Apple 2024 Tier List, ChatGPT Gets 1-800 Number, Foldable iPad Rumors, TikTok Ban Implications

The audacity, the unmitigated golf. Welcome to Primary Technology, the show about the tech news that matters. This week, OpenAI has released a 1 eight hundred number where you can literally call and talk to chat GPT. The immersive camera from Blackmagic is gonna go on sale early next year. And if enough of you support, you can see this show in immersive video.

It that's that's good. I'm a little bit, annoyed because you had to choose a quote from what I've already told you is my least favorite Christmas movie. That's so nice. That's actually not my least least least favorite. It's my second least favorite.

That's right.

So my least favorite version of a very popular Christmas movie.

It is the most fun quote to say, though.

That's true. It's obviously the Grinch.

Obviously the Grinch.

But it's it's the Jim Carrey version, which is super not my favorite version of that.

It's traumatizing. Let's let's be honest. Listen, I I'm gonna let our listeners and viewers know, you're gonna see something special pop up in the feed in a couple days because Jason joined me and my other co host Nate Baranowski on Movies on the Side to talk about our top 5 Christmas movies. We thought it would be fun to kind of drop that in as a bonus episode. It'll be available to everyone, but, you might see that drop over the weekend, so just giving you a heads up.

It was a very spirited conversation.

I see what you did there. I see what you did. I I'm so excited because Jason told me he actually called oh, g p t, the 1 eight hundred number and recorded the conversation. I did not expect this, so I'm very excited to hear how this conversation went and, the implications of of yeah, well, other people calling this number. But anyway, 3 5 star review shout outs.

That's right. Back

button focus on. There you go. Alright. Let's jump right into it because OpenAI in their 12 days of ship miss, which I think we're nearing the end of these 12 days. I don't know.

I think that was day 10.

Is it day 10?

Yesterday was day I think yesterday was

day 10. Okay. Well, they announced that Chad GPT is now available via phone and via text, but the text is via WhatsApp. So you can call a 1 800 number, 1 800 CHAD GPT, and you get 15 minutes of access per month to talk to the large language model, and you can also message the number via WhatsApp. Though it seemed unclear how many messages a month you would get, I imagine it would be the same as if you had a free ChatGPT account and didn't pay for ChatGPT Plus.

No. I did this this morning in yeah. So

Early to be talking to a LLM, I gotta tell you.

Yeah. Yeah. It was it was a surreal experience, but, I am gonna write about this. I have not formed all my thoughts because I literally did this not that long ago. And, one, I was like, well, I could just write about the fact that this happened. Right. But, like, that it happened yesterday, so I'm a little late for that. So I'm like, I'm gonna call. I'm gonna see what listen, Steven. I don't think I've called an eight hundred number that wasn't an airline

Right.

In 10 years. Like, it's been a very long time since I've called the 1800 number. I and I thought I was thinking through through this, like, the one of the big stories earlier this year was how they spent $15,000,000 or whatever on chat.com. Right. And I wonder how much they had to pay to get chat gpt as their vanity h eight hundred number. Yeah. And, like

It's gotta be way cheaper than a domain. I imagine I

I'm sure that's true, but someone probably had that combination of numbers already. So I had to figure out who that was. And I was just thinking, like, when is the last time a new eight hundred number was even like, companies don't like, at this point, the reason the whole reason eight hundred numbers existed is so you didn't have to pay long distance.

Right. Right.

Right. When is the last time you've made a long distance call?

I don't even

It's been a very long time.

I feel like maybe the last time I dialed an 800 number was to upgrade my Internet. I called my Internet service provider, which is gonna be a personal tech segment because I upgraded my speed once again.

But, Steven, you know me well enough to know that there are a few things in the world I hate more than talking on the phone to anything. Like, I had to call you the other day, and I want you to know, like, it was a it was a really high bar to be like, Steven, can we talk on the phone? I also

I also didn't pick up the first time. So I was

Well and also, I'm sure you were terrified because when does it do I you know what? Like, why would I be texting you saying, do you have a minute for a phone call?

That was on the

show's over show's over, so

It was ominous. Next time, you just you should just say tech support needed. 1800 tech support beard f m. You know what? I'm gonna say, can I get the 800 number? 1800bea r d f m, beard f

m o.

Let's see if I can get it.

I should try. Let me

get it.

Okay. So anyway, so I did call this morning. And one of and this is also the so it's the first time I called an 800 number in years. It's also the first time I've used iOS 18.2's new feature. I don't know if

I think it was iOS 18 regular.

Sure. Where you can record phone calls now. The best part of the whole thing. I wonder if I can play some of this for you. Can you hear this? What are some common things that kids do to try to have a snow day?

Kids have some classic snow day rituals. They might wear their pajamas inside out, flush ice cubes down the toilet, or even sleep with a spoon under their pillow, all in the hopes of a snow day miracle.

What is what? That's a first of all, all those things are true. That's exactly what kids do. You live in Florida, Steven. You have no idea.

Jason. We had snow

days. Long time

ago. Time. It's going around. Literally got a spoon under the pillow.

Literally, my children have done all of these things in the last couple weeks. And by the way, it worked because they've had 2 snow days so far. But the flushing ice cubes on the toilet, a 100% a thing, wearing yours your and all those things are true.

Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Hold on a second. I'm gonna need this here it is, the next debate. I need to because I grew up in New York. It wasn't that long ago. I mean, it was I mean, I understand. It was, like, 20 years ago or and well, no, it was more than that.

But here's the thing. I didn't ask JIDPT what its old people used to do when we were kids. I asked what kids do now, and your children don't even know it's snowed today.

They don't know. It's very sad. What do we do for hurricane days? You might ask that.

You do not flush anything down the toilet. You just get in the car and go. That's right.

I need to know from our listeners and viewers, have you ever heard of any of those practices of flushing ice cubes down the toilet, spoon under the pillow? I need to know. But but anyway But

only if you have children in school right now.

Right.

Because if you're, like, our age and you just Then you Trust me. Anyway, so okay.

That was awesome.

Best part of this

just the

but the best part of this call, though, was actually when I it said, hi. This is Chad gbt, and then I hit the record thing. Right. Took me a second to figure out how to do that. So then it says it's gonna tell you that it's gonna I'm gonna announce that it's recording in 3 seconds. So it says 321. It says this call will be recorded and chat gbt responded. Great. Let's talk. I was like, I love to be so excited about me recording.

Like Okay.

Word for word. So it, like, hit it out of the park. But I then did the same thing with just voice mode on the app. I did the same thing with voice mode on the chat.com in the browser. I did the same thing with Siri pushing the thing down on here. Although the the Siri interaction with chat g p t I'm sorry.

Did you start by saying using chat g p t?

I didn't have to because it did it. Okay. But it completely mangled what I was asking because the first time I asked the exact same question every single time and the first time series I'm sorry. Dingus' interaction told me things that kids like to do on a snow day. Right?

You can't You can't follow-up.

And I think can you copy and paste maybe? I don't even know if you can do that out of interface. I haven't tried that.

What I've discovered is, like, the newer Siri is so hypersensitive to you saying anything after your request, and this is probably a setting that I could turn off. I don't I don't know if you know for sure, but, like, when I I'll hold it, I'll do a request, and if I'm, like, with my kids and I asked the dingus a question, and if my kids start saying something, Siri will just start listening again. Yeah. It never completes the initial request because it's now added multiple things. Is there a setting for this?

I I don't know. Like, continue listening or something, but you can't tap out of the Siri interaction because then it just stops doing anything. So it's it is kind of annoying. While you find the setting, I'll just I'll just tell you my theory. I so chat gbt is doing this because they are trying to make it familiar.

Mhmm. Right.

Deducing what they're saying. Because what it essentially has to do is speech to text, text analysis, feed that into the LOM, give you back a response, and then say it. And the trickiest part of that, as we know from our friend on the iPhone, is the listening to what someone's saying, understanding what that is, turning it into a query, and then providing an answer. So I like, in that sense, I think it's brilliant. Also, the people who are likely to use this are the demographic of people that they probably have the least experience with interacting with because it's like my parents.

Right. Although, I will say I I don't think my there is zero chance my mom will call 1 800 chat gpt and talk to it. But it's it was it was just bizarre to hear you play that recording though because I mean honestly, it just it sounds like one of those automated phone trees that you get, but it's actually

Except you could ask it anything, and it won't understand it and come up with information. So it is a 100% like that except for it. I hate those phone trees because they never do a good job of, like, giving you information outside of a set response set of responses. Whereas with chat gpt, that set of responses is essentially infinite.

So while you were talking, I did look up the settings, for Siri. If you oh, the dingus. Excuse me. So if you go to Apple Intelligence and dingus, there's no setting there that appears to to affect this, but if you go to accessibility and then dingus, and by dingus I mean s I r I, there is a setting called require quote dingus for interruptions, and I think that's the newer feature where you can interrupt while like during the request, which is, you know, what all these large language models do. So I just turned on that toggle, and I'm gonna try something.

Yeah, because if the glow changes as you're talking, it's

It's still listening to me, so that's not even an interruption, but it's maybe it'll figure that I don't know. I'm not crazy about this the the new dingus. I'm I'm really hoping that the smartest dingus comes soon.

You have to walk into your cone of silence to use Yes. The stereo energy and then you

You ever see that chamber that supposedly, like, has 0, decibel, like, reverb and echo?

Yeah. An anechoic chamber.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. The one that Apple has, it has all, like, the point I actually think it's a death chamber because it's got all those pointy things that are, like, pointed at you and you're just, like, whatever.

I wanna try it. People are saying, like, oh, people can't last 45 minutes. I'm, like, I think I could last. I think I could do it. That's but that that's my talk.

Isn't that from that it's a Steve Carell well, it's not originally a Steve Carell movie, but what is it? Get Smart where they have the cone of silence. Oh.

Do you

ever see that movie?

I have. I'm scared.

Wasn't it, like, Steve Carell and, like, Anne Hathaway or something like that? It was it's a funny movie.

Anyway, that's that's for movies on the side, Jason.

You you Yeah. Sorry. I'm I'm confused because I you know, we recorded an episode. Yeah. I'm sorry.

It was all good. Well, thank you thank you for doing the Lord's work and calling the 1800 GPT and having that conversation. Anyone else calls it. Yeah. Let us know what what kind of conversation you have.

If I can get it published soon enough, I will send you a

link and

you can include it.

Now what's exciting is if we have enough supporters in 2025, you can have primary tech in immersive video because Blackmagic's Vision Pro immersive camera is going on sale in early 2025 next year for a measly pittance of $30,000. But now we need 2, so we need $60,000. So that means divided by 5, we need 12,000 of you to support the show, which is more than less than every week, but we'll figure it out.

I mean, theoretically, what is it? $5 a month?

That's right.

So we actually only need a 1,000.

Oh, for the year? Oh, that's true.

We're not gonna buy one of these every month.

We're gonna add continually add angles. This is gonna be the most immersive podcast you've ever seen.

Wow. No. Please do not send me 12

of these cameras. Nobody wants that. But this was so, you know, Apple announces in I think it was Dub Dub, the keynote.

I I think that's true. I don't remember, but I remember seeing this.

Yeah. So this is it's gonna be specifically for recording immersive content. Listen, we'll see if, you know, the Vimeo app, and we talked about that a few months ago, you can actually host spatial video just that you capture with your iPhone or Vision Pro to Vimeo, and then use the Vimeo app and Apple Vision Pro to do to experience that immersive video, which is interesting. There's still no first party way to do it. So I I, you know, I imagine maybe Apple will announce something early next year where you can they would have to You

can watch spatial video in the photos app.

You do it, but, I mean, are you gonna capture something on a $30,000 camera just to watch it in the photos? I'm saying Oh, no.

I meant you You're saying okay. So you're not talking about, like, to do it for yourself. You're saying if you have the 3 friends you have wanna watch the thing You

would be dad of the year, I guess, if you buy this just for family videos.

Yeah. No. You should definitely not do. It's weird enough to walk around with a vision pro on your face to take videos. Instead, you're walking around with this, like, droid on your shoulder. Like, come on.

Look crazy. Crazy.

It looks like it has a tape door too. It doesn't that look like it has a door for pulling out a cassette

tape or something? Yeah. It's it's got yeah. I don't know what that is.

Wouldn't that be amazing if they're recording spatial video and a $30,000 thing and you pull out, like, a You get one of those mini

2 seconds. You get 2 seconds of recording.

Mini DV.

Mini DV take. Anyway, I yeah. I'm just hoping for more immersive content. Oh, which I I should mention, I didn't even put this in the notes, but now it jogged my memory. I finally updated Division OS 2.2 because it's publicly available for everyone, and I tried the ultra wide Mac virtual display. Jason, that thing is pretty cool. I'm not gonna lie.

It is.

It's really good.

It is.

I was sitting in my car editing a shortcuts video while my kids were at dance practice, and I was like, I don't care, I'll look like a crazy person. So I put the Vision Pro on and sitting in my car, and I mean, ultra wide max screen, because that was the one thing where I don't like editing on my laptop because it's a smaller screen, and I'm used to the studio display, so I'm like okay, bigger screen, but what previously the bigger screen, it was still, like the aspect ratio and everything was still confined to like with a computer, but being able to do an a wide display from my MacBook Pro and edit in Final Cut and still have other windows open, and then I even went to the ultra ultra wide display, whatever that that biggest setting is, and it was like this this is too much. This is too much display for one person to handle. I couldn't do it, but, it's very compelling. You prefer the the ultra ultra wide or the just the

so most of the time if I'm using it, I'm not using my Mac. But if I'm using right. If I'm using the Vision Pro. But if I am, I do I do like the ultra wide. It's I I like being able to have lots of room for activities. You know?

You have to, like, you have to literally turn your head to see the whole display. Like, it wraps around.

Well, I mean, it doesn't have to be floor to ceiling.

I mean, you could

size it in a way that you can still see it and stuff. But yeah.

Yeah. It was it is very cool, though. And I might, might keep it charged and actually use it again, so we'll see. Yeah. But more immersive content next year because of a new camera. I hope that'd be cool.

More immersive content that you don't have to make yourself for $30,000 is what you're saying. Exactly.

And then this was one of the rumor. This was from Mark German from Bloomberg. This is The Verge reporting on it, but that Apple might be working. The first foldable, I feel like that Gurman is rumoring an 18.8 inch creaseless iPad by 2028. This would be 3 something years from now, but a super big iPad that actually folds I don't know if I'll be into this.

I think it's inevitable that Apple will do a foldable device. I think they are trying to figure out they're, like, looking at the market, and they're like, well, that's what they're doing. We have to do it different and more complicated. Like, this is exactly what happened with the vision pro. Right? The quest exists.

Right.

And people like it, and people buy lots of them. And they're $400 or whatever, you know, $500 for those things. And Apple is like, hold my beer. Here's a $35100 device with 0, you know, specific content in like 13 apps. And it's, and it doesn't stay charged if you leave it on your desk for more than an hour and a half. It's like, what? Like just make the thing like you could have just, if they would have made a $500, it probably would've been $800, but essentially, quest competitor

Right.

They would've sold a lot of them. Imagine, like, if they just had positioned it as with for, like, the because if you think about, like, what are the best things about using the vision pro? For the most part, it is not the pass through. The pass through is good, but you don't need it. It's not it's it's irrelevant.

Oh.

Is it the 13 or the 11? I personally am a big fan of the 11, but that's because I use a laptop almost all the time. Sure. And I don't need to replace my laptop, so I need a different device. If you don't have a laptop and your main device is a computer, then 13 inch is perfect because you can slap it in a magic keyboard, and now you basically have an iPad and a laptop. Right? The 11 inch is not great as a laptop. Let's just be honest. It's just not.

It is not. So I'm going to, actually put a link to this because Federico Viticci over at Mac stories just did his, final story of the year, which is his, I feel like, lifelong quest to be all in on an iPad Pro and never use a Mac again. And it's he says he seemingly has achieved it, and so his whole article is how he uses the new 11 inch iPad for everything. And he went from the 12.9 inch down to the 11 inch, now he uses it with an external monitor when he's doing like desk work and stuff, but he, he said he's achieved it. He's doing everything on iPad including podcasting, including all of his work and, nothing else using the external monitor when he's there.

Yeah. I just think it's you just have to figure out what's your primary use case, and if your primary use case is I wanna hold something in my hand and read, watch, edit podcasts, right, the 11 inch is great. If the primary use is, like, I wanna sit down with the keyboard, write, do stuff like that, get the 13 inch because you can still pull it off of the stand and use it. It's just if if it's not as ideal for that kind of a thing.

Sure. But if if you could do both, if you could have an 11 inch and then have, I guess, an 18 inch iPad No. For the big things. I don't know. I don't know.

That's terrible. I mean and also Federico Vitigi was known to rip the head off of a Mac to use like

He has he has done these things.

He's been on a journey and so I'm glad he feels like he's finally figured out what he's doing.

He's on his spirit quest, to to find the the final form. But, anyway, I'll put a link to that article. And oh, and one other aptly related thing before we get to is TikTok gonna get banned. I saw this yesterday. Someone on social media, sent it to me.

No. This is dumb. Yeah. I think.

No. It's

a 10 year air tag. Like it's a it's a $29 thing. You just have to double the price to do to use it with double a batteries, and you're saying it'll last. But I just the whole point of an air tag is how small it is, and you can just stick it in with things. Like, if you wanna carry that thing around the luggage

keychain, but for your, like, check-in luggage that, you know, the the one time You

don't check luggage, dude. What's wrong with that?

Oh, not sorry. Carry on. Carry on luggage. You know, something like that. I don't know how to take luggage.

But I mean, if you're carrying it on, how far away from you would this ever gonna be that you would

use it? This idea. I think it's brilliant. Well, I don't know it's brilliant yet, but I got a couple, so I'll let you know because I'm I am

gonna try. You're starting to sound like me. It's brilliant. The best idea I've ever heard.

I don't know. I'm actually gonna try it, but there's also rumor that Apple's going to update AirTag next year in 2025 with an updated ultra wideband chip because the latest iPhones and Apple Watches actually have the ultra wideband chip, like, version 2, but AirTag is still on the first version. So there might actually be an improved AirTag, and you might wanna wait before to see if this would actually work.

But speaking of AirTags, I do I did wanna just mention I only wanna mention this because this is hilarious. But Apple did finally, like, roll out their little find my partnership with United Airlines, and they're gonna make it available to other airlines. They released that. That went live this week. And, the best part about it is that I was sent the release and I clicked on the link to read the page on United's, but you know, their newsroom posts.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because and the AirTag was announced 3, 4 years ago.

Yeah. And I don't think there's a lot you need to do to it. And I think the the concept of make the battery user replaceable, probably the right choice. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Because the only other way you could do it to make that thing useful is to make it rechargeable like USB c, but that just dramatically changes the the Yeah. Form factor of what you could

have. And I have and I have some find my devices, like, from ESR that are rechargeable, but it uses this weird, like, contact based recharging thing instead of USB c. And, like, I don't wanna keep track of a different charger. You know? Like, just

Right.

No. I don't wanna do that.

Right.

Alright. One last, story before we have some exciting stuff. We're gonna talk about the short form socialpocalypse and my Apple tier list. But we are getting closer to possibly seeing TikTok get banned here in the US. There is an impending ban supposedly on Friday, January 10th.

Well, those two things are not the same. Right.

I know. Yeah. But like

I don't think it will work.

You don't think it'll work?

Because ISPs will not be allowed to host the services that are associated with it. So you may have a dead shell app on your thing. And if you had cashed video and stuff, it should continue to work. But like the ban is not on Tik TOK, the app existing in the United States. It's the the onus is on the app stores and the service providers who who are doing that, and they're basically saying, you can't have this app on there anymore.

Well, here's here's my theory. If it does go through, I think the United States teenage population will become immediately familiar with VPN apps. Like like many countries already do, like places where certain apps are banned or services are banned, and people quickly learn about VPN apps and being able to obfuscate where they appear from and in what countries. I think that will happen. I do think TikTok will lose some momentum if this does go through because there will be a segment of users that just don't wanna deal with that and don't wanna, like, figure it out.

So I think that the okay. I think the most likely scenario is that the Supreme court like delays the implementation so that it has enough time to like consider things. But I don't think that the Supreme court is going to, I don't think it's going to outweigh the okay. The the argument that TikTok is I'm sorry. There's this is multilayered.

I mean, this is an

onion that we have to peel back without crying. The the TikTok is trying to argue that banning this is an infringement on the first amendment rights, not of TikTok, but of the people who use the platform. That argument's not gonna go anywhere because they can just make their art. They can just publish their content in other places. Right?

They get all that visio ad

stuff. Listen, Walmart would buy this. Like, just tell us a dollar amount and we'll write you a check, like in a in a heartbeat that they would, because it is literally like the home shopping network. Like, that's what TikTok is now. And so they would absolutely

I feel like ByteDance, the owners of TikTok, though. They're not gonna do that.

No. They absolutely don't want to. That's what they're saying. But this is sort of like, you know, how every well, what's about to happen right now? How every time when they're like, we have to raise a debt limit or, like, the world will end or whatever, and there's, like, some compromise that could be made, but no one's willing to compromise because they're just trying to like, it's a they're making a I don't know if ByteDance is bluffing or not here, if they really are refusing to sell or if they've had some, I feel like that they've had conversations with Walmart or Amazon.

Interesting. Okay. Well, we'll see early next year. I'm thankful I did not build my platform on TikTok. That's all I'm saying.

And I, I wanna say this. I am somewhat sympathetic to, I don't use TikTok. I mean, I I'm aware of what it is. Right. But Instagram reels gives me more than enough of that. Right. So I understand TikTok. I understand that people use it for search for I get all of that. I'm not, but I do think like, if, if you, I don't know that it's a compelling argument. No, it's just, it's not a compelling argument that we can't close this thing down because creators have built their entire businesses on it.

I'm more sympathetic to the creators because while they might not have invested money in a physical brick and mortar location, they have invested years of their lives making content for a platform that promised monetization and opportunity. Like, yeah, not only did brand deals come along, but TikTok, even though this is like a joke that TikTok creator fund and monetization is not good and doesn't pay very much, there was the promise that you could build a platform here and sustain yourself as an individual creator. And I've I'm on TikTok. I do enjoy watching it. There's a lot of funny stuff on there.

Okay. Counterpoint. I'm not sympathetic at all. Yeah.

When you

build your business on someone else's platform, you have to play by their rules, and you can't complain about it because you've and I don't mean you personally.

Right. But I'm

not like, think about that. You just said TikTok is a terrible place to try to build an audience because it's not your audience. So I'm sympathetic to the people who have decided that they're going to monetize their inability to build their own audience. Like, that just seems like super bad business to me.

I understand. But, like, also, like, for again, let's say you were on TikTok, and for the 1st year, you grew an audience and your videos that mention your email list get shown to your followers, and then they change the algorithm on the back end that you have no control over. And it's like there was a not that there was a promise, but that there was an expectation that it worked this way for a year or 2 and now it suddenly changed without notice or warning. It's like, isn't it?

Yeah. Why would you wanna put all of your eggs in that basket where they could just change it? So, like, I'm just saying that's a terrible like, as a rational person, that's not a great place to build your entire business. The other thing I was going to say, though, is that none of that's an argument for the government shouldn't ban it. No.

That see, that is what I'm not sure is right because you would think you would think. But as a creator who is on multiple platforms, it is different. Like, you can post the same exact video on TikTok, Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts and it will perform differently. Not just because of the algorithm, but the audience is actually different. You said it yourself.

Sure.

You don't use TikTok Yeah. But you do use Instagram Reels. So that TikTok creator who built an audience on TikTok, their videos, like, you're probably not gonna care for them because they're not geared toward Instagram reels, because that audience is different. Just like if someone's gets Facebook reel views, that's definitely a different audience than the one on TikTok. So it is not the same as, like, I can just do the same thing on a different platform.

I wanna be clear. I don't think they made a bad decision. I think they made an uninformed decision because most and this is not a this is not an insult to to anyone who is a trader on any of the platforms. But most of them did not start out thinking, how could I create a business plan that would allow me to make a lot of money by making videos? They just started making videos, attracted an audience, and then realized that it was a thing that they could monetize.

the the last thing I'll say, I do think if you are a creator on a platform like TikTok, you do have to kind of shift your mindset, not that you're a TikTok creator, but that what is it that you are actually doing that is of value to your audience? Are you entertaining people? Are you informing people? Are you inspiring people? Like, what is the thing that you are doing in your videos?

Yep.

On different platforms? See, I knew we would have no problem having a full length episode today, Jason, because

You'd be the people like the deep dives.

This is this is a deep dive. This was a deep dive. Alright. Well, we're gonna have another deep dive. I want Jason to tell me where I was wrong for the Apple tier list of 2024.

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This is such a happy pre Christmas episode.

We're gonna get to the Apple tier list, don't you worry. I wanted to just include this New York Times video. I thought it was pretty interesting. Talking about how all the algorithms across social media feels like there's just a sameness of content, which if you just follow the biggest names, the biggest accounts, it does feel like there's a, you know, a sameness as you look across the landscape. And this video, I think, thankfully, is encouraging people to find, like, smaller outlets, independent shows, like Primary Technology.

I mean, Steven tells me what to do because he just writes it in that order,

and then we talk about it. I just put links in the doc. Anyway, but it was an interesting video, but talking about the sameness in algorithm, now, like right now on my computer, we've talked about this problem before. I have every I have all the social media and the apps open. I got Blue Sky over here, I got threads, I got Mastodon.

No. What there is is there there's an Instagram post. Yes. The where there's a thread post that looks like an Instagram post in your microwave. Like, they're just It's a rat. Blatantly like Yeah. I mean, like, listen. I get it. They bootstrap the whole thing on the Instagram social graph. That was brilliant. I understand. But now it's like they're like, this was the this was for me the, the straw that

Birth cam's back.

Threads his back or whatever. Yeah. Where I am now in my little Instagram notifications

Yeah.

Getting threads posts. Like, you know, you get a little butt, you get the little, red badge on the heart telling you like, oh, someone followed you or someone replied or someone like you think, nope. Just here's a threads post from someone I don't know. And I do not follow that you might be interested in. It was one thing when they were putting them in the feed. Okay? Like that to me was garbage. I hated it. I hated it. I hated it.

Yeah.

So I eventually I just turned off notifications, which meant I never opened the app anymore. And so that is becoming the case with Instagram and with threads. And the problem is that someone's, you know, KPI is engagement through notifications sent, and so they just keep turning that knob up. And now they're turning it up for threads, and it tells you how scared they are of, like, blue sky, which is ridiculously small and by comparison. But they're like, nope.

You gotta write about it.

I'm so mad. It's not gonna make a difference. No one cares.

No. No.

But it makes

me so mad. So after Zuck posted that 2 days ago, Hank Green, big YouTuber, creator, said honest question, does seeing a threads post on your Instagram feed count as a daily active user? I've seen fishier things in this world like when Google counted YouTube as Google Plus usage. Yeah. I remember Google plus I'm old enough.

And technically, he's not the CEO. He's just the head because they they only give the CEO title to people who actually founded the businesses that they buy.

That's right. Right. That's right. Not CEOs.

It's true. Like, that's for real. Unlike Microsoft that has 72 CEOs.

And, like, there was basically a lull in, like, threads feature launches, I would say, until blue sky really started ramping up after the election. And now, Moser is, like, you could soon be able to use an image from another post without even, quoting it or reposting it. Like, well, that's weird. You'll be able to schedule a threads post. So that was a day before, he's bragging about the active users.

Starter packs.

Starter packs for Blue Sky, which is exact

Also, you can set your default feed that you see when you log in Yeah.

Exactly.

If you're part of the test. Yeah. Yeah. Eventually.

So you could you could just tell that, like, they're they wanna make sure you don't have a feature reason to go to Blue Sky. Like if there's a feature you like on Blue Sky whether it's starter packs or scheduling posts or whatever that threads will have it. We'll have to see because it is annoying still to me, like as a creator, if I wanna post a link to my YouTube video. Blue sky, I can post a link in the regular, like just in the post, and it's not gonna be shown to less people or less followers because I put a link. But on threads Right.

If I

put a link in a post, it's gonna be seen by less people. And so I started doing a little experiment recently where I do the thing, I didn't wanna do this, where I just post with my thumbnail, no link, and then I put the link in the reply. And sure enough, yes, it gets way more engagement, it gets way more views. And it's annoying that, like, you have to game the system because threads doesn't want you to leave the platform. And so for that, I like blue sky, but also there's just not the user base just yet.

Also the question is how much engagement did the actual link post get? Probably almost 0.

There was one video recently where it was actually like threads actually showed up in the YouTube analytics as a source, nowhere near a main so it was like single digit percentage source. It was a the shortcuts video I posted recently, 4 days ago, where it actually has, like, a 147 likes for the threads post, and that link actually got a little more traction, which never before had a link got traction if I put it in the actual first threads post when I mentioned the video. So negligible, yes, but it is a noticeable difference, which is just annoying because the algorithm just deprioritizes that. So anyway, it's socialpocalypse.

It is.

The doom of the clock.

It's terrible.

I want you to

tell me

where I'm wrong, Jason. I did a video Oh,

this is your tier list. Hold on. I have to open a link to a YouTube video so give

me one second. I'm showing you the tier list right here.

Because it's gonna probably, like, blast

No. No. No. Like, I got a tier list right here. I'll put a link to the put a link to this video in the show notes.

I don't I don't think that actually qualifies as even being on here, but if you're gonna put it on here, it should get an f.

That's what I said. I was like, I don't even know this is a new product, but it gets an f either way, like, yeah.

I think you rated Apple Intelligence too high. I think Apple Intelligence is

I gave it a c for the record.

It's too high.

That's too high. What did it

I don't know if it'd be an f, but maybe a d. But I feel like if if iPad was 18 is a d c, I would put that as, like, a c because it's, like, whatever it's there.

It's calculators.

It's a calculator.

That's all you gotta say.

But it didn't get worse. It didn't get worse. What did you what would you have rated iPadOS 17? Like, it's not worse than that. It didn't like, they didn't break a bunch of stuff. They just forgot about it, and it just released like, it's just there.

Like Okay.

So I don't think that's a problem, but I feel like yeah, the AirPods Max, what are they even doing? But I think Apple Intelligence is at best to d because the only good thing about it is the chat g p t integration. It's like your best feature is someone else's and I can do it easier if I just opened their app. So that to me, and it just it's, I think the gen emoji are fine ish image playgrounds is just a horror show.

Yeah.

It's just weird. The writing tools the I think the writing tools could be interesting for people. My first of all, the suggested responses in, like, text messages, ridiculous. Like, I would never respond that way. It's like my son will send me a message saying I just got home.

Substitute needed for second game invasion at school.

Now, I'm sorry. There should be like a hard filter that says you don't send the parent a message that says invasion at school. And then there was, the follow-up. So I did notice that as new messages come in, it'll update the summary, and it'll even update parts that were previously, like, summarized. It, like, it takes into some context. So this is the one I got, like, the next day.

Invasion left. Container and treats were left behind.

So I'm like I I posted about this. I'm like, so it's like the purge except for instead of killing your family, they bring you baked goods. Like, what are these now just so you know, what it was summarizing was someone left an Invisalign at an event.

Oh my goodness.

And it summarized that and they didn't just summarize the message. It actually, it actually summarizes the word Invisalign into invasion. It's like you you can't do that. You should not be

doing very different things.

Yes. And so I'm like, this is this is not good. Now, whatever. Maybe for text threads, it should not be on for the new stuff. It's fine because if you got 5 news articles and it's like, you know, South Korean president has been impeached and this has happened and this has happened. But so I think Apple Intelligence should be a d at best. The rest of them are fine. I do agree. The m the m four iPad Pro is definitely s tier. I can't, like, think of anything else that would be s tier.

Well, let let me ask

you this. Sorry.

So, I I think you're right. I did have a couple comments on that video. Apple Intelligence probably should be a d. Apple Vision Pro, I put it as as a c tier. Do you agree or disagree? Yeah. If we had been

doing this together, which would have been fun, but we didn't do it together. So

But that would have been a good idea.

I I would have probably taken it at either b or c.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah. I think I don't struggle with the fact that there's not as much content because that's not really how I use it. Right? But and this is the guy who uses it almost every day It's

not me.

Except for when I'm on a plane. So so I I I think I'm still more bullish on it than the typical person, I think. But I should say this. Anyone who paid for the vision pro probably ranks at a C I am still using a review

here. So

I, my perspective is clouded a little bit. I get way more utility value out

of it than what I paid for it

because I paid 0.

Right. Okay. Well, anything else that you, you hardly.

I was trying to think of anything else should have been an s tier. I do think maybe the M4 MacBook pro, the base model is deserved. It's it is probably the best base model MacBook pro that they've ever released released. It's got the 16 gigs of memory and that M4 is like ridiculous. I don't know. And for Imac, is it an a tier? I don't know. It's the same. I don't know. Maybe.

Right. Well, it's it's one of the first newer Imacs that I have. I have a review unit unit of that, and it's actually been great. It's, like, a family computer. My kids have been, like, on it. My son started doing logic pro on it. It's it's a great family computer.

If they had made it so that you don't have the Mac mini on

here. Yeah. It's a master.

No. It's not.

That's the Mac mini.

Am I looking at the wrong oh, I'm looking at I'm sorry.

You gotta stop folding

it. I was looking at a version of it that apparently didn't okay. Yeah. I would definitely put the Mac mini. Yeah. Yeah. But I was going to say, I think the m 4 imac is probably a b. Had they made an m 4 pro version of it, then I probably would have put it in a.

That would have been nice. Yeah. That would have been nice.

But So there

you go.

Yeah. I I agree with your s tier for sure.

Okay. Okay. Very good. Very good. And yeah, the the AirPods Max. What are you doing? Anyway, last thing I wanna say, Jason. I don't know if you saw my, my recent threads post speaking of apocalypse. Although, I put I put it on all the social media networks because I did. How did you see my

Your posts are everywhere. I did. It's it's ridiculous.

My latest speed test, I upgraded my Internet yet again, and now I'm getting over 3 gigs on Ethernet, down and up on my Mac Studio. That's right. Look at that. And I'm, I'm gonna do a video on this, I think. Because the iPhone 16 and 16 Pro have WiFi 7. I don't know if you know that.

I heard. Someone tell me. I guess the guy on the podcast told me that.

That's right. I have a WiFi 7 router. I I swapped out one of my UniFi access points. I'm getting over a gig over Wi Fi. So I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but I got it.

Literally nothing.

I'm gonna get but I got it.

Very fast. You're gonna do nothing. I wanna tell our listeners, though. This is a pro tip for you. Steven's running this, speed test in this video. If you are on a device and you have metered data in any way, never ever run a speed test because that thing uses up a lot of your data.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Like for, like, I did it on a, review unit one time and I just popped in a prepaid, like t mobile thing or whatever. They had like 30 gigs for 30 days. It's like 1.7 gigs used just for speed test. I'm like, I ran one test for like 13 seconds and it used a 1.7. I'm like, where's all that data go? Is it on the phone? So like, what is it sending me? Anyway, don't do that. If you have metered data because it uses a whole lot.

Hopefully I don't, I don't know if frontier is gonna eventually cap me. No, no, no.

I mean, if you're on your home wifi, you're fine. I'm talking about like, if you're on a cellular plan somewhere where you only get a certain amount of like data each month. But anyway, so yeah, I don't know why you are so fascinated with

Listen, I will say because a lot of people are like, well, you're still, you know, depending on what the CDN speed is for the website you're trying to access or use. All I know is I upload YouTube videos almost every day and those things upload fast. And Yeah. Whenever I'm not home, and I have to upload a 4 k YouTube video that's 10 gigs, it is a problem. Like

But I mean, counterpoint, I'm out here in my office, which we all know is, like, 30 yards from the house.

I'll feel both ways.

And when we get done record what'd you say?

I'll feel both ways.

When we hit done recording, I move my audio hijack file, former sponsor of the show. They didn't sponsor.

Not this episode. No.

Former sponsor of the show. But I really do use them. And I move it into Dropbox. And by the time I get to the back door, it's already uploaded.

Yeah. They're fine.

It's like a 1.5 gig file.

Audio audio is fine. I'm just saying video.

It's be I know. I'm saying the size of the 5 it's a 1.5 gig file, and it takes me, like, a 30 yard walk to upload so that you can get it. So I'm just saying, like, I only have I only have a measly 1 gig, you know, both ways. So

Anyway, I I enjoy my my fast speed even if just to run a speed test and just admire. Yeah. That's that's basically

And I'm only using and that's your wired speed, isn't it? I'm running Steven doesn't wanna know this, but I'm actually running a speed test right now while we're recording. And I have 780 up and down on Wi Fi.

Yeah. That's great. That's that's the Google that's the Google.

And I'm 30 yards from the house.

But the Wi Fi do you have the Wi Fi router in the Yeah. The Wi Fi

router in the Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say

Yeah. Going through walls or something.

Remember, I buried an ethernet cable in my backyard.

That's right. I I need to do that, actually. I I know there's a lot of smart people that listen to our show, and I'm I'm trying to get Internet to a barn that we have out in the backyard. I'm trying to figure out the most economical but also reliable way to do that. Yes, I could run an ethernet cable and bury it, but it would be very, very long. And it'd be very laborious.

It's not hard though.

I understand that, but I also would I would need to find out where in like, you have to go in the attic. Someone has to go up there, punch it through. Or I also know, this is gonna have someone's gotta go in the attic either way. But Ubiquiti makes the point to point microwave things, where you can, like, put it on the one side and then, you know, the way you you know?

You're not gonna do that, Steven.

Why not?

You wanna know why? Because they're limited to, like, a 100 megabytes. Like, there's no way you're gonna

do that. Now where they're doing, like like, 60, hertz up there or 60 gig. I don't know.

Yeah. It's not gonna you're not gonna do that. You're gonna you you would and you'd spend $700 on that. Plus you have to have you ubiquity, like server point or something inside to, like, connect it to you. You're just gonna spend, like, what, $1400 on all of this stuff.

Alright. Well, if this is really the best way to do it, the listeners, you can let me know. If anybody does microwave point to point on the building.

How far how far is the are the 2 buildings apart?

It's like 100, 120 feet, maybe?

Yeah. You don't wanna do the mic I mean, I almost did that because I don't I'm not as upset. I think it's a good solution. I just think that you're gonna end up ripping it out because you're like, no.

It's not for me to use. It's for my kids and whoever else is in the barn to be able to just get text messages because the barn, like, is metal, and so the cell service doesn't even get through. So there's, like, no Internet. So Sure. Just anyway. Alright. Well let me know listeners. Also, I forgot what was the thing that I said at the beginning to let us know what I forgot I forgot what it was. Anyway, leave us a 5 star rating review.

You you all remember because you've already heard this. You've heard it. So leave

us a 5 star rating and review in Apple Podcasts And also if you wanna support the show, $5 a month, all we need is a 1,000 of you for the entire next year. We can get an immersive well, one of our yeah, 2 immersive cameras and you can watch us in an efficient product. No, we're not gonna do that. But but we would appreciate your support of the show, either by the rating or you can listen to all of our bonus episodes and get an ad free version if you support us in Apple Podcasts. Or if you want all the chapters and the good stuff, if you really the best way to support us is to go to primarytech.fm and click bonus episodes, and you can, support us there.