CES 2025, Apple Intelligence False Headlines, Siri Privacy Concerns, Meta Removes Fact-Checkers

You wake up at O'Hare, Dallas Fort Worth, Pacific Mountain Central, lose an hour, gain an hour, this is your life. Welcome to Primary Technology, the show about the tech news that matters. Big show this week. There's a bunch of stuff at CES, and we're gonna be covering that the second half of the show, but also big news from Apple addressing privacy and Siri concerns, Apple intelligence summaries, might be making a video doorbell, and Delta had some big announcements and an a partnership with YouTube as well. This episode is brought to you by HelloFresh and you, members who support us us directly.

Hey, listen. I'm basically on the show floor because I have my Las Vegas Starbucks You Are Here mug. So

There it okay. Listen. We're sorry, everyone.

We have to explain some things

before we start. This episode was supposed to begin, live from the show floor at CES. I have the personal things happen, and I canceled my trip last minute. It's everything's fine, and but I was, like, well, it's okay because one half of primary tech is gonna be live from the show floor, and it's gonna be great. And then Jason texted me Wednesday morning or Tuesday morning when you're supposed to leave.

Yeah.

Yeah. And listen, I was, like, following the the winter storm Blair news or whatever and I'm, like, I know Jason's in Michigan and that's pretty high up there. This might affect him.

We didn't get the storm. My problem was that Steven wasn't going and just it wasn't worth it. No. That's not

actually true. Right?

That's not true. The main reason that I was going to see us was the big delta keynote on Tuesday night, and my flights were delayed enough that I wasn't going to make it. And it was like, well, this just isn't worth it. If the main thing I was going to go for, I don't need to go to Vegas. I've been to listen.

So Yeah. And well, we're gonna talk about things that were announced at CES, but it was like, yeah, the Delta thing was probably the biggest thing and then maybe you weren't gonna make that. But listen, we're sorry. Live from the show floor, it's gonna happen this year one way or another. Either I get invited to dub dub DC and we get to podcast from Apple Park or I break in like Ocean's 11 and we we do a sneak no, just kidding. Apple, I'm not gonna break down.

I'm just Listen. If you break in, I don't think we should have any recorded footage of it. Just

No. It is probably right. It's probably a good idea. But, this just means Apple really needs to invite me to Dub Dub this year, and so I'll be sending emails to, my contact starting now. I'll just hit them up every week. Between now

is you sending an hello.

Any of

you who are listening Hello.

Listen. You know who you are. If you work at Apple, please, so we can get it. So this way, we can finally be live from the show floor, but it extends a bit, a little longer. But we do have some news, and there's actually a bunch of Apple news I wanna talk about, especially they released a newsroom article just last night addressing the Syrian privacy concerns after a big settlement.

We need a wiki just to let people know the things that they're supposed to, like, tell us. Oh, that's

pretty good. I'll have to okay. I might create I'll create a page on primary tech.fm or something That's great. Instructing people. Alright.

The public the right. They got a response from Apple. Yep.

Okay. So so this is I'm not gonna say quote, but this is the response from Apple through the BBC, because the BBC was reporting on this.

So Jason Stell is quoting the BBC, which is referring to a statement they got from Apple. Just so you could have clicked on the link, you know, and write it from the BBC.

I don't I know, but

It's fine.

But Jason Stell has some good thoughts on it I might include. Anyway, this so this is what Apple said about this. Rather than pause a new artificial intelligence feature that has generated inaccurate news alerts on its latest iPhones, the company Apple, in its first acknowledgment of the concerns on Monday, said it was working on a software change to, quote, further clarify when the notifications are summaries that have been generated by the Apple Intelligence System, which there was already a symbol letting you know when a notification was a summary. That's what that little, like, two lines with the weird arrow is, but I guess they're gonna make this more clear. And Jason Snell was saying it's still not enough and that maybe news headlines needs to just be omitted from Apple Intelligence summaries entirely.

I have turned them off for some things. I have them on for other things. And Right. That's actually a interesting, like, point because if it does seem like one of the most useful things that that notification summaries can do is take, say, a text thread and, like, give you a summary of here's the 4 things that happened. Like, we have a WhatsApp group for our daughter's soccer team.

Mhmm.

And it'll just summarize and it's like so and so is confirmed. So and so can't make it because of this and the time has been moved. Like, that's actually really useful because I can be like, okay. Great. I wanted to because if I had just seen 6 notifications, I might have just ignored it and been like, I don't have time for this.

Right.

But when I see what the summary of it is, I'm like, okay. Let me click through and see what, you know, time's been moved. I should probably know what that means and stuff. So I think that's useful, but not all notifications or groups of notifications are the same. Right?

And this was this was the other article, which was that, Apple intelligence summary claimed that Luke Littler had already won the darts final. Yeah. And this is the BBC has screenshots of of what it is. It says Luke Littler won PDC World Championship, which was not the case.

It hadn't even happened yet.

Hadn't even happened yet.

Yeah. And so yeah. And so I feel like but this is the kind of thing that could affect, like, world markets. Right? World market events or national security. If the summary came through and it's like President Biden in a plane crash over Jerusalem and has passed away or what? It's

like Right. Right.

What? Like And

that seems, like, that seems plausible. Like, that doesn't seem like an audacious Apple Intelligence summary.

No. This is a 100% a thing that could actually happen, and it feels like you shouldn't have shipped this.

That I I wonder if the fact that Apple Intelligence is only 15 pro and newer has somehow lessened its effect because there would be a lot more like, if this was available on all iPhones right now, I feel like the problem would be even more, not only widespread, but just obvious, and people would be making more of a stink, because it's just iPhone 16 and 15 Pro users right now. But like this, it's a problem. Oh, and also because the sign up, like, when you upgrade to iOS 18, I guess this would have been that one with Apple Intelligence. You know, anytime there's a splash screen on an iOS update, I'm I mean, I will look at what it's saying. But it's like the terms of service agreements for anything you sign up for.

Yeah. And I feel like there's honestly two issues here. One is they should not have shipped it yet, this kind of thing. And and I don't know. Like, look, I feel like as an idea, these notification summaries are fantastic.

Yeah.

And so it's pretty low stakes, so that's great. But that's different. Like, so for those types of things, I think that this is actually a really great feature and I'm glad that someone had this idea, but there's a pretty big gap between the idea and the execution. And so one, I don't think it was ready for them to ship. I just don't think that, you know, I I have to imagine someone thought that this was possible, and then they still shipped it anyway.

Yeah. It's it's it's not great. And and again, Apple is saying these features are in beta. All of Apple Intelligence is still in beta, but I don't think that gives them a pass, especially when it comes to news headlines specifically and what the BBC has been reporting on.

And especially when Snoop Dogg is on commercials for T Mobile talking about how this is the first phone bait, you know, built for Apple Intelligence. They don't That's true. Tell you don't hear Snoop Dogg say the word beta anywhere.

If we did fun titles, you don't hear Snoop Dogg saying the word beta. You you just don't hear it. You don't hear it. So the other case where Apple's in a little bit of, they they felt the need to release a newsroom article addressing it. First part of the story is that Apple paid up to is going to pay up to $95,000,000 in settlements to users whose conversations were inadvertently captured by the voice assistant on devices, And this is not and then then those conversations were heard by human employees.

Yep. And then you can click on view ad targeting information.

Yep. So settings, privacy and security, go down to Apple advertising, and then view ad targeting information, and it says obviously it uses your birth year, gender, and location by zip code. And then you can look under content categories and, like, for movies. It'll talk about, like, what are the kinds of movies Apple thinks you enjoy, which apparently is all of them in my case.

I mean, you still have a movies podcast, so that's good.

That is true. So, yeah, that makes sense. But, like, books is maybe more of a better thing. It says books, there's 3 categories that it puts me in, arts and entertainment, business and personal finance, and nonfiction. And so these profiles that Apple has created for you, they talk about what these are based on, and they say this following information may be used to deliver more relevant ads to you on Apple apps, namely Apple News, maybe ads in the App Store.

Like Right.

They don't and they don't have access to that, and Apple stated specifically in this newsroom article that they don't use it for that, that doesn't go anywhere, all of that kind of stuff. So they try to address it. I don't know. Tell me how you feel about this.

Well, I think I mean, they are paying $95,000,000 to settle this. I think one of the reasons that they felt the need to also be so forcefully reiterate their privacy stance is that there were I think that the plaintiffs in the case had said that they, had talked about, like, specific as, like, Air Jordans or something like that. And then there was, like, a restaurant. They talked about these specific things, and then it triggered ads for those products. Now, first of all, you listed off the places where Apple shows ads.

stocks. Apple App Store.

The App Store. But the App Store is ads for apps. You don't get Olive Garden ads in the App Store unless they have an app.

That would be something. Hospitaliano.

I don't know. Like, it's just like unlimited breadsticks. Buy them here. We'll get 30%. Just do it, please. Order them.

Wanna download Pocket Cast? Yeah. How about some breadsticks?

Anyway, need some coffee while you're gonna want some Starbucks with your podcast anyway. So like, first of all, like that to me feels weird that like you were talking about the Olive Garden and where did you see this ad? Like maybe Apple News is the most likely place because I don't think that many people use the Stocks app and certainly not long enough to see ads. Like, anyway, Apple's not a huge advertiser is what I'm trying to say. But back in 2019, you'll remember that all of the, all of the big companies, Amazon, Google and apple had been having humans listening to the conversations for quality.

To the news app.

Because it's the worst offender.

I know, but they're not gonna do that. That's they they gotta get the

social media. Your ads that you serve ink magazine on your own website. But if you somebody reads your article, we're gonna replace those ads with our own, and they're gonna be for toe fungus removal cream.

Have you actually seen toe fungus ads in

All the time because I have personalized ads turned off.

Are you sure you didn't just turn that off? Are you sure

you're just talking to me? I'm yeah. You keep talking, and I'm gonna find out what the what the most and the thing is it's always the exact same ads, like, through an entire article. It's like

Right. Right.

Your inventory is so low that you're just showing the same ads.

It's it's like some sometimes I will I've seen these memes on, like, TikTok and stuff where people are like when someone discovers you don't pay for YouTube premium and could and they see an ad on your TV and they're like what are they but I know I've I've sometimes watched Hulu on an account that that has ads. I forget what the context was and it was like literally the same ad twice in a row. Yep. And I'm like this is this is not good for the advertiser because it just becomes more annoying like this makes me less want to interact with this ad or whatever. Anyway.

So yeah.

Let yeah. Let me know when you see a toe fungus ad, but the next the next thing, a couple Apple rumors actually. This was actually this week, iOS 18.3, the public beta came out and in that public beta there were hints at a new quote invites app, from Apple that might be coming a standalone app to help you manage invites and maybe events and on the face of it this might seem very like oh wait a minute, the calendar app exists. You can send meeting invites that way. What's the deal?

Neither is the email priority prioritization categories.

It's not

in the it's

not in

the iPhone.

Weird. Listen, I was 19 coming this year at Dub Dub. When we're there in person reporting live from the show floor, just make make it make a bug fix year. Okay, Apple? Just make the keynote, like, 30 minutes, just say we're gonna fix all the bugs, and maybe, like, one new feature. That's that's what we need. That's that's what I think we need, but I don't know. Did you did you is that maybe make sense? I mean, by time?

I have no thoughts. I have no idea what this means. Zero thoughts. I just don't I don't understand what this means. Like like you said you said the only important thing which is you can already do this.

The calendar exists. Okay. And then Apple Video Doorbell last thing and then we're gonna gotta talk about meta. Mark Gurman over at Bloomberg saying that Apple is working on a face ID doorbell video lock device in a hopeful smart home push. This is just a rumor again. This is Gurman just talking about things that might be coming this year. I am hopeful that Apple does more. Well, full stop. I hope Apple does more. It does more in its software.

You hope Apple does.

I hope Apple does things, to screen time, to fix Apple Intelligence, all of that. But when it comes to, like, what are two areas I I really wish Apple would push forward in so, like, maybe the whole industry would follow as is wants to do when Apple gets behind a thing? Smart home is one of those areas and also podcasting. I'll just throw that out there. Not because the industry needs to follow them, but because they need to follow the industry, like tools for creators, video and Apple Podcasts app, all of that kind of stuff.

Yeah. I the smart home is so weird because I mean, it just is.

Period.

Also. Yeah. It's like there's a different so I think you have, like, these tiered levels of people's desire to like, most people just wanna be able to turn their lights on by shouting out into the void. Like, that's probably the thing most people care about. That's like base level.

Right.

Right? You have to choose a system. And, you know, like, we have all 3 in our home. We have some things that are home kit. Like, our Christmas lights come on from home kit. Our children wake up in the morning because of their echo dots. Like, and

I think you could say because of home kit

because you just

you have an automation wake children up.

We have a prodding device that just pokes them. Yeah. You get them out of bed. And then, like, all of our cameras that we have are our nest cameras. Right?

Yeah. I

don't think that happen.

I don't think it's

gonna happen.

Supposed to do that. It's not happening. It's not happening.

The I think matter is closer to going away than it is to fulfilling its promise.

No. It's it's not gonna go away. I think it'll just be what it is now and not help anything more.

Okay. So that's what I'm saying. It is closer to the time when it was just didn't exist than it's going to be to ever fulfilling its promise.

Okay. That's fair. I I also would say I'm actually I was actually planning a a HomeKit style video for the YouTube channel, and I bought a HomePod mini, and I was just curious. That thing's old. Right? And so I went to the MacRumors buyer's guide. The HomePod mini, there's only been one generation, just to be clear. There's No.

There was they released a new color.

Oh, so oh, sorry. They released a new color. Right. Well, the internals have been the same for 1,549 days. It came out in October 2020 and has not been touched since, except for the new color.

The problem with them is that they're not actually that great of a speaker, and they are better as a listening to your voice assistant name device than the big ones are and I've ever been. They're better. But, again, number one rule of smart home is turn off listening on everything except for your watch. That's, like, my rule.

That's the rule. I will say there's a pair of HomePod minis in my kid's bathroom because I like to play music there. And, my one of my sons has been listening to Defying Gravity every day, in the when he takes a shower. And I will say those HomePod Minis can pump some volume because it's loud even outside the bathroom.

But they don't sound great. That's the thing.

They don't sound great, but they sound better than most $100 speakers. And that's probably why Apple can just keep them at a $100. I mean, the echos, like, I've had a couple echos that are in, like, that 50 to $70 range. Not great. Sounds like it's playing through aluminum foil.

That's because Amazon's goal is not for you to listen to anything. It's to provide a device with a microphone. Those are just microphones. Right. That's all they are.

Those are listening for anything you might wanna order, and we'll just add it to your cart.

Instantly, you don't even have to know that. It's like you just could be in the kitchen talking about, honey, I think we really need some more, you know, planters dry roasted peanuts. And all of a sudden, a guy shows up at your doorbell, and then you get a notification summary that's, like, 6 people are at your door with peanuts.

It can hear, like, the last paper towel off the roll and just immediately add it to your cart. Yep. That's just that's how quick that works. Alright. I wanted to we have to talk about the meta changes of Mark Zuckerberg announcing big changes to, like, threads and Facebook, and the big Delta announcements and all the CES stuff.

Well, we were talking about invites. I guess maybe an app would be helpful. My 10 year old and I have this weird form of trash talk that talk that's happening through calendar invites where we he wanted to play a game of war. And so I said we could do that tomorrow. This was on, like, Tuesday. Yeah. Do you want me to send you a calendar invite? And the only reason I said that was because I wanted him to feel more like it was a sure thing.

Yeah. I

wanted him to feel like I I have a date with dad kind of thing. Yeah. So, of course, I'm gonna just destroy Mason. My son's name is Mason. So my favorite thing about this was that he accepted the invitation, first of all. He's like, yep. And then we did that, and then it was time for bed, last night. And he wanted to know if we could play another game. He said, we're gonna have to push that to tomorrow. And about a minute later, I got an invitation from him that says destroy dad.

So That's that's amazing. Trash talking counter invites.

And the best part about this is my son only has an Apple Watch. And yet He's

doing it from his Apple Watch.

So committed to this that he yep. He is, like, yep.

That's dedication. Not good on you, Mason. He probably doesn't send that shit. But nice job. Alright. And before we get to the all the meta and changes that Zuckerberg announced, I want to thank our sponsor for today, which is HelloFresh. I'm so excited. I got a box yesterday and I even brought the recipes so I can share share them on camera. HelloFresh, it's the number America's number one meal kit kit. It makes cooking fun, easy.

They actually they outsource it to a third party.

Right.

Content moderation experts or whatever.

So so they're replacing those fact checkers with community notes a la x style. If you're still on x, you've probably seen community notes where basically users can make a community note on a post saying if it's not true or providing context. So they're gonna be doing so threads and meta, probably on Instagram too, plans to do that. Number 2, simplify our content policies and remove restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are out of touch with mainstream discourse. Number 3, change how we enforce our policies to remove the vast majority of censorship mistakes by focusing our filters on tackling illegal and high severity violations and requiring higher confidence for our filters to take action.

Well, I mean, of Mark Zuckerberg's superpower is to look and see which direction the wind is blowing, and then just start running as fast as he can in that direction. Like, you know, like, he this has been true with I mean, Instagram stories, Instagram reels, Instagram shopping. Right? Like, all of that is true. Instagram. Like,

just stories came from Snapchat.

Right. As an app was just a response to it was an opportunity to, like, try to take some share from what was sort of I think it was still true with Twitter at the time. I don't even remember. It doesn't matter. So I I think that this is another example of that.

Thanks. That's

not what you do. I'm blathering. What I should have said is I'm blathering on at this point. So you go ahead. I'm trying to find this quote.

It is it feels not great, right now because however you feel about President-elect Donald Trump, it is clear that the tech companies and CEOs are doing things to saddle up, make sure they're good basically, which we didn't wanna talk about this in the Apple section, but Apple CEO Tim Cook donated $1,000,000, to Trump's inauguration. Him personally, not Apple, but obviously, it is because he needs Apple and Trump to be able to play ball. And the Zuckerberg announcement was also rumored to come after Zuckerberg being at Mar a Lago with Trump, meeting him and all this kind of stuff. And so, again, however you feel about it, whatever, it's just unfortunate that it seems clear that these tech CEOs and companies are making decisions specifically with the intent that they can be in a better position for the next 4 years rather than thinking about the user base, the user experience. And I I have more, well, I don't want I'm trying to think of a word to say.

It it was actually funny that Mark Zuckerberg specifically called out the EU and said that it's hard to build things there because they have too much too many censorship laws. And the EU users the EU's response was simply, we only make laws to prohibit illegal content, essentially. And it's like, isn't the definition of censorship when you make certain types of content illegal? Like, is that literally the definition of censorship? We can there may be some cases where we all agree, yes.

Well, and I feel like the like, I'm glad that you explained it that way because the word censorship, at least here in the US, in our parlance, now basically means the algorithms are suppressing this. Because most of the feeds are algorithmic, when people feel like they have posted something and it doesn't get the same amount of views or likes or comments as their other content, they will say the algorithm is suppressing or censoring this topic or me specifically. And there are some people on threads that are very vocal about that. About how quote unquote I can't post about x y and z. And it's like, well I just saw this post about x y and z and I don't care to interact with it and I think maybe a lot of them feel that way too.

Right.

And that gets super messy because it might just be that your followers or the users of threads just don't care to interact with that content. And that doesn't mean that threads is doing anything algorithmically to suppress your content. I just mean that people don't like it and people don't want to think about it.

Steven talks about pointing his Apple Pencil up towards the top. It's not that the algorithm is is, oppressing those views. It's just you're wrong. You have a bad take, buddy. That's right.

I'm censoring the conversation.

You can. It's because you you're, like, you're an individual and you have that that right to do that. And so it does get very messy because people just feel like yeah. But in Well,

and the no. It is no clearer than when you go on to Facebook, which I don't recommend, but if you go on Facebook and you see yeah, I don't see as much anymore, but I do see it when people will have this long post and they're like, on this date and such and such, I do not, provide permission for Facebook to use my whatever, and and this is illegal whatever, and it's like, you really have no idea. Yeah. I just

wanna drive over to those people's houses and knock on their door and be like, listen, please, you're embarrassing yourself, take it down.

I like and it it there's no use commenting or whatever, but it's like people still believe that that works. I don't know, maybe that's just, you know, different generation or whatever, but it's fundamentally people don't understand the difference between free public speech versus posting on threads or Facebook. That is a privately, it's a company. Like, they can decide how they what they do. And when you click agree on those terms and services that no one reads, like, that obfuscates any future you saying, darn, here's my thing.

Yeah. I mean, the way to get Facebook to not use your content is just don't post any content on Facebook. And by the way, Steven, here's the thing. And this is actually really interesting to me because I imagine that the circle of people who post that and also the circle of people who believe intently that Facebook is listening to them are probably basically one circle. And so really, they should stop posting it and they should just shout it at their phone so that Facebook will hear them talking.

Ah. Anyway

The problem with posting that is that Facebook can't hear you when you post it.

In space, no one can hear you post on Facebook. That's

That'd be glorious.

Anyway, okay. I don't I don't wanna get worked up anymore. So that that's the changes in meta. We'll see we'll see how threads in Instagram does now with more political content. And, anyway, let's get to CES because there's

a bunch of big announcements. Oh, my gosh.

We're an

hour into the show in

the

middle of CES.

Listen. This is big big news. The the biggest announcement that, you were almost gonna be there for but then not was it was the Delta keynote in the sphere, which they had a a plane slowly pull up. I saw, like, I saw the video or, like, kind of slowly pulled up. Anyway, they also made some big announcements in relation to their entertainment screens on the seatbacks, 4 k HDR, in the future.

OLEDs.

OLEDs, like, amazing. A partnership with YouTube, which specifically interesting for me. You might be able to watch primary technology on a Delta seatback one day ad free. Basically premium, YouTube premium, in flight on Delta flights. They said there was gonna be like select content. So I'm just saying, if anyone's listening you have wait, you have connections with the CEO. Didn't haven't you interviewed him?

I have interviewed him. Not about this. He's been busy.

Well, listen. Just send him a text, go down to his villa, and say, make sure primary tech is on the first screen. He's not villa. He whatever.

I should see what I can do. Maybe we can get some placement there.

This is what I'm saying. Anyway, but but I know you you're the Delta guy. I know you're so tell tell me about the announcement.

Yeah. I noticed you didn't bring up my article, which is totally fine.

Where where you didn't where's the link? Where's the link? I just gave

it to you. So it's fine. Take time. So okay. They did they do have the partnership with YouTube, which I think is really smart, and I do actually wanna write about that.

I'm so sorry. I apologize.

Mhmm. Castro because Castro Shawi, I think, is how you say.

Yeah. That's true. But, anyway,

I still probably said it wrong, so I apologize. But, anyway, brought in a coffee order, like, because they, for a long time, Delta, their their ride share partner has been Lyft, and they've ended that partnership, and now it's Uber. And so, anyway, it was a big deal. Like, I mean, it was a pretty well produced thing. It also happens to be Delta's a 100th.

I mean, it's it was impressive. I saw a lot of YouTubers were at the event. Renee Ritchie, the creator liaison for YouTube, was that the sphere for the Delta announcement obviously because of the partnership with YouTube announcement. But that's yeah. Pretty wild. I mean, Delta. Okay. Doing it. Yep. Doing it.

Okay. You must

have not seen this video on my channel. See this thing right here?

I've been busy this week. I'm sorry. Is that bad?

No. This is a couple weeks ago. This is the, the Plod AI pin. Now listen

That's not a pin though. It's not a rope.

I don't know why they call it the pin. They should have called it the pendants.

Yeah. Except for that, it was probably already trademarked name.

It was probably already trademarked.

Rewind AI people make a pendant.

Anyway, this is this is the kind of wearable that the article was talking about, but this can record audio, sends it to the app on your phone, transcribes it, summarizes it, does all the kind of stuff with it. Listen, of all the AI gadgets, and I have many sitting around me, I actually like this idea, and not even for like, there are, like, work use cases. Like, if you're going for a walk and you just wanna talk some ideas or whatever, and this might sound a little weird, but just hear me out. I like recording audio at family gatherings, especially when there's, like listen. I know that sounds listen.

Especially when my brother-in-law, the stock broker, is talking about how to love to support those conversations.

I actually just looked up the Martha Stewart insider trading story last night for my wife to tell her why she went to jail. Anyway anyway, listen. If you I did this with the voice memos app on my iPhone usually, but when you have a family gathering, especially with older relatives like grandparents, in our case, my kids have great grandparents who are very much alive and, like, tell wild stories. There is a personal thing that photos and videos are great, but it changes the dynamic when you pull up your phone and, like, you're gonna record a video. And so one of the things I had done in the past was start a voice memo on my iPhone and just leave it on the table.

Mhmm. That's all.

And you

know, over the holidays, I was having a conversation with someone and they said to me, you're not gonna use this for a podcast, are you? They they were like, are you recording this? These questions And

you just did. No. No. No.

The question and answer, not the

I know. I know.

I know. I'm just saying.

No. No. No. I it is only for personal use. But it's listen, it's worthwhile.

I'm talking about graphics cards.

Because they had a big keynote. I believe this was Monday night of CES announcing a $3,000 AI supercomputer called Digits. And this is I mean, this is huge. I mean, NVIDIA has been killing it on the graphics processor game because of all the large language models. They're basically powering the AI bubble right now, but now they might, make a computer and this is actually The Verge.

I guess so.

I mean That's that's interesting.

There's a lot going on here. I mean, Nvidia definitely had a lot of stuff that they announced. And one of the things that it's kinda like well, I mean, they introduced new actual, like, not just the supercomputer graphics cards that are now used exclusively exclusively for AI. Like, they actually up updated the RTX whatever line of I mean, you can tell, like, we're both PC gamers here, so we know a lot about this stuff. But I feel like like, it's interesting.

Right. Exactly. So those Nvidia I will go quickly. So LG, they have another wild TV. They used to have a briefcase TV. Now they have Stand by Me sequel, which is a portable TV with, like, a strap. Just walk around with the TV, I guess.

I guess so. I mean, I've seen a lot. That's the that is the only that's the only thing I was really sad about not being in Vegas

Yeah.

Was the fact that there are a lot of TV. Completely wild.

Yeah. Well, this is one of those. That's the the weird TV. But in addition to this was LG. Right? The stand by me? Yeah. LG also announced a new UltraFine monitor, which if you remember, the ultra fine monitors were like the Apple blessed monitor before they made the Studio Display and Pro Display XDR. And so this is a new 32 inch 6 k ultra fine monitor with Thunderbolt 5. Looks really nice.

Well, I mean, actually, just to be clear, the price you I don't think they've announced their price. That was the price of a comparable Dell monitor, so they're just guessing Oh,

I'm sorry. Yeah. That's right.

That it could be. But here's the thing. If it's less than $6,000, it's a pretty good deal because this thing is really not competing with the Studio Display. It's really competing with, like, the Pro Display XDR at this point. Right? Because it's a 6 k k display.

Yeah. But I don't know if it's an HDR display. I don't see that. So just because it's Thunderbolt 5, but I don't know about HDR in nature, but it looks great.

But, I mean, the Pro Display XDR is not actually, like, a real HDR anyway. It's an

Is it really?

On XDR. Well, I mean, it's a it it probably so, like, it probably is capable of the dynamic range, but it Right. It's still only it's not even mini LED. Like, it's not an OLED. It's not mini LED. Right. It does have a lot of dimming zones, but it's I don't know. I don't know. I think that that's why they don't call it an HDR. That's why they call it.

Gotcha. I don't I don't own an XDR in case

you're I don't actually either. So.

I'm always excited about chargers, and so, Basis has some new chargers, with retractable USB C cables. But this was the one I was actually really interested in. It's a car charger with 2 retractable USB C cables, and it plugs directly into your, what do you call that? I I I call it a cigarette lighter adapter and then people yell at me because they were like, it's not that.

I mean, super is. Like, what do you mean it's not that?

People get upset. They they say it's like the, it's the auxiliary something.

Auxiliary power outlet?

It's outdated to call it a cigarette lighter adapter, but I when I was growing up it was literally a cigarette lighter. And I remember pushing it in, popping it out, and looking at how hot it was and debating whether or not I wanted to touch it.

Mhmm.

Anyway, But this that looks cool. And I also realized Anker has one of these but with only one cable out now, so I ordered one as you do. There's that. This one, Lenovo's rollable laptop is a $35100 laptop that looks like a normal size laptop, but then, the screen extends. How do you like that?

I mean, this is yeah. I'm not even surprised by any of this. This is what CES is. It's a bunch of weird gadgets that people just throw against the wall to see, like, is is it David Pierce uses? Is this a thing?

Is this a thing? That's a thing. Another thing. Anchor. This one looks pretty cool.

This one this one I can get behind. You need this for your Imac on the be wait, never mind, it wasn't on the beach.

I didn't go on the beach. I'm sorry. We'll talk about this thing. Anyway, Anker has a solar umbrella that basically can the umbrella is solar panels, and then there's like a USB C connection at the bottom and it can produce up to a 100 watts of total output and, yeah, while you're on the beach charge your stuff with an umbrella. Come on, that's pretty cool. That's

cool. I mean, it is kinda cool, but listen. It's okay. This is a cool idea.

Cool idea.

The guy that shows up to the beach with this, not at all cool.

No. No. He is cool. Now if you show up to the beach with that huge anchor, like No. Battery on wheels and the umbrella. That's too much.

Not cool at all.

That that Yeah.

I guess if you just stuck the umbrella in the sand and then you put it in your phone, maybe. Okay. That's fine.

You'd be you'd be popular on the beach. People I think people would hit you up for that.

I don't wanna be popular on the beach. I wanna be left alone.

Fair enough. Fair enough. Anker also had some other new chargers, like, 140 watt wall chargers. I just want I want chargers like this, but with no USB a.

Why? Why are we still putting USB a on anything?

I think it's because, like, it can't sustain 4 USB c output, whatever. May maybe that's the deal. But this is an Anker charger, 1 40 watts, has a screen on it, which is cool. But 3 USB c ports, 1 USB a. Just take the USB a out. Like, I don't want this with the USB a. Let's just

Steven, without looking, what year was USB a introduced?

Shoot. 1987. No. That's that's not

right. Right? 1996.

Oh, 96. Oh, she's okay.

It was that's I mean, it's like what? Almost 30

31. Years ago. Years old. Yeah.

It's not it. I mean Stop.

Stop it.

It's 29 years old. I'll do the math for you, but that's okay.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

My point is, why are we still putting USB a on anything?

Stop it. Just don't do it. And all all of you smart home stuff listen. All the smart the new smart home gadgets that are coming out this year, if I see a USB a cable in any of those boxes, throwing it out. Not even gonna

send it. Steven, do you wanna know hold on. Just this is fun. Do you wanna know what is newer than USB a? FireWire.

Okay. That makes sense.

The 30 pin adapter.

Yeah. That makes sense. Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

All of these things that have come and died. Yes. Came after USB a.

I love the shirts where it's like USB a. It shows, like, one orientation, it says wrong. Flip it over, it says wrong. Flip it over again, right. And listen, pro tip, not that anyone needs this because USB a should be dead, but if you see the USB a and the holes are on top, like you can actually see into the holes of the connector, that's supposed to be pointed up.

Of course.

But the Roborock, Saros Z70, now has an arm. Did you see this? It has an arm to pick up clothes.

Yeah. This is this is I mean

Now it can pick up your socks and stuff with the little robotic arm and, I guess, pile them somewhere.

No. We have to just carry them around for the rest of the day until you come home and take them.

It's a little tiny grabber arm that will pick up your clothes.

That is actually terrifying.

Smile as

a grabber arm.

This is why I should watch the show at youtube.com/atprimarytechshow. Apparently, it can only pick up socks though. This whole video is just it picking up socks. Sometimes not picking up socks because I can't grab it. Like, I can't imagine it's gonna do a, like shirt or a pair of pants. You know what I mean? I don't know if this the Roborock Casino might be

in his bedroom. It's gonna throw out its back.

My if this were to work in my kid's bedroom, it would need to be able to pick up probably £50 of clothes quickly.

Yeah. So, Steven, here's a parenting pro tip. I mean, I've heard that the problem with stuff like this, if it would actually do that and clean up your kids' room is then your children will never clean their room because they don't have to because now this thing will. And it's just like if what you really want it so you have to decide, do you really just want your kids' room clean? Or do you are you trying to grow well rounded, developed, responsible people that are grown to human beings that can hold on a job and take care of themselves?

This is this is so logical.

Most of the time, we just want the room clean. Right?

Mostly we just want the room clean. I feel like there's some logical fallacy here either a red herring or a straw man or a ad hominem or something because the fact is the room is just not clean. Like, no matter what happens, and we we impress upon our kids many many times to clean said room and it's it's a it's a battle, it's it's a constant battle. I'm like, why are there 18, Zevia cans on your desk? It's like, well I'm still drinking this one.

I know I know you would.

Alright. Last last smart home thing. Schlage Schlage Schlage. I don't know how to say that. They announced another home kit lock which if you're not, I've done a lot of home kit lock reviews on my channel and the Schlage AimCode Plus is the only one that had thread built in of, like, right now of smart locks that you can get that work with home key.

So does okay. So I'm this is a real question. It's gonna sound like I'm trolling you, but I'm not.

K.

I wanna establish that a problem. But, like, does ultra wide band solve the problem that Bluetooth has that if you had a Bluetooth lock that would unlock with proximity, if you walked up to it and someone who you did not want at your front door comes to the door and rings the doorbell and you walk up to the door and realize, I don't wanna open my door for this person. And now Bluetooth just unlocked it.

That is a good question. I feel like it would probably not solve that, and you might need to leave your phone away. Leave your phone in, somewhere else.

It feels like the biggest problem with these proximity locks is that, like, you don't only walk up to your door from the outside. In fact, our front door, I walk past it 10 times a day because we have a we have a, like, a it used it's like a family room, and then our main bedroom are on opposite ends of our foyer right there. So we walk I walk I don't wanna be locking my door. I'm locking my door every time I go by there, so I'm just curious.

That's a good point. I don't know. Ideally, there would be some automations that you can only be active sometimes. Mhmm. Like maybe when I leave, activate express mode.

Mhmm.

And then when I return, like deactivate it 5 minutes after I return, or something like that.

Gotcha.

But that is one of the improvements Apple needs to make in the smart home, because there's not a lot of automation options like that, so. Anyway, those are the stuff I saw at CES that was cool. If there's anything else, we'll cover it next week, but, for our personal tech real quick, we're gonna get to I have some screen time questions for Jason. We're gonna get to that in a bonus episode, but you have a new Apple Vision Pro take?

I do, but hold on. I have one CES question.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

That I only contributed, like, 3 things to this entire thing. So, what is the one thing that you heard about from CES that you most wish you had been able to see in person if if if you'd attended?

The people. I know that's kinda cheating. That is But That's

not the right answer.

I know that's not the question. But like all the Smart Home creators like Eric Wielander and Shane Watley, they were all there and I would have loved to to meet them in person. Fernando Silva, he I think he listens to this show from 9 to 5 Mac. He was there, and Renee Ritchie was there. Brandon Butch, YouTube guy was there.

I think I I think you can't wait to go next year.

Listen, I still wanna go. Like you said, I wanna go one time. I don't know if it'll ever be in a place besides Las Vegas. It would be like No. It would

always be in Vegas.

Is it because of, like, the companies coming from Asia that it has to be on the West Coast? Is that part of the reason why? Or just the size?

Also, there is there are are there any cities in the world with more hotel rooms than Las Vegas? I don't think so.

Orlando, Florida?

You think it has more hotel rooms than Vegas?

Listen. I went to Vegas for a podcast conference and, like, I see the strip and all the hotels. I also drive through Orlando. And, like, Orlando has unlimited theme parks with tons of hotels. There are tons of hotels out there.

Okay. Now Here, hold on. Hold on. I don't okay. I'm trying to find out which one has the but, like, all 5 of the top 5 hotels largest hotels in the world are all in Vegas.

Las Vegas?

Vegas has a 154,000 hotel room.

Okay. That's not the article I'm looking at, but okay. This this one all these articles are old. Why is this 100 did you say a 164,000?

154,000. How many hotel rooms?

It's outpacing Orlando, Florida. Orlando is next.

Orlando's a 130,000. Okay. So I will say that that's that's fair. Orlando had significant more. The reason is most people might not think like, all of the hotel like, the Venetian is 6,000 hotels rooms or something like that. It doesn't look like it's that bid, but all these hotels are enormous. And there's probably like 7 or 8 convention centers in Vegas that there's I know there's not 7 or 8 convention centers. No.

There's a few.

Either one of those resorts has a convention center of sorts. Right? And then there is the convention center, which I don't know which convention center is the largest. I mean, it might be McCormick Place in Chicago, but, like, I'm pretty sure that Las Vegas Convention Center is one of the biggest. So that's why.

Well, yeah. The the number oh, you were right. McCormick Place in Chicago, 2,600,000 square feet.

There we go.

That is the largest convention center. And then Orlando is after that. Orlando's second. The Orange County Convention Center, 2,100,000 square feet.

Gotcha.

And then 3rd is the Las Vegas Convention Center at 2.5. Wait.

Wait. I think that's bigger than 2.1.

What in the world? Never mind. Las Vegas is still big. Orlando is 3rd. Orlando is 3rd. And then Atlanta, Georgia World Congress Center is 4th.

And it looks like Vegas and McCormick Place are almost exactly the same size.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I see. I see. Okay. Very good. So okay. But what's your Vision Pro Take?

Oh, yeah. My Vision Pro Take. So I You

still have it, by the way. Right? You haven't sent it back?

Oh, it's right here.

Yep. Whoops. The light seal just fell off.

That's it's just my That's

how it does.

Totally fine.

That's how it do.

Designed to come apart into 7 pieces. My so here's my take. First of all, and this is the this part of my take is not new. The improved Mac mirroring in the vision pro is killer. Like, absolutely killer. So good that there are times when I so I had been using the vision pro, still using it every day but it was mostly using vision pro apps

to do things.

Okay. But now I almost exclusively just use the Mac and then it might have something else over in the corner like if I'm like, oh, why don't I open the music app over here or whatever. And I think the vision pro is actually a pretty good deal if you are someone who needs a big display because here's think about my math this way. A studio display is like what? $1600 $1700 if you get the adjustable

1600 with stand. Yeah.

But isn't it like 1700 with the adjustable stand or whatever?

Yes. Of course.

So that's $1700. So now you're down to $1800 for a vision pro.

Sure.

For all of the vision pro stuff. I'm telling you right now, like, if you are seriously considering, like, you bought a Mac, getting a setup, you have a laptop, but you're thinking, like, I need something to look just buy a vision pro because it is a yes. A studio display or a pro display XDR is a better display for a computer just by itself. Right? And but the but the vision pro as a work, like, display for, like, a MacBook Pro or a MacBook Air or whatever, It's actually, like, really good.

Nose against the wall.

What is he even doing in there? But it's it's so it's so good, Steven. Like, it makes the price of all of the vision pro things come down significantly. It's like, I could get a Vision Pro and a display for this computer. Yeah. That's that's pretty good deal.

So that's interesting. If you were to get a nano texture studio display with the tilt and height adjustable stand, you are looking at $23100.

Which you shouldn't spend that much on a Studio Display, but, yeah, that's yeah. So Apple is helping me out with this math by making the Studio Display ridiculously overpriced.

Right. Right. And you never have to worry about glare with Vision Pro because you're literally in a headset. Right. 0 glare.

It is amazing. Although I told you about the time when I was couldn't figure out how to get the smudge off of the lens. I have the lens inserts, obviously, because I don't have my glasses on. I cannot and I'm looking at I take them out. I'm looking at them. I'm wiping them down. I put them back in. I'm like, what is going on? And then I finally realized it's because the smudge was on one of the cameras for the past through video.

Oh, interesting.

Everything looks smudged, but that's because I hadn't I never got to the point where I opened it. And then the reason I realized that is I opened the Vision Pro app and it looked perfect. There was no smudge. But then if you moved it, it's like, oh, it's just the camera for the pass through video.

Did you have you ever wiped the actual displays inside the Vision Pro?

Oh, no. You can't. No. You can't touch. That's like

You're not supposed to touch those.

It's like crossing the lightsabers or whatever, the streams.

Crossing the streams in Ghostbusters. Yeah. Yeah. I don't okay. I've never done that. I wipe the inserts for sure.

All the time.

But I was over the holidays, my sister-in-law, she had never tried a VisionPRO and my brother-in-law. So I let them try it. I let them this is a good question. If you're gonna have a friend or family member try VisionPRO for the first time, what's the piece of immersive content that you play for them?

Highwire? No. I'm just kidding. No.

I'm not. That's that's actually the one I played for my sister-in-law.

I played the dinosaurs. I'd still shown the dinosaurs. The original dinosaur thing where it comes out from the wall. You your your your brain is right about. You don't you don't know what it's like to not know what it's like. That was really found. But, like, start someone with something simple. Don't put them in submerged.

No. Not submerged. So what I showed my brother-in-law was the Super Bowl recap.

Okay.

And I like that one as a first experience because it kind of eases you in. You know, you look you start looking around. You're on the field. You're like, this feels really interesting. People come nearby.

And if you don't like the person, you should show them the beginning of the Weeknd music video because that have you watched that?

I'm not crazy about that one. I did watch it. I don't I don't like it.

It was not a good use of this technology. No. No one no one wants to be that close to the Weeknd.

The the literal Weeknd, yes, with an e.

But I'm just saying, no one wants to be allowed in that guy's hands.

I know those shadowy characters. I'm like, I don't want this. I don't want any of this. Did you watch though, there was another, like, concert for 1?

The concert for 1. That's pretty good.

That is pretty good. And, like, it's not super immersive, but it does feel like, oh, this artist is right in front of me. I can look over to the horns because I play trumpet, and I get to see them playing over here. Like, that was kinda cool. But, the Alicia Keys rehearsal room, I still feel like it's a good example too because you feel like you're there.

The but the thing I like about the dinosaur one, I'm and I know that I'm like, again, it's easy to forget how cool that was when that was, like, the only thing that you Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Is that it was a great use of the pass through in the AR. Right? Because all the things you described, you could do in the in, like, the quest. They're just immersive.

Right. But the quality of the VisionPRO, I feel, like, makes it feel

Sure. But that it could make a better quest. I'm just saying, like

Right.

Right. Right. But the path anyway. Yeah. So Alright.

So here's what we're gonna do. If you haven't yet, leave us a 5 star rating and review an Apple Podcasts and tell us if you know, if you've done the demo, what is the most compelling Apple Vision Pro experience, like immersive content. If you haven't yet, you're you can go on an assignment. Just go to an Apple Store, try it out. You can do the demos, and I still think it's it's good to do the demo even if you have zero intention of buying it.

Hold on. You have a thought about nano texture or you have a nano texture thought? Okay. I just wanted to clarify

what you

mean by that.

Yes to both. My thoughts are in nano texture, not glossy. Wow. Razor sharp.

There's no light reflecting off of those thoughts.

No glare. No glare to my thought. So we're gonna talk about that, and I have a question about screen time. If you wanna listen to a bonus episode, you go to primary tech dot fm. Click bonus episodes. You get the whole back catalog plus an ad free version of the show, and you're supporting the show as well. Start 2025 off right by supporting primary technology. You can also watch the show on YouTube. That link's in the show notes as well. Thanks for watching.