OpenAI and Jony Ive Join Forces, Google I/O Highlights, Hands-On with Android XR Smart Glasses
Download MP3I would have really liked just doing laundry and taxes with you. Welcome to Primary Technology, the show about the tech news that matters. OpenAI has announced a partnership with Sam Altman, Johnny Ives hardware startup. We're gonna get into that. Jason literally just got back this morning from Google IO, and he got to try on those augmented reality glasses.
Stephen Robles:Getting into that plus WWDC, big announcements there. You might have seen it on my social media. CarPlay Ultra, which we missed from last week, and Fortnite's back in the App Store. This episode is brought to you by agency from Cisco and you, the members who support us directly. I'm one of your hosts, Steven Robles, and joining me, fresh off the plane, my friend Jason Aten.
Stephen Robles:How's going, Jason?
Jason Aten:It's great. I'd like to thank our sponsor, Delta Airlines, for this episode. They're not sponsoring us. I just realized
Stephen Robles:I have
Jason Aten:Delta Airlines. I gotta rep our sponsor. They aren't sponsoring us, but they did literally deliver me an hour and a half ago. So there's a
Stephen Robles:That's that is crazy. Well, you were you were at Google IO in person in the flesh seeing the things, and so we have a lot to talk about there. I I you know the movie quote because we actually talked about it offline before we recorded.
Jason Aten:Yeah. But I couldn't repeat the title to say about something about yesterday, tomorrow, everything, and all the things.
Stephen Robles:Everything, everywhere, all at once.
Jason Aten:Yeah. I have not seen that movie.
Stephen Robles:Of all the cultural things you give me what I'm talking about, you see that one. It's a good one.
Jason Aten:Alright.
Stephen Robles:Hot dog fingers. You'll you'll love it.
Jason Aten:I have no idea.
Stephen Robles:Anyway, there's so much happening right now. This is going to be an unhinged episode of primary technology. Huge announcement, by the way. If you support the show, primary tech daily is live. It's been going for several days already.
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Stephen Robles:A bunch, I think, have already signed up because of it, at least I've seen on social media. So thank you for that. Love for you to support the show there. Oh, I didn't even pull five star reviews, Jason. What am I doing?
Jason Aten:Well, you do that. I thought what you were gonna tell our listeners was that if they support the show Yes. That someday you and I will be able to buy Johnny Ives next startup venture.
Stephen Robles:$6,500,000,000. Okay. We're That's all it takes.
Jason Aten:We're gonna need some help.
Stephen Robles:Need a lot Wow. A couple you know, I should Memberflow is an option where you can have people just support at any level they want. That's what I need to do. Just go
Jason Aten:you know that just because we let people give as much money as they want doesn't mean that, like, Marc Andreessen is gonna be one of our supporters. Right?
Stephen Robles:You're literally repping Dell Delta CEO. He might you never know.
Jason Aten:Got my number. You you got my number.
Stephen Robles:Might dump it in there. Oh, we have five okay. Five star rating review shout outs. Flyaway Mike says it's a great show from The USA. LG, I don't imagine it's LG the company, but just LG from Ontario, Canada, my best Friday morning workout podcast.
Stephen Robles:Thanks for that. And Rob VE from Australia, internationally, battery percentage on phone and back pocket. And he had a bunch of other things. I'm reading it now, but we'll we'll I'll go back. And I wish I could reply to reviews because some of them are very long.
Stephen Robles:Anyway Yeah. Those are the reviews. Okay, let's just get into it. This news dropped right before we recorded, which was that Did you watch any of the video between Sam Altman and Johnny Ive?
Jason Aten:I did not have time. You literally texted me forty five minutes and I'm like, Hang on, let me read some things.
Stephen Robles:So the news is OpenAI is acquiring Johnny Ives hardware startup, which is not love from his design firm. This is Johnny Ives hardware startup, which I don't even know if they've made anything, but some obscure things probably, but not really, like, techy stuff. But Johnny Ive is gonna be joining OpenAI and forming IO.
Jason Aten:I think IO is the name of the hardware startup that he started with Evan Tan, which was a former Apple and, Tang Tan, who was also from Apple. So these are all people that, like, he poached from Apple, and they got together, and they started a hardware startup with the purpose of making a device for OpenAI, then OpenAI said, hey. Why don't you make us a device and come be a part of our thing?
Stephen Robles:So IO merges with OpenAI. This is from the announcement post, which would be the first link in the show notes. And I I just encourage you to go visit this. You're seeing it now if you're watching it on YouTube. This is big.
Stephen Robles:This really does look like a wedding invite. Like, it's they got some serif fonts for the title. They got this script for the Sam and Johnny at the bottom. Like, it's a letter from the two of them. And this video, let's let's just say, you can watch this video on the on the website that I'm linking.
Stephen Robles:It is a nine minute video with beautiful b roll of San Francisco, several clips of Sam Altman and Johnny Ive just walking down the street. Johnny Ive with a very peculiar gait. I've never seen him walk before, but he's I don't know. It's it's an interesting video.
Jason Aten:Didn't I I sent you a picture of him. Oh, I guess, like, you can't tell someone's gait from a picture. I was like, literally, I sent you a picture of him walking away.
Stephen Robles:So anyway, so this is a a beautiful wedding announcement. I mean, a technology merger. Mean, it kind
Jason Aten:of is a wedding announcement.
Stephen Robles:Yes. It is a joining of a kind. And so listen, here's the deal. Basically, what this means is Johnny Ive is going to be speaking into the design of OpenAI, I believe both in the software side, and they said they have things to announce next year. So seemingly 2026, I imagine a hardware device of some kind from this partnership.
Stephen Robles:Now that's that's the whole news. The news is just IO, OpenAI's acquiring at $6,500,000,000. Johnny Iva's gonna be part of the design for software and hardware. Here's the thing. When you watch that video, which really says nothing.
Stephen Robles:It it says absolutely nothing. It's just Johnny Ive and Sam Altman, like, blowing smoke and, like, being very nice to each other. Johnny Ive says these things about, when I met Sam I can't do it. I'm not gonna do an accent. But he was like, he just cares about people, and not not just things, but people.
Stephen Robles:It's very Sam.
Jason Aten:Is that Sam or Matthew McConaughey you're doing right now? I just wanna be clear.
Stephen Robles:Alright. Alright. All I will say is this. Hearing Johnny Ive's voice in a video, period, just brings this wave of nostalgia from every Apple video that also had Johnny Ive narrating. And I immediately just think, I want whatever is about to happen.
Stephen Robles:Like, whatever they're about to do is probably I mean, there's no way it can fail as bad as the humane AI pin and the rabbit. Like, it's open AI, Jason. There's no way it's gonna fail that bad. But I just wanna hear Johnny Ive announce a product in that accent. I'm my my body is ready for it.
Jason Aten:Okay. So I have two things. The first one, I have two words for you because Uh-huh. You just laid down a marker. Yes.
Jason Aten:Butterfly keyboard.
Stephen Robles:That's not the only thing he
Jason Aten:made, Jason. But I'm saying he is capable of making very bad things. That's all I'm trying to say.
Stephen Robles:He has made a few bad things. He also designed the iPhone.
Jason Aten:Listen. I'm not suggesting that he he's not I just saying he's not batting a thousand. That's all I was trying to say about that. Second thing.
Stephen Robles:Sure.
Jason Aten:Sure. I think the I it just occurred to me, and I think I'm gonna send you this link because I definitely think you should put it into our notes for our listeners because this is so fascinating. It's a it's a interview with Johnny Ive in Wallpaper Magazine, and it's I think this letter is the only thing I've seen publicly other than Love's From's website that uses the Love from Serif font, which I love. And so I just I think that that's fascinating that he found they they made a custom font for love from, and he's finally found something to use it for a wedding invitation for OpenAI and IO.
Stephen Robles:I'm gonna share it now, but it will be in the show notes. I didn't realize they yeah. They had a whole serif. Is this what is this? This is like an iron print of a queue?
Jason Aten:That's from bake Bakersfield. So, like, that's an original punch that, you know, when they actually had to typeset things. Oh. You know what I mean? Butterpress or whatever.
Jason Aten:So but they based it on Bakersville, but it's they made their own custom Baskerville. Thank you. They but they made their made their own.
Stephen Robles:So Okay. So they're using the love from font in this wedding announcement. I'm excited to see John or hear Johnny Ive in another announcement video.
Jason Aten:He better say aluminium or else it's not worth it.
Stephen Robles:Oh, yeah. It is. So what the aluminium needs to be in there somewhere. It is also so clear that Sam Altman is trying to position himself as, like, the Steve Jobs of now. Like, he's literally partnering with Steve Jobs' closest
Jason Aten:I mean, listen. I was at an event last week. Was that just last week? With another guy who's trying to position himself as the Johnny Ive I mean, as the Steve Jobs and constantly talks about the partnership between Johnny Ive and Steve Jobs Right. And brought in Johnny Ive as a collaborator at Airbnb, Brian Chesky.
Jason Aten:So, like, everyone wants to be the next Steve Jobs.
Stephen Robles:Everyone wants to yeah. But, I mean, but, like, having Johnny Ive as a partner closer than I think Brian Chesky is.
Jason Aten:I mean, who do you think designed a lot of the interface on that app?
Stephen Robles:That's fine. But Airbnb is never gonna be a hardware company. And, like Sure. I don't know. When I think of Johnny Ive partnering with someone and making a thing, it's making a physical thing.
Jason Aten:Sure. Okay.
Stephen Robles:Sure. Like, he's know?
Jason Aten:I know you don't wanna spend a lot of time on this announcement because there's really not much to talk about, but I wanna ask a question. I think this is important, and I would love to know what our listeners think. I don't think OpenAI should be making a device. Hands down, I think it's a terrible idea for them. I think OpenAI should be the AI platform that everybody else is building on top of.
Jason Aten:And I think that once they met we've seen what happens when you Meta's the perfect example. Has Meta made any good devices? I mean, the Oculus stuff is fine, but they had to buy a company to do that. Right?
Stephen Robles:Here? Okay. I'm gonna go I'm gonna I'm going to suggest one product, and you let me know if it it moves your opinion an iota. Imagine if OpenAI made wireless earbuds with ChatGPT built in so you can have conversations with it at a moment's notice.
Jason Aten:I mean, I already can. I have wireless earbuds that I can touch a button on my my iPhone and have a conversation with Jet GPT two. It's I mean
Stephen Robles:Yeah. You can, but I don't know. That was just off the dome. But
Jason Aten:I'm just saying.
Stephen Robles:I can see. I I know. I know. Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Aten:I would love to know what our listeners think. I don't think OpenAI should be trying to make devices. I I think they have to try because they have to have a surface in which to distribute, you know, their ChatGPT, basically.
Stephen Robles:Right.
Jason Aten:But I think their goal should be for ChatGPT to be everywhere. And as soon as you start to make a device, you know, are you gonna compete with Apple? And then do you now like, it's a lot harder to get Apple to be a partner with JetGPT, they already are. So, like, I just I'm just it's an interesting dynamic.
Stephen Robles:If any if any of our listeners and viewers have an idea of what could they possibly make hardware wise, that would be interesting. I'd be curious. But I'm I'm just down here Johnny Ivan videos again. It's it's it's about time.
Jason Aten:It's good stuff.
Stephen Robles:You were just at an event, Jason, literally yesterday, Google IO, and they had so many announcements. I mean, the I think the total event was, like, two plus hours long. They said Gemini one thousand times. If you were playing a drinking game, it was nice knowing you, but it was that that ship has sailed.
Jason Aten:Did you see they literally put up a scorecard at the end of the number of times they said AI, Gemini, and then Sundar Pichai's favorite initiative, which is exciting.
Stephen Robles:But I also saw I think it was Faruk on threads that the count was wrong. He, like, downloaded the video, transcribed it, and they actually said AI more than Gemini. So it was like
Jason Aten:it was
Stephen Robles:a little it was a little slanted there. But it's so many announcements. Obviously, I wanna hear from you because you were there. I did watch much of the keynote. I got in there, like, halfway through, which halfway through was still, like, barely into the announcements because it was a super long intro.
Stephen Robles:So there there was, a DJ. Right? Were you there?
Jason Aten:Like So they always have a like, they start seeding people at 9AM. So there's an hour of time where they just they have, like, a lot they have a DJ that's doing all sorts of things. And there's, like, videos happening on the screen, and it's like, this is being live generated by Vio based on this music. And you're like, I I believe you, but so what? Like, you could just show us stock footage right now.
Jason Aten:No one care. Like, it's not a big deal. Like, this is not important. So
Stephen Robles:So you were not dancing to the DJ, I assume?
Jason Aten:No. Although this year was way better than I think it was it last year? No. Maybe it was two years ago when the guy, like there was, like, this duck on the video that was reacting. It was there's some weird stuff happening.
Jason Aten:So you listen. You
Stephen Robles:When you buy it
Jason Aten:some We take live music and DJs and AI and video and you put those all thing together, you like, you know weird stuff happens.
Stephen Robles:It's everything everywhere all at once. All at once.
Jason Aten:What you said. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:So what I said, so this is your article. Jason's article is gonna be in the show notes. You were there. Oh, we're gonna get to the video generator and then the AR glasses because you got to try those personally. Save those for a second.
Jason Aten:Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Your article here, and I think from what I saw, Gemini and being on Android, all the personal context features as well as Gemini search, I don't know if it was Parker or Delaney or someone else was basically like, Google just announced everything. Or maybe you said it. Google just announced everything that Apple promised.
Jason Aten:Yeah. Well, I say Google shipped is shipping the things that Apple promised. Shipping. Like, that's literally the like, Apple is making promises and Google is shipping products. Now to be fair, some of the things, which we'll talk about, like, the glasses in a minute, are not actually shipping products.
Jason Aten:But this personal context type stuff is shipping. It's available according to Google in the in the Google the Gemini app on iOS and Android. And Right. If you think about it, the promise that Apple made was that Siri and Apple Intelligence was gonna be able to take advantage of the fact that it has access to all of the stuff on your device. Right?
Stephen Robles:Right.
Jason Aten:Great. That's super helpful except for it also doesn't exist at this point. Right? They made all these promises, and none of it has happened so far. Google doesn't actually have to have access to all the stuff on your device because it has access to all the stuff you put into Google accounts, which for most people are calendar and email
Stephen Robles:G and Gmail.
Jason Aten:And docs. It. That's your entire life.
Stephen Robles:There is a demo. I'm not sure. It was Sundar Prachai actually did the demo. You could tell me about it, but it was showing basically the power of Gemini in Gmail. Yep.
Stephen Robles:And he was showing how, you know, let's say someone asks you, hey. I'm doing a road trip, and I know you did it last year. Can you tell me about it? And so rather than you as the email responder having to remember the details, maybe you had a Google Doc where you wrote the itinerary and all of that, Rather than going through all your stuff, putting it together and replying, you can just ask Gemini to respond, and it will go through not only your Gmail, but your Google Docs and everything in Google Drive and basically write the email for you with all the pertinent information, and then you can just reply to the person. And, like, that alone, mind blowing.
Stephen Robles:And if only Apple could do that, like, iCloud Drive is right there. Apple Mail, right there. Like, it's all there. They could probably do it on device, but no. So what was what was that like when he was going through that?
Stephen Robles:I mean, was that impressive at the event?
Jason Aten:I mean, I've seen versions of this. Microsoft has talked about this. Google has obviously been leaning into these personalized responses, but that what they're doing now is essentially they're giving you the ability to give permission to Gemini to access all of this information. They actually said the word with your permission a bunch of times. Right.
Jason Aten:This particular demo, I actually think was a stupid example of this because Really? Well, Sundar's quote was, with personalized smart replies, I can be a better friend. Actually, though, does letting
Stephen Robles:That's the
Jason Aten:bad Gemini write the email for you make you a better friend? No. Say texting the person back and being like, give me a call real quick. I'd love to explain some of this to you, or just let me share you this Google Doc that we already have. Like, this is not making you a better friend.
Jason Aten:So that was a bad example. But the idea that Gemini has this agentic, the ability to act on your information and do things for you, absolutely. That's fantastic. They actually showed a demo of what Apple promised and is sort of rolled out where you can just the the Gemini Live where you can just point your phone at things and do stuff and, like, point it at an invitation and just it'll pull up Google Calendar and add it to the calendar for you. Like, they're doing all those things.
Jason Aten:And, yes, this is exactly what Apple promised and so far has barely begun to ship any of it.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Well, visual intelligence, it really only became a like, the some of the features that they showed at Dub Dub back in this past January because that's when I actually took it down to Miami, and I made a video showing some of the, like, pet recognition actually in visual intelligence and doing stuff like that. So it's still just barely there. But they're also like, Google at IO. So not only did they show Gemini in search, allowing people to do longer prompts, which they're saying people are just doing, which they have the data, but there was also and maybe you can explain to me this shopping stuff, which was basically like seeing items and then asking Gemini to customize it or ask it for other things.
Stephen Robles:What what was the shopping thing?
Jason Aten:Well, let me just broaden out a little bit. Essentially, what Google is trying to do is make sure that you are still using Google for everything. And in the past, we we've always thought about Google as the way we access other things on the Internet, and the entire Internet is organized around Google. Right? SEO is the single most important thing that a lot of businesses think about.
Jason Aten:Right? And the truth is that at this point in time, Google has essentially stopped sending traffic to most websites. Right? Because Google wants you to just have Google. So now the whole idea here is that Google is the interface you use to to access information on the Internet, but you don't actually have to go to anywhere.
Jason Aten:Right? So the shopping thing is the same thing. I think I heard I think it was Neil Patel interviewed Kevin Scott, who's the chief technology officer of Microsoft. They had Microsoft build this week. Great episode of Decoder.
Jason Aten:Should listen to it. But they're talking about, like, literally, the only reason you'd start a website is if you wanna sell stuff on the Internet, like ecommerce, because, like, it's kinda silly to start a blog at this point because where are you going to get traffic from? And so Google is, like, moving there as well. Like, right now, most people start their searches for things on Google. Like, they start searches for things they want to buy using Google, and Google's like, well, what if we just let you pick the, you know, the the clothing you wanted and show you examples of it on your like, it's basically just going it's you just need one website.
Jason Aten:It's just Google. Just come to Google. You can do everything you wanna do right here on Google. And I I think that's probably bad overall for society. Right?
Jason Aten:But the reason Google is doing this is that it has to it has to lock you in in a way that it didn't have to do before because in the past, Google was the place you went for everything. And now people are starting to use these other, like, really, this is a competitor to like search and chat GPT. Right? They want you to have a reason to just stick with Google.
Stephen Robles:It is, but it is impressive. So this demo, they were creating a look and it'll basically find the actual items in the real world that you're like generating. But see, you can put in yourself, a picture of yourself, a picture of the garment you wanna see, and then it'll show you what it'll
Jason Aten:look like on you. Yep.
Stephen Robles:Show me what it'll look like. That's cool. But actually I totally forgot Microsoft Build was also this week. That was early this week, which I didn't even have in the notes. But there is this amazing dichotomy where Microsoft at Build, which I listened to that Decoder episode as well, and hearing what they're trying to enable for website builders to say, basically run a large language model for search on your site.
Stephen Robles:So or, like, it's an API, basically, where websites can basically serve up what they want as different AIs, like in Edge or whatever, search the web. But it's very different from like you're saying, Google really wants that, stay in Google. We will do everything. Ever since your article about the Google search pop up whenever I search in Safari on my phone, now I'm just furious every time.
Jason Aten:Yep.
Stephen Robles:Because I do I see it every time. And the psychology of, like, the blue button is the go to the Google app, whereas the white button, that's, like, more discreet.
Jason Aten:Yeah. Continue app is, do you want to stop what you were doing and go to this other app and do it there? So your choices are continue or stay in browser, and you're like, well, I wanna continue doing the search that I was doing, so which one do I pick?
Stephen Robles:Yeah. I'm mad. It is maddening. It didn't actually come up right then when it did it. But anyway, so there's so much to cover.
Stephen Robles:I don't even know we'll get to Microsoft Build. But listen to that Decoder episode. It's fascinating
Jason Aten:to The best part about the Decoder episode is every time Eli ask a question, he Microsoft CTO is like, yeah. I don't know. That could be bad. That sounds like that would be bad. But, yeah, the the what you were just describing is what they call MCP, this model context protocol, which is essentially I think it was actually created by Anthropic, but the idea is it's a way of telling these agents about your site and giving them the ability to take action on your site, and it's sort of trying to create a standardized way of doing that across the Internet so that instead of being indexed by a search engine, your site would host this particular information.
Jason Aten:And when these AI agents go out, they would be able to it would it would be able to tell them, here's here's your your site information. So you'd essentially be hosting your own index of your site locally, and then they would just come to you instead of scooping it all up. So and, I mean, Microsoft, it's a big deal that Microsoft is adopting this. Of course, Microsoft's not exactly a huge player in search. I mean, they are the other player in search, but they're not they're they're pretty small compared to their, competitor.
Stephen Robles:Did Google ever talk about at the IO keynote how they were going to bring traffic to those small business websites or how that would work in this age of AI, or do they just kinda skate over that idea completely?
Jason Aten:Yeah. I don't think Google right now wants to spend any time talking about website traffic because they know that they have right. There's a competing interest there. Right? They their interest is not to send you out to those blue links anymore.
Jason Aten:Their interest is to just give you the information. In fact, I sometimes feel like, especially with the AI overviews, which Google made a good point. AI overviews in search is the single largest surface by which most people interact with generative AI. Right? I think they said that there's, like, 1,500,000,000 users of of AI overviews in search.
Jason Aten:Now the difference is, like, you just go to Google and you type in a search and you get an AI overview. You didn't ask for it. Right? It's not like going to the Chegg ID app. So there's 1.5
Stephen Robles:want it or not.
Jason Aten:There are 1,500,000,000 people can click and continue when that thing pops up on their phone apparently. But the the I don't think Google really wants to spend a lot of time talking about what it did to the Internet and just traffic on websites and the Internet because it is such a complicated, such a complicated thing. So it wasn't a thing they talked about that I that I caught at at Google IO at all.
Stephen Robles:It's it is curious. The AI overview, I don't know if your experience matches this, but it feels like it's becoming part of the vernacular even among non techie people. Like, I will hear my wife say it. I'll hear other friends say it. And I'll just say, yeah.
Stephen Robles:I saw in the AI overview or according whatever. And they just refer to that now as, like, the search results rather than the thing. It's just becoming more and more common. I I feel like, do you do you have anybody saying that or hear
Jason Aten:that? Yeah. I think that's true. And you just you made me remember a thing I wanted to point out. The the thing about the AI overviews is Google is serving up the information for you, and the hope is that you don't go anywhere else.
Jason Aten:You just do another search or whatever it might be. The AI overviews include links to things, but I I
Stephen Robles:not easy to see or click.
Jason Aten:I I feel like this is one of those examples. This is exactly like that pop up. Google is including those so that it can say, look. We're giving people the source information, and you can just click right here and go, but we really hope you won't. Right?
Jason Aten:It's like you want credit for including the links to the source information, but you're doing it in a way that you don't ever, ever want anyone to click on those. And I think that says everything you need to know about Google's perspective on traffic on the internet.
Stephen Robles:And I will sometimes look in that AI overview because it's giving me information and I'm curious, like, where is this information from? It is not easy to find. There's a little tiny link symbol sometimes that you'll see that. Sometimes it's at the bottom with where these are all the sources for this information. So anyway, search is clearly changing.
Stephen Robles:Gemini on Android and doing the personal context stuff, they're shipping these features. Also, there's this court case in the background where Google is in remedies about are they going to have to sell Chrome? Do they have to split up? And it's going to be very interesting how their announcements at Google IO and Gemini and Search, how that will affect all of this, like
Jason Aten:Yeah.
Stephen Robles:And whether they have to give up Chrome and all of that. So that's just Gemini and Search. Then they had the video generator, Vio, and the Flow app plus the AR glasses. And I just wanna show this clip. Basically, Vio can now do video generation with audio, and they showed several examples of gen AI generated video with characters on screen speaking, like speaking dialogue.
Stephen Robles:And they have this one. It's like old man in the sea. This ocean, it's a force, a wild, untamed might, and she commands your awe with every breaking light. I mean, very impressive. Every example was impressive.
Stephen Robles:This is the clip. Not only does it look more natural, the mouth movements, the, the facial movements looks so much better than it did six months ago, a year ago for any of these video generator tools, but the audio sounds really good too. I mean, was it impressive there at the event too?
Jason Aten:This was an example of a funny thing that happens at events like this because they showed another clip of these, like, animated animals in the forest.
Stephen Robles:The bird.
Jason Aten:There's, a raccoon and a bird. Yeah. There you go. And they're like, and it'll generate dialogue. And then you listen to the dialogue, you're like, that's really bad writing.
Jason Aten:But they get done, and everyone,
Stephen Robles:like Sure.
Jason Aten:Applauds. And I was like, come on.
Stephen Robles:The audio is impressive. Like, the die the dialogue and I the idea is if you have a script and you want to be able to animate that script, then the writing is on you. But if it can generate the audio and visual from your script, I mean, that's the whole production line. Like, that's it.
Jason Aten:Sure. You know? Yeah. And I think I don't think you know, if one of the interesting things is that it you know, they were talking about, I think, with with with Flow, which is the actual editor, which is pretty janky at this point. It's real buggy.
Jason Aten:Doesn't work very well at this point.
Stephen Robles:Sure.
Jason Aten:Real early days. That's fine. But a lot of the stuff they're talking about, you know, you can extend clips. You know where you can extend clips right now? I mean, Adobe's been all over that for a while.
Jason Aten:Right? And so Yeah. Yeah. It's like if you're going to do that, are you gonna just load up first of all, to use v o three, you have to sign up for the $249 a month Gemini AI Ultra, which is the other thing I'm gonna write about because anyway. But
Stephen Robles:That's expensive.
Jason Aten:But then okay. If you keep playing this and you just watch the guy's hand as he grabs that thing, you're like, oh, yeah. This is bad. This is real. This is like, oh, yeah.
Jason Aten:We're still definitely watch this. Watch this guy grab this gear show. Now, like, that hand, it's
Stephen Robles:But it's still come like, it's come such a long way in less than a year. Sure. Like, even even the initial Sora demos, this is way better. Like, than the lady walking through the city or all those things. Like, now I would wanna see what is a thirty minute, you know, episode animated episode look like.
Stephen Robles:Like, can you pass that? Sure. Otherwise, though, the the Flow app and v o three, you know, I'm not gonna show it again. We've talked about deepfakes on this podcast. We've talked about a general content.
Stephen Robles:Like, this is where we are right now, two years from now, three years from now. I mean, it is going to be impressive and maybe a little concerning, like, how realistic both audio and video can be.
Jason Aten:Yeah. I think there's good uses for this for for things you know, everything you used to typically think of is CGI, right, in a video. Right. Sure. Like, that one was, like, basically just AI anyway.
Jason Aten:Right? Like, if you're just it's just like you had to have a person who was manually doing those things.
Stephen Robles:That's the thing.
Jason Aten:Yeah. But, I mean, even if you look at Pixar, they're not at the point anymore where someone is literally frame by frame animating something. Right? They're creating wireframes, and they're creating textures, and they're creating characters, and all those different types of things. So, like, this does feel like the next logical step for that, but that's real different than trying to AI generate a person driving a vehicle off of a cliff and flying because there's a giant bird in the back of it.
Jason Aten:It's like, we're we're still a real long way off from replacing actors and Anime. In that kind of stuff. So
Stephen Robles:But, I mean, Secret Invasion, the Disney plus Marvel series, that had an AI generated intro. I think it was one of the first kind of major shows or movies to do something like that. And, obviously, though, I imagine, the increasing use. I don't know. Have you been watching the studio at all?
Jason Aten:I still have not made it to the first episode, but it's on my list.
Stephen Robles:It's very good. And there's an episode, I won't spoil it, but AI generated content comes into play. It's hilarious and, yeah, telling. Before we get to the AR glasses that you got to try, we're gonna talk about live demos on stage. Credit to Google.
Stephen Robles:I wanna thank our one sponsor for this week's episode, which is Agency from Cisco, not a g e n c y. This is a g n t c y. Building multi agent software is hard. I have not done it, but I imagine it is extremely difficult. Agent to agent, agent to tool communication, still the Wild West.
Stephen Robles:How do you achieve accuracy and consistency in nondeterministic agentic apps? That's where the agency, AGNTCY, comes in. Agency is an open source collective building the Internet of agents. And what's the Internet of agents? It's a collaboration layer where AI agents can communicate, discover each other, and work across frameworks.
Stephen Robles:For developers, this means standardizing agent discovery tools, seamless protocols for interagent communication, and modular components to compose and scale multi agent workflows. Build with other engineers who care about high quality multi agent software, visit agency.org and Azure support. That's agntcy.org. The link is in the show notes as well. Thanks to agency from Cisco for sponsoring this episode.
Stephen Robles:There you go.
Jason Aten:So not Delta. Listen, Ed, call me.
Stephen Robles:There you go. Yes. Ed, listening. I don't know him that personally. Sorry, Ed.
Stephen Robles:I didn't mean to use your first name without any qualifier. Mister Ed from, Delta.
Jason Aten:Mister Bastian. That's his.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Okay. Thank you. The demo.
Jason Aten:Mister Ed. You just called him a tossing horse. I don't think that's No.
Stephen Robles:My goodness. Is going downhill fast. Okay. The final announcement was Google's is it XR?
Jason Aten:So it's Android XR. That so the announcement was Android XR, which is essentially their mixed reality augmented reality software platform. Exactly. So and they they talked about it on multiple different layers. There was the Right.
Jason Aten:Oculus Vision Pro type thing, and then there were the Right. Meta Ray Ban slash Orion type.
Stephen Robles:And that's what the demo was, was like the Meta Orion or Ray Ban type glasses. And kudos to Google for doing a live demo that was, listen, risky. They are streaming a live video from AR glasses to a massive screen from two two separate pairs of glasses trying to do a live translation. And, I mean, the fact that it worked at all is impressive. Obviously, you know, the glasses having to process this live video and stream it to the screen was likely intensive.
Stephen Robles:But they had Shahram speaking Farsi, and it was translating live to English in Nishta's glasses. And then she was speaking Hindi, translating it to English in his glasses. And they got a couple messages in, and then it started freezing and the demo, like, started breaking. The fact that they tried it and it worked at least for those first couple messages, impressive. Kudos to Google.
Stephen Robles:Apple needs to do these live demos also. Like, this is like, it's a proof. Like, this is basically a social proof. Like, look. We have it, and we're doing it.
Stephen Robles:And it was really impressive. Glasses looked really cool. Obviously, you can do a bunch of other things like directions on the ground, take pictures, remember this, remind me. You could do all those kinds of things as well. But you got to try these, actually?
Jason Aten:Yeah. I'm wearing them right now. No. I'm just kidding. These are not dumb.
Jason Aten:Although they kinda just look like it. And in fact, they're these are Warby Parker's, and Warby Parker was one of those partners that they mentioned and stuff. So yeah. So I did. I got to try them for a very brief amount.
Jason Aten:I stood in line for a very long time, Steven. I texted you, and was like, I'm doing this for you, man. So but to be fair, I didn't have
Stephen Robles:to stay in
Jason Aten:the whole time. They finally, about two hours in, were like, what if we use that software that restaurants use to take a list of names? Like, I think literally as the line was accumulating, they're like, there's gotta be an app out there for this. And someone at Google was like, here. Just download this waitlist app.
Jason Aten:So they did. And they just started taking names and phone numbers, and, you know, you got the little things like, see where you're at on the waitlist. And by the and by the time I got on the waitlist, I ended up waiting about an hour and a half or so after that, but I got to at least not stand there. But it was it was worth it, I think. It was a very brief demo on very preprotype y type hardware.
Jason Aten:Right? So Google's not planning to actually make the hardware. They're the they're gonna make the tech, and they're gonna work with these partners. Right. Warby Parker, Gentle Monster, and I think there's actually one more.
Jason Aten:I can't think of who it is right now to to make essentially, glasses look like they they're a little thicker in the stem, the ones, because they've got a couple buttons. They got a button that, turns the screen on and off. They have a button that takes a photo, and then you can tap the bridge or the side here to activate Gemini. And unlike a lot of the demos that I've done with other companies that are very scripted, this was it was it was pretty confined, but essentially, I walked into this little room and the guy said, do do what you want. Like, here's how you activate Gemini.
Jason Aten:What do you wanna do? And so there's there's a bunch of other stuff in the room and I I I point I just look at it and I said, what what do you see? And it describes some things. And I said, well, what type of plant is that? And it told me the type of plant.
Jason Aten:And then I said, well, I live in in Michigan. Would this be a good type of plant to for Michigan? And it said it appears that this one is fake, which it was. So it was telling me don't plant that one in Michigan.
Stephen Robles:Okay.
Jason Aten:Okay. It wasn't perfect, though. I mean, I turned and there was a couple paintings on the wall, and one of them for the light, it couldn't figure it out. And the guy was very confused because it had done it many, many times. The other one, it told me the name of the painting, when it was painted, who painted it, that kind of thing.
Jason Aten:It you know? So it was it it it was very impressive in that sense. It was you know, you you you have a little screen in one of the eyes. You, the last demo, which he actually called up from a phone I think, to be clear, this was not something that was talked about a lot. Actually, a lot about the XR glasses was not talked about, and I think they require a connection to a phone.
Stephen Robles:I
Jason Aten:think I could be wrong, but I think the idea here was that you are essentially wearing an Apple Watch on your face with glasses kind of thing with a camera and speakers. So it's like a lot of what although if that's the case, then it really is just a shame that you can't do more with Apple Intelligence with your Apple Watch. Right?
Stephen Robles:So wait so wait a minute. Wait a minute. So there's only a screen in one lens?
Jason Aten:That's correct. In in the in the version that I now my understanding is that they did a demo in December for some people where they had a screen in both lenses.
Stephen Robles:With the screen just in the one lens, though, is it like do you see double? Is it a like, does it show clear? Like, it is the kind of overlay you would imagine AR glasses have?
Jason Aten:Yeah. I mean, you just essentially see it out there in the distance kind of a thing, and it and and it worked just fine. Okay. I did not ask them for prescription. They would have done that, but, like, at that point, I'm like, I don't want you to take three minutes to get me prescriptions because there's a real long line of people.
Jason Aten:I was trying to be really kinda nice about that.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Aten:So to be fair, it wasn't the super sharpest thing for me. The combination probably of this lens technology and the fact that I was not wearing prescription lenses probably contributed to that. But it was it like, the other thing about it is it only appears basically at one spot. Right? No matter what, there's, like, either a dialogue window, which is what you saw in that video that you well, you can see it right there.
Jason Aten:Right. Everything you see is it's not like it's gonna point up here and be like, this is your destination or, hey. This is Joe that you met at the party over here. Everything appears in that one spot because that's where the lens is.
Stephen Robles:For sure. But, I mean, it's impressive. Warby Parker also they're the glasses that I'm wearing right now. I'm just saying Warby Parker sponsored the show.
Jason Aten:And I I that's true. We were both bottling the product for Warby. Too? I told you these are Warby Parker. I tell you
Stephen Robles:Oh, all the time. Forgot. Okay. Look.
Jason Aten:But I do think that they I think Google gets it that if you're going to get people to wear something on your like, these are the people that make Google Glass. Doesn't have a great reputation for the look that you you know, there's a whole I mean, there's a reason that they call them glass holes. Right? There was a whole specific, like, thing. I think they realized that if you're gonna get people to wear them on your face, they have to be the glasses.
Jason Aten:They have to look like glasses. And, literally, this is, like, what Meta did well by just going with Ray Bans kind of thing. And if you think about it, I the the idea will be that they're the display part is optional. So you may be able to buy Warby Parker glasses with just the speakers and the ability to talk to Gemini. And then you might
Stephen Robles:be able
Jason Aten:to buy the ones yeah. And the camera. And then you'll be have be able to buy the ones buy the ones with the screen. One important distinction between the Ray Bans and these is with the Ray Bans, when you take a photo, have no idea what it looks like. But with these, as soon as I took a photo, it pops up in the display.
Jason Aten:You can make sure that it's what you want, and then you can, like, either retake it or you can frame it up, do that kind of thing. So I I mean, I was impressed. I think that they're I think that this is most likely the interface that most people will interact with AI on a regular basis. I think that there's a ways to go, but, yeah, kudos to them for actually doing a live demo. Like, absolutely.
Stephen Robles:And What if what Jason, what if this is the hardware that Johnny Ive and Sam Allman is working on? AR glasses. Right? Same.
Jason Aten:I mean, Johnny Ive is the guy that gave us the $14,000 gold
Stephen Robles:Apple.
Jason Aten:Apple Watch or whatever it was. So maybe. I mean, I don't like, listen. I don't here's the thing. If you I mean, obviously, Meta has the partnership with Luxottica, which is Right.
Jason Aten:Essentially every glasses brand that isn't Orby Parker or Gentle Monster. So Google has a partnership with the rest of them. So is Johnny Ive gonna start his own, like, eyeglass you know what I mean? It's it's hard to know because the the Yeah. The thing about it is, like, with the with the Ray Bans, with Meta, however they call it that, like, there are several different styles there.
Jason Aten:And and I imagine that with the Warby Parkers, there'll be several different options. So the point is you just buy the glasses that you want. They're not gonna look exactly like this, but, essentially, they were like this. But you, I mean, you saw it. You could see the
Stephen Robles:Yeah.
Jason Aten:Yeah. Photos of them. So you can pick the style that you want. Like, I don't know that people want custom bespoke Johnny Ive glasses.
Stephen Robles:Sure. Sure. But these it was also impressive because, like, him just wearing them during the announcement, at first it was like, are those AR glasses? You know, I don't
Jason Aten:think they Of course they were. He didn't make it clear, but of course they were.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Yeah. But as you realize or understand that, like, it is impressive because these I think these look even better than the meta Orion's, which are pretty like, even the frames are super thick. I mean, we're getting we're getting close. You know what I mean?
Jason Aten:Yeah. And so I actually asked about this. I said, so you're partnering with Warby Parker. My my sense is that your goal here is targeting consumers. And I know you don't and he's like, we don't have any prices to talk about or anything like that.
Jason Aten:Because, essentially, what's gonna happen is the company those companies are gonna sell them and set the price and all that kind of stuff. Right. I think Google's benefit here is they just wanna get more surface area for Gemini. So that's that's great. I made the reference.
Jason Aten:I said, so, like, price wise, are these gonna be closer to the Medarabans or meta you know, the Orion? He's like, listen. Those Orion glasses have a lot of check going on in them. But that's because, essentially, they're designed to be self sufficient. Right?
Jason Aten:They're not meant to be tethered to your phone. Whereas that's what made me that's what really occurred to me. I'm like, okay. This is Android XR as manifested on these glasses is an extension probably of Android.
Stephen Robles:Right. Seven ninety nine. That's my prediction for the first pair of smart glasses from, this partnership.
Jason Aten:And you can get them with ads for $4.99.
Stephen Robles:No. That's Amazon's AR glasses coming in Okay. Whatever, 2026. So any any other interesting tidbits from your demo?
Jason Aten:Or So I did not do a demo of the project Moohan, which was the Samsung Apple Vision Pro, but I watch a lot of people put them on. Literally Samsung. They're literally Apple Vision Pros. Like, that's that's
Stephen Robles:what they made.
Jason Aten:But it sounds like they kinda nailed it. It sounds like the pass through is really good. Again, I didn't try it personally. I was just standing there waiting in line next to the people that were trying them, and people seemed genuinely impressed. And the one thing, the one thing that they're going to have going for them is a native YouTube app.
Stephen Robles:Right. Right.
Jason Aten:They also have a cool thing where you can the light shield is like a two piece thing so you could remove the bottom part of it so that you feel more connected to the augmented reality. Yeah. Exactly.
Stephen Robles:And just to be clear, you did not bring your Apple Vision Pro on the plane again?
Jason Aten:No. But I wished I would have worn it to the event. No. I'm just kidding. That would have been quite the
Stephen Robles:You would have definitely got on camera if you'd
Jason Aten:That would have been pretty I wish I would have thought about that, but I think that some people would I just would have gotten thrown out. Our friend, Renee Ritchie, would have thrown me out.
Stephen Robles:Which, as side notes, speaking of famous people that you have met. So you remember her name, Richie? Yeah. And then you said hi to Dieter Bone?
Jason Aten:I didn't say hi to Dieter Bone, but he was there. He was he was one of the people that was way more well known than but listen. It's fine. Giannis was there. You know, NBA All Star, he was there.
Stephen Robles:Oh, right. That's right.
Jason Aten:That's right. He was at the I did not meet him, but, there there are a of
Stephen Robles:people There's
Jason Aten:a lot of people there.
Stephen Robles:It's security. Impressive it's impressive announcements, from Google IO. They they did a lot, and so curious when stuff actually ships, and we will see. I have a couple of Android phones here. I'll be testing one of with what I can.
Stephen Robles:Let's do some Apple news. Some Apple news. I know Jason probably downloaded this immediately, but Fortnite's back on the App Store. So there you go. The, Epic put enough pressure on Apple and the judge to make
Jason Aten:So was this after the judge basically said, we know you're capable of resolving this, so do the right thing, Apple?
Stephen Robles:I think so. I think the judge had to once again prod Apple, but then it's there. Both both my brains
Jason Aten:got it.
Stephen Robles:And I
Jason Aten:think the exact quote was like, and if you can't resolve it, we'll have your ex executive come we'll have executive come and explain why you're not able to. And I I think Phil Schiller was like, please don't send me back. Please don't make me go back there.
Stephen Robles:She she did the the Darth Vader pray I don't alter it any further Yeah. This deal. You know? Like so, anyway, so Fortnite's back in the App Store.
Jason Aten:About the Fortnite thing, I think the obvious I think the obvious thing here is Apple's appealing the original decision.
Stephen Robles:Right.
Jason Aten:And if if Fortnite's coming back on the App Store in the meantime, Apple wanted it to be on its own terms, not because a judge said it had to be. Because later on, that becomes a lot trickier for Apple to try to get rid of them. So it's kind of like, we don't wanna force the issue because we don't want the judge to decide. We'll just do the thing that they want for now because now it's being done of our own volition so we could change our minds later. I just wanted to say that because I don't I don't wanna give Apple too much credit, but I also want us to be clear about what's actually happening.
Stephen Robles:That's good. No. That's good. So this was Thursday after we recorded CarPlay Ultra, which is the new name of what the next generation CarPlay was, announced back in 2023, I think, or 2024. It's been a couple dub dubs since this was shown off, but CarPlay Ultra being the CarPlay that takes over all the screens.
Stephen Robles:It is available in a singular car right now or at least just cars from Aston Martin.
Jason Aten:I think it's the DBX, like the brand new Aston Martin, you can get it.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. So you've probably read and and seen her out this already. It's just hilarious. And I listened to The Vergecast where Neeli was basically talking about the different ways that this can be implemented because Apple basically had to work with car makers and allow car makers to quote unquote punch through CarPlay to offer things like either air conditioning controls or seat controls. Anything that the car manufacturer needs to allow the user to operate, it basically needs to come through the CarPlay interface.
Stephen Robles:And so I think, like, Apple may design some of those things or speak into the design of some of that. But it's not like this is really just gonna be a bit of a hodgepodge, I think, of, like, UI and other things and also not in any cars that anyone's gonna have anytime soon.
Jason Aten:So Well, I mean, they did announce that Hyundai and Kia are gonna be future partners, and they sell a lot of
Stephen Robles:Do you think my 2011 Kia Soul will get CarPlay Ultra?
Jason Aten:Does your 2011 Kia Soul even have a display? Like, does it have a console display?
Stephen Robles:It's got my car per my Carperide display that
Jason Aten:has suction
Stephen Robles:cups to the dash.
Jason Aten:Definitely no. Just get yourself a tenth gen iPad and glue it to the thing. And you'll be it's the same I don't think so. I don't think CarPlay I don't understand. I mean, like, I like CarPlay.
Jason Aten:Don't get me wrong. I like CarPlay. I just don't need it to do anything more than what it's already doing, which is basically give me a map and play either Apple Music or Spotify. That's it. Just that's it.
Stephen Robles:And the maps the maps is nice because now that, I actually got my wife a CarPlay head unit from Pioneer in her minivan. I don't know if I ever have mentioned it here on the show, But it's it's in there now, and it works way better than the built in Bluetooth that was going on. It kept cutting out and stuff. And so and, yeah, it's it's really fun. And, also, like, the CarPlay share music feature.
Stephen Robles:So, like, my son can scan the QR code and then basically play music into the car through my wife's CarPlay. So, anyway, CarPlay is nice. CarPlay Ultra. I mean, I'll request a review unit from Aston Martin for sure. But
Jason Aten:I would love to hear how that goes.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Silence. Dead silence. That's how that will go.
Jason Aten:Yeah. It's like, well, Apple sent me a pair of AirPods, so clearly they'll send me an Aston Martin.
Stephen Robles:I mean, anyway, I don't even know where to get an Aston Martin. I wouldn't even know the first place. I would I literally have to get an AI overview. Where do I buy an asset market?
Jason Aten:The wildest thing about that is do we think that there's we talked before about the HomeKit versus VisionPro, my worst take of all time. I don't I feel pretty good about the fact that the majority of people who are spending $200 on an Aston Martin do not care at all about CarPlay Ultra. Like, really? Like, I just don't think that that's true. I think CarPlay's fine.
Jason Aten:Like, I think they're thrilled about car like, I just I'm just was the was the dashboard interface of an Aston Martin that bad that they needed Apple's help? Like, that's my like, I don't get it. Like, you buy a $200,000 car, you're probably thinking that the speedometer is gonna be fine.
Stephen Robles:Right.
Jason Aten:Yeah. So I don't understand why they needed Apple to design that for.
Stephen Robles:I just wanna say there is an Aston Martin dealer in Tampa Bay near me. So, you know,
Jason Aten:Listen. You can get one for, like, half the price of that that Mac studio you bought.
Stephen Robles:No. You cannot, Jason. Okay. No. No.
Stephen Robles:Way more expensive. Alright. Last Apple news, then we got some personal tech and a bonus episode I'm excited about. WWDC, we knew it was June 9 in the week of that, but Apple does this, like, secondary announcement. I think last year they did it on Google IO also.
Stephen Robles:I think they
Jason Aten:Sent out the invites, you mean? Okay. Maybe.
Stephen Robles:They sent out the they sent out the invites for in person press. They also announced things like, here's the platform state of the union when that's happening. They talk about the video sessions. So, anyway, that was in the Apple newsroom, but exciting. I, the first time ever, got an in person invite to Dub Dub, which is wild and amazing.
Jason Aten:You've made it. You've listen.
Stephen Robles:I'm excited.
Jason Aten:Listen. Both of your bucket list items, you've been deep faked on TikTok, and you got an in person invitation to WWDC.
Stephen Robles:That was not a bucket item.
Jason Aten:But my other That's how you know you've made it is when you've been deepfaked on TikTok, and then you get to go to WWDC.
Stephen Robles:I'm very excited. This is my I mean, the Apple store opening, you know, maybe I don't know if you consider that an Apple event, but I feel like this is my first big Apple event invite. Yeah. So I'm I'm very excited.
Jason Aten:So I don't I I just wanna say they're not you've got the in person invite so I can say this. There's no world which those two things are even closely related because literally anyone can walk up to an Apple store when it opens for the first time and shake Eddy Keys' hand or whatever. Like, it's I know you got access.
Stephen Robles:Early access. I got early access.
Jason Aten:Yes. They let they open the doors early for I'm just it's still a public space anyway. I know. Just saying, like, this is a bigger deal. That's all I'm
Stephen Robles:trying say. This is all way bigger deal. And so, yeah, I'm I'm very excited. And, my first time ever at Apple Park. First time ever in San Francisco.
Stephen Robles:I've never been there, so I'm excited to to go.
Jason Aten:We need to talk.
Stephen Robles:Yes. We need to talk. I need to do all the things. Nate already gave me a suggestion, for a bread Bowl. I gotta I gotta do that.
Jason Aten:Just so you know, Apple Park? Yeah. Not anywhere near San Francisco, but that's fine.
Stephen Robles:I I've been looking at all the maps. Yeah. Because, you know, I've booked I've booked a hotel.
Jason Aten:San Francisco and and with the with the traffic, I mean, give yourself a whole extra day if you're planning on going to San Francisco to the city. I just wanna be clear.
Stephen Robles:That's what it's yeah. I seem to to realize that. But anyway Probably an hour and
Jason Aten:a half drive is what I'm trying to say.
Stephen Robles:Right. Right. Well, very exciting. So that's that's it. It's happening.
Stephen Robles:It's happening. That's the that's the GIF. And I have some other stuff happening tomorrow that I wanna talk about in the bonus episode. I don't want to reveal it here, but I do have a personal tech. I think did you put a personal tech
Jason Aten:in too? We can do it. Mine's mine is not timely. We'll do we'll do it another
Stephen Robles:I mean, I like I like I mean, I have to look at We'll do
Jason Aten:it next week. We'll do it next week. It's fine.
Stephen Robles:It's a little teaser. What apps do we have push what apps do we allow push notifications for? I like that topic. It's good. I just wanna mention a shenanigan that I experienced because I recently upgraded my Mac Studio, as you all know.
Stephen Robles:And I You may have from scratch. Yes. I've heard. I did it from scratch. I installed all the apps.
Stephen Robles:And strangely, one app from the App Store is giving me this. I don't think I've ever seen this before. It is this app worked on my m one Max Mac Studio. It works on my m four MacBook Air. But when I tried opening on my m four Max Mac Studio, I just get this blank pop up window with a settings gear and a done button.
Stephen Robles:And nothing happens when you click done. Nothing happens. And I uninstalled it. I reinstalled it. This is from the Mac App Store, by the way.
Stephen Robles:This is not something directly from a website or whatever, and I cannot I cannot get this app to open. And so I went in the App Store app listing. There's the, like, developer link where you can go to, like, the developer website. No. I think that's what it says, developer website.
Stephen Robles:And I'm not saying the name of the app because I don't wanna put them on blast. This is not, you know, their deal. They make two apps that I use that are pretty critical for my workflow. And this was their response. I sent them a screenshot.
Stephen Robles:I said, I can't open the app. I don't know what happened. And this was their response to me. For apps installed via the App Store, it is Apple's responsibility to get you a working copy of the app. That's what they take a commission for.
Stephen Robles:In fact Wow. We are not allowed to be involved in that process by the developer agreements. Sorry. But you'll need to contact Apple so they can get it working for you. I feel like I feel like it was a a just a a insight into the developer relations currently between developers and Apple.
Stephen Robles:I found that fascinating. I did a follow-up email, and I asked them, can I buy this app directly from you so I don't have to deal with the App Store? Like, I'll buy it again. Like, I'll spend the money right now. They're like, no.
Stephen Robles:We only offer through the App Store, and sorry. So I'm gonna ask them, like, what does contacting Apple mean? Like, where do I contact them? So on the App Store app page, there is a report a problem link. And so I use that, which sends you to, like, support dot apple dot com with some form.
Stephen Robles:I tell it the app that I'm having an issue with what's happening, and I submitted it. That was two days ago. Haven't heard anything. But that was that's the only thing I can do, I guess. And I don't know how else to fix it.
Stephen Robles:And I just felt like this was a wild experience. I've never had something like this before. Is do you how does that feel to you? Like, how does that developer response, like, feel as a purchaser of an app and you're talking to the developer directly?
Jason Aten:So this is okay. I have two thoughts. The first one is that's the most insane dialogue pop up I've ever seen. Just a a settings gear and the word done that you can't actually click on. There's so many, so much I just don't get it.
Jason Aten:Like, that just makes me
Stephen Robles:What is happening?
Jason Aten:I I just I can't get past that. I thought for sure that for some reason you, like, got rid of like, you masked out all of the words for some reason that
Stephen Robles:you just
Jason Aten:didn't want us to notice? It's like, is your No. Not app pop up your Social Security number or something and you didn't want us to know? Like, I just was like, what is even happening here? Okay.
Jason Aten:Fine. My second thing
Stephen Robles:here Hold on. I'm gonna show you a I just opened the app live on my computer. Let me see if I can oh, I can't even share it here in Riverside because it it's not showing up. But I have the pop up. Okay.
Stephen Robles:I I'm sorry. I can click done and the window goes away, but nothing happens.
Jason Aten:Well, to be fair, at least this time when you click done, something goes away as opposed to that stupid dialogue that used to pop up on everyone's screen that would tell you that brave is turned off or whatever the thing. And you go turn off reactions and you click the x and literally nothing happens. Like, that was can you tell I still have feelings about that? Anyway PTSD. As far as the developer's response, I think that's a pretty accurate but terrible way to talk to a customer because Sure.
Jason Aten:This feels like you remember a couple weeks ago when I was when I talked about how maybe it was even when we had Gruber on. When I was talking about how Tim Cook's response to all developers seems to be full of the rage that he has for Tim Sweeney. Right? It's like and it's like I'm mad at one of my kids, and so I ground everyone. It's like one of my kids.
Jason Aten:And I feel like this developer's view of Apple, like, just the that's what they take a commission for.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. That that seemed
Jason Aten:There's some deep something going on that should probably be unpacked, but none of that's your fault. Like, you paid the money for the app, and the fact that maybe there's some kind of behind the scenes whatever going on should not affect the way now the flip side of that is the developer probably has absolutely no way of knowing who you are or even if you're actually a customer, though you went through an awful lot of effort just to reach out if you weren't. You know you know what I mean? Like, that's weird.
Stephen Robles:Right.
Jason Aten:It does seem like a developer should be able to forward something onto Apple saying, hey. Dude with his Apple ID reported this problem. Could somebody please like, there should be that kind of a support because if you Right. If you bought batteries from Duracell and you got home and you put them in and they set your flashlight on fire or something and you called Duracell and they're like, we got them at Walmart. I feel like Duracell could be like, yo, Walmart.
Jason Aten:What's hap like, we need to do something. You shouldn't be storing them in a warehouse that's 600 degrees. I mean, there's some kind of a inter interaction there. So I do feel like the developer there should be a different process. But that, again, that's not the developer's fault.
Jason Aten:I do think that that re that response is like, wow. There's so much tension here.
Stephen Robles:Well, it's just it was so dismissive, and I feel like the app downloaded. Like, I have the app on my Mac. It downloaded from the App Store fine. How do we not know this is a bug with the app? Like, maybe this version
Jason Aten:Right.
Stephen Robles:On the latest macOS version, on the latest chip from Apple. Like, maybe the developer hasn't tested their app on this m four Max, Mac Studio, or at least on that chip, and maybe there's something wrong with the app. So, like, to just entirely dismiss it and say, like, listen. That's on Apple. It feels a little disingenuine.
Stephen Robles:Like, there actually might be a problem on your side that you're just refusing to even investigate.
Jason Aten:The other possibility is the developer's like, how do I know you don't actually work for Apple, and you're gonna throw me out of the no. No. I'm saying, like Sure. So they're just like because the the line about we're not even we're not even allowed to talk about Fight Club. Right?
Jason Aten:Right. Yeah. They The developer agreement forbids us from even having this conversation, so I need you to I should be like, are you hostage? Are you
Stephen Robles:being held hostage, bro? Like, blink twice, please.
Jason Aten:Exactly. Click done if you're not a hostage. Right? Like
Stephen Robles:I mean, my email was literally at beard dot f m. I don't think I don't anyway.
Jason Aten:Anyway.
Stephen Robles:I was surprised, and I still can't get the app to work even though it works on my own for MacBook Air. So it just felt weird. That was a weird interaction. But, anyway alright. Let's talk about WWDC BTS, behind the scenes, and also my event.
Stephen Robles:I have actually have two events tomorrow that I'm going to, and I don't know how much I can say about them. So I'm gonna put in the bonus episode because you have a sports show for that. So you can do that directly in Apple Podcast. You can do that at join.primarytech.fm. Get bonus episodes.
Stephen Robles:You get an ad free version of the show and the new daily podcast, which I have to go make right after this. So you can support the show there. And, yeah, that is a good amount of work. So if you appreciate the daily show or would like one, we'd love your support. And you can give us a five star rating on Apple Podcast.
Stephen Robles:Subscribe on the YouTube channel and watch the episode there. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. We'll catch you next time.
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