2024 Year in Review: Tech Winners and Losers
Download MP3Should all the acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind, welcome to Primary Technology, the show about the tech news that matters. It is the final episode of the year and this was our 1st year in existence from January to December. Thank you all for being with us. So we're gonna do a big year in review, go month to month, talk about all the big events as well stuff overhyped, underhyped and everything in between. This episode is brought to you by 1Password and you, the members who support us directly.
Stephen Robles:I'm one of your host, Steven Robles, and joining me on this final episode for the year, my friend Jason Aitin. How's it going, Jason?
Jason Aten:It's good. It's good. I think you deviated from the plot a little bit.
Stephen Robles:I deviated from the plot. Normally, it's a cold open movie quote. This time I did a lyric from old lang sang old lang sang.
Jason Aten:Hold on, though. Yes. Here's the thing. Yes. That is a quote from a movie.
Jason Aten:Do you know what movie they where the guy tries to figure out what it even means? He's very confused about what that phrase means.
Stephen Robles:I'm getting a feeling of this memory, but I forget. No. What is the movie?
Jason Aten:This is sort of inception here. You gave a movie quote, and I have to try to get when Harry Met Sally
Stephen Robles:Oh.
Jason Aten:That they talk yep. It's in that. So he, Harry Burns is, trying to figure out what Auld Lang Syne even means. And so you gave a movie quote without even meaning to, and I just Perfect.
Stephen Robles:Thought
Jason Aten:that was That's great.
Stephen Robles:We still did a movie. And my my question to you was I have had the lyrics wrong for decades, I think. I did did you know what they were saying, the first lyrics of that song?
Jason Aten:As in that the words were not old lang sy like
Stephen Robles:Like What
Jason Aten:do you mean by that?
Stephen Robles:So should all acquaintance be forgot? I always thought that line was should all acquaintance be forgot, like a l l. Did you know that it was the ald?
Jason Aten:I did. Okay. I don't know that I thought about it that much, but yes.
Stephen Robles:Now there's apparently other I'm looking at the Wikipedia, so who knows about accuracy, but apparently there's a history here about the poem that was printed in 17/11 by James Watson and that supposedly said should old acquaintance be forgot, like o l d. So I'm not is Ald old? Is that what that means?
Jason Aten:I mean, it's a Scottish word. Right? So I have no idea what it means.
Stephen Robles:Well, if I right click Ald in Safari and I click look up, it says ALD is old. I guess it's Yeah. Scottish English for old. I didn't know that. Anyway, this is the final episode of the year.
Stephen Robles:It's been a good year. It's been a big year for the show. I shared on social media. I don't even know if I I think I shared this with you. We have, like, over 200 and something 1,000 downloads for the year, which is amazing.
Stephen Robles:1,700,000 subscribers on YouTube. So just awesome for the 1st year. So I wanna thank you, Jason, for agreeing to do this show with me. It's been a lot of fun.
Jason Aten:It has been a lot of fun. I'm especially, I have to say thanks to Steven and apologize because Steven sent me this wonderful Christmas gift that really relates in no way to primary technology. But he knows my my favorite Christmas movie is Elf, and it's not up for debate. And so I got a bunch of Elf paraphernalia. That's really the only way to describe it.
Jason Aten:Socks, towels, and coasters.
Stephen Robles:Coasters. Yeah. And coasters. That's right. And you might have seen an episode drop in the feed earlier this week, which was the crossover episode of, favorite Christmas movies where Jason joined join me and Nate from Movies on the Side primary tech crossover.
Jason Aten:Yeah. Movie on the Side is actually, like, one of my favorite podcasts, and the only way I'm able to become a guest is if I sort of jerry rig my way into doing a crossover episode.
Stephen Robles:We just find ourselves recording with you and and me wait a minute, how did Jason get over?
Jason Aten:Yeah, exactly.
Stephen Robles:The Riverside Studios get mixed up? No, but that was a it was a fun episode. It's been a great year. I'm looking forward to another big year because I mean just well, first we're gonna have one episode the 1st week of January, like right after New Year's, so like January 2nd, and the one after that we're gonna record live from the show well, I don't know if we're gonna be on the show floor. We're gonna both be at CES in Las Vegas, so I'm very excited.
Jason Aten:We should at least record the intro of the episode from the show floor just so that Steven can finally say that and have it actually be true. Because the number of episodes that you started that way that were just not true.
Stephen Robles:I know. I know. But I would love to I'm gonna I got I got some fancy mics, for this trip. I got well, first of all, I got a DJI Osmo Pocket 3 that I'm gonna use on the trip. And then then I got the DJI Mics 2, Mhmm.
Jason Aten:Those are good.
Stephen Robles:What I would like to do, Jason, is we we lav ourselves up with these mics, and then we go to the TV section and you just talk me through things. Alright. And that convince me to buy an OLED or whatever, but but then, yeah. I think that would be that would be fun. That could be like his
Jason Aten:That's great. I have the d g the original ones. Those are such good microphones. The best the killer feature of them is you can actually plug the d g I m lav into the packs, and then they record locally in there. Anyway, we don't have to go into that.
Stephen Robles:No. No. They're great. Trust me. I wanna make a video on because they are very good, but anyway.
Stephen Robles:Alright. We have 1, 5 star review. Our final 5 star review shout out of the year from that Virtual Boy from Colorado, and regards to last episode where Jason was talking about ice cubes down the toilet or whatever, and Virtual Boy said, never flushed ice cubes down the toilet or slept on a spoon, but snow days did happen. Also, battery percentage on, dots on, pencil tip down, phone in dominant, sides back pocket. He's just all over the place.
Stephen Robles:I don't even know. I don't know.
Jason Aten:Yeah. I think I think there's hold on. I'm I'm looking I'm fact checking you as we go because I'm not sure that that everything you did well, I don't I don't there was also someone who was from, like, South Dakota or maybe that was in our member area that they were talking about that. I think so. I just wanna say, like, again, we're not talking about what you might have done 20 years ago to get a snow day.
Jason Aten:It's what kids talk about today.
Stephen Robles:He said neither have they. He said neither has his kids. He said neither have the kids. So, you know.
Jason Aten:Okay. I'm just
Stephen Robles:saying that. I I haven't heard anybody else put ice cubes in the toilet.
Jason Aten:But I'm good with the battery percentage on Dot dot com.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Aten:Yeah. Other than that, he's on my time.
Stephen Robles:I appreciate it. Alright. We're gonna go through the year, Jason. We're gonna talk about the biggest events of the month, January through December, and I wanna rate it like underhyped, overhyped, appropriately hyped. I don't know what the best phrase
Jason Aten:The whole month? Just wanna be clear. We're doing the whole we're grading the month.
Stephen Robles:Choose the big products of the month and then we will we will discuss that for each product. For instance Okay. Here just an example. Let's go to January. We'll go back in time in the time machine.
Stephen Robles:To January 2024, CES was in January and at CES, rabbit r one made the big stink about it. It was the big announcement. Lots of excitement. Now the reviews for rabbit r one came later. This is, of course, David Pearce from The Verge with the video thumbnail that just says this sucks.
Stephen Robles:I'm not the rabbit r one. The reviews were in like later in the year because when it became available. But the rabbit r one was announced at CES in January. The humane AI pin was in between being announced because it was announced at the end of 2023, but it hadn't come out yet either. So we were in the AI gadget hype cycle, but I'm gonna say that we'll stick the Rabbit r one in January, as far as, like, was it, the hyped cycle.
Stephen Robles:Also, correct me if I'm wrong, the Vision Pro, like, hype cycle with the early reviews, because it was available February 2nd, but I feel like we started seeing teasers before that. Right? People were doing, like, weird press events. I saw Al Roker wearing a VisionPRO or something.
Jason Aten:Yeah. All these people were going to weird places, and they were doing demo round 6 or 7 at that point for people. Like yeah. And this time, they expanded it to, you know, Hoda got to wear 1 and a bunch of other people got to wear them. And then the actual tech reviewers in that round did not get to wear them.
Stephen Robles:Right. And it was it was one of the, I feel like, strangest PR seasons for an Apple product because it was unlike any Apple product before it. It is a new product category, so, you know, totally get that. But, like, this was let's see. This is an article from I'm not even sure.
Stephen Robles:But, like, it was these kinds of people would show pictures of themselves wearing the Apple Vision Pro that the Apple PR person took because people weren't allowed to take their own photos at this point. And they would talk about their experience, and people would have, like, full reviews and, like, even this is, like, a lengthy explainer about what it's like to use Vision Pro. But there couldn't be any video footage of it. No one had it, like, in hand yet, and it wasn't until, early February. But I'm gonna put Vision Pro we'll do the hype part in February.
Stephen Robles:I just remember this being the end of January. It was like it was really weird. I didn't I didn't Yeah. Care for it, to be honest.
Jason Aten:Well, I think it's fair to say that for both the Rabbit r one and the VisionPRO, January was the high point.
Stephen Robles:January was the high yes. I think. Okay. We'll reserve reserve the hype judgment for
Jason Aten:I'm just I'm just saying. Like, I think that that was the Yes. As hyped as they were going to get. Well, VisionPRO, I mean, I got to try it out at WWDC last year, and that was probably a high point for it. But the hype was never higher for either of those devices than it was in January.
Stephen Robles:Fair enough. And then the
Jason Aten:The important point there being no one actually had them.
Stephen Robles:Right. No one had them yet. And then the last thing, this is one of the few tech events you went to last year. Didn't you go to Samsung unpacked?
Jason Aten:I did not go to
Stephen Robles:Samsung unpacked. Okay.
Jason Aten:And I did not go to CS. January was a low key month for me last year. I just I I planned to go to several of these things, even had plane tickets for a couple of them Right. And then just didn't go to anything.
Stephen Robles:That's right. Okay. Well, then the all the Samsung Galaxy phones were announced, and I think were made available shortly after, which I don't did you get any of the review units? You you
Jason Aten:this year I did not review any of the Samsung devices in person. I still had a Samsung Galaxy something or other from Right. A couple generations ago.
Stephen Robles:We're showing our our Apple slant as we as we discussed the channel. Channel. Anyway, let's let's rate the, rabbit r one. Overhyped, appropriately hyped, or underhyped?
Jason Aten:I mean, I think that it was, I'm trying to think of the right word. It was height and it did not. I don't think it lived up to those expectations. I think that the period in time when it had been announced and yet no one had used it was the the best period of time for that device. And then people got them and realized not only do they wanna set your house on fire when they charge oh, wait.
Jason Aten:That was a human iPad. We'll get Yeah.
Stephen Robles:We'll get to that. We'll get to that.
Jason Aten:That really all this thing is is like a terminal for someone using an Android phone on your behalf somewhere in the cloud.
Stephen Robles:Yes. Because I still have my Rabbit r one. I haven't charged it in months. Overhyped. 100%.
Stephen Robles:This thing was overhyped. I mean, overhyped to buy Rabbit. Everyone was skeptical until we got it in hand, and then even then, it was a very small contingent. I think that was, like, excited about it, but then they quickly quieted because it just doesn't it doesn't work. It never worked.
Jason Aten:I I think even the thing about the rabbit r one is not just that it was overhyped. It's that to some extent, it was a brilliant concept.
Stephen Robles:Sure.
Jason Aten:The idea that you'd have this gadget that could order you a sandwich. I mean, did you ever get your sandwich, Steven?
Stephen Robles:I could never get an order to
Jason Aten:show up.
Stephen Robles:Never. Yeah. Never showed up. It's still on its way.
Jason Aten:It was this for It was this great idea. It was this great idea. And then it but it was, like, so disappointing because it just did not did not happen.
Stephen Robles:No. I could never get a DoorDash order to go through or hail an Uber, and so it is one of the dead AI gadgets in my I'm adding to my library apparently.
Jason Aten:The Roblox graveyard of AI gadgets.
Stephen Robles:That's what it is. So that was January. Then came February, where we actually got Vision Pro in hand. I literally met my UPS guy at a shady gas station so I could get it early to, capitalize on the hype of Apple Vision Pro. I made like 5 or 6 videos about it.
Stephen Robles:This is my video about my kids and friends reacting to Vision Pro. This seems like so long ago. It's wild. But there's the Vision Pro and all the reviews came out, and it was pretty clear like this is a dev kit. This is something that is a proof of concept, some cool things like immersive video, but I mean, yeah, you use it every day.
Stephen Robles:I mean,
Jason Aten:yeah, that's true. And I was going to write an article about how I used it every day for a month, and then it was 3 months. And at this point, I'm just gonna write a 1 year. Like, this is gonna I might as well just wait.
Stephen Robles:Apple. I need to hold on to 1 year so
Jason Aten:I can make this one. Listen. The review period on the VisionPRO is actually only 3 months long, but they didn't send it to me until April. Remember? But
Stephen Robles:it's the 3 months is still 3 months, isn't it?
Jason Aten:Anyway So
Stephen Robles:wait a minute. So So you're already past what they told you to return it?
Jason Aten:Steven, I was past it when I went to d WWDC. I'm pretty sure.
Stephen Robles:No. Has anyone said anything? No. That's amazing.
Jason Aten:No one has ever said anything. I mean, I send the things back. I've actually I rearranged my office, and so I sent a bunch of stuff back because I'm like, why do I just keep storing, like, the 16 laptops and the remember we last week, we talked about iPads. I had, like, 5 iPads, and I'm like, this is just getting ridiculous because I can't use any of I mean, how many computers can one per Tim Cook apparently uses every single one of Apple's products every single day. I can't do that.
Stephen Robles:He uses the iPhone SE. He used the iPhone 15, the 15 plus, the 16, the 16 no.
Jason Aten:Two MacBook Pros, an iMac.
Stephen Robles:16 inches M M4, M4 Pro and M4 Max all in the same day. So that was the yeah. The Vision Pro, all the reviews came out. Plus OpenAI search was rumored, then it didn't obviously didn't come out, but it was, rumored and we started talking about it in our episode. I basically went through our episodes and, like, looked at all the titles of the episodes and what I put in the titles to see.
Stephen Robles:And this was the first time we talked about OpenAI developing its own search tool. And then months later, in October, it became a real thing and you can use it now. And also in February was the first Sora preview where they kind of released the first initial videos and started talking about that video generation, but we'll save the actual hyped, rating for Sora and stuff for the month that actually came out. But Vision Pro, Jason, I'm curious. Would you say overhyped, appropriately hyped, or underhyped?
Jason Aten:I think it was definitely extremely overhyped, but I think it's important to distinguish that that's a very different rating than the rabbit r one because the vision pro is actually a super useful thing, and it has actually gotten better as time has gone on. Your rabbit r one has just gotten deader as time has gone on. You haven't used it. You don't charge it. No.
Jason Aten:The vision pro at least has gotten additional functionality, additional content. I mean, the killer update for it just came, like, last month. Right?
Stephen Robles:Yeah. The MacBook. Or maybe
Jason Aten:it was this month. Yeah. And so I would just argue that it was I think it was overhyped, but I don't think it's a bad product.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. I think I'm gonna cheat a little bit. I'm gonna say overhyped until it launched and was in people's hands. And then I think it's appropriately hyped now. I think I think everyone understands the Apple Vision Pro is not for the average consumer.
Stephen Robles:It's not even the thing most people should buy, but it is a a concept of the things to come. And I saw this on social media, like, I do think Apple Vision Pro rejuvenated interest in headset computing in general. Cause like I knew the the Meta Quest 2 was out there and before that the Oculus, and I never really had much interest in it. But since the Apple Vision Pro has launched, there's this rejuvenated interest of like, oh yeah, the Quest 3, That's really a thing. And now eyeglasses, which we're gonna talk about later.
Stephen Robles:So I do think it's it's created a general interest in the platform as far as like head worn computing. And I think that will be part of the future of technology, even if it doesn't look like the Vision Pro does today. So I'm gonna say overhyped initially, and now I think appropriately hyped. I think everybody's hype level is pretty even keel.
Jason Aten:Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, I think I look, I haven't seen a Vanity Fair interview with Tim Cook for any other product that they've released recently. I mean, they were they're pretty all in on this as, like, the next platform. The the interesting thing is well, I mean, Chad g p t was a thing at the time, but they were they were clearly thinking that a like, they would have probably been farther ahead on AI if they weren't working on the vision pro because clearly that was the what they thought was the next big computing platform.
Jason Aten:They've said it. Tim Cook has said, like, we think this is the next big computing platform. It turns out it's actually generative AI. That's the next big computing platform. And maybe they'll find a way to combine those two things.
Jason Aten:I think overall, like, to say something is overhyped, you can have a great product, but if the company that made the great product hyped it too much, it's still overhyped. And I think that it's it sort of feels like the original Apple Watch where at first they thought this was a fashion device. And it's like, no. Actually, people just wanna track their heart rate rate and how often they stand up. Like, that's that's what people want from an Apple Watch, and then they want you to make the battery better so that it lasts longer.
Jason Aten:And they've added all these features and Yeah. All of that stuff is great, but Apple wasn't sure what to do with it at the beginning. Right? And it's but we are now entering, like, the fitness app version of the vision pro is the Mac screen sharing. Right?
Jason Aten:Like, so we're we're dialing it in. It's just right now it's ridiculous because, I mean, if you're gonna spend $35100 on a vision pro to pair it with your Mac, you might as well just buy this XDR at this point. Like, come on. Like,
Stephen Robles:I
Jason Aten:know that's still more expensive, but it's a it's still a way better, like, display, and it's 5 years old at this point. And so I I don't know that I think that is the killer application for it. I just think let's have version 2. Let's get rid of the screen on the front. Yes.
Jason Aten:Let's not worry about, like, the hand tracking and some of those types of things. Let's just make this a killer device that you can wear, sell it for $1200 and make it, like, if they could make it cheaper than the studio display, it would be the best display you could buy for a Mac.
Stephen Robles:100%. And I still think that immersive content, if it were to become regular, like, also things like live sports and other events, if there were more pieces of content like that, then I think it will reach a wider audience. Again, I think of my father-in-law as the canonical sports ball example. But if he could watch every NBA game like he is courtside, he might actually, like, put this thing on his face. Like, that would that would be compelling.
Stephen Robles:So I do think content is is another big piece of it. So we'll see. They just released a new But you don't you
Jason Aten:don't need sorry. I'm you don't need past due video though for any of that. No.
Stephen Robles:Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Yeah.
Jason Aten:Or googly eyes on the front of it. Like, none of those things have to happen for to do the things that because I 100% agree with you. Like, the immersive video stuff where you can feel like you're there, sports, spend money on that. Just get rid of the stuff that really doesn't actually add to this experience. Because what we're finding out is other than YouTubers, nobody actually is gonna wear these around other people.
Jason Aten:So, like, the whole, you know, awareness of having, like, this your eye show up on a thing. Nope. Nobody needs that. I mean, seriously, like, Steven, we talked about this. I'm gonna plug our our, crossover episode again.
Jason Aten:But when those things show up on here, it's like polar express horrifying. Right? Like, it is uncanny valley when your eyes show up on the outside of this and nobody needs to
Stephen Robles:see that. I'm I'm curious, on my flight to Las I don't know about you, I'm going to wear VisionPRO on my flight to Las Vegas, and, I'll let you know how the reactions are. We'll see who looks at me. You're
Jason Aten:going to CES, it'll be fine. You should you
Stephen Robles:should do it too though. I'm just saying. You should do it. Alright. Wear the VisionPRO on a plane.
Stephen Robles:You have yet to do it.
Jason Aten:I have yet to do it. And part of the okay. So, Steven, one, I'm not ridiculous and so I don't wanna wear it on a plane, but I could see the reason why you would want to. I also will just say I travel a lot and I have my, like, packing routine
Stephen Robles:Sure.
Jason Aten:Like, pretty well set. So I've had a hard time justifying, like, what what where am I gonna put this thing? I know it's not huge, but, like Don't
Stephen Robles:you have the Belkin case? You got the new Belkin case. Right?
Jason Aten:Yeah. But what, am I gonna just carry around like a lunchbox?
Stephen Robles:No. Put it in your backpack. Just
Jason Aten:No. Oh, I don't even travel with a backpack. I have, like, that Waterfield I got this Waterfield bag that's it's not a backpack.
Stephen Robles:Oh, do you have that and a carry on?
Jason Aten:Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Oh, okay. Yeah. I do buy Waterfield backpack and a carry on. Yeah. And I put it in my backpack.
Stephen Robles:Anyway, alright. So that was February. March, I'm gonna share an ink.com article here from writer Jason Aitin. You might be familiar with him. The M 3 MacBook Air came out in March, as well as the TikTok ban here in the United States began part of its news cycle.
Stephen Robles:And, side loading in the EU became a thing in March with 17 dot 4. But, the MacBook Air, which do you still have that review unit sitting around?
Jason Aten:No. I have sent back the M3 MacBook Air and the 15 inch MacBook Air. I sent them both back.
Stephen Robles:So you left.
Jason Aten:Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. The M3 MacBook Air, which, you know, I'm thinking about it now, in retrospect, the M3 MacBook Air came out in March, The M4 iPad Pro, which we're gonna talk about, came out 2 months later in May. But we never got an M4 MacBook Air. So I I assume this coming March, February time, 2025, well they'll probably get them for MacBook Air. They'll probably throw it in there.
Stephen Robles:And then I guess that'll be the the cycle maybe. Just new MacBook Air refresh chip every spring, maybe along with the iPad Pros. All the Pro machines get updated in the fall. And then the Pro desktops, whenever Apple feels like it, maybe they skip 4 generations. Who knows?
Jason Aten:But Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. M 3 MacBook Air is still one of the best I mean, it's a great computer.
Jason Aten:Yeah. I mean, it's the best version of that Yeah. Computer that you can get. It's it's fantastic. The only thing that I mean, they made the midnight blue slightly less smudgy, I guess.
Stephen Robles:The finger push.
Jason Aten:Sort of. Like, yeah, they made that a little bit. And, I mean, the actually, the highlight of the m three MacBook Air is that they made a 15 inch version, which I understand is maybe not the most popular thing, but I think it's it's great that they
Stephen Robles:I
Jason Aten:I actually think that that is underhyped. But I know that didn't come till later, so we'll have to wait.
Stephen Robles:Oh, that is true because oh, okay. Yeah. So for March, we have to do the the M3 MacBook Air overhyped, appropriately hyped, underhyped. I guess I would say appropriately hyped. Everybody likes MacBook Air.
Stephen Robles:The m 3, like, I think it was a press release. They didn't even do an event for it. So Yeah. Appropriately hyped. Would you agree?
Jason Aten:Yeah. I would say it was underhyped. Underhyped. I think that the, I think that the m 3 MacBook Air is better than ever I think they they they kinda sold it. They were clearly getting ready for, like, the m 4 iPads.
Jason Aten:Right? And so they didn't do a whole lot for it, but I actually think that it is it is a better device than they gave her credit for, especially because of the 15 inch.
Stephen Robles:Inch. Well, I'm gonna so here's I'm a I don't know if you know about this. If you go to I'm at walmart.com right now, and the m one MacBook Air is on sale. Hit this, $650.
Jason Aten:Yep. I would just if I were you, I'd buy it right
Stephen Robles:now. You should buy just just because?
Jason Aten:Just buy 3 of them and stick them seriously, like, these are the you you
Stephen Robles:You're in Wabashburg with a whole closet of MacBook Airs.
Jason Aten:Steven, listen. You could buy 3 of these. You have 3 kids. Right?
Stephen Robles:Kids. Yes.
Jason Aten:You could buy 3 of these right now. Put leave them in their box in the closet next to that Mac mini that you bought, and hand them to them when they graduate and go off to college, and it would still be, like, the best computer they could get at the moment.
Stephen Robles:I the 8 gigs of RAM and the 256 storage is what what holds me up. That's Why
Jason Aten:are they gonna be doing a lot of Apple intelligence? You know, you're worried about the genmojis or something?
Stephen Robles:The way the way you said that. Oh, yeah. They're gonna be doing that on their phone, I guess. But I all I'm saying is this underhyped. I think this should be hyped way more.
Stephen Robles:You just don't hear, but $650 for an M1 MacBook Air. I mean, I edited my YouTube videos with an M1 MacBook Pro, which is basically the same thing, like, it just doesn't have a fan. But, like Yeah.
Jason Aten:Or a touch bar thing. Goodness.
Stephen Robles:Right. But you could, like, do you could get this today for $650 and, like, edit 4 k video. You can do some music stuff. Like, so capable. Like, this is this is the deal.
Stephen Robles:Boom.
Jason Aten:Yeah. It's great. And I agree with you, like, 8 gigs, 256, fine. But again, for a kid who's going off to college who just needs it to be able to use Chrome and write something Google Docs, like, it's fine.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. That is true. That is true. Alright. So moving on to April.
Stephen Robles:April we started complaining about Google search results which I think has has carried through to today. Just the AI overviews and all that kind of stuff is annoying. But the humane AI pin, came out. And also the Delta iPhone app, the emulator, which I wanted to shout that out because it actually is pretty cool. Did you ever try it?
Stephen Robles:Heard your kids ever try it?
Jason Aten:I did, but I didn't have any games for it, like, really. And there was some you could, like, add to it. Right. But I'm just yeah. I I have I probably still have it on here except for every time I search for Delta, it brings up
Stephen Robles:The Delta app. Yeah. Yeah. Brings
Jason Aten:up my next slide.
Stephen Robles:My humane AI pin, look, here it is, I still have it. And, I have it sitting on a charger 247. And, it's on, like, a smart plug so it doesn't charge, like, constantly. But, like, randomly some afternoons, I'll hear a voice in the distance and it says, your AI or what does it say? Booster charge is low.
Stephen Robles:The the boot the booster battery pack says booster battery pack is low, and I'm like, I don't even care, but honestly, I like hearing its voice every once. No, I don't. I don't care.
Jason Aten:Oh, my goodness. Does your does your smart plug, like, can it detect whether that thing is on fire? Just in case.
Stephen Robles:It's never gotten that hot. Listen, I did stop
Jason Aten:Wasn't that the thing that, like, the egg case or something was burning down people's houses?
Stephen Robles:There was a warning about the egg case. Don't use the egg charging case, which I don't even know where mine is. But I still have it. I stopped paying for the stupid subscription, so this is now a paperweight because you can't do anything with it if you don't pay for the subscription. This this thing.
Stephen Robles:Now, you know, they recently actually announced Cosmos or Cosmos, you know, their operating system for
Jason Aten:this. Mhmm.
Stephen Robles:Actually licensing Yeah. Dumb. To put into other possible AI gadgets that are, will be failures or whatever. Whatever.
Jason Aten:They wanna put it in cars, Steven. You use that thing. Could you imagine if you had to like, can you imagine if you go to change the the temperature on your car and you need to put your hand out and wait for the
Stephen Robles:laser to shine? The laser ink.
Jason Aten:You have to, like, do it. I'm sorry, but this is a terrible idea. This is a company that it's gonna just die. It needs to die.
Stephen Robles:It's gonna die. Listen, HumanAI PIN, massively overhyped, both by the company itself and you know I never did like a straight humane AI pin review because MKBHD eviscerated it basically in his video, and it's like, no one's gonna outdo that. So I did like some comparisons or whatever, but I would I would never tell someone to buy this obviously, and it was not oh, it's lighting up now. It was doing something for a second. It's alive.
Stephen Robles:Let's stop. I mean, this is just so overhyped. And the a the AI gadget again, these two things. The AI gadget world, it was it became a bubble and was popped basically overnight. Like CES 2024, massive AI gadget bubble because the Humanae Pin was announced but not released.
Stephen Robles:Rabbit r 1 announced but not released. Both of these devices get into people's hands. Bubble pops. And now everyone's on to Apple Intelligence and OpenAI. So massively overhyped.
Stephen Robles:I assume
Jason Aten:you agree. Yeah. And I mean, part of like, it you cannot exaggerate how overhyped this was by the people that were making it. Like the pompousness, the self righteous, just commitment to the bit all the way to, we are going to transcendentially, existentially, something like your life will be completely different and you'll never touch the phone again. And you're still waiting for your sandwich.
Stephen Robles:This this video should have told us all when, Imran Choudhry and, I forget what was her name? I totally forget.
Jason Aten:Bethany Bon Yes. Bongino?
Stephen Robles:Yes. This video, which they they changed their, enthusiasm in future videos, but this initial launch video was so drab. So like, they're talking about how this is gonna change the world, but they also, like, I don't know, are so meh, but I don't know. Amazing.
Jason Aten:Yeah. It is it is yeah. It felt like a Saturday Night Live skit. The
Stephen Robles:whole thing. In retrospect, it totally does. That would that would be an amazing YouTube channel if someone does SNL skits, but just for tech things that Oh, okay. That would be pretty good. Anyway, so that was April, May.
Stephen Robles:May we had the M4 iPad Pros. There was actually, I believe in a virtual event for this, because we did a live stream after it to recap it. But the M4 iPad Pro came out. It was also debuted with that crush ad, which, was rather
Jason Aten:Unfortunate.
Stephen Robles:Rather unfortunate, and also Copilot Plus PCs were a thing in May. That's a gross port on my iPad too. But anyway, so they're they're probably a pro.
Jason Aten:Well, and they did it so they did a they did 2 press events. They did 1 in New York City
Stephen Robles:Right. Because
Jason Aten:I went to that. And then they also did one in London, I believe it was. They did a big one in London. I think the teachers there. Yep.
Jason Aten:And I think, like, Tim Cook and John Ternes were that that event. And there were none of those, like, none of them were at
Stephen Robles:In New York.
Jason Aten:I think. I don't know if it was Bob Borcher's maybe there. There was a couple there were a couple people, but it was not Tim Cook, and it was not John Turner. I would just
Stephen Robles:because you were there for that. Right? You were
Jason Aten:Yeah. I was there for that. And then they also had the, I guess that was no. That was not I'm thinking of the in last year when they same place when we did the, MacBook Pro Right. Mac No.
Jason Aten:Because the Imacs. But, yeah, this was just iPad.
Stephen Robles:And then we you recorded at a co working space for our live show.
Jason Aten:Yeah. I ran down
Stephen Robles:the street
Jason Aten:to a to a we were
Stephen Robles:Knocking on doors.
Jason Aten:To find a room Do you
Stephen Robles:have Internet?
Jason Aten:And I went into the I went into this little conference room that I totally misunderestimated. That's Misunderestimated. I think
Stephen Robles:that's Yeah. That's You're a writer. Right?
Jason Aten:You can I can say whatever I
Stephen Robles:want?
Jason Aten:This is a podcast. It's different. It's talking is different than writing. But anyway, and I I I did miscalculate the amount of ambient noise that there would be at
Stephen Robles:this time. This was this was our live show after the iPad event that you and the coworkers
Jason Aten:Yeah. That's me. I never realized the photos behind me before. This is the first time I'm seeing the blood coming out of that person's eyes.
Stephen Robles:It was traumatizing, but we all got through it. People could listen to the audio version. Anyway, so the M4 iPad Pro also I also have a theory. Well, first of all, M4 iPad Pro. Underhyped, appropriately hyped, overhyped.
Jason Aten:I think it was appropriately hyped. This is weird. Like, this is a weird rating for me to, like because I feel like it gets points because it's amazing, and they moved the camera. And so every it is the perfect, form factor. The negatives are the ad was terrible.
Jason Aten:Yes. And as much as the eye the pencil pro is great, I don't think it was real we don't really need a new pencil. And it's a bummer that the pencil and actually oh, jeez. The I've been meaning to write about this, and I still might. The single worst thing about the m 4 iPad pros is that they stopped making the Smart Folio keyboard.
Stephen Robles:Oh, right.
Jason Aten:You did. I I wanna go back to using the m 2 iPad pro because the Smart Folio Keyboard was the single greatest iPad accessory, though. So I think it's better than the than the Apple pencil. And I mean that sincerely, a 100% is better than the magic keyboard. So yeah.
Jason Aten:So I think it's appropriate.
Stephen Robles:So so Smart Folio Keyboard massively underhyped, you would say?
Jason Aten:Yep. I mean, I still have one sitting right here. This is an m 2 iPad Pro
Stephen Robles:Yeah.
Jason Aten:And this thing is amazing.
Stephen Robles:Listen. I wrote
Jason Aten:So good.
Stephen Robles:I think it was about an 80 page, I'll say, book or whatever on the Smart Folio Keyboard and my iPad Pro.
Jason Aten:Yeah.
Stephen Robles:And it was it was a great typing experience. I love bringing it in bringing it into, like, a coffee shop because of the material. I was never worried about, like, stuff getting on it, staining. I like it was waterproof. So thin too.
Stephen Robles:It was, like, so thin compared to the the Magic Keyboard. So
Jason Aten:Yeah. It's
Stephen Robles:so so good. I'm with I'm with you on that. I'll say that's underhyped. The M4 iPad Pro, I'm gonna say is appropriately hyped. I think there's still a lot of consternation about the iPad OS and some of the capabilities and being hamstrung by software or whatever, but you cannot argue the hardware is incredible.
Stephen Robles:I mean, the thinnest Apple device has ever Apple has ever made in the 12.9 inch iPad, the 11 inch is also crazy thin, super powerful. I edit this podcast on my 4 iPad Pro every week. I mean, it's just incredible hardware. Sure. I love to see iPad OS get a little better, have some more, you know, power user type features like audio input output control or maybe something where apps can do things in the background like so audio hijack could release an app on iPad or something like that.
Stephen Robles:But I don't think it's appropriately hyped. It's an incredible hardware.
Jason Aten:Yeah. And the the stacked OLED screen
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Tandem OLED.
Jason Aten:That is un that is underrated.
Stephen Robles:Yes. The screen screen is amazing. I will, I do wanna point out when it comes to the commercials and the ads, I am going to point to that crush ad as a slow slope in the degradation of Apple's marketing for its products. And right now, we are in, like, the Apple intelligence marketing, and it is clearly not good, like widely reported not good. And so it does feel like maybe that crush ad was kinda the beginning of like maybe a little bit of losing the plot.
Stephen Robles:I don't know. I don't know. I have no insight into the team or whatever, but I feel like the crush ad, the Apple intelligence ads, there's just been a lot of misses in that area.
Jason Aten:Well, there are okay. I've actually spent a lot of him thinking about this because I wrote about the holiday ad that they did, right, with the AirPods Pro 2 with the audio the what's what's it called? Hearing aid.
Stephen Robles:The hearing aid.
Jason Aten:Yeah. With the hearing aid feature. And I thought that was a great ad. And there's like, if you think about it, Apple has I think there's essentially 3 groups of ads. Right?
Jason Aten:There are these product ads that they do, right, which are the Apple intelligence I would put into that, the the crush ad I'd put into it, that kind of thing. Right. Those I would agree with you are kind of lost at the moment. Okay? Then they have, like, these films.
Jason Aten:And
Stephen Robles:then the
Jason Aten:so the Apple, the yeah. The holiday ones. And then the other kind they have are these goofy weird things like the privacy ad. They had the safari one with the little bird like, the with the surveillance cameras fine following the guy around, and he's nuking them because he's opening safari. The remote work ones that they did during COVID with the what do they call those guys?
Jason Aten:The something team. The undesirables. That's not what they were called. The I don't remember what they were called. The underdog.
Stephen Robles:The redeemer was the underdog. No.
Jason Aten:I think it was the underdog. Yeah. There's no idea. You know, and those are funny and then they don't take themselves too seriously. They make a good point.
Jason Aten:You know, they're they're highlighting features of things, but they're not specifically about a product and they're not too sort of presumptuous about it. Those ads and then, like, the holiday ads are sort of Apple at its best. Right. You could put with the holiday ad, honestly, the same kind of things like the Apple watch saved my life opening to WWDC or those types of things. I think Apple does those really well.
Jason Aten:Are they emotionally manipulative? Maybe a little bit. Okay. Fine. But they they they do a good job of telling story.
Jason Aten:Yeah. It is these sort of, like, the product ones right now, the Apple intelligence one, the m 4 iPad, those types of things. I do feel like that area is is maybe missing the point.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Like the
Jason Aten:the apple intelligence ones are especially bad. That's why I started thinking about this because the apple intelligence ones, they just and who was it somebody I would I'm sorry that I can't remember who it was, but it was the the reporter I think for Cena who wrote who's like Apple Intelligence is for dumb people because that's basically what Apple thinks of you. They think you're an idiot.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. So then that's there's just even words that weren't even words in that dude's email. Anyway, But no, you you are right. There's a separation of like I'm just scrolling the, Apple's YouTube page and there's just a wide variety of like the heartstrings AirPods Pro 2 ad. It is very different than the recent Apple intelligence ads which is different than, you know, just some of the other stuff that they've put together.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. But so yeah, it's it's a weird time. The Apple Intelligence ads, they just need to change. They gotta do something different there. But, co pilot plus PCs, I feel like no one talked about it since they actually came out.
Stephen Robles:And, like, Microsoft's recall feature had an issue where it was like everything's being saved as a plain text document. Everybody's like, oh, no. I don't know what I don't know what to say about it. But
Jason Aten:Yeah. I mean, I have a drop box folder that automatically saves every screenshot that I take because I take a lot of screenshots and I need quick access to them. And so I just have a thing called screenshots, and it's in my Dropbox folder. And basically, the Microsoft Windows was just doing that. Right.
Jason Aten:Saving taking a screenshot of your screen every, like, 3 seconds and OCR ing it and saving it in plain text. I mean, I don't care because there's nothing in that Dropbox folder that I would be particularly worried about because I wouldn't take a screenshot of something else
Stephen Robles:that doesn't make sense to be worried
Jason Aten:about. But, like, I don't still wanna, like, have it publicly available to anyone.
Stephen Robles:Right. Exactly. Copilot Plus PC is underhyped, overhyped. Does anybody care?
Jason Aten:I think they're super overhyped at this point, but that's just because I haven't heard anything about them since then.
Stephen Robles:I'm gonna say overhyped.
Jason Aten:So wait. I guess maybe I don't know if that's overhyped or not because I don't hear anything about them anymore. But at the time, I feel like they were they were pretty hyped.
Stephen Robles:It was like negative hype. It's like the air has been so like no one just no one talks about it. So Yeah. We got a big June with WWDC, but before we do, we have one sponsor to thank, and that is our friends at 1password extended access management. So I've been part of companies.
Stephen Robles:I've even been in charge of the mobile device management of one of my previous workplaces. One of the hardest things is like telling employees listen we got to do this for security and privacy and they're being like I just want to use my phone, I just want to use my computer how I want and all this stuff. And people get frustrated. Employees get frustrated when they can't use the devices that they have quote unquote been provided but they're super locked down and it's super difficult. And so what do they do?
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Stephen Robles:My thanks to 1password for sponsoring this episode. Alright June, big June, w w d c, you recorded live from Apple Campus.
Jason Aten:From the show floor.
Stephen Robles:From the show floor. Here was us doing our dub dub recap live. You look a little bit like a hostage. At least you're a hostage in Apple Podcast Studios.
Jason Aten:Listen, it was a very surreal experience to have, like, 7 cameras pointed at me. There were probably, I don't know, at least 5, maybe 9 people in the room with me, which is just a strange thing because, like, I'm used to I'm right here. There's no one else around. It's just you and me.
Stephen Robles:You and the dog sometimes. It's just It's yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was
Jason Aten:Anyway It
Stephen Robles:was fun, though. But, I'm again, hopefully, this is a big year where maybe we can do that together at the Apple Campus, dub dub DC. Anyone from Apple?
Jason Aten:I mean, if you come, we'll figure it out.
Stephen Robles:Well I'd I gotta at least get a press pass. I gotta be able to like, you know. Anyway, I'm hoping. I'm hoping this year. But at Dub Dub, correct me if I'm wrong, but there was no hardware announced at Dub Dub.
Stephen Robles:No Mac Studio, no Mac Pro, Correct. No no nothing. No hardware. Instead, the big obviously we had Ios 18 was the big deal. But the biggest announcement was obviously Apple Intelligence.
Stephen Robles:That's where it was first announced. That's where we kinda got a first look at what it meant. We didn't get to play with it until August in those betas, and then obviously it's still rolling out today. So I'm curious, thinking back, and it will be and more will be rolling out next year. Thinking back to Dub Dub in June, and what we know of Appletelligence today, you saying you deserved at least a d in, my Apple tier list, was Apple Intelligence in June overhyped, appropriately hyped, or underhyped?
Jason Aten:I think it was overhyped, and the reason is because the I I think the only thing anyone wanted was to make dingus smarter. Right? And I think it does a better job of understanding what you're saying, but it is no more capable of giving you an answer to what you're saying. And that is it's just so disappointing. It it it is just so disappointing.
Stephen Robles:The best feature of Apple Intelligence right now is the ChatJPT integration, which is telling that that the best feature is not actually anything to do with Apple Intelligence. It is
Jason Aten:And it's it may be the best feature but it's a worse way to use chat gpt to be honest.
Stephen Robles:It it is kind of. It would be better just to go to the app. But it it is pretty wild that Apple did a big software launch and it's just so clear that other companies are farther ahead. Like OpenAI is just so far ahead in the LLM space, regardless of, like, what they have overhyped. OpenAI might be overhyping their, like, AGI aspirations and what their reasoning models will be able to do.
Stephen Robles:But just looking at what they, like, have done this year. I did a video recently for Connor on social media. They're doing a compilation of other, like tech creators and what they thought was the best tools. And like if I look at what I actually used in 2024, what new tool did I use and that was significantly beneficial to my workflows, I have to admit it, chatgpt is that thing. Because not only do I use the app on my Mac, but I've incorporated it into several shortcuts that I use many times a week, sometimes daily.
Stephen Robles:And ChatGPT has made my workflow so much more efficient and enabled me to do so much more. Like the amount of content that I make with videos and podcasts would not be possible without that tool. So whether or not WhatOpenAI is overhyping is overhyped, I think Chat gpt itself, I almost would say is slightly underhyped. But we're not talking about that right now. But that's that's just how I feel about Chat gpt.
Stephen Robles:Because you I mean, you use it all the time too. Right?
Jason Aten:I use it, yeah, constantly. This entire podcast I've been sitting here using chat gpt. What do I say next?
Stephen Robles:So what do I say?
Jason Aten:Listen to Steven and tell me what to say next.
Stephen Robles:To the whole thing. But I
Jason Aten:mean but I mean, I'm one of the few few well, I'm not one of the few people, but I called the I called chat gpt on the phone last week just to talk just to talk. But I just think if you look at apple intelligence, the way it was talked about the whole, Craig Federighi section on apple intelligence, we don't even have most of that. And I just looked, I wrote an article in when I don't know where the, I don't know where to find the date. Oh, yeah. And that was, this was in October when it actually, an 18.1 actually came out talking about the 10 best features of Apple intelligence in 18.1.
Jason Aten:And I just realized, I think I had to stretch to come up with some stuff because none of these things like Siri enhancements, not really. It's better listening to you and it does let you change your mind. I just love that that is the demo every single time. It's like because I've been in quite a few of these demos for Apple Intelligence and it's like, make me a list of things that I well, actually, never mind. Let me do this other thing instead.
Jason Aten:It's like, I I get it. Like, that should not be the killer feature of Siri is that you because you know what else you could do? You could just stop the Siri thing and start over if you change your mind. Right. Like, this is it's just it's just absurd.
Stephen Robles:So well, we'll see. I'm I'm still I might still wanna see what they're gonna do with Apple Intelligence in 2025. I just I don't know if I'm optimistic. I'm just kind of like
Jason Aten:It just it feels like there is a thing that Apple could do better than anyone else. Yeah. And it is the thing people want, and it's the thing that they talked about, which is like, what time does my mom's flight land? And it configured all that out. It's like, okay.
Jason Aten:How long will it take to get to the dinner reservation? And it can figure all that out in just a that is the thing people that
Stephen Robles:that we want.
Jason Aten:That's it. Do that thing. And and isn't German, like, saying it may not come till 2026? I don't
Stephen Robles:know, girl.
Jason Aten:That that's devastating, though. If that's true
Stephen Robles:It is
Jason Aten:for Apple It is. That is devastating.
Stephen Robles:It is devastating because, surely, Google will have something like that at IO this year. I mean, they already talk about how much Gemini can do for you. Gurman's out here saying, like, Apple's gonna have its own doorbell, first party doorbell camera by 2026. It's gonna have the whole I don't know. Gurman's saying a lot of stuff coming by 2026.
Stephen Robles:Well and
Jason Aten:I just wanna you said about Gemini. I was listening to to SharpTech, this week, and one of the 2 of them was talking about, like, having a list of dates or a calendar. And Gemini will take that and will actually add them to your Google Calendar right now.
Stephen Robles:Which Siri can't
Jason Aten:can't
Stephen Robles:even do.
Jason Aten:No. Siri will be like, you looks like you took a picture. Do you want me to clean something out of the background?
Stephen Robles:Which No. Even like visual intelligence, which, you know, that was a big announcement at the iPhone event, which was not even part of the Dub Dub event. Visual intelligence, I think massively overhyped. But even now that it's in our hands, like, I did that was a big part of my video about 18 dot 2. And, like, even taking a picture of, like, a date and time with, like, a header above it, Visual intelligence can, like, say, alright, you wanna add this into your calendar?
Stephen Robles:But it's not smart enough to pull out other information from what I just took a picture of. And it's like big header. It was like a concert thing from my my wife's orchestra. It's like surely you see this text. Like you can literally tell Visual Intelligence to summarize all the text on screen.
Stephen Robles:So like it sees it, but they're like not doing those extra steps to actually make it that much more useful. So anyway, that's Apple Intelligence. Yeah. I I would say overhyped. Apple Intelligence overhyped.
Jason Aten:Overhyped.
Stephen Robles:Also in June was the Sonos Ace headphones and the Sonos app debacle, which
Jason Aten:Yeah. That was bad.
Stephen Robles:That was bad.
Jason Aten:I'm not even in Sonos, but it was bad.
Stephen Robles:That was bad. I have not, you know, I tried the Sonos As, I reviewed them, and then I returned them, because I don't. Airpods Pro 2 are so good, and it's, like, yeah. And then RCS, we knew RCS was gonna be coming to the phone in June, but, yeah, that was that. Listen, you know what?
Stephen Robles:I'm thankful for RCS. I'll be honest. There's a few people I text that are green bubbles, and now I see RCS in the little compose field, and I know that my reactions will be seen. I actually have one group text. Let Let me see.
Stephen Robles:I think it's with, Nate and his brother that I actually get I can do all the things. It says RCS is with 2 different people, 1 iPhone, 1 Android user. Reactions actually work and everything. I'm down with RCS.
Jason Aten:Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Oh, do you text me? You don't text you're you don't have to talk to me to any Android people, do you?
Jason Aten:I mean, I receive text messages from Android people.
Stephen Robles:Okay. Did you I mean And
Jason Aten:I'm sure that there are times when I respond to them. And, yes, they've the RCS is fantastic. I mean, it's yeah. I just feel like it's one of those things where, actually, to be fair, there was a situation recently where there was 2 other people and it was nice that the RCS, like, seemed like it worked relatively well. You could reply.
Jason Aten:You could do whatever. That's great. I just I just feel like it's a text message.
Stephen Robles:Oh, okay. Well, I'm yeah. I'm thankful. July was pretty quiet, although it was in July when the unofficial Apple web blog became an AI content form, which is unfortunate just for the history of the unofficial Apple web blog. And I believe it's still like an AI contact form today.
Stephen Robles:Like, you could just go visit it, and it's still all, I mean, this stuff. But I think it was again a first sign of like, oh, this is the AI contentpocalypse. You know, we talked about the social mediapocalypse last week.
Jason Aten:Yeah.
Stephen Robles:And this was kind of the first foray into like, oh shoot, this is something that's possible. This now actually is real and it's out there. And I don't I don't know if I've seen much. I don't know. Do you see a lot of AI just content slop on the Internet like that?
Jason Aten:I mean, I try to avoid content slop period, whether it's AI or not. I think I have a finely tuned radar for avoiding content for me stuff, period. I just, you know, you do, you do a search on Google and you know what that you're gonna get just complete garbage. It's the same thing is true. I mean, here's the thing.
Jason Aten:They're putting it on television as Coca Cola ads at this point. That's true. And my children think it's so cool and it makes me so mad every single time. I'm like, why?
Stephen Robles:Why is this where we're at? Should have done a real thing and not AI?
Jason Aten:Well, let's I mean, it's obviously computer generated. Yeah. Like, the the the all of those ads, the polar bears, the the Coke truck, all those things is yes. What I'm saying, but a human being had to do that. It's like the Pixar people.
Jason Aten:It's not the Pixar people, but you get what I'm saying. It's ILM or whatever. Yeah. That do that. Don't just whatever magic AI is or something like that.
Jason Aten:I just because it has this weird soft look to it. It's like Yeah. It just makes me feel slimy. All I can think about are the the hand waving and the sword videos of the birthday. That's that's all I can think about.
Jason Aten:Yes.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. That's terrible. It's
Jason Aten:just terrifying, but
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Alright. August, we got our first Apple Intelligence look in the early betas, but we won't rehash that. The Pixel 9 happened, and all the AI features that let you literally generate stuff in photos you take. So more AI stuff.
Stephen Robles:And I think just the AI photography discussion was a big deal in August. But, I don't know. I feel like this hasn't really been a thing, like a big concern since. Like, honestly, I was really concerned. I was like, if people on their phones can literally generate whatever in the pictures, that's probably a problem.
Stephen Robles:Maybe it's because nobody buys Pixel Phones. Don't shoot the messenger. Mhmm. But I do feel like Yeah.
Jason Aten:I got one right here, but it is a 7 a,
Stephen Robles:so it's been around for a while. Right. So I feel like it did not I don't know. The AI generated photos, I feel like, did not become as a big of a concern at least yet. And we went through the election cycle without tons of like, is this picture real or fake issues.
Stephen Robles:So was it was the AI photo of adjustment concern? Was that underhyped, appropriately hyped, or overhyped?
Jason Aten:I don't think we know yet. I don't think we first of all, no one has pixels, so we haven't had a large enough number of samples to really measure.
Stephen Robles:Fair.
Jason Aten:But I think, I don't think we know. I don't think we know yet. I think we're we're a ways off because right now it's like, oh, let me add a dinosaur to this picture of a kid's birthday party, and it's like, whatever. But
Stephen Robles:Sure.
Jason Aten:We're not at the point where people are like, what if we make this video of this guy who shot a CEO on the street also have a t shirt that says, you know, you know, go Trump or something. Like, you you know what I mean? We're not we have not seen the potential for what this could be yet.
Stephen Robles:That's true. So yeah. But we're yeah. It remains to be seen. September was Apple
Jason Aten:Hang on. July there's one more thing in July you didn't mention.
Stephen Robles:What was it?
Jason Aten:I'm sorry.
Stephen Robles:No. Go.
Jason Aten:But but anyone who tried to fly on a plane in that month will remember that 8,000,000 Windows computers went down because of, overnight upload to CrowdStrike. I would say CrowdStrike, very overrated, very overhyped. Right. And, Windows old version running an old, old version of Windows on a computer to schedule all of your employees, also very overhyped. Just wanted to I'm sorry.
Stephen Robles:I just wanted to throw that out there. No. No. I'll throw your article in there because I know
Jason Aten:you Yes.
Stephen Robles:That was pretty wild. That was yeah.
Jason Aten:Yeah. Crazy. Bad news.
Stephen Robles:That's true.
Jason Aten:Yeah. Sorry. Sorry about that.
Stephen Robles:No. It's good. September, Apple's big event. We did another live stream after that event recapping everything, which was the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro, the Apple Watch Series 10, not really a new Ultra. It was just the Ultra 2 Redux with the in space black.
Stephen Robles:You can get a new color. And then it was the, AirPods 4. That was, basically it. That was the whole announcement. Let's do, real quick then.
Stephen Robles:So you got 4 I guess we got 4 things. You got the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro. You got Apple Watch Series 10, and you got AirPods 4. Let's go, Apple Watch Series 10. What's the hype level?
Jason Aten:Apple Watch Series 10. Better or worse than AirPods Max with USB c?
Stephen Robles:I mean, that's the lowest bar possible.
Jason Aten:I'm just saying. You you didn't even mention that one, but I Oh,
Stephen Robles:that that was an appetite of VIN too. Right?
Jason Aten:Yep. That's super Oh, 5.
Stephen Robles:Theoskie. Yeah. That's AirPods Max is version 2 in the biggest air quotes possible. Massive air quotes.
Jason Aten:Apple Watch 10 was, like, just it was good. I don't think it was overhyped, but I don't think it was certainly not under hyped.
Stephen Robles:I don't
Jason Aten:think it was, like yeah. I think it's true.
Stephen Robles:And then, AirPods 4.
Jason Aten:I think those are underhyped. I think those are those are a keeper. I think those are a yeah.
Stephen Robles:I I really like mine. This is another Apple review unit I have not returned because I keep using them.
Jason Aten:Welcome to the club.
Stephen Robles:I really love this.
Jason Aten:This is how it starts, buddy. This is how it starts.
Stephen Robles:You don't have a whole clock a whole room.
Jason Aten:Yeah. You get hooked on AirPods 4. The next thing you know, you get a vision pro and 4 MacBooks sitting on your desk.
Stephen Robles:I do mine for Imac over there, so that's staying there for a minute. I'll tell you that. Yeah. But no. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:I agree. AirPods 4, I think, are under hyped. I think they're incredible. The sales on Amazon were crazy for AirPods 4. I mean, you could basically, like, yeah, a $140 maybe for the noise cancelling version.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. So, yeah, underhyped. IPhone 16.
Jason Aten:I think it was adequately high. I think I think it was good. I don't think it was I don't think they over promised it too much. I think the camera button is a little or camera control. Don't call it a button.
Jason Aten:Where am I sticking up? I don't know. But I I think, like, that was maybe a little overhyped in general. But overall,
Stephen Robles:I think solid. Yeah. I would say appropriately hyped to slightly underhyped because I do think they put so much in the normal phones non pro that they became such a good deal. Like Yeah. Action button, camera control, visual intelligence, like, unless you really wanted the 5 x camera and 4 k 120, the iPhone 16 is great.
Stephen Robles:And my mom actually upgraded from her 12 to a 16 in ultramarine and the colors. They changed the ink cartridge. The colors were great. So 16. Yeah.
Jason Aten:I almost reached up to show you the ultramarine, but it's actually the camera I'm looking into right now. So that would have been
Stephen Robles:a Which is also another review unit, isn't it?
Jason Aten:Yes. Well, I was just gonna say, though, every time I pick that phone up, I'm like, I just wanna use this.
Stephen Robles:It's so good. Yeah. It is really good.
Jason Aten:It is just so lightweight and so good, but I actually use the 5 x camera a reasonable amount. I don't think I care about ProMotion. The only other downside to it is after looking at the 16 Pro for a long time, the bezels do look like Yeah. You're putting on a little weight there, 16.
Stephen Robles:The bezel the bezel did get smaller when you compare them side by side at least.
Jason Aten:Yeah. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Analysis of the iPhone 16 Pro, I'll probably say, like, just adequately hyped again.
Jason Aten:I Yeah. I agree.
Stephen Robles:I don't think it's overhyped because I do think the camera, like you're saying, the 5 k, the 5 x camera and the video capabilities of the 16 Pro, I've used some b roll of the 4 k 120 from this thing and it's pretty impressive. So
Jason Aten:Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Adequately.
Jason Aten:I agree.
Stephen Robles:We also had the Meta Orion glasses in September, which I feel like I think it's a big thing because I do feel like Meta is really gonna push into that come 2025. And it is a a proof of concept that is compelling, I think. So
Jason Aten:Yeah. But I think they're still incredibly overhyped because they don't exist yet. They're not real. They brought in a bunch of people, put them in a controlled demo, and then said these are $10 a piece, and we don't know when we'll ship them.
Stephen Robles:Well and they said this is not for shipment. You know, like like they said, like, they cost $10,000. That is why we're not selling them.
Jason Aten:Well, they cost $10,000 to make. So I mean, if you just figure out what the margins are and everything, they they're $15,000 product.
Stephen Robles:Right. Right. So but I do think it is interesting. And, again, to a non Apple brand, namely Meta, really pushing in a new product category, I think is, is interesting. We'll see.
Jason Aten:Yep.
Stephen Robles:So October, we'll go quick here, OpenAI raised a bunch of money. The iPad mini 7 was released via, I think just press release and the little video thing, but iPad mini 7 came out, the M4 Imac and M4 Mac mini, so I guess we have those 3 products, and then iOS 18.2 with Visual Intelligence was in beta. But, iPad Mini. What Oh, go ahead.
Jason Aten:What about the MacBook Pros?
Stephen Robles:Oh, and the MacBook Pros. I forgot about those. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Alright. So
Jason Aten:All the M4 things.
Stephen Robles:All the M4 things. So, M4 iPad Mini, it's
Jason Aten:a pro Hold on. Yeah. The iPad mini with the a 17 pro is, I think, what you meant.
Stephen Robles:What are those?
Jason Aten:That m 4 iPad mini. You said m 4 iPad mini, but there really was an m
Stephen Robles:4 iPad mini. Sorry. The dream is an m 4 iPad Mini with promotion.
Jason Aten:Because that would be super underrated if that was the case. Like, give us one of those.
Stephen Robles:I'm sorry.
Jason Aten:But it still doesn't have promotion. Sorry.
Stephen Robles:I've had mini
Jason Aten:Okay.
Stephen Robles:7 with an a 17.
Jason Aten:I think it was probably a little bit underhyped because they didn't really talk a ton about it. But, I mean, it's a good it's a good improvement, but I mean, it's not, like, life changing. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:I would say appropriately hyped. Yeah. M4 Imac. I think it was just appropriately hyped.
Jason Aten:It's fine. Yeah. Is it I
Stephen Robles:really like it, and I'm I still have to do my video review of it, but it's good. M 4 Mac I
Jason Aten:have no use for an Imac in my life whether it has an m 4 or not. That's the thing.
Stephen Robles:The family my kids have been using it, like, family computer. I've never had, like, a family computer, and having one just kinda set up in the family room is kinda nice. But anyway, m 4 Mac mini.
Jason Aten:Super underrated.
Stephen Robles:Yes.
Jason Aten:Like, super under high. It's the it's one of the best new computers they've made in a long time. I do. Although mine is dead right now, I don't know what happened.
Stephen Robles:That is strange. Yeah.
Jason Aten:If we were about to start recording and it just wouldn't
Stephen Robles:Maybe Apple bricked your remote. Apple's like, you got too many
Jason Aten:I was wondering about that. Like, this one has expired.
Stephen Robles:No. The statute of limitations on the review unit. Yeah. I will say it is weird looking at the entire year of Apple announcement and thinking the M4 Mac Mini might be the most exciting thing they did this year.
Jason Aten:Mhmm.
Stephen Robles:That's a little weird, I think. But I also feel like that's true.
Jason Aten:I think the M4 iPad Pros were probably still a better thing overall. Like, I think they were probably more exciting. And to be honest, I think that the nano texture display on the MacBook Pros, super excited. And if they put that thing on an I on a MacBook Air next year, you could charge an extra $500, and I think it'd be worth it.
Stephen Robles:Okay. Well, I'll say Mac the M4 Mac Mini also underhyped. I do think it's an incredible machine.
Jason Aten:I agree. Agree. Agree.
Stephen Robles:The M4 MacBook Pros, what do you say to that?
Jason Aten:I think they're, appropriately hyped. I think they're fantastic. I think the base model is probably underhyped because it got all the ports and it got they upped the base memory on it to 16, gigs. Wait. Is that true?
Jason Aten:Or is it 24? 16 gigs on the baseline? And it's I mean, it's a legit MacBook pro now. It's not just like, here's a thing that we put out there so we can call it a MacBook pro. So all the companies will buy it.
Jason Aten:Good good stuff.
Stephen Robles:Now now you're making me think I'm going to apple.com. I'm going to MacBook Pro.
Jason Aten:The base has 16. The reason I know that is that the review unit they sent me has 16.
Stephen Robles:How many laptops do you have in that shed? Hold on. We'll be back in 20 minutes when Jason's done counting his laptop.
Jason Aten:There are 7, but I just realized we did forget something back in, May. They released the m 2, iPad Airs, which is not a big deal, but they did.
Stephen Robles:That is true. That is true. M m 2 iPad Air is solid. That's a solid iPad Air.
Jason Aten:It's great. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic. Yeah.
Jason Aten:I understand.
Stephen Robles:For sure. No. It's good. Okay. And the, oh, yeah.
Stephen Robles:And M 4 MacBook Pro, I would say is it's probably appropriately hyped. I think people are excited about it. They are amazing machines, like
Jason Aten:Yep. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:It's good. Yep. Alright. In November December got pretty quiet. November, Final Cut Pro got a big update.
Stephen Robles:It had magnetic mask and like the caption transcription. The Google Department of Justice case is out there. They might get broken up. That's November. And then December, Verge announced its paywall, which was interesting.
Stephen Robles:And then the Sora video generator, which I have just basically resolved to make polar bears and medieval knights. And that's that's my entire Sora account.
Jason Aten:Didn't, didn't, Sam Altman tweet that, they're, like, extending the availability of Sora over the holidays because he I think he posted something like the GPUs get kinda quiet this time of year, and so we've we've reduced some of the restrictions on even just the chat GPT plus Oh. Subscription or whatever. So yeah. There you go.
Stephen Robles:There you go. You got
Jason Aten:a boost. By the way, about the Google breakup, I think that's underhyped. It's gonna happen. I think I think Google is gonna get broken up.
Stephen Robles:That's wild. That's gonna be wild.
Jason Aten:Yeah. It's gonna happen.
Stephen Robles:But that was the I mean, big year. Pretty big year in tech. I feel like let me ask you this. As our personal tech slash final segment before we record a bonus episode. Who do you think, company wise, came out as like the winner this year?
Stephen Robles:Like looking at the span of the year, the different announcements, the different products, you have Amazon, you have Google, Meta, OpenAI, Apple. Obviously, NVIDIA is the winner, like, money wise.
Jason Aten:Yeah. They
Stephen Robles:made all the money this year. But as far as, like, excitement, I think people, like, being interested in what a company is doing. Do you think Apple still made it? Did someone else take it? How how would you think about that?
Jason Aten:I would say it's gotta be OpenAI. Yeah. I mean, if you just look at the fact that Microsoft's AI ambitions depend on open AI, and at this point, so do apples. Right? Like, I don't know how you could pick anybody else besides open AI.
Jason Aten:And that doesn't I mean, that doesn't mean that, like, that they're getting everything right. But I think that in the mindshare of most people, they probably had the biggest, the biggest overall year. And I'm not even talking about the fact that they're now charging $200 to some, some people for using it or, or, or whatever, or you can call them on the phone now and talk to them. I highly recommend it. You do that.
Jason Aten:But my point of my article was like, imagine around Christmas. Whoops. Sorry. I just hit my my desk. Imagine at Christmas, somebody asks a question and you're like, I know how we could find out.
Jason Aten:And you just call 1 in a 100 chat GPT. Like, it's the best party trick of all time. Seriously. Think about that.
Stephen Robles:And if I around the, around the holidays, yeah, you just tell your family. Just dial it for them and hand them the phone.
Jason Aten:Yes. I put it on speakerphone and just be like, I know how we can find out which NBA player led the league in both assists and rebounds, but not scoring and had 5 technical fouls. The answer is probably Draymond Green. Anyway, moving on.
Stephen Robles:You'd be a wizard. You'd be a wizard among men.
Jason Aten:Yeah. So
Stephen Robles:that was the year. I would I would agree. I think OpenAI, I think won the year as far as excitement, releases, usability. I mean, I will say iOS 18, I think was a pretty impressive update. There's a lot of tiny things, a lot of little improvements, like scheduling a message to send later, and like Safari built in summaries, transcriptions when you, attach audio to a note.
Stephen Robles:So there's a lot of, like, cool features, so I think it is actually a a pretty big update this year. But, yeah. I think OpenAI, I think they won the year.
Jason Aten:Can I I just wanna push back? I know some of our listeners have to agree with me on
Stephen Robles:this. Okay.
Jason Aten:IOS 18 is one of the worst updates in probably a decade.
Stephen Robles:Now what do you mean by worst?
Jason Aten:Have you opened the photos app lately?
Stephen Robles:The photos is unfortunate.
Jason Aten:Has has your phone tried to summarize notifications for you before? Is that No.
Stephen Robles:That's completely working for Did you hear
Jason Aten:about the invasion at this point?
Stephen Robles:Some things here. Now hold on
Jason Aten:a second. No. It's an it's an iOS 18 update.
Stephen Robles:Fair enough.
Jason Aten:Feature. I will It's a flagship feature of their new operating system, and they are garbage. The photos app, literally every person I know whose phone is updated to iOS 18 wants me to tell them how to revert it back as if I'm the one that made the mistake. Surely, this has happened to you, Steven. My children are so furious when their phones finally automatically updated to iOS 18.
Jason Aten:They were like, can you buy me new phones that have iOS 17 on them?
Stephen Robles:That should be that should be a special section in the Apple Store if you want it.
Jason Aten:Seriously, it is the worst. I think it's the worst iOS update they've had in, like, a decade.
Stephen Robles:I do have to admit, I will agree with you. I'm still not crazy about the photo redesign. I feel like it takes me much longer to get to what I wanna get to than it did before. And obviously I've been using the new Photos app for like 8 months. So it's or say, 6 months or whatever.
Stephen Robles:So I'll have to agree on the Photos app. I will also say bug
Jason Aten:Control center? Come on.
Stephen Robles:I'm good with control center.
Jason Aten:Ugh. But the average person is not Steven Robles and does not automate all all the things in their universe.
Stephen Robles:They should watch my
Jason Aten:But how often how hard is it? Like, I haven't even changed any of the placement of anything because it is so bad.
Stephen Robles:Customizing it is a pain in the neck. I will tell I will give you that too. I will also give you that the bugs in iOS 18 are rampant, and it is one of the buggiest updates that I have ever seen. They really need to do a snow leopard update for iOS 19 Yeah. Where just fix all the screen time.
Stephen Robles:Still super buggy. Alright. I retract my statement.
Jason Aten:Listeners, leave us a 5 star review. IOS 18 best or worst? Yes or or worst, yes or no? Is it the worst, yes or no?
Stephen Robles:That's good. Yeah. And you could also if you've already left us a 5 star rating review, you can do it again if you want. But go to social.primarytech.fm and leave a comment on the post for this episode, and you could you could tell me I'm wrong about iOS 18. I'm also admitting I am slightly wrong about iOS 18, but there's also some cool features in it.
Stephen Robles:It's just a very conflicting update. I'll just say that. I'll say that.
Jason Aten:Yeah. There are some cool features in it, but overall, the the the thing is just it is overall the worst, I think, update they've had in a while. And I think they were just everyone who was writing software was drafted onto the Apple intelligence team, and unfortunately, they didn't make it across the finish line either.
Stephen Robles:Wow. Yeah. Okay. Well there you go. Happy New Year.
Jason Aten:Steven, the reason I'm holding on to all these review units is I may never get another one.
Stephen Robles:This this has been our year review for 2024. I'm excited to do this annually. I think 2025 is going to be a big year, and we'll see if Siri actually gets better in 2025, but I think it's going to be a big year. I'm excited to see you at CES and record from there. But we're going to go record a bonus episode.
Stephen Robles:I'm going to ask Jason about his New Year's Eve festivities and what he does there. If you'd like to hear our bonus episodes, you can go to primarytech.fm and click bonus episodes. When you support us there, you get an ad free version, which we have sponsors already through January, which is amazing and that is a testament to you guys actually listening and enjoying the show, so thank you for that. But if you want an ad free version of the show, go to primary tech. Fm, click bonus episodes, support us, get ad free and all the bonus episodes and the back catalog.
Stephen Robles:And you can also do it in Apple Podcasts if you like. You don't get chapters there. It's an Apple Podcasts thing anyway. But we'd appreciate your support. And you can leave us a 5 star rating and review.
Stephen Robles:Let us know. IOS 18, best or worst update in years. But, let's go record a bonus episode. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching this whole year.
Stephen Robles:We'll see you next time.
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