Better Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.2 (sort of), OpenAI Sora Review, Google Gemini 2.0 Talks a Big Game

Remember, no man is a failure who has friends. Welcome to Primary Technology, the show about the tech news that matters. Ios 18.2 is now out for everyone, including some new countries like the UK and Canada. Gonna talk about visual intelligence and some more features. OpenAI has released Sora to the world, and I tried to generate some weird polar bears and medieval knights.

Oh, it's actually going down. It's 9 degrees now, Steven, outside. 9 degrees. When I walked to my office. This is the one disadvantage. I think it might I probably mentioned this last week of having an office that's separate from the house is I have to walk 35 yards to my office in the snow.

In the snow.

Both ways. I'll tell

both ways. There

it is. I mean, it actually kind of is because there is a little bit of anyway, that's fine.

Anyway, I'm, I'm nursing. I was afraid I would have no voice today because I had no voice, but now I have the welcome to 101.5 Radio FM. This is your morning drive, and I have tea for the first time. I don't know if

you can

see the cup.

Respect the beard.

It says respect the beard, so I'll be you'll be getting t s m ASMR. I'm a try and mute as much as I can, but you might hear a slurp. I can't promise you won't, but we're gonna get through this. And I just wanna say, if you don't subscribe to our bonus episodes, this is the week. One, because it's the holidays. Merry Christmas. Happy Hanukkah. All of that. But also, I'm going to rant about the road trip I did last night with the Tesla because charging, Jason. And battery percentage.

I wore my my merch too. Thank you for calling that out because I wore this t shirt last week and forgot to mention it. I'm wearing it. So I'm wearing one of our shirts today. And I should probably talk about the hat at some point.

Oh, yes. We should yeah. Because Jason got a percentage off hat.

Yes.

Anyway, before I forget, do do you know what movie that the quote was from?

Yeah. That was true. It's a wonderful life.

Very good. Yeah. Nailed it. And you're what you're doing. You're, like, binging all the Christmas movies.

Yes. We haven't watched that one yet, but we do watch a lot of Christmas movies.

You're gonna watch Die Hard. You're gonna watch My

kids are not going to watch that one with me.

Just use VidAngel.

But, well, I just don't think they would care that much.

Sure. Sure.

It will really throw them off because we were just binging to my kids don't get to watch this, but we were just binging our way through Friends. And we just, a couple weeks ago, passed the part where Rachel is dating, you know, Ross's girlfriend's dad, who is Bruce Willis in the show. So that would really be weird to them to then show them a because if they've ever seen anything, it's just that, and they don't have a clue who Bruce Willis is. And then all of a sudden to see him in Die Hard, that'd be a weird way to be introduced to Bruce Willis.

That would yes. That is a roundabout way. There's way more there's way better ways to be introduced.

Yes.

But we have some 5 star review shout outs, some wrapped shout outs, and then we're gonna get to iOS 18.2. I wanna thank Kilted Baklava from the UK. That's that was a cool name. People's reviews now are basically, like, blog length, on our Apple Podcasts, and I love it because they're It's fantastic. They're listing everything.

I'm pretty sure I actually win this entire thing. Just keep going.

Listen. We people want more debate, so we have to figure out what other asinine, preferences we have on macOS.

I do think we have become the most tribal podcast on in tech right now.

I think so. We have the most divisive things.

Yes.

We'll talk about screensavers next. Asbuoy from the USA. Dots on. That's right. Battery percentage on. Listen, nobody's perfect. And this was interesting. Apple Apple Pencil pointed left because that's the way it looks correct, and I I agree. But anyway, they said we're the best tech show. Thank you. And finally, Bat Colby from the USA. Very nice thing to say. Dots on hiding off magnification set to teeny tiny bit was that was there. Okay.

But the best part of that entire review was the reason that they subscribed.

Oh, that's what was it? I missed it.

It's it's the first sentence. It says, I've always listened because of Steven, but I truly subscribe because of Jason's affability. I just I won the whole thing. I just I won the podcast.

That's it. That's it. Someone has called you affable. You can now

Not only that. They put their money behind it. Thank you. That's that's very

that's very true. So thank you for that. And there are people sending screenshots of primary tech in their or they're wrapped. So this is a overcast wrapped We made, primary tech. This is Matt Winship on Blue Sky. 47 hours of primary technology subscriber edition, so they're supporters, so thank you for that.

You have missed a couple episodes there, Matt. So there's some stuff for you to listen to over the holidays.

That's right. That's right. You can you can catch up with all the bonus episodes. In great company there, next ATP upgrade and and the talk show. Yeah. And then this is Corey Nelson on x. We're number 4 in there. I believe that's Spotify wrapped.

Okay. So

that's very cool. I don't know what number 2 is. A hot dog is a sandwich. We're not gonna start. We can't start that debate.

Those are those are none of those things actually exist, but that's fine.

You know you know what I mean. But I actually played around a lot with Visual Intelligence because I wanted to know, like, I tried this early in the betas, and most of the time it was just doing Chat GPT searches or Google Image reverse image searches. And I actually found visual intelligence to be upgraded. So I have the video here. I'll link my video down in the show notes, but I found that if you're at a business, like I went to a Starbucks here, and you do visual intelligence, which is only iPhone 16, you hold the camera control, now you actually get basically the Apple Maps info.

Yeah. Which is

a little ironic. Yeah. It is weird. Yeah. Did you have you played around with it at all? I mean, I don't know. There's not really a ton of use cases then.

I mean, I've used it some that I still feel like it's not the thing we want. It's not the thing they showed us in the pro in the keynote either. It's not, like, pointed at the dog. The whole thing is seamless. It pops up and shows you what the dog like, it's it's still more like, you could point it at a thing and you can sort of, like you then have to tell it, do I wanna ask something or do I want to search something?

It is weird. I did ask, like, hey, all these amazing lookup features and photos, is that coming? And they were like, we have nothing to say at this time. So, you know, they're not gonna say anything, but I I imagine more will come. Like, Visual Intelligence in the very first beta did almost nothing. Like, it would just tell you to do chat gpt or Google image. So I think they're adding features, but it still has a ways to go.

Don't you think it's gonna be really disappointing, though, if the most useful parts of Apple Intelligence are just a different skinned user interface to get to chat gpt?

Well, we're gonna get to that. Okay. Yeah. Before we get to the Chat gpt integration, another non Apple intelligence feature is the 2 stage camera control. So if you have an iPhone 16, you can now set it to light press, autofocus, auto exposure lock, and then take the picture. Now you're you were all about camera control recently. Are you still using it regularly?

Yeah. All the time. And by the way, small update, just so you know, I have stopped using the back for now. The real reason is I just keep janking it up every time I drop the phone. It's getting kinda bad. But Yes. Yes. But the real reason was it was the camera control button is super hard to find on the side of the phone. It is just not intuitive to find it. And the number of times I would be trying to take a photo and I'm just, like, pressing really hard against this, the titanium side.

I will say I was trying I was looking for my Nomad leather back because I also stopped using it. I really like how it felt, but it kept like, it got messed up and, like, with a lot of other leather cases, which I recently did a leather case review, like, I have a lot like, this is why I can't find my oh, it's I have stuff everywhere. Yeah. But usually with a leather case, you can, like, if you scratch it, you can kind of, like, rub it. And because it's real leather, the scratches will kind of fade or go away.

Okay.

But the Nomad one, I will say, does the best at, like, guiding your finger to camera control.

Yeah.

Like, it just has a nice trough.

It's really nice.

It's nice. Casemakers still need to do the button, like, Apple Silicone case. Like, do a button on the button, I think. Because, like, Apple Silicone, which is, like, right here, you have the capacitive button on the button, which I think is the best experience. Hey. You guys is that silicon?

But I feel like it's still hard to know. Like but I guess it does feel a little bit different, at least on the case. I'm saying this is the worst podcast ever. I'm just sitting here, like, running my finger across the side of this

thing. Like a lamp.

It's like a fidget toy is what it is. I'm just, like, sitting here fidgeting with it. Anyway, but I feel

like come out.

Yeah. I feel like even that is not again. I've changed my mind about the cutout. I actually think it's a better experience because you know exactly where to put your finger.

Okay. Now, but with 2 stage camera control, you've been on the betas. I do

not use 2 stage camera control.

Okay. That's what I was gonna because that was my thing is, like, pressing the camera control button is pretty consistent, pretty easy. But I found trying to do the light press to autofocus nearly impossible to get it, like, when I want it.

Yeah. I don't like it.

And you can't really you can adjust the sensitivity a little bit, but not enough, and I just don't I don't know like, if you have a real mirrorless or DSLR camera, that half shutter press is so clearly half press. Mhmm. And then you could press further for the take the picture. The camera control is just not enough. I almost wonder if, like, the half press could then start a small vibration that's just kind of, like, constant to know you're in, like, focus mode, and then press it all the way down, just to know, like, have I activated it?

Can I tell you a secret?

Yeah. Please.

Photographers do not use half press to focus.

If you tell me you only manual focus, we're gonna No.

Use back button focus. A 100% of the time. Back button focus all the time. You just little AF on button. You use that to focus, lock your focus in, and then you hit the shutter. None of this. When I hit the shutter, I wanted to do the thing a shutter is supposed to do. And which is funny because, like, you know, half cameras now, there's not even a shutter. But you get, like, it's a laptop. But I want it to take a picture.

I like that. I'm gonna have to try well, I never take my camera off the tripod here.

But Also, you don't take still photos very often.

No. I don't. I don't. But, I mean raw. Well, we're gonna get to the Apple Awards later.

I mean, I just think I mean, I used to add g b d l the temple talk about that later, but Yes. I just it feels like a letdown to me that the best feature of Apple Intelligence at this point is sending things from Siri to chat g p t. Because I'm like, if I did if that's what I wanted to do, like, I got an app for that, and the app is actually pretty darn good, and I don't need to do I guess it's technically a little bit faster to just long press the side button and just say something and then but then you have to wait for it to decide. Oops. I gotta send this to and I know you just said you just gave us a pro tip that that's great, but it still takes longer for it to do that sort of thing.

Yeah.

I wanted to listen. They promised us that I could just say, you know, when is the thing with the person and where do I go? Like, they they made the these promises, and that is the thing that people are looking for. And they haven't even made actual dingus smarter yet. It's just it's not. It's just it's so bad still.

If we did funny titles, it would be actual dingus still films. Actual dingus. It is gonna be one of those I forget what other feature this was. There's been a couple times where Apple will announce a feature at wwdc, and we actually don't get it until the next wwdc or even later.

Yeah.

And I think the semantic index, which is what Apple that was the term Apple used for dingus being able to look at your photos and text messages and emails and bring all that information together. I don't think we're gonna see the semantic index until next I mean, obviously, 2025, but I think even closer to Dub Dub.

Well, is it is it Mark Gurman's report, like, not until, like, the either the end of next year, the beginning of 2026? Like, I think he said, like, the good series not coming for a long time, and that is a huge letdown. Like, because I'm seriously, I you well, I'll save it. The the bar is a lot higher than I think Apple thinks it is. Instead, they're making image playgrounds, which is like garbage.

I was going to It

is so bad.

Okay. So the other two things I don't think we're gonna talk about a 2.2. It's like what is my fault.

I'm sorry.

No. It's my fault. The image wand tool is also there, which only works in notes right now. I really thought they were gonna update pages in keynote to include this, and they haven't yet. But you can basically circle a word that you've handwritten or select text in Apple Notes and basically ask it to generate an image from it.

Yeah. And I know they've put so many guardrails on it because the last thing Apple wants to do is, like, be responsible for deep fakes and stuff like that. I get it. I understand all those things. Then just don't even do it because this honestly, it just makes the whole thing look. It just looks so bad. And it's just I just don't understand. Like Yeah. I don't know. Like, Genmoji, great.

That's true. I know people were saying when they updated to 18.2 yesterday, their devices got hot. That's something we all experience with the betas. Like, oh, shoot. And if you try to do image playgrounds or Genmoji, like, your phone starts cooking.

Yeah.

It is like it it it's very hot. But, I mean, I know this level will improve over time. It does feel like Apple Intelligence. I don't really day to day use. Well, this way, I keep we keep trying to get to it, but we're gonna save it for the personal tech segment because you said, what AIs are we actually using? And we should include Apple Intelligence in that Yeah. Question. So we're gonna answer that in our personal tech segment. No. I'm not gonna not teasing it.

It is.

But I would know because I either get it HelloFresh or delivered. No. I'm just kidding. I go to Publix, and I fight everybody. And because we're in the holidays, listen, everybody's busy. Everybody's looking for ways to stress less. Absolutely. And HelloFresh makes meal time manageable, saving you from searching for recipes for all that grocery shopping. Just pick your meals on the website and everything is delivered right to your door. Plus, things are customizable.

We did the moo shoo pork bowls, which are really good. Like, I didn't know what that was, just to be honest. And But it was, like, surprisingly good, and it was very easy to make. Like, I can handle, like, putting things in a pan and putting all the ingredients together. But it when it was done, it, like, it looked like a thing that someone else had made for us. Let's put it that way.

When I do HelloFresh, I'm always surprised. Like, yes, I can cook. I'm actually gonna cut an onion. That's on that's a movie on the side. But That's good.

That was good.

But I can cook HelloFresh. And, their website right now has these everything bagels that are always tempting me. They look very good. So here's what you do. You can get 10 free meals at hellofresh.com/freeprimary.

You don't want bad guys eating your lunch.

Oh, you got it. That was the tagline. That's free. 1 password can just run with it. You don't even need to pay us as your marketing team.

I only generated 1, and then I realized that you're limited to 5 seconds. Well, unless you're paying the $200 a month, and then you're limited to 20 sec. You could pay $200 a month, and you still only get 22nd videos. This is just this is a parlor trick, Steven.

Later in the notes, we were gonna talk about 1 pass or open AI chat gpt pro, whatever that gets called.

2 I'm just saying.

1,000 a month.

Okay. We'll talk about that later. But my point is you get 20 seconds. I I have a lot of thoughts about Sora, but, no, I haven't I made one video, and it was great. It was exactly what I expected it to be. Yeah. But it is it is I don't understand. Like, what why what is the point of this?

So MKBHD had his video as per usual. He's been like, I've been using this for about a week now. And he opened the video with a bunch of clips basically saying, can you tell what's AI and what's actual footage? And I did pretty good on the test. I'll link his video down in the show notes if you wanna see if you could tell which is which.

Slightly problematic.

I don't know. Maybe he's Highlander. I don't know. But when he's just sitting on the polar bear, like, that looks kinda cool. That looks pretty real. The fur on the bear looks very good. I tried generating an image of the knight charging with the bear. Less good. Like, it looks a little weird once you get to that. Then it generated, like, give me a podcast conversation, And I was pretty impressed with this.

that is a scary bear

that is that's a war bear That's, that'll be the name of our first motion picture. War bear. Yeah. Medieval knight. So, you know, I mean, it is well, there's lots of ramifications we probably need to talk about about this being available to the public.

I wonder what you trained on.

Yeah. Obviously, the biggest tech YouTuber in the space.

That's amazing.

There's many feelings to feel about this. I am slightly nervous about, like, deepfakes and people like, I already had a situation the other day. I don't know if I told you about this, where I had a a close family relative tell me something outlandish, like, we're not talking about Elon. But they said to me, did you hear that Elon bought Ford? Elon Musk acquired Ford.

I don't know how we solve that problem. I that's if everything about the video is I just don't I don't really understand what so use I'm assuming you've seen the Coke ad. Right? That Coca Cola holiday ad that was made by magic AI. Yes.

Right.

And that's fine. And then, I mean, what they made was a very specific thing. It's not like you could not just get that out of Sorra because, like, the prompt would and also it's only, like, 5 seconds long. You'll get 5 seconds long. I just don't I think no, I don't think the world is ready for this.

Right. The confirmation bias is real. And now, like, people being able to generate it. And now OpenAI is watermarking any video you generate with Sora with this tiny little squiggly line at the bottom right that turns into an OpenAI logo. So I'll just show you real quick, but this is going back to the examples that OpenAI is showing.

Yeah.

So and again, there's some videos that are really convincing. Like, if you ever wanted footage of ocean waves against a mountain or cliff side, it's great at that stuff for some reason. Like, it's great at water physics for some reason. You know, humans less so. But it's not horrible. That's the thing. Like, some of these videos of, like, actual people, it's it's convincing.

I'm sending you the one I did.

Alright. Here's Jason Soar video. More snow because he lives in Michigan.

Yep. This is basically my morning commute right here.

Doesn't look like you, but yeah.

This is totally my morning commute. That's every morning, me.

In the forest, snowing, like, not bad. Not bad. The physics The

prompt was a 10 year old girl walking through a wintry forest with snow at dawn. Like, that's exactly what that is.

That is exactly what that is. The the the physics aren't bad. It looks pretty natural. Like, you I feel like you could throw a clip or 2 in another video with similar clips, and people would be hard pressed to, like, tell the difference. Right.

Like,

to spot it. Like, if you watched an hour long video and there was, like, 3 AI clips in it and they were really good, I feel like people wouldn't know. And that's, that's a different kind of world we're in now.

The other thing I noticed it was in because I just made another one, and I found that was like, you put in a prompt, and then it titles your video based on what your prompt was. And it actually does that's, like, really like, so the one I sent you, I told you what the prompt was. The title was winter wonderland stroll. I just made a second one, although this is gonna crash. I made a I made a coastal road adventure.

Literally a cliffhanger. That's hilarious. Yeah. My my titles were knight's courageous charge, knight's polar bear charge. Listen, we have to talk offline about this, but I would like our our brand to just now be a polar bear with a medieval knight riding it. It has nothing to do with tech, but I just

We we can work on this. I'm not I'm not convinced, but I'm not not convinced.

Okay. Very good. Last open AI thing, during their 12 days of ship miss, which Sora was one day, he used the Apple Intelligence Ios 18.2 launch as another day of their ship miss, which is like, did you ship anything that day? I think Apple shipped something that day. But anyway, but one of the first days, which was last Friday, the day after we recorded the last episode, they announced their, chat gpt pro subscription for $200.

I haven't even signed up for the verge yet, and I'm supposed to. I'm I'm and I need to do that. But, no, I did not sign up for it immediately. I don't I don't know. I know there are people that will pay $200 a month. I think Ben Thompson from Checkery said he's got they're like, this is perfect for him. I don't I don't understand 200. I mean, it's one thing if no. I get this. Okay.

This is

why that was on my mind. And they're like, well, we realized that, you know, our readers are people who are paying for this themselves, not people who can expense it to work. And it occurs to me, like, that's why the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg and the information are so expensive. They don't actually think that they're that valuable. There's just this built in cushion of margin just because they know that it's gonna get expensed to work.

That's fascinating. Yeah. I agree. So you you get access to chatgpt01pro, which is the new reasoning model. Oh, man. $200 a month. I mean, I've used chatgpt01 a couple times just to ask random questions, and I'm like, I would not pay for more of that. I mean, I guess if you have a work thing, that would benefit, but, nah, I'm good. I'm good. I'll stick with my $20 a month to Trygptplus because we're gonna talk about in our personal tech what AIs we actually use, and

I need

to use mine, actually. Also, Google a bunch of news about Google this week, but they released the auto dubbing feature now for YouTube. For some creators and channels with knowledge focused content, YouTube will now auto dub if you check this box, meaning auto dub your video in other languages automatically so people watching your videos can literally click English, Spanish, Japanese, French, whatever, and watch it in a different voice. Now I actually got an email about my personal channel that this feature is coming, if not already on it. I have to actually upload a new video, I think, in order to to see it, but I'm going to do this.

Yeah. I think they started talking about this not with YouTube specifically, but at Google IO, not this past summer, but the summer before. Because I just I remember sitting there and they were explaining, like, you can have a video and it will automatically train not just translate it because, like, that's an easy like, not an easy thing, but that's a thing where it's a lot more simple to just have the captions, for example, be in a, like, closed captions in a different language. Right? You can do that on your Apple TV.

Yeah. So I'm excited to do it. I mean, mister b's, he had talked about his process before and, like, he could literally hire a voice over artist for that other language. He would have someone translate the script manually. So I'm sure it was an expensive process, for him and just not sustainable or doable for many solo creators.

could do that. I, like,

I had already done that, but YouTube didn't allow you to upload a separate audio track to your video. Like, they would let you do captions in another language and you can upload that, but not audio. And I think it's because they were waiting because they wanted to do it themselves rather than you, like, uploading someone else's stuff. Yeah. So it's interesting.

Yeah. All the

way down.

That's exactly right.

It is exactly right. This I'll put it at the podcast artwork too so you can see this, if you're listening in your podcast app. But this is a 100% accurate. This is this is the history of Google. This was like 15, 20 years ago, maybe even 10 years ago.

It was, like, 4 years ago. Yeah. That was still true.

It was, like, 4 or 5 years ago. And now it's it is it is wild. I I just don't I still it doesn't push me to use chat gpt web search just yet. I don't know why. I'm still trying Google and being frustrated and just resolving to read the AI overview and be like, I guess it's true. That's fine. We'll just take that as as fact.

But don't do that, Steven. You I know.

No. I I know. Not for important things, but for other things, it's like, I don't know. There was a question about I forgot what it was. And I was just like, you know what? This AI overview might just be, you know, good enough.

Well, Google is only good at this point to find a thing you already know. You just don't remember like where it was or to find like a website or a thing, a piece of information and you're just, you just need to sort of like have the signposts point in the right direction. It is not good for discovering information that you don't know. It is, it has become horrible. I just think we don't have time for all of that.

I do find because it pushes products so hard that if I wanna price check something, I will Google search it because I know it's gonna show me product results at the top and show me all the different sort like where I can get it, B and H or Amazon. So I actually will use it to price check things. But, yeah, the general knowledge stuff is just getting worse and worse. But supposedly and I'm going to swap these around and lead into your article, talking about Google taking shots at Microsoft because Google also introduced Gemini 2.0, a new model. This is supposedly even better.

Well, it's like the cubits. Yeah. And not just can they be positive or negative or 1 or 0. They can be any combination of the two things at any at the same time. Right.

Right. And the only other quantum computer I had seen was the IBM quantum computer, and I watched the whole video on that. And now I'll link in this Virder Verge article. There's the kind of an inside look at Google's Quantum AI Lab. Just amazing.

Yep.

And they said it's colder than most parts of the universe. Like, even in the vacuum of space, they have to make it colder than that so these chips can actually run for periods of time as it's just amazing. So, anyway, Google's doing all that.

But one more thing about that. Sorry.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The thing the real breakthrough, I just wanted to mention this, that they have done is the error correction on it. It's so it's like what it's able to do is detect when it is make it made an error and correct that, which just speeds up, like, the computing exponentially. And so, like, I think that's the real breakthrough that that Google has come up with. And so because otherwise, you just you can you can just imagine a computer that's that fast that makes a mistake and just continue spiraling down that. Right?

like a quantum beach ball from a Mac. That would be that's the black hole from interstellar. Wait a minute.

There's so many connections here.

Wait a minute. It's all connected. But then you had an article talking about soon over try. And I actually before because I wanna hear this, in-depth. Before you do that, I'll take you just one more quick break and thank our wonderful sponsor who sponsored us the last 3 months ending out 2024, which is our great friends at Audio Hijack.

Well okay. So the backstory on this is that Sachin Nadella, who is Microsoft's CEO, was on the record saying that Google is the one who should have been the winner in the AI race, which is true. A 100% true. Google had the top to bottom stack. They had the models.

Is he something like he wants to make Google dance? Like

So, yes, he's on the record. Like, not only does he wanna make them dance, he wants everyone to know that they were the ones that made them dance. Right. Right. So now these are 2 very, like, chill at least their public personas are just very chill.

was there. Downplaying a g I because he's

Jeff Bezos was there, like, anyway, doing an hour long interview with Bezos. Anyway, so he asks, Sundar Pichai, who is Google CEO. He says, you guys were the originals when it came to AI. Where do you think you are relative to these other players, mostly Microsoft? And he says, I'd like to see a side by side comparison of their models and our models.

Because they also have the mobile platform that's dominant around the world.

Yeah. They do make some software that you might have heard of called Android.

Android. The dominant browser, the dominant search engine, the dominant video platform, like, creator like, they have so much dominant. That is yeah. That is wild. 1 so tangentially related, at that DealBook Summit, Sam Altman spoke. He was kind of downplaying, AGI, but I listened to the decoder episode with the Microsoft AI CEO.

Yep. And Danfah Zuleiman. Yep.

Yeah. And and Eli was, like, why you guys got 18 CEOs? Which is a valid question. But he was talking about Neil asked him the question, I guess, one of these stipulations because OpenAI and Microsoft had this deal, this partnership, and it seems like, correct me if I'm wrong, that if OpenAI were to achieve artificial general intelligence, AGI, that this deal with Microsoft could then like, they could basically split in some way from their partnership with Microsoft. Is that accurate?

Okay. Well, we don't actually know all the terms, but that has been reported a bunch of times that when if that the original agreement was that because, again, opening I was meant to be a research lab in pursuit of of safe AGI. Profit. Yes. Safe AGI that would benefit the world. And then they realized they can make a crap ton of money doing this and then said forget about that. Like, we don't care about the other part. We wanna just make a bunch of money.

Right.

And there was talk that, like, okay, we need we need to we need compute power, we need a partner, we need money. So they went to Microsoft and part of the deal was that's fine. This you can you have a license to use all of this IP and all of these models until we get to AGI and you don't get to use that. Now it's been reported a lot that like that Sam Altman is they're trying to move the goalpost on when they declare AGI so he can get out of it. But here's the thing.

Well, that's something Sam Albin has said recently that he believes we could reach AGI with current hardware, meaning, like, the NVIDIA chips and grab a card that whatever everybody's using today could run AGI. And Eli asked the Microsoft AI CEO that, and he was like, nah.

Yeah. What basically, he's like, what do what he his exact response is, what does current hardware mean? Well, what do you mean by current hardware?

What do you mean? But yeah,

he's like, we mean, like, I'm 40 nineties or whatever. Like, you know, but I think I think it's important to listen to what Sam Altman is saying in the context of he has to continue feeding the hype cycle because that is what continues to attract investor money. That is the thing that is going to get them going. That is the thing that maybe will get them more customers. But right now they're not even at the stage where like, every business shifts from, we have to do things that will get us investors and then you have to shift to we have to do things that will get us customers.

No. No one would. And so I I wanted to bring all that context because with Google talking about Gemini 2 point o, it does feel like there it is a tenuous relationship with OpenAI and Microsoft. I feel like that's obvious. Like, you just hear Sam Altman and Microsoft talk, and it's like, this is a partnership through necessity.

whatever.

You know what I mean? And so Google has lost that up until now, but if what Sundar Pichai is saying is right, I think they might still have an opportunity to change that around. It just needs to be easier to access and use. Like, I don't use Gemini because, honestly, I don't even know where to go right now to

use it.

I guess I go to gemini.com. Is that

gemini.google.com will get you there. Or if you have the Google app on your phone, there's actually, like, a little star little tab at the top. So one of them is for Google search, and the other one is for Gemini.

Okay. But while you're while

you're trying to figure this out, let me just tell you the most I don't know what that is.

This is gemini.com.

That is not the website.

They need to however many 1,000,000 of dollars they need to spend, they should get gemini.com. Yeah. And then if I go to gemini.google.com.

Yep. There you go.

Is that it? Okay.

That is it?

Yeah. Yeah. But, like, I don't. Yeah, I don't wanna use this.

Okay. So here's a this is the most devastating thing. Although it's nice, it says hello, Steven.

It does say hello.

This is the most devastating thing that and Google should pay very close attention to this. My 13 year old, on a very regular basis, will say to me because he he's he's learning, like, code. He loves scratch. He's doing all the things. Yeah.

So true. I have not set a a friend request. Yeah. Probably, like, 5.

I have friends people I, like, genuinely know in real life and I would not send them a friend request on Facebook because it's the creepiest thing. Like, there are some people where I like I like I yeah. Anyway, it's just the point is the same thing with Google. They are going to lose an entire entire generation of people for whom it no longer meets their needs. And it goes back to the thing you showed earlier.

Right. And and to your point too, my kids also, because they have it as a shortcut, have now defaulted to asking chat gpt things. Yeah. General knowledge, research Yep. Whatever. And so, like, they are they are winning right now, but we'll see. Maybe next year it'll be different? But anyway, alright. Lightning round, that's not usually a

We can do it.

We're talking

about the we're talking

about the FBI messaging, and a warning about the, encryption thing. Wait. I just clicked your headline and just every load of the page. Anyway, tell okay. Tell me about the FBI thing.

Hopefully, I get another click for that. But, so thanks. Just keep doing that. If you don't mind. Keep doing that if you would.

They, they fail Fail on that. Alright. Further lightning round, I just wanna talk about smart glasses for half a second because Amazing. The Meta Ray Bans, I I I chose poorly on my Black Friday, self purchase. I bought the Oura ring 4 instead of the Meta Ray Bans, and I've already I've already returned the Oura ring.

This feels like exactly the thing that Steven Robles would do. I think you should've kept it and put it on your desk next to the rabbit r one and the humane AI AI pin. I'm not Come on.

We're not keeping any more weird gadgets. I returned that Oura ring. For some reason listen. This is not a review of the Oura ring, and I don't even know this is related. But for some reason, I started waking up more often in the night while I was wearing it.

Right.

Sponsored. But anyway, I they just it was too complicated, and I was like, I don't wanna replace lenses. I don't so I didn't get it. So if Meta ever does this thing that the Air Go Vision does, which is just let me put my prescription in when I order so it actually arrives with my prescription in it, I will get the Meta Ray Bans. But now they're also talking about there might be new Meta Ray Bans next year, and I'm like, well, maybe I'll just wait.

Just so you know, you can just go to LensCrafters, buy the Meta Ray Bans with prescription lenses.

Is it only LensCrafters, or is it where

Well, LensCrafters is owned by Luxottica, which is who makes the frames, the the Ray Bans.

I also learned recently I think it was on a verge that the guys were Luxottica owns, like, every

That's what I'm saying. They own LensCrafters. They own, like, all of those. Yeah. They own all they own all the manufacturing and all the distribution.

What a cabal.

No. Like, literally, this is like the beers with diamonds. It these LensCrafters. I mean, it's it's exotica. Yep. A 100%.

That is yeah. My word. That is wild. Anyway, and also, Google might be making its own smart glasses, which if you didn't know, real ones know about the Google Glass. This is not something this is not the first time, although I guess this is different this is pretty different. But that Project Astra inside Google, they might be making their own, Google Glasses, but not Google.

It is it is Google. It is saying something like the it is a notch of pride. The Google Glass was the only thing still that was more like, is more notorious for wearing around than if you were to walk around with that humane AI pen on all the time.

Or the Apple vision pro. But, yeah, people don't

walk around in public with the vision pro. Not anymore. They don't work. Not look like a tech pro. You would just look like a YouTuber, which is fine because the people who would do that are okay with it. Yep. That's exactly why I'm doing this.

Yes. Are you go first of all, we're we're both going to CES. I think

it's the first time

we're saying that live on the show. And I think we're we're gonna record an episode at CES.

From the show floor.

Live from the show floor?

Steven's gonna say that even if we're in a hotel room. We're gonna be

in a hotel room.

But still,

we're gonna

I bet you I'm gonna I'm gonna reach out because I'm sure that there are some podcast studios. I'll I'll I'll see what I can come up with.

Oh, let's I'm very excited. So, anyway, we're both gonna be at CES. This is my first CES ever. I'm very excited. But 100% gonna wear the Apple Vision Pro on the plane. Jason, bring it on the plane and wear it.

Oh my gosh. I got I do have this this little case.

You got all the cases. They they sent you every accessory

for

the guy who never leaves the house with it. True. It's a true

I do have the best setup for traveling with something I never travel with. It that's true.

I actually ordered that Belkin strap, but it's not gonna come in till, like, maybe the beginning of January. So

Really? Oh, man. It's that thing is fantastic. Maybe. I was actually so I'm flying to Arizona tonight for our first our daughter is playing in the National League quarter finals, for her soccer team. And I was like, that would be the time I would wear it on a plane when I could embarrass my teenage daughter.

If that's what motivates you, do it.

That would be the but for CES, I could I could see bringing I feel like there would be other I could justify because it's, like, it's CES, and I could have, like Right. So maybe maybe I will do that.

We could be the 2 weirdos in Apple Vision Pros walking around to, like, the vacuum robot vacuum boots. This is my Belkin strap. It says order will be available soon. Hopefully, I get it before see. Yeah. We'll see.

I would send you mine, but then I would stop using it because it is the best thing that that has ever been made for the VisionPRO. It changes the game. Like, it it it's ridiculous, but it is, like, so much better.

Well, I'm excited to try it. I also want I'm excited to I have to actually charge it so I can update it to vision OS 2.2 because I wanna try the ultra wide max screen because everybody raves about that. But, anyway alright. Last thing before we get to personal tech, Apple listed its 2024 App Store award winners and there's a bunch of them on there, but well deserved. The overall winner, Kino.

Yeah. I wanna say, first of all, absolutely well deserved. No one should take anything away from their win because they deserve that for on the iPhone. I do. I feel a little bit bad for them because they won.

That is that is a little strange.

I don't understand. First of all, there's nothing different about it except for the AI denoise, which, by the way, is, like, life changing. I've got a 100% the denoise, the AI powered denoise is maybe the best photo feature that's ever been. And I know we have a listener who works on Lightroom, so kudos to you. He I don't I I wish I could remember. I think it's Brian. So, like, fantastic. But is it really the Mac app of the year? Does it I feel like it's, like, saying more about Mac apps.

They had to do it this year because next year, it'll be pixel made or pro, but it'll be an Apple.

Oh, that's honestly like true. They literally couldn't have picked your. Okay. Good point. I take it all back. Listen, I run for the Mac. I use it every day. It's fantastic. I'm not saying anything, but I just feel like it doesn't like all of these other ones are super interesting. Like some of them are, like, very boutique type apps and stuff, and then you have Adobe Lightroom.

I I will say what if did you try the what if app on Applevision?

I actually have not.

It is pretty cool. Like, I like, that was the first time where I was like, you know what? This is a cool experience, and I would like, it was fun.

Was it better than the Gucci app? Because I still think the Gucci app maybe it's because the Gucci app was first that that seems like

The Gucci app was a great experience, but it's not interactive.

I mean, you also don't care because

it's just too much. You can, like, pick up a purse and turn it around, but, like, the What If app, you're, like, shooting lasers out of your hands.

Like, choose your own adventure?

Yeah. Like, it feels very Gotcha. Interactive, like, half game, but it's not, like, pressure. Like, you don't have to worry about, like, dying in the game because it's it's more kind of a story. Anyway, I do think the what if app was really good.

The only thing I want the Apple to do with the Vision Pro is to make the Avengers Tower environment available as an environment. Why can't people's why can't the environments within apps be available globally? That would be killer.

That would be nice. Yeah. Because Disney has a couple cool

Yeah. I wanna just be sitting there in Avengers Tower clocking out my articles.

That would that would be pretty fun, actually. Alright. For a personal take, what AI are we actually using? Yeah. You have Apple Intelligence, you have Gemini, you have Claude, Perplexity, and obviously OpenAI, Chat GPT. Jason, I know you probably use Image Playgrounds daily, but what AI tools do you use on the rig?

I the 2 I use every single day are Whisper, which is powered by OpenAI. Right? And then, ChatDpt. I use them on a right, like well, I mean, I changed my default search to chat g p t.

That's true. That's true.

But even beyond that, I use the chat the Mac app, like, 35 times a day. Like, I constantly am using it for different things. And I I use the whisper app to transcribe stuff, like, a lot. The only thing I don't like about the whisper app is it doesn't do speaker identification, which is a really important thing for me if I'm looking through let's because I a thing I do on a pretty regular basis is it's like, oh, there's this, interview at deal book summit that I should cover, but I don't have time to watch all these things. I can't sit and watch the deal book summer for 9 hours or whatever.

It's actually the from the maker of ferrite.

Oh, okay. Maybe I should try that. I just like whisper because it's, like, really fast.

I actually haven't tried whisper, to be honest. So I would have to try it too. But it's

it's really fast. It's one thing that's funny is, like, if you put something into open a or to Otter, I like that you can then and so so I do this occasionally, but if I need something in in a hurry, another thing I'll do is I'll I'll take a transcript in whisper, and then I will just copy it into chat g p t with a question.

Right.

Like, what was the highlight of this? Or what was the what did so and so say about this thing or whatever it might be? Because sometimes you'll see an article, it'll be like, you know, Bob Iger said that the next CEO of Disney is going to be Iron Man, Tony Stark. Like, you know, like, wait, what was the context around that thing that he said? And I don't have time to, like, watch the whole video or whatever. So that's it. Sorry about that. My dog. I know. I always try to pause when that happens.

Yeah. I would say the only Apple Intelligence I've used is, like, to summarize an article periodically. Like, I'll be in Safari. And if it's really long, I'll pull down reader mode and see what the summary said. Sometimes it's useful, sometimes not, but my thing is I don't wanna disrupt all my workflows just to use a different AI tool.

Yeah. And Claude is supposed to be the models are supposed to be better, but the experience is not better. And so I just don't find myself using it very much. I I I'd be happy to. The Mac app is not as good, and it does weird things like when you I don't know.

Right.

It's in the middle of an of a sentence. Like, it literally just stopped, and it's like, I don't know what to do with that.

That's not useful.

That's like Yeah.

So we'll see. Again, Gemini, maybe they pull it out, next year. Okay. Okay. So we need to record a bonus episode.