Primary Technology

Stephen Robles: 00:00

You wake up at O'Hare, Dallas Fort Worth, Pacific Mountain Central, lose an hour, gain an hour, this is your life. Welcome to Primary Technology, the show about the tech news that matters. Big show this week. There's a bunch of stuff at CES, and we're gonna be covering that the second half of the show, but also big news from Apple addressing privacy and Siri concerns, Apple intelligence summaries, might be making a video doorbell, and Delta had some big announcements and an a partnership with YouTube as well. This episode is brought to you by HelloFresh and you, members who support us us directly.

Stephen Robles: 00:28

I'm one of your host, Steven Robles, and joining me live from his typical recording location, my friend Jason Aitin. How's it going, Jason?

Jason Aten: 00:35

Hey, listen. I'm basically on the show floor because I have my Las Vegas Starbucks You Are Here mug. So

Stephen Robles: 00:42

There it okay. Listen. We're sorry, everyone.

Jason Aten: 00:45

We have to explain some things

Stephen Robles: 00:46

before we start. This episode was supposed to begin, live from the show floor at CES. I have the personal things happen, and I canceled my trip last minute. It's everything's fine, and but I was, like, well, it's okay because one half of primary tech is gonna be live from the show floor, and it's gonna be great. And then Jason texted me Wednesday morning or Tuesday morning when you're supposed to leave.

Jason Aten: 01:07

Yeah.

Stephen Robles: 01:08

Yeah. And listen, I was, like, following the the winter storm Blair news or whatever and I'm, like, I know Jason's in Michigan and that's pretty high up there. This might affect him.

Jason Aten: 01:18

We didn't get the storm. My problem was that Steven wasn't going and just it wasn't worth it. No. That's not

Stephen Robles: 01:25

actually true. Right?

Jason Aten: 01:26

That's not true. The main reason that I was going to see us was the big delta keynote on Tuesday night, and my flights were delayed enough that I wasn't going to make it. And it was like, well, this just isn't worth it. If the main thing I was going to go for, I don't need to go to Vegas. I've been to listen.

Jason Aten: 01:48

Every person in our kind of situation should go to CES exactly at least once. And, I've done it multiple times. And so there wasn't enough other compelling things. And the actually the other big thing I would have liked to have gone for was the, NVIDIA keynote, which was on Monday. And I had already couldn't make that work for scheduling purposes.

Jason Aten: 02:08

And so I just was like, you know what? All the other things I can just cover from home.

Stephen Robles: 02:13

So Yeah. And well, we're gonna talk about things that were announced at CES, but it was like, yeah, the Delta thing was probably the biggest thing and then maybe you weren't gonna make that. But listen, we're sorry. Live from the show floor, it's gonna happen this year one way or another. Either I get invited to dub dub DC and we get to podcast from Apple Park or I break in like Ocean's 11 and we we do a sneak no, just kidding.

Stephen Robles: 02:35

Apple, I'm not gonna break down.

Jason Aten: 02:36

I'm just Listen. If you break in, I don't think we should have any recorded footage of it. Just

Stephen Robles: 02:39

No. It is probably right. It's probably a good idea. But, this just means Apple really needs to invite me to Dub Dub this year, and so I'll be sending emails to, my contact starting now. I'll just hit them up every week.

Stephen Robles: 02:49

Between now

Jason Aten: 02:49

is you sending an hello.

Stephen Robles: 02:51

Any of

Jason Aten: 02:51

you who are listening Hello.

Stephen Robles: 02:53

Listen. You know who you are. If you work at Apple, please, so we can get it. So this way, we can finally be live from the show floor, but it extends a bit, a little longer. But we do have some news, and there's actually a bunch of Apple news I wanna talk about, especially they released a newsroom article just last night addressing the Syrian privacy concerns after a big settlement.

Stephen Robles: 03:10

So anyway, we're gonna get into all that. One 5 star review shout out for the second episode of 2025, which is John Faugh from the USA. So thank you, John. And don't forget, you can leave us a 5 star rating and review in Apple Podcasts. Let us know, do you put the dots on in your Mac dock?

Stephen Robles: 03:25

Do you put your phone in your I don't even know how many things there are anymore. You can just look at past reviews if you need inspiration for, telling us your preference.

Jason Aten: 03:32

We need a wiki just to let people know the things that they're supposed to, like, tell us. Oh, that's

Stephen Robles: 03:37

pretty good. I'll have to okay. I might create I'll create a page on primary tech.fm or something That's great. Instructing people. Alright.

Stephen Robles: 03:44

So let's go do some Apple news, talk about Delta, and then we'll talk about all the the random CES stuff that has been announced. But the first thing is Apple Intelligence summaries, which you, Jason, have been talking about for months and how it's very problematic when summaries misrepresent the news. Apple actually released a statement saying that they're going to address these summaries. This is actually Jason Snell's article on 6 colors, and the lead image, I think, kind of sums up what the issue is. This is an Apple intelligence summary, and it says BBC News Luigi Mangione, who was the suspect in the murder of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, says Luigi Mangione shoots himself, which did not happen.

Stephen Robles: 04:26

And that's a problem. Yeah. That's a problem if you get a notification that says it's from the BBC News but has a, you know, pretty big headline that is not true. And so the public response from Apple talking about these Apple Intelligence summaries, and and I quote, Apple has said it will update rather than pause new artificial wait. Is this a quote from Apple?

Stephen Robles: 04:47

Let's see. This is a Yeah.

Jason Aten: 04:48

The public the right. They got a response from Apple. Yep.

Stephen Robles: 04:52

Okay. So so this is I'm not gonna say quote, but this is the response from Apple through the BBC, because the BBC was reporting on this.

Jason Aten: 05:00

So Jason Stell is quoting the BBC, which is referring to a statement they got from Apple. Just so you could have clicked on the link, you know, and write it from the BBC.

Stephen Robles: 05:07

I don't I know, but

Jason Aten: 05:07

It's fine.

Stephen Robles: 05:08

But Jason Stell has some good thoughts on it I might include. Anyway, this so this is what Apple said about this. Rather than pause a new artificial intelligence feature that has generated inaccurate news alerts on its latest iPhones, the company Apple, in its first acknowledgment of the concerns on Monday, said it was working on a software change to, quote, further clarify when the notifications are summaries that have been generated by the Apple Intelligence System, which there was already a symbol letting you know when a notification was a summary. That's what that little, like, two lines with the weird arrow is, but I guess they're gonna make this more clear. And Jason Snell was saying it's still not enough and that maybe news headlines needs to just be omitted from Apple Intelligence summaries entirely.

Stephen Robles: 05:53

And I will even say, I have summaries turned on for everything. All my notifications go through Apple Intelligent Summaries, and even the email chain summaries really are confusing because if I have a long email chain, like, one of the email chains I have is with, the dream robot vacuum. And we had this very long email chain because they sponsored a video, like, several months ago, and we're gonna work together again this year. And the the summary is basically unusable, because it's taking things from, like, months ago all the way till today, and it's just not it's not helpful. It's not giving me good information, and so I it seems to be more and more of a serious issue.

Stephen Robles: 06:32

And have you turned them off? Have you turned any of the summaries off?

Jason Aten: 06:35

I have turned them off for some things. I have them on for other things. And Right. That's actually a interesting, like, point because if it does seem like one of the most useful things that that notification summaries can do is take, say, a text thread and, like, give you a summary of here's the 4 things that happened. Like, we have a WhatsApp group for our daughter's soccer team.

Stephen Robles: 06:57

Mhmm.

Jason Aten: 06:57

And it'll just summarize and it's like so and so is confirmed. So and so can't make it because of this and the time has been moved. Like, that's actually really useful because I can be like, okay. Great. I wanted to because if I had just seen 6 notifications, I might have just ignored it and been like, I don't have time for this.

Stephen Robles: 07:11

Right.

Jason Aten: 07:11

But when I see what the summary of it is, I'm like, okay. Let me click through and see what, you know, time's been moved. I should probably know what that means and stuff. So I think that's useful, but not all notifications or groups of notifications are the same. Right?

Jason Aten: 07:23

Those WhatsApp notifications were a continuous conversation and it just summarized the continuous conversation. But news headlines are different. Right? News headlines are completely and I have thought about this a lot. Obviously, I've had plenty of thoughts that I've shared on this show about our notification summaries, period.

Jason Aten: 07:40

But I've been and I actually have been trying for 2 days now to get an article published. It's my own reason that it's not yet, but I feel like Apple is missing a really important point here, which is not the letting people know that the summary was generated by AI. I think they feel like that's sort of the get out of jail free card, but I don't think that that's true because people don't look at things that way. They just look at the summary and they just treat it as if it's true regardless of what the case is. And you you mentioned the one that so the BBC has complained twice now.

Jason Aten: 08:13

The the first one was the one you showed because it showed that the suspect had shot himself, which was not true. But I feel as though, like, what if that what if that summary, like, the BBC had published 3 articles in a row that's like, you know, President Biden visits, Jerusalem, plane crash in South Korea and what some well known celebrity just died. You could just imagine what the summary could have ended up being. Right?

Stephen Robles: 08:41

And this was this was the other article, which was that, Apple intelligence summary claimed that Luke Littler had already won the darts final. Yeah. And this is the BBC has screenshots of of what it is. It says Luke Littler won PDC World Championship, which was not the case.

Jason Aten: 08:54

It hadn't even happened yet.

Stephen Robles: 08:55

Hadn't even happened yet.

Jason Aten: 08:56

Yeah. And so yeah. And so I feel like but this is the kind of thing that could affect, like, world markets. Right? World market events or national security.

Jason Aten: 09:05

If the summary came through and it's like President Biden in a plane crash over Jerusalem and has passed away or what? It's

Stephen Robles: 09:12

like Right. Right.

Jason Aten: 09:13

What? Like And

Stephen Robles: 09:14

that seems, like, that seems plausible. Like, that doesn't seem like an audacious Apple Intelligence summary.

Jason Aten: 09:18

No. This is a 100% a thing that could actually happen, and it feels like you shouldn't have shipped this.

Stephen Robles: 09:23

That I I wonder if the fact that Apple Intelligence is only 15 pro and newer has somehow lessened its effect because there would be a lot more like, if this was available on all iPhones right now, I feel like the problem would be even more, not only widespread, but just obvious, and people would be making more of a stink, because it's just iPhone 16 and 15 Pro users right now. But like this, it's a problem. Oh, and also because the sign up, like, when you upgrade to iOS 18, I guess this would have been that one with Apple Intelligence. You know, anytime there's a splash screen on an iOS update, I'm I mean, I will look at what it's saying. But it's like the terms of service agreements for anything you sign up for.

Stephen Robles: 10:03

I think 99% of iPhone users, when they update their phone, and they see any splash screen, they're just trying to, like, get through. They're just trying to get through, actually use their phone. And so most people will have this enabled likely and not even know, like, that it's happening. Like, they maybe they know it's Apple Intelligence, maybe not, maybe they read the splash screen, but to then just have notifications for news app news apps that you were once following closely or headlines now telling you things that are not true, it's it's a problem.

Jason Aten: 10:32

Yeah. And I feel like there's honestly two issues here. One is they should not have shipped it yet, this kind of thing. And and I don't know. Like, look, I feel like as an idea, these notification summaries are fantastic.

Jason Aten: 10:46

Right? I think that the like, the things that I described, being able to summarize some group chats. Also, like, if they got it wrong in the WhatsApp thing, like, I'm not basing my like, whether we go to a soccer game based on a notification summary. I'm always gonna, like, look. Right?

Stephen Robles: 11:02

Yeah.

Jason Aten: 11:02

And so it's pretty low stakes, so that's great. But that's different. Like, so for those types of things, I think that this is actually a really great feature and I'm glad that someone had this idea, but there's a pretty big gap between the idea and the execution. And so one, I don't think it was ready for them to ship. I just don't think that, you know, I I have to imagine someone thought that this was possible, and then they still shipped it anyway.

Jason Aten: 11:25

And then the second thing is, I think Apple's response is pretty bad here. Right? Just to say, well, the we it's almost like they're saying this is a fundamental nature of LLMs. They're just gonna make crap up. So we're just gonna let you know that this key feature that we created is probably gonna just make things up.

Jason Aten: 11:44

So we'll just tell you it's possible that this summer it's like, why even do the summary then? Then? Like, what what is even the point? You're if and how many people are going to pay attention to that? I just don't think it's I just don't think it's I don't think it's worth the hassle.

Stephen Robles: 11:57

Yeah. It's it's it's not great. And and again, Apple is saying these features are in beta. All of Apple Intelligence is still in beta, but I don't think that gives them a pass, especially when it comes to news headlines specifically and what the BBC has been reporting on.

Jason Aten: 12:10

And especially when Snoop Dogg is on commercials for T Mobile talking about how this is the first phone bait, you know, built for Apple Intelligence. They don't That's true. Tell you don't hear Snoop Dogg say the word beta anywhere.

Stephen Robles: 12:22

If we did fun titles, you don't hear Snoop Dogg saying the word beta. You you just don't hear it. You don't hear it. So the other case where Apple's in a little bit of, they they felt the need to release a newsroom article addressing it. First part of the story is that Apple paid up to is going to pay up to $95,000,000 in settlements to users whose conversations were inadvertently captured by the voice assistant on devices, And this is not and then then those conversations were heard by human employees.

Stephen Robles: 12:52

So this might have been a thing where I don't know about you, but this happens to me all the time where you look down at your watch and you see that it's been listening for the last, whatever, 10, 20 seconds, and it's this massive block of text, and it's, like, I sure hope it doesn't think I wanna text this to someone, but it's that inadvertent listening, and then it was eventually heard by human people. So Apple decided it needed to release this statement. This was just last night at 8:30 PM, which, you know, a company is not, like, super proud of a press release if they're releasing it on a Wednesday night at 8:30 PM. But this the title is our long standing privacy commitment with the voice assistant, and basically, they're saying Apple the this is quote from the Apple Newsroom article. Apple has never used Siri data to build marketing profiles, never made it available for advertising, and never sold it to anyone for any purpose.

Stephen Robles: 13:42

We are constantly developing technologies to make voice assistant even more private, and we'll continue to do so, and then it goes on to several, articles paragraphs talking about why the voice assistant is secure, they use on device processing where possible, and Apple minimizes the amount of data collected for voice assistant requests. So great. I mean, I get it. I will say, if if you're not aware, I actually did a video on this a number of months ago about, like, privacy in Apple. There actually is a place in settings on your iPhone.

Stephen Robles: 14:16

I think this is on iPad as well. But if you go to your settings and you go to privacy, I'm not sure, or privacy and security, there is a place where you can see the profile that Apple has built based on your activity on the device to then customize ads like in the App Store or somewhere else. And so I think it is I'll have to try and find it. I don't know if it's oh, Apple advertising.

Jason Aten: 14:47

Yep. And then you can click on view ad targeting information.

Stephen Robles: 14:50

Yep. So settings, privacy and security, go down to Apple advertising, and then view ad targeting information, and it says obviously it uses your birth year, gender, and location by zip code. And then you can look under content categories and, like, for movies. It'll talk about, like, what are the kinds of movies Apple thinks you enjoy, which apparently is all of them in my case.

Jason Aten: 15:15

I mean, you still have a movies podcast, so that's good.

Stephen Robles: 15:18

That is true. So, yeah, that makes sense. But, like, books is maybe more of a better thing. It says books, there's 3 categories that it puts me in, arts and entertainment, business and personal finance, and nonfiction. And so these profiles that Apple has created for you, they talk about what these are based on, and they say this following information may be used to deliver more relevant ads to you on Apple apps, namely Apple News, maybe ads in the App Store.

Stephen Robles: 15:45

It says your personal data is not provided to third parties, and it says you're included in segments based on I'm reading from the settings page. You're included in segments based on your account information and interactions with Apple Services. These segments may be used to serve you relevant ads on the App Store, Apple News, and Stocks, so that's the other place you might see. So Apple is clear that this is not the voice assistant data, and I think that's, you know, I don't know if you get this a lot from family and friends, but so many people feel like they see, something on a Facebook ad that they talked about to a friend, and they're like, my phone's listening to me. And I I hear this as like a pervasive belief with people with smartphones.

Stephen Robles: 16:25

They're just like, I know my phone's listening to me, I know my app is I know everything's listening to me, and I think that's what Apple is trying to address here. I don't think it's gonna change anybody's mindset. If you already think that, then this is not gonna change your mindset, but Apple is trying to explicitly state that it does not use voice assistant data. It will use your profile data, birth year, gender, your purchase history for books and movies to build a profile, but not what you say to the voice assistants. And I I think I've said this in a past episode, but if you ever read the book, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg have you ever read that book?

Stephen Robles: 16:59

No. I feel like I mentioned it before. Fascinating book, and he talks about advertising in the book, and basically to listen to the words you say, like, if your devices were actually listening to you, the words you say is far less useful to target market you than your behavior, all the things you do on your devices and on the Internet, that's actually not connected to what you say. And he tells several stories with marketing and targeting that Target used, like Target the store and other companies, and basically all the different connections they have across the credit card companies, your bank accounts, like all this other data that is available to ad networks, and how that data can target you so precisely that hearing what you say really doesn't mean anything.

Jason Aten: 17:47

Like Right.

Stephen Robles: 17:48

They don't and they don't have access to that, and Apple stated specifically in this newsroom article that they don't use it for that, that doesn't go anywhere, all of that kind of stuff. So they try to address it. I don't know. Tell me how you feel about this.

Jason Aten: 18:01

Well, I think I mean, they are paying $95,000,000 to settle this. I think one of the reasons that they felt the need to also be so forcefully reiterate their privacy stance is that there were I think that the plaintiffs in the case had said that they, had talked about, like, specific as, like, Air Jordans or something like that. And then there was, like, a restaurant. They talked about these specific things, and then it triggered ads for those products. Now, first of all, you listed off the places where Apple shows ads.

Jason Aten: 18:34

Right? Apple News

Stephen Robles: 18:35

stocks. Apple App Store.

Jason Aten: 18:38

The App Store. But the App Store is ads for apps. You don't get Olive Garden ads in the App Store unless they have an app.

Stephen Robles: 18:44

That would be something. Hospitaliano.

Jason Aten: 18:46

I don't know. Like, it's just like unlimited breadsticks. Buy them here. We'll get 30%. Just do it, please.

Jason Aten: 18:51

Order them.

Stephen Robles: 18:52

Wanna download Pocket Cast? Yeah. How about some breadsticks?

Jason Aten: 18:54

Anyway, need some coffee while you're gonna want some Starbucks with your podcast anyway. So like, first of all, like that to me feels weird that like you were talking about the Olive Garden and where did you see this ad? Like maybe Apple News is the most likely place because I don't think that many people use the Stocks app and certainly not long enough to see ads. Like, anyway, Apple's not a huge advertiser is what I'm trying to say. But back in 2019, you'll remember that all of the, all of the big companies, Amazon, Google and apple had been having humans listening to the conversations for quality.

Jason Aten: 19:30

Like, and I had written about it. And even apple had said like, yes, we had been using human reviewers to review the quality, and then they did agree that they wouldn't do that and stuff. So, like, this is not it's not unprecedented that the information you say to one of these voice assistants is used in different ways. But what Apple wants to be clear is that we're not using your conversations to show you ads. So Right.

Jason Aten: 19:50

It's what's what's hard to figure out is, like, think about this Apple thing. We didn't do the thing that we got sued over, but we're going to settle it. And you only settle something like that if you think it's gonna cost you more Right. To defend it or or if you'd like to avoid discovery about the particular thing. Right?

Jason Aten: 20:09

So you settle this, you make it go away, and you don't have to spend a couple of years in court fighting a case where who knows, like, what might come out. And again, I'm not just to be clear, I'm not accusing Apple of anything nefarious. I'm just saying companies don't particularly want the secrets of how they operate these types of things to come out if they can avoid it, especially if they can make it go away for $95,000,000. Like, this is not Masimo or Epic who are like, nope. We're not doing this for sale for cheap.

Jason Aten: 20:33

Last thing I wanted to say, sorry. Who knew we were gonna have this much of a conversation about this, is you I went into that setting and I click on view ad targeting information and get the best answer of all, which is you've turned off personalized ads. So they don't have any information that they can use to show me ads. So if you go back to the screen before that and you just turn off the personalized ads, they won't they won't collect any of that information about you. And guess what?

Jason Aten: 20:56

The ads in Apple News are garbage anyway. So who cares if they're more relevant? Like, it's the difference between getting an ad for, I don't know something that might be relevant and getting an ad for toe fungus. I just ignore them all. Right?

Jason Aten: 21:07

Like, I'm just waiting. Seriously, Steven, I'm just waiting for Apple to add the high distracting elements to the news app.

Stephen Robles: 21:13

To the news app.

Jason Aten: 21:14

Because it's the worst offender.

Stephen Robles: 21:16

I know, but they're not gonna do that. That's they they gotta get the

Jason Aten: 21:19

social media. Your ads that you serve ink magazine on your own website. But if you somebody reads your article, we're gonna replace those ads with our own, and they're gonna be for toe fungus removal cream.

Stephen Robles: 21:29

Have you actually seen toe fungus ads in

Jason Aten: 21:31

All the time because I have personalized ads turned off.

Stephen Robles: 21:35

Are you sure you didn't just turn that off? Are you sure

Jason Aten: 21:37

you're just talking to me? I'm yeah. You keep talking, and I'm gonna find out what the what the most and the thing is it's always the exact same ads, like, through an entire article. It's like

Stephen Robles: 21:47

Right. Right.

Jason Aten: 21:47

Your inventory is so low that you're just showing the same ads.

Stephen Robles: 21:53

It's it's like some sometimes I will I've seen these memes on, like, TikTok and stuff where people are like when someone discovers you don't pay for YouTube premium and could and they see an ad on your TV and they're like what are they but I know I've I've sometimes watched Hulu on an account that that has ads. I forget what the context was and it was like literally the same ad twice in a row. Yep. And I'm like this is this is not good for the advertiser because it just becomes more annoying like this makes me less want to interact with this ad or whatever. Anyway.

Stephen Robles: 22:27

Yeah.

Jason Aten: 22:27

So yeah.

Stephen Robles: 22:28

Let yeah. Let me know when you see a toe fungus ad, but the next the next thing, a couple Apple rumors actually. This was actually this week, iOS 18.3, the public beta came out and in that public beta there were hints at a new quote invites app, from Apple that might be coming a standalone app to help you manage invites and maybe events and on the face of it this might seem very like oh wait a minute, the calendar app exists. You can send meeting invites that way. What's the deal?

Stephen Robles: 22:58

And I there's not a lot of information again. This is very early. All it is is like possible invites app, but maybe Apple is trying to create a Calendly type competition where an app that lets either reveal open times and dates for someone to book a meeting with you or maybe this is like the Facebook to kind of replace the Facebook group event organization which I feel like a lot of segments of society just kind of default to. Like, we're gonna play in an event and so it's gonna be on a Facebook event and we're just gonna invite people that way. Maybe this is trying to, like, obfuscate that and so it almost be like a by invite only or large event people who are not in your contacts or whatever like, your class, you know, your kids class or whatever.

Stephen Robles: 23:43

You're trying to organize a birthday party and maybe you send invites to the classmates. Maybe it's something like that. So interesting, another standalone app from Apple. Hopefully, this will be on more than just the iPhone because the journal app isn't. Yeah.

Stephen Robles: 23:56

There's still there's still no journal app on iPad.

Jason Aten: 23:59

Neither is the email priority prioritization categories.

Stephen Robles: 24:02

It's not

Jason Aten: 24:02

in the it's

Stephen Robles: 24:02

not in

Jason Aten: 24:03

the iPhone.

Stephen Robles: 24:03

Weird. Listen, I was 19 coming this year at Dub Dub. When we're there in person reporting live from the show floor, just make make it make a bug fix year. Okay, Apple? Just make the keynote, like, 30 minutes, just say we're gonna fix all the bugs, and maybe, like, one new feature.

Stephen Robles: 24:18

That's that's what we need. That's that's what I think we need, but I don't know. Did you did you is that maybe make sense? I mean, by time?

Jason Aten: 24:25

I have no thoughts. I have no idea what this means. Zero thoughts. I just don't I don't understand what this means. Like like you said you said the only important thing which is you can already do this.

Stephen Robles: 24:34

The calendar exists. Okay. And then Apple Video Doorbell last thing and then we're gonna gotta talk about meta. Mark Gurman over at Bloomberg saying that Apple is working on a face ID doorbell video lock device in a hopeful smart home push. This is just a rumor again.

Stephen Robles: 24:50

This is Gurman just talking about things that might be coming this year. I am hopeful that Apple does more. Well, full stop. I hope Apple does more. It does more in its software.

Jason Aten: 25:01

You hope Apple does.

Stephen Robles: 25:03

I hope Apple does things, to screen time, to fix Apple Intelligence, all of that. But when it comes to, like, what are two areas I I really wish Apple would push forward in so, like, maybe the whole industry would follow as is wants to do when Apple gets behind a thing? Smart home is one of those areas and also podcasting. I'll just throw that out there. Not because the industry needs to follow them, but because they need to follow the industry, like tools for creators, video and Apple Podcasts app, all of that kind of stuff.

Stephen Robles: 25:33

That's a side note. But when it comes to the smart home, Apple, I feel like for several years, championed smart home, things like the HomePod mini, when it announced the Matter integration coming to iOS, and having lots of partners for things. But, like, right now, if you wanted to get a video doorbell that worked in Apple Home, you have two options. You have the Logitech Circle View that uses HomeKit Secure Video, that's the one I use, and the Wemo Video Doorbell, which, side note, Belkin's not really focusing on smart home in the future, so that one's probably gonna go away. So you have one choice for a HomeKit Secure Video Doorbell.

Stephen Robles: 26:11

And for a company that is trying to say, we do smart home, that might be releasing a dedicated HomePod with a screen device this year for the smart home, they should do more with the smart home. And so sometimes that's making your own stuff or working with a very close partner, to make something like a video doorbell and and stuff like that. But and if it has face ID, that'd be kinda sweet. So I'm down for it.

Jason Aten: 26:33

Yeah. I the smart home is so weird because I mean, it just is.

Stephen Robles: 26:38

Period.

Jason Aten: 26:39

Also. Yeah. It's like there's a different so I think you have, like, these tiered levels of people's desire to like, most people just wanna be able to turn their lights on by shouting out into the void. Like, that's probably the thing most people care about. That's like base level.

Jason Aten: 26:54

And you can do that by replacing some light bulbs or putting in, like, the Lutron switches type stuff like that. So that's fine. People understand that. And then if you you can basically control those with any of the options, that's great. Like, that that kind of thing is like anything beyond that, though, you're you're in a system.

Stephen Robles: 27:10

Right.

Jason Aten: 27:10

Right? You have to choose a system. And, you know, like, we have all 3 in our home. We have some things that are home kit. Like, our Christmas lights come on from home kit.

Jason Aten: 27:19

Our children wake up in the morning because of their echo dots. Like, and

Stephen Robles: 27:22

I think you could say because of home kit

Jason Aten: 27:23

because you just

Stephen Robles: 27:24

you have an automation wake children up.

Jason Aten: 27:26

We have a prodding device that just pokes them. Yeah. You get them out of bed. And then, like, all of our cameras that we have are our nest cameras. Right?

Jason Aten: 27:32

So that's all part of the Google ecosystem and stuff. And it works fine because I just don't care that much. But it is weird because every once in a while, I'm like, well, I could create an automation. And then I'm like, where? Which one of the 3 systems would I have to go into to figure out how do I turn on the and actually, like, it's like the Christmas tree thing is great because I can just set up that automation in in HomeKit.

Jason Aten: 27:54

But it's it is like every time I have to think, like, where do I wanna attach this? It would be nice if it actually where they all work together.

Stephen Robles: 28:02

Yeah. I

Jason Aten: 28:02

don't think that happen.

Stephen Robles: 28:03

I don't think it's

Jason Aten: 28:03

gonna happen.

Stephen Robles: 28:04

Supposed to do that. It's not happening. It's not happening.

Jason Aten: 28:06

The I think matter is closer to going away than it is to fulfilling its promise.

Stephen Robles: 28:11

No. It's it's not gonna go away. I think it'll just be what it is now and not help anything more.

Jason Aten: 28:17

Okay. So that's what I'm saying. It is closer to the time when it was just didn't exist than it's going to be to ever fulfilling its promise.

Stephen Robles: 28:24

Okay. That's fair. I I also would say I'm actually I was actually planning a a HomeKit style video for the YouTube channel, and I bought a HomePod mini, and I was just curious. That thing's old. Right?

Stephen Robles: 28:33

And so I went to the MacRumors buyer's guide. The HomePod mini, there's only been one generation, just to be clear. There's No.

Jason Aten: 28:40

There was they released a new color.

Stephen Robles: 28:42

Oh, so oh, sorry. They released a new color. Right. Well, the internals have been the same for 1,549 days. It came out in October 2020 and has not been touched since, except for the new color.

Stephen Robles: 28:55

And, just like you can't even get it on sale on Amazon. You can't buy a HomePod mini on Amazon. You can buy it from, like, Best Buy or Target or whatever, but they rarely have, like, sales on the HomePod mini, which it's still a okay value at a $100, but to be 1,549 days old, still for $99, still no improvements, That's wild. Even just updating the chip.

Jason Aten: 29:19

The problem with them is that they're not actually that great of a speaker, and they are better as a listening to your voice assistant name device than the big ones are and I've ever been. They're better. But, again, number one rule of smart home is turn off listening on everything except for your watch. That's, like, my rule.

Stephen Robles: 29:39

That's the rule. I will say there's a pair of HomePod minis in my kid's bathroom because I like to play music there. And, my one of my sons has been listening to Defying Gravity every day, in the when he takes a shower. And I will say those HomePod Minis can pump some volume because it's loud even outside the bathroom.

Jason Aten: 29:57

But they don't sound great. That's the thing.

Stephen Robles: 29:59

They don't sound great, but they sound better than most $100 speakers. And that's probably why Apple can just keep them at a $100. I mean, the echos, like, I've had a couple echos that are in, like, that 50 to $70 range. Not great. Sounds like it's playing through aluminum foil.

Jason Aten: 30:13

That's because Amazon's goal is not for you to listen to anything. It's to provide a device with a microphone. Those are just microphones. Right. That's all they are.

Stephen Robles: 30:21

Those are listening for anything you might wanna order, and we'll just add it to your cart.

Jason Aten: 30:24

Instantly, you don't even have to know that. It's like you just could be in the kitchen talking about, honey, I think we really need some more, you know, planters dry roasted peanuts. And all of a sudden, a guy shows up at your doorbell, and then you get a notification summary that's, like, 6 people are at your door with peanuts.

Stephen Robles: 30:39

It can hear, like, the last paper towel off the roll and just immediately add it to your cart. Yep. That's just that's how quick that works. Alright. I wanted to we have to talk about the meta changes of Mark Zuckerberg announcing big changes to, like, threads and Facebook, and the big Delta announcements and all the CES stuff.

Stephen Robles: 30:56

Before we do, I actually wanted to show this. I forgot to show the screenshot of this, very interesting meeting invite that you sent your son. Can you explain what this is?

Jason Aten: 31:04

Well, we were talking about invites. I guess maybe an app would be helpful. My 10 year old and I have this weird form of trash talk that talk that's happening through calendar invites where we he wanted to play a game of war. And so I said we could do that tomorrow. This was on, like, Tuesday.

Jason Aten: 31:22

Yeah. Do you want me to send you a calendar invite? And the only reason I said that was because I wanted him to feel more like it was a sure thing.

Stephen Robles: 31:29

Yeah. I

Jason Aten: 31:30

wanted him to feel like I I have a date with dad kind of thing. Yeah. So, of course, I'm gonna just destroy Mason. My son's name is Mason. So my favorite thing about this was that he accepted the invitation, first of all.

Jason Aten: 31:40

He's like, yep. And then we did that, and then it was time for bed, last night. And he wanted to know if we could play another game. He said, we're gonna have to push that to tomorrow. And about a minute later, I got an invitation from him that says destroy dad.

Jason Aten: 31:53

And, of course, I accepted it.

Stephen Robles: 31:54

So That's that's amazing. Trash talking counter invites.

Jason Aten: 31:57

And the best part about this is my son only has an Apple Watch. And yet He's

Stephen Robles: 32:01

doing it from his Apple Watch.

Jason Aten: 32:02

So committed to this that he yep. He is, like, yep.

Stephen Robles: 32:05

That's dedication. Not good on you, Mason. He probably doesn't send that shit. But nice job. Alright.

Stephen Robles: 32:11

And before we get to the all the meta and changes that Zuckerberg announced, I want to thank our sponsor for today, which is HelloFresh. I'm so excited. I got a box yesterday and I even brought the recipes so I can share share them on camera. HelloFresh, it's the number America's number one meal kit kit. It makes cooking fun, easy.

Stephen Robles: 32:29

I'm just so excited I can't even speak. That's the problem because I'm excited about the recipes I just got. That's what it is. Listen, the holidays may be over, but going to grocery store, it's still a wartime proposition. Alright?

Stephen Robles: 32:39

You gotta fight through the aisles. You gotta fight people for pie crust, all that kind of stuff. Listen, let HelloFresh do the shopping for you. Easy to find time to eat well when you have 50 wholesome, hassle free meals to choose from each week. They deliver directly to your door.

Stephen Robles: 32:52

They came right to my door yesterday. HelloFresh's ready made meals go to the fridge to your fork in just 3 minutes. It's the same high quality ingredient and restaurant flavor you expect from HelloFresh, and they have a ton of different options, like if you wanna get packable snacks, quick breakfast, and a 100 add on items to add to your weekly box. And so I just got mine yesterday, so I haven't gotten a chance to cook them, but I wanted to share the the 3 meals I got in the box yesterday. I got a creamy chicken sausage and tortellini soup.

Stephen Robles: 33:19

I'm very excited for that one. That looks pretty good. The chimichurri chicken grain bowls. I actually love chimichurri stuff. I don't know how they knew.

Stephen Robles: 33:27

Maybe it was because my voice assistant They've been listening. I've sent it to because it was listening. Love chimichurri, so I'm very excited for that grain bowl. I think I'm gonna make that for lunch today, and you have mentioned, pork tacos. Maybe these might have been the ones you got, but one pan Santa Fe pork tacos.

Stephen Robles: 33:40

Actually, maybe I'll make that for lunch. I don't even know. This is a tough choice. But anyway, I'm excited for all of these because I know everything from HelloFresh tastes great, and now I got 3 meals, and you can even get it for individuals, families, or get the family size then you have leftovers for a couple days. It's great.

Stephen Robles: 33:55

So here's what you do. You can get up to 10 free meals and a free high protein item for life at hellofresh.com/primary10fm. Different link this time, and so I'll put that link in the show notes. One item per box with active subscription, free meals applied as discount on the first box. New subscribers only, varies by plan, but that's up to 10 free HelloFresh meals.

Stephen Robles: 34:17

Just go to hellofresh.com/primary, the number 10, f m. The link's in the show notes. It's just easier to click it there, but that's HelloFresh, America's number one meal kit. HelloFresh, excited for those tacos for lunch. So Mark Zuckerberg had some big announcements that he announced over thread as you do, as a meta product and so I just want to read some of these changes that Zuckerberg is making and Meta in general.

Stephen Robles: 34:42

He said, it's time to get back to our roots, this is quoting Mark Zuckerberg in his threads post, around free expression and giving people voice on our platforms. Here's what we're going to do. And number 1, this is a thread, replace fact checkers with community notes starting in the US. Meaning, maybe you can tell me, is this algorithmic, human fact checkers, or both?

Jason Aten: 35:04

They actually they outsource it to a third party.

Stephen Robles: 35:07

Right.

Jason Aten: 35:07

Content moderation experts or whatever.

Stephen Robles: 35:10

So so they're replacing those fact checkers with community notes a la x style. If you're still on x, you've probably seen community notes where basically users can make a community note on a post saying if it's not true or providing context. So they're gonna be doing so threads and meta, probably on Instagram too, plans to do that. Number 2, simplify our content policies and remove restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are out of touch with mainstream discourse. Number 3, change how we enforce our policies to remove the vast majority of censorship mistakes by focusing our filters on tackling illegal and high severity violations and requiring higher confidence for our filters to take action.

Stephen Robles: 35:51

Number 4, bring back civic content like politics. We're getting feedback that people wanna see this content again, so we'll phase it back into Facebook, Instagram and threads while working to keep communities friendly and positive. 5, move our trust and safety and content moderation teams out of California and our US content review to Texas. This will help remove the concern that biased employees are overly censoring content. I feel like that wouldn't anyway.

Stephen Robles: 36:18

Number 6, work with president Trump to push back against foreign governments going after American companies to censor more. And there's a bunch of replies and, yeah, just wild stuff. So basically, Zuckerberg is saying that meta, including threads, Instagram, and Facebook, they're gonna allow more civic content, politics, news, things that Adam Mosseri for since threads has launched, has said that they're not really interested in that. They're gonna be putting more of that content on the platform, allowing more of that content. They're going to move to community notes rather than fact checking systems, and focusing on quote unquote illegal content, which then really widens the funnel for the kind of content you might see on a platform, especially content that might not be great or nice, but if it's not illegal, it seems like threads is going to allow more of that.

Stephen Robles: 37:11

This seems in a response which this seems weird, like maybe it's a response to be more like x. I mean, that's this is what that's this sounds like. It like these policy changes makes it more like x is today, But also it may be a response to Blue Sky, which Atomosari and threads have been doing many things in response to Blue Sky, things like adding the starter packs for who to follow, changing things about, like, the features in threads to match, some of the things Blue Sky is doing. So I guess it's in a response to that, but I don't know. This was not well received.

Stephen Robles: 37:48

Most people on threads are like, hey, go follow me on Blue Sky because it's gonna get bad here real soon. I don't know. What what what how would you think about these things?

Jason Aten: 37:57

Well, I mean, of Mark Zuckerberg's superpower is to look and see which direction the wind is blowing, and then just start running as fast as he can in that direction. Like, you know, like, he this has been true with I mean, Instagram stories, Instagram reels, Instagram shopping. Right? Like, all of that is true. Instagram.

Jason Aten: 38:17

Like,

Stephen Robles: 38:17

just stories came from Snapchat.

Jason Aten: 38:19

Right. As an app was just a response to it was an opportunity to, like, try to take some share from what was sort of I think it was still true with Twitter at the time. I don't even remember. It doesn't matter. So I I think that this is another example of that.

Jason Aten: 38:33

And, honestly, whatever. That's fine. Like, you I mean okay. But I do think that the reason they're getting so much pushback, so if you read through not just that particular thread on threads, But if you read the, Meta's press release about this, there's a sentence in there. It says over the time over time, we ended up with too much content being fact checked that people would understand to be legitimate political speech and debate.

Jason Aten: 38:57

And I think the problem with that statement is no one agree. Like, the fundamental issue is that no one agrees what legitimate what is legitimate political speech and debate. Right? People don't like, and that's why in the list that you talked about, he's like about immigration and gender, issues that might be out of step with mainstream discourse or something like that. What he's the point is, like, there are on both sides, like, this is not even I'm not taking a political position here.

Jason Aten: 39:24

There are people who believe that anyone who disagrees with them is violent or is being like, is like, there's no agreement. Like, that's the problem with the state of free speech right now is like, the whole idea of free speech is that the government can't come in and force you to not share your opinion about something even if it's unpopular. But we don't actually all agree that that's true. We don't actually agree that the government should allow people now we're I know we're talking about meta here, but I'm just saying fundamentally, like, we don't even agree that people who say certain things shouldn't be punished because they're like, we've gotten to that point. And that's true on what regardless of what your political leanings are.

Jason Aten: 40:02

And so I think that from, like, meta, this is not surprising. Like, no. But I think the bigger thing you should people should be thinking about is like, why? Well, Mark Zuckerberg is probably tired of being a punching bag for Donald Trump. And look, I don't think there's anything in the world that Mark Zuckerberg would like more than to be able to call up president Trump and say, hey, you know that thing where they're supposed to be banning TikTok and you're trying to stop it.

Jason Aten: 40:29

Maybe don't. Right? Like, there's nothing like TikTok is not Facebook's or meta's biggest competitor, but it is one of its biggest threats. And it could and it could solve that problem real easily if it gets banned. Right?

Jason Aten: 40:42

And so how do they like, he's being political. Like, this is and that's fine. People are, like, surprised by that. But, again, like, has like, literally, the whole reason they got into the problem in the first place is because they were responding to at the time. You know?

Jason Aten: 40:58

Okay. So people argue, like, you're becoming conservative. You're MAGA. Whatever. Like, whatever you wanna say about that.

Jason Aten: 41:03

The whole reason they got there is because when Trump was elected the first time, there was so much blowback because it's like you influenced the election. You did this. You did that. Like, so they they went in a different direction. And I just think, like, the problem with, attaching your policy to the whatever the political winds is is people no longer will believe that you're acting in good faith.

Jason Aten: 41:22

Right? And so just don't be surprised when people accuse you of being blatantly political. And also, like, if if that's the case, then just own it and don't like, you're talking about free speech. There was an there was a line in there about, I'm gonna try to find it. So you can you can you can blather on for a couple minutes.

Stephen Robles: 41:40

Thanks. That's

Jason Aten: 41:40

not what you do. I'm blathering. What I should have said is I'm blathering on at this point. So you go ahead. I'm trying to find this quote.

Stephen Robles: 41:47

It is it feels not great, right now because however you feel about President-elect Donald Trump, it is clear that the tech companies and CEOs are doing things to saddle up, make sure they're good basically, which we didn't wanna talk about this in the Apple section, but Apple CEO Tim Cook donated $1,000,000, to Trump's inauguration. Him personally, not Apple, but obviously, it is because he needs Apple and Trump to be able to play ball. And the Zuckerberg announcement was also rumored to come after Zuckerberg being at Mar a Lago with Trump, meeting him and all this kind of stuff. And so, again, however you feel about it, whatever, it's just unfortunate that it seems clear that these tech CEOs and companies are making decisions specifically with the intent that they can be in a better position for the next 4 years rather than thinking about the user base, the user experience. And I I have more, well, I don't want I'm trying to think of a word to say.

Stephen Robles: 42:56

I don't want to say trust or faith or whatever. But I feel like meta, when it comes to moderation, will likely side on a more reasonable stance when it comes to moderation than x has. And I'm not even talking about specific topic moderation. I'm talking about just spam. Like I'm I will go to x still sometimes.

Stephen Robles: 43:21

And it's like the replies, the posts, it feels spammy because there is just not as good and I'm not talking about moderation on what is being said. Just moderation of, like, this account is not a real person. Like can we like I can see that. Does X not have the wherewithal to see that this account is a fake AI bot and we can can we not ban this account? Like that level of just what are we doing?

Stephen Robles: 43:47

That's what's happening on X right now. I do feel like Meta will not get that far out of the gate like they won't they won't be that loose I think. I don't think you'll see more bots on threads or Instagram, but I am curious how far they'll let it go, because you can go really far in what is being posted, even things that are mean or possibly hateful without it technically being illegal. And that's again if if you ever hear Eli talk about free speech on the Verge cast, like that is just the such the most nebulous area of like illegal versus hate speech and discrimination, like basically Mark Zuckerberg has now framed it where he can like you can basically see a lot of stuff on threads now and like their policy is they're not gonna take it down. Unless it is blatantly quote unquote illegal, and which what is illegal with free speech here in the US?

Stephen Robles: 44:44

So I don't know. Yeah.

Jason Aten: 44:45

It it was actually funny that Mark Zuckerberg specifically called out the EU and said that it's hard to build things there because they have too much too many censorship laws. And the EU users the EU's response was simply, we only make laws to prohibit illegal content, essentially. And it's like, isn't the definition of censorship when you make certain types of content illegal? Like, is that literally the definition of censorship? We can there may be some cases where we all agree, yes.

Jason Aten: 45:13

That's bad. It shouldn't be allowed, but you're that's still technically censorship. We people think of, like, censorship as unfair oppression on certain types of content, but literally, like, the definition of censorship is when you make certain types of content illegal and the EU has absolutely done that. And so Mark Zuckerberg's point is correct. It's like, it is harder to navigate those waters because of the the framework that they've, they just have a much different interpretation of what types of for for example, like in Germany, it is illegal to post certain things that are supportive of Nazis.

Jason Aten: 45:45

You can understand why in Germany that might be the case, but that's literally censorship. And in the United States, we can all agree that that kind of content is abhorrent and terrible, but under the first amendment it should not be illegal.

Stephen Robles: 45:58

Well, and I feel like the like, I'm glad that you explained it that way because the word censorship, at least here in the US, in our parlance, now basically means the algorithms are suppressing this. Because most of the feeds are algorithmic, when people feel like they have posted something and it doesn't get the same amount of views or likes or comments as their other content, they will say the algorithm is suppressing or censoring this topic or me specifically. And there are some people on threads that are very vocal about that. About how quote unquote I can't post about x y and z. And it's like, well I just saw this post about x y and z and I don't care to interact with it and I think maybe a lot of them feel that way too.

Stephen Robles: 46:44

And so like it's a shame that the word censorship is now synonymous with, like, the algorithm doesn't favor this content.

Jason Aten: 46:52

Right.

Stephen Robles: 46:53

And that gets super messy because it might just be that your followers or the users of threads just don't care to interact with that content. And that doesn't mean that threads is doing anything algorithmically to suppress your content. I just mean that people don't like it and people don't want to think about it.

Jason Aten: 47:09

Steven talks about pointing his Apple Pencil up towards the top. It's not that the algorithm is is, oppressing those views. It's just you're wrong. You have a bad take, buddy. That's right.

Jason Aten: 47:18

It is worth also mentioning everything I was talking about was, like, the government illegal, even content that's illegal. We can all agree that, like, that abhorrent certain types of like, talking about Nazis or whatever. Like, you can say those things, and they should not be illegal, but that also doesn't mean that a platform has to provide that a platform for you to post those things. Like, meta could simply say, like, we don't want that on our platform. It may be perfectly legal.

Jason Aten: 47:44

We just don't wanna be that kind of a community that has been sort of like the debate. And that is not a free speech thing because like meta like, you can build a blog, Steven, or you can, like, choose to moderate the contents on your posts or whatever. Like, any way you want. You can just be like, I don't wanna talk about the dots on the doc anymore. Just stop.

Jason Aten: 48:02

You can't talk about that here. Right?

Stephen Robles: 48:04

I'm censoring the conversation.

Jason Aten: 48:06

You can. It's because you you're, like, you're an individual and you have that that right to do that. And so it does get very messy because people just feel like yeah. But in Well,

Stephen Robles: 48:16

and the no. It is no clearer than when you go on to Facebook, which I don't recommend, but if you go on Facebook and you see yeah, I don't see as much anymore, but I do see it when people will have this long post and they're like, on this date and such and such, I do not, provide permission for Facebook to use my whatever, and and this is illegal whatever, and it's like, you really have no idea. Yeah. I just

Jason Aten: 48:45

wanna drive over to those people's houses and knock on their door and be like, listen, please, you're embarrassing yourself, take it down.

Stephen Robles: 48:50

I like and it it there's no use commenting or whatever, but it's like people still believe that that works. I don't know, maybe that's just, you know, different generation or whatever, but it's fundamentally people don't understand the difference between free public speech versus posting on threads or Facebook. That is a privately, it's a company. Like, they can decide how they what they do. And when you click agree on those terms and services that no one reads, like, that obfuscates any future you saying, darn, here's my thing.

Stephen Robles: 49:26

I don't know.

Jason Aten: 49:27

Yeah. I mean, the way to get Facebook to not use your content is just don't post any content on Facebook. And by the way, Steven, here's the thing. And this is actually really interesting to me because I imagine that the circle of people who post that and also the circle of people who believe intently that Facebook is listening to them are probably basically one circle. And so really, they should stop posting it and they should just shout it at their phone so that Facebook will hear them talking.

Jason Aten: 49:50

You just gotta be like, you can't use my content and Facebook will be listening.

Stephen Robles: 49:55

Ah. Anyway

Jason Aten: 49:55

The problem with posting that is that Facebook can't hear you when you post it.

Stephen Robles: 49:59

In space, no one can hear you post on Facebook. That's

Jason Aten: 50:03

That'd be glorious.

Stephen Robles: 50:04

Anyway, okay. I don't I don't wanna get worked up anymore. So that that's the changes in meta. We'll see we'll see how threads in Instagram does now with more political content. And, anyway, let's get to CES because there's

Jason Aten: 50:14

a bunch of big announcements. Oh, my gosh.

Stephen Robles: 50:16

We're an

Jason Aten: 50:17

hour into the show in

Stephen Robles: 50:18

the

Jason Aten: 50:18

middle of CES.

Stephen Robles: 50:19

Listen. This is big big news. The the biggest announcement that, you were almost gonna be there for but then not was it was the Delta keynote in the sphere, which they had a a plane slowly pull up. I saw, like, I saw the video or, like, kind of slowly pulled up. Anyway, they also made some big announcements in relation to their entertainment screens on the seatbacks, 4 k HDR, in the future.

Jason Aten: 50:41

OLEDs.

Stephen Robles: 50:42

OLEDs, like, amazing. A partnership with YouTube, which specifically interesting for me. You might be able to watch primary technology on a Delta seatback one day ad free. Basically premium, YouTube premium, in flight on Delta flights. They said there was gonna be like select content.

Stephen Robles: 51:01

So I'm just saying, if anyone's listening you have wait, you have connections with the CEO. Didn't haven't you interviewed him?

Jason Aten: 51:06

I have interviewed him. Not about this. He's been busy.

Stephen Robles: 51:08

Well, listen. Just send him a text, go down to his villa, and say, make sure primary tech is on the first screen. He's not villa. He whatever.

Jason Aten: 51:16

I should see what I can do. Maybe we can get some placement there.

Stephen Robles: 51:18

This is what I'm saying. Anyway, but but I know you you're the Delta guy. I know you're so tell tell me about the announcement.

Jason Aten: 51:25

Yeah. I noticed you didn't bring up my article, which is totally fine.

Stephen Robles: 51:28

Where where you didn't where's the link? Where's the link? I just gave

Jason Aten: 51:30

it to you. So it's fine. Take time. So okay. They did they do have the partnership with YouTube, which I think is really smart, and I do actually wanna write about that.

Jason Aten: 51:37

I have not written about it yet, but I I will. But they did one of their other big things is they have rolled out what they call Delta Concierge, which is sort of this personalized, AI powered experience that will use your travel information and and other data that the the Delta has about you to send you information, but then you can also interact with it by just talking in natural language. So in in the beginning, it'll they showed the whole a whole video of, like, a person's journey to the airport, and it'll, like, send them a notification. It's like, travel is really busy. You should consider leaving at this time or in this particular case, it's like you should take a Joby air taxi, which is actually not a thing you can do yet, but Delta has a partnership with them.

Jason Aten: 52:17

So of course, that's what they're gonna show off. Right? Like, it's like you're trying to get to LaGuardia or whatever JFK and traffic is so bad. You're gonna miss your flight. So you should take an air taxi instead and you get you get to the airport and it's like, you should take this security lane because the line is the shortest.

Jason Aten: 52:30

And then it's like, it'll it has an augmented reality, like navigation through airports and stuff. So all that sounds really cool. If you scroll down, like, it even extends to the seat back. It'll it'll yeah. So that's an example of one of the yep.

Jason Aten: 52:42

It'll send you notifications. But it's like you could actually if you're logged into the seat back, you can make a reservation at a a nearby restaurant when you land, that kind of thing. It'll tell you where baggage is. So it's trying to do personalized interactions and allow you to interact with it the way you might like with chat g p t where you talk to it in just normal language instead of trying to guess. Like, what's the magic word to pull up my reservation?

Jason Aten: 53:03

In the future? And I did ask about this that there's that they talk about, like, the ability for this to help for concierge to help people when their flight gets delayed, which would have been great this week or to to get rebooked because, you know, if I was canceled or whatever, to just be able to simply say to it and this is me interpreting what would be wonderful is to be able to say like, hey. It looks like my flight's canceled. Can you show me the other flights that get in roughly at the same time today? And not have to, like, navigate through 6 screens and type in, like, my destination and my origin and the dates and the time, like, all this stuff.

Jason Aten: 53:32

I'm just be able to talk to it and have it pull up those options for you. To be fair, Delta already does a pretty good job if your flights are delayed or canceled of giving you proactive options, but to just be able to to say it, like or I need to change my flight for tomorrow. Right? Like and just have it know what that means, pull up your information and do that. So I think I think it's really interesting.

Jason Aten: 53:49

Delta, like, before this before CES really even started, stole the whole show because, I mean, if you throw a party for a couple thousand people at sphere, like and you have Tom Brady and Viola Davis on stage at different times, they had a they had a motorcycle come in from Uber and deliver them coffee. Like, that's the CEO of, the Dara, I can't say his name right now.

Stephen Robles: 54:12

I'm so sorry. I apologize.

Jason Aten: 54:13

Mhmm. Castro because Castro Shawi, I think, is how you say.

Stephen Robles: 54:17

Yeah. That's true. But, anyway,

Jason Aten: 54:18

I still probably said it wrong, so I apologize. But, anyway, brought in a coffee order, like, because they, for a long time, Delta, their their ride share partner has been Lyft, and they've ended that partnership, and now it's Uber. And so, anyway, it was a big deal. Like, I mean, it was a pretty well produced thing. It also happens to be Delta's a 100th.

Jason Aten: 54:36

We talked about this, I think, before. Like, this year is their 100th birthday. And so they wanted to throw a big party. And so I feel like those stakes are pretty high because a lot of these companies just do small press releases from the show floor. And, Ed Bastian was like, hold my latte.

Stephen Robles: 54:53

I mean, it's it was impressive. I saw a lot of YouTubers were at the event. Renee Ritchie, the creator liaison for YouTube, was that the sphere for the Delta announcement obviously because of the partnership with YouTube announcement. But that's yeah. Pretty wild.

Stephen Robles: 55:06

I mean, Delta. Okay. Doing it. Yep. Doing it.

Stephen Robles: 55:09

Alright. And there was a bunch of other CES announcements. I'm just let's jam through these because we're now now the lightning round you actually put a wearable one which I can't wait to blow your mind in a second but this was, more AI wearables where they will listen to everything all the time. Jason, let me tell you right now. I already got something like this.

Jason Aten: 55:27

Okay. You must

Stephen Robles: 55:28

have not seen this video on my channel. See this thing right here?

Jason Aten: 55:32

I've been busy this week. I'm sorry. Is that bad?

Stephen Robles: 55:34

No. This is a couple weeks ago. This is the, the Plod AI pin. Now listen

Jason Aten: 55:40

That's not a pin though. It's not a rope.

Stephen Robles: 55:42

I don't know why they call it the pin. They should have called it the pendants.

Jason Aten: 55:44

Yeah. Except for that, it was probably already trademarked name.

Stephen Robles: 55:46

It was probably already trademarked.

Jason Aten: 55:47

Rewind AI people make a pendant.

Stephen Robles: 55:49

Anyway, this is this is the kind of wearable that the article was talking about, but this can record audio, sends it to the app on your phone, transcribes it, summarizes it, does all the kind of stuff with it. Listen, of all the AI gadgets, and I have many sitting around me, I actually like this idea, and not even for like, there are, like, work use cases. Like, if you're going for a walk and you just wanna talk some ideas or whatever, and this might sound a little weird, but just hear me out. I like recording audio at family gatherings, especially when there's, like listen. I know that sounds listen.

Stephen Robles: 56:23

Listen.

Jason Aten: 56:23

Especially when my brother-in-law, the stock broker, is talking about how to love to support those conversations.

Stephen Robles: 56:28

I actually just looked up the Martha Stewart insider trading story last night for my wife to tell her why she went to jail. Anyway anyway, listen. If you I did this with the voice memos app on my iPhone usually, but when you have a family gathering, especially with older relatives like grandparents, in our case, my kids have great grandparents who are very much alive and, like, tell wild stories. There is a personal thing that photos and videos are great, but it changes the dynamic when you pull up your phone and, like, you're gonna record a video. And so one of the things I had done in the past was start a voice memo on my iPhone and just leave it on the table.

Stephen Robles: 57:05

And I recorded many things over the years and not to ever post or use anywhere, but like I have recordings of my son when he was like 7 years old reading a Doctor. Seuss book. And like that is a cherished memory and a really awesome thing to hear and it's a different medium when you're just listening to it as opposed to seeing it. And so I've liked doing that over the years and whenever we have like Thanksgiving or Christmas or whatever, everyone sits around the table telling wild stories. Who knows what's true or what's not?

Stephen Robles: 57:33

But everyone is telling wild stories and so recording those for just memories, I find to be worthwhile. And so I actually use this on Thanksgiving. Everybody knows using it, you know, it's not like I'm posting this somewhere without their knowledge. And it was kind of a nice way, like just a personal like a personal memory box of the audio that's happening, with relatives and stuff. So this will be the one AI gadget, not that I defend, but then I will say might actually have a use case.

Jason Aten: 58:01

Mhmm. That's all.

Stephen Robles: 58:02

And you

Jason Aten: 58:03

know, over the holidays, I was having a conversation with someone and they said to me, you're not gonna use this for a podcast, are you? They they were like, are you recording this? These questions And

Stephen Robles: 58:11

you just did. No. No. No.

Jason Aten: 58:13

The question and answer, not the

Stephen Robles: 58:15

I know. I know.

Jason Aten: 58:15

I know. I'm just saying.

Stephen Robles: 58:17

No. No. No. I it is only for personal use. But it's listen, it's worthwhile.

Stephen Robles: 58:21

And and I've talked about it before, but, like, I have audio recordings of my dad, just telling stories. There was actually one time when so it was my grandmother who passed away and we went to the funeral in New York and it was my dad, his brother, who lives in California we never see. It was like one of the few times, he and his brother and sisters were all together in one place and we were at, like, this pizza parlor in New York City and I just threw my iPhone down, recorded a voice memo and, like, I had that conversation, like, saved and that is, that's meaningful. So anyway, because you I think there's use cases. But anyway, let's not get sappy.

Stephen Robles: 58:56

Let's talk about NVIDIA Because NVIDIA

Jason Aten: 58:59

I'm talking about graphics cards.

Stephen Robles: 59:00

Because they had a big keynote. I believe this was Monday night of CES announcing a $3,000 AI supercomputer called Digits. And this is I mean, this is huge. I mean, NVIDIA has been killing it on the graphics processor game because of all the large language models. They're basically powering the AI bubble right now, but now they might, make a computer and this is actually The Verge.

Stephen Robles: 59:21

All the CES coverage is basically, like, gonna be from The Verge because that's the one subscription I pay for and they they have really good CES coverage. But this is what the little mini computer looks like powered by an Nvidia chip. It'll be a Windows PC, but, yeah, Nvidia making a computer maybe?

Jason Aten: 59:36

I guess so.

Stephen Robles: 59:39

I mean That's that's interesting.

Jason Aten: 59:41

There's a lot going on here. I mean, Nvidia definitely had a lot of stuff that they announced. And one of the things that it's kinda like well, I mean, they introduced new actual, like, not just the supercomputer graphics cards that are now used exclusively exclusively for AI. Like, they actually up updated the RTX whatever line of I mean, you can tell, like, we're both PC gamers here, so we know a lot about this stuff. But I feel like like, it's interesting.

Jason Aten: 01:00:08

I mean, they have they're in an interesting position because they have become one of the largest companies in the world as a result of it of the fact that every company is so dependent on AI and AI is so dependent on NVIDIA at this point. And so they now have to sort of do what they can to extend that. And because the I don't think it I don't think there's any debate that AI is simultaneously going to get a lot bigger and also still be a bubble at the same time. Kind of like it's like it's precarious. At any moment, it could be like, oh, wait.

Jason Aten: 01:00:41

It actually we can't scale these things. Oh, wait. They just we can't avoid the fact that they just soak up all your information and lie to you. Like, there are a lot of things that could go wrong, but also before that happens, like, they're gonna take all the money they can.

Stephen Robles: 01:00:54

Right. Exactly. So those Nvidia I will go quickly. So LG, they have another wild TV. They used to have a briefcase TV.

Stephen Robles: 01:01:01

Now they have Stand by Me sequel, which is a portable TV with, like, a strap. Just walk around with the TV, I guess.

Jason Aten: 01:01:08

I guess so. I mean, I've seen a lot. That's the that is the only that's the only thing I was really sad about not being in Vegas

Stephen Robles: 01:01:16

Yeah.

Jason Aten: 01:01:16

Was the fact that there are a lot of TV. Completely wild.

Stephen Robles: 01:01:20

Yeah. Well, this is one of those. That's the the weird TV. But in addition to this was LG. Right?

Stephen Robles: 01:01:26

The stand by me? Yeah. LG also announced a new UltraFine monitor, which if you remember, the ultra fine monitors were like the Apple blessed monitor before they made the Studio Display and Pro Display XDR. And so this is a new 32 inch 6 k ultra fine monitor with Thunderbolt 5. Looks really nice.

Stephen Robles: 01:01:46

I mean, it looks very much like a studio display stand, but ultra thin stand, monitor looks great, 6 k, it's gonna be expensive, $25100, could be an alternative to Apple's displays.

Jason Aten: 01:02:02

Well, I mean, actually, just to be clear, the price you I don't think they've announced their price. That was the price of a comparable Dell monitor, so they're just guessing Oh,

Stephen Robles: 01:02:08

I'm sorry. Yeah. That's right.

Jason Aten: 01:02:09

That it could be. But here's the thing. If it's less than $6,000, it's a pretty good deal because this thing is really not competing with the Studio Display. It's really competing with, like, the Pro Display XDR at this point. Right?

Jason Aten: 01:02:19

Because it's a 6 k k display.

Stephen Robles: 01:02:21

Yeah. But I don't know if it's an HDR display. I don't see that. So just because it's Thunderbolt 5, but I don't know about HDR in nature, but it looks great.

Jason Aten: 01:02:30

But, I mean, the Pro Display XDR is not actually, like, a real HDR anyway. It's an

Stephen Robles: 01:02:34

Is it really?

Jason Aten: 01:02:35

On XDR. Well, I mean, it's a it it probably so, like, it probably is capable of the dynamic range, but it Right. It's still only it's not even mini LED. Like, it's not an OLED. It's not mini LED.

Jason Aten: 01:02:45

Right. It does have a lot of dimming zones, but it's I don't know. I don't know. I think that that's why they don't call it an HDR. That's why they call it.

Stephen Robles: 01:02:52

Gotcha. I don't I don't own an XDR in case

Jason Aten: 01:02:55

you're I don't actually either. So.

Stephen Robles: 01:02:57

I'm always excited about chargers, and so, Basis has some new chargers, with retractable USB C cables. But this was the one I was actually really interested in. It's a car charger with 2 retractable USB C cables, and it plugs directly into your, what do you call that? I I I call it a cigarette lighter adapter and then people yell at me because they were like, it's not that.

Jason Aten: 01:03:17

I mean, super is. Like, what do you mean it's not that?

Stephen Robles: 01:03:21

People get upset. They they say it's like the, it's the auxiliary something.

Jason Aten: 01:03:26

Auxiliary power outlet?

Stephen Robles: 01:03:27

It's outdated to call it a cigarette lighter adapter, but I when I was growing up it was literally a cigarette lighter. And I remember pushing it in, popping it out, and looking at how hot it was and debating whether or not I wanted to touch it.

Jason Aten: 01:03:38

Mhmm.

Stephen Robles: 01:03:38

Anyway, But this that looks cool. And I also realized Anker has one of these but with only one cable out now, so I ordered one as you do. There's that. This one, Lenovo's rollable laptop is a $35100 laptop that looks like a normal size laptop, but then, the screen extends. How do you like that?

Jason Aten: 01:04:00

I mean, this is yeah. I'm not even surprised by any of this. This is what CES is. It's a bunch of weird gadgets that people just throw against the wall to see, like, is is it David Pierce uses? Is this a thing?

Stephen Robles: 01:04:11

Is this a thing? That's a thing. Another thing. Anchor. This one looks pretty cool.

Jason Aten: 01:04:18

This one this one I can get behind. You need this for your Imac on the be wait, never mind, it wasn't on the beach.

Stephen Robles: 01:04:23

I didn't go on the beach. I'm sorry. We'll talk about this thing. Anyway, Anker has a solar umbrella that basically can the umbrella is solar panels, and then there's like a USB C connection at the bottom and it can produce up to a 100 watts of total output and, yeah, while you're on the beach charge your stuff with an umbrella. Come on, that's pretty cool.

Stephen Robles: 01:04:45

That's

Jason Aten: 01:04:46

cool. I mean, it is kinda cool, but listen. It's okay. This is a cool idea.

Stephen Robles: 01:04:52

Cool idea.

Jason Aten: 01:04:53

The guy that shows up to the beach with this, not at all cool.

Stephen Robles: 01:04:56

No. No. He is cool. Now if you show up to the beach with that huge anchor, like No. Battery on wheels and the umbrella.

Stephen Robles: 01:05:03

That's too much.

Jason Aten: 01:05:04

Not cool at all.

Stephen Robles: 01:05:05

That that Yeah.

Jason Aten: 01:05:05

I guess if you just stuck the umbrella in the sand and then you put it in your phone, maybe. Okay. That's fine.

Stephen Robles: 01:05:10

You'd be you'd be popular on the beach. People I think people would hit you up for that.

Jason Aten: 01:05:13

I don't wanna be popular on the beach. I wanna be left alone.

Stephen Robles: 01:05:16

Fair enough. Fair enough. Anker also had some other new chargers, like, 140 watt wall chargers. I just want I want chargers like this, but with no USB a.

Jason Aten: 01:05:23

Why? Why are we still putting USB a on anything?

Stephen Robles: 01:05:27

I think it's because, like, it can't sustain 4 USB c output, whatever. May maybe that's the deal. But this is an Anker charger, 1 40 watts, has a screen on it, which is cool. But 3 USB c ports, 1 USB a. Just take the USB a out.

Stephen Robles: 01:05:41

Like, I don't want this with the USB a. Let's just

Jason Aten: 01:05:44

Steven, without looking, what year was USB a introduced?

Stephen Robles: 01:05:49

Shoot. 1987. No. That's that's not

Jason Aten: 01:05:56

right. Right? 1996.

Stephen Robles: 01:05:57

Oh, 96. Oh, she's okay.

Jason Aten: 01:05:59

It was that's I mean, it's like what? Almost 30

Stephen Robles: 01:06:03

31. Years ago. Years old. Yeah.

Jason Aten: 01:06:05

It's not it. I mean Stop.

Stephen Robles: 01:06:07

Stop it.

Jason Aten: 01:06:08

It's 29 years old. I'll do the math for you, but that's okay.

Stephen Robles: 01:06:10

Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Jason Aten: 01:06:11

My point is, why are we still putting USB a on anything?

Stephen Robles: 01:06:15

Stop it. Just don't do it. And all all of you smart home stuff listen. All the smart the new smart home gadgets that are coming out this year, if I see a USB a cable in any of those boxes, throwing it out. Not even gonna

Jason Aten: 01:06:27

send it. Steven, do you wanna know hold on. Just this is fun. Do you wanna know what is newer than USB a? FireWire.

Stephen Robles: 01:06:35

Okay. That makes sense.

Jason Aten: 01:06:36

The 30 pin adapter.

Stephen Robles: 01:06:37

Yeah. That makes sense. Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Aten: 01:06:39

All of these things that have come and died. Yes. Came after USB a.

Stephen Robles: 01:06:44

I love the shirts where it's like USB a. It shows, like, one orientation, it says wrong. Flip it over, it says wrong. Flip it over again, right. And listen, pro tip, not that anyone needs this because USB a should be dead, but if you see the USB a and the holes are on top, like you can actually see into the holes of the connector, that's supposed to be pointed up.

Stephen Robles: 01:07:06

Like that's if that's pointed up and it goes in. Anyway, USB A should die. Roborock, there's a bunch of robot vacuums and I'll be covering them on my channel for sure.

Jason Aten: 01:07:16

Of course.

Stephen Robles: 01:07:16

But the Roborock, Saros Z70, now has an arm. Did you see this? It has an arm to pick up clothes.

Jason Aten: 01:07:24

Yeah. This is this is I mean

Stephen Robles: 01:07:26

Now it can pick up your socks and stuff with the little robotic arm and, I guess, pile them somewhere.

Jason Aten: 01:07:32

No. We have to just carry them around for the rest of the day until you come home and take them.

Stephen Robles: 01:07:37

It's a little tiny grabber arm that will pick up your clothes.

Jason Aten: 01:07:41

That is actually terrifying.

Stephen Robles: 01:07:43

Smile as

Jason Aten: 01:07:44

a grabber arm.

Stephen Robles: 01:07:47

This is why I should watch the show at youtube.com/atprimarytechshow. Apparently, it can only pick up socks though. This whole video is just it picking up socks. Sometimes not picking up socks because I can't grab it. Like, I can't imagine it's gonna do a, like shirt or a pair of pants.

Stephen Robles: 01:08:01

You know what I mean? I don't know if this the Roborock Casino might be

Jason Aten: 01:08:04

in his bedroom. It's gonna throw out its back.

Stephen Robles: 01:08:07

My if this were to work in my kid's bedroom, it would need to be able to pick up probably £50 of clothes quickly.

Jason Aten: 01:08:13

Yeah. So, Steven, here's a parenting pro tip. I mean, I've heard that the problem with stuff like this, if it would actually do that and clean up your kids' room is then your children will never clean their room because they don't have to because now this thing will. And it's just like if what you really want it so you have to decide, do you really just want your kids' room clean? Or do you are you trying to grow well rounded, developed, responsible people that are grown to human beings that can hold on a job and take care of themselves?

Stephen Robles: 01:08:40

This is this is so logical.

Jason Aten: 01:08:42

Most of the time, we just want the room clean. Right?

Stephen Robles: 01:08:44

Mostly we just want the room clean. I feel like there's some logical fallacy here either a red herring or a straw man or a ad hominem or something because the fact is the room is just not clean. Like, no matter what happens, and we we impress upon our kids many many times to clean said room and it's it's a it's a battle, it's it's a constant battle. I'm like, why are there 18, Zevia cans on your desk? It's like, well I'm still drinking this one.

Stephen Robles: 01:09:08

Like, yeah that's one. That's one of 18. Anyway, I drink a lot of Zevo here. Alright. Real quick.

Stephen Robles: 01:09:13

Last last couple of things. Aqara unveiled a bunch of smart home gear. We'll be working with Apple Home, and the one that I'm really interested in, that's on, like, light switches, updated video doorbell, things like that. But they have this big panel, PanelHub s one plus. This will be coming to the US, and you'll replace a light switch and then you'll also be able to control your smart home from the panel.

Stephen Robles: 01:09:35

This is similar to what Brilliant tried doing. And if you remember Brilliant, they were gonna go away. I think they went bankrupt. I'm not sure if you can even get their stuff anymore. But Aqara, they're pretty established, and it would be cool to have a screen like this to control your smart home.

Stephen Robles: 01:09:49

We'll see who wins. Will Apple make a screen for your home to control your smart home or will Aqara beat them to the punch? And so I'm gonna try and get a review unit. That looks pretty cool. I would like that.

Jason Aten: 01:10:01

I know I know you would.

Stephen Robles: 01:10:02

Alright. Last last smart home thing. Schlage Schlage Schlage. I don't know how to say that. They announced another home kit lock which if you're not, I've done a lot of home kit lock reviews on my channel and the Schlage AimCode Plus is the only one that had thread built in of, like, right now of smart locks that you can get that work with home key.

Stephen Robles: 01:10:22

And it works really good because it has thread, so it responds quickly. Well, Schlage announced the Sense Pro with an ultra wideband chip. This will be the first time that it will be ultra wideband where you can actually just walk up to the lock and it will unlock using the express mode, which you might see in the Apple Home app if you have a smart lock about turning on express mode, but no lock supports it right now. Like you can't do it. Some will do it with a third party app.

Stephen Robles: 01:10:46

So like Level Lock, you can give the app permission to unlock the lock and then using bluetooth when you approach, it will unlock it that way. But it's not the built in Apple feature that requires an ultra wideband chip. This is the first one, ever that will actually have a ultra wideband chip, and we'll use Apple's built in smart home protocol to unlock as you approach. And so I'm excited, to try that. That looks cool.

Jason Aten: 01:11:11

So does okay. So I'm this is a real question. It's gonna sound like I'm trolling you, but I'm not.

Stephen Robles: 01:11:15

K.

Jason Aten: 01:11:16

I wanna establish that a problem. But, like, does ultra wide band solve the problem that Bluetooth has that if you had a Bluetooth lock that would unlock with proximity, if you walked up to it and someone who you did not want at your front door comes to the door and rings the doorbell and you walk up to the door and realize, I don't wanna open my door for this person. And now Bluetooth just unlocked it.

Stephen Robles: 01:11:39

That is a good question. I feel like it would probably not solve that, and you might need to leave your phone away. Leave your phone in, somewhere else.

Jason Aten: 01:11:48

It feels like the biggest problem with these proximity locks is that, like, you don't only walk up to your door from the outside. In fact, our front door, I walk past it 10 times a day because we have a we have a, like, a it used it's like a family room, and then our main bedroom are on opposite ends of our foyer right there. So we walk I walk I don't wanna be locking my door. I'm locking my door every time I go by there, so I'm just curious.

Stephen Robles: 01:12:11

That's a good point. I don't know. Ideally, there would be some automations that you can only be active sometimes. Mhmm. Like maybe when I leave, activate express mode.

Jason Aten: 01:12:22

Mhmm.

Stephen Robles: 01:12:22

And then when I return, like deactivate it 5 minutes after I return, or something like that.

Jason Aten: 01:12:27

Gotcha.

Stephen Robles: 01:12:28

But that is one of the improvements Apple needs to make in the smart home, because there's not a lot of automation options like that, so. Anyway, those are the stuff I saw at CES that was cool. If there's anything else, we'll cover it next week, but, for our personal tech real quick, we're gonna get to I have some screen time questions for Jason. We're gonna get to that in a bonus episode, but you have a new Apple Vision Pro take?

Jason Aten: 01:12:48

I do, but hold on. I have one CES question.

Stephen Robles: 01:12:50

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Jason Aten: 01:12:51

That I only contributed, like, 3 things to this entire thing. So, what is the one thing that you heard about from CES that you most wish you had been able to see in person if if if you'd attended?

Stephen Robles: 01:13:02

The people. I know that's kinda cheating. That is But That's

Jason Aten: 01:13:05

not the right answer.

Stephen Robles: 01:13:06

I know that's not the question. But like all the Smart Home creators like Eric Wielander and Shane Watley, they were all there and I would have loved to to meet them in person. Fernando Silva, he I think he listens to this show from 9 to 5 Mac. He was there, and Renee Ritchie was there. Brandon Butch, YouTube guy was there.

Stephen Robles: 01:13:24

That's what I that's what I most miss not having gone. When it comes to the tech side, I mean, I would have been excited to, like, go to the smart home booths and, like, do little selfie videos and be like, hey, look at this. But honestly, from afar, even all the announcements I just said, which were the most exciting, you know, that's how I feel. Okay. Hopefully, I articulated that well.

Jason Aten: 01:13:48

I think I I think you can't wait to go next year.

Stephen Robles: 01:13:51

Listen, I still wanna go. Like you said, I wanna go one time. I don't know if it'll ever be in a place besides Las Vegas. It would be like No. It would

Jason Aten: 01:13:58

always be in Vegas.

Stephen Robles: 01:13:59

Is it because of, like, the companies coming from Asia that it has to be on the West Coast? Is that part of the reason why? Or just the size?

Jason Aten: 01:14:06

Also, there is there are are there any cities in the world with more hotel rooms than Las Vegas? I don't think so.

Stephen Robles: 01:14:11

Orlando, Florida?

Jason Aten: 01:14:12

You think it has more hotel rooms than Vegas?

Stephen Robles: 01:14:14

Listen. I went to Vegas for a podcast conference and, like, I see the strip and all the hotels. I also drive through Orlando. And, like, Orlando has unlimited theme parks with tons of hotels. There are tons of hotels out there.

Jason Aten: 01:14:31

Okay. Now Here, hold on. Hold on. I don't okay. I'm trying to find out which one has the but, like, all 5 of the top 5 hotels largest hotels in the world are all in Vegas.

Stephen Robles: 01:14:43

Las Vegas?

Jason Aten: 01:14:44

Vegas has a 154,000 hotel room.

Stephen Robles: 01:14:47

Okay. That's not the article I'm looking at, but okay. This this one all these articles are old. Why is this 100 did you say a 164,000?

Jason Aten: 01:14:55

154,000. How many hotel rooms?

Stephen Robles: 01:14:58

It's outpacing Orlando, Florida. Orlando is next.

Jason Aten: 01:15:02

Orlando's a 130,000. Okay. So I will say that that's that's fair. Orlando had significant more. The reason is most people might not think like, all of the hotel like, the Venetian is 6,000 hotels rooms or something like that.

Jason Aten: 01:15:14

It doesn't look like it's that bid, but all these hotels are enormous. And there's probably like 7 or 8 convention centers in Vegas that there's I know there's not 7 or 8 convention centers. No.

Stephen Robles: 01:15:25

There's a few.

Jason Aten: 01:15:25

Either one of those resorts has a convention center of sorts. Right? And then there is the convention center, which I don't know which convention center is the largest. I mean, it might be McCormick Place in Chicago, but, like, I'm pretty sure that Las Vegas Convention Center is one of the biggest. So that's why.

Stephen Robles: 01:15:40

Well, yeah. The the number oh, you were right. McCormick Place in Chicago, 2,600,000 square feet.

Jason Aten: 01:15:47

There we go.

Stephen Robles: 01:15:47

That is the largest convention center. And then Orlando is after that. Orlando's second. The Orange County Convention Center, 2,100,000 square feet.

Jason Aten: 01:15:55

Gotcha.

Stephen Robles: 01:15:55

And then 3rd is the Las Vegas Convention Center at 2.5. Wait.

Jason Aten: 01:15:59

Wait. I think that's bigger than 2.1.

Stephen Robles: 01:16:01

What in the world? Never mind. Las Vegas is still big. Orlando is 3rd. Orlando is 3rd.

Stephen Robles: 01:16:06

And then Atlanta, Georgia World Congress Center is 4th.

Jason Aten: 01:16:10

And it looks like Vegas and McCormick Place are almost exactly the same size.

Stephen Robles: 01:16:14

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I see. I see.

Stephen Robles: 01:16:15

Okay. Very good. So okay. But what's your Vision Pro Take?

Jason Aten: 01:16:19

Oh, yeah. My Vision Pro Take. So I You

Stephen Robles: 01:16:21

still have it, by the way. Right? You haven't sent it back?

Jason Aten: 01:16:23

Oh, it's right here.

Stephen Robles: 01:16:23

Yep. Whoops. The light seal just fell off.

Jason Aten: 01:16:29

That's it's just my That's

Stephen Robles: 01:16:30

how it does.

Jason Aten: 01:16:30

Totally fine.

Stephen Robles: 01:16:31

That's how it do.

Jason Aten: 01:16:32

Designed to come apart into 7 pieces. My so here's my take. First of all, and this is the this part of my take is not new. The improved Mac mirroring in the vision pro is killer. Like, absolutely killer.

Jason Aten: 01:16:47

So good that there are times when I so I had been using the vision pro, still using it every day but it was mostly using vision pro apps

Stephen Robles: 01:16:57

to do things.

Jason Aten: 01:16:58

Okay. But now I almost exclusively just use the Mac and then it might have something else over in the corner like if I'm like, oh, why don't I open the music app over here or whatever. And I think the vision pro is actually a pretty good deal if you are someone who needs a big display because here's think about my math this way. A studio display is like what? $1600 $1700 if you get the adjustable

Stephen Robles: 01:17:24

1600 with stand. Yeah.

Jason Aten: 01:17:25

But isn't it like 1700 with the adjustable stand or whatever?

Stephen Robles: 01:17:28

Yes. Of course.

Jason Aten: 01:17:29

So that's $1700. So now you're down to $1800 for a vision pro.

Stephen Robles: 01:17:34

Sure.

Jason Aten: 01:17:34

For all of the vision pro stuff. I'm telling you right now, like, if you are seriously considering, like, you bought a Mac, getting a setup, you have a laptop, but you're thinking, like, I need something to look just buy a vision pro because it is a yes. A studio display or a pro display XDR is a better display for a computer just by itself. Right? And but the but the vision pro as a work, like, display for, like, a MacBook Pro or a MacBook Air or whatever, It's actually, like, really good.

Jason Aten: 01:18:08

And I'm not even joking. Like, it's my favorite way to work. I think I look like an idiot if people look out into my office from the house to see what I'm doing. And they're like, why is dad sitting there staring at a wall with his vision pro? What is he even doing?

Stephen Robles: 01:18:21

Nose against the wall.

Jason Aten: 01:18:22

What is he even doing in there? But it's it's so it's so good, Steven. Like, it makes the price of all of the vision pro things come down significantly. It's like, I could get a Vision Pro and a display for this computer. Yeah.

Jason Aten: 01:18:37

That's that's pretty good deal.

Stephen Robles: 01:18:38

So that's interesting. If you were to get a nano texture studio display with the tilt and height adjustable stand, you are looking at $23100.

Jason Aten: 01:18:47

Which you shouldn't spend that much on a Studio Display, but, yeah, that's yeah. So Apple is helping me out with this math by making the Studio Display ridiculously overpriced.

Stephen Robles: 01:18:56

Right. Right. And you never have to worry about glare with Vision Pro because you're literally in a headset. Right. 0 glare.

Jason Aten: 01:19:03

It is amazing. Although I told you about the time when I was couldn't figure out how to get the smudge off of the lens. I have the lens inserts, obviously, because I don't have my glasses on. I cannot and I'm looking at I take them out. I'm looking at them.

Jason Aten: 01:19:12

I'm wiping them down. I put them back in. I'm like, what is going on? And then I finally realized it's because the smudge was on one of the cameras for the past through video.

Stephen Robles: 01:19:19

Oh, interesting.

Jason Aten: 01:19:20

Everything looks smudged, but that's because I hadn't I never got to the point where I opened it. And then the reason I realized that is I opened the Vision Pro app and it looked perfect. There was no smudge. But then if you moved it, it's like, oh, it's just the camera for the pass through video.

Stephen Robles: 01:19:32

Did you have you ever wiped the actual displays inside the Vision Pro?

Jason Aten: 01:19:37

Oh, no. You can't. No. You can't touch. That's like

Stephen Robles: 01:19:39

You're not supposed to touch those.

Jason Aten: 01:19:40

It's like crossing the lightsabers or whatever, the streams.

Stephen Robles: 01:19:42

Crossing the streams in Ghostbusters. Yeah. Yeah. I don't okay. I've never done that.

Stephen Robles: 01:19:45

I wipe the inserts for sure.

Jason Aten: 01:19:48

All the time.

Stephen Robles: 01:19:48

But I was over the holidays, my sister-in-law, she had never tried a VisionPRO and my brother-in-law. So I let them try it. I let them this is a good question. If you're gonna have a friend or family member try VisionPRO for the first time, what's the piece of immersive content that you play for them?

Jason Aten: 01:20:05

Highwire? No. I'm just kidding. No.

Stephen Robles: 01:20:06

I'm not. That's that's actually the one I played for my sister-in-law.

Jason Aten: 01:20:10

I played the dinosaurs. I'd still shown the dinosaurs. The original dinosaur thing where it comes out from the wall. You your your your brain is right about. You don't you don't know what it's like to not know what it's like.

Jason Aten: 01:20:20

That was really found. But, like, start someone with something simple. Don't put them in submerged.

Stephen Robles: 01:20:27

No. Not submerged. So what I showed my brother-in-law was the Super Bowl recap.

Jason Aten: 01:20:32

Okay.

Stephen Robles: 01:20:33

And I like that one as a first experience because it kind of eases you in. You know, you look you start looking around. You're on the field. You're like, this feels really interesting. People come nearby.

Stephen Robles: 01:20:44

But then when you get to the end where there's, like, parties in the locker room, the celebrations at the end of the game, those feel very, like, oh, shoot. I'm right here. Like, I'm looking at this press person holding their iPhone trying to capture the champagne bottle. Like, that feels very, like, I'm there in the moment. And so I play the Super Bowl recap, and then for my sister-in-law, she likes travel and stuff like that, and so I knew she would like the fjords or whatever.

Stephen Robles: 01:21:08

So I played the High Line 1, for that.

Jason Aten: 01:21:11

And if you don't like the person, you should show them the beginning of the Weeknd music video because that have you watched that?

Stephen Robles: 01:21:18

I'm not crazy about that one. I did watch it. I don't I don't like it.

Jason Aten: 01:21:20

It was not a good use of this technology. No. No one no one wants to be that close to the Weeknd.

Stephen Robles: 01:21:29

The the literal Weeknd, yes, with an e.

Jason Aten: 01:21:32

But I'm just saying, no one wants to be allowed in that guy's hands.

Stephen Robles: 01:21:35

I know those shadowy characters. I'm like, I don't want this. I don't want any of this. Did you watch though, there was another, like, concert for 1?

Jason Aten: 01:21:42

The concert for 1. That's pretty good.

Stephen Robles: 01:21:43

That is pretty good. And, like, it's not super immersive, but it does feel like, oh, this artist is right in front of me. I can look over to the horns because I play trumpet, and I get to see them playing over here. Like, that was kinda cool. But, the Alicia Keys rehearsal room, I still feel like it's a good example too because you feel like you're there.

Jason Aten: 01:21:59

The but the thing I like about the dinosaur one, I'm and I know that I'm like, again, it's easy to forget how cool that was when that was, like, the only thing that you Yeah.

Stephen Robles: 01:22:07

Yeah. Yeah.

Jason Aten: 01:22:08

Is that it was a great use of the pass through in the AR. Right? Because all the things you described, you could do in the in, like, the quest. They're just immersive.

Stephen Robles: 01:22:17

Right. But the quality of the VisionPRO, I feel, like, makes it feel

Jason Aten: 01:22:20

Sure. But that it could make a better quest. I'm just saying, like

Stephen Robles: 01:22:23

Right.

Jason Aten: 01:22:23

Right. Right. But the path anyway. Yeah. So Alright.

Stephen Robles: 01:22:25

So here's what we're gonna do. If you haven't yet, leave us a 5 star rating and review an Apple Podcasts and tell us if you know, if you've done the demo, what is the most compelling Apple Vision Pro experience, like immersive content. If you haven't yet, you're you can go on an assignment. Just go to an Apple Store, try it out. You can do the demos, and I still think it's it's good to do the demo even if you have zero intention of buying it.

Stephen Robles: 01:22:47

Maybe there'll be a cheaper version this year of Vision Air or something, but we'll see. So leave us a 5 star rating on review. Tell us what immersive content you really enjoy. And then we're gonna go talk I have a nano texture thought for Jason I need to share in the bonus episode.

Jason Aten: 01:23:00

Hold on. You have a thought about nano texture or you have a nano texture thought? Okay. I just wanted to clarify

Stephen Robles: 01:23:05

what you

Jason Aten: 01:23:05

mean by that.

Stephen Robles: 01:23:06

Yes to both. My thoughts are in nano texture, not glossy. Wow. Razor sharp.

Jason Aten: 01:23:11

There's no light reflecting off of those thoughts.

Stephen Robles: 01:23:13

No glare. No glare to my thought. So we're gonna talk about that, and I have a question about screen time. If you wanna listen to a bonus episode, you go to primary tech dot fm. Click bonus episodes.

Stephen Robles: 01:23:22

You get the whole back catalog plus an ad free version of the show, and you're supporting the show as well. Start 2025 off right by supporting primary technology. You can also watch the show on YouTube. That link's in the show notes as well. Thanks for watching.

Stephen Robles: 01:23:35

Thanks for listening. We'll catch you next time.