iOS ’26 Rebrand, Sky AI App on Mac, What Apple Intelligence Could’ve Been
Download MP3You see, sometimes a year just isn't long enough. Welcome to Primary Technology, the show about the tech news that matters. This week, is Apple gonna call the next version of iOS 26 instead of 19 following the year? Rumors about Studio Display two point o. A Netflix cofounder is joining the Anthropic board.
Stephen Robles:We're gonna talk about AI browsers and a bunch of other hodgepodge of news. Also, which apps we allow notifications on our phone. This episode is brought to you exclusively by you, the members who support us directly. I'm one of your hosts, Steven Robles, and joining me as always, my friend Jason A. Ten.
Stephen Robles:How's it going, Jason?
Jason Aten:It's good. It's it's going good. It's been a
Stephen Robles:You know that movie quote? It's it's a little general. See, you see, sometimes a year just isn't long enough. I did that because the whole iOS 26 thing.
Jason Aten:I I think you stumped me.
Stephen Robles:Okay. Well, this is from the 02/2005 movie Pride and Prejudice. Pride and Prejudice.
Jason Aten:That's why I didn't.
Stephen Robles:Not seen
Jason Aten:it? Not my thing.
Stephen Robles:Not not in your pantheon.
Jason Aten:Okay. I have a pretty good memory of movies I've seen.
Stephen Robles:Oh, yeah. If you haven't seen it,
Jason Aten:you can. And I've never read the book. Okay. I was gonna make a very derogatory term. I wanted to be like, I could've texted my daughter, my 16 year old daughter, and maybe she She would've known it.
Stephen Robles:She would've known.
Jason Aten:Yeah. She probably would've.
Stephen Robles:I I wanna start the show also by making an official prediction about the OpenAI Johnny Ive hardware because I've been thinking about a lot after hearing a bunch of podcasts also pontificating about it. And I don't think I've heard anyone predict this thing. But before we do, one five star review shout out. Tiaz the Apple guy from The UK. Not basic Apple guy.
Stephen Robles:This is Tiaz the Apple guy. Says battery percentage on, point for Jason. Apple Pencil tip pointing up, so we tied there. And then a phone in the right pocket. I think that's me.
Stephen Robles:Right? I'm the well, if it's your dominant hand.
Jason Aten:Yeah. We don't actually know.
Stephen Robles:We don't do. You have to say dominant hand, right pocket, or whatever. But, anyway, we appreciate the five star review. Keep them coming. We're still a 4.9 star podcast here in The US.
Stephen Robles:One day one day, we'll return to a to a five star. Have you been listening to some of the tech podcasts that have come out talking about the I mean, every podcast talked about OpenAI, Johnny Ive, and predicting about hardware. Have you had any more thoughts since our last recording?
Jason Aten:I mean, yes. This is like the marriage of the century. Right? Like, this is like Charles and Diana's wedding, like, whatever many years ago. That's what this thing was.
Jason Aten:It was a very big deal. And I was actually just this morning, I finally got around to listening to Jason Sell and Mike Hurley talk about an upgrade, and it was very interesting because they have very, very different opinions about it, and they feel very strongly about those opinions. And so, I mean, I'm curious to hear yours.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. So I've heard, you know, John Gruber and Brian or Ben Thompson on Strathecari were talking about it and a few other shows. The Vergecast talked about it. And, you know, we have the previous AI devices in our minds, like the Humane AI pin, the Rabbit r one, which I do think it was funny. Rabbit, like and they they tweeted something the other day, and they were like, if you're still basing your thoughts about Rabbit r one on the early review videos, we've done a lot since then.
Stephen Robles:We're still here. We still exist. We're like, yeah. Okay. Whatever.
Stephen Robles:So after hearing all of that, and I think this was one of the rumors, two two devices. I feel like they were gonna do two devices. There's a lot of like, rumors and speculation. I think it was Ming Chi Kuo also talking about, like, a pendant style device much like Plaud AI and some other ones that, like, will basically just be a microphone and a camera that records. So I do think, yeah, a a display list device, maybe something you wear around your neck.
Stephen Robles:But Johnny Ive and Sam Altman specifically said you're looking at a third device that you would put on your desk next to your phone and your MacBook, which so it's something you put on a desk and it would be like the third device. And so here's my prediction. Okay. I think it's gonna be something with a display. And when you think about, like, what is the category that has still been nebulous that's not really, like, key to many people, but people love their Kindles.
Stephen Robles:People really like iPad. But for a lot of people, it's like, well, what does it do? It's not a computer, whatever. I think it's going to be a small display tablet style device. And because Johnny Ive supposedly Sam Altman said that he's gonna be doing design for both the software and hardware.
Stephen Robles:And what does I mean, designing the chat box for ChatGPT, I don't think that matters. You
Jason Aten:know? Right.
Stephen Robles:It's a chat window. I don't think Johnny Iva is gonna be doing too much design on a Compose window. But to design a UI on a small screen tablet type device where you could chat with it, but it could also display things, images, maybe even videos, because you're searching or you ask at things. I would be, I think it's gonna be a small display tablet type device. And so that's my official prediction to see if we're right.
Jason Aten:What do you think about that? You're not talking about the first thing they're gonna
Stephen Robles:No. I think it'll be like the flagship thing they release. I think they'll release a pendant style thing or whatever, but I I think it's you know, because the Rabbit r one has a screen, but it's not a great screen. And it's not a touch oh, is it a touch screen? I can't even remember.
Jason Aten:No. It's got that wheel. Right?
Stephen Robles:It's got the wheel, but anyway, that's not a good screen. I think this is gonna be something that you might use to read. Like, if you were doing deep research with ChatGPT, imagine a displayed device where you had that deep research, and you would put it next to your MacBook because you're wanting to see what it's saying. You would probably have a web browser, whether it's a web browser that made by OpenAI. So whatever you search in it you know, we'll talk about AI browsers in a
Jason Aten:little bit. I don't know.
Stephen Robles:I feel like that's a device that makes sense. That would be a third device to the MacBook and the iPhone and would make sense for Johnny Ive to do design both the hardware and the software.
Jason Aten:Okay. So I do think it's possible that there's a piece of this that you have over indexed on.
Stephen Robles:Over in okay.
Jason Aten:Which is the idea that he the the metaphor of the desk. Because they did talk about having a a device that you have on your desk, but I don't think that they meant that that's a literal thing because no one thinks of the iPhone as a device you have on your desk. What they're saying is, like, you might sit down, you have your MacBook, you have your iPhone, and you're gonna have this one other thing. I would be astonished if what they're building is, like, the Google Nest Home Hub Max plus thing for ChatGPT. I I don't think that I think that because that has such a limited utility because it only exists in one space.
Jason Aten:I think
Stephen Robles:I'm not saying a stationary device. I'm saying like an actual tablet.
Jason Aten:Yeah. But even my
Stephen Robles:iPad mini.
Jason Aten:But my iPad can't see the world unless I take it out of my backpack. So I think I think it has to be a wearable. I think there's a 0% chance that the things that they're building aren't going to be wearables. Will there be something down the road? Maybe.
Jason Aten:Because the truth is if you build a wearable, you're dependent on the phones. Right? Like, you just are. You're just gonna be dependent on the phones. But I think that, you know, it's again, the way that they talked about it is ambiguous enough that you could be right, and also you could just, like it could be completely wrong, and they'd be like, no.
Jason Aten:This is what we said. It's just a very diff also, it's hard to know because they spent half of their video talking about San Francisco. And I'm like, have you been to San Francisco, Steven? Like, I it's one of my favorite places in the world, but the spot in San Francisco where they were is not necessarily what I remember from all of the times I've been to San Francisco. So, like, it's there's a lot of there's a lot of reality distortion field happening here.
Stephen Robles:I see. Well, I'll I'm gonna be in San Francisco for the first time, very soon, for Dub Dub. But to your point, if they do a pendant style device, it's dependent on the phone. But if they had an iPad mini style device that also connected to the pendant, then they wouldn't be dependent on some third party software because it could be like, here's my little tablet, and I have my pendant that's always listening, always watching. And now I can jump onto a screen and see like, oh, yeah.
Stephen Robles:Give me a summary of my day, and it will just show it. And if you don't have a tablet, you could probably use whatever app on the phone. But to have the bespoke device for that designed by Johnny Ive Hardware Software, and then you could do, like, tablet y things.
Jason Aten:I don't know.
Stephen Robles:I feel like that that made the most sense of everything.
Jason Aten:Well and so, like, think about that for a minute, though. A tablet has to run an operating system. Are they gonna be building their own operating system? And if so, then will this tablet only run ChatGPT? Because that's, like, not a thing.
Jason Aten:People are not going to spend I mean, listen. If Johnny Ive made Johnny Ive has made a tablet before. Right? He the iPad.
Stephen Robles:He did. He did.
Jason Aten:He's done it once, and it's the flagship version of that. It's, like, the best version of that product. I don't think that with someone else, he's going to make a better version of a tablet and iOS on a tablet is, or iPadOS is infinitely superior to anything. Like it's infinitely superior to Android on a tablet. Right?
Jason Aten:So it
Stephen Robles:Except for the assistant that comes with it.
Jason Aten:Sure. But you can run ChatGPT on your tablet. I mean, it's fine. Like Sure. But I guess what I guess I'm saying is, is this tablet running Android, or is it running some bespoke, you know, chat GPTOS type thing?
Jason Aten:And if that's the case, will other developers be able to develop for it? And who would do that for a device? Like, you're already like, there are not even that many apps for Android on tablets.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. But to that point, ChatGPT has an entire custom GPT store already where people have made custom GPTs for various purposes. I understand it's not apps and such, but of any platform and hardened software maker, I think OpenAI would probably have some sway for not, like, millions of apps like the App Store, but could they hit up Amazon to make a Kindle app? Probably for their tablet. And you could buy Amazon books, and it happens all in it.
Stephen Robles:I don't know. I I feel like that I don't know. It makes some sense.
Jason Aten:I think as a concept, we could all see Johnny Ive building a thing that sits on your desk and the thing that you could take with you. Whatever. I just think when you actually start to pick it apart, like, now you're basically in the same app store business that Apple's in. Right? Like, that becomes your business model if you're doing that.
Jason Aten:And I don't think that that's what ChatGPT is. What because they also said, like, we just think that if you're subscribed to our thing, we're just gonna send you a computer. Right? Their business model is going to be subscriptions to chat GPT, and this is going to be a way to increase the amount of usage of chat GPT. And so my, my sense is from listening to them and from reading, and especially Mark Gurman's report, which, like, he basically got the tip and broke the story, that this is going to be a maybe not a single function device, but this is a hardware device that allows you to interact with ChattyPT.
Jason Aten:And it has to be distinct because you can already do that on your iPad. You can already do that on your phone. Right? Like, there is a ChatGPT app, and it's good. So it has to be an even more tightly integrated thing.
Jason Aten:And I just don't think like, people will have different set of expectations from a quote tablet. And again, it's if Johnny and I have makes it, it's gonna be a thousand dollars. So it has to do more than just talk to JIGPT because I can already do that. Like, and honestly, the the Yeah. They're talking about we're in the terminal phase of this.
Jason Aten:And what they mean by that is just, like, we're in the chat box phase. The chat box is actually a pretty good way to interact with ChatGPT. Like, it's it's really, really good. By the way, Steven, other than the hour and a half that we spend doing this, how do you and I most of the time communicate? By text fields.
Jason Aten:Right? Like, that's how I
Stephen Robles:Sure.
Jason Aten:My children never call me, literally. I mean, they live in my house, so they don't have a lot of reason. Right. But they text me a hundred times a day. Yeah.
Jason Aten:That is just the most natural way to interact with one of these things. And it's weird to me that the push is it should just be ambient voice communications. And I think that there's gonna be a place for that. But honestly, I think I think it has to be better than opening the app and typing into it, which honestly is a pretty frictionless experience.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Well, I still stand by because we're gonna talk about some new tools like the Sky app that, was shown off by Mac stories, like AI for your Mac and AI browsers. I do think it would be a different slash better experience if you were browsing on a device that everything could be AI'd, for lack of a better word, as you were looking at it. So if you were browsing The New York Times and you were looking at a web page rather than having to send that link, like go over to the ChatGPT app, paste the link, ask it for a summary or whatever, that on a bespoke device, could just tap one button. The summarize button just always lives there in the corner of the little tablet, and you can just do that for anything you're looking at, Whether it's a web browser, whether it's a PDF document that someone emailed you, like, whatever.
Stephen Robles:It's like basically what Apple intelligence is trying to do with, like, summaries everywhere, but actually, like, built in the web. So I don't know. I'm sticking to it. We'll see what happens in, two to three years, if I was right. Alright.
Stephen Robles:We'll go back to this markdown. '77. I made the prediction. There's a bunch of Apple news ish, some rumor news, and then some actual news. But this one might be the most, I don't know, divisive, interesting.
Stephen Robles:This was all the conversation on the Internet yesterday. Instead of iOS 19 in a couple weeks, next week, we might get iOS 26. And this is from Mark Gurman at Bloomberg. So high likelihood that this is going to happen, that Apple is going to go with the year number rather than the arbitrary just numerical order for the OSs to streamline everything, to make it more understandable for people who aren't, like, in the Apple world. I don't know how I feel about this.
Stephen Robles:Now I do like systematizing the operating systems because right now we have iOS 18, macOS 15, VisionOS two, tvOS something, I don't even know, watchOS 12, and homeOS, who knows. Those are our operating systems currently. And so this would be streamlining it to just iOS, macOS, everything '26. And '26, assuming because you would use this operating system more in the year 2026 than '25. So it's a little bit like, don't car dealers do this?
Stephen Robles:Like, you can buy the 2026 version of the Toyota Camry at the end of twenty twenty five.
Jason Aten:Yeah. I mean, definitely, that's the impression from the brand that Apple wants to we're the car dealers.
Stephen Robles:A little bit no. Yeah. They they came the Apple.
Jason Aten:Couldn't do a better like, this is absurd, Steve. First of all, yeah, you buy an iPhone 16, it has iOS 18, and your Mac is running I MacOS 15. Like, that's dumb. Nobody cares about the watch version. It's 11.5.
Jason Aten:Okay. That doesn't matter. The tvOS doesn't matter. What your HomePod is running doesn't matter. Honestly, I don't know that it matters that much on your on your Mac and your iPhone because the number of times when I walk up to somebody and ask them, hey.
Jason Aten:What version are you running on that Mac is zero. Like, I never ask someone that unless I'm trying to help them troubleshoot something. And then they're running a four year old version anyway, so it, like, it doesn't make any difference. Think about how weird it's gonna be when people are like, I'm supposed to be running Mac OS 26. I'm only running Mac OS 14.
Jason Aten:I'm 12, like, 12 versions out of dates. Yeah. Like, a whole different set of conversations that we're gonna have. But I think it'll be great to have them all unified. But, Steven, it's 2025.
Jason Aten:And 20 5 is a fantastic number to make this change. Why are they gonna go to this is one of those things where someone in the they're they're over indexing on the wrong problem. What they don't want is in January when most people have finally upgraded for the number to be smaller than the year. But it is ridiculous. Just do it by the year that it's released.
Jason Aten:Also, '25 is a better number than '26. Objectively. It's a much better number than '26. Somebody's somebody sat in a meeting and was like, we should super call this to iOS 26. And they're like, well, it's 2025.
Jason Aten:They're like, no. This will be better. And the person who was right just sat there quietly.
Stephen Robles:It's gonna look real funny seeing the number 26 and those little round wrecks every time, they come up. It's I don't know. That that's kinda funny. But I what if because we've talked about iPhone numbering. Everybody's talking about iPhone numbering.
Stephen Robles:I know a lot of people used to say, like, would Apple actually do nines in, like, iPhone 19? Because it's a weird looking number. They did not do iPhone nine, if everybody remembers. They went from the seven to the eight and ten in the same year. So there was never an iPhone nine.
Stephen Robles:Now there will never be an iOS 19, I guess. What is it with the number nine? Is it something that's like, just visually people are like, nine?
Jason Aten:I mean, there was an iOS nine.
Stephen Robles:There was an iOS nine. True.
Jason Aten:Now And there's a macOS classic, was version nine.
Stephen Robles:That's true. There could be I'm gonna throw a curveball. There could be, you know, instead of the iPhone 17, what if they just match it all? And like the Galaxy s 25, which follows the year, Apple just makes the iPhone and iOS the same number. So it's just iPhone 26 and then running iOS 26.
Jason Aten:I think they're more likely to do what they do with the iPad, which is it's just iPad, and then in parentheses, it was like, well, I guess that wasn't even the year. It was a '16 or whatever. It was like
Stephen Robles:It was just iPad. But, yeah, iPhone iPhone air, iPhone pro, Pro Max.
Jason Aten:I guess the MacBooks well, they use those. What are they using just the dates on? They do that with something, don't they? Like, something
Stephen Robles:Well, for Max, they do, like, early twenty twenty five or whatever.
Jason Aten:Yeah. But, also, they just call it the m four MacBook Air. Yeah. And they
Stephen Robles:think they see the 13 the 13 inch MacBook Air, the 15 inch MacBook Air, the Mac Studio, the Mac Mini. You know, I think everything has, like, a moniker, a descriptor, basically. And I think the iPhone is in the Apple Watch. They call the Apple Watch series 10, series 11,
Jason Aten:which Yeah. I guess I was thinking that with the with the Macs, we identify those not by year or model version increment, but by the increment of the processor at this point. Right? Like, if you're like, I'm gonna get a MacBook Air, get the m four version or the m
Stephen Robles:three version. I think think we do that, and the press does that. I don't know if Apple does that.
Jason Aten:I think they just talk
Stephen Robles:about MacBook Air, and they'll say powered by m two or whatever. And, you know, they'll talk about the processor.
Jason Aten:But I don't know. I I feel like The title does say MacBook Air thirteen and fifteen inch with m four Okay. Okay. Yeah. I don't I
Stephen Robles:don't know. The the 19 verse 26, what is your opinion? You're you're the writer. Twenty six with an apostrophe or without.
Jason Aten:Denoting the No. Because well, the thing is they're not denoting it as 2026. They're just saying it's iOS '26, and the number just matches the year. But, yeah, you would not be using an apostrophe for that. Like, there's
Stephen Robles:What would your preference be? No apostrophe?
Jason Aten:I don't even think there's gonna be a space. Right? Like, there's where are you gonna put the apostrophe?
Stephen Robles:A very small apple y apostrophe?
Jason Aten:I don't know. I feel like No way. No. Apostrophe. Doing an apostrophe.
Stephen Robles:I don't know.
Jason Aten:If they do, I quit. I'll quit the show. I feel like the, I don't know.
Stephen Robles:Having it uniform across all operating systems, I'm down for that. It will be hilarious that we will gone from Vision OS two to Vision OS 26.
Jason Aten:This is how they get past, like, we we've done it, folks. We're we're way into this now. This is not even a new platform.
Stephen Robles:Nailed it. Nailed it. Well, we're gonna literally see in a little over a week, but, yeah, I was not expecting that. I was not expecting I was 26, for my first desktop. Anyway, we'll see.
Stephen Robles:Alright. Some other a hodgepodge of Apple news and then other news. But there was a new app shown off by Federico Vettichi at Mac Stories. He got early access, an alpha version of this new app called Sky. So talking about AI on devices, Sky is going to be a Mac app and utility.
Stephen Robles:And you can join a wait list right now if you want early access. They say it's supposedly coming out this summer. So who know? I mean, probably July, August time. But what Sky is is an AI little assistant that lives on your Mac, and you would basically bring it up using a hotkey.
Stephen Robles:Like command space would bring up Spotlight. You'd bring up Sky using something like that. And there's also like a little floating window, next to things. It does integrate with shortcuts and a bunch of things like that. You could see the interface here.
Stephen Robles:If you're watching on YouTube, I'll put it as the chapter art as well. But you could basically ask Skye to do a bunch of things. If you were, let's say, writing an email or a text message and you wanted to say, what are some good restaurants near this? It has contextual awareness of every window that's open on your Mac. So if you ask it a question and you have an email open or a text message open or maybe there's an event that someone just kind of texted you, like, will be it sees all that and then can take action on that.
Stephen Robles:It also integrates with AI LLMs like ChatGPT. So you can ask it those those general questions and just ask it, you know, summarize this webpage or whatever, kinda like what I was saying a bespoke tablet from OpenAI would do. But the idea is that it's AI on anything, everywhere, all at once. Everything, everywhere, all at once, once again. Federico Vettichi says he's extremely impressed by it.
Stephen Robles:He said this was, like, one of the moments that just shows the future of what a platform can be. He said he felt the same way about shortcuts. When you if you know Mac stories and Federico, he's huge into that. But this it looks interesting. I feel like you're really gonna have to trust this app because it's literally looking at everything on your screen.
Stephen Robles:You know, it has contextual awareness of everything. And so I'm curious, you know, the the privacy implications of that. But looks pretty cool. I sent them a a wait list request, but I also emailed them was like, hey. Can I get some access here?
Stephen Robles:Because I'd be really curious to try this. And, yeah, this might be basically what, an Apple intelligence type tool would have been or should have been.
Jason Aten:Yeah. I don't know. You there's a lot here. I don't
Stephen Robles:It does a lot.
Jason Aten:I I mean, so the the headline of the article is, like, from the creator of shortcuts. So it sounds like this is obviously a team of people who kinda know what they're doing. Shortcuts. What like, was it
Stephen Robles:There's two people that was originally on the workflow team Yeah. Then shortcuts, and now they've made this.
Jason Aten:Yeah. So because they Apple bought workflow, turned it into shortcuts, and then those people have gone on to do other things. So that's great. I don't know that this is a thing that most people will ever experience because this is in the category to me, this is in the category of things like, Alfred or Ray Cat. Like, I've never met a person who doesn't listen to a podcast or do a podcast that's ever installed one of those things.
Jason Aten:And I'm that's like, I I use bartender. I'm not saying I'm I'm throwing a little bit of shade, but my point is, like, this is a very niche thing for a very small audience. So I I don't know. But the other thing is I don't I would be super surprised how long the functionality of this lasts. Steven, this morning, I don't I dismissed it so fast that I don't even know what it was.
Jason Aten:But a pop up, like, a notification dialog box popped up on my Mac, and it said that one of the apps on my Mac had recently updated. So I've we've turned off its privacy acts. Like, all the privacy settings that you had enabled before, was like bartender or some like, something. It's like, all of the things you enabled for, we've turned them off. You'll have to go in and re enable them.
Jason Aten:Why is my Mac doing that? Why does my Mac like, if I enabled it once just because the app updated like, this is a very new thing. I don't know how this happened, and I should have it was one of those things I should have screen took taken a screenshot before. I just was like, dad, go away. But I had to log on to our podcast, so I was in a hurry.
Jason Aten:Okay. But the same kind of thing, like, this has full access to everything on your screen, I'm pretty sure at some point there's gonna be an update to your Mac that changes the privacy settings that says this is happening.
Stephen Robles:On the Mac specifically, I mean, you're always gonna, I think, be able to request this kind of access. I mean, this is the Mac is still the one platform Apple will allow this kind of stuff.
Jason Aten:Steven, it just turned off all of the things I had enabled on an app because they had updated their app.
Stephen Robles:I'm not saying it's not gonna be annoying. I'm saying you can probably go in and enable all that again and give it permissions. But, you know, just another one, like single example. If you're looking at a website, you could do the hotkey and say, send this link and a summary to Jason Atin. And then it'll little pop up in a message window, the your iMessage to that person, and it'll have the summary and the link, and then you can click send.
Stephen Robles:So rather than clicking share sheet, clicking a person, and, of course, that's just sending the link, not a summary, You know, little things like that. I might try this on my MacBook Air. You know, I don't if I put it on my Mac Studio just yet just to see how it works. And, of course, it's an alpha, but it's an interesting idea. And if and it works with, like, Apple script and shortcuts, and I suppose there's gonna be a bunch of powerful automations you can do with it.
Stephen Robles:So I will I'll try it out, even if just for the shortcuts thing. But
Jason Aten:And I agree. This is probably what we should be able to do with Apple Intelligence. Like, if I hit command twice, which apparently I do a lot because the stupid Siri box just pops up randomly on my Mac all the time. But I should this is the kind of thing I should be able to do. I should be able to hit command twice.
Jason Aten:It says type to Siri. I should be able to say, take this web page and send it to Steven, and it should just do all that.
Stephen Robles:It should be able to do that, but it doesn't.
Jason Aten:It doesn't actually do anything. I can't even get the weather if I do that. What does
Stephen Robles:it Listen. Maybe iOS 26. I mean, it's gonna be five versions newer. Maybe it'll do it. Maybe it'll do it.
Stephen Robles:Alright. It's another sort of quick hodgepodge stuff. We'll go through this. WhatsApp released an official iPad app. This was rumor like, it was in test flight for months.
Stephen Robles:So it's not like it was a rumor. Like, we knew this was coming. It's officially out now. You can get WhatsApp for iPad. And they're supposedly working.
Stephen Robles:This is, of course, Meta because WhatsApp is Facebook Meta company that the Instagram iPad app should also be coming. Why do you think Jason, I'm curious. It looks like Meta is putting an emphasis on actually putting their first party apps on the iPad, which they're trying to do their own hardware thing. There was news this week that Meta might consider opening more retail store locations to be able to sell its hardware, like its VR goggles and other stuff. So curious that it's putting more effort into iPad apps, but why why do you think they're doing that?
Stephen Robles:I don't know why.
Jason Aten:Because of Meta AI. And there's Meta AI. They're trying to have more surface area for their stupid AI thing so that you'll download WhatsApp and chat with the Meta AI bot instead of chatting with Chad.
Stephen Robles:You know what? That's, that sounds about right. That sounds
Jason Aten:I mean, like Yeah. I and I think that's I would love to know if there's a better answer for that, but but I don't know. I have a I do have a real time follow-up, though.
Stephen Robles:Yes. Yes.
Jason Aten:I hit command command on my phone on my computer. Yeah. And I asked Siri, what is the weather? And first of all, it told me it couldn't tell me because it doesn't have access to my location. Apparently, that was one of the things that got turned off when I downloaded I don't know why why doesn't my Mac I have location stuff set on.
Jason Aten:So I gave it the ZIP code of, where I live. I said, what is the weather? I'm not gonna say it out loud.
Stephen Robles:Thank you.
Jason Aten:But it told me that there's a tropical cyclone because it thinks that that ZIP code is somewhere called Autland. What is wrong with this? Why is this so bad? It thinks that I'm living in where does this where is this?
Stephen Robles:New Zealand? Auckland?
Jason Aten:Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Somewhere in Mexico by Guadalajara.
Jason Aten:It thinks that my ZIP code is in Guadalajara, and there's a tropical cyclone coming. Steven.
Stephen Robles:You're in Michigan if our listeners don't know.
Jason Aten:Yeah. See, Steven, this is so broken. I don't know what's happening.
Stephen Robles:I don't know what's happening.
Jason Aten:I'm sorry. Go on.
Stephen Robles:You know what's not broken? One of the best games in Apple Arcade, Sneaky Sasquatch. Okay. And I
Jason Aten:I You're welcome.
Stephen Robles:This is, I don't know, news for our family because I know all three of my kids have played Sneaky Sasquatch and loved it. It was an Apple arcade game. I didn't realize it developed by just a two person team at a studio called Rack seven. And now that two person team in Rack seven has been acquired by Apple. They acquired them as a video game studio.
Stephen Robles:Again, the two people. And, yeah, Stinky Sasquatch is gonna be a first party app, and I'm curious what they're gonna do. My kids are very excited for this news. They're like, does that mean there's gonna be more updates? And when I told them that it was literally made by two dudes, they were like, is that why there's only one update every year or so?
Stephen Robles:And I was like, yeah, it's a lot of work, and there's just two people working on it. And so maybe they'll get more development power behind it, but good for the sneaky Sasquatch guys.
Jason Aten:Yeah. A great game. It is a great game. I mean, Apple could have bought Nintendo, but instead they bought a sneaky Sasquatch.
Stephen Robles:They're gonna buy Nintendo.
Jason Aten:They could have at one point in the past.
Stephen Robles:Oh, sure.
Jason Aten:No. But they don't do it. But this is a this seems to be a trend because they bought this, but they also didn't they buy what? Was it Pixelmator or whatever? Like Yeah.
Jason Aten:About Pixelmator. Earlier this year or whatever. So Apple seems to be
Stephen Robles:They're buying stuff.
Jason Aten:Stuff. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Spending some rumor that they might finally release a standalone game app or game store, which honestly, would be totally for because when I if my kids ever search for games, they'll send me, like, requests via screen time, And I deny everything that's not an Apple Arcade game because I don't want them to deal with ads or in app purchases. But it's not easy to search specifically. You can't filter for just Apple Arcade games. You can't search for Snake and then only show me Apple arcade games in the App Store app. So I would be totally for, like, an arcade stand alone app with all of Apple's arcade games, and you could do all the game features in there.
Stephen Robles:And some people said on social media, I'd be down for bringing back the green felt for the pool table. Remember game center? There's a little green felt. I mean, bring it back. Skeumorphism.
Stephen Robles:It's back.
Jason Aten:Alright. Well, I mean, I maybe Johnny Ive has a little extra time.
Stephen Robles:That was was he the skeumorphism?
Jason Aten:Yeah. Yeah. I I thought that
Stephen Robles:was Scott Forstall more so.
Jason Aten:Sure.
Stephen Robles:I thought he Probably. You're probably right.
Jason Aten:You're right. IOS seven was Johnny Ive was like Yeah. Strip it bare. Hairline hairline lines are real. What do you mean you can't read this font?
Jason Aten:It's
Stephen Robles:Exactly. This was a new rumor. Apple Studio Display two might be in the works. Could be late this year or 2026, but the Apple might revamp it. Still keep the same 27 inch size display, but use mini LED and also maybe raise the refresh rate to 90 hertz instead of the current 60 hertz.
Stephen Robles:Listen. I love my studio display. And if this is the update that comes out, I'll be getting it immediately.
Jason Aten:Well, here's the thing. The current models of studio displays just have extra panels sitting around from when they discontinued the 27 inch iMac, and they haven't been making a 27 inch iMac for a long time. So that production line has finally been shut down. That's true. Apple has to do something.
Jason Aten:Like, that feels like what this is. Probably. The problem is, is this still going to be a $1,500 display? Because it is not worth a penny more than
Stephen Robles:No. But I would say it's I'm down for for that. I mean, obviously, would like it to be cheaper, but my studio display, when I bought it at that full price, I mean, I love the display. Obviously, I use it every day. It's great.
Stephen Robles:Don't you use a studio display too?
Jason Aten:I'm looking at one right now, but I guess the thing about it is, what did a 27 inch iMac start at?
Stephen Robles:Yeah. I know you could put a computer on it, but, you know, you get the, high quality webcam and the studio display. You get great speakers, and you can, Visa well, I guess you could Visa mouth
Jason Aten:on it. The webcam is such high quality that I stick an iPhone above it to use to record this podcast.
Stephen Robles:I was that was I was being so crazy good. I know. I know. I know. But I still love my studio display.
Stephen Robles:So I yeah. 90 hertz, the little mini LED, I'll take it. I'll take it. Apple had its own newsroom article earlier this week. I think it was funny timing considering all the epic and Fortnite and App Store shenanigans here in The US.
Stephen Robles:But they basically were like, hey. Listen. The App Store prevented more than $9,000,000,000 in fraudulent transactions over the last five years. Look at how much the App Store is doing. Also, this is a very interesting GIF for an Apple Newsroom article.
Stephen Robles:I feel like this is not something you see very often.
Jason Aten:That is a very interesting thing. I think it's helpful to put this thing in context. It says the App Store prevented more than 9,000,000,000 in fraudulent transactions over the last five years. What that means is that Apple stopped 9,000,000,000 of transactions from leaving the App Store and going to developers websites directly. Like, that's basically what they're trying to say.
Stephen Robles:Like No. That's not their thing.
Jason Aten:Stuck inside the App Store. We've had complete control over it.
Stephen Robles:No. No. So listen. Listen. That said, they said a 46,000 developer accounts over fraud concerns were terminated, a 39,000 developer enrollments, and there was, like, millions of customer account creations that they rejected and removed because it was fraudulent.
Stephen Robles:So they're saying that they're doing the stuff.
Jason Aten:They're saying that, but also the first paragraph is very important to understand. Says the App Store has protected users by preventing over 9,000,000,000 in fraudulent transactions according to Apple's App Store fraud analysis. So they're doing they're doing their own math to to decide how much because there's literally no way. It's not like $9,000,000,000 worth of fraudulent transactions occurred and then were reversed. How do you it's like that would be like me saying, I put a lock on my front door and prevented over 100 burglaries from happening at my house.
Jason Aten:How do you know?
Stephen Robles:Well, but but from the amount of accounts that they either rejected or removed, I don't know. I feel I mean, I don't think they're making these numbers out of
Jason Aten:Sure. I think you're you're probably a % right. Can we just agree that the only reason that this press release came out is because they're trying to make it seem like the App Store is the way you should be going and not be doing this other linking out to other people?
Stephen Robles:It is that. It is that. All but also okay. So last year, Apple identified nearly 4,700,000 stolen credit cards trying to transact on the App Store and banned over 1,600,000 accounts from transacting again. So, I mean, they're listen.
Stephen Robles:I'm not defending the App Store. It looks like they're doing stuff. It looks like there is a lot of malintent that they're trying to stop. But, yeah, the timing is also just hilarious with with all the App Store stuff and the DOJ. So anyway, yeah.
Stephen Robles:They did they did stuff. They stopped the transactions.
Jason Aten:They kept away the burglars.
Stephen Robles:They they kept away the burglars. But that's not the only App Store news because the EU is still saying that Apple's App Store is in violation of the DMA, and they have thirty days to comply. And this is a €500,000,000, or they they were originally fined €500,000,000 back in April for, not complying. And the EU is saying they're still not in compliance. So maybe they'll pay another fine.
Stephen Robles:What what exactly do they have to change? Were you aware?
Jason Aten:Well, basically, Apple has they I I I believe that this was related to the whole anti steering.
Stephen Robles:Right. It was the steering thing.
Jason Aten:And they just felt like they weren't doing a good enough job. Right? Because they like, we need them to to essentially, Europe just wants it to be a free for Right? And so Apple it's kind of the same thing that judge Ivan Gonzalez smacked Apple down for, I think. This isn't actually, like, a huge fine.
Jason Aten:Right? I think that they could have fined them up to 10% of their global revenue, and this is a relatively small fine. I don't know.
Stephen Robles:Change it more. They just want them to do more, I guess,
Jason Aten:to No. They just want them to follow the spirit and not the letter of the law. And which I don't mean I'm I have been very critical of the European Commission over this. That statement is not meant to be critical. What I am saying is that the European Commission's not super great at writing these regulations because it feels like a bunch of people get into a room and they're like, yep.
Jason Aten:This is the thing. How do we write that down? They don't do a very good job of writing it down, but then they expect companies like Apple to follow what they were talking about in the room. And Apple's like, no. We'll literally do word for word what it says in this law.
Jason Aten:Sorry. That's not what you thought was going to happen. Like, Apple has some very smart lawyers. Let's give them credit for that. And this is such a perfect example of both of these sides are wrong.
Jason Aten:Like, I think what the European Commission is trying to do is bonkers the way they're trying to do it. They're trying to dictate, like, the global tech industry based on a bunch of people in Brussels where there are no tech companies except for Spotify. Right? This is like the Spotify crusade. Let's just let's just make it so that Spotify wins here.
Jason Aten:But at the same time, Apple probably should just
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Loosen the rain a little bit. Let let let Phil Schiller do something. Okay? You know?
Stephen Robles:Whatever he suggests, maybe do what he's saying. He still has Apple's best interest in mind, but I think maybe he'll do something closer to what these courts will get it off Apple's back. But, anyway, our last little, Apple bit of news, the tariffs that have been supposedly threatened to hit the iPhone and then just kidding. They're not gonna hit Apple's products. Well, now the tariffs were Trump said that he's going to tariff it again, but a federal judicial panel said that Trump has overstepped his bounds on some of these tariffs, and they are stepping in to block the current ones.
Stephen Robles:The Trump administration said they're going to appeal. So the tariffs are still tariffing or not tariffing. It's like Schrodinger's tariff. Is it tariffing or is it not tariffing? We don't.
Jason Aten:Yeah. Except for then you get the bill and you have
Stephen Robles:to pay
Jason Aten:the tariffs. Now like
Stephen Robles:When you get when yeah.
Jason Aten:This isn't This is bonkers. And this is we knew that everything about this has been bonkers this entire time. But essentially, the president said that there like, there's this very old law, and he declared an economic emergency. The law doesn't say tariffs are one of the things you can do if you declare this particular type of emergency, and yet she just did it anyway to stop fentanyl. So it's like, we wanna impose a a tax on iPhones coming in from India because of fentanyl.
Jason Aten:I don't understand how those things are connected, but that was what they did, the court was like, yeah. I don't think that you did your math on this one. And so Mhmm. What the the good the good news here is that the administration has said that they will appeal it to the supreme court, which means we will actually find out whether this is legal, what we can actually do. But in the meantime, it's, like, just insane for companies who have had to try to figure out what like, I just saw a story.
Jason Aten:Best Buy is, like, reporting that prices are gonna go up and their profits are going down because of tariffs on electronic devices. And it's like Right. In Best Buy, like, I actually used like, I have a lot of nostalgia for wandering through Best Buys. But, like, that is a company that is, like, gotta be super nervous because you don't need like, there's you can buy everything at a Best Buy on Amazon. Like, let's just be honest.
Stephen Robles:There's a lot of smaller companies too. I know Neil I the verge interviewed someone who makes, like, a bespoke piece of hardware Yeah. Or whatever. And it's just like sourcing the materials. Or if you produced it in China, some of these businesses just won't be able to exist.
Stephen Robles:Like, they just won't be able to be profitable and have it continue if these tariffs go into play at the levels that Trump was saying. And so it's not only Best Buy in the big names, but it's also smaller names. And I even see messages from, like, iPhone accessory makers. Sometimes they'll send an email saying, like, hey. Just so everybody knows, like, prices might be going up.
Stephen Robles:We're not sure. And then a couple weeks later, like, we're still good for now, but who knows? So it's just very it's up in the air. So, yeah, maybe we'll get a final decision on this soon. Non Apple news.
Stephen Robles:The Netflix cofounder, previous co CEO, Reed Hastings, is joining the board of Anthropic, Anthropic AI, because of their approach to AI development. This feels like an interesting move. Like, what does a Netflix co founder wanna do with AI? Although
Jason Aten:I mean, Netflix just put OpenAI, like, put ChatGPT into Netflix. There is some that is interesting.
Stephen Robles:That's true. But Yeah. It will be it was the homepage that they're running, like, AI, like, on the homepage. So when you open the Netflix app and what it serves you to get you to, like, watch something.
Jason Aten:Well, and it's gonna power the search. So you can search for, like, natural language stuff. So you could be like, give me a movie that has, Ryan Reynolds and Dwayne The Rock Johnson. They're like, we have 60 of those. Let me show you lucky day.
Jason Aten:That is what we do. Our specialty is Ryan
Stephen Robles:It's core competency. Ryan Reynolds
Jason Aten:is Do you want a bromance? Do you want action? Do you want spy thriller? It's like, we still have 40.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. That's actually what they all are.
Jason Aten:Yes. Anyway, that's what they're doing with OpenAI. But this is interesting. Like, I don't know if this is one of those things where, like, why he doesn't really need anything to do. Right?
Stephen Robles:These guys just like to be on boards, I think. You know? Just like to sit around and tell people what to do. Brainstorm.
Jason Aten:I mean, he could have kept doing that at Netflix, but he decided he didn't want to. I don't know. Whatever. Like, it's interesting. Anthropic is sort of like the they're kind of the underdog in the sense that they don't get nearly the much as much attention, but they definitely are doing some interesting things.
Jason Aten:I don't know. Maybe this helps them because I guess maybe this should be the obvious reason. The problem with all of the AI companies right now is turning them into products. Right. ChadGPT is a product, and OpenAI has struggled with, like, openly struggled with the conflict between the part of the company that was started in order to do this research.
Jason Aten:And then all of a sudden, it's like, we have the most popular product in the world. It's like, how do and then we have the weirdest naming scheme for those products in the world. Like, so having somebody like like, Reed Hastings who has a ton of product experience and say what you want about Netflix's movies. Netflix is a good product. Like Yeah.
Jason Aten:Right? And they're very good product people. Their tech stack is very good. Their everything about it is very good. So this probably helps Anthropic a lot, and maybe he's getting paid.
Stephen Robles:Netflix is incredible at making a business of mediocre movies.
Jason Aten:Yeah. I mean, their thing is there's always going to be something to watch. And if you're going to have that much stuff to watch, literally none of it can be good.
Stephen Robles:It's, probably very difficult to do that. One other AI thing. So the Arc browser was a thing for a while, and a lot of people really loved it. It was like an AI browser. Well, they're gonna stop making the Arc browser, and it's now become or is part of Dia?
Jason Aten:It's a new that's a new one. Right? They're gonna release a new browser.
Stephen Robles:A new browser. I don't know, man. I've not gotten into I'm not getting into AI browsers per se. And I also don't feel like I naturally want like, don't want I don't know. Do you use or have you ever used an AI browser?
Jason Aten:I I've used ARC, and I just can't get over the user interface. Just like, it's hard to name which is sort of the thing here. Like, I think that's part of the reason that they're sort of making this change is because so, like, Gruber had a post, with a quote from Scott or he had a it was about Scott Forstall who has been helping the browser company, which is who makes ARC. ARC. And it says, Scott Forstall told us ARC felt like a saxophone, powerful but hard to learn.
Jason Aten:Then he challenged us, make it a piano, something anyone can sit down at and play. And, actually, the metaphor there is, like, spot on because ARC was super powerful and very confusing, and everything about it was different than what you're used to from a browser. Like, if you think about it, the user interface of a browser is extremely important, but it also has to be completely out of your way because you're using it to do something else. And ARC felt like, no. You're using it to do ARC.
Jason Aten:And it's like, I just wanna look up, like, the times of the movie theater or something. Like, whatever. Right. So they're, like, scrapping the whole thing and introducing a new thing. And I I just love Gruber's quote, which was four styles of vice sounds perfect, but I don't know how they square this with the fact that people who went all in on arc are now like, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.
Jason Aten:Because it's like, how do you why would you use a new one from the company to just pull out the rug on the one you started using?
Stephen Robles:So I did see someone post about that. I didn't realize the context. What's I saw someone post around this news. It's a good thing instruments weren't powered by VC money. Otherwise, the saxophone never would have made it.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. So I forget who that was, but hilarious quote and, yeah, very germane. Yep. All of this just reminds me that, like, wow. Apple intelligence really could have, like, obfuscated all of these products if it had come out early enough.
Stephen Robles:You know, like Google and Gemini, you know, after IO last week, and I listened to the interview with Sundar Pachai on Decoder, you know, Google is in a position that if you use the Chrome web browser and if they get to keep it, depending on the court case, like, that will be an AI browser. There's not gonna be a reason to have a third party AI browser or try and plug in a third party AI into it. Google has the browser and the AI. Gemini is all over that. And so if you use that browser and you use Google stuff, you don't need to go anywhere else.
Stephen Robles:And they're like, far enough along where people are not gonna seek an alternative because they just want a better AI. But for Apple, anyone who uses the iPhone and a Mac, there is not Apple intelligence in Safari or in on your iPhone Safari or anything like that. And if they were even halfway to what Google is doing with Gemini and in their browser, I feel like all of this stuff, the, Arc browser, even the Sky app and listen. It's great that there's room for it right now and these companies can experiment. But if Apple gets it right, I feel like it would obfuscate the need for it.
Stephen Robles:And whether that's good or not, like, again, two big players, Apple and Google, they're doing the AI stuff in their browser and doing it everywhere, so there's no room for anything else. Maybe that's not as good, but it just goes to show that, like, this really like, they could have been several years ahead. Maybe it was the car project. Maybe it was whatever that distracted them for a long time. But they they could have been doing all of this with Apple Intelligence if it was like if they had started just a little earlier.
Jason Aten:I don't and I just think yes. The only piece, I guess, I would push back on is I don't think the card project distracted them from Apple Intelligence because Intel Chat GPT came out. No one thought that this was going to be this type of a product, and so they were already behind at that point. Like, the Vision Pro did not distract them. You can imagine if they started dreaming the Vision Pro now, the fact that you would have a fully generative interface.
Jason Aten:Right? You could just you would be using it, and you'd be like, I want to be at Yosemite, and it would just generate you an environment. Like, although, by the way, Apple, just do that. I mean, Yosemite's already in there, but, like, let me just generate environments that I want to be in. Like, I was watching I was watching drive to survive on Netflix, which, by the way, stinks that you can't have it on your like, one of the ways I use my vision pro is the Mac mirroring.
Jason Aten:Right? It's it's fantastic for that. But if you then open something in Safari like Netflix, it will not show it to you in the Vision Pro because of the stupid DRM. Like, it's just you can't see it. You cannot it's just it's playing.
Jason Aten:You can hear the audio, but the screen is just black. So you have to open it in Safari on your Mac. Problem is if I have Safari open on my Mac to watch Netflix, I the only environments I can be are like Yosemite, Hakala. Like, why can't I be in a movie theater? Just let me be like summon summon instantly an environment.
Stephen Robles:Amazing, like Google VO plus Apple Vision Pro generating immersive environments. Yes. That would be sick. Yeah. That would be amazing.
Jason Aten:But I like, I listened to Ben Thompson talk about this. Like, the killer application for AI is going to be generative interfaces that it it just so, like, for example, they that this is one of the things he talks about with things like Orion or with the Android XR glasses that, like, you don't build notifications or interfaces. It's just that the device will will generate the interface you need based on what's happening. So it's like a notification pops up so it generates the dismiss or You know what I mean? And so, like
Stephen Robles:Interesting.
Jason Aten:Why doesn't just build that into the vision pro. Let me just talk into the vision pro and be like, just I want to be at at the Golden Gate Bridge or whatever.
Stephen Robles:Like, just
Jason Aten:make me an environment.
Stephen Robles:No. That's good. Alright. Some other quick tidbits, then we'll get to personal tech. Our notifications, Apple repair program expanded to cover iPads, but only the most recent.
Stephen Robles:And so this is Apple's DIY self-service repair where you can, like, order the tools, and they'll send them to you in a Pelican briefcase, and you can repair your own stuff. But it's only for the most recent devices like the m two iPad Air, m three versions of the iPad Air. And I think maybe it's just
Jason Aten:the The m four iPad pro, the a 16 iPad, and then the a 17 iPad mini. So, yeah, it is basically the most recent versions plus one generation previous iPad air.
Stephen Robles:Which I was a little upset because I literally have sitting here an m one twelve point nine inch iPad Pro that doesn't work because this, iPad Pro was dropped on its sleep button. Yeah. And it's messed up. I've talked about this before, but it worked for a while without the sleep button, and we just used a shortcut in the dock to lock the screen, and that was working fine. And then it just stopped working.
Stephen Robles:Like, I can plug it in to a Mac, and it'll show me on screen the little connect to your Mac, but then it doesn't do anything after that. And so when I saw the news initially, I was like, you know what? I've never done a self-service repair directly through Apple. I'll do it with this because it's brick like, it's just sitting here doing nothing. And then it was just the latest versions, and I was like,
Jason Aten:thanks. Had a similar experience with the ninth generation iPad that one of our children dropped, and so the screen is kinda busted on it. And was like, ugh. And so I saw this. I'm like, oh, great.
Jason Aten:Maybe I could just order a I'll give that a shot. Like, whatever. Doodle. Yeah. Yeah.
Jason Aten:The truth is I think it's great. I've been a fan, and I've written several times about the self-service repair. I I'm glad Apple's doing it. It's almost pointless for most people because the cost of doing that is essentially the same as the out of warranty cost of taking it to the Apple store. So like if, if a screen replacement on your, let's say you could replace that button.
Jason Aten:Let's say you could replace that. You need the same price as just taking it to the Apple store and doing it.
Stephen Robles:Well, I got it priced at the Apple store and the repair was gonna be like $750.
Jason Aten:Which was what it would cost you for them for the self-service repair. Because all of the costs are the same. Yep. All if you look at the repair, the replacement costs, they are the same as the out of warranty cost of having Apple do it. So it's essentially, you can do it yourself.
Jason Aten:You can have Apple do it. The price is still basically the same. I think on almost everything. Like, it's I I haven't found any that were different. And so the difference is you have to put, a $4,000 hold on your credit card to get out get them to send to that Pelican Pelican
Stephen Robles:case for all tools.
Jason Aten:So so
Stephen Robles:I just went to the page, and it doesn't have the iPads there yet from the you can't select it from the drop But when it appears, I'll I'll see.
Jason Aten:Even though it may not be the same because it's not the same device. Who knows?
Stephen Robles:I
Jason Aten:know. And that's the reason that this is true that it's limited because Apple has essentially and I've asked Apple about this. It's because the newer devices were manufactured and designed with this in mind. Right?
Stephen Robles:With repairability.
Jason Aten:You can't retroactively go back to a five year old device and be like, what if it's repairable? We didn't you didn't make it that way.
Stephen Robles:Listen. I peeled many a display off of a 21 inch iMac. That's all I'm gonna say. I'm capable. Have you ever done that?
Jason Aten:No. I have a 21 inch iMac that I would like to put an SSD Yes. And a bunch more memory in it and and just be like, have fun kids. But I have not worked up the courage to get out a blow dryer to heat up the glue and peel it off. No.
Jason Aten:No. You don't need
Stephen Robles:a blow dryer. You buy the iFixit toolkit, and you get the pizza cutter. You pizza cutter around the edge. You do that, like, a bunch of times to make sure all the adhesive is. You get the little playing cards that they give you in the iFixit kit, and you start wedging them in.
Stephen Robles:And you slowly peel the display off. And you gotta be really careful because there's the connector at the top. But you disconnect that one connector and you just take that display off. Listen. I've done it probably eight or nine times successfully.
Jason Aten:On the same iMac?
Stephen Robles:No. No. No.
Jason Aten:I was
Stephen Robles:like Once I figured out how to do it, then they were like, people were like, hey. Can you do this to mine? So
Jason Aten:Steven figured out how
Stephen Robles:to do it.
Jason Aten:He's just walking around. He was like, hey. You've got an iMac. Can I borrow that? I just wanna do something.
Stephen Robles:You know? Fine. They when Apple updated in 2015, they updated the iMac to have a retina display, which looked amazing. And a bunch of people bought them around that time, but the base model was still a spinning hard drive, and it stunk. It was so slow.
Stephen Robles:And I bought that iMac. It was the first iMac and desktop that I bought, like, for our for the house. And I was like, this is just insufferably slow. And so I wanted to upgrade it. Now the very first one I did, I did mess it up because I don't know what it was with either me taking the display off or something.
Stephen Robles:But I took the display off, swapped out the hard drive for an SSD, put everything back together, turned it on, and there was a green strip right down the display. It just killed the middle of the display. And that was actually for a client, someone that was asking me to do it. Was like, okay. Shoot.
Stephen Robles:So I went on eBay, had to buy another display. That one was a wash. But after that first one, I figured out how to do it, and it is nerve wracking the first time, but now I could I could do it. No problem. You know, peel it off, swap the SSD, put more RAM in it.
Stephen Robles:And then once you do that, those iMacs have, like, a new lease on life. They're, like, great.
Jason Aten:Yeah. I mean, there's still this one still has an Intel I five or whatever in it Yeah. From 2018. But there is a part of me that has thought, like, I mean, that's fine. That chip should should be fine for running, you know, Brave
Stephen Robles:or Safari. So I had my 2015 setup, and then I realized because it won't update to the latest OSs, certain things start to break, especially if you wanna try to do any kind of screen time. Or if you're trying to sync your iCloud, there's some iCloud features like advanced data protection. You have to have every device signed into your iCloud account
Jason Aten:Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Past a certain macOS, and those computers won't co pass whatever it's necessary. So I had to take that iMac off my iCloud, off everybody's iCloud. Now you could set it up as just like
Jason Aten:It's on.
Stephen Robles:This is a in a Yeah. Pure medically sealed whatever. And it's not connected to any iCloud account that is also syncing to your other devices. And you can do screen time manually on device and not sync that to iCloud either. It's a little cumbersome, but you can do it.
Stephen Robles:And it would work. Like, could still use it for stuff. So
Jason Aten:In the meantime, I'm just using the Apple loaner m four iMac that's just sitting down there.
Stephen Robles:Same. Same. It's still sitting out here, I'm just hoping to send me an m five when that comes out before I have to send it
Jason Aten:to me.
Stephen Robles:Our last news before we get to personal tech, NVIDIA still making a ton of money because those GPUs. They're the winners.
Jason Aten:I think I mean, just all you need to know is the distinction between so what they call is data center data center revenue, which is the chips that get sold for AI. Right? Okay. So there's a difference. So the the total revenue for the quarter was 44,100,000,000.0.
Jason Aten:Their data center revenue was 39,100,000,000.0. Just think about this for a second. So $5,000,000,000 of their revenue is, like, whatever r t whatever the, you know, the video cards that you could buy to put into, like, a gaming PC or whatever. That's
Stephen Robles:like Right.
Jason Aten:Five. That was their whole business until, like, three years ago. This is a company that is, like, eight times bigger by market cap. It's it's insane when you think about how much money is getting spent on, and that's why their stock price is huge. And they had had a problem because they were facing some export restrictions on like, they gen they created the h 20, I think it is, which is essentially a chip designed for China.
Jason Aten:And so they are like expecting a pretty significant loss in their revenue because they can't send all these chips to China or whatever. But even still, the, like, stock market's very happy that Nvidia is still making lots.
Stephen Robles:Lots of money. And yeah. So there you go. It went up the stock went up 6% after after that news. Alright.
Stephen Robles:This was your personal tech last week. Great idea. What apps do we have notifications on for? And before we even do that, do you use focus modes in your life?
Jason Aten:I so yes. But let me give so let me give a tiny bit more context to this. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes will be, like, near someone and you look at them and they pull down their like, their screen is closed.
Jason Aten:Yes. And you see the notification center. And I'm like
Stephen Robles:It's horrifying.
Jason Aten:Why do you have notifications for all of these things? Like, what is even happening? Why why? Like, why are
Stephen Robles:you so many notifications?
Jason Aten:And it made me think, so and then someone asked me a a question. Actually, I think it was my wife asked me, did you see the message for about whatever? And it was, one of those apps, like, Teamreach or something, which is an app that, like, our kids' sports teams use.
Stephen Robles:I'm like,
Jason Aten:I don't have notifications turned on because you can't tell it only send me notifications that I care about. It's just like you get everything. And so I have and I said, I don't have notifications on for that. Oh, well, do you have I don't have notifications on for that. So it made me think, like, what I turn almost everything off, Steven.
Stephen Robles:Same.
Jason Aten:I don't want notifications. I don't need my life should not be governed by what pops up on the home on the lock screen of my iPhone. And so I just thought it'd be interesting for us to talk about that. Now to answer your question, I do have a sleep focus mode because I haven't dug into this, but for some reason, sleep plus plus the app on my watch will only track my sleep if my phone is in sleep focus mode.
Stephen Robles:Okay.
Jason Aten:Or, but I,
Stephen Robles:it reads that from Apple health.
Jason Aten:Yes. So I have it set up. I guess it's not, it is a focus, but it's set up through the health app where it's like, what is your sleep routine? I go to bed by this time. I want my alarm sets for this time in the morning, and then it, it tracks the sleep.
Jason Aten:So I have that one. I also have, basically a work one, which is essentially, I don't want any notifications, even the things that I have except for text messages from my wife and our kids. But those are the ones that I use.
Stephen Robles:Wait. Like, of all the notifications?
Jason Aten:No. I'm saying those are the only Oh, yeah. The that I use is a sleep one and a work one. And other than that now we'll talk about the notifications in a second. But that was your question was whether I use And
Stephen Robles:I use I mean, anybody watched my YouTube channel, I use a ton of focus modes. I don't have a work focus. I just kind of leave that as an open thing. And then I have an evening focus, which triggers at 6PM every day. I have a weekend focus that triggers on all the weekends.
Stephen Robles:And then I have the sleep focus, which happens automatically. Plus I have other things like filming focus. So I'm gonna film a video. I have a home screen specifically for that. And that's one of the reasons why I use focus modes on the evenings and weekends because I do have a different home screen that it changes to during those times.
Stephen Robles:Like, I don't have Slack on my home screen for the weekend and the evening, things like that. Mhmm. But I do allow some notifications. I don't know. Do you wanna do you wanna start?
Jason Aten:Yeah. So let me I'll walk through the list of them. I mean, I don't know. I probably have 200 apps on my phone. I I'm not gonna Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. No. No.
Jason Aten:Yeah. The ones I have notifications on for are I have to scroll a while here. The App Store, but the only reason for that is well, because if my kids want to request to download something, I have to be able to get that notification.
Stephen Robles:Doesn't that come through messages?
Jason Aten:I get it. I actually get a pop an App Store notification that says Really? Yeah. It's listen. Let's not get started on screen time.
Jason Aten:Because sometimes I get requests on my watch and not my phone. And if I go to the phone to approve it in messages, it's not in there, but it is on the watch. And sometimes I probably maybe I could turn that one off. But for a long time, that was how the the App Store request came through. I have Apple TV keyboard notifications or not because, like Yes.
Jason Aten:That that's a useful one. Same thing with the Apple Watch. Then I scroll down here to so the ChargePoint app, I do have notifications because it will tell me if my car is done charging if I'm at a third party charger. So that is
Stephen Robles:Did you see that, the Tesla app added a live activity for supercharging?
Jason Aten:Yeah. Yeah. So Yep. So And normally, if I'm if I'm charging at a test, I don't care because I know how exactly how long I'm gonna be there. But if I'm parked at something, like, at a hotel or whatever, sometimes hotels are like, you have to move your car when it's done.
Jason Aten:So I just have it. That one, I'm like but I almost never use that app, so I almost never see notifications, so that's fine. The Circle app, which is what we host our membership with, I get notifications from that. I feel like I should because otherwise, I would literally never respond to stuff in that. So
Stephen Robles:That's good.
Jason Aten:That's good. The FaceTime app, Find My Yeah. The the Fly Delta app for obvious reasons. That's fairly important to me. I need that.
Jason Aten:The Google Home app because our cameras are set up for, like, notification if it sees a person come to the door or that kind of thing or someone in our person in our backyard. So that's that is useful. Then I have to go to the Marriott app because you cannot get a, key, like a phone key Oh, yeah. Without having notifications on. I don't understand why.
Jason Aten:What like, I don't know know why those two things are connected. Then the messages app, the smart HVAC thing that's in my office, I have a notification because it will tell me if it comes on because it got too cold in here. And I'm like, that seems like a thing. And then, the phone app, which seems I guess that's the point of having a phone. And then I have a couple that I have deliver quietly.
Jason Aten:So, like, the New York Times app, have deliver quietly, and the same thing is true with the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post because I do want I do like I I sometimes need to know, like, that a thing happened because I could write about it really quickly, but I don't need, it just shows up in notification center. Don't see an error or anything like that. And then Spark Think oh, and Things, which are And things. Those would be the obvious ones. Right?
Jason Aten:Like, my my mail and my and my, my to do app. But in Spark, just to be clear, I only get priority notifications. So only the people that I've listed as priority.
Stephen Robles:So in Spark, you can actually specify individuals for notifications.
Jason Aten:You can tag people as priority. Is that what it's called? Let me just double check that I'm saying that
Stephen Robles:right now.
Jason Aten:Because I I one of the reasons
Stephen Robles:I I keep not using third party email apps is because I use the VIP feature in the stock mail app, and I love that it just syncs across all devices. And then I I get to specify exactly who I can get the notification from, and you can specify a different sound for VIP emails. So that's one of the reasons I like the stock stuff.
Jason Aten:Yeah. So in Spark, you have the option to only have people you only get just the same thing, essentially, as VIP. So if I tag someone as a priority in Spark, I can then say only send me push notifications from for messages from people in that list. The wording is a little bit different, but it's essentially the same.
Stephen Robles:Okay. I didn't I didn't realize Spark got that granular because a lot of times email apps will say like, just send priority notifications, but it doesn't allow you to specify exact contacts. And I don't want it trying to figure out what's priority or not.
Jason Aten:Like, how does this five So basically the way that it, so I can tell it I don't wanna preview, but then for each of my email addresses, which I just gave away all my email addresses. I just realized.
Stephen Robles:I'll drop a marker and I'll put overlays, but so no one can see, what you just did.
Jason Aten:Why did I just do that? But, anyway, we'll pretend that I didn't just do that. But, yeah, in there, you can choose. So for each email, do you want all notifications? Do you want smart notifications, which it decides?
Jason Aten:And I'm like, super no. I'll tell you which ones. And then priority, which is notifications from priority senders and then threads related to those. So I have that turned on for a couple of them. And then for several of them, like, my Gmail address that I just use personally is what I put in for every newsletter that I sign up or everything.
Jason Aten:So I'm like, no notifications because there's never. I actually think Steven is literally the only human who emails me at that email address, that Gmail address, which is fine. Like yeah.
Stephen Robles:What do prefer I email you at?
Jason Aten:No. It's totally okay. I it pops up into a different box in Spark, so it's totally fine. My point is I don't, like, need notifications, and Steven is never going to just email me something important. It's gonna just be a text message.
Jason Aten:Yeah. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:It's fine. So okay. So I have a couple more apps giving me notifications, but do you get notified for podcast episodes, new episodes or shit? You don't get notified for that. Okay.
Stephen Robles:Do you have any kind of like grocery delivery or robotic vacuum type notifications?
Jason Aten:We don't have a robotic vacuum. So no. That would be really weird if he had notifications for
Stephen Robles:some of You don't.
Jason Aten:Yeah. But no. And I don't handle, like, Beth handles all of our household expenditure type things. And so, like, she'll get Walmart deliveries, but I'm not gonna get a notification for that. I do have the Walmart app, and we are signed into the same thing, but I don't get any.
Stephen Robles:And what about YouTube? You don't have, like, notifications for videos? I see how it is.
Jason Aten:No. But you know one thing That's good. On the grocery on the grocery notifica I'll I'm gonna address that in a second. But on the grocery notifications, this is actually a huge pain point that just ticks me off, and I've actually been tempted to write about this. So, like, for example, I don't act I must have skipped over it in the list.
Jason Aten:I'm sure I have Uber turned on.
Stephen Robles:Right.
Jason Aten:Because yeah. So Uber, do have turned on. But I don't want it on because you know what Uber does?
Stephen Robles:Promo.
Jason Aten:Hey. Seems like a great time for you to order some more food. No. Stop. I hate okay.
Jason Aten:I hate companies that do that. It's the worst.
Stephen Robles:I will literally turn on Uber if I'm traveling, the notifications, and then turn it off when I'm not because those promo notifications are
Jason Aten:because they're abusive. They are abusive. You should not be doing this. No company should do that. It is a gross violation of the spirit of why notifications should even exist.
Jason Aten:I know on on YouTube, just to be fair. So I literally only subscribe on YouTube video it's talking to me now, to I think let me look.
Stephen Robles:Three channels.
Jason Aten:Two, three, four channels is all that I subscribe to on YouTube. And, yes, yours is one of them.
Stephen Robles:Thank you.
Jason Aten:And primary tech is one of the other ones. But I don't turn on notifications or anything for any of that stuff because Yeah. Like well, first of all, the like, I don't know if we call this the for you screen, but they get us a pretty good job of serving up the new stuff anyway. So
Stephen Robles:Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Stephen Robles:Well, I have notifications for basically a lot of the things you said, although I don't use Spark. I still use the StockMail app. I do the Instacart orders if we ever do that. It's not like weekly, but we do them. And so I have Instacart turned on.
Stephen Robles:And Instacart, they do a pretty good job of not harassing you. And so, like, they don't send those promo notifications really. So that. Also, my grocery app, AnyList, I have notifications for that because if I'm in the store and I'm going through the list, my wife will see that I'm checking off items because you get you get notified that whatever. She'll have she might add something that we forgot to put on the list.
Stephen Robles:And so I get a notification if something was added, like, in real time. So that's actually a really useful notification for me, especially if you're in the store. I have the Apple Vision Pro app notifications on because I do like seeing if there's a new, like, immersive video or something.
Jason Aten:I don't even have the Apple Vision Pro app. It's pretty slick. I mean, you get
Stephen Robles:to see, like, what's the latest thing. So anyway, so I got that. The Chick fil A app, of course. The so I have Instacart. Oh, my robot vacuum, which my current default is the Dream x 50 Ultra.
Stephen Robles:They did they sent it to me. It was a sponsored video. But I do really like it, and it works well. So I get the notifications from Dream, which tells me if it's, like, stuck, which is not often, but but it also tells me when it's finished and things like that. I also have see, I have some notifications on that I'm like but I do have a lot going to the summary, the the daily summary that's either, like, noon or whatever.
Stephen Robles:So I have that, and I have a lot of things off. All the Google apps are off because I don't really I don't use the Gmail app. I do have things like Square Invoices as a notification. So that will tell you when someone viewed an invoice that you sent and when someone pays it, which is really nice. So Square Invoices has been great.
Stephen Robles:I do have my journal notifications on, and that's one of things where I still use Apple Journal, and I don't do it daily. And sometimes I forget that something big happened, and I and I would wanna put it in the journal. So I like getting that journal notification. It will basically suggest like, hey. Do you wanna write about this event?
Stephen Robles:And it's usually pretty good at sometimes it's just, like, generic, and it's like, hey. You haven't written in a while. Do you wanna write something? But other times, it's like, do you wanna write about your trip to the blank? And it's like, oh, yeah.
Stephen Robles:I do want that. So I like that the notification is, like, specific, and it does kinda it does prompt me to do it more often. I do have email, but just VIP senders as notifications. I do have this I'm not crazy about. I do have Facebook Messenger notifications on only because no one messages me there.
Stephen Robles:And don't message me there because I'm not gonna check it. I I my wife will send me stuff because that's, like, the only social media app that she uses. And so she'll send me, like, a funny video. And so I do wanna know when that happens. Otherwise, I would never open that app.
Stephen Robles:And so I actually have have that open. And I have let's see. I have, like, some random, like, park apps, like ParkMobile. I have those on. I do have PayPal because I also send invoices through that, and we'll get paid from that sometimes.
Stephen Robles:And let's see. Publix, which they're they're pretty good at not sending anything crazy. Riverside. Riverside. If you recorded the Riverside app, you actually get a live activity of the upload progress, which is pretty slick.
Stephen Robles:And I do have Slack do you have Slack notifications on on your phone?
Jason Aten:Mean, I realized I missed a couple of them. So Slack, I do have turned on, but I love the the, like, the flowchart of whether you're gonna get a Slack notification or not. In Slack, I'll I only get notifications if I've been at mentioned.
Stephen Robles:Yes. Exactly.
Jason Aten:Or I get notifications for there are two keywords. So, like, if I get a message in a thread, but that wasn't mentioned, but it says something about, like, when a time to publishes or something like that, I will get those put push notifications. Other than that, I don't get notification. Every almost every channel in Slack is set to, like, mute for me.
Stephen Robles:Never send me.
Jason Aten:Yeah. I don't ever want notifications.
Stephen Robles:I do the same thing. Just DMs and at mentions, and that seems to work pretty well. And Slack is really good with, like, the time off. Like, so if you schedule, like, only send me between 8AM and 5PM, it's really good at that. I have things for my to do list.
Stephen Robles:That's on. I also have what is it? Transloader. I'll explain that in a second. Transloader.
Stephen Robles:I do have UPS on because they do pretty good at that. I have Google Voice on because I use my Google Voice for everything, basically, like when I have to sign up for something. And there's services that won't do two factor via a QR code or the, you know, the six digit. They'll text it to me. And so I have my Google Voice number attached to multiple services like that, and so I'll get the text message through that.
Stephen Robles:Of that, I have my bank send me notifications, and I do have Wells Fargo sending or not. I just put in my bank. I do have YouTube for the few channels that I have notifications turned on for, primary tech being one of them. Because it also like lets me know, okay, did publish that publicly and did hit the channel. Totally understand.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Now Transloader is funny. I've talked about what I use it for. I can't say it here because this is gonna go up on YouTube, then I'll take it down. But Transloader, you can send links to your Mac, and then you can run automations there and whatever happens.
Stephen Robles:So I like getting a notification that it tells me that the link was opened on the Mac Mini that I have in a closet. So I know that if I share something using the share sheet to Transloader, when I get the notification that it was opened on the Mac Mini, I know that everything's running and it's gonna do what I need it to do. So that's a weird notification, but it is really useful to me. So, yeah.
Jason Aten:I do also sorry. I did miss so no one will, like, ask me. I do have reminders notifications turned on.
Stephen Robles:Oh, yeah. Me too.
Jason Aten:Because I use that. I use that all the time. That's like the only thing I ever use Siri for is just making me a reminder. Like, constantly Exactly. It's such a great anyway, it actually makes, like, having an Apple Watch pay for itself just because I can talk I can pull pull pull reminders up and just do the reminders.
Jason Aten:And then, I do also have it on for the health app. Well, there are two there's a couple things. You get the noise notifications is a thing, although that's been a little oversensitive lately. But, also, like, I take a medication every day that I'm super bad at remembering, and the health app will tell you. Like, there's a notification about time to take your meds or whatever like that, so that's kind of nice.
Jason Aten:And then it also will send you sometimes notifications. It's if if you're gonna have it track all that information, and sometimes that this has never happened. But if you're like, what if it detected A fib or if it detected your have a a super fast heart this has happened one time where we're, like, hiking. It's like, your heart rate's real fast right now. Like, are you doing something?
Jason Aten:Are you good? Or if you fall, those kinds of things, like, all of those notifications that come from the health app, it kind of seems counterproductive to have it doing something and then not.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. No. No. You do that. And I have the health app as well.
Stephen Robles:And just side note, my mom got I got her a blood pressure reader from Withings that connects to the health app.
Jason Aten:Yep. We got that.
Stephen Robles:And then you can share your health data with a trusted friend or family member. Yep. And so I started doing that, and it's really cool. Like, it works really well. Like, I can just go in and see the blood pressure reading she's had.
Stephen Robles:I can also go in and see, like, the medications she's taken throughout the day as she checks them off. So yeah, it's a it's a cool feature.
Jason Aten:I agree.
Stephen Robles:Those are notifications. It does I do have that change in my different focus modes, specifically, like, Slack and all those other kind of things. But, yeah, those are notifications.
Jason Aten:That's good. Good personal
Stephen Robles:That's good. We're gonna go to record a bonus episode. I wanted to do this suggestion from listener Jason Jelly on x, and he was asking also, do we have a place where someone can leave story suggestions? Honestly, best place right now is go to social.primarytech.fm. If you join our community, leave comments on the episode posts.
Stephen Robles:I make sure to always catch up on those. You know, I'm not in there, like, every day, but I try to make sure to to look there. And so if you wanna leave some story suggestions there, you could do that, or you can tag us on social media. But this was the latest generational divide, how you hold your phone. So I think, like, do you turn it for videos and stuff like that?
Stephen Robles:So I thought it'd be interesting. We're gonna do that in the in the bonus episode, and you can support us. Remember, this episode was brought directly by you, the members who support us directly. You get the primary tech daily podcast, which is Monday through Friday, the top headlines in five minutes or less, and that is a specific member benefit as well as ad free episodes and all the bonus episodes and you get the entire back catalog when you support us as well you can do it directly in apple podcast and you can go to join.primarytech.fm and support the show there either way we're so glad you listened and watched. You can also leave us a five star rating and review an Apple Podcast.
Stephen Robles:Maybe one day, we can make it back up to that five star rating, and thanks again for watching. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you next time.
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