Apple Sports, OpenAI’s Mind-Blowing AI Video Generator, Big Changes in iOS 17.4
Tony Stark built it in a cave with a box of scraps. Welcome to Primary Technology, the show about the biggest news in tech and why it matters. Lots of news this week. We're gonna talk about Apple's new sports app that would just launch this week, iOS 17.4. Lots of changes both in the EU and here.
Stephen Robles:Alexa released a smart home hub. Your move, Apple. OpenAI showed off its video generator, SoRA. And we might just touch on Apple Vision Pro. We're not gonna sit on it, and then a whole bunch of
Stephen Robles:news at the end
Stephen Robles:as well. This episode
Stephen Robles:is brought to you by all
Stephen Robles:of you who support the show directly. We wanna thank you for that. I'm one of your hosts, Steven, and joining me, as always, my friend Jason Aitin. How's it going, Jason?
Jason Aten:It's good, and I think that was good advice. We're not you should not sit on your Apple Vision Pro. No matter what, that would be the wrong thing to do with it. Right?
Stephen Robles:Don't say not not made for sitting.
Jason Aten:Yeah. Exactly. Now I have a quick question for you before you dive into everything else. Because every time we start to show, you just say things.
Stephen Robles:I say words.
Jason Aten:And I'm wondering if people listen, which is what you normally would do on a podcast. That's what you do. But sometimes they feel like today you talked about Tony Stark in a cave. I did. And I'm wondering, did we ever explain to people
Stephen Robles:I don't know.
Jason Aten:Why? Or is this a version of, like, just a thing that Steven does when he starts talking?
Stephen Robles:No. No. I Like, do
Jason Aten:you do that in normal conversations with random people at the grocery store? She's like, would you like plastic? And you're just like, Tony Stark built it in the cave. I'm just wondering.
Stephen Robles:I wanna start doing that actually. I forget. It was on one of the first episodes. It might just be for our bonus episodes. Would you get bonus episodes every week if you support the show, which you can do directly on Apple Podcast or primary tech dot f m.
Stephen Robles:But we talked about, like, opening a show, it always feels awkward, and I don't know where the idea came from. I don't know if it was me or you. Probably me because it's weird. But I said, we're gonna I'm gonna just say a random movie line at the top of the show, but I've I've now morphed that into I try to say a movie line that is tangentially connected to something we're gonna talk about in today's episode.
Jason Aten:Okay. So that's
Stephen Robles:what I'm doing.
Jason Aten:Well, that's If if So you're putting in the work. That's good. I appreciate it.
Stephen Robles:It's not a lot of work. I'll be honest. But I have I'm putting in a little work. I do have a couple articles of, like, top 100 movie quotes, and I have you know, I do. You know, it's a little work.
Stephen Robles:I also have a movie podcast, which, again, connected Helps. Anyway yeah. That helped. Anyway, we got a ton of news to talk about today, and we have to thank so many 5 star reviewers. Last episode, we asked everyone.
Stephen Robles:We wanted to get to a 105 star reviews. I think we made it. Apple Podcasts is, like, a little delayed in registering reviews. So the latest one says, like, Monday, and we're at 96. But I'm gonna say, in faith, I think we we hit a 100.
Jason Aten:Mhmm. And you
Stephen Robles:could tell by all the people who followed our instructions, which is to leave a review of one word that just said nerds.
Jason Aten:Yes.
Stephen Robles:We have we have a bunch of reviews that just say nerds, and I just wanna say thank you all. That's amazing. Please keep them coming.
Jason Aten:Yes.
Stephen Robles:We'd like to give you a shout out here on the show. So I'm gonna rapid fire these and then we're gonna address our one star review. I think we have 2 one star reviews.
Jason Aten:I appreciate that.
Stephen Robles:I think one is you and then, this other guy left us a one star review. Well, because because you thought you had to press each star to fill it in, and then right after you press the one star, it just
Jason Aten:I don't think I did that, but apparently, they are both my fault anyway, so that's fine. I'm okay with that.
Stephen Robles:The other guy is responsible both for 1 star and 5 star reviews.
Jason Aten:Yeah.
Stephen Robles:So, here's the full list. I'm gonna go real quick. These one one one ones, David r. My username is Adam Mark g n y c 2, adviser o seven, I don't even know how to pronounce this, exbyatsipuru. I don't think it's an actual word.
Stephen Robles:Someone just have to hit their keyboard for, like, h d k s j d, you know, like that you just random thing. Varki
Jason Aten:My cat left that one. Yeah. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Varki is realest photo, Jeff's MacBook Pro. I feel like I don't know if it autofilled his computer. That's interesting. Jordan I, Eel in 2020, The 5th Diamond, Kristen Otto, jrod 1992, Clublos. He's his review was one word that said Twizzlers.
Stephen Robles:I don't know if that was in response to we talked about candy the other week, like And we
Jason Aten:did sort of say you could leave your favorite Halloween candy, although Oh, man. Twizzlers is questionable as a Halloween candy, just to be honest. I don't
Stephen Robles:think I don't think Twizzlers is a anyway, if you're leaving a review He's a 5 star review and he has a question, which actually has a shortcuts solution and so I think maybe, we should do that at the follow-up at the end. If you remember or if I remember, I'll try to remember.
Jason Aten:Okay. I'm making a note right now on my my notepad.
Stephen Robles:Your notepad, yeah, we're gonna talk about
Jason Aten:There's a there's a good teaser for you though. Let's do it.
Stephen Robles:Jay, we're gonna talk about Jason's use of a notepad, later. Yeah. One one star review. No shout out. Not saying the name, but definitely blamed it on the other guy.
Stephen Robles:He literally said the other guy. And he went on to talk about some politics stuff, which I don't know if you realize this is not a politics podcast. We don't talk about that.
Jason Aten:It's not. I think it's important for people to understand Yes. That just because we we have things to say, we they should not be taken in any way as a signal of any political affiliation. Chances are that if you're listening to this and you think you can determine our politics, you're probably wrong. And I don't mean that that's, like, that you're not an intelligent human.
Jason Aten:It's just that's not the point of the show. And if you have read any of my articles, you know that I'm just an equal opportunity pointer outer of called out, sometimes the people on the other team. But I'm not on either of those teams. So I just wanna you're more than welcome to leave any review you want. I just wanna assure you that if you're listening and I say something about someone or a company, it should not be taken as any kind of a signal.
Jason Aten:No. No. That that's it.
Stephen Robles:And what you should do is is go to Apple Podcasts. Even if many of you I know you probably listen in Overcast or Pocket Cast because we have very tech savvy audience.
Jason Aten:Yeah.
Stephen Robles:But just open the Apple Podcasts. And I know it'll be the first time in years, but just go over open that app. It's actually pretty good now. The design is good. You should check it out, but, anyway, leave Primary Technology a 5 star review, and you can just say, nerds, favorite Halloween candy, whatever you'd like.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. And, just to show that Jason is is unbiased, he puts bumper stickers for every presidential candidate on his car for the last 20 years. You can barely see the car. It's
Jason Aten:pretty amazing. I'm driving the worst looking Tesla in America. I'm just kidding.
Stephen Robles:You know, he doesn't do that. Alright. We have lots of news. Apple released a random app on a random Wednesday in the middle of February, and it's the Apple Sports app. I'm resisting making a sportsball joke.
Stephen Robles:I'm not gonna do it. I'm trying to I'm trying to respect the craft, but it is the Apple Sports App, and it is free to download. You can get it right now. Interestingly, this wasn't tied to like an iOS 17.4 release, which usually we see Apple's like stock apps usually tied to an update or something. But this is a very, I think, simple sports app, you could say.
Stephen Robles:One of the big omissions right now supposedly was the NFL, but that is coming. And the MLB it's weird. I think the marketing team and the developer team on this app might not have been communicating super tightly because in the press release, still in the Apple Newsroom article, it said MLB will be coming soon, but actually the MLB is in the app right now. You can do that. I I'm gonna have to lean on you Jason because as if anyone has listened to stuff that I have done in the past, I'm not super into sports.
Stephen Robles:Okay?
Jason Aten:Well, let me let me start first. It isn't entirely coincidental. I mean, it did drop basically the same day as MLS started, which Apple basically owns MLS. Right? I mean, you to watch MLS, it's on Apple TV plus.
Jason Aten:So there is, like, some logic to the timing, if you wanna think about it that way. Yeah. MLB is technically in there, but you do know they're also not playing right now. Right? They don't start spring training for a couple of months, and then the season doesn't start until, you know, a little bit later in the year.
Jason Aten:Obviously, the NFL remember the whole big game Super Bowl thing? They're they're done for a while. We don't get to see any more Taylor Swift at NFL stadiums unless you go to a concert.
Stephen Robles:Which I just have to say, I was I was texting my friend Nate, and I texted him the app because he's into sports as well. And I said NFL, you know, should be coming when the season starts, you know, months from now. And he was like, woah. Woah. Woah.
Stephen Robles:NFL is all year round. He said the draft starts in April, and so, you know, it's always NFL season. And I said, listen, that's that's a deeper cut than I realized, but also I just wanna mention the movie quote at the beginning was because one of the funniest memes from the big game was Travis Kelce yelling at his coach
Jason Aten:Oh, yeah.
Stephen Robles:And someone put the words on that picture, Tony Stark built us in a cave with a box of scraps and I thought that was a very good meme. That's that's how it's It is. Tangentially connected.
Jason Aten:That that that's true. Well, no. That's okay. I you know, there are not normally scores from the NFL draft, but he is Nate is right that it is coming. I was actually in Vegas a couple years ago, like, a couple days before the draft as they were setting up, and it was just bonkers.
Jason Aten:I mean, Vegas is bonkers. NFL draft is bonkers. Put the 2 things together.
Stephen Robles:Double bonkers.
Jason Aten:Can't even imagine what the Super Bowl would have yeah. I can't even but I have a quiz for you. I have a question. I have I I this is sports related here.
Stephen Robles:Oh, great.
Jason Aten:Because if you listen to Steven, Steven knows a lot about technology and almost nothing about sports. And so I have a couple
Stephen Robles:Not wrong.
Jason Aten:We'll make this quick because I don't wanna dwell too much on Steven's inadequacies because that would be not very nice as a friend. No. No. It's tough. But my question is, how many without looking this up, he didn't know about this ahead of time.
Jason Aten:How many division 1 college football conferences can you name?
Stephen Robles:Okay. Now hold on a second. Isn't this, like, the the big thing?
Jason Aten:He doesn't even understand the question.
Stephen Robles:I don't understand the question. Is this, like, one of is, like, the big 10 and the top 8 or is this, like, the southeast?
Jason Aten:10 is one of them. I'm just asking you to name as many as you can that are college football conferences. And the big ten is 1. So there you go.
Stephen Robles:I get the big ten is 1. Yep. You you got the, the top 4. Literally, that was a guess. I didn't know if it was, like, the southeast like, the, because don't, like, you know, bam or roll tide or whatever.
Stephen Robles:That's a thing. Yeah. Are they in a conference?
Jason Aten:Where do they what conference are they? They're all in a conference. Which one are they in?
Stephen Robles:Are they the SCC something?
Jason Aten:There you go. You got 2.
Stephen Robles:Oh, I got 2. That's good. I got 2. I oh, the is the, the the west something? Is there one with the word west in it?
Jason Aten:There's a couple.
Stephen Robles:Yep. Okay. Okay. The the wet Yep. That's all I got.
Stephen Robles:That's literally all I got.
Jason Aten:Okay. That's that's 2. That's actually, to be honest, better than I expected, so I'm proud of you. So there you go. I mean, we could have accepted big 10, big 12, the ACC, the Mountain West maybe was what you're going for, the Mid American Conference, the Pac 12, the SEC, the Sun Belt Conference.
Jason Aten:There's a bunch of them. So I just was curious. I just wanted people to know that when Steven is talking about this app, he is purely doing this for our audience because he could not care less about the sports app. Just just so that you know.
Stephen Robles:To be clear, so a couple of interesting things I will say about the sports app from a, like, tech standpoint. Well, number 1, I opened the app for the first time and was immediately dumbfounded because I wasn't sure what to do. I wanted to just see the app and it won't let you get past the splash screen without choosing teams, like favoriting teams or leagues. And I was like, this is something everybody has to do. And just, again, to show you how little I follow sports, Apparently, if you had chosen favorite teams or leagues either in the news app or in Apple TV app, I believe, it would have pulled those favorites when you first opened the sports app, and apparently, I had never ever done that.
Stephen Robles:And so it was the first time I ever had to choose teams, which even now was like, I don't even know what to choose. I mean, I guess, I'm near Tampa, so I chose, like, the Rays and because I'm from New York, I chose the Yankees, and that'll probably make everyone mad. I don't even know what that means.
Jason Aten:Yeah.
Stephen Robles:Did that, opened it up. I think, you know, Jon Gruber, he had a great article on Daring Fireball talking about the app. He's a big sports guy and also knows a little bit about sports betting, which I found to be one of the more interesting aspects of this app is not only can you see live scores, standings, live activities are apparently coming. They're not, I think, available right this second, but they should be once seasons start for these sports or whatever. You can click 1, like, one button to watch on Apple TV or the app will tell you where you can stream certain games, but there's gonna be betting odds right there for each game.
Stephen Robles:I don't even know how to read betting odds. There's something called, like, money line and then the spread, which I think is the point spread. Again, this is how little I know, But just the fact that Apple is putting betting information here, I believe it's powered do you remember what it's powered by? Is it DraftKings?
Jason Aten:Yeah. I think it is DraftKings. I don't know that for a 100% sure, but I do believe it is.
Stephen Robles:I think it's powered by DraftKings because Gruber said he actually finds more accurate betting stats from FanDuel and the, like, MGM something. So anyway, I find it interesting. My question to you is going to be one day do we think that Apple is going to allow people to do sports betting in their app? And I'm not talking like this year, next year, I'm saying years down the road as iPhone sales flat line and just constant, you know, consistent upgrades but no growth, iPads are not spend all 2023 not even making a new iPad, you know, services revenue, if that ever needs a little spike for investors, will they open betting? And if they did, I mean, how crazy would it be for the billions maybe not billions, no, the millions of users and the billions of devices that have an Apple ID with a credit card attached, if they could somehow place bets with what they have already set up so it's literally as easy as tapping, like, 2 buttons.
Stephen Robles:I don't know. Do you do you think that would ever be a thing?
Jason Aten:This feels like the perfect illustration of, you know, the cartoons when they when we were a kid and they'd have the character and you'd have, like, the angel on one side and the devil on the other side. And in this case, those two things are enormous yelling into Tim Cook's ears because on the one hand, there is no way that Apple wants anything to do. They don't even allow betting apps on the iPhone at this point. So Right. They don't even there's no way they want anything to do with betting except over here is this devil going, like, money, 30% of every spread.
Jason Aten:Oh, come yeah. So this feel I don't know which of those 2 is going to win out. Historically, it seems like most of the time, it's been the money. Right? And so I don't I don't know.
Jason Aten:Like, and would that mean that Apple would then have to allow that type of app on the iPhone? Right? That feels like it's the floodgate it would open because there's no way that Apple could have its own, but not allow MGM or not allow FanDuel or or or DraftKings or any of those things. And so that that just feels a really interesting name. But if I had to place a bet, no pun intended, I would say that it seems totally out of character of Apple from everything I would expect except for that, yes, they're going to probably do that.
Jason Aten:Like, it seems like it's this.
Stephen Robles:Again, I I don't know the legalities, US or worldwide, but with the changes in 17.4 in the EU having to open up to 3rd party app stores and, you know, different not the same rules, basically, as the US, does that mean it's possible then for betting apps to be on the iPhone in the EU through third party app marketplaces?
Jason Aten:I don't know anything about the legality of betting in Europe, but what I will say is that I don't think Apple could prevent them from being that from being that because I think that the rule, the if I remember correctly from all of, you know, the DMA stuff that Apple can't reject apps based on content at this point. And so it's in the 3rd party marketplaces. They can still set their own rules for their own for their own app store, but for 3rd party so that's, like, really where people think the 3rd party app stores are going to be those types of apps that just can't exist currently on the iPhone, and betting seems like it's the big the big one. So You
Stephen Robles:know, I think it is interesting that Apple has started releasing really simple apps. IPhone only, also big part, like, this seems like a prime app to be on iPad, maybe even Apple Vision Pro if you're watching sports and then had the sports app open. But this is iPhone only, notably like Journal, which launched with iOS 17 and is still or actually, I guess it launched with, like, 17.2 or something. It didn't come out, with the main release.
Jason Aten:Right. But
Stephen Robles:it the journal is still iPhone only, missing a lot of features that users want. Just seems like an interesting trend of Apple to kind of release these first generation, first party apps that are iPhone only, very single purpose, simplistic. Did you ever let me ask you this. Did you ever use a third party app to, like, look at sports scores during games and such?
Jason Aten:So no. Except during a game, if I can't like, for example, our we're Michigan State basketball fans, and the other day, they were on Peacock. I'm pretty sure, which is, by the way, please stop putting games that people wanna watch on your random niche streaming service that no one subscribes to. We'll talk we can talk about this more later, but please stop doing it. Just please.
Jason Aten:It's not I didn't pay for it. You're not I'm just gonna not get to watch the game. What I just will do is Google. I just use Google because Google just tells me the real time scores. If I type it in, it just pops up.
Jason Aten:And actually, I'm pretty sure Siri will just do that. If you type it into the search bar, it'll just show you that kind stuff. Yeah. I have it. I mean, sometimes I'll open the ESPN app especially during March Madness.
Stephen Robles:Mhmm.
Jason Aten:But Okay. Well, you know what March Madness is. Right?
Stephen Robles:It's the it's the college basketball. Yes. I I know that March meant. There's certain sports things that are, like, you just can't not know because just everyone talks about it. Yep.
Stephen Robles:And then I'm the only guy in the room that's, like, yeah. March Madness.
Jason Aten:But you're probably the guy who, if you entered a March Madness pool, would have the greatest chance of winning because you'd fill out a bracket having no idea who's supposed to win these games, and you just randomly do it. And a lot of the games end up being random anyway. So
Stephen Robles:Man, maybe I should see if I could place a bet in that Apple Sports app. I'm just kidding.
Jason Aten:Boo. But anyway, well, the other thing I
Stephen Robles:was gonna say was Gruber mentioned and if other people have used different third party apps to track scores like the ESPN, I I think there's another app like Score or something, that Apple Sports app is actually much faster to load and show the scores, mostly because there's not all the ads and other cruft that you might find in third party apps, so that is actually a big benefit. And I'm curious how fast these apps will come to iPad and Apple's other platforms like Journal, Apple Sports, things like that. But Yeah. Anyway, that's enough. That's the Apple Sports app.
Stephen Robles:We'll put a link to their newsroom article. And just to tag on a few more Apple things, iOS 17 dot 4, we got beta 4 earlier this week, and we're seeing more and more information about what's gonna be included in that. One being Apple announced that Imessage is getting even greater end to end encryption. Now there's a bunch of words here that I don't understand, but I'll just put this put this article. Basically it's PQ3 encryption, and this is really the chart.
Stephen Robles:So if you're watching or you can go to youtube.com/atprimarytechshow or click the link in the show notes. They basically have this graph of cryptography and how secure different levels of cryptography are. Level 0, which I feel like this is just kind of like a sideburn, like WeChat, Telegram, like
Jason Aten:Right.
Stephen Robles:No end to end encryption by default. That's like the far left
Jason Aten:Right.
Stephen Robles:Level 0. Level 1 is end to end encryption by default, which apps like Line, WhatsApp, the previous version of signal, and the previous version of Imessage. And then there's post quantum cryptography or PQC. I don't even know what kind of quantum hacking is going on. I don't know what that means.
Stephen Robles:I thought that was like an atomic level thing. I thought like Ant Man is fighting off spam in your Imessages. I'm not sure. I'm not exactly sure what's happening. A level 2 is PQC key establishment, which is signal, I guess, uses that level 2.
Stephen Robles:And Imessage, starting with 17 dot 4, they're gonna slowly upgrade Imessage conversations to use this level 3, which is PQC key establishment, ongoing PQC rekeying. And, apparently, Imessage is gonna be the only messaging service at this point that uses this secure post quantum cryptography, key establishment and rekeying. I mean, it sounds really fancy. That's exciting, I guess.
Jason Aten:Okay. Here we go. Super this is the easiest way to explain this. Now one thing I should say, if you're looking at this graph, the the ones that say no end end encryption by default. So, for example, I believe that this is true in Telegram that you can enable end to end encryption.
Jason Aten:It's just not on by default. So it doesn't mean that those things have nothing. But the idea is that Apple is trying to create a system that so currently, end to end encryption requires a key to decrypt it on both ends. Right? For both users having their own key and only people with that key.
Jason Aten:And in in theory, if you had a powerful enough computer, you could figure out what that key was if someone really, really, really wanted to. It's just that at this point in time with computing technology, even with our m three max, MacBook Pros, and whatever you might have, like, it it would take, like, on a matter of, like, years, decades to work out all of the potential possibilities and to do that. That could change though when you introduce quantum computing, which is not a mainstream thing at this point. Right? There are, like, I don't even know.
Jason Aten:I'm pretty sure sure that you could count the number of actual quantum computers on 1, maybe 2 hands. Right? I know Google has 1. IBM has 1. Like, there's these there are some that exist, but they're not they're not a mainstream thing, and they don't usually rent out access to hackers.
Jason Aten:And so that's a good thing. But if there is a point in time in the future when, if they become more available, that someone with a computer like that would be able to much more quickly work out these these keys and then decrypt your messages. And so what Apple is actually doing is an interesting thing where they are creating a a protocol that in there that is designed to resist quantum computing attacks, but, also, they're designing it in a way that you can't even capture the information now. Because one of the if you were a political dissident or a journalist or someone who is a high value target, a group that you know, maybe think when we say group, probably a state, right, might try to capture all of your information now knowing that they can't read it, but that they could someday. And so Apple is trying to prevent both of those things from happening.
Jason Aten:They're trying to protect protect against threats that are exist today in the world, but also keep your information secure so that they couldn't just take all that stuff and then decrypt it someday when they get a powerful enough computer. So that that's that's the real world application of this. Will it matter to most people? No. Like, it's great that Apple is doing this and that it's just gonna be a part of it.
Jason Aten:Will it change your experience? For most people, probably not. If you're not somebody who already turned on whatever that feature, the advanced private the whatever that protection
Stephen Robles:Advanced Icloud data protection.
Jason Aten:But it's, like, the super, like, duper if you're, like, about to be kidnapped by
Stephen Robles:Oh. Oh. Oh. Right. Yes.
Stephen Robles:Yeah.
Jason Aten:There's a it's essentially the feature we told no one to turn on. Yeah. You'll be able to make your life way too much of a mess. So yeah.
Stephen Robles:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing that Apple, I mean, again, to your point, does these kinds of updates and builds these things into Imessage and no one, maybe I don't know, that is asking for it or that the, you know, most users will never feel the difference, but I'm glad to know that they're doing it, and it's happening in the background. It'll be more secure, so it's cool.
Stephen Robles:Real quick, just some other iOS 17 dot 4 changes. I kept saying we're gonna talk about the Apple Podcast updates, and we never got a chance. So Apple Podcasts getting some really great updates in 17.4, which should be coming out in March. Apple said in one of their newsroom articles that in March, it will be available to everyone. It's on beta 4 right now.
Stephen Robles:But the Apple Podcasts widget is actually going to change color depending on the show art that you're actually playing, which is pretty cool. That's something that Pocket Cast I believe Overcast does as well. I know Pocket Cast does it. So it's nice to see that feature being added. And then also Apple Podcasts transcriptions, which transcriptions are supported in RSS.
Stephen Robles:There's like an ID tag for transcriptions. So podcasts who have had transcriptions in their RSS feed, it will now be viewable in Apple Podcasts. And honestly, it looks great. Like this right here, we're showing it on YouTube that you can see this transcript live, like it actually follows the words as they're being spoken. You can search the transcript and then jump between all the search terms or search results using arrows, and you can even just view the full transcript if maybe someone is hearing impaired but they just wanna read the entire text of the show, you can do that.
Stephen Robles:And I think what's notable is Apple is just transcribing everyone's podcasts. Like, even if you did not have transcriptions before or uploaded transcriptions, Apple's just doing it. And that Yep. I had to you know, I like to I'm going to say something because I've always wanted to say something like this. A little birdie told me tangentially.
Jason Aten:Oh, boy.
Stephen Robles:I don't even know if I should say this. It's not that big of a deal. But, apparently, Apple has actually Okay.
Jason Aten:If you're gonna start the sentence with that, it better be a big deal.
Stephen Robles:I mean Come on. I I think I think it's interesting as a podcast creator. When you search in the Apple Podcasts app, it will show you not only podcast show results, but episode results depending on what you search. And it's not just searching the titles and descriptions of podcasts, there's actually been transcribing happening behind the scenes all like for a long time, and that's what actually went into search being improved over time in Apple Podcasts. So basically, this is something that Apple is just finally bringing to the surface, building it into the app so you can see the transcript live and, just a really exciting feature.
Stephen Robles:And so Apple Podcasts gets really good. I wanna make a video soon because a lot of people are asking, why do you use Apple Podcasts over Pocket Cast and Overcast? They have so many more features. Yes, there was I was a Pocket Cast user for a long time. Amazing app.
Stephen Robles:Overcast is amazing. But, I don't know. Maybe maybe I'll talk about that amount of time. What app do you use to listen to podcasts?
Jason Aten:So I actually this is gonna sound super, like, I'm, like, I'm pandering, but I actually just use whatever Steven recommends at the moment. Why?
Stephen Robles:Appreciate it. I
Jason Aten:had been using Pocket Cast for a very long time, and then he was like, you should use you should use podcasts. The He didn't say this to me. He just in general was like, Hey, the podcast app is really good all of a sudden. So I'm like, oh, I should check that out. So I had gone back to using it.
Jason Aten:It does have a fatal flaw, which is it cuts off the notes after a certain amount of characters, which is ridiculous apple, whoever that little birdie was, please like, come on. This is I don't understand. It's like, are you running out of server space or something? Like, this doesn't I mean, you're Yeah. Certainly, the notes is not anywhere.
Jason Aten:It's, like, gotta be less than 1% of the total data involved in serving up a podcast. So, like,
Stephen Robles:come on. I have 2 huge complaints that every time I am, I get to be a part of a briefing with Apple Podcast people. I've mentioned these two things even if it's even if their updates have nothing to do with it. One is the show notes being cut off at 4,000 characters. No other podcast does it.
Stephen Robles:Spotify, PocketCast, Overcast, they all show the entire show notes. They don't cut them off. And then 2, podcast subscriber audio. So if you support this show directly in Apple Podcasts, you get the ad free version, but you can't get chapters. Apple actually strips the chapters out of my m p 3 file for the subscriber audio only, which is so frustrating because those are the people actually paying to listen to the content, and they're not getting the chapters and the custom chapter art, which I spent a lot of time doing.
Stephen Robles:I enjoy doing the chapter art for the, the show. But if you support the show at primarytech.fm, you get it through Memberful and there you get chapters and everything. So if you wanna support the show but you don't wanna lose chapters, you can support us on Memberful and you still get everything in one feed. It's all nice and clean. But anyway, I mention it every time.
Stephen Robles:So if you're listening, Apple Podcasts, don't cut off my show notes. Give me chapters in subscriber mode.
Jason Aten:This doesn't seem like too much to ask, really. It does. But also, I think the one other thing I wish that they would do, and I think maybe overcast is the one who does this the best. I can't remember if Pocket Cast does it. I'm pretty sure that they do, is you can actually create a link to share to a direct spot in the in the episode as opposed to just the episode at all.
Jason Aten:And I think in overcast, it'll actually just export, like, a 1 minute clip of it if you wanna actually cut the audio into it, which so there are some really great apps out there, but I've been using the the Apple Podcasts just because they made some changes, and I thought I should use it and give it a shot. And we'll see what happens.
Stephen Robles:Let's see.
Jason Aten:Plus, I also use it on my Mac at a surprising amount of time, and it is nice to have the the same sequence of, like, here's what I've listened to. Here's what I haven't. So Yeah. Exactly. Anyway.
Stephen Robles:I will say the Pocket Cast Mac app, way better than Apple's Podcast app because it actually keeps your play time in sync. So So you could literally press pause on your iPhone, open the Pocket Cast app on your Mac, and it's synced exactly to the timestamp of the episode you were listening to. And Apple still doesn't do
Jason Aten:that. Okay. I'm I'm switching back. I'm just
Stephen Robles:gonna move on. Okay. Real quick, lastly, 17 dot 4 and we'll move on. In the EU, due to third party app marketplaces, Apple is removing some features for web apps, which web apps have been around since the original iPhone. It was actually before the App Store, Steve Jobs was like, Web apps, they're great.
Stephen Robles:That's all you need on your iPhone, which obviously was not the case. But web apps have actually gotten features over the years. So a web app is like if you go to a website, Xbox Cloud Gaming is a prime example on the iPhone, you have to go to the website, and then if you add it to your home screen using the share button, that app actually gets more features. It could even send you notifications now. Web Apps had that ability, and it would be able to run a little differently.
Stephen Robles:I'm not sure the technical change, but that's why x Xbox Cloud Gaming, you had to add it to your home screen in order to use it rather than just in the Safari browser. I think you get like full screen viewing and all that.
Jason Aten:Yep. Yep.
Stephen Robles:But in the EU with 17.4, web apps will not have those capability. They actually removed the ability to have those home screen web apps as and there's a term for it. What is it? Do you know it? It's like the PFW or something?
Stephen Robles:You know what I'm talking about? I have
Jason Aten:no idea.
Stephen Robles:I have no idea
Jason Aten:what you're talking about. PWAs. Those are progressive web web apps.
Stephen Robles:Progressive web apps. Progressive web apps is the particular kind of web app where it could deliver push notifications with icon badges and things like that. So because of the DMA, they are removing this ability. They Apple is saying it's because of all third party because third party app browsers will be allowed with different browser engines in the EU. They don't wanna allow web apps because it's security risk, because these third party web browsers with different engines might do something nefarious.
Stephen Robles:It would seem like they could still allow Safari to do it, but part of the DMA is also that Apple can't prefer its browser over others, so technically they couldn't allow Safari to allow these progressive web apps and not Chrome or Edge or whatever. So, yeah, no more progressive web apps in the EU due to 17 dot 4. That's weird.
Jason Aten:I'm sure that there's a technical reason for this, but you can still open any, quote, web app in your browser. All you're losing is the ability to save it to your home screen and have it open in its own enclosed thing without basically, the browser Chrome, that's, like, the biggest benefit you get is you don't end up with the bar at the bottom and whatever. Right. So I don't I don't really understand. This this feels I don't know if this is malicious compliance, like, we've been talking about with the DMA, but it does feel weird.
Jason Aten:But at the same time, I I I can't imagine that there are more than a dozen people who care. Like, this feels like one of those things they're about to change that will have almost zero. I mean, in fact, I think that somewhere in one of the releases, they they made reference to the fact that, like, such an incredibly small number of people are using this that we're just not gonna put the effort into figuring out how to make it work.
Stephen Robles:And honestly cloud gaming was probably one of the main use cases, at least the most pervasive, and that's actually going to be available directly in the App Store globally. So Xbox Cloud Gaming and other apps can just have an app in the App Store and not have to do the weird progressive web app thing.
Jason Aten:So Although I'm pretty sure Microsoft said they're not gonna do that. Oh. They're not bringing they're not they're not doing it. I'm pretty sure. Really?
Jason Aten:I just heard this on a podcast. Yeah. Yeah. I'll look it up. You keep talking.
Jason Aten:Okay.
Stephen Robles:Alright. I'm
Jason Aten:pretty sure that Phil Spencer just said this on a podcast like this. It was with with their Xbox thing. They're bringing their games everywhere except for the except for they're not bringing Cloud Gaming. Oh. I'll have to look it up.
Stephen Robles:Okay. Shoot. Well, we'll we'll follow-up on that. I'm not sure. I do wanna mention Alexa announced this week that they have a new Echo Hub that is basically the smart home controller everyone wants for HomeKit.
Stephen Robles:So this is a touchscreen display that is going to it's like a $180 and you'll be able to either mount it on a wall or have it in your kitchen on the countertop, $180. Jennifer Tuohy has an article on The Verge about it. She's, I've had talked had her on many podcasts before, but this device is pretty sweet. I mean you can have smart home widgets. It has a proximity sensor where it'll turn the screen on as you approach it.
Stephen Robles:There's no ads on it, which is surprising for an Amazon device. Kudos. You can do power over ethernet, which that feature alone would get me to buy this thing immediately. That's amazing. And also it's a smart home hub and it can connect to Zigbee, Thread, and Matter devices.
Stephen Robles:So it kind of has all those smart home technologies in one, which is pretty sweet. Also works as a ring alarm panel. But here's the deal. Apple, just make one of these. Now I know Yeah.
Stephen Robles:There's gonna be somebody out there that says well, just put an iPad mini and mount it on the wall. It's not the answer. Okay? It's not the answer. We want No.
Jason Aten:It's not.
Stephen Robles:Want a dedicated smart home hub and build in those kinds of things like thread, Matter support. This way, you don't have to have like an Apple TV or HomePod because there are people out there who want to get started and might not have either of those. They might not have a HomePod mini, they might not have an Apple TV, but they have an iPhone, an iPad, and a Mac. They're like, I wanna do smart home things. It would be amazing just to have this.
Stephen Robles:It makes controlling smart home much more user friendly, especially for those who are not, like, totally into it like you might be. And I I just wanna put this on my kitchen wall and be able to show scenes and widgets, be able to control devices. Someone rings the doorbell, you could see it on this screen, which because right now I was thinking I actually have I have a HomeKit everything. And I have a HomeKit secure video doorbell, Logitech Circle View, and so when someone rings it, if you have an Apple TV on, it will show the video of that doorbell on the Apple TV, which is a super cool feature. And you can even expand it, make it big.
Stephen Robles:But if you don't have an Apple TV on, you can look at your device and you can see a thumbnail, but it would be so nice to have a device like this on the wall, Someone rings the doorbell and you immediately just see a video preview of who's at the door without having to look at a device. You know, if you're cooking, my wife's cooking in the kitchen or whatever, and she hands are doing stuff, like, they'll have her device to see what's going on at the doorbell just to look over and see the the video doorbell preview on this. I would love it, so Would you get one of these? I guess you can't.
Jason Aten:No. Because it's it's I'm not gonna get one because it's made by Amazon. But I think the idea is exact I mean, we have the Google Nest Hub Max, which is essentially this, but for Google. And we've had I mean, Google has made this for a very long like, quite a while. And Echo has Amazon has made an Echo show, but this is a much more targeted, like, smart home control device than than the previous versions were.
Jason Aten:And, absolutely, I think that Apple needs to make one. Well, I think it might have been on was it on connected early this not this week, but last week that they were the guys were talking about how, like, somebody was digging through something related to TV OS updates and then home pod updates and saw like that there were the UI bug debugging controls that make it seem as though it's pretty clear that there is a home pod in the works that has a screen and that that could become coming. I mean, the the rumors that they were doing this have been used for a while, but it does actually seem like there is some code. You know, the people who know a lot more about code who seem to think that it is much closer. And, yes, we we talked about this on one of our I mean, we've only done 10 episodes, so it hasn't been that long.
Jason Aten:But we one of our earlier episodes, we talked about the Google Yes. Tablet that I was, like, reviewing and the whole thing, like, Apple, just make one of these things. Make me a speaker and a screen that I could put in my kitchen. I think that on connected, they even called it the kitchen pod. Right?
Jason Aten:Like, just make one. You you can even use that name. I'd still buy it as dumb as that is. It'd still be easier than Google's naming convention, the Google Nest Hub Max. I got it right that time, by
Stephen Robles:the way. That was good. That was good. See, you could just have so you have HomePod. You got HomePod mini.
Stephen Robles:You can do HomePod Ultra with a screen. You could do HomePod Vision now. Mhmm. Little cross little cross thing. You could do HomePad iPad or you got iPad Air, iPad Pro, iPad HomePod.
Stephen Robles:IPad Home This is getting worse as we go. Never mind. Apple, just make one of these. Just just make one of these. That's all we want.
Jason Aten:Yeah. Call it whatever you want. I'll give you $200. Just call it anything. I don't care.
Stephen Robles:200, Jason. This thing's gonna be 350 at the least.
Jason Aten:I I mean, a big HomePod is 350.
Stephen Robles:A big HomePod is 300, but there's no screen. 300? Does Apple sell anything with a screen for under $500? I don't think so.
Jason Aten:No. But this is an interesting point. Apple generally prices its thing to be roughly 20% more than the best version of that thing.
Stephen Robles:Right.
Jason Aten:So if you look at the best version of what we're describing, I think the current best version is that Google Nest Hub Max.
Stephen Robles:Nice.
Jason Aten:And it's, like, what, 180 or something. So my guess is that I I my guess is they make one for 2.50.
Stephen Robles:Google Nest Hub Max is $230.
Jason Aten:Okay. So I was wrong.
Stephen Robles:Apple Apple's gonna make theirs for 2.79. That's gonna I'm gonna call it 2.79.
Jason Aten:Okay. It's gonna be $700. You're right. It's basically what
Stephen Robles:it costs to iPhone. $700. I just wanna throw this in just before we take a break. Wyze, which is a smart home camera maker. I've heard I get emails, Jason, you know, because I have a YouTube channel and people want to send me products to review.
Stephen Robles:And I've gotten to a place now where I just say no to pretty much everybody. But this is a company, like, I've got an email, not from them directly but like from PR agencies, and I'm always like, a) it's not HomeKit so I'm not going to use it, but b) Right.
Jason Aten:Know, I
Stephen Robles:always got a funny feeling about Wyze, which again might seem like self serving in retrospect. Which is fortuitous apparently. Fortuitous apparently. But Wyze cameras had a massive security breach where 13,000 users were able to see other users' cameras. And it wasn't camera feeds, to be clear, but 13,000 users of Wyze cameras were able to see the static thumbnail image previews from other users' cameras in their app, which even a frozen thumbnail image can be pretty like, that's rough.
Jason Aten:That's super bad. Super bad. But also there was a report that there were some people that when they clicked on it, did get to see archive video. Awesome. Like, saved video.
Jason Aten:I know. But here's the can I I wanna say something about this? They they what they've said is that it was the problem of a third party caching library that went down and because there was, like, an outage with their service. And then when it came back up, it overloaded this 3rd party. They basically blamed AWS, which is the Internet.
Jason Aten:Like, all of the Internet is AWS, and it's not that they don't occasionally have things go out, but I don't think like, it probably wasn't their fault because, fun I should write about this, but no one knows what wise is, so that's why I haven't written about it. But, fundamentally, if your entire technology stack is built in a way that this could ever happen, then you're just doing it wrong. Right? Because if you think about the way that apple does it, there is just no scenario because of the way that apple builds its tech stack, that if a home kits it's home kit secure video, like there's a reason that they call that.
Stephen Robles:It's right in the name.
Jason Aten:Only only that there's there's no scenario where I think they said something like customer IDs and, like, video ID device IDs got mixed up in some database somewhere. Like, that should just never ever happen. And I'm I don't I don't know how the I honestly don't know how a company like this could possibly come back from this.
Stephen Robles:Well, and this this was a similar case with Eufy. Their cameras, it wasn't this kind of breach, but they had something where I think device IDs were leaked or like device names and Wi Fi network names. Yeah. Something like that. And so this is just something again, I'm I'm a big smart home person.
Stephen Robles:So if, you know, if you on my YouTube channel, I have several videos about how I have over a 100 HomeKit devices. There are smart home brands I feel like are trustworthy, especially when it comes to cameras. Like Arlo, I think is a great brand. They make HomeKit stuff, but it's also compatible with other devices. I think ecobee has some really good cameras.
Stephen Robles:Eve obviously does more HomeKit. But this is one of the reasons why I use HomeKit Secure Video solely, like it's the only one. UniFi is also another one because I know the UniFi crowd, which I'm a UniFi guy. That's my whole network, but if I don't mention Unify, there's gonna be hordes of people being like,
Jason Aten:me, Unify is the best camera in the world.
Stephen Robles:I just need to say, Unify, probably some of the best security cameras too, very secure. Also, like, for the whole world.
Jason Aten:One star reviews. We're just No.
Stephen Robles:No. No one star reviews. Listen. Leave a 5 star and tell us why UniFi security cameras are the best. You can do that.
Jason Aten:Thank you.
Stephen Robles:But I will say HomeKit Secure Video, this is why I'm I'm just all in on HomeKit because I don't I never have to think about it. Like, no third party Yep. Is accessing that data. Like, it's me and Apple, and that's it. And everything happens locally, it's the beauty of HomeKit, even if, like, the Internet goes down but my Wi Fi network is still up just because, you know, Frontier's out or whatever, like, you can still control all your home devices because it's all local and secure.
Stephen Robles:HomeSecure Video, it's right in the name, right in the name.
Jason Aten:Yeah. Anyway And when you say, like, when your Internet goes out, what you mean is that you're getting less than 1 gig up and
Stephen Robles:down. Right. Unless I'm getting 2 gigs down, I consider the Internet
Jason Aten:to be out. It's out. Yeah. I get it.
Stephen Robles:It's totally out. Everybody stop using the Internet. Alright? Dad needs to upload a video. You.
Jason Aten:I just wanted to clarify.
Stephen Robles:Get off your phone. That's why, Andrew Edwards, he's a a great YouTuber. He was talking about Wi Fi 7 and getting 1500 down, and I messaged him, was, I don't get out of bed for less than 2 gigs. I don't even get out of bed. I probably wanna make a shirt for that.
Stephen Robles:Anyway, we got a lot more news to cover. We're gonna have to hit it quickly. But before we do, I just wanna take a break and thank those who support the show directly because this episode was brought to you by you, our members who support us in Apple Podcasts and on Memberful. And so if you haven't yet, you can get an ad free version, meaning even this section where we're plugging our own show I cut out for the ad free version. And so you could go over, you could subscribe in Apple Podcasts, $5 a month, or go to primarytech.fm, click bonus episodes, same $5 a month or $50 a year.
Stephen Robles:You can do that in either place. We have several who have done that. Thank you. And you can support the show which is a) just great to support stuff you love, support other podcasts too, and also you get bonus episodes every week. You get the ad free version of the main show and a separate bonus episode, which we talk about really fun stuff.
Stephen Robles:I grilled Jason on his Tesla last week. I think I just said exciting and I'm gonna say this next line, but I we're going to talk about why Jason uses notepads this week. Just I'm very excited to hear.
Jason Aten:Like paper. Like he just Paper for notepad. Like yeah. Why I write with stuff on paper. Yep.
Stephen Robles:Exactly. We would ask that you could support the show, and we understand if you can't do $5 a month, leave that 5 star review in Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. That also helps the show and so thanks to everyone who supports the show, which they're not hearing this because I cut it out. But to all of you who will
Jason Aten:support the show
Stephen Robles:Thank you anyway. Thank you anyway. For those of you who support the show for hearing this, thank you as well. And now back to the show. OpenAI launched Soarer or announced I keep saying launched.
Stephen Robles:They previewed Soarer last week. For some reason, I really thought Thursdays were just a good day to do a podcast about tech news because most of the tech news is out. And like the last 4 weeks, it's been announcement right after we're done recording from Apple, from other places. But anyway, Sora is OpenAI's video AI model and it is really impressive. If you have not, I'll put an article to a link to Jason's article covering Sora.
Stephen Robles:You should just go to the Sora website and preview some of the videos that they have generated by AI, and it is really mind blowing. Some of it, I
Jason Aten:had to disable ad blockers so you can actually see these videos. So
Stephen Robles:Here's, AI generated video. Again, like just incredible. And as always, MKBHD had great commentary on like what are the ramifications? What does this mean? And I think it's because, you know, image generation was one thing.
Stephen Robles:This video generation, it feels like a huge step. And a lot of people were comparing it to the Will Smith eating spaghetti generated AI video, which I did not see a year ago, and now seeing it, like, come back up in the news, it is literally horrifying. I don't even wanna show it on this podcast because it's You don't. So weird, so bizarre. But they redid Will Smith eating spaghetti with thesora and it's pretty amazing.
Stephen Robles:As a video creator myself, I feel like, 1, how fast it progresses in a year is wild, and I think slightly scary, like, to think about 5 years from now what this technology is capable of. Number 2, I feel more sure than ever that people are going to look for personal connections, especially to creators. And so I do feel that the creator economy, especially like tech creators, you know, vloggers, whatever, I think it's actually gonna drive people more to that personality based content because AI is farther away from being able to generate that. And even if it could, like, totally generate a person and has it like an AI generated YouTube channel, basically, like, think MKBHD, but a fake person generated by AI, I think people just knowing the fact that it would be generated will be more averse to that and want to find an actual human being, flesh and blood. I think that I don't know.
Stephen Robles:That's just an idea I have about the future. But 3rd, there are several industries that this is going to disrupt in a big way. I think the biggest and most immediate one, once Sora is available publicly, like right now you can't use it just yet. It's going to launch in the future. I'm sure this is gonna be a paid service at least with chatgptplus, like the $20 a month, probably in addition, I would think, because this seems like a very, I don't know, a very useful tool.
Stephen Robles:And again, the main use case I feel like that businesses and brands will jump on is stock footage, rather than pay to find stock footage on a service or rummage through Shutterstock or whatever for a piece of stock footage you need for a company video or whatever, you can just generate exactly what you want and it look, like, real. Like, there's a couple of drone shots that are on the Soar website that well, they look like drone shots. I just said it was a drone shot. And it's just it is mind boggling. So I'm gonna pull up that website, but I don't know.
Stephen Robles:Tell me tell me your thoughts when you saw this launched and, like, seeing some of those initial videos.
Jason Aten:Yeah. I have I think I have 3 three quick thoughts. The first one is it's it is sort of staggering how how far into the future this looks like it is. Right? It's it's just you're like, wow.
Jason Aten:This is AI generated. I didn't we didn't I didn't think we'd get here yet. But then when you start to watch it, it's like it's like 80%. We we were at, like, 5%, and we got to 80%, and it's amazing. But, man, that last 20%, we are a long way away.
Jason Aten:Like, there's the video of the people at the birthday party and the ladies blowing out a candle, and the people in the background have no bones in their hands. Right? Like, it is the, so the, in my mind, the only, the only industry right now that this is going to disrupt is horror films because every single, I know how you feel about body horror, Steven. And every one of these videos, when you start to, even the ones that are animals and pets, they're just like, what is what what is wrong with their dog? Like, where did the other dog come from?
Stephen Robles:This video that we're playing right now, the human faces in this, like, quote unquote movie trailer, I think is pretty impressive. Now granted they're not moving, like, they're not moving very much. The human face is just, like, kind of static. But, oh, and this was, like, one of the drone shots I was saying, like, this shot right here of like, this looks just like someone captured a drone shot and this is totally AI generated and could totally I could totally get it. Now the birthday thing and OpenAI was open about this, pun intended, but they were like, it's not perfect and one of the things it's really bad at is hands.
Stephen Robles:And, like, these are some of the failed attempts, like this dude running on a treadmill kind of backwards, the foxes that are kind of like self generating out of each other.
Jason Aten:Spawning just out of what is happening? Look,
Stephen Robles:this I mean, this is the problem, but I gotta find oh, this is the birthday one which is Literally horrifying. But like if you just look at a glance and you're just focused on, you know, the the elderly lady blowing out candles, well, she never blows them out, you don't think much of it. And then as you look closer, the candles, the flames at the top of the candles are blowing in different directions. Like this is a like spot the differences, like spot the things. And if you look at any person in the background, the hands, literally horrifying.
Stephen Robles:I think this is body horror. I think this qualifies.
Jason Aten:It it it absolutely is. It's like the other one that is in this terrifying is the one where the cat wakes up the person in bed and the cat has at least 3 front legs and the person that's in bed has at least 3 front limbs. It's just, so and my point is I think we're safe for a little while because some of this stuff is just it's it's amazing because, again, we were used to, like, looking at things that were, like, 5% of the way there, and now we're, like, 80%. But that last 20%. And the reason is and, well, Google had its own, like, blow up because they had to shut down image generation in Gemini because of some, like, it was not creating historically accurate images.
Jason Aten:That's a whole separate issue. But one of the quotes was something along the lines of like, that's because these things, they don't actually understand phys. Oh my gosh, I'm going to cry. This is the worst video in the history of humanity. When you watch it's amazing at first.
Jason Aten:And then you realize that, Oh, there's a paw and wait, hold on. And there's another front. What's going on? Front left paw. I don't understand.
Jason Aten:And then watch the human's arm. It's just all what happened? Why is
Stephen Robles:there a hand? It's weird.
Jason Aten:The cat murdered that person, Steven.
Stephen Robles:All for 8 paws. Anyway
Jason Aten:I don't understand. Anyway, I'm sorry. This was terrible. This is the worst podcasting
Stephen Robles:in the podcast. Just go watch this segment on YouTube and go subscribe to the
Jason Aten:channel.
Stephen Robles:But anyway Okay. I it is just impressive how fast the technology is moving. Like, I get that there is some concern, but I just think stock footage, especially like like if you were trying to make a career out of, like, drone photography of landscapes, I feel like that's that's gonna be a hard industry. Like, you're gonna have to have, like, the most incredible drone footage, like, flying through an erupting volcano with, like, close ups of magma balls in order to differentiate from the kind of AI generated content. And honestly, you might like things you couldn't achieve with a physical drone and camera, one day soon you'll be able to achieve with these AI generated video clips.
Stephen Robles:And I think it's it's a wild time. Like, it's it's pretty incredible.
Jason Aten:Yeah.
Stephen Robles:A side note, I'll just throw it in here. You were pointing out NVIDIA, which makes graphics cards, had I don't know. Was it one of their biggest quarters ever? Like, ridiculous.
Jason Aten:Oh, yeah. If when you look at what their revenue was compared to the previous year, it's like multiples of, like, 290% types. Like, it's it's just completely astronomical because the you know, if you think about the last year was I think Chad GPT was released to the public in November of 2022. So we're, like, 18 months away from that, roughly. Right.
Jason Aten:And so NVIDIA, if you look at the market cap of Nvidia from that point, it was like roughly $300,000,000,000 I'm not going to get the numbers exactly right. But somewhere in that neighborhood, and it's getting close to 200, 2,000,000,000,000 right now. So it's like, it is just riding the wave of AI. Nvidia is benefiting more from the rise of AI than OpenAI, than Microsoft, than any of these other company because they make the chips. They yeah.
Jason Aten:265%. They make the chips that right now are fueling all of this, and they are projecting that it's gonna continue to grow over the next year as well. Their stock was up, like, 10 or 12 or 15% or something like that. It's just it's completely banana. Like, this is, like, an iPhone moment.
Jason Aten:Right? And and the thing is the iPhone didn't even increase the value of Apple that much in a year, but it's it was the thing that set it on the course. This this, at this point, is in fact, the only example I can think of, which maybe is a cautionary tale, is Peloton during the pandemic. Right? They had explosive growth because no one could go outdoors, and so everybody bought their Peloton bikes.
Jason Aten:But, obviously, what we know is that people there was only so many people that were ever gonna buy them. They all just bought them at once. Right. Right? Peloton spent $500,000,000 on a factory and filled it up with bikes that no one ever bought and is now, like, selling them at Kmart on clearance.
Jason Aten:That that part's not true. But, like, they they can't sell these things anymore because people can go back outside. Like, we can go do things. We can go to movie theaters. We can go Planet Fitness again if you want to.
Jason Aten:So I don't know that that's necessarily the what's going to happen to NVIDIA, but it does seem like at some point, there are only so many places you can put data centers. Right? I don't know what what that amount is, but there but I think that they were projecting that there's another something along the lines of, like, $2,000,000,000,000 worth of data centers to be built in the next 5 or 6 years. And right now, NVIDIA is poised. You know, if you think about if they're generating $22,000,000,000 in revenue, but they're projecting that it could be $2,000,000,000,000 worth of data centers.
Jason Aten:Like, that's a lot of room to grow is what I'm trying to say.
Stephen Robles:And it's just amazing to me, like, from a long, like many years viewpoint, graphics cards, obviously used in computers, video games, video production and editing, like graphics processing, and this new use case for a technology that's been around for decades and is now exploding this business again. Yep. It's pretty amazing. And so to be clear, like these large language models run on graphics cards. And this was also the kind of like the crypto boom as well, which is like graphics cards, like you couldn't even get them for years because I was trying to mine for Bitcoin or whatever.
Jason Aten:Right.
Stephen Robles:Which, I never did. I think that's somewhere in the quantum realm with my Imessages. So
Jason Aten:Yes. There you go. Well, and specifically, it's that, you know, NVIDIA makes a specific chip. The I think it's the h one hundred that is specifically designed for servers in data centers. So people aren't buying, like, 40 nineties to do this.
Jason Aten:First of all, that would be insanely expensive to try to like, to just shove like Yeah. Yeah. Fill a shelf full of us. But it is the it is the essentially the same type of a thing that these are graph because it's all just linear processing as opposed to, like, a CPU, which is yeah. I don't know the difference.
Jason Aten:I just that was all the words I knew about that. But the but the point is it is they are basically graphics cards, but they are a very specific kind that are designed to go into servers, and that is what does all of this Right. Processing. So
Stephen Robles:Exactly. Lightning round, just these last few things. We hadn't talked about Apple Vision Pro all episode and so I'm just gonna mention a couple things here which I find interesting. Apple Insider posted some images during the slam dunk contest what looks like 3 d stereoscopic cameras. These also look similar to what was used in that Alicia Keys music video.
Stephen Robles:They were just in tall white speaker cabinets in that. But these look like maybe we'll see an immersive slam dunk video in Apple Vision Pro. Listen, I might not be totally into sports ball. Alright. I said it just once the entire episode.
Stephen Robles:But I would watch this. I would watch some immersive content of a slam dunk contest. And also it was MacRumors, I believe, found that Apple said the MLS, the 2023 playoffs were recorded in 8 k three d with a 180 degree field of view. And coming soon, Apple Vision Pro users can experience the 2023 MLS Cup playoffs in the first ever sports film captured in Apple immersive video. So it seems like it'd be more film than, like, just watching the full on games.
Stephen Robles:But I do think it is interesting having sports captured in immersive video, and if one day I have to imagine the technology or the maybe the bandwidth needed, but to like stream a live sports game in immersive video, I mean, I'm sure that's the goal. Like to be able to watch MLS, Friday Night Baseball, watch the NBA in immersive video live, when we get to that, I don't know how far off it is, is it a year, is it months, that's gonna be a cool experience. And my father-in-law is like the like, how I am with sports on the spectrum, he is the opposite end of the spectrum. Like he is all the sports all the time, knows all the things, and that is going to be when I have him try Apple Vision Pro. And, you know, that might be enough for him to buy 1.
Stephen Robles:We'll see. Immersive supports might be it.
Jason Aten:I I was going to ask you, are you the type of person who if you once you know the score of a game, can you go back and watch it? But you don't watch the game anyway, so the score is irrelevant to you. So that's fine. But because I can't if I know like, if I find out what the score of a game is, like, forget it.
Stephen Robles:Right. Right.
Jason Aten:There's nothing else that happens in the game that's interesting. It doesn't matter how incredible the highlights are. I'll just watch the highlights like a clip on on YouTube or whatever. It doesn't matter. But so but you asked how long it's going to be before we get this.
Jason Aten:First of all, you're gonna need all of your 2 gigs to get any of this, like, for for sure. Because right now you can get like 6 sporting events and they're mostly like premier league soccer in 4 k. You can't even 4 ks. Right. I think the super bowl was in 4 ks, but it was actually like 1080p upscaled or something stupid like that.
Jason Aten:Like, because it's just the, the bandwidth isn't there. And, you know, even on a 4 ks television, you're not sitting so close that it mattered. But anyway, it's going to be a while because this is like the word is 180 degree, 80 degree 8 k stereoscopic spatial video. Like, there's a lot of words in there that increase the bandwidth is all I'm trying to say.
Stephen Robles:Yes. Yes. Exactly. That's It's gonna be a challenge. We're really terrible at lightning rounds, but that's okay.
Stephen Robles:I'm I
Jason Aten:am terrible. Okay.
Stephen Robles:I'm sorry. No. No. No. No.
Stephen Robles:It's me it's me too. Because I I also wanna mention, right after we finished recording last week, TikTok released their Apple Vision Pro app, which sounds I know some people were like, I never wanna have TikTok in VR. I just wanna mention, it's even it's actually way better in Apple Vision Pro than on the iPhone because if you've ever opened TikTok, it's just like a a mess of things. Like the like, comment, save, share buttons are all on top of the video and there's captions happening, like if there's live captions, then also like the caption for the post is on like it's all there on your the video you're trying to watch, and it's very busy. And TikTok actually, I think very intelligently in Apple Vision Pro, like, moved all those elements off the video.
Stephen Robles:And so you can watch TikTok videos, and it's just a much cleaner experience. And so not saying you should buy Apple Vision Pro for TikTok. Not at all. But it's actually a really good use of the platform, taking an app that is actually, in my opinion, better. Like, even seeing the comments, these comments will pull up alongside to the right of the video, but if you're on your phone, if you pull up the comments, you can't watch the video anymore.
Stephen Robles:Like, the comments just cover the video. So the Apple Vision Pro TikTok app, actually decent. Impressed.
Jason Aten:People keep talking about how the Apple Vision Pro needs a killer app, and I'm just gonna say that if TikTok is the killer app on the Vision Pro, that will be more concerning to me than the AI generated videos where the people don't have bones in their hands. Because this where are we even going as a world?
Stephen Robles:No. No. Yeah. No. No.
Stephen Robles:Okay. Last two things before we get to our personal tech, which Jason and I are gonna argue about battery percentage in the status bar real quick. I do want to mention, because it's kind of a tangential follow-up, Waymo, which is we talked about full self driving cars a couple weeks ago. Apparently the one car that might have been the argument for full self driving, which not even, it's halting expansion plans because of regulators. And I didn't realize, is Waymo owned by Alphabet, Google's parent company?
Stephen Robles:Is that Oh.
Jason Aten:Yeah. I guess they are. I guess that is true.
Stephen Robles:Apparently. I guess that is true. I think, that's what this Verge article revealed to me. So I'll link the article. But anyway, full self driving may be farther off than we think.
Jason Aten:I mean, Google does have a habit of just randomly collecting I mean, that's companies, and apparently they were missing a w for alphabet, so they picked actually, no. Because they have Waze. Right? Google owns Waze. So I That is true.
Jason Aten:But I still think it's true. If it's in the verge, I'm pretty sure it's true.
Stephen Robles:It's not pretty sure it's true. That's Waymo. And then finally, I just wanna hear, Jason get mad about another streaming service, which is the which is about HBO. And then yeah. So tell me why you're mad at HBO.
Jason Aten:John Oliver, Last Week Tonight, very popular show on HBO. And on Mondays, they would all well, they would always release his main story on YouTube. Right? So you could just watch it on YouTube just like the clips, kinda like what we do. Right?
Jason Aten:We you Steven edits the show, puts it on YouTube, but then he also puts, like, clips that he shares on shorts and that kind of stuff. And HBO has said that they are not going to do that. They are going to wait until Thursdays to, to, to post any of that content. And the reason is because they want people who like John Oliver to pay for it for max. I mean, they just came out and set it, and it's like they're treating the people who are watching it on YouTube the same way Netflix is treating the people who share their password with their roommates as if they are doing something wrong.
Jason Aten:And my take is you put it, they're not watching YouTube pirated streams that people are DVR ing and then somehow like, you know, sitting there and and posting them, you were putting them there. And now you've decided that you're going to make the experience worse for your fans because you think that they will, if they're not already paying $20 a month for HBO max, like John Oliver. Great, very talented. His stuff is very good, but this is not what's going to do. You're just gonna make a bunch of people mad.
Jason Aten:Right? And even John Oliver, he if you scrolled on just a little bit, if you're watching this on on on YouTube, he is the one well, he got ad blockers on, so you can't see him. But he he tweeted about it or x ed or however it works saying, like, this is you know, normally, I would share a link on Mondays, but HBO has decided to wait till Thursdays. I hope that they change their mind is what he's saying. He's like, this is stupid, but until then, you can pay for Max.
Jason Aten:So I just streamer like, I just my well, I put this into the show notes with a link that just says more bad streaming behavior because it's like people seem to think that the most convincing way to get someone to pay you more money is to make the experience worse. And they will be so thankful that you did that, that they will give you more money to get back the same experience they were having before. That just feels like really bad business. I don't I don't know. Like, it just doesn't feel like that's the way you should do it.
Stephen Robles:You know, I was gonna make the devil's advocate argument to say, like, Netflix is not putting clips of their original shows on YouTube for people to watch. So maybe Max is justified. But then I'm gonna devil's advocate my own devil's advocate and say, I have probably watched more stand up comedy specials via clips on TikTok than I ever have actually streamed on Netflix. And and that is not an argument to say Netflix should try and shut that down, because you can't. I mean, there's so many people sharing random clips.
Stephen Robles:It's just random accounts sharing clips from, like, you know, whatever comedy specials on Netflix. Honestly, I feel like it's the best advertisement for the content. Like if you can preview the content and you really like it, I feel like you would be more inclined to do it. Because the people who like John Oliver and maybe like that segment of the show, they're probably if they're not already paying for Max, I don't think this is gonna convince them. It's just gonna make them mad, like yourself.
Stephen Robles:Right. And those who don't watch John Oliver, not seeing that segment on YouTube that means nothing. Right.
Jason Aten:Right. You know,
Stephen Robles:they they weren't watching it already, so they're not gonna be motivated to go sign up for Max just for this. I understand leveraging some of your most popular content to get people to buy into your service, but like we have talked about, especially with streaming services, to take something away, like Amazon Prime Video taking away Dolby Atmos Sound and Dolby Vision, to take something away from a package you like someone started paying for and these were all the, you know, features they got, I think taking something away is user hostile as opposed to something like Disney plus adding a lower priced tier with ads but not changing anything about the tier you started paying for at the beginning of your subscription, although they raise prices every year. But not removing any features, I think, is different. So I'm with you. Yeah.
Stephen Robles:I think this is this
Jason Aten:And HBO even said a spokesperson said, like, hey, listen. We started doing this because it was great promotional, you know, exposure for the show, and it helps us build an audience. And, apparently, what they're saying is, like, well, not enough of those people were converting to subscribers, so we're gonna make the promotional exposure a little bit worse. I, I just feel like, again, don't treat people who are just doing the thing that you let them do because you were posting the stuff on YouTube as if they're freeloaders. They're not.
Jason Aten:They're just they're just enjoying the you're building an audience of fans, and, yes, you haven't figured out how to monetize them. I just this this just doesn't seem like the right way to do it. So
Stephen Robles:For sure. Alright. We have some personal tech and then our bonus episode, I think we should talk about your notepads in the bonus episode.
Jason Aten:Okay.
Stephen Robles:So physical media, again, makes a comeback in our bonus episodes.
Jason Aten:I love it.
Stephen Robles:Yes. It's good. We're gonna talk about battery percentage in a second, but I do want one follow-up. I downloaded Spark last week as we were talking about mail apps. It's on my Mac.
Stephen Robles:I didn't delete it. But I didn't I didn't set it up. And here's why. That one issue I was having, I don't know if I mentioned it on the show, but I wasn't able to log in to my Google account on my Mac. It kept like 404 erroring at the end of the sign in process to add a Google account to my Mac for mail and calendar and all that.
Stephen Robles:And I didn't know what was going on. And so I believe this was on threads, but Tazo from Hawaii, or maybe he emailed me. This was a setting I this is crazy. But apparently, if you're having an issue where you can't sign in to an email account or whatever, you need to go to Safari, settings, advanced, and there's a box you uncheck that says, use advanced tracking and fingerprinting. You have to uncheck that box, and then all of a sudden, I was able to sign into my Google account just fine, and then I can toggle it back on.
Stephen Robles:It's some kind of security setting in Safari, which kudos. Great. More security. But the fact that it won't let me add a Google account for mail, calendar and contacts on my Mac is pretty wild. And I would never have thought to look at Safari settings.
Stephen Robles:Although, for things like Google, Microsoft Office, Office 365, it does open like a mini Safari window when you're in the settings pane to log in to those accounts. Now apparently, the Safari settings and security is affecting that login window. And if you have that box checked, it might not let you log in, which is wild to me. But anyway, unchecked the box, I logged in, checked it again because I don't know what it does and I wanna keep it checked, I assume it's security based. And I was able to add my Google account back and so I never started to use Spark because now Well,
Jason Aten:the re what's happening there is that, essentially, what that little tiny window that pops up is doing is passing a token from Safari to to Spark. Right? Because you're actually logging into Safari. You're not actually logging into spark, but somehow Google has to transfer that information. So it's sending that token between the 2, and that's what's considered the advanced try there's no tracking going on.
Jason Aten:There's no fingerprinting. It's just that that setting is what disables the ability for Google to say to Spark, yep. We've authorized this person. They're good to go. It has to pass that information between the 2 of them, and that's what is vile you know, that setting is doing.
Jason Aten:So
Stephen Robles:Okay. I'm back. I'm still on stock mail. I didn't try Spark because I got it working again. Alright.
Stephen Robles:I still have it installed. I'll try it sometime, but, you know, it's that's a whole process. I have, like, 4 email accounts.
Jason Aten:One thing at a time.
Stephen Robles:Oh, I'll try.
Jason Aten:Yep.
Stephen Robles:One thing at a time.
Jason Aten:Alright.
Stephen Robles:Alright. And the other personal tech, battery percentage, which I'm gonna pull up one of Jason's articles here. It says, after 5 years, Apple is bringing back the battery percentage indicator on the iPhone. Don't know how you get away with this long of titles in your articles, Jason. This thing's gotta be cut off in the Google search.
Stephen Robles:Why it's going to make your life so much better? 2 sentences and the title of the headline. And no, the battery percentage does not make your life better. I know this is a very divisive topic. I have done polls on X, Mastodon, I don't know if I do it on threads yet.
Stephen Robles:I do not put the percentage of battery in the status bar of my iPhone. I have widgets that can do that. I can swipe down from the control center. I am arguing I don't think you need to see that granular percent unless you have, like, a mission critical job that that you need your iPhone for every minute of the day, or they're like people are going to die or something, and you need to know exactly when it hits 53% battery, I don't think you need to have the status bar icon. And Jason make the case.
Stephen Robles:You who work from home and leave your phone on the charger all day, why do you have the battery percentage in the status bar?
Jason Aten:Well, so it's not like I need to know what the battery percentage is specifically. It's just that of the 2 potential options, one of which is just a slowly depleting graphic. Right? And the other one is a slowly depleting graphic that has a number in it. The number is a whole lot more glanceable.
Jason Aten:Right? If I, if I'm gonna have a battery indicator at all, that's going to give me that information at the point that I need it. Having the number in there to me is far less than anxiety inducing because I'm, I'm just looking at what a, I'm just looking at a number. I'm not like seeing the visual representation of my ability to communicate with the outside world slowly just draining away, which is what's happening when that battery battery indicator, like, goes down. And so I like, again, I I don't necessarily, like, I don't I'm kind of indifferent.
Jason Aten:It's just to me having the number there just makes more sense because if I want that information, why do I wanna swipe over to the the the today view or or pull up a widget or do any of the, like, why wouldn't I just be like, oh, the number's right there. Great. I'm good. I don't need to know any more than that. So and I honestly don't pay attention to my battery.
Jason Aten:And we were joking about this before. If you buy the biggest battery Apple has ever put into a smartphone, which is what I have in the 15 pro max, then I probably don't ever need to think about this, which is mostly true.
Stephen Robles:So I will say I'm, I have my phone here. So here's my battery icon. Right? It's it's right there. Let me let me take away the screen share so you can see this large in the frame.
Stephen Robles:There is my battery.
Jason Aten:Yeah. I see it.
Stephen Robles:It's it's pretty full. Like it's very full. I don't think seeing a number at this point in the day is gonna have any bearing on it. Now, I will say my next question to you is, at what percentage do you start feeling battery anxiety? For me, I can look down at that that thing, and if it looks less than half and I still have more of the day left than not, or at least like many hours still left in the day, then I start thinking about where I'm gonna charge this thing.
Stephen Robles:But that's really the only time I start thinking about it, is when that little icon looks a little less than half full. And that's all that's really the only, signal I need. Yeah. So what percentage are you like, I'm gonna do something now?
Jason Aten:Well, okay. I almost never see my battery be below 60% just because, again, the battery is huge, and I work from home, and so it's charged a lot of the times. And then if I go out, I'm plugging it into my car. Right. There's there's, there's like, and I drive an electric car, so I have plenty, plenty of juice for my phone.
Jason Aten:It's going to be just fine. But I, I think I just like the preciseness of the number as opposed to the ambiguity of the icon and that, that part of it, to me, I just don't like that additional mental overhead in my life of like, not knowing like what is so, but just like you, if I'm going to go out and it's, and I'm below half, but I don't, I don't really feel like I ever see it much below like, I get surprised if it's, like, 20%. It's like, how did that happen? I don't I don't know how that happened. So See, for
Stephen Robles:me, if I'm recording videos, about something on my phone, I'll have my phone screen on. I set it so it never locks. And if I make if I'm recording for an hour or so because I'm doing shortcuts videos or whatever, then And those are the times. But, you know, I see the little icon. I see it, you know, it turns yellow.
Stephen Robles:I have low power mode automatically enabled. And I think that's a signal too. So I have a shortcuts automation where when the battery gets to 20% or maybe 30%, it goes into low power mode, which then also changes the icon to yellow in the status bar. And so at any point in the day, I can look down and say, oh, above 30% or below 30%. And if I'm below 30%, I definitely wanna charge it.
Stephen Robles:And I think that is another, like, not number, but a visual cue to say I know I am in the danger zone, highway to the danger zone. That should I should have had that quote.
Jason Aten:Mhmm. Let's
Stephen Robles:use that for the next episode. But anyway
Jason Aten:Yeah.
Stephen Robles:That's that's all I know I need to check. But anyway, everyone everyone listening, here's what you do. If you didn't already leave a 5 star review and said Nerds or your favorite Halloween candy, then go to Apple Podcasts, leave a 5 star rating and review, and in your review say, battery percentage on, battery percentage off. And that will be the way we take this poll. It's 5 star reviews.
Jason Aten:That'd be great. And just understand that neither battery percentage on or off are any indication of anyone's political views. I just wanna be clear about that.
Stephen Robles:That one star review is really hurting me.
Jason Aten:Yeah. No. Actually, I could not care less. I just find it really funny.
Stephen Robles:It is funny. It is funny. So let us know. Now we're gonna go record a bonus episode about Jason using physical notepads, and I'm a I have some I have thoughts on physical notepads as well. So we're gonna do that.
Stephen Robles:To get the bonus episode, support the show on Apple Podcasts or at primary tech dot f m. Click bonus episodes. You could sign up there. And as always, thanks for listening. Thanks for watching on YouTube.
Stephen Robles:You can go subscribe over there. Youtube.com/atprimarytechshow. Thanks for joining us and we'll catch you next week.
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