587: We're All Confused

Hello and welcome to episode 587 of the Connector Podcast here on Relay. This episode is brought to you by Sentry and Ecamm. My name is Mike, and I am joined by the keynote chairman, Federico Vittici. Hi, Federico. Hello, Mike. How are we? Okay. Where I'm the meat on top of you the chairman bread, because there is just one chairman on the show this week because Steven has actually lost his voice. So he would be essentially useless.

today. Yeah, that's how the French do it, the open sandwich, I think. Exactly. So I we're we're about an open sandwich today. Uh yeah, not not great. I actually rec we do a membership show called Backstage, which is available to all relay members.

Uh and Steven, me we did it today together and it was terrible. The man c it sounds horrible. He just sounds horrible. Um I feel bad for Steve. You don't wanna you don't wanna hear Steven right now. I don't no, and I don't think anybody else does really, if I'm being completely honest with you. Um Do you know By the time we record next week, hoping that he is back on the show, he will be forty. That's rough, right? That's rough. That much older. You know?

Right, because we're all kinda used to the idea that is, you know, for the show is like fifty seven or something. But then when you put it in real terms it's like, Oh, he's actually so much older. Me and you like even in real terms, he's just like way older. So uh it is Stephen's big birthday next Wednesday the twenty eighth. So mark it in your calendars and s and send him um I don't know, stuff. I don't know what, but something.

Uh we had a piece of follow up. We've actually got quite a lot of news today. It's happened again as news, so we've got stuff to talk about. Um, but there was a piece of follow up that I thought was really interesting because I hadn't even considered it. So Brian wrote in and said with the advent of Apple Creator Studio, I fear for the end of the iLife app.

GarageBand and iMovie have not received significant updates in so long, which is sad because these apps used to be a significant selling point of Apple's platforms versus Windows. Countless professional musicians got their start in Garage Band and many home musicians, young children find it invaluable. Not everybody needs apps like Logic or Final Cut. So obviously we've been talking about Creator Studio for like a week and a bit

And you you got like apps like Pages, Keynote, you know, they're in the suite. But it didn't even occur to me that GarageBand and I movie or not. They probably shouldn't be, right? Because you've got the big professional apps there. But it was just like a thing that's like oh, just didn't even really think about the fact that these apps I guess continue, but now I reckon we'll probably become even more like pushed to the side.

Hmm. Which is a shame. I mean, Garage Band is how I started with podcasting. Because logic is so complicated. Uh by the way, Apple, you absolutely should make a podcast app, like a podcast recording app. Like they they absolutely should do that. Just like take the simple part of Garage Band that would let you do that and and just give people the ability to make a podcast recording and editing app. Like they should should do that.

We are the face of the medium, right? Which they want to be. I think I think they should make a tool to help people make podcasts. Yeah, I agree. And for for those easier, more intuitive apps, um, I don't know, I kinda wonder if

Um w when it comes to iMovie, for example, I kinda wonder if you know obviously m more of those features will be folded into the Photos app because that's that's the thing that most people use on a on a daily basis. And I also kinda wonder As much as it's gonna be potentially terrible in some ways, but something like garage band. There is a there is a plan somewhere to redo Garage Band with generative AI.

Um which is not great, but I fear that it's happening. Um lots of companies are cutting deals and investing into this AI music, quote unquote music. some um startups and and companies making these models. And I wonder if there's a version somewhere at Apple that is garage banned, but it's all based on this new tech. Which is I mean, obviously as a you know, m music is is a huge part of my life and

And I don't even wanna call it music because it's not, but I also know that it's happening. That technology is out there and and you see Warner Brothers and all these other studios cutting deals with Suno and and all these other startups that are making music. And so I fear that there is a timeline where a tool like GarageBand is actually just based on generative AI at some point. Speaking of

Uh Mark German, uh he's been on a break and he's back we're launching into the main topic. Okay. Yeah, he's back and he's back with a big old report. Uh usually around this time of the year, uh Mark will have a report about uh what we can expect at WWE C or he will at least have it at some point. Um and then we'll we'll do more throughout the year and we have that today. And essentially the thing to note is that WWDC this year, the twenty seven releases we should say, they are essentially

Apple intelligence releases again. Um you know, he he has already referenced in the past that it would be otherwise a snow leopard year for the OSs. Like Mm-hmm. They're just gonna do their best to make them run nicely. Um nice and smooth, as they say, no bugs, all that kind of stuff. But there's gonna be a lot going on in Apple intelligence. So we know that kind of before W W D C the expectation is that Apple will enhance Siri Using

Google Souls using Gemini. And so that m Mark still says sometime in the spring we should see that. And it would have features like some form of on screen aware awareness and personal contact. No idea what that looks like. I have no idea now how they're gonna do it. Do they just drop that? Like does it come out in the beta? Do they have an event? Like I have no idea how they're gonna do this, which is fascinating.

Just like you know, s maybe like some random Tuesday, twenty six point six comes out or whatever in beta and by the way there's a whole new Apple Intelligence Siri in there. No idea how that's gonna happen.

But the big thing in this report is that Apple is working on a quote chatbot codenamed Campos that could be unveiled at WWDC this year would be the expectation. This would then replace the Siri that we would have Whenever you know, so like the Siri we have now, plus any improvements that we get, this system will just straight up replace that. It also is referenced in this article that to do this Apple may need a model powerful enough.

That Google's gonna have to run it themselves for them, which is fascinating. Uh the system that is being referred to. will be integrated with Apple's apps. It can analyze and control an open windows. It could be interesting on the Mac. You can ask it to do things. It could do things for you. It can anything that is in one of Apple's apps that should be able to go and control. There's a lot of conversation about like it being a chatbot, but there's also in Mark's article there seems to be some

arguments inside of Apple as to w whether they would actually have it as an app that you could use. Like it may have all of the or the majority of the features that a chatbot like ChatGPT Claude would have, but it may not be like a dedicated icon on a home screen that you launch. So fascinating. What what are you th what was your thoughts on reading all this stuff? Okay, okay. So the first thing I want to talk about is what Mark is essentially proposing as two architecture.

coming out this year. Two completely different experiences coming out this year. So in the spring Um basically Apple making good on their promise from 2024 for a more personalized, contextually aware series based on voice mode. So a voice-only series. that runs on a version of Google Gemini running on Apple Silicon with private cloud computers.

That is gonna be able to answer world knowledge questions. So search the web, summarize, use citations, but also take data from your apps and perform actions inside apps. This is not going to be a chat bot. This is going to be a more powerful voice-based Siri with on-screen awareness, personal context, performing actions inside apps. Running on Apple's cloud that is not gonna be a chat bot with persistent chats, persistent conversations, or memory, right? So it's a smarter series.

And then Mark is saying later in 2026, and this is gonna be their big announcement at WWDC, they're gonna have a proper chat bot. You will be able to ask text questions, have persistent conversations, upload file attachments, so images, maybe documents. and have your regular ChatGPT like experience. And this is gonna be based on a more powerful version of Gemini. And Apple is considering running this on Google's TPUs. So the TPUs are the tensor processing unit.

This is the Google chip made for AI, the latest gen. It's called Ironwood, I believe. Um, and Apple is considering doing this.

Now this is immediately fascinating to me. Like uh this split Right? In the same year, two completely different things is extremely interesting. So let's talk about the first one. First. Uh first of all what you said, like are this are they just gonna drop this thing? They will make a big deal out of this. I'm not sure from a PR perspective, how can you Because they're gonna be they're gonna be in this really odd predicament where like they wanna sell people on this great new thing.

While also acknowledging that it took him two years to deliver on that thing and they needed to get some extra help from their friends at Google to make it happen. Um, interesting. I think. They will find a way to make a big PR push. But there also needs to be a developer push because I guarantee there's gonna be a developer story.

There is gonna be slightly different from what we saw at WWDC twenty twenty four. How much of a fuss do you wanna make about something that you're then gonna do all over again like two months later? Well Two months later you're gonna do the chat bot. You're not gonna do the voice.

Two months later you're gonna say, and we're made it even better. We've we're making it even better. Right. People are loving the new Siri. People are having millions of conversations with the new Siri. And now we're gonna give you an app like they They know how to spin this. Do you think they will do an app?'Cause th it seems to be very much like backwards and forwards on whether they're gonna do that or not. I mean at this point, yes. I think they actually have to.

I but I don't I don't I just d I don't know. Maybe they'll find a way to give you an app like experience without having an app, like every time you press and hold the button you can get everything you need. I mean I at this point and I hate to to to say this and to be the guy, but it would kinda be a crime against the shareholders to keep saying, Ah, we're just ignoring Almost a billion people using chat GPT on a on a weekly basis. We're not gonna do a chat bottom.

into the system. We don't need an app. I mean it can look it can be integrated with with like that is going to be their big advantage. Like I am so thrilled to hear that they're gonna do this thing where it's gonna be able to work in all of your apps and it's gonna be on the iPhone, on the iPad, on the Mac. Like it's gonna be I think it's gonna be really interesting to see. But

You gotta give people some kind of icon that they can tap and they can see those conversations again. Like it's simple as that. Um They will have to do it. I am convinced they will have to do it. Um but that brings me into the the second point of of all of this. Like Because I see so many people say, No, how can Apple can even consider running this on on the Google architecture? Uh and they're gonna are they gonna forego privacy at all? Apple no longer care about user privacy.

slightly more complicated than that. So first of all, private cloud compute is no longer like just an Apple thing. Google has their equivalent architecture. It's called private AI compute. And it's basically the same idea. Like it's creating an isolated space on the on the Google TPUs. And I'm gonna read you from the announcement. Private AI computers is a secure fortified space for processing your data that keeps your data isolated and private to you.

It processes the same it processes the same type of sensitive information you might expect. to be processed on device within its trusted boundary, your personal information, unique insights, and how you use them are protected by an extra layer of security and privacy, in addition to our existing AI safeguards. It's more or less the same thing. And it comes down to do you trust Google for actually delivering on this? But then I guess.

the buck stops there, right? If Apple trusts Google, then you know, should be good enough for us to believe that that it's private and secure enough. I would wonder Yeah,'cause this is this is the question though, right? Like I I I know you mentioned you've already you've kind of summed it up, but like It is a very big deal for Apple to say Google now processes your serial requests. We don't do that. Like that is a big deal, right? Like now if this was a brand new thing, like

Completely new. It maybe wouldn't be as weird. But like you think over time. You know, they're like, we're taking more and more out of the cloud to be more on device because that's even more private. You know, like even from us, that's more private. And then it's like

We've gone to these great lengths of explaining and creating this technology called private cloud compute and it's gonna be you know, it's happens on our servers, but we can never do it, da da da da da and then like, well now just Google's gonna do it. And like even though It sounds like it's the same kind of system. It is still weird, and it's also weird to imagine them doing something like this. when we're also like

trying to believe or be led to believe that Apple is working on their own technology. You know, like even in in German's article he's saying like, oh, this system is designed to be replaced. But like it just feels like it gets harder and harder to do that if you're doing less and less of

Okay. Uh so let me explain something else. Um and um another area where I think Apple was was caught flat footed, so to speak. Um Why do you think that uh the major companies in AI right now, uh both Nvidia and OpenAI, are investing in startups that run large language models Not on GPU. So in case you're not familiar with this. Uh NVIDIA uh took a very weird deal that they uh announced just before the end of the year, uh I believe.

Nvidia took a majority stake or something like that in this startup called Grok, not the Elon Musk. Yeah. Grog, right? Grok with a Q. Yeah. Grok with a Q is an American company. that developed uh their own um chip. Four. for uh running inference, so running um large language models. with a completely different architecture from your traditional GPU. Um right now the m most of the AI industry is predicated upon Nvidia and NVIDIA making uh GPUs.

to run AI models on. But GPUs are GPUs became popular in for running large language models because they are more powerful than CPUs, obviously, and they have more adjustable space and you know. certain instructions that you want to run when it comes to the the the parameters and and the layers of a large language model, they perform better on a GPU, but still GPUs are not ideal for running extremely large large language models.

That's why Nvidia recognized this and invested in Grok. At the same time, OpenAI just a couple of weeks ago announced we are teaming up with Cerebras, another American company. That created this this uh very large, physically large uh chip that is a custom created um uh wafer style chip. for running AI models on. All this to say, um Google saw this coming hundreds of miles away years ago when they created the TPUs. So specific chips that are designed for AI.

Google recognized many, many years ago that you cannot possibly imagine that ten years from now you would you you would have to be bound to the structure of a GPU. to run a large language model on. That's why they invested on their proprietary silicon just for AI. Now NVIDIA, which is, you know, NVIDIA has everything to lose at this point, right?

And they're also saying, well, we're gonna take a majority stick in Grock because w they know that the GPU architecture has probably hit a threshold when it comes to running AI and open AI is also doing the same. Meanwhile It's funny really, if you don't mind me just a quick like introduction on this. Like I remember the time, as I'm sure you do when processing moved from CPU to GPU because it was more more efficient and more powerful at doing certain tasks.

And now it's shifting back again. Yeah. It's very funny. It's like a very strange thing to happen. Yeah. Yeah. And look, I'm I'm obviously not an AI engineer or a silicon engineer. So I am We only know the surface at most. Yeah. But meanwhile, here's Apple saying no. Yeah, we don't do chatbots. Those are gonna be a fad. Nobody's gonna care. We're just gonna do some AI on our M2 chips on private car computes.

And and and look what happened, right? Uh they were not able to deliver on that. They are two years late. to their voice-only assistant features that they announced uh two years ago. And now they're realizing that they need to do a chatbot because people like using them, because they've made plenty of progress in the span of two years. And they realizing oh, well, uh there's potentially we're not gonna be able to run this this chatbot with this version of Gemini 3 uh

uh potentially not gonna run on Apple Silicon because we don't have the infrastructure. And and so I think this move from the GPU to a dedicated hardware for for Specifically designed specifically designed for the you know to s to to very much to simplify for the three stages of of AI, which is Training inference, which means when it runs, uh, and and even arguably you can consider the post-training stuff that comes before you ship an LLM to consumers.

That's not gonna run. That's not just not gonna run on on on Apple Silicon, on a bunch of M2 chips running on Mac Studios. That's why Apple has not been able, most likely, to train a large language model with like Hundreds of of of billions of parameters. At least incredibly inefficient. Right? I mean you would have to fill how many warehouses with Mac Sudio. Very very, very inefficient. Yep.

Yep. Yeah. And so I think I I think this is a This is something that they should actually consider, you know, uh, and and obviously Google comes out once again as the winner in this scenario because they have the model, they have the hardware. And I mean uh from their perspective they also have the ecosystem, but in this case we're talking about Apple.

Uh I also wonder if um there's a couple of other things that I wanna call out. So uh Mark in the article uh mentions this modular architecture. And I'm gonna quote Apple is designing campos so that its underlying models can be swapped out over time. That means the company will have the flexibility to move away from Google powered systems in the future if it so chooses. Apple has also tested the chatbot with Chinese AI models.

signaling plans to eventually deploy the feature in that country where Apple intelligence isn't yet available. Um remember the rumors that Apple was interested in acquiring perplexity? Guess what perplexity does? They provide a thin layer with with with you know essentially a modular system where the experience is still the same, but you're swapping out models on the fly, depending on what you want to.

And and um it seems like Apple is actually considering the same thing. And at that point, you can appease the the you know the Chinese government. saying, Yeah, we're gonna let you use, I don't know, Deep Seek or Minimax or whatever it is that they like Baidu, right? Well, Baidu is you know, yeah, you know, yes, they can do that. There's a So there's no joke, six or seven Chinese models that are state of the art right now.

Um and you can use the European ones. You can go to the you can go to the EU and say, Look, we're gonna cut a deal with Mistral and we're gonna have Mistral in Apple intelligence. Gosh, that's gonna be terrible. No offense to the French, but That's not a good model. But uh and in the US they can say, ah, we're you know, we're integrating all of the American state of the art models. Yeah. Um, so fascinating. Uh and also potentially, by the way, um

Something that Apple can monetize over time. I mean at this point if you are becoming a model provider. Uh I could realistically imagine a scenario where you have your Siri AI, whatever the product is gonna be called, and there's gonna be a subscription for Siri AI Plus. And it's gonna give you reasoning models, it's gonna give you extended thinking times, more features. At least it goes into iCloud Plus, right? Yeah, it becomes a thing. You know, I was thinking about it today, right?

I think the the private cloud compute thing is a solvable is solvable, right? They they could tell Google how they want it to work. Yes. Right? Yeah. And because I was, you know Not everything in iCloud is stored on Apple servers. Right? They use Microsoft and Amazon, I think. Right? They use Azure and AWS to serve some of their files. I don't know exactly how it breaks down.

But like they you know, and they're like oh y and I'm sure that they still make the exact same privacy claims because they have very specific ways that they do things, right? Maybe there is a scenario where they can still feel comfortable to call it private cloud compute, but they don't host it. I don't know. Or maybe it just won't matter. Maybe I'm overthinking it and it just won't matter. Um the other interesting point is that.

I could also imagine a scenario in which this two-phase rollout uh is actually based on two different Gemini models. Based off what we're going right now, uh, we have Gemini 3 Flash and Gemini 3 Pro. Uh 3 Pro is the smarter, slower, um, but more capable model. Gemini 3 Flash, based on the same Gemini 3 family of models, but more efficient.

Doesn't think as long. All of the Gemini 3 models are reasoning models. That's something that Google is doing behind the scenes. But Gemini 3 is Gemini 3 Flash is faster and more efficient. Gemini 3 Pro is more of a powerhouse. Um I could see a scenario in which uh the voice mode is based on Gemini 3 flash because when you're talking to Siri, you want speed to

It needs to be quick, it needs to be efficient. You don't want to wait around too long. But when you're chatting with it, then you have more more leeway, so to speak, to wait a little bit longer. Or if you're asking for it to do things for you as well, right? You can give it a bit of time. And also, you would assume that when you're using a when you're doing a text-based interaction, right, with a chatbot. Statistically, I would say those tax interactions they tend to be more complex by nature.

than a voice command. Usually when you're doing a voice command, it's a quick sentence or a quick thing. You know, you're not issuing a 30-minute instruction to an LLM via voice. Right. But when you're typing, then maybe you're crafting a longer message, maybe you're attaching a couple of documents.

Maybe you're attaching a few links for the LLM to check out. And in that case, maybe you want the power of Gemini 3 Pro. And maybe Apple is having these conversations with Google right now, and Google told them, look, Okay, we can use Gemini 3 Pro, but we cannot make that run on Apple Silicon.

It's just we it's just not gonna happen. So if you if you want to have Gemini 3 Pro level of intelligence in a chatbot, it needs to be on our cloud. It needs to be on TPUs because we just don't or maybe Google just said we don't want to do it. We don't want to put Gemini 3 Pro on Apple. We don't wanna we don't wanna, you know uh because it it's a it's a bit of an effort, as you can imagine, for Google.

Uh so I don't know, but I wouldn't be shocked to see this kind of scenario where voice mode means efficiency, intelligence still, but speed and more efficient, and chatbot interaction means A little bit slower, but more intelligent and more capable.

It's wild, man. I know. I know. I d even the fact that we're having this conversation now. I know. Where where and I wanna see, right, all those people now uh w where are those people from from? from last year saying, Nah, Apple is never gonna do it. You're so mistaken. This is a fad. It's going away. You will see Apple will come out on top once again because they are not doing a chat bot. And now they're partnering with Google.

Yeah. Of all companies. Like that that is the thing that is just so wild to me. Like I I think it is the logical best move, right? I think it's a move that we've been asking for them to do. Lots of people have, right? Where it's like you you clearly institutionally have struggled to get this together and maybe it's a long time before you can do it if at all.

y there is no reason why you shouldn't partner with someone, right? Like there is there is a lot of logic to that and I'm sure we've had conversations on this show and other places similar. But them actually doing it still feels weird. 'Cause like there's a lot of things that we say, Apple, please just do this and they don't but this is one where they're actually doing it and it is in a way one of the one of the weirder things for me of like just Giving

It's not it's not giving up but it it's not not that, you know? Yeah. Uh it's being pragmatic about it. They're they're making a smart move. This is the right move, but it Fascinatingly strange. You know what's even we know I mean I obviously think that Apple is behind in all of this. Yeah. But you know what I think is really smart here? Is that there's a a a really potential funny scenario on the horizon where

You get a much more integrated Gemini based experience on Apple platforms than you do on Android. It's not a lot of Android phones. You know? Exactly. Gemini 3 is capable of calling external tools and external integrations, but the ecosystem that like the the the Gemini app experience is absolutely terrible right now. They don't expose integrations with third party connectors save for maybe literally two of them.

Right now, I think WhatsApp and Spotify, they don't have an ecosystem of integrations. And Apple has the potential to come in and say, well, we're taking this model from Google. We're opening it up to the vibrant ecosystem of developers on Apple platforms and It could it would be so funny if you get a much more integrated Gemini with your operating system on multiple platforms from the desktop to I don't know a phone.

Right, that works with your apps, works with your Windows, works with the file system. And meanwhile, on Android, you get none of that. But you still have Gemini 3. That would be funny. This episode is brought to you by Century. I know as a user of apps, you know, we love apps on the show. Federico loves apps more than most. And app experiences being smooth and bug free. That is what we want as users. And I know it's what developers want to be able to provide their use.

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So we were talking about, you know I think an idea of what this year is gonna be and I think this year is going to be potentially supremely weird but also fascinating to talk about, which is You know, I personally can't ask for anything more than that, uh, in my career. So I wanted to get kind of a vibe check.

with you and we can kinda go through this together about like how we're feeling about Apple for this year in twenty twenty six. Okay. Are you it's kind of here at the beginning of the year. Are you hopeful, excited, optimistic, pessimistic? What is your overall vibe? about what Apple's twenty twenty six could look like. Excited. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I think uh I think um uh we're coming out from at least from my perspective from a from a

couple of relatively boring years. Um the iPad was the was, you know The only I don't want to say the only good thing, but it was my favorite thing. The iPhone don't forget how good the iPhone lineup was last year. Yeah, and I mean obviously the iPhone Air, my beloved. But I think Apple is now Coming out from this slumber, so to speak, uh, you know, and and with the with the new home pod or home product.

And the AI features and the foldable and maybe new accessories. Yeah. I don't know. It just feels like they and and obviously, you know, maybe the changing of the leadership. Like it's a time for change. And as the person who you know, embraces change, that that's inherently exciting for me. To see Apple get out of their comfort zone a little bit, you know, try new stuff. So yes, that is uh my vibe is excited, right?

Yeah, I mean from I agree with you. Like I think WWDC twenty twenty four was like a real Problem. You know, like I I think For me, that was a a a marker which was not great. Like I was thinking about this um yesterday, because I was thinking about like I was thinking about WWC and how I want to think about covering it this year. Um and I remember that in twenty twenty four, uh obviously I was at home and um W Jason was busy, he had like briefings and meetings and stuff.

So we ended up recording the next day. And I was always so thankful for that because I was completely shell shocked after WW C twenty four had ended. Because we all had really Different expectations for Apple's attempts at AI than what we got. Um, you know, like I was so disappointed with the image generation stuff and and s still I am and still kind of can't believe that it Uh that they still continue to ship image by grounds.

I think that was just a real mistake that I really do believe they regret, but they're kind of stuck in it now. Um and just like, you know, having that time to reflect on it was helpful for me because I wouldn't have known what to say if me and him were gonna record straight away. And so like I was thinking back to that moment and just like

Even the things that and like the things that were the saving grace of that presentation don't exist nearly two years later. And and I really feel like that was a

fork in the road for them or kind of like, you know, like a good timeline, bad timeline kind of scenario. And I think there are some aspects of Apple that it slipped into the bad timeline from that point. Yeah. Um and I and I'cause I am I definitely entertain the conspiracy theory that liquid glass came out earlier than it was supposed to. I believe that they were working on a redesign and been working on it for a while. Uh but I can absolutely understand a scenario where they were like

Oh boy, we should do that this year. Like I I can see that. I don't know if it happened, but I can imagine a scenario very easily where that got moved up a little bit. Because then that was like a whole thing, you know, that like just d dealing with this past year. So these last two years on the software side. from like the W W C presentation. It's just not been a good time. Right. Like it it hasn't been an overall bad time. And I am very hopeful for WWC twenty six that we get

Things to be tidied up in general across the operating system and for them to have a cohesive, sensible, thought through and useful AI strategy. Yes. Yeah. Where there's a ton of stuff happening on device. And the stuff that isn't is happening on good architecture in the cloud that has privacy and is actually useful to me. as a consumer, because I would love, you know, like I I would love to get to a scenario where I don't ever think about

What app am I using? Where should I be doing this? And that like I just talk to my phone and it's just handled for me. You know what I mean? Like I it sounds like a great scenario and then In theory they should be able to do it. I st I still have some uh like a lot of question marks, you know, you you know, you reference developers.

I I don't know how developers are gonna take to any of this because I just think in general they all hate Apple. So I d you know, I d I may but maybe if it's good enough, you know?

Like maybe if the features are good enough for developers, like I there is a scenario where they may want to jump on board and do some stuff with it. You know like I've actually been, I would say, heartened to see how many in develop indevelopers are using even the current version of the on device models to do interesting things in their app.

Um, and maybe if the s technology is good enough it could incentivize more of them to jump on board and integrate and that could be really interesting. But even outside of that, like, you know, you mentioned s a bunch of things, but The iPhone line up again could be super strong again this year, which would be amazing, right? If we get like a weird folding phone and some really good In like you know, like all the rumors are pointing towards

a semi redesign for the profile with you know in display face ID. That's just like a I don't even know if it's something I want, but it'll be interesting. Um and then maybe We get a bunch of laptops this year, right? The cheap Mac book. the I mean, I'm I'm very hopeful that we get the OLED touch screen Mac Pro this year. I know man. Like like it could come this year, which is just like I'm so excited for that computer just to like see what's going on there. Like that will be cool.

And then the, you know, the looming executive change. Like so yeah, I am both hopeful and excited for twenty twenty six. I think in a way that maybe I didn't feel at the beginning of twenty twenty five. So I you know I I ha I am optimistic for it. I think we could be in for an interesting year as well as a year that has lots of good products from a software and hardware perspective, you know? I agree. I agree. And I think um I think the the the the tide will shift when it comes also to um

the developer narrative around Apple because what I think is happening now. Um I I I'm obviously a very online person and um And I spend time maybe more than I should on on all the social media platforms. Um something that I think is very unfortunate um is that a lot of people um are still using X. And they never they literally hundreds of people that are interesting people uh never stopped uh posting on X. They never even considered other platforms.

Um but what I think is so fascinating is that so set aside for a second the many, many, many political problems with X. Just take a look at the people posting there, right? So those those people are not moving. Uh they're not embracing Mastodon, they're not embracing Blue.

But as a result of that, we I think in the Apple community, we have become, many of us, very insular in terms of the takes and the opinions that we read about Apple. If you just spend time on Mastodon, you would think that Apple is absolutely doomed, that um they're doing illegal things, that they are a corrupted company. And and I'm not saying, by the way, that Apple uh you know has not done questionable and some despicable things. They're doing all the things.

But what I what I'm trying to say is that due to the fragmentation of the social media landscape. A lot of people with our sim with a job similar to ours, to me and you right now, that only look for opinions in a certain social media space That's colored their opinion to think that Apple is done, no more indie developers for them. There's no longer a developer ecosystem. Everybody hates Apple. And I'm telling you that it's not like that. I'm I I think.

That we are now in this moment in time where, and I think I also see this with the Max Stories audience. This is something that I that I talked about with John in private a few days ago. I think we are. Shedding a lot of the previous pundits, developers, influencers, whatever you want to call them. But there is a new generation. There is a new generation of builders, of commentators.

of creators on YouTube and TikTok and Instagram. There's a new generation of vibe coders. There's a new generation of AI programmers. They're just not posting in the space where we're all hanging out, which is Mastodon and Blue Sky. But I think the moment all this to say if Apple comes up with a really cohesive and practical and interesting and powerful AI strategy, I think we will see that changing of the guard when it comes to new developers.

New Voices New commentators, new creators, I think it's gonna happen. And so far those people are there and they're using Apple devices, they're using Apple computers, right? But they're all relying on OpenAI or Anthropic, right? All those people are getting their work done and therefore are commenting on or are creating software for Those companies. And I think that's what Apple has been missing out on for the past few years. That new generation exists.

But they're on threads too, by the way. They're on threads, yes. I agree. Like I I often talk about a lot of like weird and or negative design takes that I see on threads, which I do, but I also see lots of people who are really plugged in and care a lot and I get a lot of like stuff in my threads algorithm and timelines that are people building new and interesting apps.

So like there's just like with really like bold design and stuff like that. There's um there's a podcast app. I think it's called Q. Is the name of it? I think I've seen this. And I I've I mean I've seen it around in a few places now. Um but I saw this app Just on threads. And like it is an example of an app which doesn't look or act like really any podcast app that you've seen before, but is really nice looking and is doing some really interesting stuff.

Uh yeah, I mean look at this. Club Mac Stories. Unlike any podcast app I've tested on iOS. That is on their on their uh page. I don't know, it just says Club Mac Stories as the uh as the name. Okay. I I don't know who said it. It doesn't say but they do have app stories in their screenshots, so you know, th th they're they're they're a fan. Um but that you know, this is like an an a like an app by a I'm assuming newer developer who just doing things very differently. And so like

These places exist. I mean, uh for me, I I absolutely see what you're saying. I get what you're saying. I think that. I am in a place in my life where I am paying less attention to social media takes than I ever have before. Like I think I am just trying to develop more of my own opinions about things. Where I think in the past I have been, like many of us, susceptible to more external input.

And I'm not saying like one is right or the other. I just like I'm I'm d a little bit tired of social media in general. And so like I'm trying to think more and spend more time reading and trying to find things that are a little bit more objective and less like takey. That's difficult. Um but that's kind of where I am. But I still see it. I just don't use social media as much as I used to. Um Which it's not uh

I'm not saying anyone should live any particular way. I just I'm just drawn to it less and less over time. Um

But yeah. I so the the people that you're seeing, this the the the newer generation of builders, do you think that they're going to want to build on Apple's platforms? I think so. I think so. I I think s I think they I I think there's still Very much a preference for Apple hardware. Um there's still the idea that you can make money. uh from the Apple App Store compared to the Google Play Store. Uh a lot of these folks are building for the web, obviously, right? That's what made me ask. Like I

I think it would uh my assumption would be if you're building in AI, you're building for the web. And so then if you're gonna start building in the App Store, Apple's gonna get their money. Yeah. Yeah. Um But I think there's still And I mean obviously like Who knows what's gonna happen with vibe coding and there's also that to consider, right? Uh th that potentially, you know, in the not so distant future potentially anybody could be just uh

uh become a quote unquote developer. Um solutions to turn your prompt into something that's on the App Store. I don't think that's here's another potential hot take. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing and in the history of of human progress, this has always happened. Um and in more recent memory, you know, it used to be Say that I wanted to start Mac Stories in 1995 instead of 2009. I would have added to no HTML.

Or the basics all the time. Or just in the early 2000s. It was just so much harder. Right. I would have had to know to how to manage a server, uh, you know, log into the server, do server admin stuff. But no, when I started in two thousand and nine, I just uh signed up for a thing on the web. It installed WordPress for me and I just started blogging a way like that. And so to to the eyes of some people,

back then, like was that uh most of them were say, oh that's not a real blog. A real blog is something that you installed, that you manage, that you you know, you know how to manage the database. And and over I guess what I'm trying to say is that over the course of time We have always abstracted technology away from creator.

in a way that has allowed more creators and different types of creators to exist. We've always democratized um technology and the act of creation. And I think that's gonna that's that's coming for mobile software. And so Who who knows what the developer ecosystem will look like two years from now? Yeah. And I'm being conservative, I think. Yeah, I I've been spending some time thinking about this too recently, and I I think that I'm

You know, and and I know that there might be a lot of people, including you, that may be like, haha, poor naive Mikey doesn't know. But like I see what people are doing with these tools, and it is fascinating. You know, people can just build apps. But I don't think. I struggle to imagine us in a a world

where this is what everybody does, right? Like, I think it would be a nerdy thing that people do, but but I struggle to imagine the vast majority of users or even a majority of users just being like, I'll just I'll ask the AI to make me an app, you know? Um and so that's one part. Like I think it will happen and there will be a lot of people that will do it, but I don't think it's going to be A lot.

portion of people. But then we get into the but the software that these people are using, who made it, right? Like the apps that are in the app store, who coded them? And I'm coming around to developers with these tools. Like I I don't I I struggle to imagine a world where at the moment where just say me, person who does not know development, can start shipping apps just because I used Clawed code. Mm-hmm. I know you have been doing this stuff.

But you you have a grasp of development more than the majority I would say of of people interested in technology. Like I know you are not like a developer, but you are you have built knowledge, right? To understand I'm technical enough. Yeah, you and you are technical in that way, which I'm not. Like Yeah. No no no, I get it. I'm an advanced user, I am not a developer. But I will tell you that even two years ago, this conversation would have been impossible. Yeah.

And now we're saying, yeah, you can do it, but like it's accelerating. But it you know I I think of it more of like a What Photoshop does for design, you know, or like what computers have done for all jobs. Mm-hmm. Right? Where it's like it's not like we don't have accountants anymore, right? Yeah. But accountants can be much more productive than they were before because now they have instead of trying to do everything by hand on paper, they use Excel.

And there are other skills that accountants can learn to more round out their role to be more useful to their customers. And like I think we may start moving more towards that where it's like the role of a developer. S let's let's just focus on indie developers, right? The role of an indie developer is can you create a good idea? that you can craft with the LM to make a good product. As opposed to can you write every line of code?

Yeah. But I don't know. Maybe I'm being too optimistic. But that is just that's where it's more like I think about other roles and jobs that computers have morphed. And I think we may just be moving more towards that. I don't know. I think I think I I saw somebody say this a a a a while back that all of these new technologies are Both raising the floor for a lot of people, but also

drastically raising the ceiling still for the really highly skilled individuals. Yeah. So that anybody can get started and produce something at the base level, but also they're giving the experienced folk. much, much higher level tasks to be able to perform. Like right. They're not sponsored this episode. Let's just I just want Squarespace, right? Yeah. Squarespace lets me build a website. Yeah. I still have people build me websites.

Because I need things that are more complicated than what I can do on Squarespace. So it's like I use both of these things. Now maybe there are less web developers now than there used to be. Maybe. Or maybe like website builders.

But I don't know if that's the case. And I also know there are people who have whole careers building Squarespace websites like That's what they do because people want still want help to build it and customize it, but then like the tools in the back end'cause it's easy for them to publish and make any changes. But they want someone to just do the other part for them. So they'll they'll just do that. Right. So like there are these tools that they clearly change.

The status quo, but it doesn't remove the job, it adapts the job. I don't know. Wow, we went went into a place. What we were talking about? Oh yes, the vibes. Yeah, the vibes of 2026. But I actually think that that fits in pretty nicely because I I think something's gonna happen this year.

when it cu when it comes to comes to coding and and but and not'cause it really feels like like uh the moment, like today, in January twenty twenty six, claw lots of people are getting very excited about Claude. And I'm I can absolutely see a world where where anthropic, they they move more towards that than anything else. Yeah. Look, I think Right now, a lot of us are maybe upset, maybe excited. There's a spectrum of feelings about AI and what's happening.

I feel and I think Something that we can all agree upon is I think we're all confused. Right now. We're all just no matter where you look, even the most positive person about AI and the most negative person about AI, we're all just confused because we don't know what's happening. And these things are changing so quickly. So we can all agree upon the fact that we are confused.

right now because it's it's happening everything is changing from under our feet so quickly and it's creating new possibilities and it's displacing people, displacing jobs but also creating new ones potentially. Lots of people were lying as well. adds to the confusion. There's a lot of lies. Right. Yes, yeah. A lot of a lot a lot of hype. A lot of snake oil. Yes. Yeah. Yep. Yep. We're all confused, man. That's the truth. Yeah.

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You wrote one of the classic big Federico articles uh c like a couple of days ago where it's not like it's not a review, but it's like you've got a bunch of stuff to say about something that you're using. Yes. And it is essentially A piece of open source software that I assume you install on your Mac that then allows you to talk to From you're using Telegram. This is called Claud Bot. And then it essentially executes AI scripts and stuff like that on your Mac to do things.

It's uh open source made by Peter Steinberger. Uh uh folks who've been listening to Connected uh in the Apple community, you rem you may remember Peter from from um their previous life at this point. Um used to be the founder of uh PS PDF kit. Okay. Makers of PDF Viewer. Yeah. Uh later the company was acquired, I believe. I think they're I think they're also just called Kit now? Kit just kit? Okay, interesting. That's it. Um Anyway, uh so here's the idea. It's um it's a like a uh do-it-yourself.

Um personal assistant power by AI. That's the short part of the Nutrient. I don't know why they would be called that. I got them mixed up with another company. Interesting. Okay. I don't know, man. Okay. Sure. Um, so the idea is that you can talk to an assistant powered by an LLM. You get to choose which model provider you want to use.

Um, and you get to choose the messaging app of your choice to talk to it. I believe they're working on a native app experience for iOS and the Mac. But right now you choose one of the existing messaging apps. And they have these uh they're called gateway connectors for telegram, WhatsApp, iMessage even, um, signal, Discord, Slack, all the messaging service.

So and you may say, well, what's the big deal? Like how is it different from ChatGPT or cloud? The difference here is that it's running on your computer and it's uh because of that, given the right uh permission authorization. Uh in fact today a new version of it came out with a a uh permission system similar to the to the to the one seen in shortcuts where you can allow, always allow commands, stuff like that. But because it's running on your computer, it gets access

to your computer. And that means that it can work with all of your documents, all of your files, can work with your entire file system, and it can uh run terminal commands. And it can basically improve itself. If a feature that you want doesn't exist, you can just ask uh CloudBot to give itself a feature that it doesn't have by default. How does it do that?

First of all, it's gonna look into the community made skills and integrations. Uh huh. Um uh Peter himself uh creates so many open source projects on GitHub. uh stuff like integration with Google, integration with Sonos speakers, with Spotify, with you name it. Peter is an extremely prolific open source contributor and program.

But then if it doesn't find anything popular that already exists, or if it doesn't find anything in the community hub, it'll just say, well, if you want, I can write my own feature for that.

And I'll give you an example. Um, a few days ago, I was using CloudBot and I wanted to be able to control my uh Philips U light. And I'll say, can you do that? And he said, Well, okay, yeah, there's an open source thing that I can install and I I'm just gonna download it now, I will enable it, and all I'm gonna ask you he literally said this like I'm gonna ask you to uh Cloudbot has a bit of a funny personality

Uh that's part of the system prompt that Peter gave it. It said I I want you to get off your couch and go press the button on your Philips Hue bridge. And when you do that, I will enable the integration. And I was like, wait, am I really talking to an AI that says these things? And I did. I pressed a button, and two seconds later, it started controlling my. Do you not ever get scared?

Yes. Absolutely. Yes. It's just like you just it's just all your lights are just red and you can never turn them off. But that then the same day I was like, okay, that's that's interesting. I wonder how far I can push it. So I wanna you know, uh I've been using cloud code obviously a bunch, and I've also been using Codex, which is the cloud code by OpenAI, essentially, same terminal.

thing but made by OpenAI. And turns out that those two Services, they're not apps, but they save their conversations, the the the conversation that you have with them locally on your file system. The problem is that they save a complete log of their conversation in JSON documents. Those are unreadable. Like if you open them up and you preview them with Quick Look or something, it's just a a wall of text. Thousands and thousands of plain text characters.

And so I was like, okay, I wonder if I can build a little app for me that gives me a nice messaging like UI to let me read my previous sessions. And so I talked to Cloudbot and was like, hey, uh, I know that this open source thing exists for parsing those logs. Can you take that and modify it for me so that it's got a liquid glass design and it supports codecs in addition to cloud code and has some features that the open source thing doesn't have?

Like, can you use that as a starting point and then modify it for me? I was like, sure, let me take a look. And so that so that's the benefit of of having this thing run on your computer. It downloads things from the web, takes a look at the code, comes back to you and says, Yeah, uh, I think I can use it as a starting point, and then um If you give me access to your file system, I'm gonna look go look into those sessions, see what the file format is like. And I said, Yeah.

And so it went there and it looked and basically ten minutes later and I'm staring at it right now in Google Chrome, it built a web app that is basically like a a fancy um little JavaScript uh based web page. That runs on my local network and that has two tabs for Claude and Codecs and lets me open one. And I can take a look at the entire conversation. My messages are blue. The assistant messages are purple.

And I see the entire flow of the conversation presented as if it was, I don't know, like a Slack thread, a much more readable UI. I see every single bit of code, every single tool call uh in a UI that makes sense. This thing didn't exist. And then it did! Um and for example, uh you know, I can take a look at this conversation and then I said, Oh, this is great, but these conversations are too long. Can you create an integration with Google Gemini?

So that I can summarize an entire session with Cloud Code using Google Gemini as the summarizer. And it was like, yeah, sure, do this. Go in the macOS keychain and save securely your uh Google Gemini uh API key. And once you did that, come back to me and say that you did it and I will and I will start using Gemini.

Five minutes later, it built a Gemini integration so that it can take a look at a session and summarize it for me. And then I was like, ah, this is nice. But I kind of wonder if you can create a table of content. for it so that I can jump to a specific point of the conversation. Like all this back and forth. Basically created the thing I wanted. In thirty minutes, right? On my computer.

Um and I can give you like I can have but I won't because otherwise it's gonna be a long monologue. I have built, I don't know, uh Ten, fifteen different integrations of this kind, things that didn't exist and that Cloudbot coded itself and gave to itself to itself. Uh, which is obviously not something that you can do with Chat GPT or Claude. Sure, now you have skills and integrations, but it's limited, right?

It's not like you can go to Claude.ai right now and say, Claude, I want you to give yourself a dark theme and to speak to me with a thick British accent. Claude will say, Well That's a nice idea, but I can only do things that my developers at Anthropic give me. And this is a different type of experience with CloudBot. It It's similar in that you can use the popular models, ChatGPT, uh well, GPT, uh

uh cloud, Gemini. You can y you can run it with local AI if you have a powerful enough computer. You can run the entire thing locally with no cloud provider. Uh but because it has access to your computer and your data.

It's scary, obviously. There's tons of permission dialogues, tons of permission settings, but if you're comfortable with it, it's basically like putting a At this point, like it for me, and I'm not exaggerating, I felt for the past ten days or so that I've been playing around with this thing the same way that I felt the first time I tried Chad GPT or the first time I tried Claude and was like,

Like like your brain connected a bunch of things that you didn't think were possible before, right? This kind of power. Um, and it's open source. And it's getting so much. like contributions from people. Like if you go to the GitHub page right now, um there's about three to four hundred commits every single day. Two release so commits are like uh I don't know, uh new features. Think of it as new features. Like uh or fix it.

And then they all get packaged up in a release, right? So they're getting hundreds of commits every single day. uh packaged up in two, three releases on the same day. I don't think Peter is sleeping anymore at this point. This thing is getting really popular really fast. And rightfully so, I think. Um it's uh I don't know, it's it's uh it's eye opening, really, um, and scary at the same time. Um Uh yeah anything else you wanna know?

What are you actually doing with it? Like what is how is it useful to you? I basic okay, so I basically don't go to JPT or club by default anymore. Okay. First of all. So you're like anything you would ask a chatbot, you're just an hour opening signal and talking to your assistant. I treat it like my ever patient Never gets bored with me, never gets upset at me. Personal assistant that can do anything for me.

So you so just to confirm it, right? So you are when you send a message and signal Yeah, in telegram. Telegram, sorry, on the other side. It's going to my computer. Claude? Yes. On your computer? I I my model of preference is Claude Opus four point five. Okay. On my computer, the CloudBot program sends my request. Is your computer looking like it's doing anything? Like it is it doing stuff, or is it all just like Depending on the terminal or something.

It's all happening in a in a background terminal. So you don't even see it. Don't even see it. You can you can run it in the background in the foreground if you want, but by default it's a background terminal. You n don't see any So like you could be sitting in front of your Mac. And send in these messages and like you just wouldn't know anything's going on. You wouldn't know anything. You wouldn't know absolutely anything. Um and uh and and the other part that I think is important is that

There are many similarities between this and the. Do you remember the obsidian moment from the pandemic? Oh whenever I mean there's obviously historic the historical episode of Cortex when Gray discovered Obsidian. Yes. There are many similarities between that moment and this moment.

Yeah, I I thought it was fascinating. Like I actually did recall that kind of feeling when I was reading your article and it said like it stores a lot of stuff just in markdown like a lot of your memory stuff is just stored in text markdown folders. And I didn't wanna make the same mistake that I made six years ago. Gosh, six years ago. Uh I wanted to get in early on this. Yeah. I didn't wanna do what I did with Obsidian because I I

I think I have a pretty good sense at this point to spot these things. I was like, I need to get in this on this right now. But there are many similarities in that b uh well I don't think obsidian is open source, but it's open in the sense that it's living in your file system and it's uh like Obsidian Uh CloudBot stores all of its uh preferences and settings in markdown documents. Your memories. Um Everything is based on folders. You can go in there. Uh the the the skill architecture

is basically the plug-in architecture of Obsidian. So anybody can make a scale. Anybody can make a plugin. Um and there are many it's I think it's um it's um Uh uh it's appealing to the same kinds of people that that saw obsidian in twenty twenty and realized, oh, this is a big deal. And and those people are taking a look at CloudBot now and and are feeling the same feelings. You you you you've already got your quote on the website.

On the Claubot website. I I noticed. Yes. Clawbot show me what the future of personal AI assistance looks like. I mean this also does feel like I know you say no, not that you say I know it is open source, but this feels like it's being productized now. Like B I hope so. Um and and I think the bigger point when I say the future of personal assistance looks like

Obviously I don't think that the future of personal assistants uh means that you gotta get your hands dirty with the terminal and download a thing from GitHub Yeah,'cause I don't wanna do that, right? Like No, but the point that I make in the story is is the idea that a personal assistant should be able to do anything you want. Yeah. And should be able to give itself a capability that it doesn't have by default, just by virtue of explaining to your assistant what you want to get done and how.

That I think from my perspective is the big deal. And then everything is just icing on the cake. The fact that it's open source, that it's based on markdown files, that's nice. But the underlying idea of These models are so powerful. The GPT 5.2, Opus 4.5, Gemini 3, arguably. There's still so many limitations, right? And I think it's interesting that OpenAI especially has recognized this. Fiji Simo, the new CEO of application.

At OpenAI wrote a few months ago that they one of their goals for 2026 is to turn ChatGPT into a personal super assistant. uh to address uh you gotta love man these Silicon Valley terms, the capability overhang. You may wonder what's what's a capability overhang? I like how you can just say things. You could just say something. You can say anything.

You can say anything these days. Um, the capability overhang means these models are so powerful and yet so constrained, and we haven't even begun to tap into their true potential. That's what it means. Yeah. GPT five point four Two 5.2 is so powerful, and yet most people are bound by the Chat GPT website or app. And that doesn't feel right. You know, all that power, all this infrastructure to still have a chat bot with some integrations, that feels like a waste. Yeah.

And so that's what the capability overhang overhang. Yeah. Um do you have a capability overhang, Mike? I think I do. Uh yeah, we all do. Well my capability overhang is when looking at tools like this, where it's like I

Okay, look, it's not for you. Okay. Not right now. Not right now. That's the capability overhang. Like the capability is there, but I don't want to do the management that I know a system like this requires. Oh yeah. Ya, let me tell you man, I ended up yesterday Do you do you know what node JS is? I am familiar with the term.

I know it's a JavaScript thing, right? Yeah, I ended up with three different installations of Node on my Mac Mini and and I thought I was losing my mind because my telegram stopped working. And then I I I had to chat with Cloudbot. In the terminal, which is also something that you can do. I had to chat with Claudot in the terminal and Claudot told me like

Buddy, you have three different node installations. That's why Telegram is going crazy. And guess what? It fixed itself. Yeah, but who did the three installations is what I want. That was me by accident. I like my fault. I was gonna blame the AI. I should be blaming you. That was all me because I installed Node both see the genius here. installed node both via the package uh installer for macOS but also homebrew and and and yeah I was silly. Um anyway.

A really interesting project that is not for the faint of heart right now. Okay. Requires management right now, but I think Peter, the creator, is aware of it. And I think there is there is a version of this. two months from now, after all the Especially now that it's getting really popular, is getting bug fix requests, feature requests from h I mean just go look in the GitHub projects. There are like hundreds of requests each day. But I think a few months from now.

Once we have a a baseline set for this product. a way to productize, as you mentioned, this in a way that it's easier to install. Maybe there's an iOS app, maybe there's a Mac app, and it has all the same features. And if you want, you can get your hands dirty, but you don't have to. then it becomes really interesting, I think.

So that's been fun. To play around with. If you would like to read more. about Federico's experience with Clawbot. You can find links to that on Mac Stories, of which he is the editor in chief. Over at max stories dot net and you'll find the link to his article in the show notes for this week's episode.

Uh if you would like to leave uh feedback, follow-up questions, go to connectedfeedback.com and you can send those in. And you could also support this show by becoming a member. Go to getconnectedpro.co and you can sign up and you get longer ad-free versions of the show each and every week.

Uh if you want to find Federico as well as at maxstories.net, you can also listen to his podcast of App Stories. Uh you can listen to NPC, one of my favorite podcasts. Thank you. Did you do am I missing any other podcasts that you're on? Unwind, unwind. Of course, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. I if to me, it's all app stories.

I know. You know like it's it's just usually I'll listen to both shows one after another, so really it's just all the same show. I also have a theory that you record them at the same time anyway. Um but maybe Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. Uh I like when um w w when I believe that uh John just cuts in you saying goodbye, John. From another episode. Sometimes I think that happens on app stories, but I have no way of proving it.

Not as frequently anymore. Not as frequently. Aha. Okay. So I know it does happen. I'll keep my ear out for it. Uh you can hear me on many shows here at Relay. You can check out my work at Cortex Brand and the Enthusiast.net. Uh don't forget to go and hound Steven uh and wish him a happy birthday uh on the twenty eighth. And hopefully his voice will have recovered and he'll be back.

uh next week. Scary, right? The thought of having vocal problems doing what we do. Not not great. Not like a not a great thought. Um so let's all wish that he uh recovers quickly and comes back to the show. Uh, thanks so much to our sponsors for this week's episode, the fine folk over at Century and Ecamm. But most of all, thank you for listening. We'll be back next time. Until then, say goodbye, Federica. Adio there you. Cheerio.