2025 Tech Predictions: Will Apple Finally Make Siri Good? OpenAI Bubble, and CES Preview!

My father worked in profanity the way other artists might work in oils or clay. Welcome to Primary Technology, the show about the tech news that matters. It's the first show of the year. It's 2025, and Apple talking about voice control in a magic mouse. Plus, they missed their 2024 next gen car play deadline.

It's good we made it a whole year. I have to quit now. This is it.

No. No. No. No. There's we're in our next I actually have to create a new folder in my, finder for 2025. Yeah. It's amazing. We're done. That's that's always like

We did it.

The the market we did it. That's my mark of, like, the next year is when I create the 2025 folders or whatever the next year is. You know, it's like

Yeah.

Do you do that? Do you arrange by years in some of your folders?

Nope. Not at well, I can't think of a single thing except for taxes. That's it. Just taxes. And that'll be 2024, not 2025. So

I use years because, like, I have a folder for every episode where I have, like, the episode artwork, the thumbnail, and so there's a bunch of things that I save for no reason. I'm a digital hoarder, I guess. But I'd instead of having a folder with hundreds of folders, I'd I'd designate by year. So that that's fine.

See, that just creates an extra layer you have to click through to get to what you're looking for.

I love it. It's organization just scratches my brain and I just like

But are the folders inside per episode labeled by date or by episode number?

Episode number.

Yeah. Then that's pointless.

Okay. Listen, we didn't need to start the year off like this, Jason. Okay? Listen, what was the quote from I'm

done with Happball. Ralphie. It was Ralphie.

It was Ralphie from a Christmas story. I just wanna say My

least favorite Christmas movie.

Listen. We watched the Christmas story. I think it was the first time I watched it all the way through. I know we're past Christmas, but it's we haven't recorded since before Christmas. We have a weird time gap here, and we watched I have watched for the first time, I think, front to back with a bunch of family, and it was kind of fun, like, in that group setting, because there are lots of things to laugh at or whatever, but my question is, have you seen the sequel to A Christmas Story?

We have seen both sequels.

Wait. There's another sequel?

This Christmas Story, basically, it's called Christmas Story Christmas or

Yeah. A Christmas Story Christmas. He Where He's Grown Up. Yes.

That's the third one.

That's a third one.

Yeah. There's actually a second one in between the 2. Yeah.

Oh, I didn't know. Okay. Well, apparently, Apple TV doesn't think you should be recommended that second one because at the end of A Christmas Story, it just showed the 2022 A Christmas Story Christmas, which is Ralphie grown up. And so we actually watched it because we were, like, let's see if it's good. I I'm gonna say I actually liked

it.

I'm just saying. It was alright. Have you seen it?

Yeah. We've seen both of the sequels because we are

Alright.

Fully into it. But I guess there's actually apparently, there's another sequel called My Summer Story, which I don't actually know what that means, but what can I

do to say is

that something?

So I don't acknowledge any of these things.

That's not canon is what you're saying?

It's like Home Alone 34, non canonical.

I mean Not not only that, they're just bad movies.

Exact exactly. Exactly. But, Jason, it's crazy. It's 2025. I think we're in the future. Is this the future now? Right? Are we finally in it? This is the future?

I mean, every single breath you take is in the future.

You just blew my mind. I think the I think the episode's over right now. That's that's it. Wait a minute. I can't think about that. No. But, like, when I feel like movies back in, like, the eighties nineties listen, we don't typically do as much small talk at the beginning, but it's the first one of the year. K?

You know what

I mean?

And we haven't talked in, like, 10 days. I

was gonna make the joke. We haven't talked since last year.

I'm sorry. I I was a little bit more directed.

I feel like when you watch movies when you were well, at least when we were kids, like, in the nineties, early 2000s, like, you would see years like 2025, 2035. It was always, like, that's the future. It's so far out. Now it's, like, oh, here we are. 2025. Yeah. And, yeah.

What was the one end of the world movie, like, 2012 or something like that?

Isn't Oh, yeah. Well, that was because of the whole mind calendar thing.

Just saying.

I've seen every disaster. So

to say.

And I love them all. Okay. Anyway, let's do some 5 star review shout outs. There is a little bit of news, but then I'll yeah. We should get into predictions. Jason had Jason had an article about what Apple needs to do in 2025. But what they really need to do is put voice control in the Magic Mouse.

I don't think that's on my list.

No. It's not. But that's part of the news. Alright. 5 star reviews. SD travel from the US, percentage on dots off, non dominant pocket. He's all on your side. Dots off, I think it's the first or maybe the second person to say dots off, and back button focus. I think SD Travel is just adjacent a 10, that's fine.

I'm here for it. That's fine.

Exactly. Mike Kelly from the USA Ice Cubes and Toilet, he said.

Absolutely.

He he did that was the whole title of the review. He didn't, like, put any more context, so I I assume that means he knows what you're talking about.

Either that either that or apparently, it's just a thing that they do.

It's just a thing.

They have extra ice cubes and you need to you know, they get old and the thing, you just take them out and put them in the toilet. Actually, you could do that. You literally could do that. They're just water.

I mean, you could do that. There's there's faster ways to get them to melt. Charles c from the USA had very nice things to say about the show. Time pilot from the USA, and then someone's literal name in their review was primary technology fan. And now, correct me, I don't know I thought these names were based on your Apple ID or iCloud account. So someone created an iCloud account with that as the name, just thank

you. Yeah.

That's 1.

I mean, if I had a t shirt, I'd send it to you just for that. If that's really your iCloud name.

The primary technology fan, and they they didn't leave the rest of the name in the review. So I'm not sure what their actual name is, but they're from Switzerland. And this was my favorite review because it just started with Jason is wrong. And that was

all I needed

to do.

I think by rule, if you live in Switzerland, you're not allowed to say stuff like that. You have to be neutral.

You gotta remain neutral.

Yeah. Come on.

That's the whole

that's the whole shtick. Sorry.

No. No. So anyway, thank you for all those. Give us a you could be the first 5 star reviews in, 2025 because these were all kinda left in 2024. Anyway, I'll leave this 5 star review.

does it, like, move on its own? It's like a Roomba? Like, it just mouses for you? I don't understand. What does this even mean?

Apple intelligence magic mouse. That's that's the killer product. That's the AI.

Would you use it on a device that doesn't have an m one in it? I don't like, there's so many questions here, Steven. I don't

understand. M one magic mouse. But what would you do?

What what would you need it for? To use it on a Mac that doesn't already have Apple Intel? Like, this doesn't make sense.

It's so this is Gurman's quote. Voice control in the new magic mouse, wrote about this one makes sense in light of AI and the fact that Apple is on a decade plus cycle. And when I've heard Big Focus' ergonomics and gestures, you know, I wonder if in that MKBHD interview when he asked Tim Cook about the Magic Mouse, Tim Cook finally realized there was still a product in their lineup. Yeah. And he goes back and he to the team and said, listen. We gotta do something about this magic mask.

They said, AI this thing. But, like, but, honestly, though, like, I don't actually understand. This feels like the kind of thing where somebody whispered something to someone and then they got, like, totally misconstrued because, yes, Steven, honestly, are they gonna put Apple Intelligence in the magic mouse before they put it in the Apple Watch?

No. This this is

Like, come on.

And, like, I imagine I'm using magic mouse right here. It's what it's what I use. I can't imagine being, like, compute computer. Yeah. Computer. Run run a shortcut. Computer.

How mad is everyone who has, like, a previous generation iPad Air that doesn't run Apple and tell them it's gonna be? How mad are you gonna be if there's, like,

you could

just pick up a $99 Magic Mouse? I don't understand.

I don't that is very strange. I have no idea. Whatever. That's a magic mouse. But and speaking of, may possible misses, but a real miss, Apple said next gen CarPlay was supposed to debut in 2024. This is article from The Verge, but you can also still go even right now. This is a live web page for CarPlay on Apple's website. And under the next generation of CarPlay, which I think they showed off, like, 2 WWDCs ago. I think that was I

think that's right. It was not this most recent one.

Right. It was, like, 2023. They showed off this next gen carplay where it would take over your entire dashboard, including, like, speedometer and everything, And it still it still says, here as we record what January 2, 2025, that the first car models will arrive in 2024. Spoiler. They they didn't. Yeah.

I don't think so. I don't I don't know of any any vehicles that say that they're supporting the next generation of CarPlay, and I would be real surprised if it's gonna happen. Well, here's the thing about this, though, Steven. I bet you that someone from Apple would be like, oh, but, actually, the something something something technically does. It just doesn't look anything like that. It doesn't like, I don't know. But, like yeah.

I would think they would have updated the web page then. I mean, I'm sure everybody was on holiday, but maybe update the web page.

Well, we already know that they fired all the copy editors for the website. We had this conversation a couple months ago when it when they introduced, like, 16 lines of text to say that they put the m 4 in the Mac. Come on.

I thought I thought the next gen car play that the only, like, preview was maybe an Aston Martin Mhmm. Or something like that. Here, this is a car and driver article that I will include, but this was in 2023 December.

Yep.

So this was a year ago, and it was that Aston Martin and Porsche previewed that this next gen car play was gonna happen, but then over the next year did did nothing about it.

So maybe, technically, if a car maker announced that they're going to put it in there, then Apple can still be, like, oh, yeah. I mean, it's 20 it was 2024 when they said that. I don't know. I just think I don't think that this is a product that needs to be in their lineup.

I don't think my 2011 Kia Soul is gonna get next gen car play either.

Neither is your Tesla. Let's just be honest.

That it doesn't doesn't even have 1st Right. Whatever. No car play. So that was that. Now, Gruber had an article talking challenging to OpenAI for the next year.

Correct. And I think, like, at least Elon Musk, for one, is suing them, and I think that possibly other. Like, there's at least one state that's trying to prevent. I think wasn't California trying to prevent it from happening or something like that? So

Something like that. Yeah. So it's still unclear when they'll be able to go at the for profit company, which has to happen before an IPO publicly, you know, initial public offering. That's the IPO when it goes on the stock market and things like that. And so Gruber is basically saying, like, it really feels like a bubble, specifically OpenAI, because of these big promises.

I think it's anytime someone says we need an unimaginable sum of money, if you just look up what is an investment bubble, that is got to be the definition. And if it's not, it definitely should be the definition. But, again, like, this is this is not surprising because we've talked about this a bunch of times on this show, like, economics 101. Let's not economics 101. But the point is, like, companies at some point have to transition from a point where their primary activities are to encourage investors to give them money to their primary activity is trying to encourage, like, consumers or customers to give them money.

Well, their their last investment was their last round was $6,600,000,000 which was

But I'm just talking about their revenue. Their actual cost of revenue.

Right.

So, like, they're bringing in money, but it is it does take an astronomical sum of money to train these models. And then the other thing is, like, the newest model that they released, which is what, o 3 or o yeah. I think it's a o one was there's a new model o 3, and

I o one was the reasoning.

And then there's o three, which is their advanced reasoning model, which is not available publicly yet. But I think I was reading over the holiday that it takes something like $20 per query to do that. And it's, like, that's an astronomical amount of money just for, like, typing in. Can you show me how to change a spark plug in my car? Right? Like or something like that.

Like, it's it's reasoning, Jason. This is reasoning. But It's,

Regardless of that, think about it. If you're Microsoft and you are selling access to this, but you're charging $30 a month, were you this is not sustainable. And so the amount of money that they need to sort of build this sort of thing up and to try to bring in customers because what? Jet gbt is the fastest growing tech tech product ever, and yet it still hasn't reached that critical threshold of having enough people giving them money to pay for the techno the the compute behind that.

And I don't think the $200 a month pro subscription is going to be the answer to that, because I see pictures or screenshots of people on social media canceling that, realizing I don't think this is getting me anything.

Yeah. I don't think that that's gonna be the solution. Just, yep.

Not the solution. So I think we should make some OpenAI predictions, as well when we get there. But also, this could be a short term prediction. We'll see. Trump is petitioning the Supreme Court to stay the ban on TikTok, which goes into effect or supposedly goes into effect January 19th.

Yep. The yeah. The next day.

We'll see what happens, but it's interesting. He in his first or last reelection, he was wanting to ban TikTok. He pushed for the TikTok ban, but now he is, you know, he says he is uniquely positioned to, to understand why it's needed and and why it shouldn't be banned. So we'll see. We have, like, 2 weeks.

Yeah. And and that's it hard to know what's gonna happen because say whatever else you wanna say about incoming and former president Trump, he is extremely transactional. Right? It'd be because the whole reason that a TikTok ban was gonna happen in the first place is that he was really mad at a bunch of teenagers who went on TikTok and said, hey. You know what you should do?

So you so, we'll make this our first 2025 prediction. So you think Trump's, petition for to stay the ban will not go through, and January 19th, TikTok will go away here in the United States and go away with the biggest air quotes. Basically, they have to be taken out of the app stores and may not be able to access without a VPN, things like that. You think that

that's I don't think both of those things are necessarily connected because the Supreme Court is already hearing an appeal from TikTok. So I think they could just tell Trump, you don't have standing, like, sorry. You know, go play golf. Yeah. But then they could also not they could also say that the law was unconstitutional for other reasons.

Okay. Well, I'm gonna take the opposite. I think there is a less than 50% chance that it gets banned.

How much how much less? Because I'm, like, 50.7%, just to be clear.

I'm gonna say 40%.

Okay. So we're not that far apart, just to be clear.

I'm just taking it a different stance so we can then say who's

right there. Great.

So I'm yeah. I'm saying 40%. Come January 1920.

I'm writing them down.

I'm writing this down. Writing it down. So whatever episode is after that, he could say

Nope. I just wanted to know. I just wanted to record it for posterity.

It's good. It's good. That's, we are also recording, but, yes, that I think TikTok is not like, nothing will change. I think everyone's gonna be scrolling TikTok January 20th. Mhmm. So we'll see. Alright. 40%. 40%.

I'm 40% sure that they are not going to get banned.

40% sure. Okay. Alright. Let's talk about how the US Treasury was hacked. Jason's saying what Apple needs to do in 2025.

Is that how that is that how the word is pronounced on podcasts?

It's hacked. Okay. Yeah. It's hacked. Chinese hackers, they stole apparently unclassified documents in a major incident, but US Treasury was breached and seems concerning, but also I don't know. I don't know. You might follow this stuff more than I do, but, like, doesn't this happen periodically? Like, there's there's, like, a breach and something happens.

Well, it's interesting when they say that US Treasury was hacked. You're like, oh, man. Where's all the money? But it's not that's not this was not like Fort Knox. No. Gold repository was, like, broken into

It's not an ocean's 11 job. Yeah.

This is just not what you think. So, yeah, it sounds like there was a third party software provider that notified them that a hacker had gained access to a security key, which basically would be the type of thing that would give you access to certain systems, and it allowed them to override some security protocols. And it's like, I don't know. I don't think they've said exactly what was accessed, but this is the kind of thing where it's like, did you access some computers and you were reading someone's Outlook email? Or, like, I mean, you know what I mean?

Right.

And it does so they did say that it it is a they were they did access computers that involved end users. So that does make it sound like they were accessing computers that human beings were unit using as opposed to, like, servers that are keeping track of, like, your taxes or something. I don't know. Like Right. And so it's it is certainly concerning, but I have to imagine that the US Treasury is one of the highest potential threat targets if for no other reason than it is where your tax records are stored, which are supposed to be kept confidential.

Okay. Higher than my 2024 folder of primary technology.

What you would think would be a really high target except for we've made them all publicly available in a feed on the Internet, so you can just listen. You don't have

to And I don't save the raw file. So it's literally just the edited You

don't have

to hack

Steven's, computer

for this. No. You can just download from the RSS feed. There was also a Cybertruck so CS Las Vegas we're going there soon we're gonna talk about our travel bags, very soon in the personal tech segment. In front of Trump's hotel in Las Vegas there was a Cybertruck that quote unquote exploded.

Yeah. It is very weird. I mean, the person who died was the person was the driver of the truck. And so it it's very strange because yeah. The the problematic narrative here is like, oh, like a cyber truck exploded.

Which I don't think any Kia Soul has ever exploded.

So Probably true.

Kudos to my to my old car.

They just die a quiet death along the side of the road.

It is sitting in the back, over here. But, yeah, the Turo app, if you're not familiar, it's basically the Airbnb, but for rental cars

Yeah.

Meaning private owners can put their cars up to be rented, and you can book it and use it as a rental car, but you're dealing with a private owner rather than, a company like Enterprise. And so apparently the Cybertruck was rented in Colorado, driven to Las Vegas. They actually could follow the track that it took because it had to charge. Yeah. So there's all the there's records of where this truck was charging and things like that.

Have you ever used Turo?

I thought about it, I downloaded the app, and I looked at it, and I was like, I don't know. I just, I didn't feel like I don't know. I didn't really have a good reason to use Turo, and I was just, like, I just go with the things I know. I'll use enterprise or whatever. But have you?

Yeah. We used it one time, and it was on a trip with my daughter, and the person was, like, an hour and a half late. And it was pretty disappointing.

So is that like they'll bring it to you?

Yeah. So they were supposed to, like, meet us at the airport kinda thing. And there's supposed to be 2 vehicles, you know, and they the driver of the one gets into the other one and leaves and leaves us the first one. And they were, like, an hour and a half late, and then they made us, like, walk to long term parking. It was anyway, I'm not it's probably not Turo's fault.

I don't I don't do Hertz. I'm an enterprise guy.

You know, Hertz was the company that was, like, reporting its own vehicles stolen when, like, they just lost track. People would, like, their rentals and they would, like, lose track of it. And so then they call the police and report them stolen. And peep the police would show up at the people's houses in the middle of the night and, like, repo the cars and, like, arrest them. And it's, like, what?

What are we doing? No. No. Thank you. No. I try honestly, I just believe that I can just Uber anywhere even if it's, like, the middle of nowhere. So I never even I don't think really about renting cars very much.

Really?

Anyway, I mean, I've I've Ubered in other countries. I've Ubered Yeah. Just pretty much any city I've ever been to in the US, you know, major cities, obviously, you can Uber, but even, like, here in Lakeland, Florida, you can Uber Yeah. Or Lyft. They're both available.

I think it depends. So, like, when we went to Arizona for our daughter's soccer tournament, we're gonna be it's, like, 35 minutes away. And not From

the airport.

From no. From the hotel. So, like Okay. The hotel and the airport were very close, but then we had to drive, like, 35 minutes. That's not an Uber ride that you wanna take. Right? And try to find one back and stuff like that. And we were gonna be doing multiple things. So at at some point, there's just, like, if you can rent a car for a $100 a day, that's probably gonna be a better deal if you're gonna be doing a lot of trips. But if I go to New York or especially in other countries, no, I would.

chance. Right. I did. So just little backstory at I used to work for a travel company. And me and the CEO, we were in Germany, and we were doing stuff or maybe it was the UK it was one of the 2 and he arranged a car because we were driving around to like different touristy sites and it was my job to take photos and video and then do marketing things after that And he asked me, he was like, do you wanna drive?

just Speaking of roundabouts, Steven, I watched a video yesterday. I think it was a BBC video on YouTube because this is what happens when you click on one video. It shows you everything.

You get

all this happened. I was looking I wanna ask you this later, but I watched one of your videos about the 2 about the travel 2 in 1 chargers, the MagSafe alternatives. And I'm kid you not, my entire feed was just people wanting to tell me about these things. I'm like, no. I already got the answer.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so

they built all these underwater tunnels. And in one point, there is a roundabout where 2 tunnels connect. And I just think that that is the most amazingly bananas thing I've ever heard of.

I just found a picture. I have to show this. This is I mean, this is like the ice hotel or whatever in that country that I, like, wanna see one day.

Yeah. That's exactly yeah. Underwater underwater roundabout.

The world's 1st undersea roundabout. Wow. That's slightly terrifying, but amazing.

Isn't that amazing?

Here's where it came. Woah.

I love it. Anyway, sorry for derailing, but I felt like this was worth it. I'm just

sharing random views. That's

terrifying. I

like it. Dude, if you're not watching, just watch this clip just to see the I'll use this as the chapter art. I'll make a special chapter for the

4 You gotta warn people. This is Whoo.

It's a terrifying picture. This is the guy that greets you into this underwater roundabout.

He's the guy that collects the tolls.

You gotta pay that guy or you cannot He's the yeah. He's the the the troll guy on the, the Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Yep. What is your name? What is anyway, okay.

Yeah. Well, I mean, they definitely did not have the problems they had on the Tyson fight. Everyone who's worried, like, they figured it out. I don't know if they just, you know, bought more HP servers, Best Buy, stuck them in a rack somewhere, but they they got it taken because that's how it works. Right?

They switched to Mac minis. There's a bunch of Mac minis Yeah.

That's super not how it works. But they they figured it out. They managed to pull it off. They both games, I I guess there were some people that said that at the beginning of the first game that they may have had a couple of, like, just a short glitches or whatever. But by the time that game was going, it was great.

Yeah. Physics. Something. Signal cable.

Yeah. And so but if you're watching on YouTube TV, we're used to the fact that it's probably gonna be, like, 35 to 40 seconds behind because that's just kind of the way that kind of thing works. And that's fine. It doesn't really matter to us. We're just watching it, but it does mean you probably don't wanna be scrolling on x or Twitter or something like that while you're watching because you might get spoiled.

me, honestly, it was

the same. So, anyway, they pulled it off. It was very good. The thing I thought was especially interesting is that they managed to create a pretty like, they knew what they were doing when they asked Beyonce to show up in Houston, Texas to play music from her new album live for the first like, she hasn't done a concert tour on those songs. This is the first time she's ever played them.

the dance troop. I know what it is.

But anyway, one of her backup dancers or whatever. And the whole thing that came off, like, very well. And what was what was wild about it is, like, Netflix bet a lot of money on Christmas Day football. And I think it was worth every penny. I think that 11 minute Beyonce show for them was probably worth every penny that they paid. Sure. Because they created sort of a halftime moment that was it felt as big a deal as, like, the Super Bowl.

So Okay. Well, that's great.

Yeah.

Alright. Alright. So Netflix now doing the live thing. I will say that the streaming thing is funny. It's it's a challenge now New Year's Eve if you try to watch the ball drop, because we were watching on it was Hulu Live TV. My father-in-law pays for that, and so we were trying to find we we did the Ryan Seacrest Yeah. ABC. New Year's Eve or whatever.

ABC. Yep.

Yeah. And and, like, I kept going out and refreshing it a couple times just to make sure it's, like, at the latest moment possible. But when it would got to, like, 11:58 on the TV with the ball about to start dropping, my son with his Apple Watch is, like, it's midnight already.

Same. Our youngest son was so we weren't quite that far off. It was, like, maybe 13 seconds off, and he's counting down. And we're, like, you be quiet. Stop talking. You are done. And everyone else is, like, we're just gonna pretend that we're gonna go on the TV. He's, like, no. It's already midnight. We're, like, it doesn't matter.

I was trying to tell everyone, like, let's we're just going to make this the time. Like, just everyone, let's look at the ball drop, and let's all just be on the same page. And then, like, I think it was both my sons. They were, like, hey, happy new year.

Yeah. So, like, all of these parents are talking about how the thing you do now is you just could like, if you have young kids, you just can show them last year's ball drop at, like, 9:15 or something, and they won't know the difference. Those parents apparently do not have children with Apple Watches because if they have an Apple Watch, they are they are so independent, you don't even understand.

Well, I think, you know, once it hits New Year, at least for that evening, maybe the next morning, you have that notification on the Apple Watch.

The fireworks. Happy to You

get fired up. Yeah. I feel like it tapped me maybe, at midnight. I can't remember.

I was wearing my Apple watch, but when I put it on the next morning, I did get the fireworks.

You did get it. Okay. Yeah. I posted a little video on social media, but it's a nice little little thing. It says happy new year with your first name.

Thanks, Greg.

Yeah. Anyway, streaming has ruined New Year's Eve. That's that's the

I don't think it's the streaming that ruined New Year's Eve.

But it's it's people, giving up the the time.

I don't know. My favorite New Year's Eve show I don't even I'm assuming they still do it, but it's the what is it? Anderson Cooper and, what's his name? His buddy, Andy or whatever. Now what's his name? Some of our listeners

Andy and Andy?

No. It's not. But, anyway, it but they're both completely hammered, and so we can't watch it with our kids. Like

You say you don't watch it with your kids?

Yeah. No. We can't. CNN, New Year.

New Year's Eve live. No. It's Andy and Anderson.

Yeah. Andy Andy Cohen. Yeah. I I was right. He made me second guess myself. Anyway anyway Oh. But they're they're they're absolutely hilarious mostly because Andy Cohen is hilarious. Anderson Cooper's drunk and laughing at Andy Cohen the whole time, and it's just it is it is worth watching, but you can't watch it with kids. Let's just say that.

It's all you need. It's all you need. Alright. Let's do some predictions, and we'll kick it off with your article

Okay.

Saying what Apple needs to do in 2025, which, is make a HomePod with a screen. No. That's not what you said. Listen.

I'm so mad about this. I had to write about it finally because I you hear all these people talking about, like, yeah, all the products Apple's gonna make. I don't I think the one thing that they have to do is they have to fix the Siri experience that they have to deliver the experience that they promised. And if they had not made a promise and they had not changed that stupid glowy interface that appears when you activate the voice assistant, I, I don't think it'd be as big of a deal. I think that the Snoop Dogg commercials, all that stuff, talking about apple intelligence, fine, that you can, you can argue that that was just like, it's not false marketing, but it's certainly like slightly misleading because people are like, well, this isn't all that different or whatever.

So, I mean, I agree. I also think, you know, we we have the listeners with varying opinions about the photos app. Some people agree with your and I think my feeling that the redesign is not great. Maybe you had stronger words for it.

It was bad.

There are some people who feel like, no. No. It is good. You just have to get used to it. I'll all I know is what I see on, like, TikTok and social media from non techie people that nobody likes it. And everyone's Yeah. Everyone's basically, like, saying Apple put it back. And and there's even just like I was I saw one post where someone was like, where are my favorites? And I totally get it because it's, like, it is honestly, I don't know. I don't know where your favorites are.

be in a different place depending on the time of the day, and when your phone thinks you might wanna see a certain thing, it will show you a different version.

And then even, like, someone asked me on, in a YouTube comment because I was making shortcuts and you could you used to be able to make a shortcut that just opened a photo's album where you just press the shortcut and it'll open that direct album. And because of the photo's redesign and I guess some of the changes, like, that's not an you can't do it anymore. Like, you can't just have a shortcuts action to open a specific album. And honestly, like, you can, again, customize your photos experience. Like if you scroll all the way down to the that's too bright.

It's not it's worse than that. No. I think photos is Apple's version of the Sonos app.

Okay. Okay. Alright. So, alright. Here we start our prediction.

The parallel is pretty close. Right? You broke a bunch of things that people wanted to do because you wanted to improve a different type of experience, but that's not what people actually wanted.

And maybe, you know, Apple said Apple Intelligence was gonna be able to do, like, more fun photo slideshows or whatever. I mean, they did slideshows before. Like, they did moments and memories, and there was a for you tab before. And I like, I do I think I do miss the tab, like, navigation at the bottom where you just had, like, photos and I I forget what it was. The the long lost days of the tab bar.

My my wife said and she hates it, by the way. And the thing the here's the reason I care about this so much is that because whenever apple changes something in a piece of software, I get yelled at. I don't actually work there. I did not make these changes. I do not design software for apple.

I well, I will say there have been times when usually it's, like, birthdays where sometimes I don't know about you, but, like, especially adult birthdays, my birthday, like, parents' in laws' birthdays, get to a point where it's like, what do we do now? Can we throw out a movie? They're like, we just had cake, we did maybe a gift or 2. And honestly, one of the more enjoyable activities I have found at that point is to go to the photos app and see if there is a memory about the person. And if you have that person's birthday in their contact, I found the photos app pretty good at being like, hey, here's photos of so and so throughout the years.

Yeah.

And actually throwing that up on the TV, air playing it, it's actually that is pretty good. Like, I I give photos that, but it was doing that in iOS 17. Yeah. It's not even an iOS 18 feature. And I actually have created shortcuts because people ask for them, where you can create a shortcut that just shows you photos you took a year ago.

Yeah. I've said it like 7 times. I'm not gonna be that mad at you.

Do we think dingus? It's too late. I don't know why everybody's saying it. Is going to get the semantic index update with contextual awareness and being able to interact with app intents in your data. Is that coming in 2025 this year?

I think that the chances are greater that they rename it to dingus than that they actually deliver on what they promise. No. The

only thing is gonna happen.

I think the rumors are 2026. I think they have to do it this year. I I just, I can't. They're so far behind. And I I think the I okay. This is so revealing though. I think about the mindset of apple because I think that in their mind, they're like, what are you gonna do? Use a pixel? Like, right? Like, in their mind, they're like, you're gonna keep using an iPhone.

I'm gonna say it's gonna come this year.

I hope so. I really hope you're right. I wanna lose this one.

I almost want to predict that it will come before WWDC, because if they talk about Apple Intelligence again with the same exact features they did last year, which the semantic index was a large part of the Apple Intelligence presentation, like Craig Federighi walking through, oh, you took a picture of this program of your kid's musical. It's gonna tell you whether or not you can get to it in time after your last meeting. Like he already did all that. And so to rehash all of that at another wwdc, I think will not go over well. And so even if it is a limited version, like, maybe we don't get the 3rd party app intents just yet, but a version of the dingus that can look at your calendar, look at your text messages, look at your photos, and figure it out.

that. Right.

That it would be smart enough to do that. I think those things, the Apple first party app, features, I think those are gonna come in the first half of this year. The app intents and the third party integrations, that'll either be later, like iPhone 17 time or maybe 2026. But I do think we will get a smarter dingus this year.

I think that if Apple can release a smart enough dingus that you can say to your phone when you come back from z e s, where did they park my car? And it knows your car, and it gives you walking instructions on the map. Apple's a $5,000,000,000,000 company by the end of the year. Seriously, though, because these are the types of things that people's mind will explode. And it's like, if my phone can just do all of these, like, look Apple's thing for years, this is what I should have written about is like, it just works.

Exactly.

I don't ever open it, but it's all there. Everything is still there. Same thing with the mail app. Same thing. Obviously, I use messages, but, like, all of those things are first party. It has access to all of that information. The the I feel like I don't maybe this is a harder problem to solve. Like, it seems easy to us because we don't know anything.

I think but, like, the parked car thing, that's something that Apple does already.

Yeah. That's true.

When you park your car someplace like

Internet Bluetooth. Yep.

You can open the Maps app, and it will show you your parked car. And so you might even be able to do it now, like, ask the dingus, where's my parked car? I'm not sure. But to preemptively do that and connect it with, I don't know, remind me when I land where my car is

Right.

Like that kind of query, I feel like should be possible Yeah. This year.

Yeah.

But we'll see. Alright. Photos app, is it going to get another redesign or revert in iOS 19?

I think I think they're gonna, I think they will tweak the interface to make some of the things that they didn't realize that people care about, like easier to get to, but I don't think that they're gonna revert it. That just doesn't seem very apple. Like they didn't. Okay. I think the the the, precedent.

I think, yes. I'm gonna make a weird prediction. I think the tab bar will come back at the bottom.

I thought we were talking about Safari still. Sorry. No.

No. I

was like, wait, what?

The tab navigation Yeah. At the bottom. Okay. I think that's honestly a major part of people's psyche about how to get around photos. Because just go to albums or for you or recent photos. I forget what it was. But I think that I think there'll be some kind of tab navigation at the bottom again.

Oh, so that's interesting because and I would I don't think so. And the reason is, I think the model here is infinite scroll. Right? Which is what you do in every single other app is just infinite scroll. So

Yeah. Well, we'll see. It's a weird prediction. I don't even know if I fully believe it, but I'm just gonna throw it

out here. It'll make it interesting.

It'll make it interesting. Okay. Another one another question for you. New display from Apple in 2025.

You mean standalone? You don't just mean, like, that the iPhone 17 gets, all that? Okay. I just making sure.

Either a Pro Display XDR or Studio Display or new product. Will Apple release an updated or new display in 2025?

Yes. I think it'll be more expensive than the studio display, and I don't think they'll make the XDR anymore.

Oh, really?

Who's buying that?

John Saracusa, Marco Arment.

But they but I don't think either of them would have bought that if the studio display had existed at the time.

I feel like Saracusa would have. He wants to know every pixel is is the most pixel that can be. You know what I mean?

Yeah. But it that it's not any more high resolution. I mean, technically, it is because it's bigger. It's just HDR or x d. It's not even really HDR. Is it? It's not even full true HDR.

It's right. Like, the iPad and iPhone screens are more HDR than XDR.

Last year's 13 inch iPad was more HDR

than that. Right.

Right. Right. Right. Right.

Yes.

So So

So I think Apple loves things with lots of margin. And I feel like the Pro Display XDR probably has got a lot of margin built into that thing. So I'm I'm gonna I I don't think it's gonna go away, but I will but I'm gonna agree. I think there will be an updated display this year, either new or updated, and it'll probably come around dub dub DC. That's my prediction. I agree.

Alright.

And also, along with that, will we see the M4 Ultra this year? Okay. Which we did not get an M3 Ultra.

Okay. So my prediction was going to be that they will put the M4 in all the Macs. So I by the end of this year, which just seemed like a logical, like, yes, that's easy. So I do think that that means that we will get an M4 Ultra this year because they're not gonna release the studio Mac Studio or Mac Pro. I don't think we'll see another Mac Pro. Do you?

Oh. That's a good one. I no. I think we will.

In the

same form factor? Same form factor. Zero work, just swap out the chip for an M4 Ultra. I think they need to say they have a Mac Pro.

Mhmm.

I think they just need to be able to say, like, this is our pro Mac machine. Because they don't like, the Mac Studio, they talk about for professionals and for this and for that, but they don't they don't call it a Mac Pro, and I don't think they would. I think if they try to call the Mac Studio a Mac Pro, people would be like, no, it's not.

Right.

But I think I think they're gonna keep the Mac Pro around. It will not it will not be the computer to get for pretty much anybody, kind of like how the Mac Pro is now. But they'll just put the M4 Ultra in there and say, cool. There it is.

Do you think there'll be anything higher than the M4 Ultra?

No. I don't think so.

Okay.

I think I think I know there were rumors like M4 extreme, but there's been rumors of like a a more Ultra than Ultra chip since the 2 generation. I don't think I don't think so.

The M4 Ultra. The M4 Ultra Pro Plus.

The ultream. Extra ultra. Do you think it's gonna be something more?

For ultium. Ataman. Ataman. Yeah. There you go.

The vibrate the m 4 Vibranium. Yeah. I'd buy that. I'd buy that. Can I buy that chip?

I think I don't think they probably will. I don't think that they, I don't think that they think it's necessary. Right. Like for the, I don't think that I think apple thinks of its lineup differently than a lot of people think of its lineup. And I think they know what sells and they know what they need to do to please customers and people who are like, I want an M4. I want the Mac pro to take external graphics card. They're like, that's just not our market. We don't care.

Right?

Yeah. Just Tim Cook's, like, buy your mom an iPhone and then buy yourself a gaming PC. It'll be fine. We don't care.

Alright. I have 2 more, and then if you have any predictions you'd like to make. Apple, a HomePod with a screen, the thing that's been rumored for, like, 4 years. I think Gurman's saying this year, it'll come out. Are we gonna see some kind of HomePod with a screen home device?

Yes. And it will be a disappointment. Here's what I mean by that. I feel like it's getting the VisionPro treatment, which means they're doing too much with it. This I'm like, no kidding.

Yeah. I agree. I think it's gonna some version of it is gonna come out this year. It will probably be a disappointment to many. For me, totally immersed in the Apple Smart Home, I'm hoping I don't I'm not predicting this.

You know what I would rather they do? Is just sell a stand alone subwoofer for the HomePod mini.

That would be nice. Listen, a lot of people ask for, like, the home theater setup with HomePods. I had a lot of people ask, like, when I did videos about the HomePod twos, they're like, can I buy 2 HomePod minis as surround speakers? Like, no. Mhmm. Why? I don't know. Apple's totally let you do that. Right. They don't let you do that.

I mean, I you could buy some more HomePods for that. I mean, you can't really do it either with that, but, like No. HomePod minis are not the best back speakers.

No. But you can't do you can't do 4 big home.

No. I mean, like, 2 big home pods is pretty good. I understand it's probably not like a Sonos arc with a bunch of era 300 behind you or something like that. I get that. But, like, it's actually a pretty darn good setup. But it would be nice if you could have stair you know, surround by adding 2 more. So

Yeah. Alright. So that so that would be cool. And the last question, OpenAI, I'm not sure what prediction to even ask Hardware device.

Hardware device.

Oh, really?

Yeah. Other than there's rumors that they're working on it with Jony Ive or whatever.

Oh, that's true. Okay. So wait a minute. So they'll open a hardware device and also transition to for profit and or IPO. What do you think is gonna happen? The transition

to the, for profit will happen for sure.

100%. What about public, like, IPO this year?

I think either they'll transition to for profit and they'll do an IPO immediately or or it'll take them. Like, boom, 5 ball paperwork today. Like, I don't know. I think I think that that's a possibility. I think it but I don't I don't know how much I believe that that's the case.

Okay. I'm gonna say no hardware device.

Okay. I'll be

going to do that. But definitely for profit, IPO this year, I'll say. The IPO the IPO probably, like, the end of the year, like, November, December, but IPO.

Okay. Alright. Is that the I don't

even know, like, all of this entailed with that if that's even possible. Yeah.

I mean, it's possible. You just the the the mechanics of an IPO are much less complicated than, like, your strategy and rationale for it. Right? Like, you just file paperwork. Right. Right. Hire a hire a bank to, like, make that market for you. But, like, yeah. So Yeah.

Okay. Did you have any other predictions for next year?

Yeah. 1. IPhone gets a new form factor this year.

So, yeah. We didn't talk about this a lot last year, but the iPhone 17 Air is the rumor. Yeah. I don't I

don't buy that, but, yeah, that's the rumor.

I I I don't I don't know. I I wanna say no.

Okay.

They might say it's gotten thinner, like just the iPhone overall. And maybe like the iPhone 17 non Pro models get like dramatically thinner, but also maybe give something up or don't get a feature that the Pros do. But I don't see an iPhone 17, 17 plus 17 Air, 17 Pro, 17 Pro Max. That seems like a lot. Maybe new SE this year and that, you know, that could be an ultra thin model or something.

I I don't think that will happen for one reason. Yeah. Probably. I think Apple has to keep a phone with the home button with touch ID and not face ID. I think it's an accessibility thing.

Yeah. You're probably right. Okay. They could I mean, could they would they do, like, an iPhone SE without a home button model just to have, like, a low cost face ID and then keep around the home button one as, like, some dark place on their website?

I mean, they have a low cost face ID version. It's the iPhone 14. You can still buy it on the website.

True. How much is that? Hold on. I think

it's like 5.99 or something like that.

Apple.com. IPhone. And let's go oh, yeah. IPhone 14. Look at that.

I told you. It's it's 5.99. I told you.

5.99 though.

I mean, the SE is like 4 something, isn't it?

It's 3.99.

Oh. The

iPhone SE is 3.99, which is what what makes it

The iPhone SE though has, like, the iPhone 8 inside of it. Right? Yeah.

It's true. Excuse me. 4.29. The iPhone SE is 429.

I think 5.99 is the right price for the iPhone 14 because it is still a fantastic device for most people.

$200 more for an iPhone 7 16. And then you could still get the iPhone 15 as well, that's 6.99. They really they got those price tiers on top.

This is what I'm saying. So

5.99, 6.99.

All I'm saying is the low cost face ID phone is the iPhone 14.

Yeah. If it's not low cost, it's not really

low cost. 5.99?

Yeah. I feel like that the $400 price point, like, where the iPhone SE is right now, 4.29, that would be a low cost face ID phone, I think. Because you're still, like, $200 away from that with the iPhone 14.

But this is Apple. This is not Samsung.

I know. I know.

OnePlus.

You get refurbished phones for for pretty good That's

true.

Pretty good deals too. Yeah. But anyway, alright. I don't know, I don't know what predictions to make about Microsoft or whatever else.

Oh, Microsoft and OpenAI and their deal. Oh. I I don't even know if I believe that. I'm just throwing it out there.

No. I think it'll it'll remain a tenuous, awkward relationship. A marriage of convenience. Yeah. Just and for Microsoft out of necessity, just because they've said, our models are better. Whatever. You're gonna be with OpenAI.

Right. Okay.

Let's talk about I feel like maybe we leave our travel bags for the bonus episode. Okay. So we have more to talk about. But CES starts next week. Officially, it's this anyway, I'm scheduled to get there January 4th, Saturday. Sunday, there's, like, CES Unveiled, which is, like, the first DISH event.

Okay.

I think. And then we got all the CES stuff. I have no idea what to expect because it's my first one. And, like, I've I've just seen the coverage for the last 14 years. I mean, I was following it like Engadget days when, like, Nilay Patel and Joshua Topolsky were at Engadget, Joanna Stern.

I don't think the show floor will be open until maybe Tuesday, but maybe Wednesday. I don't think that the show Oh, really? I don't think the trade show part starts until Tuesday or Wednesday. Ces.tech. We'll find out here, while we're talking. Yes. It was 7th through 10th scheduled.

So 7th is Tuesday.

Yeah. But I don't know when the actual, trade show floor opens. But anyway, it doesn't matter. Okay.

But I

don't think you'll be walking around Monday is what I'm trying to say.

But Oh, okay.

But, typically my approach is I look at some of the usually okay. When you sign up, you probably have gotten 16,000 emails saying

I got a lot of emails.

We'd love to talk to you about this gadget that will never see the light of day unless you write

about it.

And you're like, I don't write about things. I'm a YouTuber. So no. Anyway, you should be like, I could add it to my pile of discontinued dead AI. I just sit around my desk if you would like to do that.

In 1925? Yeah.

That's when Delta started.

What? Wait a minute. Oh, I need to do a history lesson real quick. Where's, Wright Brothers launch? Wait a minute. That was 1903. You're telling me 22 years later, Delta had enough whatever to be a company?

Yeah. I mean, yes. I mean, I'm not the one telling you that. I just know that they're celebrating their 100th anniversary this year. So yeah.

What? Okay. Wow.

Yeah. Air travel continued to be far from comfortable. Yeah. In the anyway.

Delta Airlines began in 1925 when Huff DeLand Dusters Inc. Was founded in Macon, Georgia as the world's 1st aerial crop dusting company.

There you go.

That makes sense. So crop dusting first.

Well, yeah. I mean, I imagine that if most of the airlines started as we not carrying a 100 people at a time or whatever. So anyway, so that's one thing. So including

the first flight sorry. The first flight took off in 1929. Mhmm. It was on, I'll tell you what, let me I'll I'll include this link in the show notes. Sorry.

That's amazing.

That's amazing. Yeah. Sorry. That's super fun. Okay.

So I am the other thing I'll typically do is I'll look at the schedule and find out if there's any of the other big keynotes I wanna go to. So, like, Sony will have a big keynote, and they'll talk more about their electric car or whatever they're gonna talk about. Like, I'm this is something. I don't even know.

Yeah.

Yeah. The new PlayStation. You can play the new PlayStation in the electric car. It's like all this kind of stuff. Like, so and, Samsung will do the same thing. A lot of times these companies will let you schedule booth tours. They'll they'll walk through. I don't ever do that. I wanna walk through on my own. I don't want you to know who I am or that I'm there.

you arrive when?

I have I arrive on Tuesday, and I fly home on Friday. So

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Well, I'm excited. Honestly, just to meet a bunch of people. For us to podcast live from the show floor. Yeah. Absolutely. And then to to meet a bunch of people. I've told most companies just, like, I'm not scheduling anything, like like you're saying, booth walk throughs or even press briefings, because I'm, like, let me just go to your booth and just see what's there. Like, I don't

Yeah.

I don't know. Unless you Do you have, like

Unless you know so for this is my approach. I just wanna, like, absorb a bunch of stuff. I think of it like a funnel. I just try to get a bunch of stuff in the top of the funnel. And unless so, like, I know I'll write about whatever Delta does because it's their 20 their 100th anniversary birthday, whatever.

So That's that's that's the goal. Okay. Well, I'm excited to do it.

Drink lots of water.

Drink lots of water. Sure. I think it's gonna be cold in Vegas too.

I hope so because it makes it easier for me to pack. I put away all my summer stuff.

Right. Right. So well, very cool. We'll be over there. Alright.