Alexa Will Send Your Recordings to Amazon, M4 MacBook Air vs M4 Pro, Pebble Smart Watches, Pixel 9a Loses Camera Bump
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someday when spring is here we'll find our love anew welcome to primary technology the show about the tech news that matters this week we're talking about the pixel 9a new pebble smart watches that are pretty limited apple might be in trouble again especially in the eu are voice assistants really listening all the time and we might get to some iphone 17 rumors this episode is brought to you by one password and you the members who support us directly i'm one of your hosts stephen robles and joining me on this first day of spring who's also getting snow

Jason A-10, how's it going, Jason? It's good. I think you should have mentioned that the bonus episode is just going to be clips of you trying to get through the introduction 16 times. Listen, if you're watching on YouTube, you're going to see a lot of cuts. You're going to see a lot of cuts. Because I was so thrown off, because we start every episode with a movie quote.

And today is the first day of spring. So I searched movie quotes about spring. I was, we were talking about it before we started recording and you literally said the quote before I said, I gave Steven a suggestion and it was the quote he planned on using, which is from Snow White and the seven dwarfs. So man, I don't understand how now you're like a precog. I was like a minority report situation. I have four children. I've seen all the movies, Steven. Like that's fair. Yeah, I know. I know. Anyway, we have the biggest topic this week.

is the amount of five-star reviews we got, which is going to be a whole segment. Which, if you didn't know, if you're new to the show, you leave us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. In any country, we give you a shout-out at the top of the show, and people write whole blog posts. I think there were a couple generated by ChatGPT. I don't know if you saw those. A couple. A couple. There was a couple, but that's hilarious because it's an inside joke. So we're going to get to that. But there's also some news. I have my MacBook Air in hand. Jason has a different computer that he just bought, which I don't understand, but he'll explain to us.

So we should do it. Let's get into it. First of all, we want to say thank you because we had two goals that we talked about in recent weeks. One, we wanted to hit 2,000 subscribers on YouTube. Guess what? Boom! We're now at 2,000.01 if you look at our channel. But thank you to everyone subscribing over on YouTube. And recent episodes have been doing good in the viewership. Well over 1,000 views per episode, so appreciate that. And for all of you leaving five-star ratings and reviews on Apple Podcasts,

We are now over 300 reviews in Apple Podcasts. Somehow, we still have not achieved the five-star rating. I don't know, Jason, if it will happen. I don't know how averages work, but... Yeah, math is hard. We need 1,000 more five-star reviews, basically. So keep them coming. Listen, if everyone who listens to this show left us a five-star rating and review, we'd have well over several thousand five-star reviews. I'm just saying, just doing the math.

We might become a five-star show then. So do it if you can. And listen, we're going to give shout-outs. I'm going to try and do lightning speed, but still, you know, everyone leaves funny comments, and then they tell us their preferences. So I'm going to try and do this quick. Barty Burns from the USA. He had a lengthy shortcuts post. I'm going to try and talk about that in my YouTube channel. Steve in British Columbia, Canada. He had all of Jason's preferences when it comes to battery and phone, but I'm not going to get into that. Trying to get Slim from USA. Apple Pencil tip up. So that's...

So that was on my side, but battery percentage on. Sepp Mer from Belgium, battery percentage on, left rear pocket. He said iPhone 4 design was the best design. He's on my side there. Beamer on a Beamer from USA, battery percentage on, bunch of stuff. Old tech though, he has a RadioShack TRS-80 pocket computer and once surfed the digital waves on a 300 baud modem. Do you even know what that is? I don't even know what that is. Yeah, that's like when you used it to plug it into a phone line.

Oh, okay, like a 56K. Except for if you do the math, it's a lot slower than what you just described. Oh, I see. Okay, I see. Fran Basura from Spain. Battery percentage off. Thank you. iPhone in the dominant pocket. Appreciate it. Dots on Mac. I'm going to come back to that dots on the dock on the Mac. That's a hard sentence to say. Russ 0756 from USA. M4040 from Israel. Walf Winnegard from the USA.

And he said battery percentage on phone and back pocket pencil tip away from five buttons. You want on all accounts thrash 10. I turned off my, Oh, this was good. I turned off my battery percentage on the iPhone to try something new. It's been strangely enjoyable, maybe even a bit relieving. Thank you. Thrash 10. I think that's what you would experience.

defenestrator19 five stars is a belated birthday present thank you that was the last week better percentage on apple pencil tip towards the volume buttons and then phone in whichever pocket i have access to at the moment that's funny shahab from canada better percentage on dots on happy birthday steven thank you s r l seven seven four one from the usa they wanted video on apple podcast now listen i'm gonna take a little break here because whenever we're

We talk about meta, the meta discussion about podcasting on this podcast. I just want to say video is possible on Apple podcasts, but you have to have an entire separate RSS feed just for the video. That means hosting a whole other show and then doing all the double posting. What Apple needs to do is what Spotify did, which allows me to go in and upload a video and attach it to an episode that already exists. That's what I do in Spotify for creators. So anyway,

Apple's listening. That's what you need to do. And then hopefully one day it will come. T Walt from USA. Uh,

This is the one I think might have been ChatGPT. They said Primary Tech has been the absolute favorite podcast since 1973 when it was only available on 8-track tape. Do you know what those are? I've seen them. I've never held one. Also, what year were you born? 1986. Wow, you're younger than I thought, Steven. Well, I was not born in 1973 either, so I was just curious. We didn't know we were second-generation podcasters on this show. Fair enough.

I did not know that. Although, if there's ever a way... I don't know if there's a way to actually get a digital podcast file on an 8-track. I'm sure there are devices to do that. That'd be kind of hilarious. Or maybe a LP. All right, we just got two more, three more. D-H-F-K-F-J-G-K-F-U. Sorry, I don't know. No, no, no, not like that. It's a difficult name. I don't know what that name is. From the USA, Lonely Crow from the UK...

We're their first Apple show or Apple podcast that they subscribe to. Thank you. We're not going to technically Apple only. It's just a slant. It's a heavy slant because, you know, that's just our experience. And that was it. That was all the five-star reviews. Thank you so much to all of you all over the world for doing that. Keep them coming. Maybe one day we'll be a five-star show again. And I did have some old tech I wanted to show because this was from Shahab.

I believe it was in the community. This is the iPhone collection from Shahab all the way back to the original iPhone. Looks like he's got the 3G and the 3GS45.

skipped the six generations maybe what was that white box do you remember jason i have no idea but i just want to be clear technically this is an iphone box collection well because i have a lot more iphone boxes than i have iphones just to be clear but no okay now hold on because uh he's gonna be like now wait a minute i sent another picture okay he does have the picture of the phone great he does have the picture of the phones now i don't see the original there he's got he's got an airport of this listen this picture this will be the chapter old mac mini there's

There's a G4 Cube in there. Got an Apple Vision Pro casually on the bottom shelf. Next to a G4 Cube. They're probably about as useful as each other to most people. Wow. Do you still use the Apple Vision Pro every day? I put it on this morning. It's got an iPhone or an iPod video still shrink-wrapped and a HomePod Mini still shrink-wrapped. That is not shrink-wrapped. Got a red... Is that a red iPhone 7? That looks pretty nice. Project Red right there. Got a 5C in the lime green. Still has the Jet Black 7 Plus, I believe. That's...

Those Jet Blacks. It's been a while. And just a random 60 watt adapter sitting there on the shelf or whatever that is. The plug. That is pretty funny. So a very cool collection. Thank you for sharing that Shahab. That'll be the chapter artwork as well. For the first topic I want to talk about how much I love the MacBook Air. I know this is like old news because I'm new to the MacBook Air game but because this is my first MacBook Air ever I am discovering the love of having a thin and light computer for the first time. I've never had one.

and it's wonderful and I think it's great that's my review no I did that's wonderful and I think it's great wonderful and I think it's great that's the headline I will say I did a video video did well so thank you if anybody watched that I compared it to my m3 pro macbook pro I

I held it precariously over my pool and then put it precariously on the ledge of a pool. Basic Apple guy, you know, struggle with that. But anyway, I compared it in my final cut editing, compressor exports, pixel meter stuff. The M4 MacBook Air is a powerful machine compared to the M3 Pro specifically.

It's actually faster at some things. Like it actually did a compressor export faster than my M3 Pro MacBook Pro. But the MacBook Pro did a Pixelmator super resolution, which like uses all the ML stuff to...

add resolution to an image and the pro did that faster. So basically it's like, depending on your workflow, some things might be faster, some slower compared to them three pro specifically. But for that reason, my M three pro is gone. Jason, it is in the wind. It's flying back to Apple as a trade. And I'm, I'm keeping the M four air because it's wonderful typing on it. Several people actually in the comments of my video mentioned that,

Yeah, I feel the difference typing and I don't know why like Apple didn't say anything. No official anything, but typing is definitely better. And so, yeah, I was a little bit disappointed that you didn't, you didn't give credit to where you heard about this for the first time as if you came up. That's fine. We did that. Well, in the video, you're like, yeah, and my co-host, he thinks this too. No, he told you your co-host told you that this was going to be the case.

That is fair. In fact, your co-host gave you advanced information even before the reviews dropped that the typing was different. You know what's funny is I'm going to do an accessory video on this M4 Air and I will have a segment in the video where I just put your face on screen. Please don't. And I'll say, public service announcement. No. PSA. No, it's fine. No, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. Now, quick question though. Yeah. Your M3 Pro MacBook Pro was probably...

in a lot of things that you do faster and more powerful than your Mac studio. Correct. I'm curious why you didn't get rid of that one and just hang on to this one for a while until you upgrade your Mac studio. Cause it's like, it seems like you, it was an interesting decision you were kind of faced with because you could have just slotted that thing and turned it into like a desktop laptop. Here's the thing. My M one max Mac studio is,

It has 64 gigs of unified memory, 2 terabyte SSD. And I think there's usually two options for core counts on the M1 Maxes. And so I got the higher one on this Mac Studio when I got it.

And I still find this to be faster than even my MacBook pro on exports through compressor. And when I need, when I'm multitask, meaning I'm like transcribing an audio, I'm editing video, I'm exporting a different video. My Mac studio never hiccups or slows down. I don't know if the Mac M three pro did either, but it did not export as fast as my Mac studio. I don't know the reason behind that. I don't know if it's the core count or whatever, but,

Plus ports, Jason, we already talked about this. I am not giving up a single port and using a Thunderbolt dock. But yeah, the M4 Air is wonderful, and so I kept that. But you decided to not, you got a new computer, and you decided not to get an Air. What are you doing? I thought for sure that the M4 Air was going to be the thing, and it's great. But I've been using MacBook Airs for a really long time.

And it's great. But there was a part of me that's like, hold on. I can basically keep this for, I don't know, six or seven years before I send it. I'm just kidding. I don't keep them that long. But I mean, it would be pretty silly to do that. But just public service announcement for all of our listeners. There are actually some insane deals right now. B&H right now has some ridiculous deals that essentially amount to a free RAM upgrade.

And so, yeah, I was looking at different things and there's an M4 Pro MacBook Pro now sitting on my desk because it just, and it is actually faster in a lot of ways than the M3 Max MacBook Pro was at a lot of stuff. Now, you got the one that had 48 gigs unified, right? Yep. See, B&H still calls it RAM. Apple doesn't like saying RAM anymore. They say unified RAM. You know why? Because B&H knows and no one knows what the heck that means.

right exactly so this is this is the one you got right no that's a 16 inch there buddy oh my bad my bad you got the 14 inch okay just yeah i was wondering why this is more expensive but you got the 14 inch with the 48 gigs and the one terabyte it's only one terabyte ssd that's that's fine

It's fine. I know, I know. This is the one you got, right? Yes, that's correct. You got the 48 gigs, 1 terabyte SSD for $2,400. This is basically like $200 away from the MacBook Air I just got, but very powerful. Ports, Steven, ports. We just talked about ports, Steven. I know, but those are actually not the... Well, the ports I need... Listen, I have very specific port needs, okay? Anyway, I'll link to this computer if you want to buy it. Affiliate link, 100%, just saying. It'll be in the show notes, but yeah.

There you go. Do you have affiliate links? No. Affiliate links? What is that? No, I'm just kidding. No, I'm not allowed to do affiliate links, Stephen. I'm a journalist. Wow. Excuse me. Excuse me. I will not say I'm a journalist so I can continue doing affiliate links. There we go. Anyway, I love my MacBook Air. Jason got a new MacBook Pro. Leave us questions in the community. I really love the Air, though. Typing on it is wonderful. I brought it. The battery, also, love the battery life. That is one, another noticeable difference. I didn't talk about it a ton in the video.

But I can leave this thing on standby, like not use it for a day. And it still has a lot of its battery left. I can also, if I'm doing just like menial tasks, that battery like barely moves. Like I use it for maybe like two hours last night, just typing in my community or whatever. And it was like 5% battery. After a couple hours, I was like, this is it. MacBook Air, best computer for most people. For almost everyone. When I say most people, I mean like 97.5% of people.

that half percent you may or may not be in that i mean there's probably two and a half percent of people for which a macbook pro or a desktop of some sort makes more sense macbook air for everyone else so now that we started several quarters this is all going to be cut out so our listeners and viewers don't realize this but we've had like four recordings so far because i keep messing up i accidentally stopped recording and now i don't like the time is usually like how long we've been going i just like my dad

You know what? This is why you get paid the big bucks. And subtract about seven minutes from that. We've probably been recording for about 18 minutes. We've been recording for three hours so far. This is Cortex, actually. I returned my first Apple review unit yesterday. And I looked back, because last year, and I said it in the video, but the AirPods 4, Apple sent me those to review back when those came out in September last year. And, you know, they tell you,

Return him by this date. Jason usually goes two years longer than that. Listen, listen, I said, listen, you're very large box back just last week with a whole bunch of things that had been in here for a long time.

So they give you a MacBook air in there. There was me for real kidding. 2018 iPad pro. No, um, I looked back at the email cause they tell you like, please return by this date. Obviously it's just a suggestion as Jason can tell from experience, but my six month date was like March 22nd. And so I beat it by like three days. And so I've, the one product I've sent back at least has been on time. What did you send back? AirPods,

four airpods for anc and regular but the next i think the next thing that they send me that after return is an ipad mini and we will see uh i'm probably gonna go past six months i'm gonna be honest but i'll send him an email do you send him an email to like request more time or you just like it depends on what it was right generally like i have a lot of review units and so i tend to like

twice a year, just box a bunch of things up and send them back. And I feel like as long as I keep doing that, that if there's a thing that they're like, we would really like this back, I'll absolutely put it in a box and send it back immediately. I'm not very good about requesting an extension to those review loans, but it's not because I'm trying to be mischievous about it. It's just because I just...

you know it's the first day of spring i gotta go box up a bunch of stuff to send back and then i'll do the same thing in the fall kind of a thing the the biggest one for me is gonna be the imac because they sent me the m4 imac to review and that's just gives me a pain to box and also well the good thing was so when i got the m4 imac to review i boxed up the m3 imac and sent it back in the same box that they sent me the m4 and it just sent it back wow

So I should just wait for the M5 iMac. Ooh, with a B&I M5 iMac. Interesting question. We'll talk about rumors later because there are some rumors we want to talk about. I want to talk about the Pixel 9a because Apple released their quote-unquote budget phone recently, the iPhone 16e, which costs $600, right? Isn't it $599? Correct. Yeah, $600. So the Pixel 9a was announced. It's not available for pre-order yet, but of course MKBHD already has his review up.

So I'll put that link in the show notes. This is the Pixel 9a. It will be $500. You'll be able to pre-order next month in April. So undercutting Apple's quote unquote budget phone by $100, notably two things. There's no camera bump on this phone.

Pixels have recently had that bar across the top, like it's the visor from the Star Trek guy. Now there's no camera bump. They just straight up made the phone thicker. And what people have been asking for for years from all the phone makers is like, take away the camera bump, just make the phone thicker and add more battery. That's exactly what Google did. The battery in the Pixel 9a is even larger than the XL phone, like the recent XL phone. So it's a larger battery, no camera bump,

I'm curious, Jason, how do you feel? Because we might get to the iPhone 17 design rumors. How do you feel about this look? The no camera bump, no bar look in 2025? I mean, it's not that different than the 16E. True. That's true. I mean, it is a camera bump on the 16E, but it's not significant. I mean, it's more like just a camera. It's just a camera. I like it. I think this is a cool look. And especially if you get like a fun color.

I mean, I think it looks really cool. The pixel nine a I'll put a chapter artwork. You could see it if you're just listening to, but I'm yeah, I'm down. I I'm always tempted to try pixel. I don't know if I will. I mean, I don't know if my audience cares about it, but,

It looks cool. I don't know. I do have, did we talk about the nothing phone on the show? No, because you started talking about it six minutes after we finished recording. Cause you know, you didn't think that would be something you'd want to cover on your tech podcast. That's right. I did get this because I've tried pixel phones in the past and I'm never, never crazy about it. So I did get a nothing phone three a, it didn't send it to me. I just, I bought this cause I wanted to try it. And so I'm going to try it a little more. We'll talk, we'll talk about that later. But anyway, it's nice. I like the, uh, the aesthetic. It's fun. Yeah.

But I like, you know, I think,

I would like if Apple made the phone thicker and take the camera bump away or do you, or do you not want a thicker phone? Would you make that trade off? Uh, if it was thicker, but the weight class of the 16 as opposed to the 16 pro, then probably it'd be fine. That is true. It would get very heavy. We get very heavy. Also, it makes phone heavy. No, I don't know if this does it or not, but the C one chip Apple's first party developed cellular modem, which is only in the iPhone 16 E right now, not in any of the new iPads or anything. It's

Turns out it looks like it's outperforming Qualcomm's chips when it comes to cellular and things like data speeds. Average data speeds are faster on the C1. Do you think we'll see this in the 17 lineup or are we going to have to wait another year? I don't know if it'll be in the 17 lineup, but I think it's pretty clear that this is where it

Apple absolutely wants to use this. That's been true for, they wouldn't have spent a billion dollars on Intel's modem business if they weren't, like they're not just writing that down. They're going to do something with it and they're apparently not putting it in Mac. It's so annoying. So I'm sure that they're going to be putting it in, you know, iPads and iPhones soon. That's cool. Overperforming. Then another, I don't know if it was big, but another announcement, if those listeners and viewers remember the Pebble smartwatch, this is like years ago, back in,

Was it before the Apple Watch? The original Pebble was before the Apple Watch? I believe that's true. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, but it's true. Well, it launched in 2012, so... Yeah, Apple Watch was 2015. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This was one of the first, quote-unquote, smart watches. And then obviously once the Apple Watch came out, Pixel watches are out there, Samsung Galaxy watches kind of went away for a while. Well, it's back.

Pebble watch, you can actually pre-order it right now. It doesn't start shipping until December. So you're going to have to wait a minute if you want to get your Pebble watch. Two different watches. It has e-ink screens, or they call it e-paper screens rather than a digital screen. And of course, because it has that besides the digital screen, you're going to have amazing battery life on a Pebble watch. The only problem is they say 30-day battery life, IPX8 water resistance, customized battery life.

custom watch faces that's a big feature distinct to pebble watches and someone a couple of people asked me if i'm going to review one of these and i'm like here's the thing and there was actually a whole blog post from do you know how to say his name eric mitchikovsky eric mitchikovsky

He wrote a whole article about why the Pebble watches can't do all the things that the Apple watch can. Much of this because of how Apple locks down iOS and how it can't communicate. And so here's a whole list. I'll put a link to this blog. All the things that the Pebble watch can't do, like send text messages or iMessages, take actions on notifications. I don't think any of the, um, I don't know if health stuff would actually sync or not, but,

you know, if you wanted an Apple watch for the functionality, you're not going to get that from a Pebble watch because it's just limited and no smartwatch can because of the limitations that Apple puts on it. So it's an, I don't know, it feels like an odd product to try to launch right now. Right? Well, okay. So this is interesting because, uh, Eric Mijakovsky was like the person who created the Pebble in the first place. Right. And then that was, I think,

where they bought by Fitbit, which became a part of Google maybe, maybe. And Google has just decided they're going to open source Pebble OS because they're not using it. So like whatever. So they, they open sourced it. And so they, he just decided he's going to recreate this because he wanted it to exist in the world. Right. And so I think he's also the same guy that did beeper. Remember the whole, that I think that's now automatic. Maybe I'm not sure. Anyway. So I mean, he has some, like he's pretty well respected, uh,

who knows what they're doing. And I think this is more of a, it's kind of a novelty. It's sort of a,

like a, someone who just really, it's like the same kind of people who maybe bought the, the, uh, what was that thing called? The R one, the R one. The, was it a, the, yeah, the people who just like, yeah, exactly. No, maybe not the humane AI pin. That's a little bit more expensive than this thing, but people who, who, who were fans of pebble and later Fitbit and that kind of stuff is a slightly different audience than people who are fans of the Apple watch. So yeah, it is a much more limited thing, but,

But I think, I think that it's going to probably as a novelty at the price point that it's selling at be really cool. Cause if what you want is something, something that'll tell you the time track, some data on your activity, that's great. The problem is, yeah, the next level thing for most people is notifications. And because if you like on your watch for real, do you use any apps that is not the time, maybe the weather, um,

And maybe like tracking things. The only one I home, maybe home. I do use the home app on my watch and I do use any list for grocery shopping because it's nice not to have to hold the phone and check items off as you're shopping. Okay, great. I use any list. That's like the one app that I use. Otherwise it's just all that app still is basically just serving you data from your phone.

100 yeah so in that so that's essentially still in my mind lives in like the notification category because it's like just stuff like that like there's not very many thing people are using like you're not using a trail app right to go hiking random no no no no so i feel like for a lot of people this is going to be really interesting the

The blog post obviously points out why it's problematic because Apple doesn't let you do all these things, which leads into another topic that we have to talk about. But I don't know. I just thought it was really, it's good that people are trying things. 150 bucks for the core two duo version, which is kind of a hilarious name. If you remember the Intel core two processors, that's got a 1.2 inch screen. The core time two is $225, one and a half inch screen, but that's also a touch screen.

So it looks like no touchscreen on the, on the cheaper one, but what's cool. What's cool about that core two duo is he says that the name is, so there was a core two before and the duo means it's a do over.

So it's like redoing the one he did before. So he's having fun with it. No, that's fun. Listen, I'm, I'm, I love gadget. This is fun. So the thing is with Apple, not allowing smartwatches like this to work like an, an Apple one. I don't, I almost said I watch, I don't know why it almost just came out. I have to wash my mouth. I was soaked later. Europe and even in the U S are trying to move Apple to get Apple to actually allow devices like this to function more like an Apple watch and

The EU is, you know, through the Digital Markets Act doing things. And if you remember, the Department of Justice here in the U.S. also has a case against Apple that's open. I don't know when we actually see the trial or when that's going to happen. But one of the main points from the DOJ case is also smartwatches and exclusivity of the Apple Watch with iPhone. So they could in the near future actually be pushed to allow things like Pebble Watch to be more function-able.

Is that more functional? Super not the right way to say that. Super not the right word. Now to function better. Functional. You just added lots of. Functional. I don't know. You combined functional and pebble and you got functional. Brilliant. Yes. But yeah, so I don't know. Do you think, I don't know. Will we see movement there? Yeah.

Well, the EU is literally just saying you have to do this. Like the digital markets act already gives them the ability to do this. And the statement from the EU is literally just, we're just enforcing the law. Like this is what the law says. We are going to make the countries and their statement was something along the lines of like, doesn't matter. And this is interesting because there's so much politics behind it, but they're like, it doesn't matter where your company's based. If you, if you exist in the EU, you have to follow our laws. And by law, this is, you have to open up your platform to allow third parties. Honestly,

This is so weird, Steven, because on the one hand, I hate what the EU is doing. I don't want product designed by governmental regulators. That's just a terrible, terrible outcome for everybody, right? Because they think – this is their statement. Interoperability enables a deeper and more seamless integration of third-party products with Apple's ecosystem. The problem is there's a whole different level of things that Apple is never going to want to let happen. Exactly.

so think about if you have a third party device that all of a sudden has access to all of your messages, right? There's no way you've lost the ability to keep those things end to end encrypted all the way through the cycle because now they're being exposed to a third. And how is that third party device handling it? Is it uploading it from an app on your phone to a server somewhere and then downloading it to that device? There's a, this is a lot more than just, Hey, make, make it so that I can buy a pixel watch and use it with my iPhone. Right. And also, uh,

why shouldn't Apple be able to build devices that work better with its own devices? I don't understand that argument. It's like, we,

we're saying that just because Apple's big and to be clear, they're the biggest company on earth. So like fine, but that they should no longer be allowed to innovate. Like right now, I don't think we want to do anything to slow down innovation at Apple because they already seem to be struggling on that front in some ways. Right. Let's make it as easy as possible. Yeah. And there's other, so, and other countries too, like you sent me a couple articles here from websites that I can't read, like the financial times that Brussels, well, that's the EU Brussels is the EU. Yeah.

Here's the EU. Again, any time I go to the Financial Times, it just amazes me. When you click a link to their article, this is what you see. The headline is smaller in font than the try unlimited access, only a dollar for four weeks. I mean, hilarious. Just hilarious. But there's also a Fast Company article about the EU and Apple and tech and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, that's all there.

Okay, I want to talk about Alexa Plus AI voice assistants and trying to convince people that they're not listening. That's what I should have said in the intro. Hold on. I'm going to drop a marker. I can't wait. I'm going to watch this whole episode because I have no idea how it's going to turn out. I'm going to keep this in the show, but I'm recording just a little bit because I want to put it in the intro.

We're going to talk about whether voice assistants are actually listening and how to convince family and friends that they are not. Okay. Yeah. I just want to put in the intro. I'm so happy. What? No, that's great. I'm so happy. Yeah. Okay. And speaking of security.

Like we just did. I'm going to try. I try to do a transition this show. I just feel so off the rail. I don't know what's going on. It's the first day of spring. I think I'm just allergies. Steven, just you can always blame it. I don't have, you can blame it. I don't have allergies. I'm trying to help you. I don't have that. Throwing you a softball across the plate. That's a sport. I'm just trying to help you out here. I know that softball is a sports ball, but what I, what I want to talk about is I want to thank our sponsor for this week, which is one password. And listen, we talked about security and privacy, and that's important, especially if you're at a business, uh,

a brand and you have a bunch of devices that are distributed to a team, you got to keep that stuff secure and private and people not doing their own thing, downloading apps and other identities on their devices. But what happens is when you use mobile device managers and some of the other services, it really locks down devices. Then employees are like frustrated because they can't do what they want with their devices. Well, there's an answer to that. And it's 1Password Extended Access Management. It's the first security solution that brings all the unmanaged devices, apps and identities online.

Under your control, it ensures that every user credential is strong and protected, every device is known and healthy, and every app is visible. 1Password Extended Access Management solves the problems traditional IAM and MDMs can't. It's security for the way we work today, and it's now generally available to companies with Okta and Microsoft Entra and in beta for Google Workspace customers. And I'll say I worked at a place where I had to use a mobile device manager to manage like

60 plus devices. And all the time I had people come and they were like, I can't do this with my phone. I can't do this with my iPad. How do I do this thing? So just get around all of that by using 1Password Extended Access Management. Or if you experience that frustration at your workplace, maybe, you know, send a link to your head of IT. They love having suggestions like this. That was a little sarcasm, but you know, you could try to do it in a tactful way anyway. So secure every app, device, and identity, even the unmanaged ones at 1password.com slash primary tech.

That's all lowercase. Link is in the description. You can click it there. That's 1password.com slash primary tech. Our thanks to 1Password for sponsoring this episode. Oh, I forgot to do, I wanted to do, all right, real quick. We talked about the new MacBooks. I meant to do this earlier, but I'm going to do it now.

You talked about you restored the new M4 MacBook Pro you just got. Yeah. You restored it from a time machine backup, right? Yeah. So we talked about this, I think, last week or the week before that I have a time machine backup that is just for review devices. And basically my habit of that is I use it to set up a review device. And then at the end of the review device's life, I do a time machine backup, right? So I have a current... So I'm not backing things up to like six years ago or whatever. Right.

And so that's what I use. And I actually just, when I want to set something up quick, it gives me like 85% of what I want. It just does not...

add my drop box and it doesn't add my photo library why because i can just add those from the cloud like in the background instantly and it's quicker and it's in i never know what size hard drive i'm gonna get or storage i'm gonna get on a review unit so i can't have like 1.6 terabytes of stuff to put on there so anyway so i that's what i used to set up this and the reason for that was

traditionally I have bought two terabyte storage on most devices. This one has one terabyte. I was like, great. And from the moment I lifted the lid, attached that drive and had everything ready to go was 26 minutes. That's pretty great. I'm going to time my setup when I eventually get a new Mac studio. But one of the things that has, I always ask, we talked about this. Do I start it from scratch? New? Do I use migration assistant? I've used migration assistant in the past for something. I forget what, but I decided that,

Even when I got a new Mac studio, I'm going to start from scratch yet again. One, because I was able to set up my Mac, my MacBook air pretty quickly. It took like 45 minutes from scratch, but I want to show you my system settings screen and hopefully I don't dox myself or anything. This is the login items part of system settings, telling you like applications that are going to start up when you restart your computer. And here's the thing.

I come in here sometimes and I don't, I don't know what's happening. It's like you walk into a room and stuff's happening and you don't know what it is. And everybody kind of freezes and looks at you. Like,

Like you're not supposed to be there. That's how I feel when I go to this login items and extensions page. And, you know, I would love to make this window a wider. So it looked better in the video, but you know what? System settings doesn't do that. Even though it was recently updated. It says something. I mean, you have some things that I understand why they would want to be in the startup. I'll got, Oh, whatever, whatever. Hazel, whatever. There are three different Opal camera pieces of software. And here's the thing. Here's the thing. This is why I don't use migration assistant because if I get a new Mac, I'm going to have to do it.

I don't want any of this stuff. And if I were to try and go and like delete all the little files in the library folder and application support that have to do with all these little things, like you would never find them all. You

you'll always have that rogue folder or whatever and also i feel like i'm gonna mess something up if i delete the library folder i'm not supposed to owc drive guide dot helper i don't know what that is but i don't want it on a new mac studio if i get one i have a google llc what even is that what is that because google updater is different i lock if it doesn't tell you if you click on it does it no no you get zero information you can't even like right click you can't option click nothing

There's also, so like you said, the Opal Camera. I had to test some webcams, videos on Riverside. And so Opal Camera installs like 18 different helper applications. So I got these over here. I have a Reincubate because I tested out Camo, but I'm not using anymore.

set app you have like set app but also like a setup limited what is that universal audio i don't even use a universal audio like i don't want any of this stuff here should i'm also not gonna should i be concerned that i don't have any rogue amoeba in my i'm looking at my allowing background i have 12 things and they all make perfect sense it's grammarly fantastical dropbox listen we all know you're better than no no i'm not saying i'm better than anyone i'm just i'm looking at your list and i'm like i

I feel like I should have Rogamiba in here somehow. A recent update to Audio Hijack and Rogamiba software, it doesn't require the kernel installation anymore. So you probably don't have that. The audio capture engine is not necessary anymore. That's fine. I understand Rogamiba. I actually get what that is in this list. The other thing is I don't understand. I'm not going to install Zoom on my next Mac Studio. I'll just use it in the browser if I ever need to. This is why I start from scratch. If

if this is just what's in the login items and extensions, who knows what's hiding in that library folder. That's true. That I don't know. And so that's, that's why I do what I do. That's also why I use Hazel. If you didn't know what Hazel was pro tip, Hazel is a wonderful application from noodles soft, and you can do like automations based on files and folders. So you

So you can say whenever a PNG file hits my desktop, like a screenshot, move it to this other folder or do these actions with it. I use that with Plex, which we'll talk about in a minute. But Hazel will also, when you delete an application that you had installed that wasn't from the app store, you know, if you install something from the Mac app store, deleting it is kind of, you know, cause it's sandbox deleting it as pretty clean. But if you try to delete an application that you installed for like a DMG file, is it DMG? DNG, DMG.

DMG, right? The DMZ, the Demilitarized Zone. Is that what you're talking about? North Korea. Thanks for your help. Thanks for your help. If you try to delete an application that you just installed from a website, there's going to be all these files and folders. And Hazel, when you delete it from your applications folder, will search your library and application support folders. Will try to find all the folders and files related to that app.

And we'll ask if you want to delete those as well. So I love Hazel for that, but it tries the best it can. Some apps are just sneaky and they just slide stuff in. That's why I start from scratch. I just wanted to say that. I want to talk about voice assistants because Amazon had an announcement earlier this week that it's taking away the option, and I'll put a link to Jason's article in the show notes, the option to toggle on or off the ability to restrict recordings being sent to Amazon for, is it

Is it training or interaction? Well, okay. So here's the thing. Your Alexa devices for the most part handle most of the voice commands on device. That's why you have to be very particular about what you say, right? Because it's listening for a very specific combination of words and it can handle most of those commands on device. And then when it needs data from the

the cloud. It just sends up a request for the weather or for the sports score, whatever it was, but it doesn't actually have to send your recording of your command up to the cloud. But with Alexa plus, uh,

You can't handle, I mean, there's first of all, devices that are just, they're just dumb, like a $35 dumb speaker that they throw in a box of like, you know, popcorn is not going to just, you can't handle that kind of thing. And so they're going to now record you. It used to be that you could tell it, don't set, you know, save my recordings and send them to the cloud. And yes, in the past, one of the reasons they would do that, there was a big controversy. This actually affected both Amazon, Google, and Apple, uh,

where they would be sending recordings of your interactions and then they'd review them by humans, right? And that was a big deal. So Amazon added an option to say, don't do this. Don't send my recordings to the cloud. They are eliminating that option. You will no longer have the ability to say, please don't do that. And the reason is,

You can't use this Alexa Plus without sending it because the devices are not capable of parsing. The large language model is not running on that device. It has to be running on Amazon servers. It's not on your Echo Dot on your bedroom. Right. It's running on Amazon servers, which, by the way, power most of the Internet anyway. Right. Like AWS. Right. They're going to send it to the cloud. And so they are eliminating that feature. And I think it like my take on this was no. Yeah.

You shouldn't eliminate that option because guess what? If I have four stupid echo dot things that my kids use as alarm clocks, they don't need Alexa plus. I don't need them to, but also I don't necessarily want recordings of my children in their bedrooms being sent to Amazon for any reason, right? Because once it gets sent to the cloud, yes, they say that they deleted immediately afterwards, but

This is not a thing that's necessary for everyone, but this is just so indicative of what tech companies... It's the same thing with Apple pushing Apple intelligence on every device, right? I'm sorry, but if I buy an iPad mini, do I need Apple intelligence if all I want to do is watch Disney Plus and read Kindle stuff? So anyway, I think they're handling it wrong. I do think there's a quote in there that I put in there. It's like, we are...

What does it say? As we continue to expand Alexa's capabilities with generative AI features that rely on the processing power of Amazon secure cloud, we have decided to no longer support this feature. Letting people not have their recording sent to the cloud is not a feature. That should just be the way that it is, right? So here's the thing about voice assistants. And if you didn't know, if you have ever had an Alexa device and you have an Amazon account,

you can actually go and see everything that it has heard and recorded you say. And so I'm actually here on my Amazon account.

and it said this was when i had that i got that echo show 10 it was like maybe i'll try amazon alexa plus and make a video about it and then all it did was show me ads and i immediately returned it apparently there are settings to turn it off yeah put it in kid mode by the way pro tip everybody put those things in kid mode and it makes it a lot easier so these were the few requests that i made uh when i had that show 10 i said uh add stevia to the cart liquid stevia

Now here on Amazon's website, so you can, again, you log into your Amazon account, you go to a voice history. Like you can see all the things that it heard you say, and you can delete the recording.

So I'm curious if that will go away. I guess that's, that's what they're saying is you won't be able to, to delete it. Well, it's a little bit different because essentially you must not have, okay. There's a difference between having the recordings and having them sent to the cloud. Right. And so the, and I don't know, obviously these are sent to the product cause you're looking at it on a web browser. So you must not have had that feature turned off.

the feature turned off so yeah so i would imagine that if and i guess i could just look while if you talk for a second i can just look and see but i'm guessing that like someone who had the feature turned on wouldn't be able to see this and it won't be that you won't be able to delete the recordings you just won't have the option to not have them sent in the first place because amazon says that it's only going to use the recording to process your request and then it will delete but i also feel like

likely a very high percentage chance that Amazon is going to use the request to train its LLM on. And that's the part that I, you can't find, I could not find in their privacy policy yet. That's so that's the thing. Now the whole LLM side of it in training is one thing, but I just wanted to ask briefly, um,

And this is for the audience too and for Jason, but I'm curious to hear, you can go to social.primarytech.fm and comment on the post for this episode or just hit us up on social media. All our links are in the show notes. But when it comes to speakers with mics in them, that could be a HomePod, that could be an Echo, that could be a Google Nest device. We're at a time now, I feel like it increased in concern and then just became an assumption and the concern lessened.

that my devices are always listening to me. I've had multiple family members and friends just say that as like a thing, as a fact, and just basically accept it now, like in recent years. Like they just assume their devices are listening to them all the time. I've mentioned this before on a past episode. If you read the book, The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg,

He talks about research that marketing companies have done and all the methods they have to target you and your interests that are so much more reliable and better than what you say audibly, but your activity online, your connections between your purchases and vendors, you have the same email address likely for your target account as you do your bank account, as you do your credit card account, and all that information being connected like

advertisers can find out what you want without listening to what you say. And actually, their methods are better than just hearing what you're talking about.

But it is very, very hard to convince someone that their devices are not always listening. I think news like this exacerbates that fact. The news, and Jennifer Toohey from The Verge, she had a good video explainer talking about what this actually means. And of course, Jason's article, read that in the show notes. But when someone who's not techie hears, Amazon removed the ability to not send recordings to the cloud or whatever. People

People would be like, yeah, duh. They're listening all the time anyway. And that's like just that statement too. There's nuance there. Like is, are your devices, like if you have, hey, dingus activated on your home pod, is your device always listening?

Kind of, I mean, a hundred percent. Yes. A hundred percent. Yes. But only listening for the wake word. And then once it detects the wake word, then it's actually taking whatever you say after that as a request and maybe doing something with that, maybe sending it to the cloud, maybe trying to process on device. Like when you ask, Hey, dingus on your actual iPhone or with Amazon, I was, you know, sending it to the cloud, maybe training it to LLM. So it's such like a nuanced statement to try and parse to say, Hey,

Yes, but... And maybe it doesn't even matter. Maybe people are just kind of giving up and being like, whatever. Just listen to everything I say.

I don't know. How do you approach that with people who say that? Okay. Typically, though, what people mean when they say my devices are listening is they mean Instagram on their phone. No, like really. That's what people think. That's what they see the ads that are very targeted. That's what people think. They're like, my phone is always listening to me and see I got an Instagram ad that shows that my phone is obviously listening to me. And the point you were making is that actually they don't have to listen to you. And even meta doesn't have to listen to you because it's okay. Fine. That's what they normally mean.

I generally speaking, I don't think that that Instagram is listening on your phone because Apple is not a fan of that. Right. Apple's not a fan of that. Right. And you can actually get like, that's the one thing on the iPhone. You get the little orange dot or green dot in the status bar when the microphone or camera is active. Right. And that's why if you do something, I did a recent video where if you turn on sound recognition, like there's an assistability, um, accessibility feature on the iPhone where it can recognize door knocks, baby crying, smoke detector alarms, things like that for people who are hearing impaired. Right.

And if you enable that feature, you're going to see that little orange dot all the time because the microphone is listening all the time. Yeah. So for your other devices, though, are they listening to you all the time? Yes. They are always listening. Well, here's the thing. Like literally, there's no way for it to know that there's a wake word being said if it isn't listening for that wake word.

That's different though than is it recording what I'm saying? Is it whatever? So all the time those devices, unless you are smart like I recommend and you turn off the hey dingus on everything except for your watch. Just turn it off on all your HomePods. Turn it off on all your other devices. When you're setting up a new Mac and it asks you if you want to do... No, you don't want to do that. Okay? Just anyway. But...

Even then, there are still times when your other devices are always going to be listening for you to say that. And once you do, then they start a recording because it's a computer. Computers don't have an ear and a brain. It has to be able to process that command. And so it does. It creates a little bit of a recording and then it processes the recording and then it gets rid of your actual voice interaction, that part of it. But in this case, the next step, if it has to send it to the cloud, is

It's going to actually take a recording, send that to the cloud. And so is that your devices listening to you in a literal sense? Yes. Is there someone at Amazon that's going to go through and like know everything you're saying?

Probably not. I will tell you that there was a time when I did a briefing with Google for one of their home hub, one of the smaller little ones, the Nest Home Mini Hub thing. Again, I don't know the names of any of them. It doesn't matter. And it has sleep detection on it. Okay. Right.

So all of a sudden in your mind, you're like, how does this device know I'm sleeping in this particular device has no camera. And they spent a decent amount of time reiterating there is no camera on this. And the reason is they want you to put it on your nightstand next to your bed. And no one wants a camera pointed at them when they're in bed, like for any reason, like just there's no scenario where you want that.

And the point is you have to be able to trust the devices, right? You have to trust the people who are making these devices. And I think you're right. What we've learned is most people just don't, they just don't try. They just assume that the worst scenario, but also no one's going to stop using their phone or their other devices. And so they just accept it. And yeah, we clearly don't care that much.

And they would have made it like five seconds into your explanation just then. And then they would have been like, yeah, okay, whatever. Like people just check out. Like they don't, like not techie people. Our audience, they were locked in on you. I'm just saying like when you try to talk to your father-in-law about your device and not listen. Well, that's because they stopped after I said, of course it's listening. And they're like, see? Okay. And then they just moved on. But I want to convince you now because you think you are more now convinced that they are listening. Is that right? Well, I just have...

What I think I said to you before we recorded was I am less convinced that they're not always listening, even though I know that they're not. Just because what I'm really convinced of is they do such a good job of being able to surface content based on whatever it thinks that you are interested in. And I couldn't think of a specific example, but there have been a number of times recently where I'm like,

Maybe they are listening because of something that pops up in the Instagram feed that we just had a random conversation about a thing we don't normally talk about or it's not a thing. Because if you start seeing ads in Instagram for the place you want to go on vacation, it's probably because you did like a Google flight search or you went to Marriott's website or you did all these things. And all that information is connected in the background and then Facebook. Although, hold on. Or you liked a post from a friend who went to Cancun.

And so Facebook is like, maybe you're interested in Cancun. Right. Or I do have a favor and I would really like it if Google and Amazon and Meta especially would be a little bit smarter about the content they shove in our faces. Because if I just booked a trip to Cancun, I don't need to see ads for Cancun. Right.

If I just watched a YouTube video about how to replace the light bulb in my car, I'm not suddenly a light bulb car aficionado. I don't need my entire feed to be filled with it. But that is exactly what happens. You're going to change the 1978 Camaro's light bulb. It's like, oh, you searched for one light bulb changing video. Here's 73 more. No, I'm done. I've moved on. Here's what I wish AI would do. And if Apple intelligence did this one thing, it would be worth it.

If somehow it knew what things I have purchased or services I already pay for so that any ad for that thing is automatically hidden from me.

For instance, I have paid for Squarespace for 1000 years. I should never have to see a Squarespace ad anywhere ever again. On television or on an internet or anywhere. Here's the thing. Like Apple is actually uniquely positioned to kind of say like they probably wouldn't do this for privacy and security reasons, but like,

I'm logged into Squarespace on my Apple computer and it's in my Apple passwords. Of course, I know they're not using that information, but like on my Apple TV, if I was streaming something, they should know like he already pays for Squarespace and like, don't show me that ad. Right. Or I don't need to see ads about random charging things because I'm going to buy it anyways. Oh,

I need to tell all- Steve is just wandering the streets looking for charging things to pick up. He doesn't need the ads. No ads. Is that a new charger? I haven't had a charger in a while. I would just say, like, all the MagSafe chargers that I have bought, I see duplicate ads. Like, I already own that. I own that. Right. I already have that. It would be amazing if all the platforms knew what I have already bought. Like, here's the other thing.

I'm looking for a new office chair. I think we've talked about this before. We did. But I keep, yeah, I don't know. Well, I'm starting to look again. I hadn't bought anything yet. So I'm looking at the Herman Miller's or whatever. And now all Jason, cause I searched on Facebook marketplace for Herman Miller chairs. I cannot walk outside my front door without seeing a Herman Miller ad. It's they're laying on the ground. They're, they're in the trees. They're everywhere.

But I get it. Like they immediately understood that I was interested in this thing. And the amazing part is I'm getting ads for chair companies I've never heard of, but that are like immediately, Hey, we're better than Herman Miller. Hey, did you see this test we did against Herman Miller? Like,

That's the power of the algorithms behind the scenes. Now just use that power to never show me ads for things that I already paid for. I get that the internet is based on ads. That's fine. I hate it. And it's whatever, but at least stop showing me the ones for the thing. I literally bought three minutes ago. Thank you.

Thank you. If there's any change we can bring to the world through this podcast, hopefully it's that. No kidding, Steven. I clicked on an Instagram ad and I bought a thing and the next day saw 16 more ads for the same thing I just bought. That platform especially. Why? I bought it. If you bought it through the Instagram, I know, I know. It's ridiculous. Anyway, that's fine. Okay. But you had another article talking about Apple's trust-

Or the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, I mean, this is similar to what we did. And I just wanted to expound on, I had written back in December that the one thing Apple needed to do is deliver on its Apple intelligence promises. And then it didn't, obviously. And then we had a lot of kerfuffle about that. And I kind of just wanted to circle back on it. And I just, so yeah, I just, the risk to Apple is,

we we when amazon says they're gonna put a flying drone in your house it'll be your security camera all the time we're like whatever amazon just says stuff when tesla's like the robo taxis are coming we're like okay maybe whatever probably not and but when apple says that we're gonna do a thing for the most part people believe them not just because apple always delivers the things that it says but because like we trust them at a different level and when they put their most you know

likable spokespeople up there to promote something that they just, they're nowhere near that. Then they've, the risk to them is not that Apple intelligence is bad. The risk to them is now they've, they've, they've lost the benefit of the doubt. And every time someone, you know, Apple says a thing, they're going to have to work harder. They're not going to be able to skate by just on the, well, we'll just kind of like speak it into existence, right? The whole reality distortion field, uh,

The reason that people believe Steve Jobs is one, they believe that he could make it happen. Right. But he had a large degree of trust. And so I just think, yeah, I think the real risk to them is just, man, trust is your most valuable asset. And once you lose it, it's real hard. Two suggestions I have if Apple's listening. One, go back to live events. People on stage talking about stuff. Steven, I'm writing that article right now.

WWDC this year should be live on stage. I mean, it's probably too late for WWDC this year, but I'm not kidding. I'm writing an article that says the one thing that they need to do to prevent this from happening again is go back to live demos. That 100%. And two, I feel like

The seeds of this doubt were planted years ago when we started not getting all the dub dub features at the initial OS release, because all the way up until like iOS 14 or 15, it was like every feature you heard about a dub dub in June, you got in iOS 14 dot zero. And maybe there were some bugs, whatever it's expected, but you saw all the features immediately.

And now we're in this era where we might not get eight. We still don't have 18.4 with some things. And like that's coming maybe this month, maybe in April next month, two months before dub dub the next year.

And so I think it's a small thing, but I don't think it's a small thing. I think if they go back to saying everything we announced in June, you're going to see it in September, or at least with the initial launch of iOS. I think that will help build that trust again to say we announce features and we ship features like,

Apple's great at announcing features and they're okay at shipping features. Like they ship a lot of features and some of them, you know, you see most of the DubDub features by like December, you know, usually by like iOS 18.2 or three that you get around December time, you'll see most of the features. But I think they should go back to just saying, we get, we announce it and we ship it. And it's like clockwork because I do feel like there were many years where it was like that. It was clockwork. You saw it at DubDub and you saw it in September. Yeah, I disagree. That's fine.

The reason why I disagree is because two things. One, I think it's fine to stagger the features as long as you deliver them. And I can't think of other than CarPlay 2, anything that they announced at something like that, they promised was coming that they didn't deliver at any point other than Apple Intelligence. And I think the reason for the staggering makes sense. Here's why. One...

It gets people to continue to update throughout the year. Otherwise, you just upgrade to the 0.0 and people don't... That's why the emojis don't come until the 0.2 or something because they know that that's the thing that will get people to update. Yeah, and emojis are fine. It's fine. But the other thing is it allows them to take on more ambitious things that may not seem like a big deal to us.

Without the pressure of it all has to be available on day one. Because if you think about it, when it goes out, the first thing you're doing is you're dealing with all these bug fixes. It may not be till later in the cycle that they're even able to start working on certain features. And it allows them, I think, by staggering things out throughout the year, that cadence, I think, allows them to do more things that otherwise they wouldn't be doing.

I think that that's fine. The problem here was not just that it didn't arrive on day one. It's that they were literally saying, this is why you should go out today and buy an iPhone. It is never coming, but maybe, and I would argue being more ambitious, maybe at this point right now is not the thing to do. Maybe it is to be more conservative in the new feature side and more ambitious in like the shipping, the ones we've already talked about and fixing the stuff that's already out there. Maybe,

uh and i listen i want apple to be ambitious i want new features every year like everybody sure but i would like them to be reliable and like yeah i get it the emoji's not come until dot whatever release but i think also being clear about it and i totally get like there were some years where apple didn't talk about a feature because it had to do with the hardware of the new phone in september like that makes total sense like

portrait mode or whatever. I feel like with the iPhone 7 something, you know, that was something that wasn't announced until then. So I could totally get that, but I don't know, live events and more regularity at least or more consistency slash

Uh, when you, like you can expect it, you know what I mean? And there's also, maybe they were more clear in past years to say like, this is coming in the spring. This is coming in the fall. Maybe to be more clear about that when it talks about features that might be staggered to say, you'll see this next year, you'll see this in the spring or whatever. It might help. Just might help start building that, that trust. Well, and the difference in the past is in when they released iOS 16, they didn't run ads promoting the free format, which wasn't coming until five months later. Yeah.

Or they didn't run ads promoting like the emergency SOS changes, which weren't coming until the 0.3 update. Like that's the biggest difference. I think I understand why they stagger features. It just allows them. And cause I'm like, I'm looking at the Iowa 16. None of these things are like, Oh, you shouldn't be tackling things that are that big. It's just, they were able to do more things. So yeah. Right. Right. Okay. Well, let's try and do a lightning, like an actual lightning round. Love it. Let's try it. We don't talk about, we don't talk about rumors much, but yeah,

The iPhone 17 and 17 Air, all these rumors have been out there. There's this thought of like some big bar across the top of the camera bump. You think that's legit? I don't know. I hope not because that case looks like something out of the Minions or something. I don't even... The Minion. It's a Minion case. Seriously, I don't know. I don't know. It's like a ski goggles on a Minion is what that looks like to me. But I don't know. I just...

We've talked about this. I don't understand the need for like the phones are fine. Like, come on. I would listen to, but I'm down for the, you know, the rumor is the iPhone 17 air is going to be like an ultra thin and light iPhone. I'm down to see what they do with that and how that compares. But I don't want the bar though. I don't like the, I don't like any of it.

There you go. That's my take. Okay, there you go. Also, this has been rumored for years, but apparently now Mark Herman is like, Home OS as an operating system is coming this year. I think I just swallowed a gnat. Hold on. I think, doesn't the HomePod run tvOS or something like that? I can't even tell. Listen. Okay, this is a lightning round. Sorry. Pretend I didn't say anything. It runs like a derivative of iOS or something, I thought. I mean, they're all a derivative of iOS at this point. All right. Yeah, all right. Fair enough. Anyway, sure. HomePod.

Home OS would be great. Maybe if it actually like actually does other things like maybe 2K to 4K HomeKit secure video cameras, pan and tilt controls in the home app, better robot vacuum support, better automations and tools that way. I would love to see it. I'm like 50-50 because it's been rumored for five years. I don't know. What do you think we'll see that percentage? Most of the words you said I don't even understand. So I'm not too worried about it. But I think for people like you and Dintui, this will be really exciting or really disappointing if it doesn't happen.

But if they bring back that home set that they had for WWDC 2022, I'm here for it. Yeah, that'd be fun. And lastly, I just want to talk about Plex real quick because I'm a huge Plex aficionado. Plex prices are actually going up. So as of April 29th, we still have like a month to get in there. The monthly is going up to $7 yearly to $70 and the lifetime up to $250. I actually bought a lifetime Plex pass when it was like 75 bucks.

and it feels like one of the best investments ever because sometimes I'll rip things and put it on my Plex server, which is my Synology. I do some things that I can't talk about because this podcast is on YouTube and I'll get taken down. But, you know, ask me. I'll send you some links. But I really love Plex. So prices are going up if you want to get in there before that, but even with these newer prices, I feel like it's worth it. And I just love the fact they have a lifetime pass, like the ability to actually buy a lifetime pass

even though it's way more expensive. Did you get a lifetime pass for that Humana app? I don't want to talk about it. You don't even use Plex at all, do you? I don't even know what Plex is, except for it's like a video peer-to-peer service. I don't know. It's a video server that you own yourself and you can stream to devices. At the very least, it's a great app that you can have on all your Apple devices that if you set up a Plex server, which could be a folder on your Mac, it could be a folder on your Mac Mini, that could be your video server, or you can have a Synology or another network-attached storage, and then

And then the Plex app, wherever you are in the world, remotely or in your house, you can stream the video files you have on that server to your device. So it's like you're, it's a whole media server, but everywhere. Didn't Apple TV used to do that? Didn't you used to be able to do that? Apple TV used to do that. I don't know if I can still do it. It used to like, there was a computer app on the Apple TV. You could stream stuff from your computer. Yeah. But it had to be in your like iTunes library.

And I don't, I don't think that's there anymore. Gotcha. Like, I don't think, cause you can't really like drag video files into the Apple TV app. You know what I mean? Right. I don't think. I think you're right. Yeah. Correct me if I was someone correct me if I'm wrong, but anyway. All right. Let's talk about a personal tech. Two quick things with my new MacBook air. I tried your method of turning the dots off for active apps in the dock. I couldn't stand it. I did it for like a week or two.

Can't stand it. So I put the dots back on. I tried it though. I tried it. You should try the battery percentage off and you can report back after a week. That's what I say. Here's the thing. I use apps like final cut and compressor. And part of my workflow is quickly glancing in the doc to see, is that app an open or closed? Like, cause it might be doing something and to not have that quick visual marker.

It was like, then I actually had to like do the command tab and see if it was there or try to find the window that I might've minimized. So those dots, uh, I like the dots. Just click on it. Well, I don't understand what you need to know the dots for. Well, why, why do you, what benefits? I can just glance down. I don't have to click on anything. I can just glance down. Why do you need to know? In the world of Apple Silicon, why do you need to know if something's running or not? Okay.

Okay, here's an example. Final Cut, I exclusively edit off external SSD drives. And so I'll have an SSD drive attached to my computer. When I'm done exporting a video file, I'll quit Final Cut, I'll eject it, and I'll unplug it. If for some reason I see that Final Cut is running...

I will not pull out the thing or try to eject it because I know final cut with a hundred percent certainty is accessing that external SSD. So I want to just final cut. Do you have like an AI robot and final cut that just does things without you do it? Like you started the thing that was running. Yes, but like a compressor export might take 20 minutes. And so I'll minimize all those windows and,

And I don't know what the current state is. And then if I do a bunch of other things, I'll have to really, did I quit Final Cut or is it still open or what do I need to do? And just glancing whether or not Final Cut is still open or not is information that then I can use to say, oh, let me quit it real quick. Let me eject it. Let me do it. Or if I see that Final Cut is not active, it means, oh, I'm good. I can just unplug. I can't understand, but that's okay. That's what I'm saying. I have found a use case. One of the things I found a use case.

I do have one quick thing too. I know you have another thing. I want you, I wanted to just go on the record. I am no more case back. I can't do it anymore. Me neither. I got a full case. You know why? Can you, can you see how incredibly scratched up the, that bottom is?

is yes and the same thing is true at the top we can't see enough because the light came on why is it because of the case that i mean because of the back it doesn't give any protection at that spot so it's like right at those two surfaces are the most likely to get scratched and it's like oh i have to put a case on this i wanted to do the case back thing so badly but yeah i dropped my phone a couple times with just the back on it and i think i got a small nick on like the corner or whatever and

You know, the two schools of thought. People are like, it adds character. It's part of owning the phone. Just use the phone. Not in glass. No, no, no, no. I am not of that school of thought. I was strongly thinking I was going to have to walk out to the driveway and drop this a few times so that I could take it and have the screen replaced. They won't replace it for a scratch. No, they will not. Not anymore.

You used to be able to be like any little Nick. You'd be like, can I have a new phone? Like AppleCare? Sure, why not? Not anymore. You got to shatter that thing. Yeah. Got to be unusable. But yeah, I agree. I'm on the case now. I'm using the Ryan London leather case. And look at that patina. It's gross. Yeah, it's good. What do you mean gross? It's a leather patina. What are you talking? You have leather stuff. That looks a lot like you picked it up after some nachos. I don't know. My leather patina is...

is like nice there's no what is it what case is that this is the nomad leather there's no patina on it that's why it's nice there's no patina there's no patina oh i see

That's not a patina. Listeners, viewers, let's hold our phone up at the same time. Don't put that thing up there. People are going to get nauseous. This is a patina. I posted a picture of this and people were like, oh yeah, it's a good patina. That's how they sounded in my mind. It looks like you spilled a margarita on it is what it looks like. I don't use my phone with messy hands. I wash my hands all the time. I don't like doing that. And if I'm...

If I'm like eating something, I'll do the weird like pinky limit of attack with my pinky because it's the only thing without the. I think this is a problem, but let's talk about your real problem. Listen, I don't think it's not a problem. It's an opportunity. It's that I love charging things. Okay. It's that Steven walks down the street and he looks in the window of people's houses and if he sees that blue glow, he's like, they got a new charger. I've got to go in and knock on the door and see what they. Listen, my audience on YouTube, I think appreciates that I talk about so many different charges so they can make an educated decision. But what charger is best for them? I sent you a charger. You said.

You still use it? I use it every night. Only because I'm too lazy to switch back to whatever I had before. No, no, no. I think you found benefit. I'm doing a service. It won't charge my AirPods very often. It just blinks a bright white light at me all the time. So I don't charge my AirPods on there. It's like you have to get it in the exact right spot. And if you don't, there's a white light that just pulses at you. It's like, wake up, stupid. You didn't charge them right. That's what it's saying. That's why I like my 12 South Hi-Rez 3 Deluxe, which is still my favorite, my nighttime fan. But...

Here's the thing. This guy, look at this. First of all, first of all, Steven, that looks like it's going to kill you. She too. You got the mag safe puck for your phone and Apple watch and a place to charge your AirPods. And there's a little, look at this little indention. So you know where to put it and it doesn't yell at you, but also look at it. Look at this three to four USB-C ports and these little metal things where you can have your, your iPad lay in there. Maybe my Mac book air, uh,

maybe other iPads. And there's even a place to like an outlet facing upward. If you need to do that, plus this is modular. Look at this. You could mix and match whatever things, put it on whatever sides. This thing looks amazing. Here's why I got it. I have a lot of devices to charge and some of them include, uh,

you know, I don't, do you charge your iPad? How often do you charge your iPad? Let me ask you that. When it needs to be charged. See, that's the thing. But if that is, that's how I do it. But the problem is it always needs to be charged then. Because when you want to pick it up, it never has a charge. I don't think, I cannot think of a time that I've picked my, my iPad mini is different because I think it's, I mean, it's older, but,

But I can't think of a time when I picked up my M4 iPad Pro that it didn't have at least 40%, which is more than enough battery for anything I'm going to want to do with it. So I have a push cut notification that tells me when my iPad falls below 25% and it's all the time, like it's regularly. So I got this because A, I'm going to put it in a video, but B, I want to test, maybe just, maybe I just charge my iPad every night and maybe I put my MacBook Air in there.

Maybe I just charge the stuff. And also I have like my kids' devices that I'll keep in our room and charge. So now I can have everything organized in a nice way with these little things. And I still can charge my phone and watch and AirPods and everything. This seems like a great product. So anyway, I want to try it out. Steven, you're my friend. And I just have to tell you as your friend that you have crossed over some line. I don't know what it even is, but I just want you to know that that...

I don't think your family will tolerate that contraption anywhere in that house. They're totally, it's going to be on my nightstand. Steven, you, how your nightstand has to be bigger than my desk. If I also got this thing, Steven, you don't have this many devices.

Anyway, I like testing chargers, Jason. I give them away. They all find a second home when I'm done with them. I've given away lots of chargers to you as well. I did get one. I appreciate that. That was very kind. Anyway, be looking on my channel. I'm going to put that in a video. So there you go. All right. We're gonna talk about severance on our bonus episode. So

So here's what you do. Tell me what your favorite charger is or any of the many things. You can leave us a five-star rating in Apple Podcasts. I don't know how many it's going to take to get back to five stars, but you guys have been showing out, so we really appreciate it. Thank you. If you've already done it, this message is not for you. If you haven't left us a five-star rating and review, run, don't walk, and leave that in Apple Podcasts.

Whoa.

We were talking about the ghost. So that's it. Let's go. See you over at the bonus episode. Thanks everybody for listening. Thanks for watching. We'll catch you next time.