Apple’s Privacy Battle with UK, TV+ App on Android, OpenAI’s GPT-5 and Beyond

A good agent doesn't need gadgets. The only gadgets I've ever needed are a sharp eye, sensitive hearing, and a whole bunch of bigger brains. Welcome to Primary Technology, the show about the tech news that matters. Big news this week. The UK is trying to make Apple take away advanced data protection and iCloud encryption there and maybe worldwide.

I know. Well, see, it you'd think it doesn't take much for me since we both work from home, but this is, like, the week of the year when having a shed in the backyard as your studio is a problem because we I've shoveled three times since yesterday because we got a lot of snow. Yes.

This this is the evidence if you're watching on YouTube that this is Jason's snowy boots. Yeah. Well, oh, that's wild. I've never had to do that here in Florida. I've did it I've done it in New York. I know what it's like.

Steven, you don't have to put boots on to go to your studio. You don't you barely have to put pants on to go to your studio.

I'm not wearing I'm wearing shorts right now. I'll be honest. To which, you can't do that in Michigan right now either. No. Too cold. The movie quote today is apropos to the big topic we're gonna be talking about, The UK and Apple's data. Do you know what movie that might be from?

I actually don't know. I I feel like I've heard that quote before, and even with that additional hint, I don't know.

Jason sandbagging because someone accused him of using Chatchip ET to figure out the movie quotes. Hold on.

Let's see how long would it take me to to search that in Google. You said something about a good

The only gadgets I've ever needed are a sharp eye, sensitive hearing, and a whole bunch of bigger brains.

Okay. So I just typed in movie quote, a good agent doesn't need gadgets, and it says Johnny English.

Exactly right. Well, I

mean, I hope Google could get it. Come on. It's like the number one search is, like, IMDB. But anyway, I I I've never seen that movie. So

Okay. Well, there you go. For for the first time, Jason did not get it. But,

no. Pick movies I haven't seen. They're all probably infinity movies I haven't seen. Sure. Sure. Tend to pick ones that I have seen.

That's true. But Johnny English, it's apropos because The UK is, doing some unsavory things, but we're we're gonna get to that. That's gonna that's gonna be our deep dive. We have some amazing five star reviews. Although, I feel like I saw yesterday, we're now a 4.9 star podcast.

Yeah. Super don't do that. That is an interest we should unpack that sometime. Not now, but who thinks you have to type in push punch every star? It's like a building building thing.

I don't know. But, we need to get back to a five star podcast now. We're at 277 ratings and reviews. So So if you could do that, we would appreciate it. But we have some five star shout outs. Jeffrey with a g. Jeffrey, like Joffrey, like, who's the actor? Jeff, Jeffrey Goldblum? Never mind.

Jeffrey Goldblum? I don't know.

He's Jeffrey with a g set is his new favorite show, which we appreciate, but battery percentage on, non dominant back pocket is where he puts his phone. So okay. Jason wins on that one. Travis eight six five from The USA, battery percentage on. Jason wins again.

Not our content. Just the audio quality.

He just he just falls asleep.

I hate everything you say, but I love listening to it.

No. No. He said he likes to show it to you. And one old tech shout out because we've been showing off old tech, and we'll keep doing it if you send it. This is from our community. You can go to social.primarytech.fm and join. But Rodney, he sent a picture of his Newton, a message pad one twenty. That's some old tech.

That is impressive. I don't have I don't know for sure. Did he didn't say that he uses it every day, but No. I still think it's very cool to have like, was really two different questions we ask people. What's the oldest tech that you still use on a regular basis? And then what is literally just the oldest Apple product that you have?

That's it. So that that's that's pretty good. If anybody can beat that Newton, let us know. That's that's pretty good. That's a pretty good one.

Yeah. Alright.

We got a bunch of things. I wanna hopefully do an early lightning round, go through this stuff fast, which never works, but we're gonna try it anyways. You had some thoughts because the big game was last weekend, which I will say I streamed on Tubi. I created a free Tubi account the day, like, an hour before the game started. I download the app on my Apple TV, and I have to say, worked great.

or TV? Yeah. That's how we get TV is through YouTube TV. Right. I wasn't about to try to download some janky Fox app to watch the free game. I'm just kidding. Sorry, TV. Tube TV

was good. I mean, TV did a great job of, like, they knew everyone was only downloading this for the Super Bowl. So as soon as you open the app anywhere, it was like Super Bowl, and you just click it. And so it worked out. But you had a big problem about the, about Fox's broadcast, namely the score bug. Yeah. You you said it made everyone mad, and and I'm curious, why you think that because Jason Snow liked it. He liked how this thing

You're right. You found the two people who liked it. Jason and

John Gruber.

And and I think Ben Thompson also liked it. And I said it was ugly. They said it was functional, which both of those things can be true. My biggest beef with it was the fact that it it when the, well, first of all, if you just look at it, the Kansas City is not centered. The KC is not even centered in that red box.

Well, I I get it. If if you listen to the show for any length of time, you know, I'm I'm not big into sports ball, so I can't speak to it. It was very legible for me. I could always tell what the score was, and that left number was zero for a long time.

I know. You know? And, actually, I think it was Ben Thompson on dithering made a good point, which was well, it was either him or John Grouper. I can't remember which, but I thought it was Ben. That what they managed to accomplish, and I have to give them credit for this, is that they cut came up with a design that looked good on both a very large TV and on your iPhone.

That's interesting. That's a good point. Because again

Actually, you could it was very legible in both of those scenarios. And so in that case, alright, I gotta give you credit for that.

That's true. And you know so you know what else you could see? Clear as day on any size screen was Tom Brady's watch, because I was saying when he came up on screen, I I said it's real men of honor vibes because it was, like, this very big gold thing, and I'm not a watch person. I don't know about it. Apparently, it was a $740,000 Jacob and Co watch. Yep. Did you call that? Because I tweeted about it and you you.

Yeah. I mean, I've actually seen that their style before. I I do like watches. I don't have anything. I still have a hundred and $40,000.

You have a collection.

Watches. I do

not. Okay.

My children joke, though. I, one time I showed him an interview and it was with, our friend, Tony Fidel. He's not actually our friend, but he's, you know, the guy who invented the iPad, the guy who invented the iPad or iPod,

excuse me.

And had a lot to do with the iPhone as well, but he is a watch collector. And I think it was when he sold nest, which is what he did after apple to Google. He went and bought a Patek, like grand complication, which is like a $1,200,000 watch or whatever. And I was showing it to my kids one day. So now the joke at our house is that that's permanently on all of my Christmas and birthday lists is a protect.

In in just in in perturbably. And Yeah. That's not the word I was looking for.

My children are imperturb. Yes.

It was the way Still not a word. But What is the word I was looking for? In in

In perpetuity?

In perpetuity. I think that was the word I was going for. Yeah. That's and one of their sports ball news because this and again, you'll have to tell me if there's a cool Apple Vision Pro, the NBA app on Apple Vision Pro, I think it's, like, you need a league pass to be able to stream the games. They just launched what they call this new tabletop view and so basically if you use the app in Apple Vision Pro, you can watch the game stream like just the video kind of in front of you and now there's like a basketball court as like a tabletop, like a coffee table in front of you, and you actually see the players running around the court, like, in you're watching a lot this is a live game, and you're watching them go around the court, you have the scoreboard, plus then you can have the the TV feed above that.

Wasn't there a Vision Pro, f one app that was similar to this? I feel like or maybe it was like a Porsche app where, like, the maybe the people in the pit can see like the three d. So, I mean, this is novel. I don't like the one piece that feels like it's missing again, unless you're in a hotel by yourself or traveling or something like that is most people. I know you're not familiar with this because you don't watch. I mean, do you even know, you know, that that team is the bulls. Right?

Are you kidding?

I'm just making sure. I wanna make sure we're establishing it. On the court. I understand. I just wanted to establish the baseline here for us.

Yes. Yes.

But most people like to watch sports with other people. Right? And so the Vision Pro is not generally the way you do that because then they laugh at you. So

Well, that's yeah. And my my my father-in-law watches basketball by himself though, so he might that might be that might be a pill There

you go.

So, anyway, I think it's cool. If anybody out there, both had this Venn diagram is probably very small, but has vision pro, also loves NBA and has the league pass, let me know if you if you've tried it. I think I might try it just just because. But now moving from the Super Bowl, but still tangentially connected, OpenAI had their first major ad during the Super Bowl. I saw it.

I thought it was good. And so when it I mean, I knew OpenAI was doing an ad, and so as soon as it came up, yeah, the with the black dot, I was like, oh, this is an OpenAI

AI ad.

Funny thing was then there's a point in the ad where there's a, where there's, it starts to show the voice, like talking to it and it has a little glyph. And the funny thing is that's it was basically the Cisco logo when it when it first comes up. Yeah. Right there. It's basically like the Cisco logo.

I don't know if

you caught it. It was like a dad kind of thing. I thought that was really good. But if

you remember that ad and a pixel ad? Was there a Google and a pixel ad? Well, it

was like a Google Assistant ad where he was Right. Where he's help using it to help him prepare for a job.

Yeah. I thought it was a good ad.

Talk about talk about the best job you ever had or something like that, and it was, like, reminiscing about being a dad. I thought that was great. But if you remember the Paris Olympics ad where Google had an ad where it was a father using Google Gemini to help write a letter to his daughter's favorite athlete. And it was it was just widely panned because it's like, no, the whole point of you writing a letter to someone is like, it should be done by a human and open AI sort of skipped out on the here are some practical things you could do with a with AI and sort of pinned it to the progression of human innovation. Right?

Super Bowl ads. No. But it it was a good ad. I I mean, I think it was probably better than the Google one, but I did like this Google ad for the Pixel and Gemini, and I think they did better, like, playing to the emotion. It almost felt more like an Apple ad.

Well, it actually felt more like an old school Google ad. So I referenced, if you remember, the Parisian love, which was the 02/2012, I think, Super Bowl maybe, which was literally just a series of shots of someone doing a search, and it starts with study abroad in Paris. And then how do you say you're really pretty looking for cafes looking for this? And then it ends with, like, how do you assemble a baby?

Yeah. That was good. That was good.

Fantastic ad. And it was literally just a bunch of blue links. It was like so creative and such good storytelling and, and Google has done a really good job of that. And then they sort of like really lost their way. This ad was much better. But I think in terms of, I still don't think that in that example, who's gonna use their Google Pixel phone to help them prepare for a job interview? That still just doesn't feel like the kind of thing someone's actually gonna do.

I mean, maybe I mean, I guess you can ask it for, like, sample interview questions and what would be good responses or how do you phrase I mean, I can see it maybe.

Yeah. But do are we at a point where the assistant can then listen to your answer and give you feedback? I don't feel like we're there yet.

I'll be curious. I haven't tried that. I'll be curious if well, I don't know about Gemini, but see how ChatGPT voice does, but I don't know. That's interesting. Yeah.

So Well yeah. Okay. Can I say two two things about this? So the first one, I just wanna suggest there it would be easy to miss this. Five is probably gonna get a lot of the the headline buzz, but open AI also released something called deep research recently. And I wanna say it's ridiculous how amazing it is now. Google also has a thing called deep research. Not confusing at all. Right? Like there's everyone's an

internal thing, right?

No. You can use it. If you have Gemini advanced, you can use the Gemini 1.5 with deep research and you can in this. And so Chad GPTs is a little bit better on the analysis side, but you could literally say research the history of smartphones and explain why the iPhone has an advantage and how it became the dominant thing. And it'll spend fifteen minutes.

like, how

am I supposed to even know what the difference of this? And there are differences. It's like the more simple the task you have, you should use like the smaller models because there will be much faster and then you don't need that. It's, it's just really hard for people to parse out what's actually happening.

Well, one of the things Sam Allman said, and it's in that Verge article, is that ideally down the road that when you make a request of ChatGPT, it should be smart enough to figure out which model to use. So if you're asking it something simple that it would use a faster model, and then if you're asking a deeper question it would use, you know, which makes sense like this, these, these models, the LLMs should be able to parse how deep is this question and and what is the depth of information that the the user is requesting. But anyway, now deep research isn't that part of the ChatGPT Pro subscription?

Yes. So it is currently only available to pro users. I am Not a pro user. I'm not paying $200 a month. However, I think the I think you could make an argument.

Interesting. Okay. Do you still think the over under the going public this year, 2025?

Yeah. I think they have to. They keep because they can't keep raising money like this.

Right.

Because all of those investors, like, think about Microsoft. They they wanna return

Right.

And what they've put into it. These these you know? And right now, if all the profits are going in theory into the nonprofit, they can't have there's no return for them. They either need to sell their shares or they need to have the, like, you know, profit sharing. They need to have, like, a dividend or whatever. And so, yeah.

Our one last piece of AI news before we get to apple and, apple TV coming to Android, which I think is a bigger topic than than just a new app, but Scarlett Johansson is calling for a deepfake ban because there was an AI generated video. This is so complicated. I I don't even wanna describe it, because anyway, I'll just say the deepfake video is kind of crazy because it features, famous people like, Scarlett Johansson, Jerry Seinfeld. The deepfake is very convincing. Steven Spielberg is in this and Mark Zuckerberg, like, it's very real

Mark Zuckerberg is not convincing because he doesn't have a chain on but the rest of them yes.

The rest of them are like friends and so like if you watch the whole video it does like oh this feels a little weird and honestly the AI video stuff is becoming more problematic. I was, sitting with my wife and she saw a video on social media and she was like, look at this. And I was like, that's an AI video. And it was just some weird thing about like a dog kind of like rescuing a child from falling. Like it wasn't a huge, you know, there wasn't famous people, there wasn't actually like adults in it, but like she was watching it and she knew something was weird about it.

I agree. I think the alternative is that if we outlaw motion smoothing on regular videos, then we'll always be able to identify the AI videos because that does seem to be the tell is that they all feel just a little bit too cinematic and, like, perfectly motioned. They're all, like, a 20 frames per second, it feels like. And so if we could just make it so that no one else ever does that, then we'll at least be able to identify the fake one.

That is a great idea. I think, outlawing motion smoothing, % behind that.

Just a good idea, period.

Good idea, period. That's gonna be my platform. I'm gonna run I agree. For president in 2028, and I'm gonna is that what next time? Yeah. Vote vote

for Robles.

Yep. Vote Robles Aten. You wanna you're gonna be on mute? I'm going to VP. You're gonna be on mute.

I hear the VP doesn't I hear the VP doesn't have to do anything, so I'm happy.

You're really I'm

keeping it. Podcasting.

Okay. Great. Alright. I want to talk about Apple TV coming to Android. So the Apple TV app is now officially on Android and you can watch Apple TV plus original content through that app.

a small thing to Tim Cook that's the

biggest thing. But this was the, these are all the apps. So what I wanted to talk about was I find this it's interesting what they choose. I understand why they want this on Android because a, it might spur new subscriptions. I mean, with shows like Severance and, Slow Horses, Shrinking, popular shows, they were missing an entire audience who might not be able to have it.

With Steven. Well, two things. One, I was just disappointed that in the official press release, they don't list silo as a hit.

That is an or for all mankind. I was very I was upset by that.

I was very and I think maybe the reason is they're not currently showing new episodes of silo. So it would

be frustrating.

Well, that's a fair point.

Or masters of the air.

I don't know what that is.

Or Luke. I believe you. Okay. Or Hijack.

Alright. Well, my point was I'm like, my favorite show on Apple TV plus right now. I know. Even on that list. But, anyway, all of those shrinking is very good.

But if there was just an Apple Cash app, like a standalone app, not that it would work in the text messages side, but just like Square Cash on an Android device or Venmo that you could, you know, use that service to send the money and it goes through that just to have the Apple Cash app and then you can Yeah.

I don't think that's ever gonna happen. And then the same thing is true if you, like, think about podcasts. Well, if podcast is available on on android, they can't sell subscriptions because they're not gonna pay Google. They're not gonna pay Google thirty percent. Are you kidding me?

So you think so for this, like for apple tv plus if someone signs up and pays for it, they have to pay Google thirty percent.

I think they do. But that's a one time. Right? That's like that's oh actually, but here's the thing, I have a theory about this. I don't think, I think the reason that this has come to android has more to do with the fact that I think there are way more households that are multi device multi multi platform where you have like, I actually boggles my mind when I'll talk to a couple and one of them has an iPhone and one of them has a pixel or something. I'm like, how did you two get together?

David Pierce David Pierce at the house.

How did you even text each other when you were dating? Like, I don't even understand.

How did you even yeah. How did you organize anything?

Don't understand how this happened, but there are lots of people like, I know some people very well who that that's the case, and I'm just like anyway. And so you're less likely to sign up for Apple TV plus if not everyone has a device that can use that kind of thing. And so I think that there's this is just sort of like a logical and I think Apple's willing to pay the 30% on this side sort of thing is like a loss leader to continue to build up Apple TV plus. Right. Should build up that ecosystem.

Well, I'm still gonna hold out hope. I think I think, you know, Google podcast wasn't a great app, but I think a

But there's Spotify. That was the other podcast app. I'm sorry. The most obvious it's the biggest podcast app any at this point.

Yes. It is.

It's disappointing, but it's true.

Listen. If you're on Android, a and you listen to the show, thank you. But be used pocket cast. Like it's just a way it's it's the best podcast app on android right now. But

and I do think that I want to give credit to the pod news That article, the SEO of that headline is like, like master class, like fantastic. You nailed it.

James Cridland. He's he's been in the game a while. Well, I will just we'll just say that He's a good dude. I've I've spoke to him at, I was on a panel with him actually at a podcast movement last year. But anyway, a couple other quick things and then we gotta get to the the big news of The UK and Apple privacy, but Apple finally, earlier this week, now has opened up and allowed users to migrate Apple account purchases.

No. I don't have an old one, but I do think it's interesting that it's not available in the EU, The UK. And I feel like of the people that I'm aware of that this would be the most beneficial for, it's people who live in the EU but have a US Apple ID so that they can do things that come to The US like podcasters. Like I think about Federico Vatici. Right.

do this. So there's that. And last thing, Apple wise, and then we get to well, more Apple actually have to different things. I have released a new holistic Apple health study. Apple's doing, like, all these tiny little things and not releasing the iPhone SE four or the iOS 18 dot four beta. I don't know why.

I know why. They're just trying to make it, like, so that we can cast some doubt on Mark Gurman's

They are trolling Mark Gurman.

They're literally trolling Mark Gurman.

Because Mark Gurman's like, this week, iPhone s e four. And I was like, no.

Sitting there waiting there. Like, Tim Cook has his finger on a button, and he's just waiting, and he'll be like, now.

Tim Tim Cook, he's, he's gonna look it over at Craig Federico. He's like, hey. What else can we put out there that's not the iPhone SE? Like, oh, we got this Apple research app. I totally forgot about it.

Oh, we got the new TV plus app on Android. We got this research we could do. I think we have some new watch bands. Let's just put it all out.

I I love and fully believe that this is just trolling Mark Gurman. Absolutely. But yeah. So there's this new holistic health study. What's interesting is that anyone can participate in this.

We're just waiting for them. Do they ever add shoveling as a fitness plus workout?

Basic Apple guy. He makes the he makes the fun Apple Watch workouts like wrapping crow holiday gifts. So Basic Apple guy would need a I was I think he had a shoveling one actually.

I just want I'm looking on here and honestly, I don't understand. High intensity interval training is right there. Never mind.

I don't know shoveling snow. Maybe maybe maybe it is. It's not on there, but I really

wish it was.

Show snow is heavy. I did I've I've shoveled snow.

Oh, yeah.

Show snow shovel, show snuffles down by the seashore. I've done I've done a lot.

It's actually a dangerous thing. Like, I'm not kidding you. I when I go out to shovel, I make sure that my wife knows I'm going outside. I went out this morning and everyone was still asleep, and I was like, I'm going out to shovel, so you'll know where to look for me if I don't come back.

Listen. It's slippery. I've seen a lot of fail videos where people just they take that one step. Do you have steps out of your house? Like like Yes. Do they ever get slippery? Like, I see.

Live underground. We're not in a

side. No. No. But, you know, it could be flat, but, like, are there steps to go down when you go out your front door?

I mean, I go out the garage to shovel. But, yeah, we actually never go out our front door.

Right. That's the trick. That's how you do it.

Everything. Yeah.

But, anyway, this well, there's always failed to do people to fall down the street. Anyway anyway, we gotta talk about privacy Apple in The UK, but before we do, I wanna thank this week's sponsor, which is HelloFresh. Listen, I don't know why I just shared the PDF. If you're watching on YouTube, you saw me just share the PDF of the of the hatchery. So there you go, but I'll tell you what I'm not even gonna read it. So if

y'all would just read it please.

Yeah, yeah, just read it down I'll just leave it on screen for sixty seconds. No, listen I've I'm not a chef, but I've cooked recently because I've gotten some HelloFresh boxes and I feel empowered. I can actually do it and it actually tastes good that's the difference, because you could you could cook stuff on your own. It's not always good, but with HelloFresh they send you, they put it all in the box, they make it easy to do. It's America's number one meal kit.

it, we made these, they're at the it was actually a meatloaf sandwich, which sounds weird. So good. It was like it was very, very good. I don't know that I would say I'm a fan of meatloaf, but it was like but I was a fan of this. It was like kinda I'm like a toasted. Travada bread. It was like, it was it was very good.

There you go. And I will say it with my pasta dish, they actually included it like a bread and garlic butter, and I put in toast driven and it was like really good garlic bread from a restaurant, it was really fun. So here's what you do, you can get up to 10 free meals and a free high protein item for life at hellofresh.com/primary10fm. The link is in the show notes. One item per box with active subscription, free meals applied as discount on first box.

it.

Just pause it right there.

Just read the whole thing.

Real quick. We neither of us have these in hand to really talk about, but I do wanna mention the Powerbeats Pro two are out. This is Beats like Pro line of headphones, noise cancelling, all of that. People have been freaking out about these saying they're great, even better than AirPods Pro two with quotes. I think I'm gonna have to get a pair to actually see, like, are these really that good?

I don't think I've ever seen black.

No? You might be right. Well, they need to do colors. I'll just say that. I mean

I mean, if you think about the marketing campaign, it was always like the bright colors with the white earbuds so

If you want colors you have to go AirPods Max.

Which Well that's being generous but

And better Android support. So I mean people are saying this is really cool. I don't know if it has Find My support. It does have the h two chip which is what AirPods Pro two, what the AirPods Max don't have. The new AirPods Max, the USB C still has the h1 chip, but yeah they look cool. I'm curious, I wasn't going to get them or try them because I don't know I like my AirPods Pro two, but I don't know. People like it. Yeah. We'll see. Anyway

Yeah, I'm not gonna buy them but that's

cool. Thank you for your service. We have to talk about The UK and Apple privacy. This was a big deal. Jason's article, I I kept his Google search up. If you search for Apple privacy UK, Jason's Inc article is like second official result. You got like the Washington Post up here. Well, you have the Apple's privacy page is number one. Washington Post, and then if you go past the top stories, little Google thing, inc.com.

My article is in the top stories too there, just to be clear.

Oh, it is. Yeah. So that's Look at that, dude.

And and and just to be fair, that Washington Post article is the original article that first reported about this, I'm cool with that.

These are right, right? It makes sense. Yeah. That's that's pretty good. That's pretty good SEO.

Okay. I wanted if you don't mind, I wanna clear I feel like bad for doing it this way, but I'm gonna clarify a couple things. First of all, The UK is not trying to do a thing. They sent Apple a demand saying you have to do this. Okay.

NSA national security.

And so they have, received that, and they're not allowed to talk about it. It's illegal to even mention that this demand has been received, and yet we still know about it. So that's cool. But, and I actually wanted to write a whole article just about that because it means one of two things. Someone at Apple talked to the Washington Post or someone in the UK government who knew about this did because they think that there's a problem.

all too well when their toddler is like Yeah.

I suggest if you have a toddler, it's probably worth turning that feature off just

to be You could have you can even wipe your device if it's like 10 failed password.

I was gonna say after enough time, it will wipe out the device. You can have that set to do that. And there are there are is very expensive hardware made by I believe it's an Israeli company that will trick the phone into not triggering that so they can just continuously enter passcodes. Right? So anyway, that's the one thing.

But they don't

have any business talking to anybody about anybody else's data. Right. And this sets a very weird and dangerous precedent. And, and obviously last thing I'll say, this is why they made it illegal to talk about it. Like not for us to talk about it, but for companies to say it because they did not want anybody raising those questions because they were just hoping if no one knows, then it's fine.

pay for iCloud

or I don't think Ben. Right. I don't, they only had five gigs of free storage so they weren't worried about there's only so much you can store there. But I don't think Ben Franklin Ben Franklin was thinking about encryption algorithms. No, I just don't think that that's like exactly what they were thinking about.

What could possibly be the ramification? Like, I don't know. This is because I don't understand The UK law, but, like, I understood with the digital markets to act in the EU, like, Apple had to open up. Otherwise, I guess they wouldn't like, Apple wouldn't be able to sell devices maybe in the EU. I'm not exactly sure what the the ramification was there.

So it's a little bit shrouded. I think the both the BBC so the BBC are also did some follow-up reporting on this, and both the BBC article and the Washington Post says that it would require apple to like apple's only real option would be to no longer be in The UK. Right? So that would mean apple would no longer sell devices that beautiful Battersea station office that they have in London. Like they wouldn't have employees there anymore.

Mass.

No. That's

right. William Gallagher. I'd be so sorry. I don't know what he would do. We'd have

to get him on the show.

Yeah. What do you wanna hear? That's it. It just seems like a wild precedent. So one of the things recently in the news has been, like, Mark Zuckerberg asking The United States to take a bigger role in pushing on foreign governments who are trying to, you know, enact laws that put restrictions on tech companies over there.

I I think And the implications is actually significant because anyone that you send messages to in The UK would no longer have the ability to have those backups encrypted. That's that's like such an interesting loophole. It's like, okay, all of your eye messages are encrypted in transit and they are encrypted at both ends. Like so only your device. But if you back them up to iCloud, you could have your backup completely encrypted.

Right.

All of the messages you sent to somebody else, if theirs aren't, are just completely accessible.

Right. The last thing I'll say is that this reminded me of the CSAM, technology that Apple had announced and even said would be implemented and this I think would be two years ago, maybe even longer, and they did enact some of those safety measures, things like if nude images are sent in iMessage to a child that, you know, you could parent could get a notification or at least the child's iMessage app would, like, say, do you really wanna see this? So they enacted some of those laws, but the CSAM in particular, which everyone talked about scanning their photos for whatever, which was a oversimplification of the technology. And Apple went to great lengths like Craig Federigh even talked to Joanna Stern about the whole technology that they were using to try and protect users' privacy, but also get the bad guys, for lack of better words. But that never rolled out.

Well, the the thing about the c I don't think there's a single Apple product feature or anything that I've had more briefings on than that whole see Sam thing because of how it changed multiple times over over a very short period of time before they decided they weren't going to roll it out. And the problem is encryption is just math. It's just math. Right. There's no nuance to math.

Yeah. I'm still curious if they will ever try to implement that again or they just let it go. Maybe they did and we just don't know.

I'm just kidding.

No. They would That's

probably that's not the way Apple does it and that's actually the most ironic point of all of this Right. Is that when Apple puts features in like this, they just talk about it.

Right.

Whereas then the UK government is like, shit. It's illegal to talk about this.

That's wild to say.

You know, you're on the wrong side of the conversation when you make it illegal to do the thing that you probably shouldn't have done.

If you start the conversation if you start the conversation with a shh, don't tell anybody.

Don't talk about fuck up. Number one rule.

You know you're doing something wrong. I will be following this. Alright. Well, I wanna get to a personal attack where we talk about what's on our desktop on the Mac, but I did want to mention briefly, smart home is a small corner on this show, but I'm gonna have some more devices to talk about soon. And I do wanna mention if you're into HomeKit and or Matter and or Thread, Aqara, Aqara just That's a lot.

Very mysterious.

I might have tweeted a picture of it and I I don't know maybe I broke an embargo I don't know but I have some power over ethernet devices that work with HomeKit that I'm pretty excited about that I've been trying and so I'll be able to talk about those probably next week but you wanna hear more smart home stuff, let us know because

Should should I buy some of those switches?

Do you have any smart switches right now?

The Lutron Casados in my office. That's it.

I mean, I have to try them. I'm getting one to try, so let me let me try it first because I always I'm

just happy to Yeah. I'm just happy to hear that thread still matters.

Anyway, you should definitely should definitely Lutron like, the problem is Lutron is so solid. It's hard to recommend anything else if you never wanna think about it again. Well, it's

because they have their own router.

Because they you have to

have a hub. Why they are Yeah. So solid, but these because they use thread, I assume they just connect to your Palm Pod Mini or whatever.

The thread should be more reliable and faster. I will say the power over Ethernet stuff I got, one is a smart shade. It like, if you've ever added a device to HomeKit, you know it takes forever, like, to scan the code and then it thinks about it for several minutes.

And then you have to do it again twice a week.

The shades that have power over Ethernet and I paired, it was like instantaneous and it was like I didn't believe it. I thought it was like messed up. I was like you're not really there. I don't believe it. And it was You're

just running a demo. This is not real.

Yeah. I was like, yeah. But it actually it actually works. So anyway, back to, the this is our personal tech segment about our desktop. So this is back to DSR Jarman from The UK talking about what's on his desktop. I'd love for this to be the next the next not conspiracy, the next debate? How we do what we do? Anyway

Next thing we talk about.

The next thing we talk about as far as our preferences, what's on our desktop? But before you tell me like what's like on it, maybe files and folders wise, if you go to the finder settings and there's the in the general section there's the show these items on the desktop And the four options are hard disks, external disks, CDs, DVDs, and iPods is the checkbox, and connected servers, those four checkbox options. Jason, of those four, which do you have checked? Hold on.

In the finder

You gotta go to finder settings.

Settings.

And then it's right there under the general tab.

Hard disks, external disks, which are the same.

But No. No. No. Hard disk is your Macintosh HD. It's your built in drive.

That's not what that means though.

A hard disk?

I mean, I have a hard disk sitting right here. It's spinning hard disk.

It's a it's a it's a distinction between, like, internal and external.

Yeah. Whatever. Hard disk, external disks, and iPods.

You don't have connected servers checked?

No. I don't have connected servers.

Oh, okay. Well, that's interesting. I have so hard disks and external disks, I have unchecked because I don't need to see Macintosh HD on my desktop.

But you see wanna see the dots in your dock, which you don't wanna see with drives your Steven.

Well, here's the other thing.

A heresy.

I also have three external SSDs connected to my Mac at all times for my various video editing, and I don't wanna see those on my desktop. I don't have those unchecked.

What is the perp? Okay this is opening such a cannon. What is the purpose of your desktop? Is it just to be a pretty picture to look at?

Well we're gonna get to that. We're gonna get to that. I do have CDs and DVDs checked which came in handy the other day because I was ripping the matrix Blu ray.

Shh. Cut that part out.

Oh, sorry. Yeah. I'm not doing that. And then I have connected servers checked because I have a Synology, which I move stuff to all the time, and so I like to make sure that it's connected and quick access, and I do that all the time. So I have my connected servers checked.

What's the distinction between the Synology and an SSD that you plug in? Why one and not the other?

Because the SSDs are only Final Cut libraries, so I only it just added footage off of it. I never actually dive into those SSDs to manage files. I just they just power Final Cut when I open it. That's it. Yeah. Uh-huh. That's right. That's right. You get it. Alright. So this I

don't understand what you think the desktop is for.

Well, okay. Now let's talk about what's on it. So besides those things, desks, external or, you know, your Macintosh HD external drives, whatever, what what else is on your desktop? Your Mac desktop?

I don't have very much, but I have there are one, two there are two SSDs in one non SSD, like, spinning hard drive. One of those SSDs because I'm using this Mac mini that only has a one terabyte hard drive is an additional one that has my just has my iCloud photo library. That's the only thing in that SSD.

Wait. It's on an external drive?

My iPhone library is on this Mac Mini because I have the whole thing downloaded. I have all the files downloaded. So it's, like, 800 gigs, and it's just

But it's on the built in SSD?

No. No. No. It's on a s it's a it's on a LaCie SSD externally. Externally.

Now is it syncing live? Like is it your

it's a thunderbolt drive.

Wait, how did you do that?

You just put the drive on, you just put the library on the on whatever drive you want and you just say make this my primary library.

So when I did that I tried to do that recently and it threw up a warning saying

It turns off iCloud Photos and then you have to go and turn it back on. And I don't know why there's that step.

And that's it?

That's what you have to do.

And you can just do it? Yep. Oh, I need to do that now. I copied my it took me, like, three days. I copied my whole library to my Synology and then I went to make it my primary photo library, and it was, like,

and it's Now I because of the network drive, I can't say anything about Synology. I don't know. But I just had this Laci Porsche one terabyte drive that I bought one time when I was at the Apple Store because I thought it looked cool, and I thought I would need it someday. And I it's just it's just super reliable, but it's, like, was ridiculously overpriced for a one terabyte drive. And I'm like, what should I do with this?

Okay. Okay.

And then I have a 10 terabyte g drive, one of those whatever those things were. Yeah. And that just has like there's a backup of my dropbox. The whole thing it has.

You do access that stuff often like that g drive?

I access it occasionally. But here's the reason why I wanna see it on my desk because it's a spinning drive. So the potential for no, but the potential for failure is greater. So just knowing it's there tells me that my stuff is there and it backs up to back place. So that's great.

That I disagree with. I think it should go to the downloads folder.

That's fine, but I put it on the desktop because I can find it instantly no matter what. And then I just know that it's there, and I either have to deal with it or get rid of it. You puts listen. You put how many things you probably have 37,000 things in your download folder.

No. No. No. Well, because I clean it out regularly. Like, my downloads folder, I think I treat it as your this week folder. So but the other thing is too, I download a lot of videos, and so I don't want those videos syncing to my iCloud Drive, and then I forget about them. And so I like having those bigger files in the downloads folder because it's not syncing anywhere, it's just on my local machine. I don't need it on my iCloud drive, so I just leave it there.

But see, I want it to sync because I want it to also be on my both my Mac Mini and my laptop.

That's fair, I get it. So on my desktop, in my Synology, I have the picture of your snow boots because I because I just dragged that over from iMessage and I need to open it up in Safari. I have a screenshot of something in our podcast sponsor page because I have to ask them what I'm supposed to do with this. And so I have a screenshot of that because it's kind of like a to do item and I just took it before we recorded so I couldn't do anything about it. And then I have a folder.

I do have two widgets

as well.

I have a I have a things widget and I have a fantastic widget. The two literally the in and I'm sorry. I also have a carrot weather widget, but I learned that it's actually an iPhone widget. So I kinda hate that because I have the carrot. Yeah. I have the carrot widget app on my Mac, but the widget I'm sorry. I have the carrot weather app on my Mac, but the widget is for the iPhone. So every time I click on it, it wants to open in iPhone mirroring. And I'm like, no. No.

Now the things the things widget, I just immediately put it on my desktop because I just realized I leave the things app open, like, almost all day, but it's just to see the the to dos and that I like I think I like the widget. I'm just gonna leave it there.

And it's great because you can actually just check things off without it doesn't help in the app.

Brilliant. Alright. Well, I just added my third widget. Do you

do you use the things, keyboard shortcuts?

No. Really?

Because, like, you're just going a lot so, like, there's a there's a great like, you can actually map to whatever you want. So as you're going along, you can just click the keyboard shortcut and type in a thing for your for things, but there are two of them. The second one and I think I have a shift control space. Yeah. So right now, I just clicked it, and what it did is it created a it pulled up the window, and it says Riverside Studio primary tech with a link back to what we're doing.

puts the URL or whatever in the

Right inside of the yep. Exactly.

Well, I will be doing that now. That's amazing.

It's amazing. It's the best it's the single reason why I haven't switched to, like, to do list or something. Like, is that with that that keyboard shortcut.

That's pretty good.

It will make you just warning when you go to enable it, you you go into the settings for things and you can enable it. It'll make you download like a small little helper app because I think it's because I downloaded things from the app store, Mac app store, so it's not able to interact with different things. So download a third party like thing. And anyway, just so you know.

This this is great tips. This this was a valuable, session. I disagree with all the external drives on your desktop, but that's okay. That's alright.

I'll let you It it it helps me to know that everything is the way it's supposed to be.

Oh, no.

Yeah. I get it. Even though I don't have to go back and forth between those things very often. In fact, I don't think there's anything I have to go back and forth between on those. And, and the other reason is before I was using the Mac mini, I needed to see that they were mounted if I had a laptop sitting here, so I didn't walk off and unplug them and not unmount everything.

That is true. Yeah. I totally get it. Oh, that's good. Well, listen. Let us know. We're gonna go record a bonus episode about what's on our physical desk, which is gonna be quite a mess, but we're gonna talk about it. This is terrifying. So we're gonna go record that. If you wanna listen to our bonus episode, you can go to primarytech.fm, click bonus episodes, support the show and you get an ad free version plus access to all the back catalog and future bonus episodes.

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