00:00:00 ◼ ► From Relay, this is Connected, episode number 573. Today's show is brought to you by Gusto
00:00:14 ◼ ► and Ecamm. My name is Mike Curley and I have the pleasure of introducing Ricky Benchman,
00:00:19 ◼ ► Federico Vatici. Ciao, Mike. Ciao, Federico. Hello. Ciao, Federico. How are you? Just the two of us today.
00:00:25 ◼ ► Just me and Ian. Just me and Ian. I'm continuing to be the rock that's holding this show together,
00:00:30 ◼ ► you know? We are Stephen-less. Stephen-less. Yep, no Stephen, Stephen-less. But we do have,
00:00:36 ◼ ► I'm going to put the first link in the show notes, maybe the first two links in the show notes,
00:00:44 ◼ ► We're going to do, what is the thing? We're going to ping back him. Is that what it's called?
00:00:49 ◼ ► We're going to ping back. When you link back to people? I don't really know why it's what you're
00:00:52 ◼ ► We're going to put him in our blog roll. We're going to put him in the blog roll of the podcast.
00:00:55 ◼ ► Yes. As we just mark that the St. Jude campaign is over now for the year. As a community, we raised
00:01:09 ◼ ► but I wish there was three less dollars raised, you know? So it'd be $753, $753. But you know,
00:01:14 ◼ ► those $3, they go to the kids. So, you know, thank you very much to whoever donated that $3.
00:01:29 ◼ ► And I'm so proud. I'm so proud of the work that we've all done together in 2025 to raise three quarters
00:01:36 ◼ ► of a million dollars. I think that brings us, yeah, we've passed $4.8 million together in the last,
00:01:44 ◼ ► what is it, six years. So I'm very excited that next year we'll pass $5 million. So I look forward
00:02:11 ◼ ► That would be a good year, man. I wouldn't mind. I wouldn't mind. Bug fixes and performance updates.
00:02:17 ◼ ► We update the world frequently, so you get the best experience. That's what I would like.
00:02:23 ◼ ► Last week, me and Stephen, I was going to say Federico, but no, you're Federico and he's
00:02:28 ◼ ► Stephen. We spoke about the iPhone Air a little bit more because Stephen was having a bit of
00:02:35 ◼ ► a conundrum about what he was doing when it came to the iPhone Air. But you are, I'm assuming,
00:02:46 ◼ ► So I would like to know a little bit about your, like, basically, you know, it's been a couple
00:02:57 ◼ ► I continue, continues to feel like the future. And I was hoping that feeling wouldn't go away
00:03:03 ◼ ► and it doesn't for me. Like when I, when I pick it up, I'm reminded constantly of how cool
00:03:09 ◼ ► it is that it's so thin and light. When I pick up Sylvia's iPhone 16 pro, it's like, it's like
00:03:14 ◼ ► a little brick in my hand. I'm like, I'm so, I'm so glad that I'm, that I'm embracing this,
00:03:19 ◼ ► this lifestyle on a couple of occasions that it has happened that it ran out of juice by
00:03:25 ◼ ► 7 PM because maybe I was busier or I woke up earlier and I use my phone more. And in that
00:03:30 ◼ ► case, I just had to plug it in and care for it. It's like, uh, it's like sometimes you do
00:03:37 ◼ ► need to micromanage this thing a little bit more, uh, but it's fine because like on balance,
00:03:42 ◼ ► the feeling that I get, the fact that my wrists don't hurt anymore when I'm holding the phone in
00:03:48 ◼ ► portrait and reading long articles, I'm doing so much reading on this device. Um, which is exactly
00:03:54 ◼ ► what I was hoping would happen, right? That, that I wouldn't have to carry the iPad pro with me in the
00:04:00 ◼ ► bedroom at night when I just want to get some reading done before going to sleep. Uh, that's exactly what's
00:04:05 ◼ ► happening with the iPhone. So usually what I, what I like to do, like for example, right now, the phone is
00:04:09 ◼ ► charging at my desk on the MagSafe charger because I'm doing nothing with it. So I am, I am topping it
00:04:15 ◼ ► up frequently during the day because I work from home when I'm driving because I'm not at home, I have
00:04:20 ◼ ► to use wired CarPlay anyway. So it's also charging. Um, and in those situations where, uh, I use the phone
00:04:28 ◼ ► a little bit more, I carry the MagSafe battery with me. And then at night, when Sylvia and I are watching
00:04:35 ◼ ► something in the bedroom on, on the Apple TV, I plug it in, uh, a little bit more and, and then I get to
00:04:41 ◼ ► use it. Sylvia goes to bed usually like an hour, an hour and a half before, before I do. So I get to
00:04:46 ◼ ► use it again for 90 minutes to get some reading, you know, doom scroll a little as you do, uh, watch some
00:04:52 ◼ ► YouTube. A little treat, doom scroll is the treat. Yeah, just a little treat, just a little treat. Oh, what's, oh, just
00:04:57 ◼ ► let me catch up on the ugliness of the world. Just, just for me, just for 20 minutes or so. Um, love it.
00:05:04 ◼ ► Delicious, delicious, delicious doom scrolling. And, and, and, and, and I watch some YouTube and then I,
00:05:09 ◼ ► I put it back on the nightstand on the charger and that's it. So, uh, haven't missed the, uh, the,
00:05:16 ◼ ► the, the camera, the camera is an interesting story. You can't solve for this, right? Like you can solve
00:05:20 ◼ ► for the battery. Well, you can, you, you can solve with your legs in the sense that if you want to
00:05:26 ◼ ► capture a subject, you got to walk up to the, to the subject a little bit more, uh, which is what I've
00:05:31 ◼ ► been doing. So in a way you could argue that the iPhone air is good for exercise because it forces
00:05:36 ◼ ► you to, to, to move more. Well, I think the problem I have had with the air is that is the opposite of
00:05:43 ◼ ► like, you can't get the camera too close to things, right? Like it doesn't have the ultra wide, which
00:05:49 ◼ ► is, you know, while I am not a fan of the macro mode, there are times when I will use it to get a
00:05:54 ◼ ► picture of something that's close for whatever reason. Um, and it, it has no affordance for,
00:06:00 ◼ ► well, air is actually kind of an affordance for that. I, I, I've been meaning to talk about this.
00:06:05 ◼ ► Christian Selig wrote a really good blog post about this, where he is also using, um, the iPhone air.
00:06:12 ◼ ► And he's like, in the scenarios where you want to get close to something, just do the 2x crop and you
00:06:17 ◼ ► can get really close to it. And he's just like, and his argument is like, why doesn't Apple just
00:06:23 ◼ ► do the, this in software the same way that it does the macro mode, like using the ultra wide.
00:06:31 ◼ ► So I'll put this link in the, in the show notes. I don't know if you'd ever seen this, Federico,
00:06:34 ◼ ► but it's a, it's a, I think is a pretty good tip for iPhone air users. You just activate the 2x and
00:06:40 ◼ ► then you can get close to, I don't know, taking a picture of a label of a bottle of wine or whatever
00:06:48 ◼ ► Yeah. Yeah. But otherwise I've been taking 2x pictures of my dogs. It's been fine. And yeah,
00:06:56 ◼ ► it's just, um, you're happy with the crop now because previously you were very upset about the crop.
00:07:04 ◼ ► What am I, what am I, it's not like if I yell at the phone, it's not like, you know, it's going to
00:07:10 ◼ ► fix it. So, uh, on balance, the feeling of using the phone is more important than the things it
00:07:19 ◼ ► I like that. That's very, very zen. I mean, it is, I mean, it is a truly just marvelous, like in all
00:07:26 ◼ ► sense of the words device. Um, I, I've, I'm considering myself incredibly, uh, lucky that
00:07:33 ◼ ► this is the year in which I decided to be a two phone person. Cause I have like two radically
00:07:39 ◼ ► different phones and I, and I get to use them both, uh, throughout the day. And I like swapping
00:07:43 ◼ ► between the two of them. And for me, I'm, I'm happy with, with my choice. I prefer the pro for my
00:07:51 ◼ ► typical personal phone. And then the air is like a, a phone for scrolling and free working and,
00:07:57 ◼ ► and, you know, dealing with messages and stuff because this, it's nice to actually have a phone
00:08:02 ◼ ► with a bigger screen again without the downside of now the phone is too big and heavy, right?
00:08:08 ◼ ► Because the screen is much, it's, it's significantly bigger than my pro, but it's, it's, so I like
00:08:14 ◼ ► that. I actually like that, but I don't feel like I have some of the downsides of the bigger
00:08:22 ◼ ► No, from a pro max. You were going from a pro max to this. The screen size is smaller than a pro max,
00:08:31 ◼ ► It's like not in the way that you notice and it kind of fits. Um, are you using any cases or
00:08:36 ◼ ► anything like that on your air? Nope. Nope. I tried both the Sooty foam back and I got a couple of
00:08:42 ◼ ► days ago. The Nomad, uh, leather back, what's it called? Foam, foam back. Yeah. I don't remember.
00:08:47 ◼ ► Um, they're fine. They're thin, but even though they're thin, they still take away from the
00:08:55 ◼ ► default thinness of the device, which is not what I want to have. So, um, you know, I like to live
00:09:04 ◼ ► dangerously, I guess. I mean, I do have AppleCare, the fancy one, AppleCare plus, plus whatever it's
00:09:09 ◼ ► called. Um, so I love the, I love, that's the thing. I, maybe it's silly. I love the feeling of
00:09:16 ◼ ► this device in my hand and that's more important than everything else right now. I absolutely agree.
00:09:21 ◼ ► I mean, this is the kind of the, the joy of it. It's like, it feels so small, but I will say, right,
00:09:25 ◼ ► you're, you're extolling the virtues. You're having a great time. It seems like you're, I think you're
00:09:29 ◼ ► having a better time with this than you had with the, um, the, the plus last year. Yeah. I think that shine
00:09:37 ◼ ► wore off a bit faster. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Um, because you're missing a lot, right? Like
00:09:42 ◼ ► I wish this phone really isn't missing a lot. You, you've mentioned the two places where you're
00:09:45 ◼ ► missing it. It's like the battery, which is very manageable and the camera, which is manageable
00:09:50 ◼ ► to a point. But I could, I could imagine more people having a issue over the longterm with the
00:09:54 ◼ ► camera than, than the battery because battery problems are, they are solvable in a ton of
00:10:00 ◼ ► different ways. But like, you know, so you're talking about this, you're very excited about it,
00:10:03 ◼ ► but like, do you not worry that you're going to get really used to this phone and then you're
00:10:07 ◼ ► going to double it next year with a folding phone? Oh no, because I'm doing this all in service of
00:10:13 ◼ ► having a foldable from Apple. That is, has been my dream for the past few years. And, um,
00:10:20 ◼ ► this is why I'm doing it because I, I want to live with a, a lesser device than a pro one for a year
00:10:30 ◼ ► and just get used to the idea of, it's not going to have all the things of the pro phone,
00:10:35 ◼ ► but it's going to have something special to make up for it. And I know that it's not going to be like,
00:10:40 ◼ ► especially when, when folded close, like it's not going to be as thin as the iPhone air,
00:10:44 ◼ ► but that's the whole point because when I do open it up and it becomes a little tablet,
00:10:48 ◼ ► then it's thin like an iPhone air and maybe even more next year, who knows? But the foldable
00:10:53 ◼ ► from Apple has been my sort of, you're a white whale. Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, a phone that
00:11:00 ◼ ► is also a small iPad. Yes. That's, uh, I have been waiting for this for, I don't know, six years at
00:11:08 ◼ ► this point, seven years. Uh, so I'm, I'm doing it all because of that rumored device. And also in the
00:11:15 ◼ ► process, the phone looks great now. So I'm still very much at the opinion that it is at least,
00:11:21 ◼ ► I think more likely to be a phone. That's a bigger phone. Like I don't think iPadOS is going to appear
00:11:29 ◼ ► in the middle of that thing. Oh, I don't think it's going to be iPadOS. Yeah. But I think it's going to
00:11:34 ◼ ► have some form of multitasking. Yeah. Well, I agree, but it's going to be super strange when they're like,
00:11:44 ◼ ► If they tell you, if they tell you WWDC next year that your phone, your iPhone app should account for
00:11:52 ◼ ► a new kind of auto layout and resizing, that's going to be the, what do they call it? The canary in the
00:11:58 ◼ ► coal mine? Although that's, that's, that's sort of a, for bad news, right? In this case, it's good.
00:12:03 ◼ ► You would still use it in the same. It's just like an early warning sign, essentially. Yeah. Yeah.
00:12:11 ◼ ► Yeah. Poor canaries. I wish, I wish there was like a non-animal related metaphor for that.
00:12:44 ◼ ► I think this is, this is one of the many things, many products that is advertised to parents. You know,
00:12:57 ◼ ► No, no. I have, I have a, I have, uh, air quality sensors that are less of a conversation piece,
00:13:08 ◼ ► I don't, I don't need a conversation piece for my air quality monitor. I just have one of the
00:13:13 ◼ ► Akara ones. And we also have like a Dyson fan that has like, it is a air purifier and it has
00:13:19 ◼ ► air quality monitoring in it. Um, you know, best of luck to this company or whatever, but like,
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00:15:56 ◼ ► You know, like if I was one of the people that really wanted slide over back, maybe I would
00:15:59 ◼ ► go for this. But I am not one of those people. So can you explain what has happened here?
00:16:08 ◼ ► Okay. So they must sever the complaints from people saying, yeah, the new window in is great,
00:16:21 ◼ ► We were pretty much in agreement that there was something special about slide over that
00:16:29 ◼ ► And at least the impression that I get from both you and Jason is like, it's not that you're
00:16:34 ◼ ► necessarily the ones clamoring for this, but you're in tune enough with the community that
00:16:46 ◼ ► after my review saying, yeah, the new window is great, but boy, am I sad that slide over
00:16:51 ◼ ► is gone. So what Apple has done here is kind of restoring slide over in the sense that right
00:17:05 ◼ ► Multiple apps in slide over, if you recall, was introduced in iPadOS 13, the first version
00:17:17 ◼ ► They introduced multiple apps in slide over with a dedicated app switcher for slide over.
00:17:24 ◼ ► So you could cycle through, you could swipe or swipe up and hold to have multiple apps in the slide over UI.
00:17:40 ◼ ► So they have sort of fused slide over with the new windowing mode of iPadOS and you can do one window
00:17:48 ◼ ► at a time only. So you can choose via the menu bar, via keyboard shortcut, or via the traffic light
00:17:55 ◼ ► controls. You have this option called enter slide over. So you can take whatever window you have selected
00:18:01 ◼ ► and put it in slide over. By default, it takes the classic shape of slide over on the iPad, which is
00:18:08 ◼ ► basically like a tall iPhone layout on the side of the screen. You can still swipe from the edge of the
00:18:16 ◼ ► display to invoke slide over, to hide the slide over app, but there's a twist. Even though you cannot have
00:18:23 ◼ ► multiple apps, Apple did add something new to slide over, which is you can resize the slide over window.
00:18:30 ◼ ► So that, that is interesting, is very cool. So like I could have a full sized window that just appears
00:18:41 ◼ ► big. I mean like a big window essentially. You can, oh no, you can make it big. Yeah, yeah, you can.
00:18:48 ◼ ► Yeah. So the slide over window gets a liquid glass sort of like edge all around it, sort of like to,
00:18:56 ◼ ► to indicate that it's the slide over window. You can resize it and make it as big as you want.
00:19:00 ◼ ► And you can hide it on the side of the display. You get the usual like pulling indicator at the edge
00:19:08 ◼ ► of the screen to tell you, Hey, you have a slide over hiding in here, but yeah, you can resize it,
00:19:13 ◼ ► make it as big as you want, make it as small as you want even. So if you want to make it a little
00:19:20 ◼ ► So I said, this is good actually for me, like, cause I actually was in a scenario today where
00:19:26 ◼ ► thinking back, I would have enjoyed having slide over. So I was doing prep for the show. So I had a
00:19:30 ◼ ► web browser on the left-hand side. I had Notion on the right-hand side and I wanted my Apple notes.
00:19:39 ◼ ► you know, the spaces because I'm using a stage manager, but it would have been so much nicer to
00:19:44 ◼ ► just pull that note in quick, tap a link and not have to deal with the animations, you know?
00:19:49 ◼ ► So that would have been, would have been cool. I mean, there were ways I could have done it by like
00:19:55 ◼ ► rearranging window, but like, I didn't want to permanently arrange the windows in such a way
00:20:01 ◼ ► that I would have to see all three at once. You know what I mean? Like I wanted half, half.
00:20:05 ◼ ► So having a little slide over Apple note in that scenario would have been, would have been pretty
00:20:11 ◼ ► great actually. Yeah. Yeah. And I think at this point, what Apple has done here, I mean, it is
00:20:17 ◼ ► slide over, uh, they're calling it slide over. It really is window pinning at this point. Like you're,
00:20:25 ◼ ► because it works with the, it works alongside the existing window in a iPadOS. So what you're essentially
00:20:30 ◼ ► doing is you're pinning a window on the screen and saying, you have to float above the others and I
00:20:36 ◼ ► can hide you and toggle you back whenever I want. It is essentially window pinning. There's many
00:20:41 ◼ ► utilities on MacOS that do this sort of thing. I mean, you can replicate this kind of behavior on
00:20:46 ◼ ► MacOS with better touch tool, I'm sure. Uh, but here it's like, it's, it's slide over version two.
00:20:52 ◼ ► I think it's going to be interesting. I mean, Apple must have heard the feedback, must have heard the
00:20:56 ◼ ► complaints. Are people going to be satisfied with the idea of single window slide over?
00:21:02 ◼ ► I think people were just missing slide over, not necessarily multiple apps in slide over. I may be
00:21:08 ◼ ► wrong. I don't, I would expect they will take care of like 75% of people's requests with this.
00:21:16 ◼ ► Yeah. I think anecdotally speaking, most of the slide over usage that I've seen, uh, is like people
00:21:23 ◼ ► that just want to keep, I don't know, Apple music or one password or Apple notes in slide over.
00:21:28 ◼ ► It feels like a purposeful thing that you're attempting in a certain scenario. Like I don't
00:21:32 ◼ ► think I need, and I would expect most people would not really need a whole app switcher inside of that
00:21:39 ◼ ► thing again. You know what I mean? Like it feels a bit, like a bit much, like I don't really know who's
00:21:51 ◼ ► Well, because you have the traditional experience and the windowing experience. Can you do slide over in both of them?
00:22:09 ◼ ► Nothing happens because you don't get the menu bar. You don't get the traffic light controls. You're in full screen all the time. And if you swipe from the edge, nothing happens.
00:22:19 ◼ ► I think a lot of people that are asking for slide over are also asking for split view. And what they're asking for is actually just, I don't want this new window system.
00:22:35 ◼ ► Okay. So, so if you want to use slide over, you have to use windowing, but you can, I mean, like the thing is, and I think what Apple in this scenario are trying to get across to people is like, it isn't that much more to learn to get split view and slide over in the new windowing system. Like it's Apple do make it very easy to put the two apps together.
00:22:55 ◼ ► And then you get the, the little slidey guy and it's way more customizable than it was before. Right? Like it isn't just like a few steps along the way. You can be really particular in how big you want each window to be. I was benefiting from that today myself. So I think that this will, I think this will satisfy the most. And I think it's as much as they're probably going to do.
00:23:17 ◼ ► Yeah, I agree. I think that's, this is a good balance of like, you can have split view, you get the free form windowing and single app slide over. I think it's a good mix.
00:23:29 ◼ ► I think it's good that they actually also spent some time clearly like thinking about what slide over would be now.
00:23:40 ◼ ► Like they didn't just bring it back, right? Like they've, they've made it work with the new system a little bit, which I think is good.
00:23:51 ◼ ► Like the fact that you can resize, like it doesn't just fix you to a size, you know, I think that's good.
00:23:56 ◼ ► Yeah. And it's good that they're addressing some of the complaints of iPadOS 26 so quickly, because in addition to slide over, they have also added microphone gain controls.
00:24:10 ◼ ► Yeah. I mean, I'm sure it helped that during the beta season, I know that they, they got a lot of feedback from people like me and Jason and Chris Lolly and others like heavy iPad users saying, yeah, local capture is great, but, but I, I, I need to be able to control the gain of my microphone.
00:24:30 ◼ ► And this is also something else that they're adding, I believe, uh, at some point, the option to choose where you're going to save your, uh, your files.
00:24:39 ◼ ► Right. Uh, so there, I think it's encouraging that, that, that they're listening to feedback and they're moving quickly.
00:24:48 ◼ ► I hope this is a continued trend and not a one-off, uh, because I don't want to go back to a pre iPadOS 26 world where we were getting a couple of features every two years.
00:25:01 ◼ ► Yeah. Because especially the gain thing is super niche and it's solvable outside of software, right? Apple could just say, buy a microphone with gain control.
00:25:13 ◼ ► Yeah. Like, you know, that is, there is a solution there. Like lots of hardware microphones have hardware gain control, USB ones. It's like, deal with, just do that. We'll, we'll see you in 2029. Right? Like you just deal with yourself over there.
00:25:28 ◼ ► Yeah. Like I think this, I think that this is really good because I do feel like the, the microphone thing was a little bit of a, like, here you go, you know, like take it and leave us alone. You know, like you've been asking for this forever. Just there you go. So for them to actually have implemented this system so quickly, I think that's fantastic.
00:25:48 ◼ ► Oh, a month, month after release. And they put this in, I think that, I think that's really good. Um, it isn't just, uh, iPadOS that got some changes. There's a couple of other little bits I wanted to mention. Um, one that I've been seeing a lot is the slide to stop on alarms.
00:26:04 ◼ ► Yeah. So now instead of the two buttons, the stop button is a slide. Now I have to ask you, Federico, is this a choice or is this just what is going to happen now? Do you know?
00:26:18 ◼ ► Uh, what do you mean? Cause I don't think I want to do this. I don't think I want to, I don't think I want to swipe the, the phone.
00:26:27 ◼ ► I think, I think you will have to. Okay. I don't particularly care personally because I have my alarm on the Apple watch. Um, I don't do it.
00:26:36 ◼ ► Oh yes, so do I know. So this isn't so much of a problem anymore. Okay. Yeah. Because I mean, I remember saying on the show and I, and I stand by it. I was surprised that I was not having problems with the alarm system because when I saw those two big buttons, I was like, well, this is going to be a disaster. I'm going to be hitting the wrong thing all the time.
00:26:51 ◼ ► And I had a period of time where I was waking up every morning with my iPhone because I wasn't wearing my Apple watch and it was never an issue for me. Like I was never hitting the wrong button, but clearly again, people are hitting this as an issue would be my assumption. And so they've come in to address it, um, quite quickly. But so I think that's again, also, it looks nice.
00:27:14 ◼ ► It doesn't look nice. It looks nice. It, this is a, I think a tasteful way to, um, to, to deal with this issue where they're like invoking some, some UI that we all love, right? The slide to unlock, which is not a thing that exists anymore. Um, so, you know, not bad, I would say not a bad way to deal with this. Yeah. Um, and it seems like in general, there's some design tweaks. So like there's lots of left alignment for headings.
00:27:43 ◼ ► Yes. Explain a text folders. Yeah. And there's some liquid glass tweaks as well. It seems like just, which I think we could probably say every version of, uh, of iOS for the foreseeable future will have tweaks to liquid glass. Like they're just going to keep fiddling with it.
00:27:57 ◼ ► I keep seeing some people saying, Oh, Apple should, should revert liquid glass. No, they're not going to do it. Like this, this thing is going to be here for the next year and beyond. Um, so, but you know, if you don't like it, I mean, there's nothing you can do. If you want to keep using Apple platforms at this point, they're going to keep taking liquid glass, but we're going to have a version of liquid glass for the foreseeable future.
00:28:20 ◼ ► So, uh, I think it's going to be interesting to see what happens next year. If there's going to be some kind of liquid glass customization for people who really dislike, um, the glass effect, uh, beyond the accessibility setting to reduce motion and stuff like that.
00:28:36 ◼ ► I think it's going to be interesting to see if they do, this is something that I, that I half jokingly mentioned in my review. Um, what if they did more materials without giving up on the liquid? Like what if they did liquid, I don't know, metal liquid, um, liquid paper? I don't, I don't know, but like, does it have to be like, you know, like liquid chrome or something like that? Like you can keep the fluidity of liquid glass with maybe just changing the material.
00:29:03 ◼ ► I think that could also be an interesting trajectory for the future. But realistically, I think it's going to be liquid glass for the next few years.
00:29:09 ◼ ► And I mean, you know, everybody has their own experience with these things, but I don't get the sense that there has been some kind of widespread user revolt.
00:29:20 ◼ ► Like it really doesn't feel like that at all. Like, you know, I think we've seen this year people trying to make a gate out of everything, but there doesn't seem to have been any kind of like user disasters. Uh, like, you know, like, like in the way that I was surprised that people hate the photos redesign as much as they did.
00:29:39 ◼ ► You know, you know, you know, you know, I, I don't feel like I'm seeing, um, a lot of like new complaints, uh, about liquid.
00:29:46 ◼ ► Yeah. You're not, you're not seeing the articles on, on, um, you know, magazines and other like really commercial publications saying users are complaining about the new design of the iPhone.
00:30:01 ◼ ► Everybody's just sort of, uh, moving along. And I'm not saying that that's, um, that that's a sign of great design. I'm just saying that maybe it's not the tragedy that some of us thought it was going to be.
00:30:15 ◼ ► Well, it also could be too early. Um, maybe, well, maybe Apple have a button that they press and that button starts updating people's phones and that button has not been pressed yet.
00:30:27 ◼ ► Yeah. So it is possible that right now the people that have performed the update are the people that are interested. And what happens to people that are not interested? Now, what could happen is the people that are not interested just don't even realize that anything's changed.
00:30:42 ◼ ► You know, I've heard a lot of that kind of like anecdotal things of like people update their phones and they're like, well, what do you think? It's like, I have no idea what you're talking about.
00:30:50 ◼ ► You know, so maybe that maybe people won't care or maybe it will come to like, I don't know, late October, early November, Apple pushes it out, maybe with a 0.1 release and it kind of starts the wide rollout, but I don't think we're there yet. So yeah, we'll see.
00:31:06 ◼ ► Yeah. Um, something that I've noticed kind of unrelated to an extent I've heard from people who have updated like regular people, non Mac stories, non podcast listeners, um, who have updated to, to iOS 26.
00:31:20 ◼ ► Didn't mention anything. People in real life, something that I've noticed over the past year, whenever the conversation of technology comes up, it's always about AI.
00:31:31 ◼ ► Like I was getting my, my haircut today. Um, and I was at the barber shop and, and I'm going to this new shop. And so they're like, ah, so what do you do for a living? And so I'm explaining like, I have a blog and also podcasts. And they're like, oh, that's so cool.
00:31:46 ◼ ► Like we started talking about technology and immediately, immediately the guy who I just met 10 minutes before. It's like, so is, is artificial intelligence a problem for you now? Like the topic used to be like, oh, let's talk about the new iPhones, right? Let's talk about the new camera. Let's talk about the new design, whatever.
00:32:04 ◼ ► For the past few months, whenever I go out or talk to people or they ask me about my job, the topic is also what do you think of chat GPT? What do you think of artificial intelligence? Like it's, it's, it's the, it's the, it's the unavoidable thing, right? I mean, like, yeah, we're going to talk about it later on today, but you know, chat GPT has 800 million monthly active users, which is, you know, it's like it's Facebook now, essentially.
00:32:30 ◼ ► Um, and every news story about business and technology right now is all AI. Like it's, I'm not surprised everyone's talking to you about it because it's all anyone's talking about, you know?
00:32:44 ◼ ► Yeah. Yeah. And, and for the first time also today at the barbershop, um, I met the first person in real life that is like, like non WWDC real life is what I mean. Like a regular person doing his job, uh, saying, oh yeah, I, I pay for chat GPT. Like the, the 24 euro a month subscription.
00:33:08 ◼ ► Huh. I hadn't, I had never met. So my first, first time today, uh, because they, they, they, he kept saying like, oh yeah, I use it a lot. And you know, I, unfortunately this is the, the ugly part of the conversation. Unfortunately, I think they also use it for like put together advertisements and posters for the shop.
00:33:29 ◼ ► It's like, yeah, I kept running into limits. So I figured I use it so much, might as well just pay 20 euros a month. Yep. Simple as that. Yep. So.
00:33:37 ◼ ► Anyway, personally, I'm not expecting that the barbershop guy is hiring an illustrator. Like that's just not something like to make posters for him. So for him, you know, like, I don't think that was something that they were going to do.
00:33:51 ◼ ► You know, he, you know, he could have, but I don't imagine that he would have done that. And so it is not surprising to me that he would maybe then be like, I'll just get the AI to make it for me.
00:34:04 ◼ ► I think the thing is though, like still, and I think for a long time, it's like that stuff is immediately noticeable. Like I walk past shops and I'm like, yep. Okay.
00:34:11 ◼ ► Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. You can tell. I've started seeing, uh, Chad GPT graphics on products that I buy. Like there's this brand of dog food that I see at the store and that dog on the box is clearly AI. Like, absolutely. You can tell.
00:34:29 ◼ ► And to me, it's like, you know, I make my decisions about that sometimes. I'm like, okay, right. Like I've, I, I know you're doing that now. And like, that's, that's a choice that you have made. And maybe there are some times where I'm like, I'm going to change the way that I'm thinking. But also at the same time, I'm also not surprised, you know, like that this local pub is making their quiz night photo, like quiz night stuff using AI, where otherwise they would have just used clip art, you know? And like, that's just the way it's going to be.
00:34:59 ◼ ► Yeah. Uh, this week you published a, uh, roundup of, um, liquid glass apps on Mac stories. I think you'll pick a bunch, uh, that you're enjoying and you wanted to talk about that a little bit here too.
00:35:12 ◼ ► Yeah. I wanted to, to, to highlight a couple of liquid glass updates that we like in third party apps. I wanted to mention matter, not the home automation protocol, but matter, the read later app.
00:35:25 ◼ ► Okay. I think, I think they've done a really nice job with the liquid glass update. Um, especially because it's one of the few apps that is using the new Apple music style, um, playback bar at the bottom with a top bar that collapses when you're scrolling.
00:35:44 ◼ ► So it basically looks like the music app and I kind of dig it. I really like it because I don't feel like I'm constantly switching in between apps and the top bar collapsing.
00:35:56 ◼ ► So when I'm listening to a story and I want to keep an eye, usually like here's what I do. Like I put my iPhone in the kitchen when I'm doing things and I'm listening to an article, by the way, they also added new text to speech voices in matter.
00:36:12 ◼ ► And right now I think matter as the best implementation of text to speech voices, um, that I've heard in third party apps of this kind so far. Uh, it sounds better than read wise reader, for example. Uh, they have really good fake AI voices. Um, but usually what I do is like, I put my iPhone upright.
00:36:34 ◼ ► And I'm doing things in the kitchen, uh, and I'm listening to an article, but at the same time, the, the sort of the playback is synced to the text, right? So you can see the, the, the portion of text that is being spoken aloud is also highlighted in the article text.
00:36:52 ◼ ► So if I, if the AI mispronounces something and I want to take a quick glance at the text, um, I see more text on screen because everything is minimized at the bottom.
00:37:04 ◼ ► So it shows more text all at once. And just in general, I think that implementation, that consistency of the playback UI element looks just like the Apple music one. I think it's a nice touch. Um, and I also like the liquid glass, uh, implementation in, in Lear. That's L I R E. It's an RSS reader. Um, I've been using this one because it was one of the first apps to have a liquid glass design.
00:37:34 ◼ ► during the beta season. It also supports iPhone and iPad, uh, syncs with I know reader, which is my RSS service of choice. And, um, all in addition to liquid glass, they've done a really nice job with like having these controls that morph when you go like from one screen to the next. Like for example, when you are checking out your RSS items, there's a button in the top toolbar for selecting articles and sorting articles. But then if you go back that,
00:38:04 ◼ ► the button morphs into the button morphs into the icon of I know reader because you're back in the main screen and it's showing you which service you're syncing with.
00:38:11 ◼ ► That is one of the liquid glass sort of like, uh, you can morph the same UI element to indicate different things. I think they've done a really nice touch there. And in addition to liquid glass, uh, Lear also uses the on device Apple intelligence foundation model to summarize news stories. So if you're opening, you know, a click baity article or something that like doesn't immediately tell you what it's about, you can use the foundation model to give you a quick summary. And you can even put together a quick summary.
00:38:41 ◼ ► custom prompt for the foundation model. If you want to have a specific style of summary, like give me, you know, three items in a bullet list or something. So, um, these two apps, uh, Lear, I've been using for two months at this point. Uh, matter is a recent discovery because they recently added the liquid glass and the new voices and it, they've done a pretty good job.
00:39:00 ◼ ► really good job. I think Lear is that your RSS app of choice. Now, this is the one you're using all the time, all the time on the iPhone and iPad. I don't like the Mac version. Um, on the Mac, I just use the, I know reader web app in the browser.
00:39:16 ◼ ► Does it sync of other services? Yeah. Okay. Feed, leave feed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Maybe I'll try it because I don't know. Reader is like, I just don't feel confident it's going to last.
00:39:28 ◼ ► Yeah. The, the new reader you mean? Or the classic? Yeah. The old one. The old one is the one I use, the classic. And I just, I feel like if a developer makes a decision like that, they're kind of being pretty clear about where they're, what, what, what they, you know, what decisions they made, which is totally fine.
00:39:45 ◼ ► But then that leaves me as a customer to maybe consider other decisions. I'm going to, I'm going to buy this. It's so strange to see an app with a price.
00:39:53 ◼ ► Right. Like I'm like getting an app. So I'm like, Oh, I just pay for this. I don't download it first. How odd. Like that's just not, I feel like I'm very seldom met with that, especially with a productivity app.
00:40:11 ◼ ► So it's just pay up front. That's it. No subscription at all. Yeah. Yeah. Huh. Yeah. Gotta say like, I respect that, but like it should, it should, they should, you gotta, you know, these days free and then, and let me pay every year. Come this RSS. I'll give you money every year. But mate, I should, I'm saying that and people aren't going to like it, especially when I mentioned the first app.
00:40:34 ◼ ► in my selection, uh, it's Fantastical. I think Fantastical. Uh, and the reason I picked it here, I think is a really good example of liquid glass being used sparingly to great effect. Um, the, the, the iOS 26 updates for Fantastical. It really just, they just very subtly tweaked some of the UI.
00:40:58 ◼ ► Like they, they flattened some of it. Um, they made it a little bit more kind of like consistent and they essentially just moved some of the navigation down to the bottom rather than at the top, which just makes way more sense for the app because the stuff at the top is like my calendar.
00:41:14 ◼ ► And then I'm, I'm seeing that more clearly and without interruption. And then you've got like your calendar sets and your options and stuff are all little buttons at the bottom. Um, and I just think in general, some of the effects that they're using, I just think this is a good example of an app that already had a pretty distinct design that didn't really need to change.
00:41:34 ◼ ► Just doing a good job of refreshing menus. I think that is a underrated thing about liquid glass and iOS 26 that I've really appreciated. It has forced a lot of developers to reconsider their menu structure to like have the, the big buttons, you know, like the big search button and, and they're not doing it. And, and I would say Fantastical is not doing search the way that I would want.
00:41:57 ◼ ► They're not doing it with the bottom bar. Like it still pops up a sheet, but again, like the sheets look good, like in the way that like Todoist sheets look good, you know, that it's different, but it looks good. Like the, the, the, the text entry fields and that kind of stuff, like it's nicer. So I like that. Um, but I have another recommendation because I also kind of just want to talk about this app for a minute. Uh, it's called athletic, A T H L Y T I C.
00:42:22 ◼ ► This app had been recommended to me a bunch when I started talking about the fact that I was using a whoop band. Yeah. Cause this is like, what if it's the whoop app, but it's using your health stuff, like from your Apple watch. And it's a really great app. It's great. Like I've now decided that when my whoop subscription ends, I'm not going to be renewing and I'm going to use this app instead. Um, they have basically all of the features that whoop have, um, in.
00:42:51 ◼ ► With some terminology and charts that actually just make more sense to me, um, than the way that whoop shows them. Um, and this app, it's, it's very visually strong. Like it's very colorful and has a lot of like really bold UI. And I think they have done a really good job of like using a lot of like frosted glass looks.
00:43:15 ◼ ► And there's like kind of like light leakage kind of, you know, so it looks like there's like, uh, uh, illuminate like the rings that the recovery rings and stuff are illuminated behind a sheet of glass. So it's kind of got that look that the app icons have too, where it's like these two frosted things on top of each other. Um, and they're also liberally in a good way using the, like the loop effect to jump between, um, like graphs and stuff.
00:43:41 ◼ ► So you could be like seven days, 30 days, that kind of stuff. And they're using that, you know, the, the little glass bubble that pops out when you, when you just go between the selectors and stuff like that. Um, I really recommend athletic though.
00:43:55 ◼ ► I think this app is genius. I honestly, I expect that Apple will buy this app. That's that, this is my prediction. Yeah. They do the best job of showing Apple health information that I have seen. Like the only reason I've used a loop band is I feel like it does a really good job of correlating pieces of information and showing it to me in a way that makes sense to me.
00:44:25 ◼ ► And this is exactly what athletic is doing. Like they're pulling out a bunch of pieces of information, you know, your vitals, your sleep. And I really like their exertion. It's the same as whoop, right? Where it's like, okay, we've taken a look at how you slept and what your day was like yesterday.
00:44:40 ◼ ► We now recommend you do not exceed, you know, you're, you do not exceed this exertion rate and kind of thing, you know? So I, I, all of that stuff is fantastic. This app is wonderful. Like I'm, I'm, I'm really into it. Like, and they just do a really good job of explaining everything. It's good. Explain a text with all of the stats that they're giving you. So you can very easily find out more.
00:45:06 ◼ ► And I think that it was essentially in response to the fact that loop exists, but you were already, if you're wearing an Apple watch, you have all of this information, but Apple just doesn't bring it together.
00:45:20 ◼ ► So I really recommend that. And I think that their, their iOS 26 redesign, I think they did a really good job of like showing the way of like showing things and keeping their style and adapting it very well.
00:45:36 ◼ ► You should try it out. You should just try it anyway. Cause you don't have to do anything else, right? Like it's not asking you to do anything. It's just bringing in your data from the health app.
00:45:45 ◼ ► I recommend you give it a go just because it's, it's an interesting app. Like what they're doing is, is quite interesting. You know, it's like, I just, I went to their website to add it to the show notes. It's a Squarespace website. It was like, oh yeah. Like they're just making it happen. Right. Like, you know, I was trying to like look into them a little bit and, um, in there, like, um, they're like, you know, about this app, uh, kind of thing. It's just signed by two people. Where is it? About, uh, sorry. That was somewhere a second ago. Uh, Gary and Jacqueline.
00:46:15 ◼ ► Like, like I just, that's cool. It's just incredible. Two people, I guess, making this app or like a very small team. Uh, and, and they're doing something like, it seems to be very successful. You know, they have like tens of thousands of reviews on the app store. Like, I just think it's awesome. You know, like just as, as kind of what appears to be a pretty small team.
00:46:33 ◼ ► What a story. I love it. I love it. You know, I think it's great. And, and it's, I'm really, I'm really, this is one of my favorite new apps in a long time. Like I'm, I'm blown away by how good this is and like how good a job they're doing of, of making me feel better about my health in a way. Right. Where it's like, oh, okay. Like I understand this now.
00:46:55 ◼ ► Like I may, I've got a bit of a primer from using whoop, but I just, I think that they are doing things just better than what whoop is doing. That's what I would say.
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00:49:12 ◼ ► So I threatened that we would be talking about ChatGPT today. They've had a pretty big week. They had their dev days. I actually would just like to say what I don't want to talk about today at all is Sora.
00:49:30 ◼ ► But what I will do is I'm going to put in the show notes a three-minute video from Hank Green where Hank Green basically shouts for three minutes about Sora.
00:49:46 ◼ ► So I recommend if you want to know how I feel about Sora, go watch Hank's video. Hank will tell you how I feel.
00:49:54 ◼ ► It's brilliant. The man goes mad. It's a wonderful video that I think fully explains why this technology is terrible and shouldn't exist.
00:50:13 ◼ ► But he's a great communicator and he does a great job of kind of like explaining some of the issues around this kind of stuff and nightmarish.
00:50:37 ◼ ► So in case you haven't seen this, what OpenAI announced is the ability that right now is in testing in the United States, not yet in Europe.
00:50:54 ◼ ► But for more select partners with more coming soon and more coming, hopefully, with an app directory at the end of the year.
00:51:11 ◼ ► This is based on a new apps SDK that OpenAI has rolled out for any third-party developer to work with and integrate their product into Chagipity.
00:51:41 ◼ ► They are abstracting all of the complexity of what's going on behind the scenes from the users, very much unlike Anthropic and Claude.
00:52:01 ◼ ► It's all MCP, but it's designed and presented to users in a way that you wouldn't even know it's MCP.
00:52:10 ◼ ► What they're saying is, what if you could talk to Spotify in Chagipity and ask Chagipity to search for songs and make playlists for you and, you know, give your recommendations based on what you like.
00:52:24 ◼ ► What if you could, you know, what if you were browsing for homes and, you know, you could call up Zillow and compare prices and also ask questions about the neighborhood and sort of points of interest nearby.
00:52:36 ◼ ► That's sort of the idea where OpenAI is aware of the fact that although people spend a lot of time inside Chagipity and by all intents and purposes, you know, more and more people these days, realistically speaking, by the end of the year,
00:53:11 ◼ ► But OpenAI is quite bluntly saying, we want Chagipity to be, we want you to think of Chagipity as the operating system.
00:53:36 ◼ ► This is the thing that I was wondering, because we spoke about this a few weeks ago, like a little bit, where my, what I wonder is like, you know, I think I said at the time, like, what is the benefit to a company like OpenAI to adopt this open standard?
00:54:08 ◼ ► So, like, is it done in such a way that by Spotify supporting the ChatGPT app, that it would also work with Claude, no work needed?
00:54:34 ◼ ► You still need to build that infrastructure in your code, in your web service, to deal with MCP-based connections.
00:54:43 ◼ ► What OpenAI is doing is adding a few extra bells and whistles on top in terms of visual presentation and interaction inside ChatGPT.
00:55:07 ◼ ► Pretty much the entire industry has rallied around MCP at this point, which is not a surprise that Apple even may add some form of MCP to iOS.
00:55:17 ◼ ► When something, when everybody's pretty much in agreement that that's the standard they want to use, you got to use it.
00:55:27 ◼ ► I feel like I understand it a little bit more now where it's like for ChatGPT, they just don't care.
00:55:35 ◼ ► It's like the internet, but what they want is for you to then go in and build the UI and the experience, right?
00:55:47 ◼ ► Like, in ways that maybe some of ChatGPT's competitors would not be able to convince Spotify to make UI, right?
00:56:06 ◼ ► But the other reason for OpenAI to say we got to build this off MCP is OpenAI is on a quest.
00:56:16 ◼ ► One is to become the most popular AI service in the world and to literally become an operating system.
00:56:22 ◼ ► But the other is to take away as many developers, as much enterprise as possible from Anthropic.
00:56:30 ◼ ► This is why, over the past couple of months, they have invested so many resources into growing GPT codecs, which is their programming utility, to the point where they have now, in some leaderboards and in some usage sort of statistics,
00:56:49 ◼ ► they have overtaken cloud codecs, which was for a lot of people like the default sort of programming assistant, right?
00:57:03 ◼ ► They want to be the next Anthropic for the workplace, but they also want to be a consumer product, right?
00:57:14 ◼ ► So with MCP and apps, in a way, it's a perfect storm because you're making it easier for the figmas and the githubs of the world to integrate with child GPT because it's work.
00:57:27 ◼ ► It's like infrastructure that they've already built, but you're giving it a better UI, and that is better for consumers.
00:57:35 ◼ ► It's interesting, right, where it's like Altman is just like, no, I won't allow people to think that Claude is better at code.
00:58:03 ◼ ► At least, last week was the understood idea, and I guess they're just not happy with that, right?
00:58:11 ◼ ► That sort of mindset has been changing with the release of GPT-5 and Codex, especially.
00:58:20 ◼ ► They have a whole bunch of products named Codex, but the sense that I'm getting from the people that I follow from the conversations that I see is that the tide has been turning.
00:58:41 ◼ ► I mean, obviously, you know, these companies, especially Anthropic and OpenAI, they're going to try and one-up each other every other week.
00:58:46 ◼ ► Just now, it seems, for example, that Anthropic may be on the cusp of releasing a web version of Claude Code and also iOS support for Claude Code.
00:59:01 ◼ ► If you're a developer, you will be able to kick off, like, the little remote coding assistant from your phone.
00:59:19 ◼ ► There are companies doing that, but no, what it means is that, you know, you want to handle, like, a pull request or, you know, set the assistant to work on something, you can do so remotely from your phone and have the task complete in a GitHub repo in the background, in the cloud.
01:00:08 ◼ ► The philosophical aspect is that I think if you were to look, you know, six months from now, a year from now, what's the intention for OpenAI here, right?
01:00:20 ◼ ► They've pretty much said that they want ChatGPT to be, to think of ChatGPT as an operating system that sort of is the glue and connects you to all the other experiences in your life.
01:00:44 ◼ ► For some people, it's a shop assistant, which is why OpenAI is happy to introduce a shop experience in ChatGPT.
01:00:59 ◼ ► So that's the obvious next step, is what if ChatGPT could be the home of a little app store?
01:01:07 ◼ ► Where the apps that you already use could be called and invoked and interacted with from the app, from the assistant that you spend a lot of time texting to or talking to on a daily basis already.
01:01:25 ◼ ► And there are early signs of developers being more than happy to jump on board with this idea.
01:01:33 ◼ ► Just a few minutes ago, I believe, Simon Storing published a blog post showing how he was able to put together a basic MCP server to control his Philips Hue lights from ChatGPT using natural language and using the new apps SDK.
01:01:53 ◼ ► But it's probably too early to say, oh, this is going to be the new app store gold rush.
01:02:08 ◼ ► But I think it's a first sign of a potential problem for Apple, for Google to a lesser extent, because they have Gemini.
01:02:21 ◼ ► But for the classic traditional app store model, which is, oh, you go to an app store, you find an app, you find a game, you download.
01:02:34 ◼ ► What happens to that model where your default launcher is no longer a home screen, but your default launcher, your default space on your computer is a ChatGPT window?
01:02:46 ◼ ► Well, and then ultimately, I mean, we'll talk about this in a bit, the idea being that, well, you're also not, eventually, you're not using one of those either, right?
01:03:05 ◼ ► But that is the idealistic goal that they're setting for themselves here, of like, we're building an operating system.
01:03:25 ◼ ► Like, this is what they're trying to do here, and I am following your thing here, where I think that this is a quote from your article, right?
01:03:34 ◼ ► If I were Apple, I'd start growing increasingly concerned at the prospect of another company controlling the interactions between users and their favorite apps.
01:03:42 ◼ ► I think that this is potentially the biggest risk that Apple has faced in the last 10 years.
01:03:50 ◼ ► Like, I do not currently see a path where they are unseated, but this is the first time that I think a user-based scale and a kind of effectiveness could suggest it's possible.
01:04:15 ◼ ► But I think over time, they have found that they cannot execute on the important things that would be needed to own the platform.
01:04:25 ◼ ► And essentially, they have had to piggyback on what Apple is doing, where we are entering into a new era now, kind of like it or not.
01:04:39 ◼ ► I do expect the bubble will burst, but the bubble bursting does not mean that all of this goes away.
01:04:47 ◼ ► Because don't forget, there was a very important bubble that burst, and it was the dot-com bubble when we still have websites.
01:04:53 ◼ ► Like, it's just there will be and there has to be a resetting of the money aspect because it's gotten out of hand.
01:05:02 ◼ ► But this technology now is something that people have integrated into their lives and they rely on.
01:05:07 ◼ ► And I think that looking at something like this, like apps, right, and interactions between systems and this being a platform and, you know, the thing that OpenAI is not trying to do is to do all of it, right?
01:05:21 ◼ ► They don't seem to want to make their own streaming music service, but they will integrate with others.
01:05:37 ◼ ► Will they be able to, like, execute on it or are they going to fall apart somewhere down the chain as well?
01:05:47 ◼ ► Is it going to be, you know, one of those experiments like custom GPTs from a couple of years ago that they rolled out and we thought, oh, this is going to change everything.
01:06:02 ◼ ► But you cannot, I guess what we're trying to say is that you cannot ignore a service that says we have almost 1 billion active users and we want to be a platform.
01:06:23 ◼ ► Like, that's the unique thing about ChatGPT is the speed that it got to what is essentially a billion users.
01:06:40 ◼ ► which is to get to what I think is the real risk is, well, they need to have devices, right?
01:06:56 ◼ ► There was a report in the Financial Times this week about kind of like Apple's, so Apple, about OpenAI's current spot here.
01:07:08 ◼ ► Like how they're doing when it comes to the Johnny of it all and the devices of it all.
01:07:25 ◼ ► OpenAI and star designer Johnny Ive are grappling of a series of technical issues with their secretive new artificial intelligence device as they push to launch a blockbuster tech product next year.
01:07:37 ◼ ► Now, just as a clarification, what they always said, which I think they were always going to debut it in 2026 to ship in 2027.
01:07:44 ◼ ► Their aim is to create a palm-sized device without a screen that can take audio and visual cues from the physical environment and respond to users' requests.
01:07:54 ◼ ► People familiar with the plan said OpenAI and Ive had yet to solve critical problems that could delay the device's release.
01:08:02 ◼ ► One person said the device would be always on rather than triggered by a word or a prompt.
01:08:07 ◼ ► The device's sensors would gather data throughout the day that would help to build its virtual assistant's memory.
01:08:13 ◼ ► One source said the concept is that you should have a friend who's a computer who isn't your weird AI girlfriend, like Siri, but better.
01:08:31 ◼ ► It's two quotes that I think are interesting that kind of put a different picture, like a different face on this, but this is the same story.
01:08:40 ◼ ► And Johnny said that they had 15 to 20 really compelling ideas, but it would be better if they had, quote, three good ones.
01:08:51 ◼ ► Now, what I'll say is that last part, I'm seeing a lot of people dunk on this, and I get it.
01:09:07 ◼ ► The problem is when you build up so much hype beforehand to commit to showing something on a time frame, you shouldn't be in this spot still.
01:09:15 ◼ ► You should be at the three good ones stage before you're like, hey, we're going to change the world and we're going to show you next year.
01:09:26 ◼ ► But the part of like, you know, we have a bunch of ideas and we're just not sure which one we're going to go with yet.
01:09:38 ◼ ► I mean, from my perspective, this idea of the always-on AI companion device is being explored right now by other companies.
01:09:48 ◼ ► There's the weird one that plastered friend advertisements all over New York and San Francisco.
01:10:00 ◼ ► They're all sort of trying to converge around the same idea of like, what if AI could always be listening and building a context window of your life?
01:10:14 ◼ ► You know, the idea that there's a little computer listening to every word you say without a wake word.
01:10:18 ◼ ► Yeah, the way I describe it, I wrote it in my notes, is potentially interesting, definitely unsettling.
01:10:26 ◼ ► There's obviously, the biggest problem here is that when you're dealing with hardware, I keep having these two thoughts.
01:10:36 ◼ ► One, you're going to have to convince people to buy and carry an additional piece of gear with a battery with them all the time.
01:10:44 ◼ ► Yeah, so apparently it's about the size of a phone with cameras, mics, and speakers, but no screen.
01:10:58 ◼ ► I mean, I think the devil will be in the details as to how big and how it works and how it looks and da-da-da-da-da.
01:11:04 ◼ ► But it does seem like, I don't think I want to carry another kind of phone around with me.
01:11:24 ◼ ► My other kind of obvious take is that, well, what happens when Google first and then Apple figure out how to build these features into a regular phone?
01:11:46 ◼ ► Like, what if your regular iPhone or your regular Google Pixel phone could also be AI companions, quote-unquote?
01:11:54 ◼ ► I think my hot take is that OpenAI and Johnny Ive are going to fall backwards into building a phone eventually.
01:12:20 ◼ ► Eventually, all of these companies are going to realize, well, you know, people are still going to...
01:12:24 ◼ ► I keep fundamentally believing that people are still going to fundamentally want to carry a phone with a screen.
01:12:42 ◼ ► People are still going to be wanting to take a look at pictures that their friends send.
01:13:05 ◼ ► It's like, the smartphone is, in my eyes, like, in terms of inventions, like, as important as the printing press.
01:13:29 ◼ ► I just don't shut my, like, imagination off to a scenario where there's something better than a smartphone.
01:13:39 ◼ ► But like, maybe it is that, like, we're all wearing these glasses and we just don't need it anymore, you know?
01:13:44 ◼ ► Maybe, but I guess what I'm saying is that that product is not going to be here in 2026 or 2027.
01:13:55 ◼ ► Which is why I think as the pressure mounts on Altman and Ive to show something, I think they're going to say, you know what?
01:14:24 ◼ ► I could see Ivan Altman say, well, okay, look, we have this idea, AI always with you, but we got to make a phone, right?
01:14:41 ◼ ► But I could see that phone being powered, not by Android, not by iOS, obviously, but by something more akin to webOS.
01:14:56 ◼ ► It would be in line with the fact that all of these AI services are built with web technologies, cloud-based.
01:15:13 ◼ ► It would be the, you know, web apps today are such a completely different story from web apps 20 years ago with the sweet solution and all of that.
01:15:26 ◼ ► I don't think it would be so unrealistic to imagine this scenario where these two guys are like, all right, cool.
01:16:01 ◼ ► Right now, a little battery pack with microphones and cameras without a screen, I don't think it's a compelling product.
01:16:19 ◼ ► Like something the size of a phone with a camera mic and speaker, it doesn't mean anything, right?
01:16:34 ◼ ► But like you would, you, if you're to believe them, which now I feel less confident in my belief than I was when they announced this thing together, because my expectation was they actually went into disagreement with a product idea ready to go, which now it seems like they're not.
01:16:50 ◼ ► So I'm a little bit like, I don't know, but like, you know, there, it could be cool and interesting.
01:18:16 ◼ ► I think the situation, though, is, and I guess what Altman and Ive are hopefully trying to bet on,
01:18:27 ◼ ► Like, that's what they're betting on here, which is like, yes, in theory, Google could do this,
01:18:43 ◼ ► So that's, I guess, what they're betting on, is that they will have the brand and the users
01:18:57 ◼ ► You get like 0.01% of your customer base to buy this device, and you've got a pretty good start.
01:19:19 ◼ ► OpenAI would be very happy with that, I would expect, from some kind of like companion device
01:19:38 ◼ ► Because, I mean, this is something that, like, I'll co-opt a little bit of Hank Green's rant
01:19:45 ◼ ► here to, you know, to just be like, you're supposed to, you came on the scene to talk about creating
01:20:14 ◼ ► Like, you have more, and I think, potentially, it's starting to show that maybe they don't