their, like, entertainment budgets, specifically Apple TV plus content. I don't know if this fits into that. I think it I would imagine it does, but I don't know. I think they need to do more of this.

Stephen Robles:

Like, crank crank it up. Crank it up. Do more. Mhmm.

Jason Aten:

Yeah. I agree. That I mean, if you want people to use these, this is the one thing that they can offer on the VisionPRO that you can't experience anywhere else. Right? Like, you can watch YouTube.

Jason Aten:

Actually, you want you to do better on your Apple TV. Right? Like, you just can't. Right? It's way better.

Jason Aten:

It's a way better experience. You can watch Netflix way better other places because they didn't even bother to make an app for the Vision Pro. But even, like I mean, Disney Plus, yeah, it's really cool to sit in Avengers Tower.

Stephen Robles:

Right. But

Jason Aten:

How can you do that? If I'm watching a movie, I just wanna watch the movie. I'm not worried. The problem with watching it in Avengers Tower is then you, like, get up and you realize that you're not actually in Avengers Tower and trip over your cat or something. So

Stephen Robles:

You don't even have a cat.

Jason Aten:

That's never I do. I have a cat and a dog.

Stephen Robles:

Oh, you do have a cat? Oh, I know. And we

Jason Aten:

have a one eyed cat named Hermione.

Stephen Robles:

You have a one eyed cat named her.

Jason Aten:

There's a lot in that sentence, isn't it?

Stephen Robles:

I I can't even parse that right now. We do.

Jason Aten:

We have a one eyed cat. She was a rescue cat.

Stephen Robles:

Sure. Sure.

Jason Aten:

We got her very little, and, one of her eyes didn't make it. And I remember when we asked the vet, like, they were recommending we need to do what they I think they call it an enucleation, which sounds terrifying, and it kind of is. And I said, well, that just seems so cruel. And I remember the vet saying she won't even know. I'm, like, what do you mean she won't know?

Jason Aten:

She's capped. She won't even know she only has one eye. And it's true. She has no idea.

Stephen Robles:

Okay. Wow. I'll be processing that, later today.

Jason Aten:

I'm sorry. Right at this episode.

Stephen Robles:

That should have been bonus content. There's also a new environment that's not only open to those in the beta, which if you're on the beta, you have, like, the Bora Bora beach environment that's available, but the Lake Wrangler, I don't know if that's how you pronounce it, but this is I

Jason Aten:

mean, that's how you're gonna pronounce it. That's fine. That's good enough.

Stephen Robles:

Thanks. That's, which is in Oslo, Norway or close to it. And so there's a new environment for everyone. This is if you're on VisionOS 1 or if you're running the beta and you can run this. Have you tried any of the the new environments when you

Jason Aten:

do them? The Bora Bora. But I realized I don't actually wanna do anything when I'm there except for just sit quietly because it's just very Very

Stephen Robles:

nice.

Jason Aten:

It's very nice.

Stephen Robles:

It's very nice and serene. So what do you when when you're doing your VisionPRO things, which is, like, you know, reading articles or whatever, are you in an environment? Are you in past?

Jason Aten:

It depends on on, if I'm writing, I will often go into a, an environment so that I can, like, focus a little bit more. I like the Yosemite one. That's kind of fun. I do wish that the Yosemite was flipped. Like, I would because there's Half Dome and El Cap.

Jason Aten:

Right? And I and I think, by default, you're looking at Half Dome, and I think I'd rather be looking at El Cap. I I might have said that backwards. But, anyway

Stephen Robles:

Interesting. I like the,

Jason Aten:

Did you ever see the free solo movie?

Stephen Robles:

Yes. Oh, my

Jason Aten:

See, I just want that's what I think about, and I just wanna sit there and stare and be, like, there's no it's not real. He didn't do that. I can't believe it.

Stephen Robles:

That film is incredible. Alex Honnold.

Jason Aten:

Yeah. It is amazing.

Stephen Robles:

And you know, you watch a Mission Impossible movie, It's pretty intense and it's fun to watch. You watch that movie and, like, the palm sweating is so real as you're watching Alex Honnold freestyle this thing and, like, edge of your seat. It it just that's that that's what happens when you watch it.

Jason Aten:

Yes. Steven, halfway through the movie, I had to Google, did he die? Is he still alive? In order to continue watching the rest of the movie, seriously.

Stephen Robles:

It's it is very intense. And, also, he's a very interesting guy. I'll just say Oh, yeah. He's he's a very interesting guy. You have to just prepare yourself.

Jason Aten:

But if if you have He's amazing. Everyone should watch it though. It is. Fantastic. So He did they did another one where he they they climbed something in Greenland maybe or New Zealand.

Jason Aten:

I know those are not the same place. I can't remember where it was, but they did another unbelievable climb. And, I think it's is it was it, Discovery Channel maybe that did the first one? I can't remember who. No.

Jason Aten:

Not Discovery Channel. National Geographic. Yeah. I think they're doing the same thing as second as second one. But, anyway

Stephen Robles:

Free free solo. Highly re highly recommend

Jason Aten:

watch it in a vision pro though because you'll just throw up.

Stephen Robles:

Oh, but up but, honestly, see see something like that as an immersive experience. I don't know how you would carry one of those, cameras on a drone. Although, the Blackmagic 1 They

Jason Aten:

yeah. They hit cameras everywhere, but also the even the High Line is, like, too much to watch.

Stephen Robles:

The High Line was intense. The High Line is intense. I will in that free solo movie, the way the camera guy talks about, like, how do I get this shot, but also not distract this guy as he's free soloing so he fought, like, the pressure. That's a lot of pressure.

Jason Aten:

And also how do I just know, like, they're doing all this work and what happens if he doesn't make it?

Stephen Robles:

Like Right.

Jason Aten:

That's cool. Imagine the trauma.

Stephen Robles:

Yeah. So crazy. So crazy. But anyway, I recommend free solo. Something else I wanna recommend, which I wanna tell you about our sponsor today.

Stephen Robles:

We have a sponsor, Jason, for this episode.

Jason Aten:

That's fantastic.

Stephen Robles:

This is amazing. And now those who maybe follow my content for a while, you're wondering, like, why why this sponsor? The sponsor is 1Password. I still use it, especially in a team and enterprise environment, and one of the things that 1password really excels at is that enterprise business and teams perspective. And so what we're talking about right now is 1 password extended access management.

Stephen Robles:

But what this is is imagine your company security like the quad of a college campus, or maybe like, Central Park. There are nice brick paths between the buildings. Those are company owned devices, IT approved apps, managed employee identities, and then there are the paths people actually use, the shortcuts, not iPhone shortcuts, you know, like, not shortcuts you shouldn't go down, worn through the grass that are the actual straightest line from point a to point b. Those are unmanaged devices, shadow IT apps, and non employee identities like contract. I've worked in places, and a lot of times people try to get around the systems because things are just faster or easier.

Stephen Robles:

Well, most security tools only work on those happy brick paths. I think I think it's apropos we talked about CrowdStrike today. But a lot of security problems take place on the shortcuts. A 1 Password Extended Access Management is the first security solution that brings all these unmanaged devices, apps, and identities under your company's control. It ensures that every user credential is strong and protected, every device is known and healthy, and every app is visible.

Stephen Robles:

1 Password Extended Access Management solves the problems traditional IAM and MDM, that's mobile device managers, can't touch. It's security for the way we work today, and it's available now to companies with Okta and coming later this year to Google Workspace and Microsoft Intra. So if you work at a place or maybe you know someone who could really use 1Password, this tool, go to 1password.com/product slash xam for extended access management. That's 1password.com/product/xam. That link is in the show notes.

Stephen Robles:

You could just click it there. Send the link to someone you know, maybe who runs the IT or for a company that needs to protect those devices, send them 1password.com/product /xam. And thanks to 1password for sponsoring this episode.

Jason Aten:

Yeah. And I was gonna just look and see. I've I interviewed the CEO, Jeff Shiner Right. Of of 1password. I was supposed to actually interview him on stage this summer, but I was not able to do that.

Jason Aten:

But I just it was super interesting to listen to, like, how they think about this kind of thing. And they're very focused on, you know, the the idea that right now, I think they call it shadow IT, which is where basically everyone just gets their own like, I'm just using and and so that puts the companies at risk and stuff. And I, probably, for our listeners, like, the enterprise side is not as big of a deal. But, like, you, I use it personally. Yeah.

Jason Aten:

And it's great to have groups and shared groups where I can I can have somebody outside of our family even say, hey? You need access to these three things.

Stephen Robles:

Put them

Jason Aten:

in a group, and now you only have access to those. It's it's it's really smart. And the people behind it, they know what they're doing, and they actually care, which I think is an important as we've seen, a very important thing when it comes to security. So Yes. Exactly.

Stephen Robles:

That's good. Yeah. So that link in the show notes. Thank you, 1Password, sponsoring the show. Continue with the the Apple news segment.

Stephen Robles:

Apple TV plus is trying to rein in some of the spending on their content after years of losses. This is interesting. I found this article, which is from Bloomberg for several reasons. One, it talks about I guess Eddie q is the one that's having meetings with the Apple TV plus studio chiefs, Zach Van Amberg and Jamie Ehrlich, to go over the budgets, and I just love this idea of, like, Eddie q being this, like, kind of dad figure being, like, hey, we gotta cut it out. Cut out this thing.

Stephen Robles:

Alright? Like, relax. And Yeah. And one of the pieces of data that came from this was that, Severance, which is a very popular Apple TV show, I would say one of the biggest successes, apparently, the episode had, like, $20,000,000 budget per episode, which is one of the most of any TV show. I forgot where it is in this article.

Stephen Robles:

Like more than Game of Thrones budget which I've seen severance I'm not exactly sure where the budget went I mean it looked cool Maybe the I mean,

Jason Aten:

putting in those implants in people's brains is really expensive. So isn't that like the premise of that show? Yeah.

Stephen Robles:

Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. That is the premise. Wait.

Stephen Robles:

Did you watch it?

Jason Aten:

I have actually not seen severance yet. Listen. I have 4 children.

Stephen Robles:

This is just I'm

Jason Aten:

not I'm not of my time driving back and forth between gymnastics and soccer.

Stephen Robles:

Putting on that Appalachian Pro every morning. Just just throw on a separate

Jason Aten:

Not watching severance. I'm throwing up there. I gotta pay for soccer.

Stephen Robles:

So so, yeah, that's why it ballooned to more than $20,000,000 an episode, which is wild. So they're trying to cut back on some of the spending. I know I haven't seen it either, but did you see Napoleon or Killers of the Flower?

Jason Aten:

No. See, those were, like,

Stephen Robles:

the biggest movie productions for Apple TV plus I I have not watched them yet. And I've Do you know

Jason Aten:

what I watch? We watch sports, which I know you don't understand. Sports ball. And then we watch basically Marvel movies

Stephen Robles:

Right.

Jason Aten:

Right. Because 4 children. Sure. And then although last night, we watched, Sonic the Hedgehog.

Stephen Robles:

That's a good one. I like that.

Jason Aten:

I like that. It's actually a great movie, to be honest. It's actually great. It's hard to admit that publicly, but it's actually a really

Stephen Robles:

good movie.

Jason Aten:

I enjoy it. But or then my wife and I just watch Friends. That's it. And that's how we get

Stephen Robles:

Have you guys watched that Brooklyn 99?

Jason Aten:

No.

Stephen Robles:

It's a funny show. That that was the worst We

Jason Aten:

watched Ted Lasso, and we watched shrinking. But the criteria for a show that we watch before we fall asleep is I have to not have to think or have any emotions except for laughter.

Stephen Robles:

Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. One other part of this article I thought was interesting is there's kind of this presumption that like Netflix has won the streaming wars. And by basically, like, the budget or maybe the success of some of their originals, and, you know, other items of information like the most Emmy nominations of any platform, if that's a metric you want to use, and I I wanna I don't know.

Stephen Robles:

I feel like to take issue to say that Netflix is the streaming winner of now like, to proclaim that now. I understand. I guess maybe it's the biggest, like, subscriber count wise. Is that true? It the biggest subscription?

Jason Aten:

Well, I mean, you could make an argument that it's pretty close between them and Amazon Prime Video because

Stephen Robles:

Well, that's true.

Jason Aten:

Who has Prime has Prime Video. So, like, there is every time people say, like, Netflix has the most subscribers, that's true for people who intended to pay money for streaming video.

Stephen Robles:

Right. Right. Who didn't do buy it?

Jason Aten:

But Amazon Prime Video has a pretty big audience as well. I'm not actually sure right now which one is bigger globally, but Netflix of the other streaming services is by far the biggest. And if you measure it by the share of people's dispensable time disposable time, you know, like

Stephen Robles:

Right.

Jason Aten:

The time that people could choose to do a thing with

Stephen Robles:

Right.

Jason Aten:

It's basically Netflix and YouTube.

Stephen Robles:

Right. YouTube is still slightly above Netflix.

Jason Aten:

Just a little bit.

Stephen Robles:

Just a little bit. So, I mean, in those metrics, yeah, I get it. But when it comes to actual content, I don't know when it I I still pay for Netflix because I haven't finished watching The Crown, and so once we finish that, I'm probably gonna cancel.

Jason Aten:

That is the most expensive show you've ever started watching. If you're still paying for Netflix

Stephen Robles:

just to finish it. I'm very close to just buying the Blu Ray box sets. We we talked about this. I know what we're talking

Jason Aten:

about this. I know.

Stephen Robles:

But when I go in there sometimes because, you know, there's not a ton of shows out there right now that I'll be into. And so when I see the Netflix originals, I mean, it just seems like so many just kind of b movies that are just like kind of content they're basically a content form for like movies. Sure. Here's here's an actress you've heard of and we're gonna put them in an action movie and there's the thing and like you have every flavor of that with different actresses and like here's a spy version, here's a heist version, and it's, like, I I I don't know. I don't see them producing, like, high quality content.

Stephen Robles:

I maybe I'm wrong. The Crown, but that's they're done with that. They stopped you know, that that show's over. I don't know.

Jason Aten:

Well, I mean, they've done they have done some. Right? That because wasn't wasn't The Queen's Gambit was also a Netflix show, wasn't it?

Stephen Robles:

The Queen's Gambit. Yes.

Jason Aten:

You know? And so they've had certainly some. I think you could probably I don't know if this is true because I haven't, like, broken it down. But probably Netflix has just as many prestige shows as in pure numbers as a service like Apple TV. It's just Netflix also has 700,000 other generic shows.

Jason Aten:

It's all Right. This is terrible thing to say, but it is almost like the AI. It's like, what was it? The the unofficial web blog where they just spit out a bunch of AI generated crap. Like Yeah.

Jason Aten:

It does seem sometimes like Netflix is like weed, But but that is an actual strategy for them. We just have to have something for you to always want to watch. So anytime you come to Netflix, you don't go anywhere else because we have something for you to watch. And so, yeah, I don't think you could argue that Netflix hasn't won. And even Netflix is basically, like, we're we've already crushed everyone else, and we aren't even going to try to crush YouTube.

Jason Aten:

Like, if you think your main competitor at this point is YouTube, you've basically won.

Stephen Robles:

Okay. Fair point.

Jason Aten:

Because you know how much money YouTube pays for content? Basically, 0.

Stephen Robles:

Basically, $0.

Jason Aten:

Right? It's well, I mean, they probably tell you, no. No. No. We share half of the ads.

Stephen Robles:

Well, yeah. Yeah. But it's it's all

Jason Aten:

you somebody else's money. That's someone else's money.

Stephen Robles:

Can I tell you the amount of times I've had to Google the acronym UGC? I keep seeing that as, like, a phrase now, and I was like, what is that? Is that but it's user generated.

Jason Aten:

User generated content.

Stephen Robles:

Yeah. I guess you

Jason Aten:

for someone who makes podcasts and YouTube videos, I'm a little surprised.

Stephen Robles:

Literally my job. I had no idea what I didn't know it was an acronym for it.

Jason Aten:

You're you're a UGC professional.

Stephen Robles:

UGC. I don't like that, though. It feels kind of I don't know.

Jason Aten:

That does feel like a thing that is someone who who works in, like, the business development or the, like, revenue generation side. Like, just they put everything as an acronym.

Stephen Robles:

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Aten:

It's kind of like it's like, in the airlines, the joke used to be, SLC, self loading cargo. Passengers are self loading cargo.

Stephen Robles:

That no. That okay. Yeah. That explains a lot if the airlines are talking about people like that. Okay.

Stephen Robles:

I see. Do you do you remember the thing back this was I don't know how many years ago, but, like, airlines entertaining the idea of, like, standing room airplanes. There was

Jason Aten:

there's been some wild ideas because if your primary incentive is to

Stephen Robles:

Hack it.

Jason Aten:

Maximize the amount of, you know, revenue you can generate, Well and it's like Alaska Airlines just is doing the opposite because they're actually adding 1st class in economy. It's like every other airline is trying to figure out a thing to strap you to the walls on the side and just, like they're just gonna be like a New York City subway. You know? You're just gonna be holding on to us a wrist strap on the plane. It's a

Stephen Robles:

wrist strap. You get a pole. There's a single pole down

Jason Aten:

the center

Stephen Robles:

of this plane. Good luck trying to hold on. This just came out, I think, yesterday as we record, but Apple Maps in beta on the web. You can now go to beta.maps.apple.com in your web browser. This works on desktop on iPad not on iPhone.

Stephen Robles:

This it'll just say browser not supported, but you can go to the web and you have Apple Maps here. There's no login, so you can't like log in with your Icloud account and access the guides that you make or your favorite locations. Nothing like that. There are guides, but it's like the guides that Apple provides, these kind of curated, guides for cities. You can get directions, and it can get your location from the web, obviously, and then you can search for businesses, and you can get the business information in places.

Stephen Robles:

So like I can click on this children's museum and it has all the information that you would see on your iPhone. A lot of people are asking, like, what is the point, especially because you can't log in. You know, the Google Maps benefit, like, you can log in to Google Maps. You can create guides or trips and do all this kind of stuff with Google Maps with your account. I imagine this would be coming one day, not that Apple has announced it, but I imagine one day you'll be able to to sign in and and access your map data.

Stephen Robles:

But, 1, I guess Windows users can now access Apple Maps, but you also had a take as well. What what and you thought this was a threat to Google Maps. Yeah. Why how's

Jason Aten:

Well, first of all, like, I mean, Apple Maps and Google have had this interesting relationship. Right? Because Google Maps was one of the original Default. Apps. It was the original app on one of the original 16 apps on the original iPhone.

Jason Aten:

Right. And then it was not until, like, what, 2012 ish that Apple rolled out its own Apple Maps. And it is, for Apple, part of its commitment to privacy. Because the reason that Google makes Maps is because it can sell ads to small businesses who show up when you search for food or groceries or whatever or whatever. And as you watch the evolution over time listen.

Jason Aten:

Google Maps is terrible. Is it on the phone? This is

Stephen Robles:

well, well, we're gonna talk about that. I wanna talk about the personal tech, Apple Maps v Google Maps.

Jason Aten:

I'm just saying open the thing. And when you take a look at it, when it first opens, you're just like, is there a map in there somewhere? Because all I can see is a whole bunch of things that are not a map. Right? It is just it is super bad.

Jason Aten:

And they updated the overall design language sometime maybe last year, I think it was. I can't exactly remember. And it just got worse. Just the way the maps look is just terrible.

Stephen Robles:

So No. I I I agree. And I I'll just say, like, here's here's a live view. Oh, let me turn the brightness down. Here's a live view of Google Maps, and, I it's not my location, but it is a bit it is a bit of a mess.

Stephen Robles:

I'll be honest. Like, yeah, there's a map there, and I used this one time on our road trip, for a very specific reason and we'll get to that in the personal take but yeah I I agree I think Google Maps has gone down in design

Jason Aten:

Google's entire business model has been based on being the default choice for search, user generated content video, email. Right? Gmail is the largest email service that's ever existed. Right? And and then also, like, Maps.

Jason Aten:

It's the default. And because it's default, it captures enormous amounts of traffic. That's why they pay Apple $20,000,000,000 a year to be the default search engine in in Safari is because they can monetize that and make a lot more money off of that. I mean so for for people to right now, if you're just sitting at your desk and you click on a on a link from a website, you know, it's gonna open in Google Maps.

Stephen Robles:

Right.

Jason Aten:

Right? That's just the only option. So now Apple is trying to yes. The the number of people who are gonna just go to beta.maps.apple.com are probably pretty small. It's like you and me and a couple of our listeners.

Jason Aten:

But once developers start incorporating that kind of technology into websites and that sort of thing, now suddenly you have broken the default a little bit, and it actually is a much better product. And Apple can leverage the fact that there's over, you know, what, 2,000,000,000 of their devices in the world and now everyone else on Windows. Although, I did think it was interesting that Chrome on Android does not include it on that list.

Stephen Robles:

Yeah. Interesting.

Jason Aten:

So, like, I don't know if that's coming. But, yeah, I just I think those are super smart move. It doesn't seem like a big deal because people are like, how often do you just sit and use maps on your phone? But I do think it would be nice if you could click on a link, be like an address link on a website. Right.

Jason Aten:

It opens in the maps app on I mean, it opens in maps on your In the way. Browser, and then you could just send it to your phone. That would be nice.

Stephen Robles:

Right. And that that is there's actually an extension called mapper. I talked about this in one of my videos where it basically takes the Google Maps directions links that you would find in, like, Google search results and just opens that in Apple Maps. Yeah. It works pretty well on iOS on the desktop.

Stephen Robles:

You know, it's not maybe not as consistent, but there's, you know, full extensions on that, and like what Jason is saying, that could slowly change. Now, I don't think you'll ever see a Maps destination link in a Google search. Google's not gonna do that. But if you if you go to a business' website, you know, for a long time, it was like, well, let me put the Google Maps directions link because that's the most universal. Like, anybody from any device can access it.

Stephen Robles:

Right.

Jason Aten:

But, yeah,

Stephen Robles:

if one day that can also be, like, here's the Apple Maps link and anybody on any device can also use that, yeah, that would be, pretty powerful.

Jason Aten:

Yep.

Stephen Robles:

Yeah. That's cool. Yeah.

Jason Aten:

So there it is. You could

Stephen Robles:

try it out and, that's all the Apple's that let me see. Any other Apple stuff? We got that. We got Maps. We'll talk about Apple Maps versus Google Maps in a second.

Stephen Robles:

Real quick, I just wanna throw this out. This is not really news, but do you think because we're both on threads. In, the last couple weeks, there's been some big events, namely the crowd strike and those massive outages, Biden stepping down from the 2024 election. When it comes to current event and news, threads as a social social net you know, it's too early to say social network.

Jason Aten:

Social network.

Stephen Robles:

Social check. Social. I think it

Jason Aten:

It is a so so network. You're right. So so.

Stephen Robles:

It's so so. But I think it is improving on that real time news. Not not that it's great yet, but when those big events were happening, I could actually go on threads and see posts related to it while it's happening. And there's been this ongoing joke about, like, someone I forgot who it is. Maybe it's Dan Seifert, previously of The Verge.

Stephen Robles:

He posts, like, the, Daniel Craig GIF of, like, ladies and gentlemen, The Weeknd, and it's, like, let me know what day you see this. And most of the time, I would see it, like, Sunday night, and he posted it Friday. But that's actually been getting better. Like, I actually as the joke continues, I see that earlier and earlier, sometimes even on Friday. And so I do think threads has tweaked the algorithm, which, admittedly, they don't want it to be a news source, but I do think they are allowing the algorithm to surface, like, what is hap what are people talking about right now?

Stephen Robles:

And we're gonna put these posts in people's feeds. Not that it's great, but I think it's getting better. What was you? What do you think?

Jason Aten:

Well, maybe. I mean, the other, you know, enormous, probably largest news story of our lifetime that happened while we were not podcasting because it's in, it's not tech related was the attempted assassination of former president Trump. And you couldn't find anything on threads, like, in terms of real time.

Stephen Robles:

But if

Jason Aten:

you went to x, but that was still that was the moment that it became very clear that for the people for whom real time transmission of information is an important part of either their job or just what they're curious about in life Yeah. That x is still the platform for that. Not because the way that they have decided to do whatever is great, but because the fact that, like, it is it allows for just literally chronological servicing of information that people are caring care about. And in x seems to default more towards we want to show you the things that we think everyone wants to see because that spurs engagement versus we want to show you a carefully manicured version. Because honestly, listen, I like threads, and I use it.

Jason Aten:

Yeah. And it's really weird to me sometimes when a post, I'll post something and it's like, why did that get 25,000 views? Like, I don't really understand what it is that happened that made that be the post that people really cared about.

Stephen Robles:

Why am I getting a notification about it?

Jason Aten:

Yeah. 25,000 times. Yeah. Yeah. Or why do I get a notification every time Kara Swisher starts a thread?

Jason Aten:

I don't understand. Why can I not turn that off? I mean, I like Kara Swisher.

Stephen Robles:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Aten:

Honestly, I get a notification every time she posts thread. Like, why? Why do you think that that's the thing that I wanna see? Like, whatever. But most of what you see in there is just like random, just engagement baked garbage in threads.

Jason Aten:

And they have to like, I don't wanna see that. Yeah. Yes. I know that there's a following feed. That's fine.

Stephen Robles:

That it's not.

Jason Aten:

Yeah. So Until

Stephen Robles:

you can set that as the default, I don't think that's a good

Jason Aten:

They just have to decide who they're gonna be, who they wanna be when they grow up. And did you see the listen. I'm sorry. Did but did you see the post from Zuck the other day? This is a response that Zuck posted about how Yes.

Jason Aten:

When he was 19, he didn't know anything about running a company and how awkward he was. Right? And stuff like that. Zuck has decided that he's gonna be an MMA fighter when he grows up. The question is, who does threads wanna be when it grows up?

Stephen Robles:

And I also will say, I don't go on Facebook very often, and I I do it sometime. I was trying to sell something on, like, Facebook Marketplace, which is kinda like the one reason why I still go there to open the app. I will scroll my newsfeed for a second, and people that I know personally, typically, they are not older, but older than me. And I will see them engaged with AI generated imagery, whether it is just a meme or whatever, but I've seen more and more like like products where people will say, like, where can I find this? Or, you know, what is this?

Stephen Robles:

Asking about an image that they believe is real, and I could tell it is clearly AI generated.

Jason Aten:

Right.

Stephen Robles:

And it is honestly troubling because, you know, I think maybe a lot of people probably listen to the show, and us, are usually discerning enough to to see AI generated content at a distance. That may get more difficult in the coming years. But right now, there's AI generated imagery that is basically fooling people into thinking things are real. And, like, one of them is so silly. It was like it was a post from a company and it was like an inflatable pool, but the entire edge was like bench.

Stephen Robles:

So basically, like, you could sit around this big oval as a bench with your but it was clearly an AI generated image, and there were people in the comments that I know, and someone reposted it being like, oh, this is such a cool idea. And I'm like, this doesn't exist. Like, this is not a real thing. And, you know, maybe some company will make that now, but the fact that there is not that realization from a lot of people about what is AI generated and what is not, that I find troubling. And Facebook is a meta platform, so they're controlling that algorithm too.

Stephen Robles:

And I I hope that doesn't come to threads, but I don't know. It's a weird time. Yeah.

Jason Aten:

It's a weird time. Yes.

Stephen Robles:

It's a weird time.

Jason Aten:

Well, I I mean, but it's not surprising that people believe things that are not true. It's just surprising how easy it is to share things that are not real to get people to believe them. Like, that barrier to, you know, that that friction point is now gone.

Stephen Robles:

Yes. Yes. Anyway. Okay. So we're not gonna go down that terrible rabbit hole, but you're talking about something else that's going downhill which is the Tesla shares.

Stephen Robles:

Don't leave us a one star review. We're just reporting the news. Okay? This is Tesla shares are down. Tell me what happened, Jason.

Jason Aten:

Well, basically, the the most important piece of news here is that Tesla reported its earnings recently. Right? And its its revenue declined from a year ago, and it was and, also, its profit margins went down. And this was the fur there was there was times in the past where that those numbers went down mostly during the beginning of, like, the pandemic and stuff. But this is the first time that they have gone down 2 quarters in a row.

Jason Aten:

Right? That it's it's revenue. It doesn't mean that it's revenue growth went down. Like, that's what usually, like, people stock prices go down because it's like we thought your revenues grew 17%, but it only grew 15%, and that's like a catastrophe. It's like it still grew.

Stephen Robles:

It still grew.

Jason Aten:

15%. But in this case, Tesla's revenue is actually going down. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that there's a lot more competition in the EV market. And Tesla is still the largest EV maker that there is, and I still drive 1. So just keep that in mind when you go to leave us a review.

Jason Aten:

I love my model s. It's fantastic. It's a 2018. It just does not have full self driving because none of them have full self driving because it's not a real thing. Just talk about things people believe that are not actually true.

Jason Aten:

But

Stephen Robles:

that's what's gonna get us a 1 star review. You gotta listen to it. Don't leave

Jason Aten:

a 1 star review. Just send me hate mail. But I do love my I love my model s. It's it's the best car I've ever driven. But the thing is, most people aren't going to there are a lot of other options right now that are great.

Jason Aten:

Tesla still has by far the best charging network. That's its best asset. Right? It really does. And they're opening that up to other, EV makers, and that's that's a good thing, I think, for everybody.

Jason Aten:

It's slightly less good thing for Tesla drivers because it might be a little harder to get a charging spot, whatever. But they continue to deploy them, whatever. It's just I think that there is a underestimation of the impact that some people have of the of it's okay. Sorry. It's like okay.

Jason Aten:

Netflix, they started charging you for password sharing because everyone who was willing to pay for Netflix account had already signed up for Netflix. So they had to find some way to get more people to sign up because that's how companies are measured by growth.

Stephen Robles:

Right.

Jason Aten:

There are a lot of people who will buy a Tesla just because they love Elon Musk.

Stephen Robles:

Right.

Jason Aten:

K? That's that's a true thing. There are also a lot of people who bought Teslas because they were the 1st good electric vehicle that they really were. Right? They're sure they had some quality control problems, whatever whatever.

Jason Aten:

The number they've saturated those 2 markets. And the market of people who bought them just because they were the only option, now you have a lot of other options. Right? Rivian makes great vehicles. You know, the Hyundai Ioniq is a fantastic view vehicle.

Jason Aten:

The Ford Mach E, all of these are very good electric vehicles. The Kia EV 9, if you're looking for an SUV instead of, like, the model x or whatever. Like, all of these are fantastic vehicles. And so there's a lot of competition there. And the number of there's a lot of people who are now like, I think I want an electric car.

Stephen Robles:

Right.

Jason Aten:

I just don't want one sold by Elon Musk. And that's a hard thing. And I don't think, you know, the worst look here is shareholders approved, what, a $45,000,000,000 pay package for Elon Musk, and then the revenue is going down to 2 quarters in a row. I feel like there's that's not a good sign. I don't know.

Stephen Robles:

Well, and then also, he's over here on x, namely Musk, saying, should Tesla invest $5,000,000,000 in x AI? Yeah. You know?

Jason Aten:

Which is his AI company.

Stephen Robles:

Right. Right.

Jason Aten:

It's like, wait. You had 4 you know, $44,000,000,000 to invest in x. You can't come up with $5,000,000,000 to invest in this other company? Like, are you tapped out, bud? Yes.

Jason Aten:

They just gave you 40 they're just trying to give you a shovel, of truck. They'd like think about the number of cyber trucks they're gonna need to shovel out that cash that they just approved as a pay package. But the Cybertruck is a great example, Steven. Mhmm. Because for people who who drive 1 Yeah.

Jason Aten:

They love the Cybertruck.

Stephen Robles:

I love it.

Jason Aten:

Yeah. It is actually a fantastic thing. Like, if you're driving it, I mean, it does feel like you're probably gonna kill somebody. But it is but but people are like, I would never buy that thing just because of how excited the the guy that runs the company is about it.

Stephen Robles:

Right. Which is tough. I mean, it's just real life. I will say, yeah, I've met a couple

Jason Aten:

But but there's nobody who's like, I'm not buying a GMC Silverado because, you know, Mary Barra once cut me off in traffic.

Stephen Robles:

Again, it's just the the age we live in where there these are personality driven companies, like Yeah. Like Mark Zuckerberg, like threads, Facebook, Meta, and now Mosseri who is over Instagram is kind of like the face of threads because everyone's just at Yeah.

Jason Aten:

Because it's part of Instagram. Yeah.

Stephen Robles:

Part of Instagram. So everyone's just at mentioning him with, like, their feature requests and complaints. It's interesting that it's a, you know, personality driven companies where I don't know. I mean, I feel like Apple was very much a personality driven company. I don't know if it still is now.

Stephen Robles:

I mean, I don't think people don't I think us in the Apple sphere, see, I'm literally wearing my let Tim Cook shirt today. So but outside of that, like, I don't I do think average non techie people have this idea of, like, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, and even though he's not the CEO anymore, Jeff Bezos and Amazon. And, like, there is this, like, correlation. And I don't know if Apple has it anymore. And that might be a good thing that it's not as personality driven because then the person leaves or whatever, it's doesn't affect everybody's idea there.

Stephen Robles:

I don't know. Is it do you think Apple's personality driven, like connected like that? Like Tesla and Meta and all that?

Jason Aten:

I don't know. Yeah. I mean, no. I don't think that it is it is, you know, I think Steve Jobs was the ultimate example of a company who was reflected in its CEO, founder, whatever. Right?

Jason Aten:

Tim Cook is not the founder of Apple. Right? He is the CEO, but all of the other people you mentioned were founders. Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg. Right?

Jason Aten:

Those are people who started those companies Right. At Elon Musk. And so I think there's a much different relationship between what people think about the company Yeah. Yeah. And what they think about the founder.

Jason Aten:

I just don't think that that's true. I think that, certainly, Tim Cook has absolutely left his fingerprint on it, and Apple is, what, absolutely left his fingerprint on it, and Apple is, what, 7 times bigger than it ever was before Tim Cook. Like, it's it's just ridiculous. So, like, clearly, it's Tim Cook's company.

Stephen Robles:

Yeah.

Jason Aten:

But I don't think people associate the design of the new iPhone with Tim Cook's taste.

Stephen Robles:

Right. Absolutely. The one nonfounder connection, I I don't know how widespread this is, but I do think Bob Iger and Disney have become kind of a little closer to that founder company relationship than not. I don't know if it was because it was like, you know, he left and Bob Chapek and everybody was like, oh, wow. Disney's not great.

Stephen Robles:

Then Bob Iger comes back, and he very much put himself out there, like, in the the interview he did in front of the mountains or whatever. You know, he's, like, he very much puts himself out there as, like, spearheading Disney. So I don't know Now that's Yeah.

Jason Aten:

But Disney is such a huge monster. So, I mean, you could argue, like, okay. Delta CEO, Ed Bastian, like, is the public face of that company. Right? But no one thinks, like, Delta Airlines airlines are different because they've been around for quite a while.

Jason Aten:

Right? And they're all founded by different people.

Stephen Robles:

But no one's also but I'm also, like, it's not a daily for most people, it's not a daily life, daily interaction thing. Like, social networks, people interact with every day. Your devices, people interact with every day. Sure. I think it's there's a difference there with, like, you know

Jason Aten:

People interact with Disney every day and have no idea that it's Disney. Right? Like, it's not because, I mean, if you watch the NBA finals, that's you're watching it on ESPN and that's Disney.

Stephen Robles:

Well, I don't. I don't watch Disney.

Jason Aten:

Okay. Bad example.

Stephen Robles:

No. No. Well, speaking of which, last news bit before, our maps thing. You put this in here.

Jason Aten:

Look at that. I just gave you the perfect transition.

Stephen Robles:

Perfect transition, but I know nothing about sports balls, so you tell me about it. I don't know anything about sports ball.

Jason Aten:

I was gonna write about this, but I ran out of time because I wrote about the Apple Maps thing that Yeah. Yeah. No one cares about instead. No. I'm just kidding.

Jason Aten:

Which was the okay. The big story the last big TV rights deal that was up for grabs was the NBA's deal. Right? The NFL signed theirs. Most of the college, whatever, all signed in in the NCAA tournament.

Jason Aten:

All those things have been basically wrapped up. This was the last big one. The funny thing is I actually asked Chad GPT what is the next big TV rights deal for sports up, and it's like the NHL. And I'm like, nope. You failed.

Jason Aten:

That's not no one cares. That's I mean, I like hockey. Don't get me wrong. We're big Red Wings fans at our house, but, like, no one cares. It's not the same thing as a $77,000,000,000 deal.

Jason Aten:

But the headline feature here is, like, for 40 years 44 years, the NBA has been on TNT.

Stephen Robles:

Right.

Jason Aten:

And now it's not. What? They've they they're they're they're putting games on Amazon instead. Right? And and NBC, they they gave a bunch of games to NBC, which is I don't think had, NBA games for quite a while.

Jason Aten:

ESPN still keeps the finals and a whole bunch of games, but Amazon is gonna get a whole sweet, you know, package of games, including, like, a new in season tournament that they're gonna do, the NBA Cup, and then, you know, a bunch of, like, Black Friday game and a bunch of Thursday night games after the football season's over and stuff. And so what this is basically well, the NBA got their money. This is probably the last big TV deal ever. Right? Because linear TV is going away.

Jason Aten:

So I can't imagine that in 11 years, any sports league is gonna be making deals with NBC. Right?

Stephen Robles:

Peacock? I mean, there's some

Jason Aten:

of these games will be on Peacock, but think about, like, if you pay for NBC and you hear the NBA is on there, you do not want you get real mad when you find out, like, actually, it's on Peacock. But

Stephen Robles:

Right.

Jason Aten:

Anyway, speaking of, by the way, did you notice, Steven, that the Peacock logo Oh, boy. On Apple TV has the Olympic rings.

Stephen Robles:

Oh, does it?

Jason Aten:

I have got to write about that. That is the smartest thing that when you are looking at the Apple TV grid, you you know exactly where to go for the Olympics.

Stephen Robles:

I have to actually sign up for Peacock today probably because I do wanna watch the Olympics.

Jason Aten:

You're welcome.

Stephen Robles:

And it's it's the only one.

Jason Aten:

So look for the one with the Olympic rings. Think about that branding. That is the most powerful that is, like, the single most powerful branding that any media company could have are those 5 Olympic rings on there.

Stephen Robles:

But can I also can I also just for one second? Because the Olympics Okay. The the opening ceremony is is tomorrow as we record, Friday, July 26th, happening in Paris, France. Last time, I think a 100 years ago, we just watched the

Jason Aten:

It's a 100 years ago.

Stephen Robles:

Jumping around.

Jason Aten:

Last time was not a 100 years ago, it was only 3 years.

Stephen Robles:

But in Paris, last time it was Paris? Yeah. Because only because we watched the, young lady in the sea movie on Disney plus, which is Daisy Ridley, the true story of, Ederly swimming the first woman to swim the English Channel. Mhmm. Movie was great, but she also competed in the Olympics that were in France in 1924, which is pretty wild.

Stephen Robles:

So Which

Jason Aten:

is also the first Olympics that women women were allowed to compete.

Stephen Robles:

Exact right. Exactly.

Jason Aten:

In Paris.

Stephen Robles:

Yep. So a good movie. Side note. But also, I was trying to find information about the opening ceremonies for the Olympics, because I do like to watch them, and so I go I search, as you do, which is a Google search, like Olympic opening ceremonies. And so it sends me to the Olympics official website.

Stephen Robles:

I was like, okay. Cool. That's why I'm scrolling around. I'm like, I just want like, what time? Where do I watch?

Stephen Robles:

You know, those that's the information. That's why there's a 1,000 articles with that as the title. But I'm on the website, and it says, oh, well, download the official Olympics app. Like, okay. Cool.

Stephen Robles:

So I I download the app, and I go to the app and it's basically just a bunch of web views of the same website I was just on and it's like, well, you can, watch stream it on Peacock and so here's a link to that. I was like, okay. So I tap that and it sends me to Peacock, and I'm scrolling around still just trying to find the information, like if I wanna I wanna give you money and watch the opening ceremonies, and I see another thing like well, you can watch this in the NBC sports app. And I just Jason, I was so like fists in the air like why is this so hard? Like, do you have an official Olympics app?

Stephen Robles:

I understand it's peacock and the Olympics are different, but, like, can't you just not? Can we just? I don't

Jason Aten:

know. I know. It is it is ridiculous. It is just ridiculous. And honestly, I feel like there should be a law.

Jason Aten:

Maybe the EU can get on

Stephen Robles:

that part. Yeah. Except for

Jason Aten:

the Olympics are in France. They're like, this is great.

Stephen Robles:

Right. You do you do that thing. Anyway, I I'm trying to figure out so for a personal text, I mean, I wanna talk about iOS 18. I feel like I need to spend more time with it to to have more thoughts, like the photos thing. Because you don't have it on a main device, do you?

Stephen Robles:

Are you running the iOS 18 beta?

Jason Aten:

No. I have it

Stephen Robles:

on a second device. Right. Right. The one

Jason Aten:

that's not even yours.

Stephen Robles:

Right? It's not. So sorry. Right. So I don't maybe we'll talk about that next week, but I wanna talk about Apple Maps versus Google Maps here in personal tech, and then I wanna talk about my New York City trip in the bonus episode, but Apple has goo Google Maps.

Stephen Robles:

From from what I've heard from you, I assume you are an Apple Maps by default user.

Jason Aten:

A 100% of the time, unless we're using Waze. That's it. That's the only exception. Waze Waze is great for road trips because you I mean, it's it's actually a very good road trip.

Stephen Robles:

Which isn't Waze is owned by Google. Yeah. Bought it. So anyway

Jason Aten:

But it's not Google Maps. It's a different thing.

Stephen Robles:

It is a different thing. I I don't use Waze. Every time I talk about maps, I know everyone's like, oh, Waze.

Jason Aten:

Hardcore road trippers use Waze.

Stephen Robles:

Okay. Well, I don't use Waze.

Jason Aten:

I mean, Steven only leaves his house once a year, so it's fine.

Stephen Robles:

I don't I don't want another map set, but I was traversing New York City and I, here in Florida, don't usually have reason to use transit directions. And the last time I was in New York, because I I grew up in New York, I am literally from New York, I knew how to read a subway map. I knew how to get on the l and the r and all that, and I knew what I was doing. But the The

Jason Aten:

l's in Chicago, isn't it? I'm just I'm sorry. Carry on. I

Stephen Robles:

don't know. I took the

Jason Aten:

h for me. It's true. It is. The l is the the subway system Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Aten:

In Chicago because it's elevated.

Stephen Robles:

Anyway okay. Well, I know all the other trains. And, but this time, I was like, forget the map. I mean, let me you let me try Apple Maps transit directions. And I just have to say, Jason, spot on.

Jason Aten:

Absolutely.

Stephen Robles:

Transit directions in Apple Maps was so good. I can it gets my current location. We were in Manhattan. I was like, how do I get to whatever? And it just tells me just tells me what train to get on and all that.

Stephen Robles:

I have some other thoughts about Apple Pay and the subway, which we'll I'll save for the bonus episode, but, it was Apple Maps was great in that transit area. We used Apple Maps, and we drove. We drove from Florida to New York because we're a family of 5, and my kids don't understand the compact nature of needing to fly and all this kind of stuff, like, it's it's complicated. So we we drove, did a big road trip, and we used Apple Maps pretty much the entire way. Although, I will still say there are times when there is traffic on the road, and this was happening as we were coming back, entering Florida in the car.

Stephen Robles:

I Apple Maps wanted me to take 95 South, and there was some traffic. Like, Echo Apple Maps was showing me the traffic, and Apple Maps, I think, traffic wise, all the credit, because all the traffic are the red, the orange, like, the yellow, it was accurate, the whole trip. But Apple Maps just refused to give me an alternate route that didn't take 95, that I knew would be faster, and it literally gave me this route when we left Florida going to New York. And I was, like, why won't it let me do this? And if for me to do it, I had to do the weird, like, let me drop a pin and add that as a stop so Apple Maps, like, reroutes the other way, and it just would not give me that alternate method.

Stephen Robles:

Whereas, I did jump over to Google Maps for this one instance, and Google Maps did say, here's an alternate route, and it is faster, and that was accurate. So aside from that one instance, which I I don't know why Apple Maps sometimes just refuses to route you around traffic.

Jason Aten:

How much faster was it?

Stephen Robles:

I mean, it would have been, like, 45 minutes to an hour faster because it was avoiding 95 completely, and it was taking, like, kind of these couple back roads down to where we live. And so it was significantly different, and we took that alternate route, and it turned out it was faster. So that was like the one instance sometimes Apple Maps just refuses to give you that that alternate route. But all the other times, adding a stop on a route, Apple Maps wins. So easy.

Stephen Robles:

It's so good. The transit directions were so good, and the design, like, I think the design is great. I also set up a guide, which you can do that. If you've never done it, I encourage you to try it. Set up a custom guide to different places in New York City and let you know, I have it right here on my phone.

Stephen Robles:

You got all little pins, all the locations, and then you got all the different places we were trying to visit And, yeah. I love the guides in Apple Maps. Just 2 thumbs up. Apple Maps.

Jason Aten:

Yeah. And if you connect your phone to your car using Bluetooth, it'll remember where it is.

Stephen Robles:

That too. You get the parked car notification. I I find I did a video on this, like, over a year ago, and I think people were starting to, like, tip over to the Apple Maps side because Google Maps just had so much, like, mind, space, and people, you know

Jason Aten:

Inertia.

Stephen Robles:

Yeah. There was so much inertia. But I think now I think it's actually shifted. I think a lot of people are like, hey, Apple Maps looks great. It's just way better and, it actually takes you where you need to go.

Stephen Robles:

You know? It's not trying to get you to drive off a bridge anymore.

Jason Aten:

Which is an important thing. And I will say, Steven, so the first time I realized that Apple Maps was garbage when it was was actually in your neighborhood, not your neighborhood, but it was we were in Tampa over Thanksgiving 1 year, and we were going to pick up food to, like because when you're traveling with a whole bunch of family, like, you can't, like we don't we can't make a Thanksgiving dinner or a hotel or whatever. But we were gonna pick something up, and Apple Maps gave us directions to where that was. And it literally took us to, like, a dead end road that was 3 or 4 miles away from wherever it was that we were going, and we're like, yep. And then we didn't use it again for, like, 3 or 4 years because it was like, I can't do you have one job?

Stephen Robles:

Right. And if

Jason Aten:

you can't do that job, I don't care how pretty you are. I don't care how nice you talk to me. You have one job. I will put up with all the other inconveniences if if if I know it's it's like a trusting. Right.

Jason Aten:

And and it's the thing that's built up over

Stephen Robles:

a lot.

Jason Aten:

So I imagine there are some people who had a bad experience early on, but I will say they it is they have gotten so much better. And in my mind, it is a lot better than Google Maps.

Stephen Robles:

Yeah.

Jason Aten:

You talked about the transit directions. My favorite thing about that is that when you come up out of the subway, it'll look around and it'll, like, see the building so it can actually tell you. Because, you know, you come up out of a subway

Stephen Robles:

You don't know what direction.

Jason Aten:

4 options. And it's like, you look at the thing and you're like, oh, I think I wanna be in the southwest corner, but the grid is not north and south in Manhattan. It's actually at an angle. So you're like, actually, I was supposed like Yeah. It it can be confusing, but you literally you just can hold the phone up and it sees the buildings and, oh, yeah.

Jason Aten:

You gotta go that way. And it

Stephen Robles:

the transit directions even tell you, like, here's the entrance to the subway that you have to walk to, and then this is, like, the walk to the train. Like, it gives you that granular detail. It's great.

Jason Aten:

Yep. That's fantastic. I think it's really good. I still think that Street View is better than Look Around, so Street View on Google Maps because they just have had more time, like, driving those weird cars with the thing on the top of them around. Like, it's that's true.

Jason Aten:

Like, there's street view of, like, random mountains and, like

Stephen Robles:

Oh, I know. It's wild.

Jason Aten:

Weird places. Yeah. It's amazing. There's no streets, but there's a street view. So Yeah.

Jason Aten:

But Apple Maps, give it a try. If you're listening, like, if you're one of our listeners and you're still using Google Maps, like, that's fine. I just it there's a better experience out there.

Stephen Robles:

It's good. That's good. I will

Jason Aten:

say And especially if you're in a place like New York Right. Or if you're, like, in the Bay Area, and they have those enhanced views. So you don't even have to go to like the satellite view, but they will show you the enhanced views, like the three-dimensional, like go to just look up Apple Park on on on there, and you can, like, see the ring.

Stephen Robles:

Right.

Jason Aten:

And it's, like, very, very cool. So

Stephen Robles:

It's very cool. I will say we were doing turn by turn as we were driving. And sometimes if you approach a big city that has this, you get that enhanced view where it's, like, not just lane assist Yeah. But it gives you that 3 d view of like here are the lanes. It'll do like fake trees, like you could see there's like trees on the sides.

Stephen Robles:

Yep. But it it didn't and for some reason it didn't do it in some places really close to the city where I assumed it would, but it did it every time we were on, like, the Jersey turnpike as we were going up and going down. It's just like we actually need 0 lane assist right now because we're just on this the entire way through Jersey. But Okay. Right.

Stephen Robles:

I appreciate the

Jason Aten:

Thank you.

Stephen Robles:

The little 3 d trees on either side. Yeah. It looks very nice. But Apple Maps, yeah. Especially transit, really good.

Stephen Robles:

I'm gonna do some shortcuts. In a future video, I'm gonna do some shortcuts for Apple Maps transit direction. It's gonna be pretty

Jason Aten:

good. Wild.

Stephen Robles:

Anyway, I wanna talk about more about my trip and, more about my trip in in the bonus episode we're about to record. So if you wanna listen to the bonus episode and get access to all the past bonus episodes, you should go to primary tech dot f m, click bonus episodes. You can support the show there. You get an ad free version, and we actually had an ad today. You can get an ad free version and the bonus episodes.

Stephen Robles:

We do it there, or you can support us directly in Apple Podcasts. You can get the bonus episodes and ad free versions there as well. Or you could just support us by leaving a 5 star rating and review in Apple Podcasts. You can watch the show, lots of fun things to see, at youtube.com/appprimary tech show. That link is in the show notes as well.

Stephen Robles:

At least everything we talked about is down in the show notes. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening.

Creators and Guests

Jason Aten
Host
Jason Aten
Contributing Editor/Tech Columnist @Inc | Get my newsletter: https://t.co/BZ5YbeSGcS | Email me: me@jasonaten.net
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Stephen Robles
Host
Stephen Robles
Making technology more useful for everyone 📺 video and podcast creator 🎼 musical theater kid at heart
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Apple Maps vs. Google Maps, Y2k Came 24 Years Late, Has Netflix Won the Streaming Wars?

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