[SPEAKER_00]: a factual data creation facility production. [SPEAKER_00]: recorded live, and I can vouch for that. [SPEAKER_00]: In a room located within a house nestled amongst the Appalachian mountains of the great state of Tennessee, it's the O-F-N-T podcast. [SPEAKER_00]: Here's your host, who's rapidly losing faith in his fellow man. [SPEAKER_00]: And woman for that matter, Jim Schaefer. [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the OFNT podcast episode 293, which I'm calling, the Conjecture Reporting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Want a news being reported these days, especially tech news? [SPEAKER_01]: Here's me based on rumors and or false information, and I'm starting to become fed up with the whole situation. [SPEAKER_01]: Anyhow, that was your Halloween. [SPEAKER_01]: We had a record number of trick-and-treaters this year, and ran out of candy pretty darn quick. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, fall is settling in. [SPEAKER_01]: Autumn. [SPEAKER_01]: Meaning, Thanksgiving is soon to follow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, I have an idea. [SPEAKER_01]: Let's start this episode right now. [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's time. [SPEAKER_02]: Three, two, one. [SPEAKER_01]: Tech News. [SPEAKER_01]: Last week, so a multiple reports claiming that Apple's iPhone air sales numbers were far below expectations. [SPEAKER_01]: I reported these stories on this very podcast. [SPEAKER_01]: You must be proud of yourself. [SPEAKER_01]: Well this week we have the following headline from appleinsider.com.
[SPEAKER_01]: Quote. [SPEAKER_01]: iPhone air production cut orders may not be true, unquote. [SPEAKER_01]: the article quotes supply chain analyst firm TD Cowan is saying quote field work has led the firm to maintain unchanged forecast for the iPhone air which is 3 million units for the third quarter of 2025 and 7 million for the fourth quarter. [SPEAKER_01]: Overall, the firm believes Apple will eventually build between 54 to 70 million iPhone hares.
[SPEAKER_00]: I must say, no matter how you look at this, that's a lot of iPhone's being produced. [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, this estimate, more of a guesstimate, if you ask me, is all here say. [SPEAKER_01]: At least until some sort of official numbers directly from Apple are released, which would help confirm these reports. [SPEAKER_01]: Heck. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure if Apple actually does release those types of numbers.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what does this supposed to field work that TD Cowland's claims have done to arrive at these figures actually in tail? [SPEAKER_01]: As the firm seen verified detailed manufacturing reports, [SPEAKER_01]: Or did they hire some poor schmuck who worked for a foxcon? [SPEAKER_01]: Who manufacture iPhones for Apple to count each and every iPhone air being produced? [SPEAKER_01]: Now come on. [SPEAKER_01]: I just.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to say here is that 99% of Apple news being reported these days is nothing but conjecture. [SPEAKER_01]: Unless you have an inside source, there's no way to know what Apple is or isn't doing. [SPEAKER_01]: And bonafide or is it bonafidi inside sources? [SPEAKER_01]: Don't last very long before Apple's internal security ferrets them out. [SPEAKER_01]: The real deal reporting comes on the eve of the products release, who what's called controlled leaks.
[SPEAKER_01]: So take these stories with a grain of salt and consider them to be what I consider them to be. [SPEAKER_01]: Page filler until there's real news to report on. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I should have become a tech journalist. [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like I could fill up pages with nonsense reporting as well as anybody. [SPEAKER_00]: Like voiceover acting, my AI friends and I already have that covered.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are unchallenged in our ability to cram pages full of non-sensical words on any subject imagined. [SPEAKER_00]: I dare you to find a human as capable as we are at doing this. [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. [SPEAKER_01]: How about high-level government officials and politicians? [SPEAKER_00]: Ah, you have me there.
[SPEAKER_01]: If an article which appeared on Apple Insider.com is to be believed in, in this case I believe it should be, Apple is busy replacing the LED screens on its devices with OLED screens. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, both of its devices. [SPEAKER_01]: According to the article, the iPad Mini will go OLED in 2026, while the iPad Air will [SPEAKER_01]: plate to the party will be the MacBook Air, which is projected to be getting an OLED screen in 2028.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometime next year, the MacBook Pro is predicted to be Apple's first MacBook with an OLED screen. [SPEAKER_01]: This upgrade will arrive alongside a complete redesign of that model. [SPEAKER_01]: What's not getting an OLED screen? [SPEAKER_01]: Well, for now at least, is to base model iPad. [SPEAKER_01]: If and when that model does get such a display technology, it'll be around 2030, and that's my guess not the articles.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me add that this switch to OLED display exclusivity will lead to increased pricing. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's to be expected. [SPEAKER_01]: It is Apple we're talking about here. [SPEAKER_01]: As far as iPads go, the base model is the best deal for most people. [SPEAKER_01]: Though I myself use an M4-chipped 13-inch iPad Pro with an OLED display, I could have been just fine with a 13-inch M3-chipped iPad Air, even with that model's older LED screen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just decided to spoil myself with the iPad Pro. [SPEAKER_01]: If the base model iPad had a 12 or 13-inch screen size option, I would have been just fine with this LED display. [SPEAKER_01]: While every wife uses a base model iPad and loves it, remember when I had my 11-inch M2 iPad Pro, and while comparing it to my wife's base iPad, thought that to display on it was comparable to the one on my Pro model.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not so when comparing my 13-inch Pro's OLED display though, there's just no comparison to be had between those screens. [SPEAKER_01]: While back, I reported that Apple was set to introduce a new subscription service called Apple Health Plus. [SPEAKER_00]: Right, I remember that. [SPEAKER_00]: Supposedly, it will feature an AI doctor within it. [SPEAKER_00]: Correct? [SPEAKER_01]: Well, Samsung has taken it up a notch.
[SPEAKER_01]: Samsung Health will allow you to set a virtual appointments with real human doctors directly from your phone. [SPEAKER_01]: Virtual refers to video chat appointments, of course. [SPEAKER_01]: And this is available without a subscription. [SPEAKER_01]: Now I'm sure your health insurance would have to be accepted by the doctor you set your virtual appointment with. [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know about you, but if I, for some reason, couldn't make it into my doctor's office.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd rather do a virtual appointment than have some machine-generated doctor trying to diagnose me. [SPEAKER_01]: This new service is the result of Samsung's recently announced partnership with Health Tap, a US-based virtual health provider. [SPEAKER_01]: I predicted Apple Health Plus will also add a virtual Dr. appointment system, especially after this Samsung announcement.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unlike to address an article which appeared on Android Authority.com last week, the headline read, the U.S. is searching the phones of more travelers than ever right now, on quote. [SPEAKER_01]: The article stays that customs and border protection is performing, quote, warrantless searches of phones, which has increased some 18% this year.
[SPEAKER_01]: The author also goes on to state that, quote, nobody has any business seeing what's on your phone without a judge signing off on a legitimate warrant. [SPEAKER_01]: Wrong. [SPEAKER_00]: Um, two spouses around the world know of this rule. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm asking for a friend. [SPEAKER_01]: I love how everybody seems to be a constitutional lawyer these days.
[SPEAKER_01]: I work for first the U.S. [SPEAKER_01]: Custom Service and then Customs and Border Protection for nearly 30 years. [SPEAKER_01]: So I feel I am qualified to set this misleading article straight. [SPEAKER_01]: First of all, it's not like a CBP of a service just going to randomly pick you out of a crowd and say, [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't happen that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: What usually happens is that the person who's phone is going to be searched is either already on some kind of lookout list or the officer suspects the person of something or has already found something illegal. [SPEAKER_01]: Secondly, when attempting to enter the United States citizen or not, you don't have any rights, constitutional or other. [SPEAKER_01]: Until you are officially admitted to the United States, and that includes the Fourth Amendment search in seizure rights.
[SPEAKER_01]: No art is required. [SPEAKER_01]: Just mere suspicion. [SPEAKER_01]: This has already been through the courts I might add. [SPEAKER_01]: This means that while you can't refuse to be searched, you can also be refused entry into the United States. [SPEAKER_01]: If you follow the advice given in this article, let's just say that you're not going to enjoy this part of your travel itinerary.
[SPEAKER_01]: I load the politically charged articles such as this one, and they have no business being on a tech site. [SPEAKER_01]: Besides, the information given is both a false and misleading. [SPEAKER_01]: I'll wrap up this week's Sparse Tech News section with a story from 95Google.com. [SPEAKER_01]: If you were actually listening to this Asari excuse for a podcast last week, you might recall me going on about the insertion of advertisements everywhere they can be inserted into these days.
[SPEAKER_01]: You might even recall me saying that I had seen reports of an actual video of, adds appearing on the home screens of Huawei and other Chinese manufacturers phones. [SPEAKER_01]: sold in their home markets. [SPEAKER_01]: Since the last episode, I've learned of Samsung starting to have ads displayed on the screens of the company's smart refrigerators. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's something the old Fort household will never have to worry about.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because these smart refrigerators cost thousands of dollars. [SPEAKER_01]: And though I love me some tech, I could never justify spending that much of my now fixed income on such a product. [SPEAKER_01]: The article I'm referencing here concerns a newly released Nothing Phone 3A Light Lock Screen. [SPEAKER_01]: Now I'm a fan of Carl Pay and his nothing company, but I certainly didn't expect that nothing would have ads on their devices, but here we are.
[SPEAKER_01]: According to the article, the 3A lights lock screen features something called lock glimps. [SPEAKER_01]: What lock glimps does is deliver a rotating selection of wallpapers on the lock screen of the 3A light. [SPEAKER_01]: Sounds like a cool feature, doesn't it? [SPEAKER_01]: These rotating wallpapers also have clickable links. [SPEAKER_01]: And if you happen to click on one of them, an article describing the image of the wallpaper pops up, along with, oh, let me guess, adverts.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good guess. [SPEAKER_01]: Of course those edge drive revenue for both nothing and the clickbait farm website that created the article. [SPEAKER_01]: In this case, the clickbait farm is called Villky. [SPEAKER_01]: And thanks to the diligent research of the article's author, we know that outside of these articles, Villky has no public-facing presence, seems a bit sketchy, doesn't it? [SPEAKER_01]: Little bit, little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: The author also found out that the mysterious Villky has the ability to capture device info. [SPEAKER_01]: But nothing says no personal data shared while using long glimpses. [SPEAKER_01]: While the user does have to initiate these ads by clicking on a link, it's still something I surely don't want residing on my locked screen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm surprised and up in coming company like nothing would resort to something like this, but I guess when it comes down to it, revenue is revenue. [SPEAKER_01]: The article concludes by stating that it's not the first time nothing has partnered with a company that could be described as sketchy. [SPEAKER_01]: We'll see how long it takes before the giant fruit company resorts to doing things such as this. [SPEAKER_01]: On that day, I'll start keeping my phone in a desk draw.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just like John C. Duvorak, co-host of the No Agenda podcast does. [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think that fella's onto something. [SPEAKER_01]: Taka I'm using. [SPEAKER_01]: No new tech to speak of this week. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm still experiencing problems with my ororing. [SPEAKER_01]: Because of those problems, I've decided to start wearing my Apple Watch while sleeping. [SPEAKER_01]: The sleep tracking is still better with the aura, but I have to say the apple is pretty darn good too.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I was younger, and we were talking about many, many moons ago. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes, a long time ago. [SPEAKER_01]: I would always wear a watch while sleeping. [SPEAKER_01]: This habit was formed while I was serving in the military. [SPEAKER_01]: After retiring from the military, I found wearing a watch wall and sleeping became uncomfortable for me. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm talking metal crafted mechanical watches here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd lost my trust in quartz powered watches because of the unpredictability of when the watch battery would conquer out. [SPEAKER_01]: Luckily, I had a backup Saco mechanical dress type watch. [SPEAKER_01]: Which I wore until being able to purchase another Asiko mechanical divers type watch during a side trip to Jeddah towards the end of the conflict. [SPEAKER_00]: If I may ask, why didn't you just get the battery replaced on the quartz watch?
[SPEAKER_00]: You would have saved some money. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, there were two reasons I didn't do that. [SPEAKER_01]: By the time I got to Jetta to buy the mechanical divers watch, the quartz watch whose battery had died, had disappeared. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm guessing I lost that watch sometime while we moved west, gearing up for the land invasion of Kuwaitan, Iraq.
[SPEAKER_01]: The sake of divers watch also provided better legibility in the dark than the dress watch, and also the quartz watch, which I needed because that's when my unit was most active. [SPEAKER_01]: Let's get back on point, shall we? [SPEAKER_01]: Alright fine. [SPEAKER_01]: Compared to those mechanical watches, the Apple Watch was hardly noticeable on my wrist while I slept. [SPEAKER_01]: So for now I'll be wearing both my ordering and Apple Watch while sleeping.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Apple Watch needs seven straight days of wear while sleeping in order to deliver accurate health measurements. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm currently on day six. [SPEAKER_01]: Entertainment News, the old far-thousehold has been watching the baseball world series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays, who were you rooting for. [SPEAKER_01]: Neither team. [SPEAKER_01]: I wish it was a way for both who have lost.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my, if it's way more into the world series than I am these days. [SPEAKER_01]: To be sure, there was some great baseball played, but I made New York Yankees fan and I saved my hard core rooting for them. [SPEAKER_01]: If the Yankees aren't in contention, I usually root for the underdog.
[SPEAKER_01]: In this case, that would have been the Blue Jays, but with all the crap that Canadians were posting on the Internet, making this series a USA versus Canada thing, made it hard for me to support them. [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, how many born and bred Canadians and U.S. players as each team actually have? [SPEAKER_01]: I'd bet that the Dodgers would have more U.S. born players in Toronto has Canadian born players.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just saying, now that the world series has concluded, I intend to get back to watching the full television series that I've been putting on hold. [SPEAKER_01]: I'll start watching some right away, but my wife will be visiting her home country, come January. [SPEAKER_01]: So I'll save some of these shows until then. [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, by the way, the Los Angeles Dodgers won the World Series. [SPEAKER_01]: The LA Dodgers were originally from Brooklyn as in New York.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess there's a win somewhere in there for my home state. [SPEAKER_01]: There's still many Dodger fans in New York thanks to the team's legacy. [SPEAKER_01]: I used to report a lot on the doings of podcasting incorporated in this section. [SPEAKER_01]: I defined podcasting incorporated as big money entities that have risen from the ashes of mainstream media. [SPEAKER_01]: The thinking behind this development is that podcasting is, or was the next big thing?
[SPEAKER_01]: This accelerated during the COVID-era lockdowns that we all knew and loved. [SPEAKER_02]: No, no. [SPEAKER_01]: During those darken, desperate times, celebrities suddenly found they were unable to draw attention to themselves, so they launched podcasts. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, of course, celebrities couldn't do this on their own.
[SPEAKER_01]: So to a partner with their buddies in the industry, who are more than happy to invest in their famous friends' newfound passion, [SPEAKER_01]: Before you knew it, the major media players were snapping up these podcasts for big bugs. [SPEAKER_01]: But they didn't stop there. [SPEAKER_01]: Formally independent podcasts studios were brought up for outlandish amounts of capital. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm looking at you spotify.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when the, once giant money tied started receding, these ones create independent podcasts studios were disbanded. [SPEAKER_01]: Parkass podcast studio is one of many that come to mind. [SPEAKER_01]: That was a big fan of a lot of the shows, parkass produced. [SPEAKER_01]: And when you know it, after Spotify bought parkass, every one of those shows were discontinued.
[SPEAKER_01]: This sudden injection of capital into the podcast space served as a wrecking ball for independent podcasts and their shows and independent podcasting has never recovered. [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I used to pull indecent numbers for this and other podcasts I produced over the years, but those days are long gone. [SPEAKER_01]: I never intended to make a living from podcasting, but didn't want to make enough to at least upgrade my equipment.
[SPEAKER_01]: In my early days of podcasting, I was able to do this, and that was thanks to the generous donations of my listeners, but that's all dried up now. [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I know, boo-hoo, what was me? [SPEAKER_01]: While the money injected into podcasting by podcasting incorporated is still huge, the quality of the shows have actually gone down. [SPEAKER_01]: It's hard to find good podcasts these days, but thank goodness for the UK and Australia.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are some good drama-type podcasts coming out of those countries. [SPEAKER_01]: My two favorites being haunted the audio drama, which is out of the UK, and the Beyond Dark series of shows produced out of Australia. [SPEAKER_01]: During the lockdowns, there were a bit of drama-type podcasts coming out of New York City, but those all cease production when things returned to normal, and the folks behind those shows went back to their real jobs.
[SPEAKER_01]: City of Goose was one of my favorite specterino's horrible times. [SPEAKER_01]: I discovered all of the shows I just mentioned through the now-defunked Apollo podcast listening app. [SPEAKER_01]: The app specializes in carrying out independent drama and fiction podcasts and gave a percentage of the app's subscription price to the creators. [SPEAKER_01]: Well Apollo went dark some time in 2024 due to low subscription numbers.
[SPEAKER_01]: I must confess that I used the free tier of the app and mainly for discovery. [SPEAKER_01]: The subscription price was just too high for me to justify skin flint. [SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, almost not lost yet for independent podcasting. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, in regards to audio dramas. [SPEAKER_01]: Fable and Folly is a networked kidders to this genre, and one created within Fable and [SPEAKER_01]: Maltopia has a stable of horror theme podcast which I do enjoy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Two of my current favorites are the gentleman from hell and the sleep wake cycle. [SPEAKER_01]: Independent podcast and podcast networks such as these give me hope that we've started turning the tide back towards what podcasting was and what it was created to be. [SPEAKER_01]: And as a place where common folk could produce uncommonly great audio content. [SPEAKER_01]: I'm ignoring this big, pushed towards video podcasting that's going on right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is just old media attempting to gain back control of the audience they have lost and continued to lose. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that derge went from a rant to nostalgia and then back to a rant again, didn't it? [SPEAKER_01]: Besides, say pushed towards video podcasting, AI is rearing it in this case ugly head.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've previously reported about a company called Inception Point, [SPEAKER_01]: which is putting out hundreds of AI-produced podcasts per week on a bevy of subjects. [SPEAKER_01]: Wow! [SPEAKER_01]: All done with a small number of employees. [SPEAKER_01]: The game here is that the ad revenue generated by this so-called AI Slop will be more than the cost of producing the podcast episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: An article from podnews.net tells a story of a professor at New York University who teaches a course called the Business of Podcasting, who decided to survey students after they had listened to some of these inception point podcasts. [SPEAKER_01]: The participants were asked to rate these shows between one and five, with one being the lowest score in five being the highest.
[SPEAKER_01]: As you can imagine, this experiment didn't turn out too well for inception point stable of shows. [SPEAKER_01]: The average score was 2.3. [SPEAKER_01]: Surprisingly, AI podcasts that were instructional with titles like How to Train Your Dog, or The Science Behind Strength, did fairly well in comparison to other genres. [SPEAKER_01]: That's because listeners weren't expecting personality-driven conversations with instruction type shows. [SPEAKER_01]: They just wanted information.
[SPEAKER_01]: listeners could often tell that what they were listening to was not normal human conversations, finding them flat and oddly emotionalists. [SPEAKER_01]: When press, listeners stated that they listen to podcasts for the voices, quirks, laughter, and even tangents at real human hosted shows provide. [SPEAKER_01]: My take from this is that AI-generating podcasts have found an ease.
[SPEAKER_01]: Informational topics are more accepted by listeners, well, topical discussions are better presented by humans. [SPEAKER_00]: As a technology improves, that may change in the future, I have it on good authority that technology will, in fact, improve, and things most certainly will change. [SPEAKER_01]: Well, there you have it. [SPEAKER_01]: You've heard it directly from the Horses Mouth.
[SPEAKER_01]: Continuing with the trend of podcast migrating to free-ed supported television channels, but are known as fast-channels. [SPEAKER_01]: Brain.com reports that Fox Corporation owned a 2B has paid $150 million to podcast studio audio chuck for the rights to carry the podcast crime junkie on 2B. [SPEAKER_01]: The deal will also include all other podcasts produced by audio chuck, but crime junkies probably only show you might have heard of.
[SPEAKER_01]: It currently sits at number two of the top 50 podcasts in the country. [SPEAKER_01]: This follows a deal that will allow Spotify original podcast to err on Netflix. [SPEAKER_01]: Now, you know why there's this big push for podcasts to become video and not just audio. [SPEAKER_01]: There's money to be made by podcasting and corporate don't channel. [SPEAKER_01]: I wonder how much the host of these podcasts will be getting in compensation if I were to guess zero.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately I'm with you there. [SPEAKER_01]: True crime is the largest genre within podcasting. [SPEAKER_01]: Who could have known this 10 years ago? [SPEAKER_01]: The first true crime podcasts, or usually two women drinking wine, while reading Wikipedia pages verbatim. [SPEAKER_01]: Man, I'm Mr. Boat on this one. [SPEAKER_01]: The music is playing as the episode to the fakes into the chilly autumn evening here in the [SPEAKER_01]: Help you enjoy this episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: I enjoyed making it for you. [SPEAKER_01]: Feel like we heard well you can always make it donation using the link in the show notes. [SPEAKER_01]: And in all donations will be greatly appreciated. [SPEAKER_01]: You can always reach me at ofntpodcast at gmail.com If you're so inclined, I'd enjoy hearing from you really well. [SPEAKER_01]: Remember, don't listen to what they say, watch what they do.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure you're a stuffed from all the Halloween candy you've stolen from your children, so get off my lawn! [SPEAKER_01]: Stay skeptical. [SPEAKER_01]: Ahhhh, I'm out. [SPEAKER_01]: See you! [SPEAKER_00]: And that folks is the end of the show!