Apple Maps vs. Google Maps, Y2k Came 24 Years Late, Has Netflix Won the Streaming Wars?

Sir, he's uploading the virus to the mothership. Welcome to Primary Technology, the show about the tech news that matters. Lots of news this week. Y two k came just 20 4 years late. I was 18 public beta is out.

It's good. It's so good to see you, Steven. I've, like, been sitting here for 10 days now waiting for your face to pop up in Riverside, and it's good to do this again.

I'm, really excited to to podcast again. I missed doing it last week. And so thank you all the listeners and viewers for for hanging on, but we got a fun show for you this time. And I have some New York City stories I wanna talk about of the tech after the news. That'll be in, like, personal tech bonus stuff. And, Jason, he made the entire world just crash. Every Windows computer crashed because Jason has sent an update. I got the news right. Right? That's what happened.

And that's almost true. I mean, I did tell you that I'm terrible at reviewing Windows Computers and now you know why.

That is what that is why. I thought that did you know, what movie quote I was referring to or

what movie Not really.

I

was Something about uploading the virus. Is it Independence Day or

something? That's right. Yes. That's

it. Alright.

That's it. I figured, you know, CrowdStrike Windows uploading a virus. I felt I don't know. Felt apropos. We just have a couple 5 star review shout outs.

But you just said it wrong, didn't you? Is it a

Oh my goodness. What? GIF. What just happened? I I this is what happens when I

You're like, I agree, but I just said it wrong.

No. No. No. GIF. I think that was the first time they come in. Yeah. GIF. That's that's what you say. Right? GIF?

Yes.

Okay. Just making sure. Versus not verse, which I don't know if we ever asked for that. But okay. Thanks for that, Alan. And

Also, though, they're just 2 different words. You can say them both

Thank you.

But they just mean 2 different things.

Right.

Verse 1 is part of a song

Or prose. Yeah.

And the other one is part of a fight.

Which we'll get to that, maybe later. Okay. Mark Zuckerberg. But anyway and then he said, Snoopy watch face, which listen. I'm down. If you wanna leave us a 5 star rating review, tell us what Apple watch face you use. Yeah. We could do that.

We did talk about that, though, a while ago.

Oh, great.

I told you I thought it was cool, and you're like, nobody uses that. Oh. And now we know that Alan Keith Carver

He uses it. He uses it. There you go. And, also, LA Greek, he has some very kind words to say in his review. He didn't say any of those other things like battery percentage or whatever. He left us a dad joke.

Yes. If you would like

to leave a dad joke in a 5 star rating review, that's fine too. He said, I don't wanna brag. I put a puzzle together in one day. The box said 2 to 4 years. It's a dad joke for you. So

That's good. These are our people, Steven.

So demographic is spot on. So last week, I was in New York City. If you missed that a couple weeks ago. And so in our bonus episode today, for those who support the show directly, I want to talk about some of my my experiences there from a tech perspective. Like batteries, like I have, one of the my MagSafe batteries that I used many times you could see it has now taken a beating because, it's been dropped on city streets and it has ridden the subway and so we're gonna talk about that and some other tech stuff, but I do wanna say a couple things.

You know? Let's do it.

I would love to do it, you know, maybe if Apple invites me to an event in New York. You know?

You know I'll wander through the streets looking for a place to meet up. I've done it several times just for this show.

That is true. You found random co working spaces. Yeah. So that's that's the pipe dream up to it. But but thank you for those who reached out and and hopefully I can meet you in person one day. I did, I I went to the Fifth Avenue Apple Store one day because of you know, I had to show my family. You know, the show the kids the glass cube and all that. Larger than I remember. It's a it's a big store. Didn't I don't know.

The store or the cube? Because the cube is smaller than I think most people think it would be.

That yes. The cube is smaller, but the actual store underground, I've I don't know if they've expanded it or whatever. I mean, the last time I was in it was, what 15 years ago or so but

Oh wow. It was It has been remodeled since then.

Right. And they have trees down there now so it's it's very cool. And then I ran into another Apple store, another listener recommend that I visit it, but totally by accident. I was walking through Chelsea markets or or the Chelsea.

Just tripped and there was an Apple store there.

Almost. We were walking from we were trying to find a Starbucks Reserve which is like these special Starbucks stores And, there's a big one in New York City in Chelsea, and so we're walking down the streets, and I just see a little Apple thing sticking out from the building. I said, wait a minute. That's an Apple store. And so we go in and it's the Chelsea market store which is like 3 stories.

So is this the West 14th Street 1 you're talking about?

Yeah. The Chelsea one. I I think it's the West 14th Street. I don't know. I just know I was in Chelsea. So Okay. Yes. Three stories. I think I think it's the only 3 story one. Yeah. Yeah. So but but that was fun. But hopefully, I can go up there and and meet everyone again. One other tech moment I thought was interesting, and this is kind of apropos because AirPods Max were on sale this week for like under $400 which so I don't know if that's a good deal.

Still not a good deal.

Still not a good deal. But going around New York City for an entire week, I saw many, many AirPods Max. I was surprised. Like, on the subway, on the metro north, walking the sidewalks, I was surprised to see so many AirPods Max, and I saw exactly one Sonos Ace. So one I mean, it was in the, Oculus Mall, which is like the, it's the, like, white ribbed building. Very It's

done at the World Trade Center.

Yes. By the World Trade Center. Yep. And, I saw one guy wearing the Sonos Ace headphones, very nicely dressed. You know, he had, like, this cool suit on. He was a cool New York guy. 1 Sonos Ace to, like, 100 AirPods Max, and I was surprised

I was

surprised to see that many.

So you could have stopped by. That's right. That the the w t the it's like a mall and a subway station and train station all in one. But that's right across the street from where offices are.

Oh, really?

7 World Trade. So yep. But I do have 2 quick questions. Yeah. Oh, there's a big one.

This here.

Oh, nice.

If you're watching, this is my family.

That's the cue. Yep. There you go.

There it is. Yep. Okay. Go ahead.

You well, my first question was you you I well, my first one is not a question. I I I think we should agree that no one should pay $400 for anything with the lightning port.

Yeah. I agree. I agree.

Because I don't need anything with the lightning port that's worth $400. Maybe an iPhone s e. If you're, like, 2, if you're buying one for your kid, that's about it, I think. Yeah.

But it's you can get one for under $400 now. I feel like Well,

that's true. You shouldn't be paying $400 for an iPhone s e 2.

Right. Exactly.

But and then the second thing is hold up that MagSafe thing again because I have ridden the subway a lot of times, and I don't look like that. Like, what were you doing with that on the subway? You just thrown it to people?

I don't know what happened. So well, I'm gonna save it for the bonus episode. I know you're you're goading me into talking about it now, but, I I used it a lot. I don't know. We did go to a skate park on the lower east side, and I was using this there, and I think I dropped it once. So that I think that might have been the Okay. The damage.

Curious because I have an actual Apple MagSafe battery, and it's in it's always with me in my bag. And I've taken it across the ocean many times, and it does not look like that.

I guess, it was cute. It's a little bit of a spoiler. We'll talk about it. Okay.

A

little spoiler, but, like, I have I brought that one too. Still pristine, but I use this one a lot. Anyway, we're gonna talk to them.

You just didn't throw it at anyone. Okay. Got it.

I didn't throw it. Yeah. This this one's a little heavier.

You know?

It's the anchor Yeah.

Tool. They're 10 k. Self defense tool. There you go.

Chuck it at somebody. Yeah. So, anyway, listen. We have there was huge news in the week that we were gone. Massive news, and I think it's really important that we cover it.

The

HomePod mini, was announced in midnight, midnight color. Massive news.

Can you tell the difference between the midnight and the space gray?

No, Jason. No. I can't. I have, like, 5 space gray HomePod minis in my house, and I could swear this looks exactly the same.

Yeah. And I feel like the real news is not that it's midnight because no one knows what that means, but it's, like, now made from a 100% recycled materials or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm wondering I'm like, is that just like, you just had a bunch of extra ones and you just recycled them into this one or something. I don't even I don't even know.

I don't know. But

is that the only one, Seth? I don't understand because it's like, is that the only one that's or are they all now a 100% recycled material in the mesh? And if that's the case, is it sort of like, we just want people to, like, have this as a status symbol that you've when people come over to see your Hope Pod minis, like, oh, you bought the eco friendly one? I don't I don't understand this news.

I think it would be hilarious if Apple just repackaged the space gray but put midnight on the packaging.

That's exactly what's happening

right now. Exactly what's exactly. But the fact that this had a whole press release in the newsroom, I mean, that's that's saying something. But anyway, yeah, HomePod mini, available in

the next Yes. They were really trying to, compete against all of the other news that was happening in the last week.

It was. I did feel the the vibes from that HomePod mini announcement very much felt like, the guy where he's, like, wearing the same shirt that he's holding up that he just got for Christmas.

Nice. That

is this meme. That is this meme. Yeah. Normally, this meme meme is reserved for the iPhone, upgrade cycle, but I think the HomePod mini 1. I think I

mean, the HomePod mini upside upgrade cycle is apparently not that much different

than you

know some of the iPhone

ones. Exactly.

But yeah.

Okay. So one of the big things that happened while we were while I was out the crowd strike failure. And so this was on a Friday. We were actually just leaving New York on that day, not flying, thankfully, because we would not No

one was flying.

No one was flying that day unless you were on Spirit because they run on, Abacus.

That's true. There are benefits to stone age technologies.

Exactly. But CrowdStrike and they met they pushed an upgrade to their service, which is on apparently millions of Windows machines specifically. And I've tried to ascertain exactly what CrowdStrike is. It runs on the kernel level of these systems. And I think correct me if I'm wrong, like monitors for malware viruses, issues, things like that.

Yeah. So it's it's antivirus.

You

know, it's a cybersecurity security tool, and the reason it runs in kernel space is so that it can see what everything else on the computer is doing. Because in theory, like, that's the only way for something on your computer to tell if another application that's running on the computer is malware is for it to be in the in the kernel space. And so Yeah. Yeah. Carry on.

So they they pushed an update. I guess it was late Thursday night maybe or very early Friday, like wee hours in the morning, and it took down 8,500,000 Windows machines. It was blue screen of death on all these machines, including many machines that run airlines and, like, I couldn't mobile order from Starbucks as we were driving back down from New York because CrowdStrike Yeah. Which is upgraded. So there's just many computer systems down.

Steven, I'm older than you are. Yes. I remember

y two

ks. Yeah. That's true. That's fair enough.

But, you know, y 2 k, I remember we were all staying up waiting for the, like, the power to go off at least, and literally nothing happens.

At least. He was hoping for but we didn't even get a power out.

I was at high school and I was like, if some can something happen, please? I mean, I guess not. So yeah. That was yeah. That was a crowd strike. There there's a bunch of articles about it. I know it's about a week old, but you also had an article about the CEO's response, which I think is interesting. And so I don't know. Tell me about your take as you were covering this.

Yeah. Let me back up just a tiny bit, if you don't mind. So just like to for people who my guess is our audience, they don't care a whole lot because they're probably they're probably a little bit more leaning towards Mac. But it is important for a couple of reasons. 1, Windows well, the the irony here is no one who worked at Microsoft had this problem because they don't use CrowdStrike.

Uh-huh. Mhmm. Okay.

Because it would be anticompetitive for Microsoft to shut off the ability for other developers. And when they were trying to do it, it was companies like CrowdStrike and McAfee who were like, uh-uh. This is anticompetitive for Microsoft to do this. But do you is there anyone in the world who is better equipped to protect Microsoft's kernel from malware attacks than the people who work at Microsoft? Probably not.

like,

yeah, I'm glad that these regulators are going after these big tech companies that have too much power. And I'm like, yep. And here's what happens sometimes when you decide to mess with this kind of thing. So I I just felt like that was really interesting. But yeah.

That would be an issue. Right.

That would be a totally different issue. Can you just imagine the pilots up there like, hang on, folks. I gotta do a control alt delete real quick here. We gotta reboot this thing while we're flying. It's like it'll be fine now. We We do this all the time.

3 times a day, usually. The engines are gonna shut off just for a few seconds. Don't worry about it.

But it just shows you sort of like the downstream's effects to all these things. Now, yes, Macs and Linux, that's why, like, a lot of websites didn't go down because they all run on all web servers run on Linux. Right? Like, so it was fine. And Macs didn't go down.

All those apps are scams.

Right. All of them. And they do exist, and they're all just scams. It's just yep. It's not even a thing. So but the real reason that stuff like this doesn't happen on a Mac is that no one is looking for enterprise level malware software on a Mac Right. Because no one is using Macs Right. For enterprise things like this. Now that's not that's not entirely true, but on a scale like this, it's it isn't. Like, Delta Airlines is not running its cruise scheduling on a bunch of MacBook Airs.

Right. Yeah. And you mentioned before we started recording, one of the hilarious things is if you're watching youtube.com/atprimarytechshow, this is the blue screen of dev. Yep. Windows users see that most of our audience probably has maybe never seen. No Windows logo on the Bluestem which is kind of hilarious. There's a big old emoticon though of a sad face.

It's a very sad face. Like But it's even there. It's meant to be, like, the least it's like a passive aggressive sad face because it's literally just the period, you know, open parenthesis, whatever.

Right. Right.

Right. Yeah. There's no Windows. There's no Microsoft logo on the blue screen of death. And the funny thing about that is the blue screen of death was everywhere for for a weekend and everybody knew. And Microsoft, it's like Microsoft was getting all of the blame, and they had nothing to do. In fact, if it was up to them, they would have prevented this from happening. But, again, thank you, EU, for your good work here.

I have to say that that sad face emoticon, I feel like that's not a great choice for this screen. I don't know. It feels

Is there a great choice for this screen? Did you know they tried to change the screen to black a couple of years ago and they had to change it back because people, like, it was were outraged.

Really? Yeah.

They weren't outraged that their computer kept crashing. They were just outraged that the thing that they see when their computer keeps crashing was no longer blue.

They should just have 2 words. Just my bad. Just have my bad right there on the screen. Just leave it like that. Oops. Yeah. Yeah. Oops.

I think the Twitter fail whale was better.

The Twitter fail like, there's actual affinity and nostalgia for the Twitter fail whale.

Mhmm.

And I I remember seeing that a lot. You saw that all the time. But in the early days, that thing was

Especially when, like, something would happen in the early days, like, 2012, 2013 when, like, something big would happen in the world. Like, Twitter just couldn't handle it. I mean, it has always been a social network held together by, like, you know Duct tape. Wire and duct tape. Wire. Yeah. Exactly. So

I'm gonna package the, the Apple news here in a in a little segment, because a little bit of news here in there.

I like segments.

A little little segment. Here's a segment. Apple Vision Pro, still using yours every day?

Every day. I have not used it yet today, but I will. Okay.

The the could take

Well, we record pretty early.

We record pretty early. Yeah. Yeah. But the, you know, I've seen on social media. People are like, the people in the day who's using Apple Vision Pro? And, well, I know one guy, Jason Aitin. He's using it still.

Every day.

Every day. But, Apple announced a bunch of new immersive experiences coming soon. There's there's one available now. So and this is what gets me to put my Apple Vision Pro on my face is if there's a new immersive experience, I do wanna see it. I wanna experience it.

I have not yet It's good. Watched it.

It's good. You know, the thing is, like, these are all, like, 6 minute videos. You know, I think the parkour one was, like, 12 minutes. This one's 6 minutes. So it's very short. This one ends, I feel, like, more abruptly than others. I was watching it, and then I was, like, the credits came up, and I was, like, oh, okay. I guess that's it.

I thought you were gonna say, like, the balloons crashed or something.

No. No. No. Abrupt. No. We're not we're not talking about CrowdStrike anymore. This is Okay. It's a mercy.

They're not running windows on those hot air balloons?

There's no windows on those hot air balloons. But it is amazing, like, those torches that they, I don't know if they're called torches, but the way they, like, manage those things, it's pretty wild. Anyway Yeah. So that was available now, but then they announced a bunch of things coming later, like another episode of the wildlife series, which you have the rhino episode available now. There's other ones that can be coming in August.

What is your what is your, you said your father-in-law? Yeah. Or your father? My father-in-law. What what does he think about the fact that, you know, a third of the NBA games starting in 2025 are gonna be on Amazon Prime Video?

I don't even know if he knows yet. I don't know. I'll have to I'll have to see. He well, he has Amazon Prime Video,

because He has Amazon Prime so everyone has Amazon Prime Video.

Yeah. He will I will probably get a text to be like where do I watch the basketball game? And then he'll probably I'll probably have tell him to go to Amazon.

Yep.

But yeah. So I mean, I think these immersive experiences are one of the the really key features of Apple Vision Pro that actually like make it worth it and I would love for the more like we're gonna talk about in a second how Apple is cutting their spending on some of their, like, entertainment budgets, specifically Apple TV plus content. I don't know if this fits into that. I think it I would imagine it does, but I don't know. I think they need to do more of this.

Yeah. I agree. That I mean, if you want people to use these, this is the one thing that they can offer on the VisionPRO that you can't experience anywhere else. Right? Like, you can watch YouTube. Actually, you want you to do better on your Apple TV. Right? Like, you just can't. Right? It's way better.

Right. But

How can you do that? If I'm watching a movie, I just wanna watch the movie. I'm not worried. The problem with watching it in Avengers Tower is then you, like, get up and you realize that you're not actually in Avengers Tower and trip over your cat or something. So

You don't even have a cat.

That's never I do. I have a cat and a dog.

Oh, you do have a cat? Oh, I know. And we

have a one eyed cat named Hermione.

You have a one eyed cat named her.

There's a lot in that sentence, isn't it?

I I can't even parse that right now. We do.

We have a one eyed cat. She was a rescue cat.

Sure. Sure.

We got her very little, and, one of her eyes didn't make it. And I remember when we asked the vet, like, they were recommending we need to do what they I think they call it an enucleation, which sounds terrifying, and it kind of is. And I said, well, that just seems so cruel. And I remember the vet saying she won't even know. I'm, like, what do you mean she won't know? She's capped. She won't even know she only has one eye. And it's true. She has no idea.

Okay. Wow. I'll be processing that, later today.

I'm sorry. Right at this episode.

That should have been bonus content. There's also a new environment that's not only open to those in the beta, which if you're on the beta, you have, like, the Bora Bora beach environment that's available, but the Lake Wrangler, I don't know if that's how you pronounce it, but this is I

mean, that's how you're gonna pronounce it. That's fine. That's good enough.

Thanks. That's, which is in Oslo, Norway or close to it. And so there's a new environment for everyone. This is if you're on VisionOS 1 or if you're running the beta and you can run this. Have you tried any of the the new environments when you

do them? The Bora Bora. But I realized I don't actually wanna do anything when I'm there except for just sit quietly because it's just very Very

nice.

It's very nice.

It's very nice and serene. So what do you when when you're doing your VisionPRO things, which is, like, you know, reading articles or whatever, are you in an environment? Are you in past?

It depends on on, if I'm writing, I will often go into a, an environment so that I can, like, focus a little bit more. I like the Yosemite one. That's kind of fun. I do wish that the Yosemite was flipped. Like, I would because there's Half Dome and El Cap. Right? And I and I think, by default, you're looking at Half Dome, and I think I'd rather be looking at El Cap. I I might have said that backwards. But, anyway

Interesting. I like the,

Did you ever see the free solo movie?

Yes. Oh, my

See, I just want that's what I think about, and I just wanna sit there and stare and be, like, there's no it's not real. He didn't do that. I can't believe it.

That film is incredible. Alex Honnold.

Yeah. It is amazing.

And you know, you watch a Mission Impossible movie, It's pretty intense and it's fun to watch. You watch that movie and, like, the palm sweating is so real as you're watching Alex Honnold freestyle this thing and, like, edge of your seat. It it just that's that that's what happens when you watch it.

Yes. Steven, halfway through the movie, I had to Google, did he die? Is he still alive? In order to continue watching the rest of the movie, seriously.

It's it is very intense. And, also, he's a very interesting guy. I'll just say Oh, yeah. He's he's a very interesting guy. You have to just prepare yourself.

But if if you have He's amazing. Everyone should watch it though. It is. Fantastic. So He did they did another one where he they they climbed something in Greenland maybe or New Zealand. I know those are not the same place. I can't remember where it was, but they did another unbelievable climb. And, I think it's is it was it, Discovery Channel maybe that did the first one? I can't remember who. No.

Free free solo. Highly re highly recommend

watch it in a vision pro though because you'll just throw up.

Oh, but up but, honestly, see see something like that as an immersive experience. I don't know how you would carry one of those, cameras on a drone. Although, the Blackmagic 1 They

yeah. They hit cameras everywhere, but also the even the High Line is, like, too much to watch.

The High Line was intense. The High Line is intense. I will in that free solo movie, the way the camera guy talks about, like, how do I get this shot, but also not distract this guy as he's free soloing so he fought, like, the pressure. That's a lot of pressure.

And also how do I just know, like, they're doing all this work and what happens if he doesn't make it?

Like Right.

That's cool. Imagine the trauma.

Yeah. So crazy. So crazy. But anyway, I recommend free solo. Something else I wanna recommend, which I wanna tell you about our sponsor today. We have a sponsor, Jason, for this episode.

That's fantastic.

This is amazing. And now those who maybe follow my content for a while, you're wondering, like, why why this sponsor? The sponsor is 1Password. I still use it, especially in a team and enterprise environment, and one of the things that 1password really excels at is that enterprise business and teams perspective. And so what we're talking about right now is 1 password extended access management.

Yeah. And I was gonna just look and see. I've I interviewed the CEO, Jeff Shiner Right. Of of 1password. I was supposed to actually interview him on stage this summer, but I was not able to do that.

Put them

in a group, and now you only have access to those. It's it's it's really smart. And the people behind it, they know what they're doing, and they actually care, which I think is an important as we've seen, a very important thing when it comes to security. So Yes. Exactly.

That's good. Yeah. So that link in the show notes. Thank you, 1Password, sponsoring the show. Continue with the the Apple news segment.

putting in those implants in people's brains is really expensive. So isn't that like the premise of that show? Yeah.

Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. That is the premise. Wait. Did you watch it?

I have actually not seen severance yet. Listen. I have 4 children.

This is just I'm

not I'm not of my time driving back and forth between gymnastics and soccer.

Putting on that Appalachian Pro every morning. Just just throw on a separate

Not watching severance. I'm throwing up there. I gotta pay for soccer.

So so, yeah, that's why it ballooned to more than $20,000,000 an episode, which is wild. So they're trying to cut back on some of the spending. I know I haven't seen it either, but did you see Napoleon or Killers of the Flower?

No. See, those were, like,

the biggest movie productions for Apple TV plus I I have not watched them yet. And I've Do you know

what I watch? We watch sports, which I know you don't understand. Sports ball. And then we watch basically Marvel movies

Right.

Right. Because 4 children. Sure. And then although last night, we watched, Sonic the Hedgehog.

That's a good one. I like that.

I like that. It's actually a great movie, to be honest. It's actually great. It's hard to admit that publicly, but it's actually a really

good movie.

I enjoy it. But or then my wife and I just watch Friends. That's it. And that's how we get

Have you guys watched that Brooklyn 99?

No.

It's a funny show. That that was the worst We

watched Ted Lasso, and we watched shrinking. But the criteria for a show that we watch before we fall asleep is I have to not have to think or have any emotions except for laughter.

Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. One other part of this article I thought was interesting is there's kind of this presumption that like Netflix has won the streaming wars. And by basically, like, the budget or maybe the success of some of their originals, and, you know, other items of information like the most Emmy nominations of any platform, if that's a metric you want to use, and I I wanna I don't know.

Well, I mean, you could make an argument that it's pretty close between them and Amazon Prime Video because

Well, that's true.

Who has Prime has Prime Video. So, like, there is every time people say, like, Netflix has the most subscribers, that's true for people who intended to pay money for streaming video.

Right. Right. Who didn't do buy it?

But Amazon Prime Video has a pretty big audience as well. I'm not actually sure right now which one is bigger globally, but Netflix of the other streaming services is by far the biggest. And if you measure it by the share of people's dispensable time disposable time, you know, like

Right.

The time that people could choose to do a thing with

Right.

It's basically Netflix and YouTube.

Right. YouTube is still slightly above Netflix.

Just a little bit.

Just a little bit. So, I mean, in those metrics, yeah, I get it. But when it comes to actual content, I don't know when it I I still pay for Netflix because I haven't finished watching The Crown, and so once we finish that, I'm probably gonna cancel.

That is the most expensive show you've ever started watching. If you're still paying for Netflix

just to finish it. I'm very close to just buying the Blu Ray box sets. We we talked about this. I know what we're talking

about this. I know.

But when I go in there sometimes because, you know, there's not a ton of shows out there right now that I'll be into. And so when I see the Netflix originals, I mean, it just seems like so many just kind of b movies that are just like kind of content they're basically a content form for like movies. Sure. Here's here's an actress you've heard of and we're gonna put them in an action movie and there's the thing and like you have every flavor of that with different actresses and like here's a spy version, here's a heist version, and it's, like, I I I don't know. I don't see them producing, like, high quality content.

Well, I mean, they've done they have done some. Right? That because wasn't wasn't The Queen's Gambit was also a Netflix show, wasn't it?

The Queen's Gambit. Yes.

You know? And so they've had certainly some. I think you could probably I don't know if this is true because I haven't, like, broken it down. But probably Netflix has just as many prestige shows as in pure numbers as a service like Apple TV. It's just Netflix also has 700,000 other generic shows. It's all Right. This is terrible thing to say, but it is almost like the AI. It's like, what was it? The the unofficial web blog where they just spit out a bunch of AI generated crap. Like Yeah.

Okay. Fair point.

Because you know how much money YouTube pays for content? Basically, 0.

Basically, $0.

Right? It's well, I mean, they probably tell you, no. No. No. We share half of the ads.

Well, yeah. Yeah. But it's it's all

you somebody else's money. That's someone else's money.

Can I tell you the amount of times I've had to Google the acronym UGC? I keep seeing that as, like, a phrase now, and I was like, what is that? Is that but it's user generated.

User generated content.

Yeah. I guess you

for someone who makes podcasts and YouTube videos, I'm a little surprised.

Literally my job. I had no idea what I didn't know it was an acronym for it.

You're you're a UGC professional.

UGC. I don't like that, though. It feels kind of I don't know.

That does feel like a thing that is someone who who works in, like, the business development or the, like, revenue generation side. Like, just they put everything as an acronym.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's kind of like it's like, in the airlines, the joke used to be, SLC, self loading cargo. Passengers are self loading cargo.

That no. That okay. Yeah. That explains a lot if the airlines are talking about people like that. Okay. I see. Do you do you remember the thing back this was I don't know how many years ago, but, like, airlines entertaining the idea of, like, standing room airplanes. There was

there's been some wild ideas because if your primary incentive is to

Hack it.

Maximize the amount of, you know, revenue you can generate, Well and it's like Alaska Airlines just is doing the opposite because they're actually adding 1st class in economy. It's like every other airline is trying to figure out a thing to strap you to the walls on the side and just, like they're just gonna be like a New York City subway. You know? You're just gonna be holding on to us a wrist strap on the plane. It's a

wrist strap. You get a pole. There's a single pole down

the center

of this plane. Good luck trying to hold on. This just came out, I think, yesterday as we record, but Apple Maps in beta on the web. You can now go to beta.maps.apple.com in your web browser. This works on desktop on iPad not on iPhone.

Well, first of all, like, I mean, Apple Maps and Google have had this interesting relationship. Right? Because Google Maps was one of the original Default. Apps. It was the original app on one of the original 16 apps on the original iPhone.

well, well, we're gonna talk about that. I wanna talk about the personal tech, Apple Maps v Google Maps.

I'm just saying open the thing. And when you take a look at it, when it first opens, you're just like, is there a map in there somewhere? Because all I can see is a whole bunch of things that are not a map. Right? It is just it is super bad. And they updated the overall design language sometime maybe last year, I think it was. I can't exactly remember. And it just got worse. Just the way the maps look is just terrible.

So No. I I I agree. And I I'll just say, like, here's here's a live view. Oh, let me turn the brightness down. Here's a live view of Google Maps, and, I it's not my location, but it is a bit it is a bit of a mess. I'll be honest. Like, yeah, there's a map there, and I used this one time on our road trip, for a very specific reason and we'll get to that in the personal take but yeah I I agree I think Google Maps has gone down in design

Google's entire business model has been based on being the default choice for search, user generated content video, email. Right? Gmail is the largest email service that's ever existed. Right? And and then also, like, Maps.

Right.

Right? That's just the only option. So now Apple is trying to yes. The the number of people who are gonna just go to beta.maps.apple.com are probably pretty small. It's like you and me and a couple of our listeners.

Yeah. Interesting.

So, like, I don't know if that's coming. But, yeah, I just I think those are super smart move. It doesn't seem like a big deal because people are like, how often do you just sit and use maps on your phone? But I do think it would be nice if you could click on a link, be like an address link on a website. Right. It opens in the maps app on I mean, it opens in maps on your In the way. Browser, and then you could just send it to your phone. That would be nice.

Right. And that that is there's actually an extension called mapper. I talked about this in one of my videos where it basically takes the Google Maps directions links that you would find in, like, Google search results and just opens that in Apple Maps. Yeah. It works pretty well on iOS on the desktop.

But, yeah,

if one day that can also be, like, here's the Apple Maps link and anybody on any device can also use that, yeah, that would be, pretty powerful.

Yep.

Yeah. That's cool. Yeah.

So there it is. You could

try it out and, that's all the Apple's that let me see. Any other Apple stuff? We got that. We got Maps. We'll talk about Apple Maps versus Google Maps in a second.

Social network.

Social check. Social. I think it

It is a so so network. You're right. So so.

It's so so. But I think it is improving on that real time news. Not not that it's great yet, but when those big events were happening, I could actually go on threads and see posts related to it while it's happening. And there's been this ongoing joke about, like, someone I forgot who it is. Maybe it's Dan Seifert, previously of The Verge.

Well, maybe. I mean, the other, you know, enormous, probably largest news story of our lifetime that happened while we were not podcasting because it's in, it's not tech related was the attempted assassination of former president Trump. And you couldn't find anything on threads, like, in terms of real time.

But if

you went to x, but that was still that was the moment that it became very clear that for the people for whom real time transmission of information is an important part of either their job or just what they're curious about in life Yeah. That x is still the platform for that. Not because the way that they have decided to do whatever is great, but because the fact that, like, it is it allows for just literally chronological servicing of information that people are caring care about. And in x seems to default more towards we want to show you the things that we think everyone wants to see because that spurs engagement versus we want to show you a carefully manicured version. Because honestly, listen, I like threads, and I use it.

Why am I getting a notification about it?

Yeah. 25,000 times. Yeah. Yeah. Or why do I get a notification every time Kara Swisher starts a thread? I don't understand. Why can I not turn that off? I mean, I like Kara Swisher.

Yeah. Yeah.

Honestly, I get a notification every time she posts thread. Like, why? Why do you think that that's the thing that I wanna see? Like, whatever. But most of what you see in there is just like random, just engagement baked garbage in threads. And they have to like, I don't wanna see that. Yeah. Yes. I know that there's a following feed. That's fine.

That it's not.

Yeah. So Until

you can set that as the default, I don't think that's a good

They just have to decide who they're gonna be, who they wanna be when they grow up. And did you see the listen. I'm sorry. Did but did you see the post from Zuck the other day? This is a response that Zuck posted about how Yes. When he was 19, he didn't know anything about running a company and how awkward he was. Right? And stuff like that. Zuck has decided that he's gonna be an MMA fighter when he grows up. The question is, who does threads wanna be when it grows up?

And I also will say, I don't go on Facebook very often, and I I do it sometime. I was trying to sell something on, like, Facebook Marketplace, which is kinda like the one reason why I still go there to open the app. I will scroll my newsfeed for a second, and people that I know personally, typically, they are not older, but older than me. And I will see them engaged with AI generated imagery, whether it is just a meme or whatever, but I've seen more and more like like products where people will say, like, where can I find this? Or, you know, what is this?

Right.

And it is honestly troubling because, you know, I think maybe a lot of people probably listen to the show, and us, are usually discerning enough to to see AI generated content at a distance. That may get more difficult in the coming years. But right now, there's AI generated imagery that is basically fooling people into thinking things are real. And, like, one of them is so silly. It was like it was a post from a company and it was like an inflatable pool, but the entire edge was like bench.

It's a weird time. Yes.

It's a weird time.

Well, I I mean, but it's not surprising that people believe things that are not true. It's just surprising how easy it is to share things that are not real to get people to believe them. Like, that barrier to, you know, that that friction point is now gone.

Yes. Yes. Anyway. Okay. So we're not gonna go down that terrible rabbit hole, but you're talking about something else that's going downhill which is the Tesla shares. Don't leave us a one star review. We're just reporting the news. Okay? This is Tesla shares are down. Tell me what happened, Jason.

Well, basically, the the most important piece of news here is that Tesla reported its earnings recently. Right? And its its revenue declined from a year ago, and it was and, also, its profit margins went down. And this was the fur there was there was times in the past where that those numbers went down mostly during the beginning of, like, the pandemic and stuff. But this is the first time that they have gone down 2 quarters in a row.

It still grew.

15%. But in this case, Tesla's revenue is actually going down. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that there's a lot more competition in the EV market. And Tesla is still the largest EV maker that there is, and I still drive 1. So just keep that in mind when you go to leave us a review.

that's what's gonna get us a 1 star review. You gotta listen to it. Don't leave

a 1 star review. Just send me hate mail. But I do love my I love my model s. It's it's the best car I've ever driven. But the thing is, most people aren't going to there are a lot of other options right now that are great. Tesla still has by far the best charging network. That's its best asset. Right? It really does. And they're opening that up to other, EV makers, and that's that's a good thing, I think, for everybody.

Right.

There are a lot of people who will buy a Tesla just because they love Elon Musk.

Right.

K? That's that's a true thing. There are also a lot of people who bought Teslas because they were the 1st good electric vehicle that they really were. Right? They're sure they had some quality control problems, whatever whatever. The number they've saturated those 2 markets. And the market of people who bought them just because they were the only option, now you have a lot of other options. Right? Rivian makes great vehicles. You know, the Hyundai Ioniq is a fantastic view vehicle.

Right.

I just don't want one sold by Elon Musk. And that's a hard thing. And I don't think, you know, the worst look here is shareholders approved, what, a $45,000,000,000 pay package for Elon Musk, and then the revenue is going down to 2 quarters in a row. I feel like there's that's not a good sign. I don't know.

Well, and then also, he's over here on x, namely Musk, saying, should Tesla invest $5,000,000,000 in x AI? Yeah. You know?

Which is his AI company.

Right. Right.

It's like, wait. You had 4 you know, $44,000,000,000 to invest in x. You can't come up with $5,000,000,000 to invest in this other company? Like, are you tapped out, bud? Yes. They just gave you 40 they're just trying to give you a shovel, of truck. They'd like think about the number of cyber trucks they're gonna need to shovel out that cash that they just approved as a pay package. But the Cybertruck is a great example, Steven. Mhmm. Because for people who who drive 1 Yeah.

I love it.

Yeah. It is actually a fantastic thing. Like, if you're driving it, I mean, it does feel like you're probably gonna kill somebody. But it is but but people are like, I would never buy that thing just because of how excited the the guy that runs the company is about it.

Right. Which is tough. I mean, it's just real life. I will say, yeah, I've met a couple

But but there's nobody who's like, I'm not buying a GMC Silverado because, you know, Mary Barra once cut me off in traffic.

Again, it's just the the age we live in where there these are personality driven companies, like Yeah. Like Mark Zuckerberg, like threads, Facebook, Meta, and now Mosseri who is over Instagram is kind of like the face of threads because everyone's just at Yeah.

Because it's part of Instagram. Yeah.

Part of Instagram. So everyone's just at mentioning him with, like, their feature requests and complaints. It's interesting that it's a, you know, personality driven companies where I don't know. I mean, I feel like Apple was very much a personality driven company. I don't know if it still is now.

I don't know. Yeah. I mean, no. I don't think that it is it is, you know, I think Steve Jobs was the ultimate example of a company who was reflected in its CEO, founder, whatever. Right? Tim Cook is not the founder of Apple. Right? He is the CEO, but all of the other people you mentioned were founders. Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg. Right?

Yeah.

But I don't think people associate the design of the new iPhone with Tim Cook's taste.

Right. Absolutely. The one nonfounder connection, I I don't know how widespread this is, but I do think Bob Iger and Disney have become kind of a little closer to that founder company relationship than not. I don't know if it was because it was like, you know, he left and Bob Chapek and everybody was like, oh, wow. Disney's not great.

But Disney is such a huge monster. So, I mean, you could argue, like, okay. Delta CEO, Ed Bastian, like, is the public face of that company. Right? But no one thinks, like, Delta Airlines airlines are different because they've been around for quite a while. Right? And they're all founded by different people.

But no one's also but I'm also, like, it's not a daily for most people, it's not a daily life, daily interaction thing. Like, social networks, people interact with every day. Your devices, people interact with every day. Sure. I think it's there's a difference there with, like, you know

People interact with Disney every day and have no idea that it's Disney. Right? Like, it's not because, I mean, if you watch the NBA finals, that's you're watching it on ESPN and that's Disney.

Well, I don't. I don't watch Disney.

Okay. Bad example.

No. No. Well, speaking of which, last news bit before, our maps thing. You put this in here.

Look at that. I just gave you the perfect transition.

Perfect transition, but I know nothing about sports balls, so you tell me about it. I don't know anything about sports ball.

I was gonna write about this, but I ran out of time because I wrote about the Apple Maps thing that Yeah. Yeah. No one cares about instead. No. I'm just kidding. Which was the okay. The big story the last big TV rights deal that was up for grabs was the NBA's deal. Right? The NFL signed theirs. Most of the college, whatever, all signed in in the NCAA tournament.

Right.

And now it's not. What? They've they they're they're they're putting games on Amazon instead. Right? And and NBC, they they gave a bunch of games to NBC, which is I don't think had, NBA games for quite a while.

Peacock? I mean, there's some

of these games will be on Peacock, but think about, like, if you pay for NBC and you hear the NBA is on there, you do not want you get real mad when you find out, like, actually, it's on Peacock. But

Right.

Anyway, speaking of, by the way, did you notice, Steven, that the Peacock logo Oh, boy. On Apple TV has the Olympic rings.

Oh, does it?

I have got to write about that. That is the smartest thing that when you are looking at the Apple TV grid, you you know exactly where to go for the Olympics.

I have to actually sign up for Peacock today probably because I do wanna watch the Olympics.

You're welcome.

And it's it's the only one.

So look for the one with the Olympic rings. Think about that branding. That is the most powerful that is, like, the single most powerful branding that any media company could have are those 5 Olympic rings on there.

But can I also can I also just for one second? Because the Olympics Okay. The the opening ceremony is is tomorrow as we record, Friday, July 26th, happening in Paris, France. Last time, I think a 100 years ago, we just watched the

It's a 100 years ago.

Jumping around.

Last time was not a 100 years ago, it was only 3 years.

But in Paris, last time it was Paris? Yeah. Because only because we watched the, young lady in the sea movie on Disney plus, which is Daisy Ridley, the true story of, Ederly swimming the first woman to swim the English Channel. Mhmm. Movie was great, but she also competed in the Olympics that were in France in 1924, which is pretty wild. So Which

is also the first Olympics that women women were allowed to compete.

Exact right. Exactly.

In Paris.

Yep. So a good movie. Side note. But also, I was trying to find information about the opening ceremonies for the Olympics, because I do like to watch them, and so I go I search, as you do, which is a Google search, like Olympic opening ceremonies. And so it sends me to the Olympics official website. I was like, okay. Cool. That's why I'm scrolling around. I'm like, I just want like, what time? Where do I watch?

know. I know. It is it is ridiculous. It is just ridiculous. And honestly, I feel like there should be a law. Maybe the EU can get on

that part. Yeah. Except for

the Olympics are in France. They're like, this is great.

Right. You do you do that thing. Anyway, I I'm trying to figure out so for a personal text, I mean, I wanna talk about iOS 18. I feel like I need to spend more time with it to to have more thoughts, like the photos thing. Because you don't have it on a main device, do you? Are you running the iOS 18 beta?

No. I have it

on a second device. Right. Right. The one

that's not even yours.

Right? It's not. So sorry. Right. So I don't maybe we'll talk about that next week, but I wanna talk about Apple Maps versus Google Maps here in personal tech, and then I wanna talk about my New York City trip in the bonus episode, but Apple has goo Google Maps. From from what I've heard from you, I assume you are an Apple Maps by default user.

A 100% of the time, unless we're using Waze. That's it. That's the only exception. Waze Waze is great for road trips because you I mean, it's it's actually a very good road trip.

Which isn't Waze is owned by Google. Yeah. Bought it. So anyway

But it's not Google Maps. It's a different thing.

It is a different thing. I I don't use Waze. Every time I talk about maps, I know everyone's like, oh, Waze.

Hardcore road trippers use Waze.

Okay. Well, I don't use Waze.

I mean, Steven only leaves his house once a year, so it's fine.

I don't I don't want another map set, but I was traversing New York City and I, here in Florida, don't usually have reason to use transit directions. And the last time I was in New York, because I I grew up in New York, I am literally from New York, I knew how to read a subway map. I knew how to get on the l and the r and all that, and I knew what I was doing. But the The

l's in Chicago, isn't it? I'm just I'm sorry. Carry on. I

don't know. I took the

h for me. It's true. It is. The l is the the subway system Yeah. Yeah. In Chicago because it's elevated.

Anyway okay. Well, I know all the other trains. And, but this time, I was like, forget the map. I mean, let me you let me try Apple Maps transit directions. And I just have to say, Jason, spot on.

Absolutely.

Transit directions in Apple Maps was so good. I can it gets my current location. We were in Manhattan. I was like, how do I get to whatever? And it just tells me just tells me what train to get on and all that.

How much faster was it?

I mean, it would have been, like, 45 minutes to an hour faster because it was avoiding 95 completely, and it was taking, like, kind of these couple back roads down to where we live. And so it was significantly different, and we took that alternate route, and it turned out it was faster. So that was like the one instance sometimes Apple Maps just refuses to give you that that alternate route. But all the other times, adding a stop on a route, Apple Maps wins. So easy.

Yeah. And if you connect your phone to your car using Bluetooth, it'll remember where it is.

That too. You get the parked car notification. I I find I did a video on this, like, over a year ago, and I think people were starting to, like, tip over to the Apple Maps side because Google Maps just had so much, like, mind, space, and people, you know

Inertia.

Yeah. There was so much inertia. But I think now I think it's actually shifted. I think a lot of people are like, hey, Apple Maps looks great. It's just way better and, it actually takes you where you need to go. You know? It's not trying to get you to drive off a bridge anymore.

Which is an important thing. And I will say, Steven, so the first time I realized that Apple Maps was garbage when it was was actually in your neighborhood, not your neighborhood, but it was we were in Tampa over Thanksgiving 1 year, and we were going to pick up food to, like because when you're traveling with a whole bunch of family, like, you can't, like we don't we can't make a Thanksgiving dinner or a hotel or whatever. But we were gonna pick something up, and Apple Maps gave us directions to where that was. And it literally took us to, like, a dead end road that was 3 or 4 miles away from wherever it was that we were going, and we're like, yep. And then we didn't use it again for, like, 3 or 4 years because it was like, I can't do you have one job?

Right. And if

you can't do that job, I don't care how pretty you are. I don't care how nice you talk to me. You have one job. I will put up with all the other inconveniences if if if I know it's it's like a trusting. Right. And and it's the thing that's built up over

a lot.

So I imagine there are some people who had a bad experience early on, but I will say they it is they have gotten so much better. And in my mind, it is a lot better than Google Maps.

Yeah.

You talked about the transit directions. My favorite thing about that is that when you come up out of the subway, it'll look around and it'll, like, see the building so it can actually tell you. Because, you know, you come up out of a subway

You don't know what direction.

4 options. And it's like, you look at the thing and you're like, oh, I think I wanna be in the southwest corner, but the grid is not north and south in Manhattan. It's actually at an angle. So you're like, actually, I was supposed like Yeah. It it can be confusing, but you literally you just can hold the phone up and it sees the buildings and, oh, yeah. You gotta go that way. And it

the transit directions even tell you, like, here's the entrance to the subway that you have to walk to, and then this is, like, the walk to the train. Like, it gives you that granular detail. It's great.

Yep. That's fantastic. I think it's really good. I still think that Street View is better than Look Around, so Street View on Google Maps because they just have had more time, like, driving those weird cars with the thing on the top of them around. Like, it's that's true. Like, there's street view of, like, random mountains and, like

Oh, I know. It's wild.

Weird places. Yeah. It's amazing. There's no streets, but there's a street view. So Yeah. But Apple Maps, give it a try. If you're listening, like, if you're one of our listeners and you're still using Google Maps, like, that's fine. I just it there's a better experience out there.

It's good. That's good. I will

say And especially if you're in a place like New York Right. Or if you're, like, in the Bay Area, and they have those enhanced views. So you don't even have to go to like the satellite view, but they will show you the enhanced views, like the three-dimensional, like go to just look up Apple Park on on on there, and you can, like, see the ring.

Right.

And it's, like, very, very cool. So

It's very cool. I will say we were doing turn by turn as we were driving. And sometimes if you approach a big city that has this, you get that enhanced view where it's, like, not just lane assist Yeah. But it gives you that 3 d view of like here are the lanes. It'll do like fake trees, like you could see there's like trees on the sides.

Thank you.

The little 3 d trees on either side. Yeah. It looks very nice. But Apple Maps, yeah. Especially transit, really good. I'm gonna do some shortcuts. In a future video, I'm gonna do some shortcuts for Apple Maps transit direction. It's gonna be pretty

good. Wild.

Anyway, I wanna talk about more about my trip and, more about my trip in in the bonus episode we're about to record. So if you wanna listen to the bonus episode and get access to all the past bonus episodes, you should go to primary tech dot f m, click bonus episodes. You can support the show there. You get an ad free version, and we actually had an ad today. You can get an ad free version and the bonus episodes.