Apple’s AI Home Hub, OpenAI to Launch Agents Automation, Big Updates to Final Cut Pro
Download MP3Have you ever been in a cockpit before? Welcome to Primary Technology, the show about the tech news that matters. This week, Apple has big updates to Final Cut and Final Cut Pro 11 with things like transcribe to subtitles and more features, plus new find my features where you can share the location of items even with airlines. Chat shipping might be launching an operator style large language model in the near future, and Apple's rumored smart home hub could be coming very soon. This episode is brought to you by MOFT and HelloFresh.
Stephen Robles:I'm one of your hosts, Steven Robles. And joining me internationally, we're now an international podcast, is my good friend Jason Aiten. How's it going over there?
Jason Aten:It's good. Though, just to be clear, this is actually the second episode we've recorded internationally because we did one when I was in Denmark.
Stephen Robles:That's oh my god. We've been in international podcast. I didn't even know it.
Jason Aten:For since May? Even know it. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Portugal. Right?
Jason Aten:Yep. I'm in Lisbon right now for Web Summit.
Stephen Robles:Web Summit. And Jason looked very professional. He sent me a picture of him on a stage interviewing 2 important people. Everybody looks very important in this picture, and it's a big that's a big stage. That's in intimidating.
Jason Aten:That was in the arena. So this was one of the center stage, like, their main stage keynotes that I originally wasn't scheduled to do, and then I someone wasn't able to. And they're like, hey. Could you do this? And I was like, sure.
Jason Aten:I'm already gonna be there. We'll do it. So that's, like, their arena that seats 10 or 50. I don't know how many people. 10,000 people or whatever.
Jason Aten:It was not full at the time, but It was There was a lot of people. I mean, it was I don't have a clue. It was at least it was more than half full. Let's say that. So there's 5, 6, 7,000 people.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. That's awesome. And now this this is your setup. You know, I've recorded by a lake. Now you've recorded in a hotel room in Portugal.
Stephen Robles:It's a nice setup.
Jason Aten:Yeah. My this is it's always weird when you're in a hotel room trying to figure out what's your background, where's the light sources coming from, how do I, I mean, I can't move this desk because it's connected to that long wood piece at the end that's attached to
Stephen Robles:the wall. So I'm
Jason Aten:sitting at the end of a desk. My feet are tucked underneath this chair we that I'm at, and I'm actually hunched over just a little bit just to make sure that you can hear me okay. But these are the things we do for our primary tech audience. So
Stephen Robles:That's exactly right. And you know what else we do? I forgot to ask you about the movie quote. That's what I'll that's the other thing we do regularly, but I have a big announcement. We're gonna get to that in a second.
Stephen Robles:But do you remember have you ever been in a cockpit? Do you know what movie that's from?
Jason Aten:I mean, it's gotta be an airplane movie, like a movie about planes.
Stephen Robles:You just said it. You just said airplane. You just say you got it. You inadvertently nailed it. I figured, you know, you're on an airplane.
Jason Aten:I just stumbled right into that one. That's how good we are.
Stephen Robles:Which, by the way, I I think I'm furious because I think I know the answer to this. Jason, you have taken a second international flight. And the first time when you went to Denmark, you did not wear the Apple Vision Pro or even try it while on the plane. Jason, on this second international flight in our era of Apple Vision Pro, did you have it? Did you wear it?
Jason Aten:Now did I have a Vision Pro when I went on the first trip? I actually don't remember because I didn't get a reviewing unit immediately, but I probably did.
Stephen Robles:You've been on lots of planes. You've been on lots of planes. I know that.
Jason Aten:That's true. I did not take it. I did not wear it. Well, obviously, if I didn't take it, I didn't wear it. But listen.
Stephen Robles:It's insane.
Jason Aten:I got a I got an email.
Stephen Robles:No. No. No. I just have to say, you are definitely the only person in this world who has both a VisionPRO, uses it, quote, unquote, every day, but has not worn it on an airplane. I think you are the singular person that meets that criteria.
Jason Aten:Okay. So listen. This is not justification. I got an email at, like, 11:50 on, Tuesday that my flight from Detroit to Boston I was flying Detroit to Boston to Lisbon, that that flight was delayed. And I was only gonna have about 31 minutes in Boston to catch my international flight to Lisbon, and I'm like, that's no bueno.
Jason Aten:So I switched my flight to fly Detroit to JFK to Lisbon, but it meant I had to leave the house in 15 like, immediately. Like, I had to go because Detroit's airport is, like, 75 minutes away. So I'm like, oh, if I'm gonna catch that flight, I gotta go right now. So it is just I mean, I brought my laptop. We're lucky because, seriously, I, like, had just finished packing, got the email, and I was out the door.
Jason Aten:So I didn't even go I actually thought about taking it with me. Now the other thing is I
Stephen Robles:thought about it.
Jason Aten:Randomly got upgraded, not randomly, but as a result of all of this, got upgraded to business class. Had I known from the beginning Suffering. That I was gonna be in business class, I would have probably taken it except, Steven, New York to Lisbon is a 6 and a half hour flight.
Stephen Robles:Right. Okay.
Jason Aten:I landed at 8 o'clock in the morning and didn't go to bed until last night at I don't it doesn't matter. But the point is, I wouldn't have used it anyway even if I brought it because I would have slept I had to sleep the whole time. Like, literally, they tried to bring me food. No. Please stop interrupting me with questions about food.
Jason Aten:I'm going to sleep. So
Stephen Robles:You know what you know what you needed. It's like you needed a shirt that said do not disturb or something similar, while you're sleeping. And That's true. You know what else you can get on a shirt now? You like that transition?
Stephen Robles:You like that that segue.
Jason Aten:I did not know where you were going, but good job.
Stephen Robles:Thank you. I don't well, just to close that loop, I just can't believe you haven't tried it on a plane yet. It's fury inferior.
Jason Aten:I'll wear it on the way home. Ridiculous. I mean, I didn't bring it, so that's not true.
Stephen Robles:No. That's that's not true. You just lied. Anyway, I'm gonna tell you something that's not a lie. Big huge announcement.
Stephen Robles:Primary Technology. This show, Primary Tech Show, now has merch. Merch. We're talking t shirts. We're talking zip up hoodies.
Stephen Robles:Hats coming very soon. We actually have merch that you can get right now. The link is gonna be in the show notes. You can go to primary tech. Fm/merch, and this is a huge thank you to our good friend, basic apple guy.
Stephen Robles:He has done all of these, and he has so graciously put them on cotton bureau because I don't know how to do that, and it might not have never happened if it was up to me. But here's what you can here's what you can get. If you wanna see these, you should go over to the YouTube channel, youtube.com/primarytechshow. You can get a PTS t shirt and or zip up hoodie with our I mean, our acronym, PTS, even has the colors from our podcast artwork, which is very cool. And what I think this is gonna be a big hit, you can get a battery percentage on t shirt or hoodie.
Stephen Robles:Okay, if you wanna get that battery percentage or let people know your social battery is at 1%. This is gonna be a great a great option for you, or for, for my team. You can get battery percentage off. Still look like you have low battery, and, I think it's I think it's gonna be hit. And, also, you can get the other guy.
Jason Aten:This is the best one.
Stephen Robles:This is the best one. You know, I I have aspirations that these will just go viral, but I can imagine, like, just culturally, people being, like you know, because he being the other guy is, like, a thing. It's like a meme. You know, you're, like, the other guy, you know Yeah. Whatever relationship, whatever.
Stephen Robles:And so I think it could be funny, but it's gonna be an inside joke if you wear this out because it's the other guy, and I think that's amazing.
Jason Aten:I I mean, I don't know how I'm gonna feel the first time I show up at some event somewhere and somebody is wearing this.
Stephen Robles:Listen.
Jason Aten:I know how I'm gonna feel if I show up and someone's wearing a battery percentage off shirt.
Stephen Robles:Listen. All I'm all I'm saying also, I just go go buy a Mavic go buy everything. It supports basic Apple guy, which he was so gracious to to make all these. One of my just just personal dreams. I hopefully, I one of my dreams is to go to WWDC.
Stephen Robles:Maybe that'll happen this year. We'll see. But whenever I see the podcasters that I've been following for years, and their merch is being worn by someone at WWDC, I just wanna see primary tech somewhere. I would love to see primary tech merch at dub dub. But, also, if you get this merch, take selfies everywhere.
Stephen Robles:We're gonna share every single photo you send, whether it's via social media, which there's 18 social media networks I'm trying to keep up with now. We're gonna talk about that in a second because you can send it on Blue Sky threads. You can send it on Instagram. Go to our community, primary tech or social.primary tech dot f m. Anyway, the merch is great.
Stephen Robles:Thank you, Basic Apple Guy. The link's down in the show notes. Go get it all. Just get everything.
Jason Aten:Yeah. And before someone says this, yes, I could get these shirts and wear them to WWDC, but that's not what Steven is talking about.
Stephen Robles:No. No. No. No. I just some like, yes.
Stephen Robles:In the crowd, in the sea of people, I just wanna see a battery percentage.
Jason Aten:You wanna see John Turner's wearing a battery percentage shirt.
Stephen Robles:If I hear that someone inside Apple is that would be wonderful. But, anyway, thank you, basic Apple guy. This is amazing. We now have merch. Hats are coming.
Stephen Robles:He made some of those too. And if you have merch ideas out there, listeners and viewers, we'd love to hear it, but we have merch. It's a dream come true for real. So thank you. Links in the show notes.
Stephen Robles:Let's talk about some tech, some technology. I don't know why I said it like that. That was real real forceful. Apple made some announcements yesterday about Final Cut and Logic Pro, and I think Final Cut Pro is really, the exciting part. Logic Pro's got, like, plug in search.
Stephen Robles:It has some a Quantic room simulator. Are you an expert on that?
Jason Aten:I have no idea what those words mean.
Stephen Robles:It's something about Reaper, but, anyway, if you use Logic Pro 10, there's some new features there. But I'm I'm in Final Cut every day, every day, and so there's some big updates both for Final Cut on the Mac and Final Cut on iPad and Final Cut camera. So Final Cut Pro is now 11. They turned it up to 11. That's a joke right there, that now you have transcribe to subtitles which I'm gonna talk about in a second because I feel like they could have done a little more with that, but anyway, transcribe to captions, and you can export them as subtitles, Magnetic mask, which means you can, like, select a subject, and it will track it just by a single click.
Stephen Robles:And then you can do things like layering it or applying effects just to that magnetic mask that will stick to a subject. And they also have spatial video editing, so you can make edit spatial video that you've captured on Applevision Pro or on iPhone 15 Pro and newer, plus workflow improvements. And Final Cut Camera, the app, now has HEVC and log recording up to 4 k 120, LUT previews, and Final Cut for iPad has new live drawing inks. So you can live draw with the Apple pencil, and it will animate it for you. Apple pencil pro haptics, so it will, you know, do haptics while you're editing and such, and there's new content and new workflow improvements like picture in picture.
Stephen Robles:So pretty big updates for Final Cut. I do wish the transcribe to captions or subtitles that I mean, it's transcribing it in Final Cut, which is a big deal. That's something that Adobe Premiere Pro is you've been able to transcribe and then even edit and, like, search the transcript. It does not appear to be that full fledged. Like, it's not you can't edit, obviously, via the transcript.
Stephen Robles:And even exporting it, you can't just export a plain text file of it, because one of the things I do is I transcribe my videos and run it through chatJpt for, like, tag ideas or whatever, and you can get the SRT out, like dot SRT, but you can't get just, like, a plain text file. So, hopefully, they add some more of those features to it, but it's great. Next step in the direction of you know, they're calling it AI features. They're all over this thing. They're calling it AI features.
Stephen Robles:So, yeah, welcome upgrade.
Jason Aten:Yeah. And I think some of this feels like it's meant to bring the laptop desktop version of Final Cut, the Mac version of Final Cut
Stephen Robles:Right.
Jason Aten:Up to what they because they had already made some of these changes in like, on the iPad version, and so it actually felt kinda weird. Like, the iPad version of Final Cut doesn't get a lot of the features that the desktop version does, but it had, like, the multicam support, like, the Final Cut camera support, that kind of stuff. So there was a kind of this weird point back in May where Final Cut on the iPad had, like, advanced farther than it had on the Mac. And you called it out, I guess, during the, the Mac.
Stephen Robles:The Mac cut mini. Oh, the Mac. That's right.
Jason Aten:Well, they were doing the Mac announcements where they kept highlighting Final Cut, and you're like, I wonder what this means. And now they finally told us what it means. But you did it is kinda cool. You can run Final Cut now on the Mac mini. Logic as well, which is kinda bizarre that the the dial that a 17 Pro was just the thing that pushed it over.
Jason Aten:I still don't think you should do
Stephen Robles:it. Yeah.
Jason Aten:Like, that screen is too small.
Stephen Robles:The iPad the iPad mini, I mean, I when I made the video for the iPad mini, I literally just opened Final Cut and start press play for the video to say you can do this, but I would never actually edit video on the iPad mini.
Jason Aten:It's But there's a there's a big leap between podcast editing in Fair Write and multi cam cam video editing in Final Cut.
Stephen Robles:I've yeah. And I've I've tried multiple times to edit in Final Cut on the iPad app because I was like, this would be amazing when I'm traveling like you are now to just have my iPad and be able to edit and all that kind of stuff, but it just, not not not for me.
Jason Aten:It's really only good for, like, things that, like, for example, if you wanted to take a horizontal video, dump it in there, and turn it into a vertical video, and do that on your iPad, like, you're not actually making edits and stuff to it. You're like, I just need to do a thing to this video, and I know Final Cut can do that. The iPad's great for some of those things, or let's say you needed to trim something down so that it was under a minute to share. Like but, again, you can do all those things in, like, the native photos app or in in CapCut or different places. So, yeah, it's it is kind of an interesting I would love to hear if we have listeners who are actually using Final Cut on their on their iPad and that are not, like, high school students.
Stephen Robles:Well, I know I know for a fact Fernando Silva, who makes videos over a 9 to 5 Mac, I think uses it exclusively. Like, he doesn't edit video on his Mac. He he does it all the time, and he came from the other video editing app that was there. What was that called? The, LumaFusion.
Stephen Robles:Mhmm. He was using LumaFusion before that, so people are doing it. I think Christopher Lawley, YouTuber. I believe he edits in Final Cut on his iPad as well coming from LumaFusion. So people are doing it, you know, But I also wanna say so Final Cut Camera is the free app that lets you film, like, in log, record or record, like, an external SSD and all that.
Stephen Robles:But before Apple's all announcements, I do wanna give a shout out to Kino. It's the looks camera, who are the makers of the halide camera app. Kino is their video app, and they updated their app earlier in the day yesterday before Apple's announcements. And they updated it to have 4 k, 120 frames per second. We have a 16 Pro or Pro Max, and they have a better just overall, just improve the whole thing and more LUTs and all that kind of stuff.
Stephen Robles:So, if you were looking for an app, and maybe you're not crazy about the Final Cut camera, or you just wanna try a different kind of pro video recording app, The Blackmagic camera app, I've used before, and it's obviously very powerful, but it feels a little clunky to me and a little too complicated, and Kino is just in the perfect sweet spot, for what I'm looking for. And so if you wanted to just experiment with some apps, capturing it to one time purchase, no subscription, Kino is, pretty great, so I'm gonna link that in the show notes
Jason Aten:to Okay. I have to ask a question.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Aten:What did you say the name of the company is?
Stephen Robles:Luxe Camera. That's Luxe dot camera.
Jason Aten:Definitely not what you said, but okay. Because I
Stephen Robles:just wanted
Jason Aten:to clarify.
Stephen Robles:Did I say Luxe?
Jason Aten:I think he definitely did.
Stephen Robles:Here's the I don't know if people know. I have a music degree. Okay? And back in high school and college, we sang a lot of Latin. Okay?
Stephen Robles:And one of the things you sing is Requiems, And in those, it's luksaeterna. You know what I'm saying? That's what I
Jason Aten:I mean that's
Stephen Robles:what I It's
Jason Aten:a it's a camera app, but not a requiem, so I just wanted to be careful and
Stephen Robles:clear that. But they they anyway, kino's it's also, like, based on the German word. They're all about the other languages.
Jason Aten:Did you hear the interview, with Sebastian and Ben? Was it on Dakota maybe, or was it on the Verge? Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Neili Patel
Jason Aten:And David Pierce. So maybe it was a Verge cast episode.
Stephen Robles:I think it was. Yeah. But it
Jason Aten:was great because neither the 2 of them did not agree on how to say kino.
Stephen Robles:Well, hal and halide. They were like, kino. I mean, halide. Right.
Jason Aten:And you're right.
Stephen Robles:They said, yes. However it comes out. So it seems like they're they're not very precious by him.
Jason Aten:Yeah. Anyway So
Stephen Robles:you got kino. It's not kino. I know that. It's definitely
Jason Aten:It's kino. You're right. It was it was the name of the it was halide. You're right.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Hal yeah. And I said, how do you say it?
Jason Aten:Halide.
Stephen Robles:Halide. Yeah. That's what I say.
Jason Aten:Halide. I don't that sounds like a ghost.
Stephen Robles:Not halide. It's it's not sounds like
Jason Aten:a ghost.
Stephen Robles:I mean, they don't care.
Jason Aten:Right. But I was gonna just say, I think the the final cut for camera app is really just meant to be like, the killer app for that is if you want to set up 3 iPhones, use your iPad in doing multicam, like, live.
Stephen Robles:Right.
Jason Aten:And that's that's really the the because really and, actually, Kino didn't exist at the time, I don't think. And, really, it was sort of a response to the, the Blackmagic camera app. And it's like Correct. Let's give people a slightly easier way to do this, but still give it the robust features. Because the Blackmagic app is the camera app is great, but it is, like, you can really quickly get into the weeds of these menus to make changes and to do stuff.
Jason Aten:So I think that
Stephen Robles:So many videos.
Jason Aten:I think they serve slightly different purposes, but you're right. It is a great it's a great video app. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. It's a great one. So check out those. Links are in the show notes. And one other Apple update, this is an iOS 18.2, which is coming likely in December.
Stephen Robles:I've seen December 9th as a date floating around there, but Apple's Find My was updated. So if you have items for an AirTag or Find My network accessories, which I've had things like ESR wallets that are Find My, but not AirTag and not precision location. But when you have items now in the Find My app once 18.2 comes out, you'll actually be able to have a link, share a link to someone, and they can actually see the location of that device, like, load it up in a web browser, and even in the future, share it with things like airlines. And hopefully, I guess if their customer service is on the ball, find find the item. That's that's cool.
Jason Aten:You say if their customer service is on the ball. This is a thing that Apple has, like, partnered with the airlines. So I feel like there's probably, like, an infrastructure system on on their end to, like, facilitate this because I'm sure that the thing that airlines love the most is when people call them or go up to the baggage Jessica, like, but I have an AirTag in it. Look. See?
Jason Aten:Here. Just go there, please. Like, that's probably super annoying. So having some sort of a way to share that directly, like, I don't know if there's, like every airline now has a dummy iCloud account that can just receive the like, I don't know how they're doing this. I will tell you, Steven.
Jason Aten:I don't know if you've ever played this game. This is a fun drinking game or whatever, just conversation game. I don't know. But whenever Apple makes an announcement and you just Google whatever that topic is, right, whether that's Yes. Okay.
Jason Aten:So AirTags Airlines or m 4 Mac Mini. You Google m 4 Mac Mini, and all the articles are gonna be like or all the results are, like, YouTube reviews, The Verge, Engadget, whatever. When you Google this, all the responses are like CBS News, USA Today, People Magazine. Like, this is the type of thing that normal people, like non tech people, actually super care about, and you can tell that that's true by the coverage. This is like a headline feature on CBS News and all of these places.
Jason Aten:It's it's kind of a fun little thing to notice. Like, oh, this is what breaks beyond the bubble of the thing. Like, we're all arguing about the M4 Pro Mac Mini being faster than the M2 Ultra Mac Studio. And if you say that sentence to any, like, random person, they just Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Aten:I don't know what you're talking about, but you tell them that AirTags will now send the direct like, your location or your bag directly to the other, like, say more. Tell me more about this.
Stephen Robles:That's so that is interesting. So I just I just did a, a Google search because I'm still using Google, which Jason's not anymore. We're gonna talk about that. But, yeah, look at this. ABC News, USA Today.
Stephen Robles:Yep. Yeah. All all the big ones. Daily Mail. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Airlines. Okay. Listen, I air tag everything. I got air tags in my check-in. No.
Stephen Robles:I don't check bags, Nate. I don't believe in I I try to get everything in that carry on. Even when I went on, like, a 10 day trip to, Tel Aviv last year, I just shoved it all in a carry on. I don't wanna check anything.
Jason Aten:I carried an entire podcast studio here, and I didn't check anything.
Stephen Robles:This is what I'm saying. I try not to check anything, but I still put AirTags even in my carry on because you never know what happens. Yeah. I put I put them everywhere. So it's amazing the battery life on AirTags too.
Stephen Robles:Feel like I've changed maybe 2 or 3 of them, and I have probably 20 in all different devices. I mean, come on. That's good battery life. Yeah. What what do you got AirTag over there?
Stephen Robles:Do you AirTag all your bags and stuff?
Jason Aten:I put it on my, carry on bag. I put AirTag all of our kids have them in their suitcases, like, their carry on bags. I have them on all my keys. I don't do the thing in the wallet because I use a really slim, like, Tumi wallet that if you try to stick an air tag in there, it would just be obnoxious. So I don't I don't do that, but we put them on basically everything that moves.
Stephen Robles:So the wallet thing, I I've included this in, like, my accessory videos before, but there's a company called Kaxgeek or Kaxgeck. I forgot exactly what it is. Now I'm gonna forget it. But it's basically like an ultra thin wallet with an air tag slot, and it basically would just fit, like, 3 cards, and I don't know why I can never find this thing. I bought
Jason Aten:one of these, and I don't know who it was from either, and it's probably good because I hated it, so I don't wanna say who it was from. But and it had just a little spot you could stick an AirTag in it, but again, like, I don't even wanna know my wallet is really there unless I put my hand back there to to check. But putting an AirTag in it, like and that's actually the one disadvantage of having a removable battery is your limp it's like the size of it, what it has to be. But didn't, like, Chipolo or somebody just come out with a actual card slot tracker to put in your wall? Like, this just happened.
Stephen Robles:I I well, I have the Chipolo card. I don't know if they have one now that actually has the precision tracking, but that's the problem with all the 3rd party ones. They don't have precision tracking. They don't have like, I literally have one of the cards from Chipolo, and you can do the Bluetooth, and it will, like you know, you can make it have make a sound. It has a built in speaker, which is great, and it'll do, like, the proximity Bluetooth, like the Apple TV remote, but it will not have the arrow come on screen and point you to the thing.
Stephen Robles:It doesn't have the precision tracking, and so that's like, the AirTag is still and AirPods Pro 2 case are still the only two things that will pop the arrow on the screen, to show you where it is. Not even Apple Vision Pro has this like, that kind of tracking Yeah. Which doesn't matter for Jason because he never takes it out of his house, but this was the wallet that I got. It's apparently no longer available, so it was just sold out.
Jason Aten:Big hit.
Stephen Robles:But this is Real big hit.
Jason Aten:No longer available.
Stephen Robles:No longer available, but, yeah, you could fit, like, 3 cards in there and an air tag, and it's a MagSafe wallet. You put it on there. I was gonna put the link in the show notes, but I guess you can't get it anymore. It's KaxeGeek. Alright.
Stephen Robles:We need to talk about OpenAI, and Jason wrote, I I think a clickbait article, let's be honest, that said he quit Google, quit Google for good. But before we do, I want to thank our first sponsor, which is MOFT, and they make one of my favorite accessories for the iPhone, to be honest. Okay? If you wanna ever record a video real quick, and maybe you need a stand or you wanna watch a podcast like this one on your lunch break, the MOFT Invisible Tripod Stand. Look at this.
Stephen Robles:Look how slim this tripod stand is, and watch this. I'm a try and do this like a magic trick. I failed. Anyway, look at that. You gotta stand there and you can have it bend to any angle.
Stephen Robles:Right? Low profile and you can also like do one of these things, have it stand on your desk. Love this thing. So it's incredibly low profile, strong MagSafe magnets. Look at this, they can hold the phone then when you want to go record yourself or watch a video, it will quickly unfold.
Stephen Robles:It can elevate your phone up to 8 inches off the table. You can adjust the angle. Use it in several modes. You can do, like, vlog mode. So if you want to, like, record yourself, you can do that, and you can even do the stand or the floating mode.
Stephen Robles:Works great, portrait or landscape, so you could do one of these things too. I actually only turn my camera on, so I'm, like, looking at myself while I'm doing it. It's throwing me off like crazy, but anyway. So if you're looking for a MagSafe wallet, this is also a wallet. That's the crazy thing too, so I'm gonna try and hold this up to the camera.
Stephen Robles:This is the wallet right here. You can put 2 cards in this little piece, and you can get the MagSafe you can get the stand in a wallet or non wallet. So if you don't want the wallet version, they have just the normal stand, or you can get the wallet where you put the 2 cards in, And same benefits of the, tripod, so this is the non wallet and then you do all this, but boom. Look at that, you can get in multiple colors and it works with NFC, so the little discreet pocket where you put the 2 cards in there. If you want to use this and just do, like, a tap card, so you have the NFC thing on your card, you just tap it.
Stephen Robles:You don't even have to take it out of the tripod wallet of this thing. So 7 day sale. We have a discount code where you can get the tripod stand starting at $30, 29.99. So just visit the link in the show notes and use the promo code primary tech b f ten. I should have asked them.
Stephen Robles:Maybe that stands for best friends, like, we're best friends. Anyway, to so you can get the stand version or the wallet version. That's promo code primary tech b f ten, but even if you miss the sale because you're listening to this episode a little late, you can still get $10 off when you spend over $50 throughout the month of November and higher discounts if you spend more than that. So our thanks to Maff for the tripod wallet and or stand, and, you know, when I'm eating lunch or whatever, I like just whipping the stand out and watching a YouTube video or watching an episode of Primary Technology. Well, thanks to MOFT for sponsoring this episode.
Stephen Robles:Look at that. I worked really hard to be able to do that in one fluid motion. Oh, now it's
Jason Aten:And you didn't you worked so hard, and it still didn't work.
Stephen Robles:So hard. I did it multiple times while I was there. So proud of that. So, you know, yeah, I did that. Thank you.
Stephen Robles:Thank you very much. Alright. OpenAI, before we get to Jason's clickbait article, they're saying that the rumors are that OpenAI is nearing the launch of an AI agent to automate tasks. So, basically, like what Anthropic showed off a couple weeks ago, which we talked about on the show, which is that agent style AI that can use a computer for you, basically, or take action for you. Looks like OpenAI is gonna be launching an agent to do that similarly.
Stephen Robles:There's the article from Bloomberg talking about it, and code named operator. Operator. Anyway, and, this is gonna be again, this is kind of the next phase of these AI models, and there was also the rumor that OpenAI was gonna announce a model even before the end of the year. Whether or not that the operator model or just the next version of the LLM remains to be seen, but they're nearing that, and it's apparently getting so good now. Look at Jason.
Stephen Robles:Jason's over here. This is his article at Inc. Chad GPT search made me quit Google for good. Alright. Defend this defend this headline.
Jason Aten:Wait. Hold on. What do I have to defend? Do you want me to defend the headline? The article, the idea?
Jason Aten:I need to know specifically what it is that I am being accused of today.
Stephen Robles:Did, did you did you really quit Google search? Are you using Chad gpt search just for all the things you used Google for?
Jason Aten:Okay. I have changed my default search in Brave to chat gpt, which you can now do with the extension. Oh, okay. So literally every time I type into the the bar at the top, it does a gpt chat gpt search instead of a Google search. However, that's actually super annoying because sometimes I actually forget that I did that, and I just started typing things in my brain even though I intended to use like, I forget that that's what has happened because for whatever, 20, 15 years, I've been doing Google searches there.
Jason Aten:Yes. There are a couple things. One of the things I do very frequently is search my own articles, not because I'm vain, but because I have to, like, link to them or I'm trying to remember a thing. And so I'll do a site search. Right?
Jason Aten:You can type type site colon in any website and then just put stuff after that, and it'll search for that. So I have a, text expander shortcut that I just do that all the time and, like, probably 10 times a day. When I'm working on an article, I do it constantly. And I realize that's a terrible thing to try to use chat gbt for. It'll do it technically, but it doesn't understand, like, exactly what you're trying to do.
Jason Aten:So, thankfully, in every Chrome browser, so Brave is a Chromium browser, you can just hit colon g, and it'll do a Google search. So I I've now had to teach myself. There are a couple things for which I prefer to do a Google search, but I have changed my default search engine to chat gpt, and it is surprisingly good. One, I think we can all agree, Google search, the best we have, also not great. Like, it's just gotten more and more annoying over the last, let's say, 5 years.
Jason Aten:And I don't if I'm searching for any product, let's say you wanted to know when, a particular product came out or you like, you're trying to get to the Wikipedia page for something, but you type in a product. Like, Google thinks, oh, you must want to buy this thing. Right? So it just starts showing me, like, the shopping carousel or Amazon links. I'm like, this stop.
Jason Aten:Stop trying to get affiliate money out of, like, these people. I just wanted to look up when Apple introduced the iPad or something. Like, these are things I searched for a lot. And so Chad G. Bouttee, much better at a lot of the things on a regular basis.
Jason Aten:I even I even just searched the searched the Lions, like, that's our hometown football team. And it immediately knew, like, you're looking for the football team, told me the most recent game results, showed me some statistics about them, and then gave me a link to the web page. It's it's great.
Stephen Robles:I guess I have to figure out where I can conveniently do it because I will just naturally cert like, type in the address bar for Safari or whatever, and you still can't set that default to Chat GPT, although
Jason Aten:Not in Safari, but you can in Chrome, in Brave.
Stephen Robles:On your phone. Like, on your phone.
Jason Aten:Oh, wouldn't that's true. You can on your phone. Sure.
Stephen Robles:That's yeah. Because that's I feel like when I'm searching for stuff, a lot of times, it's I'm there. Maybe I'll try it on the desktop, and I will to your point, the Google search, we actually had a listener tag me on threads, and this is, I think, pretty hilarious. But this was 29 aperture, tag me, and then someone's saying, this is how useful AI is again. It's a Google search for how much cough how much caffeine in McDonald's coffee, and the AI overview result from Google says a large iced coffee from McDonald's contains a lot of caffeine.
Stephen Robles:And then there's even there's even a table, like, unironically a table, and it says, drink large iced coffee, caffeine a lot. This is ridiculous. But, also, if I, Jason, if I see one more Reddit result as the top link when I do a Google search, I'm gonna lose it. Okay? I understand.
Stephen Robles:Maybe Reddit's great, and there's a trove of information, just valuable stuff in there. It's never what I want to see. Anytime when I search Google, and if I ever do follow that Reddit link, which is so annoying because I don't have the Reddit app installed on my phone and so the little pop up comes on, like, do you wanna go to the app or do you wanna open in the browser? So it's, like, 3 steps just to read whatever nonsense post doesn't have the answer I'm looking for. I just can't stand it.
Stephen Robles:I don't I don't know why why why did they do the Reddit thing where it's just Reddit all the time?
Jason Aten:I mean because
Stephen Robles:they mean I
Jason Aten:would I would assume the answer to that question is, well, like, there's a lot of money involved in this. And Yeah. Reddit's deal was probably I don't know. No one's told me this. If someone knows and wants to reach out, love to talk.
Jason Aten:If you're at Web Summit, come and find me this afternoon. That'd be great. But
Stephen Robles:There you go.
Jason Aten:I'm guessing that part of the deal was, yes. Send us all this traffic, please. And in return, yes, you can train on all of our data. Like, that just feels like that's the most obvious thing.
Stephen Robles:Right. I I just don't. I find it less and less useful, to be honest. I've actually I feel like in past 10 years, I could count on one hand the amount of time I've gone to the second page of results in Google search, and in the last few months, I've gone to that second and even third page multiple times, just looking for a legitimate article about the thing that I'm trying to learn about. Like, I have to get past the AI overview, get past the video links, which listen, I'm on YouTube.
Stephen Robles:I'm thankful that people find my content that way, but you gotta get past that. You gotta get past the Reddit stuff, and then maybe on the second or third page, you actually have, like, an article by some somebody. So but let me ask you this. If you're using ChatGPT's search more often, do you ever find yourself actually clicking the link source it provides to actually read the website it started showing you?
Jason Aten:Yeah. And it's actually fantastic because it will in the copy that it gives you, it has the foot you know, it's right there, and you can click on them, and it'll show you all the links, and you can just go to them, like, instantly. I don't know I did.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. For I
Jason Aten:don't I don't know if it's gonna be a huge source of traffic because I don't know how many people are actually gonna be using this like this for now. But I do think Right. That it's as it my take on this was the it's doing a good job of providing me with the information that I'm trying to find, and it's doing it in a much better user experience than Google is right now. Like, to me, that's a win. I don't I don't know.
Jason Aten:I mean, someday, chat or or OpenAI is gonna wanna figure out how to monetize this, and maybe it will become a dumpster fire as well, and we just have to hope Siri gets better. I don't know. Like, I don't know what the end result here is.
Stephen Robles:Right.
Jason Aten:But for now, for a lot of things, it's great. And then here's another thing that I do like about it. Every time you do a query, it creates a new conversation with chat g p t over and if you're logged in, it's over on the side there. So you can actually go back and be like, oh, yeah. That thing I was looking up yesterday, I have another question about it.
Jason Aten:You can go back and add it to that thread of that conversation, and it, you know, sends all that previous context with it so you can just continue that conversation.
Stephen Robles:I'm gonna do a I'm gonna do a live AB test here, Jason.
Jason Aten:I mean, I did your caffeine thing, and its response was a large 21 ounce 21 ounce. That's a large coffee. Wow. That's big that's a big bad coffee. No.
Jason Aten:It has a 185 milligrams?
Stephen Robles:It's medium. It's medium size.
Jason Aten:That's a lot of coffee in one cup. But it has a 185 milligrams of coffee, and then it has a link to exactly where it came from. I don't know what this website is. Caffeineinformer.com? Okay.
Jason Aten:Maybe it's just a website that bookmarks this kind of stuff, but then it also has several other links. And at the bottom, there's a thing called sources, and you just can click right on this. And I here's the thing. I actually think, for me, I'm more likely to click click on the source links because I don't inherently still trust these AI chatbots, so I wanna check them. So I'm probably sending I'm probably doing more going, you know, to the websites than I would be in Google.
Stephen Robles:So here's, so here's the ab test. So I just searched in chat gpt what's the new air tag feature in iOS 18.2, and honestly, it did a very nice job of saying it introduced a new share item location, where you can, you know, temporary link and find my app and all that kind of stuff, so and it's basically summarizing The Verge, so there's a link here to The Verge article, and you can just go over there and and read the full thing. The same search in Google, it did well, like, it actually has a summary of an article at the very top, and it basically says, like, the new share item location. So, I mean, it probably did the same thing, but just overall, like, it has a top stories feature. Maybe that's helpful.
Stephen Robles:I mean, I these are all legitimate articles. I got MacRumors here, Tom's Guide. Underneath that's the videos, then there's discussion and forums, which I'm glad that's broken out, I guess. And then, like, the Apple newsroom is is down here. But this is, like, my eyes usually look for this part of Google search, because I just wanna see, like, show me the top list of of articles right here, and, like, I would probably click one of these.
Stephen Robles:And I just feel like this it did okay for this search, but more and more often this is just kind of convoluted, and, yeah.
Jason Aten:I agree.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Let me do one more search. I'm gonna see if my video pops up. I probably am because I'm logged in as myself. Getting started with iPhone.
Stephen Robles:There's AI
Jason Aten:a vanity exercise right here?
Stephen Robles:So there's an AI overview, which is hilarious, that they would have an AI overview for getting started with iPhone. Turn on your iPhone. Press and hold the power button until the Apple logo appears. Which is the power button? Anyway, Apple support article, iPhone user guide.
Stephen Robles:Oh, down in videos. Okay. I'm the first result. Yeah. We're so good.
Stephen Robles:Anyway, thank you, Google.
Jason Aten:I'm happy for you.
Stephen Robles:Thank you. Thank you. Well, let us know. I mean, if you're out there listening to our viewers and you're using chat g p certain chatgptsearch full time like Jason is, I'll be curious to know and maybe I should switch. We'll see.
Stephen Robles:Blue Sky, Jason, why is it making a comeback? What is happening? Is this due to the US election? Is that why everyone's going to Blue Sky?
Jason Aten:I don't know. I thought I had signed up for Blue Sky a long time ago, but I think
Stephen Robles:You haven't because I tried to tag you.
Jason Aten:I think it well, I'm I am on there now as of
Stephen Robles:Okay. Okay.
Jason Aten:As of this morning or yesterday. I don't remember. It was because time is I don't even know anymore right now.
Stephen Robles:But Flat circle. Yep.
Jason Aten:I tried feels more like a wrinkled piece of paper to me right now. But if I tried to sign up at one point when you must have had to have, like, an invite or something, and I wasn't cool enough to have one, so I must have given up for a while. It feels like Twitter mostly, and I keep seeing posts on there about how much nicer it is than threads. And so more people should come and use it. And I wonder if people realize that the more people come and use it, the more it will become like threads threads, the more it will become like Twitter or x or whatever.
Jason Aten:Like, there's just a there's a sort of a proximity bias that people don't seem to understand that, like right? The what the the thing you're you're saying is so wonderful is a function of the fact that very few people are using it. And, yeah, 15,000,000 users. That's a lot. But it's not 275,000,000 users, which is, I think, what Meta just said threads is using, and it's not 300,000,000, which is what I think, whatever X has or something like that.
Jason Aten:So this is it's like you left the really big crowded place and you went to the cool hangout. Well, once everyone in the big crowded place figures out about the cool hangout, you're gonna need a bigger room, and then it's gonna just be the same thing. So
Stephen Robles:Yeah. I don't they had, like, an influx of almost a 1000000 users or whatever in, like, a couple days. And but it was, like, delayed past the election, so I'm not sure, like, why that was. But anyway, I'm I'm over here, and I got 4 windows open, so whenever I post, I'm, like, I guess threads, masks done, x, blue sky, like, I don't think that's not sustainable. Right?
Jason Aten:That is the thing. I don't think we're going to have threads x, blue sky I mean, I think they might fragment, and you might have, like, a certain group group of people using like, the like, the the nerdiest of tech nerds will probably always use Mastodon. Fine. Right? Like and if what you wanna do is mention one of those you know, someone who fits that category, like, that's where you're gonna have to post.
Jason Aten:And Yeah. The people you know who only have ever used Facebook and Instagram might end up on threads. They're never gonna go to Blue Sky. And so you I don't I don't wanna manage 4 different platforms. Right?
Jason Aten:Primarily, right now, I check Twitter x whatever, post things to Instagram or threads more more often threads. And now there's blue sky, and I have posted 2 things. And I believe I have 0 followers, so that's cool.
Stephen Robles:No. You have you have one because I just followed you.
Jason Aten:Oh, I appreciate that so much.
Stephen Robles:Oh, you're welcome. I mean, I just I want can we please decide? Like, I'm just maybe that's no longer a thing, that decentralized is what people want now. I will shout out the Croissant app. It's what I actually set I set this up and they're working on a Mac and iPad version, but it allows you to post to Blue Sky, Mastodon, and threads simultaneously.
Stephen Robles:And if you're gonna tag someone, it'll even, like, let you do the different tags in different places in the post compose. So it's pretty great. So I've I've been using croissant and that's helped a little bit. But to the people who that say Blue Sky is like the nice place, I just want to point this out. I posted about my, Kindle Colorsoft and iPad Mini comparison review and, one of the comments was from this guy this guy.
Stephen Robles:He says these comparisons are just stupid to be honest. That's that's what he replied to me, and so I said thanks, and then he liked that that post. I don't know if he knew I don't know if he knew I was being sarcastic or not.
Jason Aten:I don't know. You're definitely the more affable of the co hosts of this show, so
Stephen Robles:So affable. If only they knew the amount of sarcasm laced in that thanks with an exclamation point. Anyway, I guess it's the nice place. Anyway, I'm posting everywhere. I'm checking everywhere, and, that's now become my full time job.
Stephen Robles:I'm just managing
Jason Aten:for If you never see another YouTube video on Steven's channel, you'll know that it's just because he's cons he's gonna have 3 iPhones soon. 1 with each. He's just gonna constantly
Stephen Robles:Well, and the problem is I need like, back in the day, there were apps that you could literally bring in, like I I feel like Flipboard did this originally, where you could, like, log in with your Facebook account, your Twitter account, and whatever other social media, and literally have a single timeline of all your things, but more so, like, all your notifications could be in one place, and we're just never gonna get back to that because, I mean, you can't use third party apps with x. Mastodon works that way, threads, but not real like, you can't really do that with threads, like, you have to look at threads if you wanna see your notifications and engage with people. So there's just no, like, cohesive one place anymore and it's man, it's a lot. It's a lot to manage. Anyway, Jason on Blue Sky, you can be his 3rd follower.
Jason Aten:I'd I'd love that, actually. Please help me out.
Stephen Robles:The half the show notes now are gonna be the links to all the social networks. Like, follow Jason on.
Jason Aten:This is not where I wanna be. That's about This is not the guy.
Stephen Robles:You know, I'm not Reddit. I don't know. People love Reddit, so I just I just stop being mean about it. But
Jason Aten:Yeah. Because you want to see nice come comments. That's about
Stephen Robles:what you just said.
Jason Aten:I thought it was a 5 star review.
Stephen Robles:It was a 5 star review. Alright. I wanna talk about the, Apple's home smart home AI powered device because apparently that's coming very soon. Mark Gurman even leaked some details possibly, but before we do, I want to talk about HelloFresh. My friends at HelloFresh which is America's number one meal kit that makes home cooking easy, fun, and affordable.
Stephen Robles:I love HelloFresh. I was trying to find our link. It's free primary. Hellofresh.com/freeprimary. I'm saying that to myself, so I can pull up the web page and I can share it in the video.
Stephen Robles:That's why I'm, saying that out loud. But anyway, HelloFresh. They were I love getting a box from HelloFresh because I've cooked them with my kids in the past. They love following the recipes and being able to make something themselves. I am not someone who cooks personally very often.
Stephen Robles:I did an entire bonus episode on my other podcast about how I cut an onion, and it was a traumatizing experience, for the first time. Jason, you can listen to that on your flight home. I'll publish that MOTS later. But for someone like me, who is not naturally adept at cooking, HelloFresh allows me to, like, just follow the steps, follow the directions, and it just makes it easy, and I can feel confident and comfortable making the food. And listen, the holiday season just around the corner, if you're looking for ways to spend and stress less, HelloFresh can make meal time nearly hassle free with delicious home delivered, chef crafted recipes.
Stephen Robles:And they have lots of recipes in different categories, so you can have stuff for picky eaters, you can do the calorie smart meal plan, and all the options with a rotating menu of 50 recipes to choose from every week. Jason, you wore out the HelloFresh box that you got. Can you share some of the things you have made?
Jason Aten:Yeah. So we did these bourbon bacon burgers, cheddar burgers. Like, they were very good. Like, we're burger fans at our house, and they were extremely good. We we really enjoyed them.
Jason Aten:And then we had, it was like a what's it called? Is it Mushu pork? Is that is that a thing?
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. Yeah.
Jason Aten:I don't I don't know. But there were these bowls with rice. They was, like, very, very, very, very good again. And, we they sent us the bagels. They were included in there.
Jason Aten:The if you saw bagels on top, you can make those in the oven. Already. Absolutely. Oh my And, there was a dessert that I don't know that I ever got to try, but, it was, it was all pretty good. But here's the thing I like about HelloFresh.
Jason Aten:I actually really like to cook. The problem is, we don't know like,
Stephen Robles:we have
Jason Aten:a family of 6. Typically, it's hard to find something that all 6 of us will like. But more importantly, it's hard to find the time to, like, put together a recipe because, you know, you might wanna make something on a Thursday night, and it you gotta have all the ingredients, and the last thing you wanna do is have to run to, like, Safeway, Kroger, whatever at the last minute. With this, it's great because they sent you literally everything you need to make the meal.
Stephen Robles:It's great. Publix if you're down here in Florida, but you don't have to go there because because the list in the grocery store is insane. I know because every time I go, it's a fight. It's a fight to the death, so just order HelloFresh. That's, I'm not even gonna edit that out.
Stephen Robles:That's my homework.
Jason Aten:Publix is very upset with you right now. It's sending you messages.
Stephen Robles:I don't even know. I did did I say something that sounded like s I r I? I don't even know. But no. My HomePod just
Jason Aten:Oh, you said insane.
Stephen Robles:Wow. Apple intelligence, let me tell you. I think that's
Jason Aten:what it was.
Stephen Robles:Well, listen. So you don't mess with don't mess with the HomePod like that, but and you don't even have to go to your grocery store. Here's what you do. You can get 10 free meals at hellofresh.com/freeprimary. Look at that.
Stephen Robles:Applied across 7 boxes, new subscribers only, varies by plan, but that's t 10 free HelloFresh meals. Just go to hellofresh.com/freeprimary. That link is in the show notes, so you could try it there. And remember, HelloFresh, America's number one meal kit. Mark Gurman and I were here, he's dropping details about the new the long rumored my goodness.
Stephen Robles:We've been talking about this for years. Apple's smart home hub slash device screen pod home I guess home screen is already a thing, so it can't be that. But the next Apple's next device is an AI wall tablet for home control, Siri, and video calls. And I'm also gonna link his tweet here or his ex post because he basically listed all the things that this device supposedly is gonna be capable of. But this new device from Apple might be coming as early as early 2025.
Stephen Robles:It's gonna focus on I can't even say the word. SIRI, communication and home control. Was really a home hub. It runs Safari, Music, Notes, several Apple apps. It's touch screen, but it's operated primarily supposedly through voice and through Apple intelligence new app intense features, like intent, not intense, but Intense features.
Stephen Robles:The new s is a blend of watchOS and iOS standby mode. The size is about 2 iPhones side by side with a roughly 6 inch screen, so it seems maybe smaller than an iPad mini. Apple is working on a wall attachment plus a speaker base for desks, tables, kitchens, and nightstands. Heavy security focus with video and audio intercom for homes. The whole screen will be customizable.
Stephen Robles:You can tap into, like, your video doorbells and video cameras, and Apple is working on a higher end version with a robotic limb and an AI based personality that's still years away with the idea as an AI companion in your home or workspace. I don't even know what to say about that second one, but that feels like I don't even know. But the little, HomePod with a screen thing? Yes. Buying immediately.
Stephen Robles:How about you? You are really all in the HomeKit, though.
Jason Aten:No. So here's okay. This is all this is the only thought I have about this. We've talked many times. We have one of the Google Nest Home Hub Max things that sits on the counter Yeah.
Stephen Robles:That's where you got it. Yeah.
Jason Aten:It's great. Right.
Stephen Robles:You know
Jason Aten:how much that thing cost? Not $1,000, And it and it'll play to YouTube, and it'll also control YouTube TV on our TV in the other room. Like, I don't True. This this is like this is like the VisionPRO version of this thing, And I don't know anybody who doesn't think the VisionPRO is trying to do too much, who doesn't think that the VisionPRO is trying to do way too much for the especially once Right. Right.
Jason Aten:Like, people start to compare it. Like, you have it's trying to do the same thing that the Meadows Orion glasses and the Quest are doing in the same form factor, and it's just trying to do way too much. I feel like this is I I don't know what it is exactly, but when Apple tries to do new things, they they it seems like they're like, the Apple Watch seems like it's the last thing they were willing to iterate on and make better over time once it got out into the world. It feels like, you know, there are people okay. So there are people in the world who make a decision to do a thing, and they're like, we're gonna do this thing, and then we figure out how to do it as we go.
Jason Aten:And we don't need to know exactly where we're going. We're just gonna go out on this road trip and wherever we end up, that's great. And then there are people who are like, no. I can't even leave the house or decide to leave the house until I figure it out every single step of the way into and that feels like it's Apple. And I'm like, no.
Jason Aten:Just, like, why have you not just taken a HomePod mini and glued an iPad mini to it and release it like that? Like, just seriously, though, Steven, like, the thing people want is not a $1,000 6 inch screen that you have a wall attachment to put onto your wall. I just I don't know. Is that really a thing that people want?
Stephen Robles:It can't be a $1,000. I think it's well, someone like me wants it because I'm in the Apple smart home ecosystem, like, a 100%. Probably not a lot of people like me, in in that far into it, and, like, they talked on the the Verge cats couple weeks ago with Joanna Stern when she interviewed Craig Federighi because in that interview, he mentioned he opened his garage door with the voice assistant.
Jason Aten:I just
Stephen Robles:And it's like
Jason Aten:Is that really true? Did we is everyone going down this rabbit hole to figure out a thing? That feels like when I'm not comparing him to Donald Trump, but when Donald Trump would, like, say a random thing, and then people would spend, like, months trying to figure out how it could either be true or not. Like, sometimes people just say things.
Stephen Robles:Whether whether it's true or not, I think the interesting part is if it is true, the process to have your garage door open with your iPhone assistant is actually laborious. Like, it is not an easy process. Like, you can plug in a HomePod and set that up. That's pretty easy. Changing out a smart light switch, that's a next level of difficulty that most people are not ready to do.
Stephen Robles:And what I see a lot on social media is people asking about smart bulbs. The problem is that experience is not great in the smart home either. Smart bulbs are historically finicky, or you have to get a hub, and so once you start just tiptoeing into the smart home world, you either have to nerd out about it and spend a lot of time doing it, or you just a smart plug, and then that's it. So, like, for my mom, I gave her a couple smart plugs that I had around, and she really enjoys it. She could turn on her lamp when when she walks in the house by yelling at her HomePod mini, and that's cool.
Stephen Robles:In order for her to control the garage with her phone, like, I would need to there's, like, 1 or 2 devices that work with it, and the one I use is the Maris 1. But you literally have to, like, climb up on a ladder, you have to plug in the Maris device into the little ports on the motor, and then you have to run the contact sensor. You have to run this huge long line to install your own contact sensor on the garage door, so the merest thing knows whether the garage door is open or closed. It is a lot of work, like, that's an afternoon of work if you know what you're doing. So, overall, I just think, while it I I would love a little smart home HomePod with a screen, It would be useful for me because I have a ton of devices already.
Stephen Robles:And so if I can see my 6 smart home cameras that are all HomeKit Secure Video and my doorbell, that's valuable to me. But I think for most people, the issue is, like, step 1. Like, what what would I do with it in the smart home? I guess I could turn my lamp on and off from another screen that costs more than the lamp and the smart plug than it itself, but, like, doorbell, because most people have a Ring doorbell, and to install a HomeKit Secure Video Doorbell, you have, like, 3 options. You have, like, the WEMO, the Logitech, and you can do an Arlo if you have a hub.
Stephen Robles:Immediately, like, it just gets too complicated. So I do think I'm excited about this device. I think a small market would be. In order for it to be mass marketable, I think Apple still has to raise the bar on the HomeKit, like, entry point. And, like, I walked into the Apple Store the other day to, I think, return something, but I went to, like they have this smart home section, and they show off, like, HomeKit smart home, and it's like the EVE Outdoor Cam, which is a pain in the neck to install.
Stephen Robles:Like, you basically have to have a light fixture on the outside of your house you're willing to replace with a floodlight. It's like wiring, like, it's complicated. And they'll have, like, a smart plug, which is the easiest entry point, and they'll have something else, and, like, all of it is just complicated. So I do feel like there needs to be if Apple really wants smart home to be a thing and this device to be a thing, there needs to be a a better onboarding as an Apple user, and Apple should say, like, just not only here's the smart plug, but I don't know why because it's tough. Like, smart home is tough.
Stephen Robles:Like, what what smart home devices do you have that you are just, like, this is easy enough and, like, most people should do this? Like, do you have switches? Do you have bulbs?
Jason Aten:Yeah. So if you wanted to do lights, you just buy the Lutron switches. Like, that that's an easy thing to solve. Right? And we have the bulbs like In our house, we
Stephen Robles:have the balls. Their breaker.
Jason Aten:By e do we have the c by GE? Yeah. And they work with the Google assistant. I've never had a time when I have said, hey, dingus, for Google. Turn off the lights in whatever room, and it didn't just instantly do it for me.
Jason Aten:Like, the one thing I can't
Stephen Robles:do compatible? What? Are those HomeKit compatible?
Jason Aten:But I don't care.
Stephen Robles:Like, no. But that's why this device in particular No. You're not gonna be able to do this stuff.
Jason Aten:All the things you wanna do that you think this device is gonna solve, it the Apple should have spent the $1,000,000,000 fixing the assistant because you don't need this device if device if your HomePods could just do all this. Right? You can talk to the assistant with HomePods, with your phone, with your watch, which is the only place I suggest anyone talk to their assistant is with their watch. You could do all those things. The problem is not needing an this device does not need to exist to fix all of those things.
Jason Aten:Also, by the way, I don't want we don't have time because I have to go soon to get into this. But I just wanna say, there has never been a time in my life when I didn't need to either open or close the garage door and I wasn't just standing there by the button. Like, I've never needed to do that when I wasn't just right there and could just tap the button right on the and I replaced my garage door recently. Didn't give a single thought to whether or not they would be compatible with any smart home anything because every time I wanna open the garage door, I've opened the door for my house and I push the button. And every time I wanna close it, it's because I'm walking in the house and I just push the button.
Jason Aten:That I just wanna say.
Stephen Robles:I find the garage door opener to be one of the most useful things because someone has to work, like, if someone's coming in the house, needs to work on it, or you need to let somebody in the house, and they don't have a key, and the keypad outside doesn't work because mine doesn't work because the ants developed a nest in there or whatever. Like, I like opening the garage remotely
Jason Aten:Alright.
Stephen Robles:And, doing it for my watch. But I just think the barrier to entry to smart home, I think that is a bigger problem to solve than this. I'm excited for this device because I could see all the cameras in one place. I'm gonna maybe replace the HomePod here in the studio with a device like that. Intercom is really cool, and the only useful way I found to use it is, like, shortcuts, so most people probably are not using it.
Stephen Robles:They don't even know it's a thing. So I think bringing features like that to the forefront would be great for users, but you do have to solve, like, that entry point, like, where do people get started? And I would like just to hear about Smart Home more often in, like, Apple Events. Like, you just don't hear a lot about it, and so this is gonna have to come along with a bunch of other now. But real quick, because I wanna get a personal tech because someone asked a question about our macOS dock.
Stephen Robles:And so real quick, I just wanna mention, Sonos, they are still struggling. I see their app being updated every other day, but the debacle with the app and just product releases being delayed, the revenue is dipping. It's, it's not great. I also as a Sonos user, I have the Arc, the Beam, the Sub Sub Mini. I also have no desire, really, to try, like, the Arc Ultra.
Stephen Robles:I'm, like, I don't think I need to spend another $1,000 to replace my Arc that's already great. So Yeah. They're struggling a little bit, and they need to figure that out.
Jason Aten:Yeah. And the revenue was down 8%, and they spent $4,000,000. Did you catch that? $4,000,000 fixing the new app. $4,000,000 to fix an app when they could like, that has to go down.
Jason Aten:This is, like, right up there. Oh, no. We don't have time. This is right up there, though, when net with the same this is, like, when Netflix tried to separate its DVD business, and they were gonna call it Quickster. And, like, people just were like, are you kidding me right now?
Jason Aten:This app is right up there with, like, corporate decisions that no one should have ever made, like, right there.
Stephen Robles:And finally, last or next year, I love sharing information articles because there's nothing to share. It just gets a headline. This is from the information. Meta to launch ads on threads early next year, which, of course, was coming. I'm curious to see how spammy it'll feel.
Stephen Robles:How Instagram ads are actually pretty good as far as, like, targeting, so I'm curious how their targeting is gonna be on threads. But, yeah. You'll see ads next year.
Jason Aten:It which So
Stephen Robles:there you go.
Jason Aten:Yes. Of course. This was there's anyone who is surprised by this, have you used a meta product ever? Like, come on.
Stephen Robles:Which is why I feel like their federating of threads is never gonna go so far as, like, you can browse your threads feed in a third party app.
Jason Aten:Yeah. No.
Stephen Robles:Because that adds. Yeah. Like, you'll never be able to do that. That's why we'll be doing 18, social networks forever.
Jason Aten:Can't wait.
Stephen Robles:Forever. Alright. Personal tech. This was asked by super Eldian on YouTube. Your doc, Jason, on your Mac.
Stephen Robles:Location, hiding, and your app minimization effect. Share if you could share.
Jason Aten:K. So I I have it on the bottom, and I use hiding. I don't he didn't ask this, but every time I help a family member with their Mac setting it up or anything, I turn off the dots. No one should ever have the dots to tell you what
Stephen Robles:you're on. Dots. No. The dot dots on. No.
Stephen Robles:The the dots on.
Jason Aten:Steven.
Stephen Robles:100%. Dots on. I did not think we're gonna run into this again.
Jason Aten:I'm not
Stephen Robles:what we're
Jason Aten:gonna do is let us know, people. I promise you, Steven's wrong again. I I I would
Stephen Robles:listen. On. No. Anyway, okay. So And,
Jason Aten:I don't know how do I find out if I'm using an effect option?
Stephen Robles:Minimize a window and see what happens. Either it scales or genie bottles down into the dock.
Jason Aten:Hold on. I think it just
Stephen Robles:just any window.
Jason Aten:I I oh, you want me to minimize the window. Hang on.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. You gotta minimize it, and then you could see how it goes into the dock.
Jason Aten:It, like, did something where it went down.
Stephen Robles:So it did the genie effect?
Jason Aten:Sure.
Stephen Robles:It's a little wispy, like the bottom of the I just
Jason Aten:wanna say, I've never thought about that once in my life, so if I'm supposed to be doing something different, someone can just tell me and I'm fine.
Stephen Robles:Is okay. So mine is bottom, hiding, dots on.
Jason Aten:No. This is so funny because
Stephen Robles:I'm battery percentage off, dots off. Anyway, Dots on, recent apps, no. I don't like the recent apps on the dock. Yeah. Okay.
Stephen Robles:We can agree on that, and I do the scaling effect rather than the genie. Alright. I just switched it.
Jason Aten:I'm gonna try it for a while. We'll see if I even notice.
Stephen Robles:What? The dots or the Genie? No.
Jason Aten:The Genie. If I the dots are
Stephen Robles:That's how you know when apps are open if you need to quit one before you record a podcast.
Jason Aten:There's you've never needed to.
Stephen Robles:See a dot under Final Cut or Premiere or whatever and you're about to record a podcast, you gotta know.
Jason Aten:What kind of a Mac are you using that it can't handle?
Stephen Robles:I mean, my Mac can handle but I I don't want Final Cut and Premiere open while I'm while I'm recording. No. Dot dots on. 100%. Let us know.
Stephen Robles:This this is great. Let us know in the community
Jason Aten:So glad
Stephen Robles:we found another one. Let's any basic Apple guy do dots on. Not that would no one would understand that reference. But anyway, let us know what you think. Dots on or off under your applications in the doc.
Stephen Robles:You can let us know at social.primary tech dot f m. Follow us on the 18 different social networks that Jason and I are now a part of. You can be his 3rd follower on Blue Sky if you would like to be. And you could support the show. You can get an ad free version and bonus episodes every week if you support the show at primary tech dot fm and click bonus episodes.
Stephen Robles:If you support us there, you get chapters and all that in the main episode, or you can support us in Apple Podcasts, which they strip my chapters, but I can't do anything about that. Or you can support us in Apple Podcasts for ad free and bonus episodes as well. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. We're gonna go record a bonus episode.
Stephen Robles:I'm not even sure what. I think I'm gonna ask Jason what charger he brought with him while he was traveling. And, he had that there you go. Then we're gonna go record that bonus episode so you can hear it by supporting the show. Thanks for watching.
Stephen Robles:Thanks for listening. We'll catch you next week.
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