Apple Broke the Law, I Was Deepfaked, and Even the Beach Has Ads
Download MP3He chose poorly. Welcome to Primary Technology, the show about the tech news that matters. Big week, Apple has kicked off a judge and literally broken the law. It means big changes coming to the App Store, and Fortnite is likely coming back to iOS next week. Plus Apple launched a new Snapshot website.
Stephen Robles:Chattypie T is getting into more shopping. Meta launched a standalone Lama AI chatbot app for the iPhone, and we have some wild stories for our personal tech segment. This episode is exclusively brought to you by you, the members who support us directly, so thank you for that. I'm one of your hosts, Steven Robles, and joining me, who probably already knows the movie quote, Jason Aitin. How's going?
Jason Aten:It's good. But, I mean, we just spent, like, ten minutes talking about all of Harrison Ford's best roles, so Indiana Jones.
Stephen Robles:Indiana Jones is it. Jason, Apple literally broke the law this week. Finally, the news broke before we recorded.
Jason Aten:I mean, technically, they broke the law before.
Stephen Robles:They've been breaking the law, and, it well, it's a big deal.
Jason Aten:Steven, I'm nervous, though.
Stephen Robles:What's that?
Jason Aten:Because really the biggest news of the week never drops before we record, and this dropped last night before we recorded, and I'm a little bit nervous about, like, leaving my office after this. Because what can be worse?
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Even bigger news might be coming. Well, we we gotta get into it. Very quick follow ups. You drilled me on some sports ball teams last week, and we actually have a correction from big broncos fan on threads said the Cleveland Indians, they're officially the Cleveland Guardians.
Jason Aten:Yes.
Stephen Robles:From back in 2022. So just wanted to correct you on a sports ball thing. This might be the last time ever.
Jason Aten:Yeah. I understand. This is gonna be the section of the thing where you get to point out that I have bad takes. That's fine. I'm good with that.
Jason Aten:Go ahead. Carry on.
Stephen Robles:There there's that. Also last week we asked how many HomeKit users versus Apple Vision Pro users. And I would say not about many, but there were several of you who emailed the other guy at primarytech. Fm, which goes directly to Jason, and, thank you all because yes.
Jason Aten:I wanna say something in my defense, your honor.
Stephen Robles:Uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Jason Aten:Uh-huh. One, I admitted immediately in our member area that it might not have been my best take of all time. Fair. For two reasons. Uh-huh.
Jason Aten:One, it's probably just not true, and I don't care because I really was really just trying to troll Steven. And I'm so the mistake that I made was inviting people to give me the feedback because I already knew that, yes, in the world, there's probably a lot more people who use HomeKit than VisionPros because, basically, I'm the only person using a VisionPRO on a regular basis. And but I also the the real mistake I made was people listening to tech podcast, much higher percent, and people listening to the HomeKit previous HomeKit insider host podcast. Yeah. So that's on me.
Stephen Robles:Well, thank you all for emailing Jason. That was a wonderful retribution. And finally, we have one five star review shout out. Allouiere one one one from The UK says we're one of their favorite podcasts now. And if you haven't yet, we'd appreciate a five star rating and review in Apple Podcasts.
Stephen Robles:You get a shout out at the top of the show. Let's get to a thousand ratings. I'm gonna aim big. We're at like 300 something right now, 1,000. I've been looking in our our data, our metrics too.
Stephen Robles:We have well over a thousand people following us in Apple Podcasts and about that many listen in Apple Podcasts specifically and then many more in other apps. So go ahead and leave that five star review. We appreciate it.
Jason Aten:We would like that.
Stephen Robles:Yes. We would like that. Epic v Apple. I'm gonna try and do a quick recap because this is huge news that broke yesterday, and Apple has ticked off a judge, and it is one of the most incredible takedowns of Apple that I've seen. But if you remember back in 2020, I actually looked back.
Stephen Robles:The court case began in 2020 where Epic took Apple to court saying that they have, anticompetitive behaviors in the way they run the App Store. It's just not right, yada yada. So this court case went from 2020 to 2021, and Apple largely won that case because Epic was wanting lots of things like third party App Stores here in The US, which it didn't get, and a bunch of other things that it did not get. The one thing that judge Yvonne Gonzalez, which I wanted to say Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, which we're gonna come back to her in a second. The one thing she said Apple had to do as a result of that case was allow developers to steer users to purchase outside of the App Store.
Stephen Robles:So if you had an app, let's say, like the Hay.com debacle from several years ago. If you wanted to sign up for Hay.com but pay for it and Hay.com didn't wanna offer an in app purchase, they need to be allowed to have a link in their app for users to click it and then go sign up on the web. And that is the one thing Apple was required to do from that entire court case, Epic v Apple, back in 2021. Well, the judge came back yesterday, just yesterday, and said, you did not follow the law. You did not follow the injunction that I set forth in 2021.
Stephen Robles:So we're talking almost five years ago, four years ago since September 2021, and she has now ruled that Apple is in breach of the injunction and has to make some major changes. And so the statement or the what what do you call what do you call the actual document?
Jason Aten:Well, it was so this was an an order that she issued that says that Apple not just breached the agreement, that they are in contempt of court because they failed to follow her injunction.
Stephen Robles:So Right. So is it another injunction? Like, is that what you
Jason Aten:call It's not well
Stephen Robles:Oh, contempt order.
Jason Aten:Contempt Yeah. It's an it's a contempt order because it is essentially saying you have to follow my injunction before.
Stephen Robles:Right. And And I'm gonna read a couple quotes from the actual contempt order because judge Yvonne Gonzalez, and if you're watching on YouTube or I'll I'm gonna put her picture as the show art at least for a few minutes so you could just see. I just want you to to see what Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers looks like because then imagine her literally tearing Apple a new one in this contempt order because she very eloquently, talked about all the things Apple has done wrong. So top level, as a result of the contempt order that issued yesterday, Apple now has to not only allow developers to link out to the web to make purchases, but the malicious compliance that we talk about a lot, Apple back in 2021 said, okay. We'll let developers steer users to the web to make purchases, but on those purchases, we will still collect 27% commission even though that purchase is happening on a website and it's not an in app purchase in the App Store.
Stephen Robles:Again, remember, 30% is the commission for an apps in app store purchase. Apple gets 30%. And this was, yeah, okay. We'll we'll steer you to the web, but it's a 27% commission. And that's really, I think, what ticked, judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers off.
Stephen Robles:And so she is now ordering Apple to allow developers to steer out and not collect that commission. So as part of the ruling, the judge says, and this is reading from the Verge article, Apple cannot impose any commission or any fee on purchases that consumers make outside an app, meaning on the web. It cannot restrict the developer's style formatting or placement of links for purchases outside of an app, which Apple had some annoying rules about how those links could appear, couldn't look like a button or whatever, like silly things. Apple cannot block or limit the use of buttons or other calls to action, and Apple cannot interfere with consumers' choice to leave an app with anything beyond a neutral message apprising users that they're going to a third party site, which Apple had made this, like, full screen scare sheet when, someone would click a link to make a purchase outside the app saying, like, you're leaving the app, and it's not safe. And the judge is saying, like, that's ridiculous as well.
Stephen Robles:So that's the new rules, and Apple said they will comply effective immediately, but they, of course, do not agree and will appeal the decision. That was Apple's only statement yesterday. Now just to read a couple lines from the judge's ruling. And also side note, Tim Sweeney tweeted, of course, that we will return Fortnite to The US iOS App Store next week. Epic puts forth a peace proposal.
Stephen Robles:If Apple extends the court's friction free Apple tax free framework worldwide, we'll return Fortnite to the App Store worldwide and drop current and future litigation on the topic. Tim Sweeney is going for the victory lap on this one, which maybe rightly so. John Gruber has a couple of the great pull quotes, but I'm gonna read these quotes are actually from the contempt order that the judge issued yesterday. And so it talks about the 27% charge, the full page scare sheet, all of that. But I think what is really telling is the internal communication between Apple VPs and Tim Cook and how that makes Apple look and why Phil Schiller might be the last voice of reason.
Stephen Robles:Maybe before I read any of these, did did you have any thoughts on on just the facts?
Jason Aten:Yeah. Well, I wanna just recap just a tiny bit, just to back up a little bit because, right, this was epic and Apple have been going at this now for almost five years because it was in 2020, in August. In fact, the longest thing I've ever written on the Internet was on my blog when at when this happened. I wrote about how app you know, so here's a recap. Epic dropped like this what do they
Stephen Robles:call them?
Jason Aten:A hot update or whatever, to their app where they just made it made it so that you could order V Bucks. I think that's what they're called.
Stephen Robles:V Bucks.
Jason Aten:In the app, bypassing Apple's App Store. And they did it because they knew that they would get kicked off the App Store.
Stephen Robles:They knew it.
Jason Aten:Yeah. And Apple did. Kicked them off the App Store.
Stephen Robles:Right.
Jason Aten:And then they dropped a lawsuit, like, ten minutes later. Right? Like, so this whole and they did the same thing with Google. Ironically, they they won the case against Google. They lost most of the case against Apple.
Jason Aten:The ninth circuit affirmed the lower court's ruling and all the counts, and then the Supreme Court declined to hear the case. That's important because this has all been litigated. Everything about this has already been litigated all the way to the supreme court, the supreme court's like, go away. We don't wanna talk about this. Right?
Jason Aten:So Apple was required under the ruling to make it so the developers could link out to their own website in order for customers to make payments. And Apple found the what the judge called the most anticompetitive way to do that, which is to charge a commission and make it and this is the part that actually is worth mentioning because Apple has spent decades positioning itself as sort of the most user friendly tech company. Like, we care about our users. We care about their privacy. We care about security.
Jason Aten:We care about developers.
Stephen Robles:They brag all the time. Hold on. We'll get to that.
Jason Aten:That's totally separate. Right?
Stephen Robles:Okay. K.
Jason Aten:We care about our users. We wanna create the best experience possible for them. And yet what they did in this case is they tried as hard as they could to make it so that no user would ever be able to go outside of the App Store to make a purchase because they they made they disincentivized the, because if you think about it, if I if Netflix, for example, which does not offer in app purchases, could simply link out, you could now go to the Netflix app in your on your iPhone, tap a button, sign up on the website, come back in and use Netflix, and it'd be as seamless as possible, and you wouldn't have to pay an extra fee. Right? Because they aren't charged a commission.
Jason Aten:Right. And then the the the other piece I think that's really worth mentioning, and this is a I'm actually working on writing about this. I just could not get it out before we start recording, is the amount of conversation that went into how terrifying they should make the scare sheet, which is this interstitial page that pops up when you click on one of these links. Side note, it is interesting that Phil Schiller was the one who wanted to make the links look just like hyperlinks on the Internet because, of course, that's what people would recognize instead of allowing them to be buttons. That was that was an interesting side note.
Jason Aten:But when you click on one of those, a page pops up and it's like, warning, you are going out into the abyss. Are you sure you wanna put your credit card number out there on the scary, scary Internet?
Stephen Robles:This is what it if you're watching, by the way, this was the scare sheet. Yes. Ridiculously sized font that Apple would not use anywhere else.
Jason Aten:Right. And so they the goal here was to make it so that no one would ever do this. And the judge said, you may have technically complied with the injunction, but this is not what I meant. You have to stop behaving this way. And then she then the reason she's so angry at them is they spent the last year having evidentiary hearings, and Apple literally hid things from the court.
Jason Aten:Right. They wouldn't reveal certain things. They claimed attorney client privilege. They were not willing to share the truth. And in fact, like the judge said, that one of the executives may have outright lied on the stand in this case.
Stephen Robles:And so that is why she's so mad. But I
Jason Aten:just wanted to be clear. This is not actually a new ruling. I mean, this is not a new injunction. She is just simply saying, you have to follow what I said. You have to do that.
Jason Aten:And Apple says it's gonna appeal, and there's a 0% chance that it's gonna win on appeal.
Stephen Robles:Right.
Jason Aten:Because this has already been litigated all the way up and down.
Stephen Robles:Right. So once again, here's Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers.
Jason Aten:I just wanna say, Steven is not trying to dox this judge. Just wants you to have her picture in your mind when you hear what she had to say because she does not seem she seems like my piano teacher when I was in seventh grade.
Stephen Robles:Yes. I'm sure she's a very sweet lady. Not to Apple, and not after they broke the law.
Jason Aten:She was mad.
Stephen Robles:I am reading now quoting from judge Yvonne Gonzalez's contempt order issued yesterday. Quote, in stark contrast to Apple's initial in court testimony, contemporaneous business documents reveal that Apple knew exactly what it was doing at every turn chose the most anticompetitive option. To hide the truth, vice president of finance, Alex Roman, outright lied under oath. This is the judge talking. Internally, Philip Schiller had advocated that Apple comply with the injunction, but Tim Cook ignored Schiller and instead allowed chief financial officer Luca Maestri and his finance team to convince him otherwise.
Stephen Robles:Cook chose poorly. Three word sentence. Vicious. The real evidence detailed herein more than meets the clear and convincing standard to find a violation. The court refers the matter to the United States attorney for the Northern District Of California.
Stephen Robles:Great. Next paragraph. Quote. This is an injunction, not a negotiation. There are no do overs once a party willfully disregards a court order.
Stephen Robles:Time is of the essence. The court will not tolerate further delays. As previously ordered, Apple will not impede competition. The court enjoins Apple from implementing its new anticompetitive acts to avoid compliance with the injunction. Bold and italicized, it says effective immediately, Apple will no longer impede developers' ability to communicate with users nor will they levy or impose a new commission on off app purchases.
Stephen Robles:She is pissed.
Jason Aten:She also says that she will not entertain a request for a stay. Meaning, what normally happens after this is that Apple would be like, okay. Well, we're gonna appeal this. Would you we'd like you to put a stay on your ruling until we have a chance for it to go through. She's like, nope.
Jason Aten:You we're not tolerating any more delays at all. She says because of the repeated delays and severity of the conduct.
Stephen Robles:So she has a quote about Phil Schiller, which we need to talk about him just by himself in a second, but I wanna read this other part where she is talking about Alex Roman, who was the What was his position?
Jason Aten:He was the executive or the vice president of finance.
Stephen Robles:Vice president of finance. The judge quotes where mister Roman is on the stand. He testified that up until 01/16/2024, Apple had no idea what fee it would impose on linked out purchases. That's January 2024. So that's, like, three years or I guess maybe about two years after the initial injunction was was taken into effect.
Stephen Robles:The question to him was, quote, and I take it that Apple decided to impose a 27% fee on linked purchases prior to 01/16/2024. Correct? And Roman says the decision was made that day. Question. It's your testimony that up until January 16, Apple had no idea what fee it's going to impose on linked purchases.
Stephen Robles:Roman says that is correct. And here's the judge in the content word saying, another lie under oath. Contemporaneous business documents reveal that on the contrary, the main components of Apple's plan, including the 27% commission, were determined in July 2023, '6 months before that testimony. Dude lied.
Jason Aten:Well, and the the reason that the January 16 date is relevant is that that is the date that the Supreme Court denied Apple's motion or excuse me, its appeal, its request. I think it's technically a request for, you know, for the supreme court to hear it. And so that was the date that it denied that. And so what he's saying is because they had requested to stay up until that point. Right?
Jason Aten:So this had not gone into effect yet. So he's saying that under oath that they had not decided what they were going to do until the supreme court said, okay. You have to do this. When in fact, there was there she has the receipts. Right?
Jason Aten:That you had to decide this long before. And it seems like such a stupid thing to lie about.
Stephen Robles:I don't right. Of all the things. And then, finally, before, some thoughts, and then we get to Schiller, Gonzalez Rogers closed out this contempt order. Quote, Apple willfully chose not to comply with the court's injunction. It did so with the express intent to create new anticompetitive barriers, which would, by design and in effect, maintain a valued revenue stream, revenue stream previously found to be anticompetitive.
Stephen Robles:This is thought that that it thought this court would tolerate such insubordination was a gross miscalculation. I I love the way she writes. As always, the cover up made it worse. For this court, there is no second bite at the apple. She ends she ends this contempt order.
Stephen Robles:That's a pun. Right? She ends this with a pun?
Jason Aten:Sure. Basically. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:And then it is so ordered. Every word capitalized, one sentence. It is so ordered. Apple just got cooked. That is insane.
Jason Aten:Is that a pun too, basically?
Stephen Robles:Yeah. So there's so many there's so many puns as a part of this, but okay. Thoughts on this. We knew that Apple was trying so hard ever since these kinds of cases started entering the courts, the Digital Markets Act in Europe, the Epic v Apple case here in The States, that Apple was trying to retain control and not lose that 30% commission from app developers. Apple has taken strides in past years, things like the small business 15% versus 30% for smaller developers.
Stephen Robles:That was, what, five, six years ago in an attempt to alleviate some of these pressures. Developers have been vocal for years about all of this stuff, and so it has finally come to roost. I mean, it's now come back to bite them. And the stranglehold that Apple has tried to keep on the App Store and in app purchases, I think it's finally now bit them. Not not mean to make another pun.
Stephen Robles:It's now bit them. Now what's wild is Cook, Luca Maestri, who was the CFO, is no longer the CFO, which is interesting. He, quote, unquote, stepped down as CFO. And Alex Roman, those three, one being the CEO of Apple, I think it is very clear they are the money guys. They want the money.
Stephen Robles:They don't want to make decisions that make Apple not make as much money as they did in the past to Apple's own detriment. And I find it amazing that Phil Schiller, who is technically just an Apple fellow, not, he's not a SVP anymore. He doesn't No.
Jason Aten:But he does oversee the App Store and events.
Stephen Robles:He oversees the App Store and events, but apparently does not have enough influence within the internal ranks of Apple to get them to follow a court order. He told them they had the emails. Phil Schiller's like, hey. We should, like, abide by this injunction and just relax, like, this one thing. They won all the other things from that Epic v Apple case.
Stephen Robles:They don't have to have third party app marketplaces here in The US. They don't have sideloading here in The US yet. They could have just done this one thing. Phil Schiller was the advocate. And I think it's I don't know.
Stephen Robles:You tell me. I think it's interesting. The one out of four guys making this decision, Phil Schiller, the not the money guy, is one of the longest standing product people. Do you think it's accurate to say like, he's he's like a product guy.
Jason Aten:He's marketing. He's marketing, but
Stephen Robles:yeah, product marketing guy. Marketing. I guess what I'm trying to say is like, I still see Phil Schiller as like the OG Apple. He loves the product and believes the product is there for people.
Jason Aten:Sure.
Stephen Robles:I don't know, you know, that's just what it feels like. And I remember Phil Schiller of all the people that got to announce the iPhone, Phil Schiller was the only one besides Steve Jobs in the early days.
Jason Aten:Sure.
Stephen Robles:Steve Jobs announced, announced, and then Phil Schiller got to announce it. And I just think it's interesting that he's the only voice of reason seemingly amongst these four guys that's like, hey. Let's, like, just abide by this, and we can move forward. I don't know. What do you think?
Jason Aten:I I think that Tim Cook has been one of the most successful CEOs
Stephen Robles:Sure.
Jason Aten:Ever. Right? If you just objectively look at Apple's growth and stock price performance and I know there's a lot of people who are like, stock price performance should not be the prime but if you're the CEO, it is the primary metric that the board will use to evaluate you. And from 02/2011 till now, Apple was, like, worth something like 350 to $400,000,000,000, and they're worth 3,000,000,000,000 now. K?
Stephen Robles:Right.
Jason Aten:Like, I don't think you can make an argument that he's not one of the most and he had to follow Steve Jobs. Right?
Stephen Robles:Like For sure.
Jason Aten:There are very few people who can follow a founder of a company and be as successful as Tim Cook has. And a lot of the things that made him successful has started to, I think, cloud his judgment. I mean, the judge literally said he exercised poor judgment. Right. He listened to the wrong people.
Jason Aten:He could have made a different decision, but he didn't. And I still think that Tim Cook is a great CEO. I just think that we've reached a point where Apple has lost sight of what it says really matters to Apple because you don't make this decision unless you are just terrified that you're gonna open a floodgate. But game this thing out, Steven. Like, we offer memberships to our user our listeners in both two Apple Podcasts and not Apple Podcasts.
Jason Aten:And the only reason we really still offer them in Apple Podcasts because it's a lot more work for us. It's complicated. It is. Right? We wanna offer more benefits, and we it's like, you have to MacGyver some sort of system to do most of our listeners know who MacGyver is?
Jason Aten:It doesn't matter.
Stephen Robles:I do.
Jason Aten:I know. Anyway, you have to, like, take some duct tape and whatever and
Stephen Robles:just That's right. Yeah. Smash all things together. You get it. Yeah.
Jason Aten:But you know why we do it? Because people it's so easy. Literally, they can open our podcast and be like, boom. Give us $5 or whatever the heck
Stephen Robles:it is.
Jason Aten:Right. And the same
Stephen Robles:thing away.
Jason Aten:Yeah. And the same thing is true for apps. You could make it so that people could go out to the web to do it, but unless you're Netflix or Disney plus or maybe Fortnite or whatever, no one's gonna do it. Like, people are just gonna do the easy thing because it doesn't matter to them. And even if it's like, could save $2 if I went out to the web, but if but Apple already has my credit card.
Jason Aten:I know Apple. I can just tap this button. I'm gonna do it. Like, I don't think they would have lost that much.
Stephen Robles:Well, and the the the thing is there's a benefit on both sides to use Apple's in app purchase system, like you just said. Yeah. The in app purchase for podcast subscription. We have, I think, about two times more people subscribe to this show as a member in Apple Podcasts than Memberful, which is where you have to go out to a website, create an account, and pay there. Two times more.
Stephen Robles:So that is obviously enough for us to go through the effort to meet to deal with Apple Podcast every week to offer that subscription. That is a competitive advantage, meaning it is advantageous to us to offer it there. And Apple gets a cut by all those things. That is that allows competition, and there's a clear value to offer the Apple subscription. And one could argue for many apps, like when I think about purchasing a subscription for an app, if there is an option to do an in app purchase through Apple's system where I can have it in all my subscriptions in my iCloud account and I can easily cancel it and easily change my plans, there's benefits for me as a user to use Apple's in app purchase system.
Stephen Robles:And so there are times where I specifically choose to do that. The developer obviously has to pay a higher percentage, but they might get more conversions just like we do. But to not allow the developer to offer that additional option of you can also purchase maybe for $3 less a month through my website. It's a little more annoying. It's a little more frustrating.
Stephen Robles:Whatever. You have to go to a website. But to still offer it, you need to be able to give users that choice. And it benefits the user because maybe they wanna pay less, maybe they don't care to go through a few more steps, and it benefits the developer or creator like us who might get more conversions. And for Apple to try to stifle that, I think it shows that they are scared because they don't think I don't know if this is true.
Stephen Robles:It seems like they don't think they offer enough benefit where people won't just jump ship. And they don't offer enough benefit to developers to offer both the in app purchase and the web purchase, just think everyone's gonna jump to the web. Now the biggest players are going to jump to the web. Someone like Netflix. They have never offered an in app subscription because they don't Well, did.
Stephen Robles:They just stopped doing it a couple years ago. They're not gonna stop doing it. Because they don't wanna pay the 30%. Okay, so the big ones are gonna do that. People are used to that anyways.
Stephen Robles:People are gonna go to Disney plus and sign up there or whatever, but for the many developers, which Apple brags, many events. I remember when the iPhone first came out, it was like, there's a million apps. There's a billion apps or whatever it was. They always brag, how many apps, how many developers, how much they Steve Jobs used to brag how much they paid developers. He used to show a number.
Stephen Robles:We've paid developers x amount of million dollars this year because of their the App Store. And it just I don't know. It just feels different now. It feels anticompetitive and a little hostile.
Jason Aten:Well, I think what happened was and I mean this sincerely. Yeah. Apple was super mad at at Epic. Right? They were super mad that they and it should have been because what they what Tim listen.
Jason Aten:Tim Sweeney, not the hero in this story. I just wanna be clear. Just He's Let's be clear.
Stephen Robles:He's not the dark knight.
Jason Aten:Is not the hero in this story. Okay?
Stephen Robles:Not commissioner Gordon either.
Jason Aten:They knew exactly what they were doing when they set all of this in motion. Yeah. Because the but the different there's two things. The difference is, actually, Apple and Epic Games' incentives are pretty much aligned here. They both wanna be the one collecting the fee.
Jason Aten:Right? If you remember the whole reason upfront was Epic Games wants to offer its own store on the App Store, which they do now in the EU Right. Where they collect a commission from developers who are selling things. It's not that they are morally opposed to it. They just wanna be the ones that are doing it.
Jason Aten:And you know what the difference is? They're honest about it.
Stephen Robles:That's just
Jason Aten:They're honest about what their motivation is. Apple is the one that is saying, no. No. No. We can't allow these types of things because privacy, yada yada yada.
Jason Aten:Right? And so that's the that's the one thing. And I think that Apple was so angry with Epic Games that it oh, and Tim Sweeney in particular. Right? If Tim Cook has, like, a hit list on his wall, it's like Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Sweeney.
Jason Aten:Right? He's like
Stephen Robles:little flip flip notebook. Just does
Jason Aten:not like these guys at all.
Stephen Robles:Tim Sweeney.
Jason Aten:Elon Musk, Tim Sweeney, Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg.
Stephen Robles:He's a he's Mark Zuckerberg's on that list.
Jason Aten:Every time Tim Cook has to go to a meeting, he's like, make sure one of these guys is not there. Please, I'm not going. It's like, whatever. So, you know, it's like, that's the deal. He was so mad.
Jason Aten:And the problem is he took that anger out on users. He lost he allowed it to you know what happens when you get really mad? Have you ever gotten you've been in a car and you're driving and someone does something really stupid and you get so mad, and the next thing you realize is, like, my children just saw the worst side of their father. Or worse seeing
Stephen Robles:Or worse, you take it out on another driver Yeah. Because you're so mad.
Jason Aten:Who do you think kid asks you a question from the back seat, and you're like, just
Stephen Robles:shut up. Stop swerving in front of me.
Jason Aten:You're like, wait. I'm sorry, son.
Stephen Robles:But I think
Jason Aten:So I think Tim Cook is that dad, and he is so angry at at epic games that he is just that he transferred that to both the judge. He's like, I'm gonna maliciously comply with this thing because I do not want Tim Sweeney to win, and I'm gonna penalize our users because I do not want Tim Sweeney to win. And that's a problem.
Stephen Robles:And I think that may be the difference when I was talking about Phil Schiller being a product guy. I think he also is the user guy, that he is still thinking about the user's end experience. And, you know, it seems like pie in the sky, but again, Steve Jobs would always talk about at the end of events. We're at the corner of technology and liberal arts. We wanna make tools where people can create and be creative and do all this stuff.
Stephen Robles:And the one part that I I forget forgot to read, but this is, again, part of the contempt order talking about the decision. This is the judge talking. Quote, unlike mister Maestri and mister Roman, mister Schiller sat through the entire underlying trial and actually read the entire 100 page decision that missus what I'm not sure what that
Jason Aten:Misters. It's just a way of saying misters, both of them.
Stephen Robles:Yes. And misters Maestri and Roman did neither. Does not shield Apple of its knowledge, actually constructive of the court's findings. But the fact that I don't know how she knows that, but to say because
Jason Aten:he was there. He was in the trial. Like he was Apple's representative to the trial.
Stephen Robles:Right, okay, right, right. That, I mean, again, scathing. Like, Bill Schiller seemed invested in this, whereas invested as far as he wanted to make sure Apple, you know, won as much as it could win, but comply with whatever it needed to comply with. And the other three guys, Maestri, Roman, and Tim Cook, wanted the money and wanted Epic to lose.
Jason Aten:I think it's not only that they want the money. I think that there's just this idea that we have to hold the wall. We have to keep the line here. And if we give anything, the whole thing comes crumbling down. And I think one, I don't think that's necessarily true.
Jason Aten:I I subscribed to the I'm not sure who I first heard say this, but I subscribed to the philosophy that when this first started happening, Apple should have just bifurcated the App Store and said, Apps, games, we have one set of rules. Everybody else, different set of rules. Everybody else, sell your hey. You wanna just sell some of Internet and then use an app? Fine.
Jason Aten:No big deal. Because Apple doesn't make that much money. It's all Candy Crush. Right? And these stupid games, and it's like skins and stuff that they make so much free money.
Jason Aten:And, yeah, Epic gets a lot of money in there making a big fuss. But I think that Apple could have withstood a lot more scrutiny if they would have differentiated between those things at that time, but they didn't want to give even an inch. And it's like, you are, like, putting up a billion dollar fight over pennies. And it's like, is that really worth it?
Stephen Robles:So the ramification of this now contempt order, Apple has to comply now and allow developers to link out. Do we think this is going to somehow make a significant dent in their services business or revenue? Is this even matter? I would say no, probably not. Like, this is even if a bunch of apps, including the big ones, start offering the the steering link so users can subscribe outside and Apple stops getting 30% on a bunch of purchases, it might hit their revenue a little bit, but I do not think this even has any long term impact.
Stephen Robles:Like, again, Apple makes the most money selling its hardware. Services is an increasing business, and in app purchases and the Candy Crush or whatever is a big deal, but, like, to for Apple to make this fight over something that in a few years is probably not going to matter to their bottom line. I don't know. Well, correct me if I'm wrong. Do you think it matters to their bottom line?
Jason Aten:I don't think it's gonna make a huge impact on their line. I don't because if you think about the biggest players Netflix doesn't offer, you know, purchases, Fortnite right now is not even is not even there. Right? Like, so they're not you're not losing any money from those people. Right?
Jason Aten:And so if they come back, it's it's a zero impact on your revenue because they aren't paying you anything right now anyway. And I've heard people, like I'm pretty sure I've heard the ATP guys say, like, I'm just using that purchase because it's just so much easier, and I don't
Stephen Robles:really have
Jason Aten:to deal with So, like, I don't think it's gonna make a material difference on their services revenue. I think it might actually net benefit them in the long run because you will have more innovative apps that are will people who are willing to build apps. The one thing I'm not sure on, and I wish I would have looked, I don't know for sure based on the previous ruling or this one because I did read most of the 80 pages, but I didn't have time to read all of the 80 pages. Yeah. Whether Apple can require that if you offer a link, you also have to offer in app purchase, I don't think that that you can that they can make that requirement.
Jason Aten:I don't think they can require developers to offer in app purchase if they're going to offer a link out. Honestly, I think that would be fair. I think it'd be fair to be, like, give users a choice. But if that were the case, you're not gonna see Netflix, for example. Right?
Jason Aten:That's not they're not gonna come back if they if there's that choice. But I don't think it's gonna I think what this is going to do is force Apple to sort of reconcile its view of developers and of users with the way everyone else views Apple right now. And I think that there's such a huge gap and that I don't think it will change until Apple has another CEO. And I'm not like, again, I'm not throwing shade at Tim Cook. This is Tim Cook.
Jason Aten:He could have made this differently. And this is exactly it is exactly the way he wanted it to be. Right? All of these decisions ultimately flew, flowed. They went up to him.
Jason Aten:All of them come from him. And so until we have a different CEO, I can't see this really being different, but it just feels like you have the kid who is throwing the tantrum and you just like leave them behind in the grocery store to throw the thing you like, and you just ignore them. Right? Like Tim Cook right now is throwing a tantrum over this. Maybe probably not literally, but No.
Stephen Robles:Not literally, but, I mean, they they're appealing it, and the the one statement they gave they gave it to nine zero five Mac, and they gave it to the Verge supposedly. They didn't have any kind of official newsroom article or statement, but basically, they're like, we will comply. We disagree. We will appeal. Like, that's their entire statement even though an appeal is not likely to do to change anything.
Stephen Robles:And it's what we don't what we
Jason Aten:have not seen yet is how they will comply. The judge is like, you can't control this part of it, but you know that there will be App Store guidelines still. Right? And you know we're going to hear about an app that got rejected because of a button or or whatever. And and I just
Stephen Robles:hope that doesn't
Jason Aten:I hope that doesn't happen because what the judge is basically saying is you lost this part.
Stephen Robles:Right.
Jason Aten:This is the anticompetitive part. And keep in mind, Apple's already facing a DOJ case. Like Right. Not specifically over the App Store necessarily, but that case hasn't started yet.
Stephen Robles:And it's also about anticompetitive behavior. It's about different things like Apple Watch interoperability and other wearables and and a few other things, but anticompetitive behavior is the issue both in this and and the DOJ case. So
Jason Aten:Also, John Gruber points this out, but I think that Tim Cook, Luca, and Alex Roman are probably less Tim Cook, but the other two are facing some real real problems.
Stephen Robles:Ramifications. Well, one, to to lie under oath. Isn't that a felony?
Jason Aten:Oh, yeah. Perjury? Absolutely. And she says she so she says in the ruling, the penalty for a contempt for a finding of contempt has two purposes. It's to punish past behavior, and it's to set an example.
Jason Aten:They don't mess around because the point is it's like it has to deter people from doing the same thing in the future. Right. So they will make an example of you. And the penalty for the past behavior in this case is that Apple has to pay all of Epic's legal fees for this part of the case. Right?
Jason Aten:That's the penalty. It's like, you we had to go we should not have had to go through this process if you would have complied with my order in the first place, so you had to pay for that's probably I don't know. They may be 10,000,000, 20 million dollars. That's nothing for Apple. But the penalty going forward is your vice president of finance could end up serving thirty days in jail or something.
Stephen Robles:That would be insane. That news story would be insane. Apple, wow. Alright. This is wild.
Stephen Robles:I'm glad this broke out the day before we recorded. That's all I'm gonna say. Because that
Jason Aten:I know. I texted you and I said, how is it possible that the biggest Apple news of the week happened before we record?
Stephen Robles:We did say something on the last episode, know, maybe well, not Apple that listened. Maybe a judge should be Ron Gonzalez. Yeah. Can I just say again? She I want her on the Avengers team.
Stephen Robles:Whatever the new Avengers are, she needs to be on the team.
Jason Aten:Don't think the federal district court judges do podcasts, but if she does, we'd like to interview her.
Stephen Robles:A %. Hundred %. I'd love I'd love to hear it. Alright. So, yeah, that's the Apple news.
Stephen Robles:Listen. We just did a quick thirty five minutes on that. Let's jam let's jam through some other stuff, which some of it seems trivial, but we'll talk about it. Chattypie tea, getting more into shopping. You can start seeing shopping results in your in your chats.
Stephen Robles:Supposedly, there's no commissions or whatever. Like, there's I don't know. ChatchipPT is not earning anything if you buy something. And he but also are working through with, quote, unquote, partners, to make sure pricing stays accurate, and they're not revealing who those partners are. That's curious, but okay.
Jason Aten:I thought I thought JGPT just uses, like, Bing's search results.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. But these are products like, you're actually gonna get the sidebar that looks exactly like the Google sidebar with the rating and the different places to buy a product and direct links to it. So yeah. Okay.
Jason Aten:I mean but, again, isn't that I mean, if I go to bing.com and I do that, don't I see the same results, basically? I don't know.
Stephen Robles:I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, more places to buy things.
Jason Aten:That's always great. That's all we need is more places to buy things.
Stephen Robles:That's always great. OpenEye, though, also said that it rolled back an update to GPT four point zero that could be seen as uncomfortable, unsettling, and cause distress. I guess it was becoming overly flattering and agreeable. I I don't know if it was in this Virgil, but I saw somewhere where it was coming across, oh, yeah, sycophantic, which is a great word. Great word.
Stephen Robles:I didn't experience that. Did you experience any weirdness from four o?
Jason Aten:Yeah. But it's it's the basic thing is sort of like, I I asked it. So we can talk about this later, but I had to get a tetanus shot this past week.
Stephen Robles:That's gonna be in personal tickets.
Jason Aten:And I was confused about, like I was like, why do they give you a tetanus shot after you've been exposed if it's a vaccination, which is usually a thing you have to get beforehand? Right. And so I I asked ChatGPT for, oh,
Stephen Robles:how does tetanus? The doctor. Sorry. Of course.
Jason Aten:I should have asked the doctor while I was there.
Stephen Robles:No. No.
Jason Aten:You're I was thinking about other things at the time, which we'll get into. But I said, how does a tetanus shot work? Is it a vaccination? If so, why does it work even after you've stepped on a nail, for example, which is not what I did. But it says, that's a great question.
Jason Aten:It's good that you're interested in such important information. I'm like, just no. It's not a good question.
Stephen Robles:It's a
Jason Aten:terrifying question. And it's like
Stephen Robles:Great question. I'm glad you're showing
Jason Aten:us something. You might have lockjaw, and you're gonna die. But no.
Stephen Robles:I'm just Did it say that?
Jason Aten:It did not say that.
Stephen Robles:It did okay. I gonna
Jason Aten:say It gave me a great example, and we can talk about that more. Like, it did good time. It gave me exactly what I needed to know. Okay. But, yeah, it was definitely kissing my butt while I did it, which is weird because typically that's where you get your tetanus shot, but
Stephen Robles:Oh, the you there. You did it. You did it. That's that's pretty
Jason Aten:That's why I'm here.
Stephen Robles:That was pretty good. Llama, speaking of other AI apps, Meta has launched a standalone AI chat app based on Llama four. So if you want another AI chat app on your iPhone, this one powered by Meta and Llama, you can get that. I'm gonna be honest, Jason. I I try a lot of the AI apps.
Stephen Robles:I made a whole video on Perplexity versus Siri last week. I didn't I didn't download this one. I I did not need Llama four on my phone.
Jason Aten:No. I don't I don't need another Meta app, and I don't need AI in Meta apps. I'm not I'm not here for And
Stephen Robles:also the, apparently, there's, like, a social network component to this where you can see, like, other people's prompts and, like, maybe what they're doing with it. So all of that, was like, you know what? Nah. I'm good.
Jason Aten:Yeah. There's a great so, I was just I was telling you before there was an interview that Ben Thompson did on Strathecari with Mark Zuckerberg, which is pretty I mean, that's a good get. Right? An inter an in person interview with Mark Zuckerberg, and they were talking about all of this. Obviously, Stratikori is a subscription thing.
Jason Aten:It was worth it's worth it. It's a great article. It's a great interview. And they talk about this, and and Ben Thompson's take a little bit was like, it kinda feels like they're just throwing some things against the wall to see what sticks, but also Meta can afford to do that.
Stephen Robles:Right.
Jason Aten:Exactly. Have the distribution. They can just figure out what people want.
Stephen Robles:Exactly. Which they did say their Meta AI app, Mark Zuckerberg is planning a premium tier and ads for the AI app, which ads recently came to threads. We covered that last week. Meta loves ads.
Jason Aten:Oh, yeah. Mark Zuckerberg has never seen an ad that he wasn't like, how much did I make on that? He's driving down the street in his chauffeured, you know, whatever, and he's like he sees billboards, and he's like, we got something for that. Right? That's our We're we're on about that?
Stephen Robles:Can I I just a quick story, because I was away for my anniversary earlier this week? We went to the beach and my wife and I were sitting on a beach watching stuff, you know, sitting in the sun, and I kid you not, a boat starts slowly motoring past, and this boat has an LED wall on the side, basically running ads. It is a digital billboard on a boat slowly going down the shore. I wish I had taken a picture of it, and I would have posted it with the caption, Where can I pay for beach premium? Because apparently, not even here can you escape Where's
Jason Aten:beach plus?
Stephen Robles:Is there an earth premium? Do I need to pay for just Can I just pay for no ads anywhere? And I was like, it felt like a like a personal affront, honestly. Like, you know, billboards on the road, we've lived at for a while. Billboards in cities.
Stephen Robles:Billboard in the water on a beach. Like, you can't even look out to the ocean without seeing
Jason Aten:any ad for? Was it rent this boat or
Stephen Robles:was like multiple was like one of the digital builders on the highway. It was more it was rotating through multiple. One was Coppertone Sunset. So it was. It was at least Straight ad.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Straight ad. And then there was another one. It was Coppertone and I think it was something like water sports rental, like down the beach, whatever. But, like, straight up just ads.
Stephen Robles:Just ads for sunscreen. I was like, this this is amazing. I I really LED wall ad beach.
Jason Aten:See, I'm mostly jealous because for our last anniversary, we went to Barnes and Noble and had coffee because Listen. We don't have a
Stephen Robles:I'd be all about it. I'd be all about it.
Jason Aten:I mean, was December, so there was no beaches that I mean, Michigan has a lot of beaches. None of them you can go to in December. So
Stephen Robles:Yeah. That's fair. This was what it looked like. This was a like, this was the boat. Oh my goodness.
Stephen Robles:The LED wall just straight up ads.
Jason Aten:See, I'm see, now I'm nervous because when we do go to the beach, it's near you, and I'm really anxious that when next time we go to John's Pass, we're gonna start seeing this kind of thing. So
Stephen Robles:Well, that's no spoilers. We were basically right there. Oh my gosh. This boat goes up and down that that boat goes up and down that exact coast.
Jason Aten:Oh, this is so depressing.
Stephen Robles:So if you see it, please take a picture because it is a little depressing. It does feel like we've crossed the Rubicon of like, just we can put ads anywhere your eyeballs may go. You know, I was thinking about, a couple weeks ago, talked about NVIDIA's technology to basically like generate video ads in real time based on your tracking you, and we'll probably see those on social media and Meta, I'm sure, comes soon. And do you remember the scene from Minority Report? He's running through this train station, and the ads basically are saying his name
Jason Aten:Yeah.
Stephen Robles:And looking at him, and it's like, we're there. Yeah. Like, we're actually there, which is terrifying.
Jason Aten:At least on the Internet, you can get an ad blocker. For that boat, you need a torpedo. Like, that's your ad blocker.
Stephen Robles:That's the ultimate ad blocker. Just weaponize.
Jason Aten:Just get a torpedo.
Stephen Robles:That's oh my word. Anyway, let's talk about something Apple did, I guess, that's kinda fun. Apple launched a new web page. It's called snapshot.apple.com, and it basically has a scrolling list of celebrities, sports stars, Lionel Messi Lion can't say his name. Lionel Messi's on here, Dua Lipa, Maya Rudolph.
Stephen Robles:And, basically, you can click one of these people like Kate Blanchett. And, you can go there, and then it basically aggregates all of the Apple properties that she is a part of. It has the latest release, whether it's a movie or Apple TV plus original show. There's a Discover More, which, again, shows Apple TV plus original content, but also other movies like Lord of the Rings. You watch Kate Blanchett there.
Stephen Robles:Apple Music, and there's her soundtrack from the movie Tar. And then also Kate Blanchett on Apple Podcast. And, honestly, this is the one feature that actually got me to talk about this because I was like, I don't even know if this is worthy to talk about. But I do like that you can actually see interviews with one of these people, and the links to the Apple Podcasts are right there. You this website is also infuriating because you can't manually scroll.
Jason Aten:Or search or just see a list. You just stare the spaces go by.
Stephen Robles:I just want a list. Like, I just want a list. I guess because there's just not very many, people on this thing, but you can't you like, when you hover your mouse over it, it just stops scrolling, and then you can't scroll left to right. And then the I just want a list. Like, just give me a but anyway.
Jason Aten:This is so strange. This is just straight influencer bait. Like, really?
Stephen Robles:Like It does feel like yeah. It does feel like that a little bit. But, like, here's a Coldplay. Let's see. So we explore Coldplay, and I guess
Jason Aten:I mean, it's just advertising for Apple services. Right? Like, it is. It's just advertising for Lionel Messi MLS is on Apple TV plus. Like, that's all this is, but it's such a weird way to do it.
Stephen Robles:It's a weird way to do it. I mean, if you're gonna do it, just have more and then have me be able like, let me scroll manually. Right. Also, I'll I volunteer to be on this page. Listen, if you need more names, you should just put Steven Roeblaz.
Stephen Robles:I have stuff in Apple Music, I think. You can put stuff in there. Apple t well, I'm not an Apple TV plus but if you wanna put me in an original, that's that's fine too. Yeah. We'll do that.
Jason Aten:Anyway Now that What's His Name Got a Show, you can be Who's the what's his Ham? John Ham?
Stephen Robles:Oh, John Ham, yeah.
Jason Aten:The ad was like, they wouldn't put me in
Stephen Robles:a show, now he's in a That is right. So I just need to make a video. Oh, if I make a super cinematic video about oh, I have to think about it.
Jason Aten:Oh, I gotta tell you a story about cinematic mode, we'll do it later.
Stephen Robles:Also, just listeners and viewers, you can comment on the YouTube. You can go to social.primarytech.fm, Leave a five star rating on review and leave your answer here. What would be the Apple TV plus movie or TV show that I could star in? What would it what would it be about?
Jason Aten:You're crowdsourcing your career.
Stephen Robles:Do not say DJ Khaled's biopic. Please do not say that. You can just say literally anything else, but let me know. What Apple TV plus original could I could I do?
Jason Aten:Big Hero seven?
Stephen Robles:I love listen. I love Big Hero six. I'll be I'll voice I'll do a voice over. There you It could be animated. It could be a cartoon.
Stephen Robles:I'll do it. I'd love to do
Jason Aten:it. Okay.
Stephen Robles:Alright. A couple of news bits, then we gotta get to some crazy personal tech stories. Amazon was about to display the pricing adjustments based on tariffs on their website. So if you were to gone to Amazon, looked at a product, it would have said, here's the tariff pricing, because of it. And the White House was like, yeah.
Stephen Robles:You can't do that. And so Amazon decided not to do that. That was like was a full day of news.
Jason Aten:Well, it was weird because this was a Punch Bowl news who had sources at Amazon saying that they were considering doing this.
Stephen Robles:Right.
Jason Aten:And it turns out it was not on the main site. It was on a thing called Amazon haul, which is a thing that Apple or that Amazon created basically to highlight the fact that there's this thing called the de minimis exception to the tariffs. And this is how Xi'an and what's the other one? Timu are like their their whole business is based on you can order cheap stuff from China, and they ship it over here directly to you, they don't have to pay a import tariff on it if it's less than $800, which sounds a lot like Amazon's business period, which is make a bunch of cheap stuff in China, ship it over here when you order it. So Amazon created this whole thing to sort of, like, call attention to it, and Tmall actually started doing this.
Jason Aten:They actually started putting these prices next to it so you could buy, like, a $17 bathing suit and it but it would cost you, like, $51, and it would show you what the tariff price was or something like that. And so Amazon Hall apparently was going to do that. And the White president Trump was real mad and called Jeff Bezos and was like, this is this is an affront. You cannot do this.
Stephen Robles:He's not the CEO of Amazon anymore.
Jason Aten:No. But he is the executive chairman, so he is technically still in charge. But what did this the White House said it is hostile. This is a hostile act to do this. Also, you know what else is hostile?
Jason Aten:Putting a 45% tariff on all of the things that American consumers buy.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Also, when you said hall, I thought you meant, like, hall, like like in a house. No. It's haul, h a u l, like with the because influence this is something influencers do. It's like, here's my Amazon haul or whatever.
Stephen Robles:I did not realize there was an I don't know
Jason Aten:if any Amazon people ever do this. I don't think anyone has ever bought anything from this. I think Amazon literally launched it. It's still in beta. They did this just to, like, raise the issue.
Jason Aten:Like, they wanted to point out to the government that, hey. By the way, this this loophole that you guys made, look. There's these businesses. Wouldn't it be nice if you shut them down because they compete with us?
Stephen Robles:I listen. This might be a crazy idea.
Jason Aten:Crazy.
Stephen Robles:I think I should do a full on Amazon haul video, and I will do stuff like wear this shirt.
Jason Aten:I think what you should do is an Amazon haul haul video standing in the hall of your house.
Stephen Robles:That's pretty good. That's pretty good. I'll do I'll try on all the things. I'll get a cheap ring light that looks horrible and it reflects on my glasses. That'd be a great idea.
Stephen Robles:Amazon haul.
Jason Aten:Yeah. It's been a good run, Steven.
Stephen Robles:It's it's been a good we're losing it. No. No. We still got some great stuff to get to. First of all, Congress actually passed this bill.
Stephen Robles:Trump is expected to sign it very soon. It's the Take It Down Act, and this was when there were several deepfakes going around the Internet. I forgot exactly when, but I know, like, it affected Taylor Swift and other actresses and actors. But, basically, when there's inappropriate content on social networks, they're going to be the networks are gonna be required to take it down within forty eight hours once after someone reports it. And this is like a law where they will are compelled to do it.
Stephen Robles:They have to do it. And so, again, Trump is expected to sign it. This is seemingly an overall good thing. Like, this kind of content shouldn't be allowed, especially if it's, like, deepfake explicit content. And, yeah, it should be on social networks to take it down.
Jason Aten:Is it weird for me to be like, yes. This is like, it's it's terrible that this is a thing that exists, and it shouldn't exist. But, also, it's weird for the government to pass a law because, like
Stephen Robles:They should have done
Jason Aten:it already? Theoretic no. Theoretically, isn't this stuff still protected under the First Amendment? I don't know. I'm not trying to start controversy.
Jason Aten:Well, like, what the okay. I cannot believe I'm about to just real briefly. Okay. If the imagery isn't illegal for another reason, then it should then it would be productive by the First Amendment. I don't think it should exist, and I don't and I think the key here is that it's revenge stuff.
Jason Aten:So it's like your girlfriend dumped you, so you made an AI fake of her and you posted it online. I agree that's terrible stuff. I I think this the platform should just automatically be taking it down. Where it gets weird is for the government to be like, you can't post this or support this or do this. And, again, I'm not advocating for this particular type of content.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. I get it.
Jason Aten:I just I always feel weird when the government starts to tell you, like, what you can and can't post because, like, what's to say? Like, again, it's a slippery slope kind of thing.
Stephen Robles:It's Do we have any laws about deepfakes though in general? Because that's seems like And obviously, there were entire videos. I remember the Tom Cruise deepfake video that I think Vice did, and it basically showed how you can use deepfake technology, and they had an actor. I remember they went viral on TikTok. It was like very, like, this is Tom Cruise.
Stephen Robles:Like, was almost undistinguishable. Like, if you showed someone, like, and they didn't know deepfakes were a thing, they would have been fooled. But I mean, I don't know.
Jason Aten:I think the key here, I guess, and this is where I guess I come down on
Stephen Robles:the side of, okay, this is a
Jason Aten:good thing, is this is content being used to harass people.
Stephen Robles:Right. And that is
Jason Aten:And so in that case, like, yeah, absolutely, it should come down. And, there there's a 0%, like, that I'm I I wanna be clear. I think this stuff is garbage and should not exist. And if you are someone who is making it, you need a better hobby. Like, there's a lot of things here.
Jason Aten:I just always feel weird when the government passes laws about what you can and can't create or post just because it's like I I don't know. On the other hand, I do think that the that the social the platforms should already be taking it down. And I think what was happening is it was, like, very difficult to get some platforms to take certain things down, and now they'll be required to.
Stephen Robles:I'm gonna take a slight devil's advocate approach here because I never posted a link to this because I didn't wanna give it any more exposure, but someone actually sent me a link to a TikTok that was a deepfake of me, and I did report it. I didn't really follow-up to see if it got taken down or whatever. Like, it was clearly a deepfake. Like, it did not look great. Like, it was weird, and I think anyone who watches my videos would know, like, this doesn't look right.
Stephen Robles:But it was me here in my studio saying things I didn't say, and that did kind of bother me because obviously they had to train something on my content. So they must have downloaded a bunch of my videos, trained the content, trained some AI on it, and then did that. And it did make me think like, this is a little scary to think someone could make a video of me saying something outlandish, something really bad that gets me canceled. And that made me feel not great. And so I don't know whether that's illegal or not.
Stephen Robles:And yeah, I mean, whatever, more rules and laws maybe not the best, for me in this case, and I think for a lot of people who are online basically via video and audio, like my voice to be trained, and then if that was used in a way that I didn't want, I don't know. Maybe I'm okay with more laws be like, no, that's not right. I would I would almost say a deep fake of me without my permission should not be okay. Like, should not be allowed. You know what I mean?
Stephen Robles:But I don't know. That's just
Jason Aten:not right. I think it's tricky, and I I agree with you. This stuff shouldn't exist. I mean, I just wanna I cannot be more clear that I that I don't think that there's anything there's no redeeming quality to any of those things. Yeah.
Jason Aten:My only thing that makes me feel weird is once the gar government starts passing some kinds of laws. Because previously, like, the law was like, you can't make child sexual abuse material, and there's no line there. Like, we all agree. Like, that's terrible. But if I wanted to make a TikTok of Steven doing his Amazon haul haul, I feel like maybe I should be allowed to do that.
Stephen Robles:Really?
Jason Aten:No. I'm kidding. I'm not gonna do that, Steven.
Stephen Robles:I'd telling I know. I know. But I but I understand, like, the implication of of making it illegal. I don't know. I don't I don't wanna see any deepfakes of me.
Stephen Robles:And I do you know? And it's more concerning to think like Fair point. You can tell. Five years from now, maybe you won't be able to tell that it's an AI, creation, and that's and that's what maybe gets me. But anyway
Jason Aten:Is there a difference between I can't believe we're still talking about it. Is there a difference between that, though, and somebody just getting online and ranting about you even making stuff up, and that's protected First Amendment speech?
Stephen Robles:I think so. I think so. Like, if someone wants to do that, I can address it. But if someone sees a video they think is me, like a % believes is me, if one person believes it, it means probably a lot of people would believe it. And then I have to try and say, like, actually, that wasn't me.
Stephen Robles:Now it's almost like a he said, he said, but with an AI version of myself.
Jason Aten:Yeah. We're definitely gonna need, like, a court case that clarifies that you that someone has the First Amendment right to say things about Steven, but you don't have a First Amendment right to say things as Steven.
Stephen Robles:That. I like that. I want I want I want that law. Like, yeah. Of course.
Jason Aten:I want that law. I want the Steven law. Give me the Steven law. Say what
Stephen Robles:if you want about me and, like, plenty of people have, but to to say something as me, that that feels patoka over the line. Like, I don't know. We're talking about misconceptions.
Jason Aten:An article and was like, Steven Robo said this, it would be defamation.
Stephen Robles:It would be defamation, especially if I never said it. And I feel like if you claimed that in an article, you would have to prove I said it. And it could be just your personal testimony, but then it would be my testimony versus yours, and that's what we've had in courts for forever. But if it's like someone plays in a court a video of me sitting in the studio saying something and the jury or judge can't distinguish, that's a problem. Like, that feels like.
Stephen Robles:Because then I could be on the stand and be like, that's not me. It's like, then you sound like every, you know, everyone who might be in a quirk like, wow. That's not my voice on the recording. It's like, oh. I don't know.
Stephen Robles:It gets sticky. Got it. Anyway.
Jason Aten:I'm sorry for spending so much time talking.
Stephen Robles:No. No. I mean, it's, it's an increasing issue because, I mean, obviously, you know, they're they're having to pass laws against it. Deep pig's
Jason Aten:bad. I just wanna say deep
Stephen Robles:pig's Deep pig's bad. I wanna talk about the pope's kerning. But, anyway, I was like, that's a funny jacket. Like, I showed people initially. I was like, hey, look at the Pope in this funny jacket.
Stephen Robles:And then it was like, actually, this picture's fake. Was like, oh, shoot. You know, that stuff.
Jason Aten:All right.
Stephen Robles:Should that have been illegal? I don't know. I just wanna mention Raycast. Anytime I talk about TextExpander, clipboard managers, everyone talks about Raycast on the Mac, and they now have an iOS app. And so I downloaded it to try it out.
Stephen Robles:It basically is like a funnel for a bunch of AI models. If you pay for the pro version, you can use ChatGPT. You can use Claude. You can use Perplexity. You can use all the AIs in one app.
Stephen Robles:And I guess the main thing about Raycast is the notes feature, and a lot people use it for that. Obviously, the Mac, there's a bunch of other use cases. But I looked. It does have a bunch of shortcuts actions, which kudos to Raycast. And you can use a shortcuts action to make calls to all these different AIs.
Stephen Robles:So that's cool. I'm gonna play around with it a little more, but I know there's a bunch of Raycast fans out there. I thought I'd mention.
Jason Aten:I heard Christopher Lolly talking about this on the Mac Power Users podcast, which is a free podcast. It was a good conversation. But I don't like, if I'm using Alfred, do I care about Raycast? Like, is it just too much at some point, isn't it better to just, like, stick with the thing?
Stephen Robles:Well, yeah. And I think people say, you know, well, I use a standalone clipboard manager, and I use TextExpander. And a lot of people are like, you should just use one thing.
Jason Aten:Keyword Well, I use TextExpander, PasteBot, and Alfred. And I'm super happy with all three of those. But why do I care? Like, wouldn't I have to reset everything up if I did that?
Stephen Robles:Like Yeah. Well, and that's the thing. Like, I'm I can fiddle. I will fall down the fiddle rabbit hole and be like you know, I'll I'll just change settings for hours. I'm like, I I don't need I don't need that.
Stephen Robles:One.
Jason Aten:Stick to the trumpet.
Stephen Robles:Alright. No more fiddle. I wanna talk to Pope's kerning. What I mean by this is I saw a group of share this, and, you know, the the Pope passed away, Pope Francis, which is sad, but they have a tombstone now for Pope Francis, and there's a whole story behind it. But I just wanna talk about kerning.
Stephen Robles:If you're not if you're not aware, kerning is the space between letters when you're talking about topography. And we don't talk about a lot on the show, but I do love a good topography conversation. And I have strong feelings about fonts. And I just want to say they got this kerning wrong. And I would hope for the pope that they would have gotten this right.
Stephen Robles:I think they should redo it. I don't know what the ramifications are of that, but I mean, that A, that ain't Like that's another word. Like this word is F R space A space and then the other letters, and that they shouldn't have
Jason Aten:done NCIS. Isn't that a TV show on CBS
Stephen Robles:right now? That's what I'm saying, NCIS. I mean, it looks more like a TV show than it does it? No. No.
Stephen Robles:You gotta fix that kerning.
Jason Aten:Are we sure there's not just some lens distortion happening here?
Stephen Robles:No. No. Because they did look. There's other pictures of it on social media. Like, people on the thread saying they like,
Jason Aten:look at that. How can this possible hap how possibly happen?
Stephen Robles:Whoever I mean, there must have been some designer. Right? Someone laid out this this text topography design with the kerning, and they they messed it up. I don't know how I don't know how it got passed all the way to, like, the stonemason etching this into the stone.
Jason Aten:Like, Cook chose poorly. I think this is Luke and
Stephen Robles:Maysley's decision. Chose poorly. Yeah. Not not good kerning. But, anyway, alright.
Stephen Robles:We have some personal tech stories we have to share.
Jason Aten:Jill Schiller would not have
Stephen Robles:messed that up, I just wanna say. %. Hundred %. Neither would have Johnny Ive. It would have been real thin.
Jason Aten:Correct.
Stephen Robles:It would been real thin letters.
Jason Aten:The whole thing would have been made out of aluminum. Aluminum.
Stephen Robles:Aluminum. Okay. A number of personal tech stories. I think yours is going to be the culmination. Okay.
Stephen Robles:Can you hold up your finger so our viewers can see? Jason messed up his finger.
Jason Aten:I really messed it up, but it's fine now. So we'll talk about it.
Stephen Robles:We're gonna talk about that. Two quick things for me. One, I did it. I bought a Mac studio. I bought a Mac studio.
Stephen Robles:But I
Jason Aten:got The funny thing is the sun has not yet come up here. I made that joke, but it's raining like crazy right now. I just realized that. So hopefully, you can't hear it. But
Stephen Robles:Wait. What does that have do with the Mac studio?
Jason Aten:Because I my joke was that it was about as surprising as the sun coming up tomorrow morning that you bought a Mac Studio.
Stephen Robles:I mean, I said I was probably gonna do it, but I got the m four I got the m four Max, Jason. I didn't get the m three Ultra. I I understood my needs.
Jason Aten:You just need the highest number. That's why. You couldn't you could not bring yourself to not have the highest number even if intellectually you knew that it was the better chip. It's like, nope. I can't do it, which I understand.
Stephen Robles:Honestly, Yeah. That has something to I know.
Jason Aten:I even a joke.
Stephen Robles:The coffee
Jason Aten:That's why I have an m four pro MacBook Pro instead of an m three max. Because it's a higher number.
Stephen Robles:It was a bit prohibitive, and also I wanted to upgrade everything else, which I did. Okay. So
Jason Aten:tell me about it.
Stephen Robles:Well, it's maxed out. I got all the things.
Jason Aten:Eight terabytes? Yeah. And what is it? A 92 gigs of memory?
Stephen Robles:A 28. A 28.
Jason Aten:Steven.
Stephen Robles:Listen. Here's here's the thing. I'm gonna do a video on
Jason Aten:it, You're
Stephen Robles:never gonna pay off your house, I just wanna say. No, no, no. It is fine. I paid my taxes. We're all good, which is why I ordered it now.
Stephen Robles:I paid
Jason Aten:my taxes. Don't Don't at me.
Stephen Robles:I will finally be able to have a Mac in this house where my iCloud photo library is downloaded in full quality, the entire library. Honestly, that's like the main reason why not the main reason, but it is a big reason why I wanted to upgrade and get more storage. I was between four and eight terabytes. But here's the thing, Jason. Honestly, if this thing had more storage, my m one Max, Max Studio, I probably would have kept it for years, and that was my intention.
Stephen Robles:And so I am thinking, I know this might be foolish, but an eight terabyte SSD, I should be good for many, many years, and hopefully this will be like my decade computer. Like, I'll just yeah. Stick with it.
Jason Aten:I'm confused. What? You you you're saying that this is the first computer you've had that
Stephen Robles:At that much You
Jason Aten:don't need eight terabytes though for your local iPhoto library.
Stephen Robles:I needed, like, a terabyte. I needed, like, a terabyte. And so I have a two terabyte now, which is basically half full. And so I can't download my iCloud photo on this. I could have done the four terabyte, but also you can't upgrade that ever.
Stephen Robles:Like, whatever you buy with it is the storage you're gonna have. And I I already use external drives for, like, Final Cut libraries, and I was like, I just wanna I I can do it. I'm gonna go all the way.
Jason Aten:That's true. So that I know I'm not gonna take any issue with that. I just wanna point out that for a hundred and $29, you can get a SSD just for your photo library, and your computer's not going anywhere, so it's totally fine. Like, that's what I'm doing right now. I a Mac Mini.
Stephen Robles:I it on my Mac, and then when I use Time Machine, it should get backed up. It should get backed up. All I'm saying. All right, one other quick one. Could say this because my son's birthday was yesterday.
Stephen Robles:He turned 16, and we were gonna get him a new iPhone. So I wanted to get a 15 Pro. I wanted to get an iPhone 15 Pro. Apple doesn't sell the 15 Pro anymore, and Apple's refurbished store doesn't have any 15 Pros. The newest you can get is a 14 Pro.
Stephen Robles:So I went to Amazon Renewed, which I have bought iPads, I believe, in Amazon Renewed. And in past jobs, I bought different Apple products Amazon Renewed. So I bought an iPhone 15 Pro, and I'm sure you saw this picture when I posted it. I opened the box. This is what I got.
Stephen Robles:Don't even
Jason Aten:know what I'm looking at. That's definitely not a Pro anything.
Stephen Robles:That's not a Pro anything. It only has two cameras. And also, I don't know what color this was supposed to be originally, but this thing sat in the sun for several days, I assume. Wow. I don't even know what color it looks like it maybe is supposed to be the yellow, but it's, like, gross.
Stephen Robles:This is what I was sent, Jason, after ordering a 15 Pro.
Jason Aten:This is not a refurbished thing. Because if you order a refurbished from Apple, it looks brand spanking new.
Stephen Robles:Well, this is Amazon renewed, and so it's not through Apple.
Jason Aten:What does that even mean? Amazon I'm just saying like Amazon Renewed is not the equivalent of Apple refurbished.
Stephen Robles:It's not. Like Amazon Renew like when you search Amazon for iPhone 15 Pro, you can like it says refurbished, but it's something it's here. I'll just show you. It says renewed. That's I'm gonna show you the website right now.
Stephen Robles:I'll even show you the thing that I that I bought, and it's definitely not what I got. So you're
Jason Aten:That's definitely not an iPhone 15 Pro. Did Alex Roman sell that to you? Because I think he outright lied.
Stephen Robles:So this was the one I got. IPhone 15 Pro two fifty six unlocked renewed premium is what it says. And you could this is what you get. I got the natural titanium. And, you know, it says visit the Amazon renewed store.
Stephen Robles:It's not super clear, like, who the seller is, but it's clearly not Amazon nor Apple. And that junk phone was what I got, and it was I was really surprised. So I returned it, obviously. I'm hoping Amazon accepts the return because I don't want them to think that I tried scamming them.
Jason Aten:They're they're like, dude, this is not an iPhone 15 Pro. And you're like, I know.
Stephen Robles:And it was shrink wrapped. Like the box was shrink wrapped that it was in. So I'm like, someone must have looked at this. I don't know if it was mislabeled or whatever, but yeah. And, you know, it's not cheap.
Stephen Robles:You know, it was 700 I mean, no. $800 after tax for a 15 Pro renewed. And I was like, well, okay. Well, I'm not gonna do Amazon renewed for the phone again. And so long story short, we got them a 16 Pro,
Jason Aten:which Wow. You got an update.
Stephen Robles:Went all the way.
Jason Aten:Yeah. Did you did it say iPhone 15 Pro on the outside? Like, was it just the wrong phone in the box, or did somebody pick the wrong thing and send it to you?
Stephen Robles:The box doesn't say anything. It just says Amazon renewed on the It's a white box. It says Amazon renewed. You open it up, and it's just the phone. And there's no You know, Amazon doesn't put paper in the box to say, like, Here's your order.
Stephen Robles:You have the You can log into your account and see it. But anyways, I always have said, Oh, you can get refurbished Apple stuff on Amazon. I think I've done it for iPads and maybe even a Mac in the past, and it's been a good experience. But this was not a good experience. And yeah, I was really surprised.
Stephen Robles:So be a little careful, I guess, for iPhones at least. And, you know, I just wish there was 15 Pro refurb through Apple, but there just wasn't. Anyway, tell me about tell me about your finger. What'd you do then?
Jason Aten:Well, okay. The reason only reason to talk about this is I have spent the last week or or this week learning all about Apple's accessibility features because I haven't been able to type with my left hand for the past week. So on Sunday morning, very early, I was holding two pieces of wood together as you do on Sundays, and I was drilling through the pieces of wood so that they would the hole would be lined up, and I just went straight through the top of my finger through the knuckle.
Stephen Robles:You can send me a photo, and it's gross.
Jason Aten:And at first, I was like, oh, that's gonna be bad. But you know how, like, at first, you're like, this doesn't hurt. That was my first clue that this is gonna be bad is that it didn't hurt.
Stephen Robles:Right. Because your body is like, woah. What had happened?
Jason Aten:That's not drills were not supposed to go there. And so I'm holding onto it and I'm I was actually at our church trying to put something together very early in the morning. And I start the church that we attend has three venues. And this particular one, I'm I'm not as familiar with. And so I'm trying to find a first aid kit, and I can't find one anywhere.
Jason Aten:And I'm so I'm just holding for those I'm just holding my finger. And by the time I get to, like, the coffee bar area, I look down and the blood has started to seep out of my hand. So I just grab paper towel and wrap it around it. Yep. Can't find anything else.
Jason Aten:Look down again into the the paper towel is completely red. So then I duct taped something. I'm like, gotta get pressure on it. And then I'm like, you know what? I got it's, 06:45 in the morning.
Jason Aten:I'm like, I gotta go. So I didn't even finish what I was doing. I left there. My wife met me, and she, like, bandaged me up. And by by anyway, by the afternoon, I'm like, I probably should go get this looked at because I drilled through it.
Stephen Robles:You waited till the afternoon?
Jason Aten:I had to do things. I had to had to dig for your
Stephen Robles:finger, Jason.
Jason Aten:I had to play the guitar at our at our church.
Stephen Robles:Wait. You played guitar after that?
Jason Aten:I sure did.
Stephen Robles:Jason, what in the world?
Jason Aten:I know. I know. So, anyway, I go to the the urgent care place, and and the and the best actually, the best part of this, Steven, was when I first get in there, it was not it was no longer bleeding. Like, it had been a while or whatever. So the guy's like, well, we should get start getting it really cleaned out.
Jason Aten:I'm like, that's why I'm here. That seems like a good idea. I don't want whatever happens if you don't clean it out. So he gives me this little dish with some saline water and some iodine in it, and he's like, here, put your finger in this. And iodine, you know, is like a rusty brown color.
Jason Aten:Right?
Stephen Robles:Right.
Jason Aten:So I put my finger in it, and I'm sending the picture. And the physician's assistant walks into the room, and all she sees is this picture. Basically, I and she's like,
Stephen Robles:wait a minute.
Jason Aten:Is that blood? She's she thought that that whole thing was full of blood.
Stephen Robles:That would be a lot.
Jason Aten:It's, like, bleeding out of my thought or my so, anyway, they glued it all back together. I'm wearing a splint, but I can't type with that finger, and I really can't type with that hand because Yeah. It's real hard. And so I have the articles I've written this week, which admittedly has not been very many because it's much difficult. I have used the f five key, which has the little dictation button on it.
Stephen Robles:Right.
Jason Aten:And I have been dictating articles, which is so cool that you can do and it works better. It works very good. Like, that dictation, very, very good. Oh. The problem is it's not a good way to write things Yeah.
Jason Aten:For someone who's used to being able to type. Because I didn't realize how much I think literally with the physical connection to do it. And when you're writing a sentence, I can write, like, four words of a sentence and pause and think for a minute, like, what the next word should be.
Stephen Robles:But when you're dictating it You just
Jason Aten:there's this, like, in what is it? Like, in this in momentum, like, you have to feel like you you feel like you have to keep going because there's this little blinking blue thing waiting for you to talk. And so I ended up spending a lot of time editing what I was doing. Sure. But I for me, the thing I'm gonna eventually write about is Apple, like, they nail the accessibility stuff so, so well.
Jason Aten:In fact, you like, even on an iPhone, some of the best features either are accessibility features or start as accessibility features. The number of things where, like, you can adjust the zoom, like, just universally across your device. You the back taps for people who aren't you know, couldn't use the the swipe up or whatever, like, just being able to tap the back two or three times to either go back to the home screen or to do stuff. Like, are so many incredible accessibility features that we never think about if you don't need them. And it's like, it is amazing to me how much thought has gone into those types of things.
Jason Aten:Because most of us look at that little microphone and be like, I've never touched on that. I never wanna do because if your other experience is talking to the assistant, you're like, well, this can't be good. I'm telling you, like, it's good. I was you could you can tap it in any text field. I can do it in Ulysses.
Jason Aten:I can do it in Safari or Brave or Notes app or anywhere text messaging. I mean, I'm so used to, talking to text message anyway, but I was doing it all on my Mac. And so I'm I can't wait to be able to use my finger again. But in the meantime, kudos to Apple's accessibility features.
Stephen Robles:That's that's awesome. And you always hear how, you know, the strides that Apple has gone to accessibility that, you know, other companies really don't match it. I know Google does a lot too, but the I'm curious the what not transcription. The dictation. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Did you did you try any of, like, other services like AI or like, I remember Dragon dictation used to be a big deal, but did you try any other service like that or just go straight to Apple?
Jason Aten:I just did straight to the microphone. Just a % just did that because one, I thought, well, it's there. I'm gonna use it. Right. And two, I really did wanna have the experience of what it would be like for somebody who, if you just take a Mac out of the box and you need some of these features, like either you had you're you were, like, missing a limb or something like that, so you just couldn't type that way or or whatever.
Jason Aten:The real tricky thing for me was not only was I not able to type with this finger, but, like, it's in the way. So I couldn't even type without this finger. Like, it was just such a such a cumbersome thing. I'm like, I'm gonna just try this, and and it was pretty pretty impressive. I know you had another question, but I just wanted to encourage our listeners to go to apple.com/accessibility.
Jason Aten:I promise you there are a ton of things on that page. You had no idea no idea that we're there. But so, like, the live speech, which was basically what I was using was turning your typing or you can turn your typing into talking, so it'll talk back to you if you need to do that. But the dictation feature, it was it was spot on. Like, what was striking to me is I'm a pretty good typist because I do it a lot.
Jason Aten:I don't make a lot of mistakes when I'm typing. I mean, I have typos and stuff, but I don't, like, type gibberish. I'm pretty good and pretty fast at it. Yeah. But when I was trying to type with this, I was making typos, like, left and right.
Jason Aten:Like, it was just I have Grammarly on and my whole screen was just blood red. Right? Using this, perfect.
Stephen Robles:That's wild. That's wild. And I always sometimes in the videos I'll include accessibility features just because it blows people's minds that you can do it.
Jason Aten:Right.
Stephen Robles:One of the things is vocal shortcuts, which you can if you enable this, your iPhone microphone, the little orange dot, will basically stay in your status bar permanently because it's literally always listening not just for the wake word, hey, dingus, but for anything you say. And you can program any vocal prompt, basically. You could have a swipe up, and just saying that will actually swipe up. So if you were in Instagram Reels or TikTok, you could just say swipe up, and you can program your phone to do the thing you just said. Times many, many things.
Stephen Robles:And then personal voice, if you remember, was Apple launched that where you can basically train it on your voice. You read, like, a 50 statements, and it'll try to create what sounds like your voice so then you can type, and then it will make it into speech. It it is way behind things like eleven Labs AI text to speech and being trained on your voice, but it's cool that it's built into the phone. You do have to wait, like, twenty four hours after you do it. I did it just so, like, it had my voice in case everyone used it.
Stephen Robles:But but yeah.
Jason Aten:Steven, like, they even made it now. You can you can you talked about the the shortcuts to swipe, but you can do that with your eyes now on an iPad Right. In an iPhone. Or Yes. The sound awareness where if you if you have loss of hearing and your smoke detector goes off, it will tell you that or a baby is crying.
Jason Aten:Yeah. Yeah. Or the music haptics. Like, there's so much stuff built into your phone that people just don't even know.
Stephen Robles:I did it. In one of my Shortcuts videos, I did it because if you enable sound recognition, like you said, it could be a fire alarm, baby crying, or even a door knock. And so I programmed just to show off a door knock and it ran a HomeKit scene. So again, if you were, loss of hearing, someone knocks on the door, you can program it to flash a light, turn this light on or off. And then now you can have a visual representation of it.
Stephen Robles:Plus you can have a notification on your phone that says, there's a knock at the door, just because your phone heard it, not because any camera saw it or anything like that, just because of the the audible thing. So, yeah, very cool. Sorry about your finger. How long you gotta keep that splint on?
Jason Aten:I think I I can take it off tomorrow, which is good because I'm traveling to Florida tomorrow. Not coming to see I'm not coming to see Steven. No. I'm going to the Miami Grand Prix to see, an f one race, my first time.
Stephen Robles:That's amazing. I'm excited. I I was close to maybe meeting you there, but I just couldn't work it out. But, that's, super fun. And now I have an insane story to tell Jason, and that's gonna be our bonus episode.
Stephen Robles:I went to someone's house that everyone listening right now probably knows who it is, but I'm like, I can't say who
Jason Aten:it is. Would know the name is what you mean. We don't know who it is.
Stephen Robles:Right. Right. Right. Exactly. And so I'm gonna tell Jason this wild story.
Stephen Robles:So if you wanna hear our bonus episode, you can subscribe directly in Apple Podcast or at join.primarytech.fm. You get an ad free version of the show when there's ads, and you get the bonus episode. And you get the whole back catalog of bonus episodes so you can listen. And our poll, we had a bunch of people respond to what other member benefits you'd like to see. Right now, a daily a short daily podcast with, like, the top headlines just summarized is way in the lead of benefits, but we'd like to hear from more of you.
Stephen Robles:So if you did not take that survey or little form yet, it's a two question survey. What benefit would you like to see, and are you currently a member or not? That link is gonna be at the top of the show notes. Would really appreciate if you take that, and, we'll be ready to launch some new benefits. I'm pretty excited about.
Stephen Robles:So that forms there. Leave us a five star rating and review an Apple podcast. We'd appreciate that. And subscribe to the YouTube channel. You can watch the show.
Stephen Robles:Lots of visuals today, and you can do that at YouTube.com at primary tech show. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. We'll catch you next time.
Creators and Guests
