iPhone 16e Launched: Here’s What's Missing, Humane Ai Pin is Dead, Apple’s New C1 is a Big Deal

All those moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. Time to die. Welcome to Primary Technology, the show about the tech news that matters. Apple released a new iPhone this week, the iPhone 16 e. We're gonna get into all the nitty gritty details from its first party modem modem that it's developed, but all the features that it left out.

I well, I mean, people saw my desk last week on the bonus episode. I have a lot of paperweights around, but none of them were nearly as expensive as yours. Let's just I mean, well, actually, I have a m four Pro Mac mini that is a paperweight, which is probably more expensive than your human. Straight.

That well, I bought the, like, the I was silly and bought, like, the fancy color humane AI pin. So this is actually a hundred dollars more than the regular pin. I'm So this was $800.

I'm pretty sure the Mac mini I brick since it's an m four pro with a one terabyte and Oh, that is gigs. It's probably more expensive.

As soon as you upgrade that SSD, it's immediately astronomical.

Immediately. That is a Mac mini plus humane AI pin just to get the upgrade storage.

Fair enough. Fair enough. This humane AI pin story is wild. I also have a special device that I'm gonna reveal, when we talk about it because, well, I just I got it off eBay, and I'm excited to show it off. So stay tuned. That's gonna be after the break, but we have to talk about the iPhone 16 e. So many details to tease through. But even before that, we have some exciting five star reviews. We're still a 4.9 star podcast for some reason. Somebody Let's

go. Let's go, people.

Let's go. We need to get back up to five. Some I someone left a must, I guess, a one star review, but no left no review, so we don't know why they're mad. Probably adjacent. Let's be honest.

Let's be clear. Let's be clear. That's obviously the case.

But we had two people helping us get back to that five star rating. Jazza seven eight nine from The USA. We're his favorite tech podcast and fellow trumpet player, what's up? Battery percentage on, though, Jason won that one. That's alright. Don't forget because you're a trumpet player. And Ultraman seven from The USA. Battery percentage off. Who needs that stress in their life? Thank you, Ultraman. Appreciate it.

It's nice that your brother finally left a review.

I'm an only child, but thanks anyway.

The brother you didn't know you?

Exactly. My long lost brother. So if you could help us out, let's get five more five star ratings and reviews. You get a shout out. Whenever you're writing the review, I mean, we basically say it on the show. So you can basically have me say anything, well, well, within reason. We'll see now.

Should revisit that rule here in a minute. That. Let's just

Oh, no. I might have, just regretted that. And, also, we've been doing old tech. This is a quick segment because people keep sharing old tech pictures in the community and on social media. I love seeing it. Kid b, sent a message. This is a 1993 PowerBook. I said MacBook, a couple weeks ago when I showed an old picture of a computer and a bunch of people were like

And I tried to correct you and you're like no no no it says MacBook and I'm like that does not look like a MacBook I've ever seen.

But As I've shared my screen the text is very small I'm just that's all I'm going to say But this is a PowerBook Duo 210, a two ten. Still turns on. Look at that screen. I don't know what that pink splotch is on the right, but it still turns on. I see the box in the background too from Apple Computer Inc.

That's awesome.

That's very cool. So that's a very cool computer. That was kid b, and then Chris Peck in the community, he has a bunch of, old stuff, old Apple device. We have some iPods

Mhmm. Love it.

All the way back to the original iPod, I think. That's amazing. Also, the original Apple TV remote. And then I thought this picture would have flowed quicker. There we go. IPhones all the way back. Is that Yep. Or that's the original all the way on the left.

Probably. Or it's a three g. It's hard to tell without looking at the back.

But Right. Right. Well, but then he's got I think this is the three g and the three g s. But that's pretty slick.

Maybe. Yeah.

Is it do you have an original iPhone?

Yeah. There's it's right back there.

Oh. I wish It's

right there if you're if you're watching.

Watching.

See it right there. And there's an iPod video, and then there's a and over there where you can't see it is a four s, I think.

Oh, see, I have the four, and I have an iPod video, but I never got a original iPhone.

You know I haven't originally. I posted a picture of it, like,

a week ago.

That's right.

Yeah. You did. You did. And, he also Chris Peck has a PowerBook one ninety.

Wow.

It looks like that is it still turns on. Just saying. That's that resale value for Apple devices. Top notch. Top notch. I don't know if you'd, well, you might actually fetch some money for it today considering how old it is. So

It depends on whether or not Steven Hackett already has it in his collection.

That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And a couple other quick follow-up, from previous. We talked about Apple ID migration, and someone actually did it. This is Badon on Blue Sky and said he actually merged to Apple IDs, which you can now do bring your purchases from previous Apple IDs to a new one.

Yeah. I mean, the home app thing just seems like a normal Thursday thing. Like, it's just you have to remove them all and reconnect them all. So that probably had nothing to do with the migration, just to be honest.

You know, that's one of those burns where I can't even correct it because, yeah, that's pretty much

Did we even talk about that migration thing? I'm just

talking about last week.

Remember. I can't even remember. I believe you.

But Yeah. We did we did after the break because, you know I mean, do you have a situation where you're actually gonna try that?

No. I definitely am not. I only have one Apple ID. The same one I've been using my whole life. I'm not merging anything.

I'm just curious. I don't like messing with that. I don't like that. No. And final thing before we get to the iPhone 16 e, apparently, severance has now surpassed Ted Lasso to become Apple TV plus most watched series after the season two launch. Listen, I've been keeping up with it, Jason, and I'll say I get it. I, I enjoy that show. It's a good show.

Okay. I know that we don't have a lot of time for this, but I have two quick thoughts. One, what was Apple TV marketing when Ted Lasso was happening? Nothing. Like, the Tim Cook did not appear in an ad for Ted Lasso. They did not set up a thing at Wembley Stadium with all of the Ted Lasso play. Like, they have suddenly realized we have a streaming service, and if we put some money behind marketing

I don't know. Maybe. But I feel like the buzz around Ted Lasso, especially season one, I feel like was pretty close to what I'm seeing. I mean, I think Severance has surpassed it, but there were a lot of people talking about it.

Yeah. But I don't think it was Apple TV a standalone app in as many places as, like, as it is now. I just didn't think that That's true. I don't know that that that that's a indicator of the difference between the last one severance as much as it's an indicator of the difference between what Apple is doing with Apple tv plus

like availability

and just its marketing push and stuff because here's the thing, severance not even close to on the same tier as Ted Lasso.

Now wait a minute.

It's not even close to the same tier shrinking.

K.

Steven, you know I'm right.

I listen. I love Ted Lasso. I'll watch that dart scene at least once a year just to cry.

Just because he needs to clean out his eyes.

Just just because. But, I mean, the cinematography, the tension I mean, it's for some and people have been saying this on social media. For run for some reason, it is one of those shows that is just engrossing. Even though, like, there's not a lot happening. There's a lot happening.

There's nothing happening most of the time.

Yes. But it is still engrossing and, like

But you and you are because you are just counting on there being a payoff at some point and that the payoff is not going to be weird. But the Like But

they pay you. Like, at the end of episodes, there is a bit a payoff, and it's a big deal.

Alright. I don't know. I'm not convinced.

I'm only kept it out. Have you kept up? Have you seen all

the shows? I have only five episodes into season one at this point.

Forget about it. No. No. No. No. You gotta get the you gotta get all the way through one. Starts you gotta catch up. You gotta catch

up. Hold on, though. Hold on. You can't be like, the show is amazing. I mean, the first part's a slog.

No. It's not a slug. It's not a slug. I'm saying the payoff. First of all, the season one finale is one of the most insane thing. Like, it is Alright. Crazy. I'm

gonna get there. I got a flight today. I'm gonna get there. I got two flights today. I'm gonna get there.

Okay. Well, we'll talk we'll talk after that. We're gonna argue about severance. Okay. In the community, in your five star rating and review in Apple Podcasts, Ted Lasso v Severance. Let us know if you've seen both. But you have to be caught up on severance. Gabriel, like, Jason, like, I saw two episodes and, you know, no no no. You gotta have a con.

I'm just saying you don't have to watch all of Ted Lasso to make an opinion about Ted Lasso.

But you should only watch season one and then have an opinion. I mean, the other seasons are good.

Oh, Ted watch only season one of Ted Lasso and then compare. That's fine. I'm happy

to make

that mistakes.

Yeah. Season one

They're all good.

They're they're all they're all good, but season one will just stop you. Anyway, we gotta talk about the iPhone because Apple actually released a new iPhone this week, the iPhone 16 e, and there's so many little details to tease out about this phone. It takes the place of the iPhone SE, the quote unquote budget level device for Apple. Although budget, I think, is in the big air quotes because it starts at $600 rather than the SE's $430 and all the upgrades are way more expensive. You know, if you want to upgrade the storage on this new 16 e, I'm gonna run down, just some interesting specs about the 16 e, and then we should talk about it.

Yeah. The people are walking around in bento boxes.

They're walking around, and actually the sponsor today is very exciting because there's a big connection to this. But anyway, Bento Box is on point, for the iPhone 16 e in this video, which is cool, but there's just so many weird trade offs and differences between this iPhone 16 e. I don't know. What what did you it was as the data came in, Jason, how were what opinion were you forming as you saw this phone?

Well, the most surprising thing for me is the price. Mhmm. I it's interesting to me that Apple thinks that it no longer needs a lower, low cost, like a sub $500 phone.

Right. Right.

Because they don't sell one now. And I was checking and even in the refurbished store you can buy an iPhone 14 pro with a hundred. It's like $5.49. Like it's like it's so it's it is not a there is and there's actually 13 pros in there, but they all have a terabyte of storage and they're like 700 or something stupid like that. So it is interesting to me that apple doesn't think that it needs a now maybe this is a phone that T Mobile is gonna always sell for $4.99.

No.

There's no device anymore with a home button.

My father-in-law is gonna be ticked.

Because there's no there's no iPads. There are no there's no devices anymore that have a home button because they don't they don't call the other touch ID buttons home buttons because they're not at the bottom. Right. And if you think about it, like, that has been the single most iconic part of the iPhone over its its history because you would see, like, silhouettes of the iPhone and they always had a circle at the bottom. And that's how you knew it was an iPhone and not some random Samsung knockoff.

It was like in the icons of iPhone Yeah. When you just That's

what I'm saying. Like, it was the thing people like, even if you had had hadn't had a phone with a touch ID or, I mean, a home button in years, you still knew, like, that was the thing about an iPhone. And so I don't know. The The other most surprising thing for me is I was on a I was on a music video shoot yesterday.

Say one day.

Yeah. I'm not gonna go into that.

What is this for a rap album that you have yet to announce?

I was not the artist. Let me just be clear. I was I was photographing, photography.

Photography. Your professional photography.

Or yes. That's exactly right. So I was I was doing that, whatever the verb is. Yeah. And there was a bunch of teenagers involved in this. And I asked them, hey, did any of you guys hear that apple introduced a new iPhone today? And they're like, no. What are you talking about? They're like, is it the 17? What's I'm like, no, it's not the 17. It's called the 16 e. And they're like, what the heck is that? I'm like, well, it replaces the iPhone s e and they're like, what

is it?

And the only thing that, no, here's the thing. There was like four high school age girls. And the only thing they wanted is the lightning cable back. They would buy it

if they

had a lightning adapter. But the reason is think about it. Like high school students are an interesting collection of the types of phones that they have. So when they go to friend's house and it's like, I can't charge my phone because of your cord, I can't do this. And it's a weird, weird, so the only, so if I was thinking like apple, what you should have done, keep the home button, but put lightning back on this. Don't sell it in Europe, but the teenagers, man. No. I don't know.

No. Well, the answer would have been MagSafe, but this phone doesn't have MagSafe.

But it still charges wireless.

Okay. We're gonna talk about that in a second. I just wanna mention having a $400 phone. The Pixel six a, which is their, like, affordable phone, is $400. And it does feel like $400 is the line of, like, here's our affordable phone, and Apple is not it doesn't have that line anymore.

I mean In fairness, that phone was on sale, a hundred dollars.

It was on sale.

They're actually a $500 phone, but

Oh, yeah. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. Fair enough. Even on you can, like, on Amazon get refurbished, like, iPhone 15 Pros and Pro Maxes though for, like, the same price as this iPhone 16 e. That and that is like I don't know. It it doesn't feel great. So the no MagSafe thing, here's the thing. In the Apple Newsroom article and then in the tech specs, it says it has Qi charging, but it just doesn't even mention MagSafe anywhere, which I feel is like, I mean, I understand.

Even in the eve even in the video when, Yeah. Kai Andrianza is talking about it, she's like, and it supports wireless charging.

Yeah. That's it.

Like, doesn't say anymore.

So here's the deal. Wireless charging, regular qi. So if you're familiar with, like, chi chi too, I talk about this a lot on my channel, but that means if you wireless charge, it's only seven and a half watt wireless charging. Even if you don't have the MagSafe magnet for, like, alignment and accessories, you hopefully, I mean, the 15 watt charging is also the big benefit of MagSafe versus regular Qi charging. So even if you do wireless charging, it's just gonna charge way slower than every other iPhone, except the iPhone eight, which also is regular Qi charging.

I mean, but I guess the question is what they have to do something to differentiate it from the 16. It's $200 less than the 16.

The one less camera. The camera's a big difference. There's only one less.

That's not enough of a difference. No. That's not enough of a difference between for for it to justify this what they're trying to get at. I mean, it doesn't have any colors.

No dynamic island. It's still a notch. Because the 16 But but I

guess those are not, like, those are not, the types of features I think that people who are looking at this phone like, right, that is not really the differentiator. So at some point, you have to have a because otherwise, it's I mean, it has a a 18. It does have one less graphics core than the, than the 16 does. It has the same neural engine. It has the same main camera.

know. The funny pictures.

Right? But it has the thing that Apple thinks is the most important because it has the a 18. This phone does Apple intelligence.

Right.

Right? And so you just have to think about, like, how did they come and it actually has better battery life than the 16.

Right. Right.

Which is so you just have to think about, like, how do they make these compromises? And I don't know, like, that the people who would spend the money on this phone are also people who are like, my life is built around MagSafe because I have the wallet and I have the whatever and I have this thing. I just, I don't know. I just don't know that that's it feels like this is actually the logical area to to pull back because the s e, was it the three, SE three It

did not.

Also only also only had Qi charging.

Right. Well, so for me, like, my son has an iPhone 13. And so if I was looking to upgrade his phone, this iPhone 16, he would actually be a viable option. He gets the Apple intelligence, the newest chip, the camera's great, does you know, you can do four ks 120 slow mo. No, sorry, not four ks 120.

I don't think that's true. I think that the rings that you see are just the alignment, and the charging is actually in the middle of it.

The charger's in the middle? Oh, you see what

a charger looks like? It's a whole bunch of

It's a coil. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You might be Yeah. Those

are just the alignment magnets. But I think the way to think about this though is if you line up the s e three, the 16 e and the 16, you're comparing the 16 e to the features of the 16, but that's not what Apple wants you to do. What they want you to do is say, for a hundred and $50 more, you go from, like, a 4.7 to a 6.1 inch screen that has 800 max max nits max brightness. So it's in 1,200 peaks. So you get HDR, which you did not have before.

Right.

You get the a 18. You get double, like, double the battery life, I almost or something like that. You get an extra camera because even though it only has one camera housing, they're calling that Fusion camera two zero one. Right? You get Dolby Vision. You could shoot four k. Like, you get all of the visual intelligence. You get Apple intelligence. You have the action button. Like, they're that's the way that they're comparing it.

And so when you go to the iPhone 16 e product page, they have a compare with drop down, and the iPhone 13 to 16 is nowhere to be found. If you wanna compare battery life, it's to the iPhone 12 or the SE third generation.

Well, I mean, the eleven's in there.

I'm just kidding. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And

they even said something about something that it does computationally is twice as fast or something like that as the iPhone 11 and, like, iPhone 11. Apple. My my daughter has an iPhone 11 Pro, and it's only because it's a hand me down. Like, that was my phone five years ago.

Right. Now you can also get it in whatever beautiful color you want as long as it's white or black.

I mean, technically, if you put a case on it that's not MagSafe, it'll be whatever color you want it.

It'll be whatever. Yeah. So you got you got two colors. I know everybody is probably gonna put a case on a phone like this.

This. Isn't that actually a reasonable I mean, I think I don't think Apple should stop selling phones with colors, but isn't it funny to you that people complain so much about the colors and everyone who cares puts a case on it?

But a lot of people do like the clear case for that reason. A lot of people like the clear I mean, Andrew Claire, YouTube, friend of mine, whenever he does videos or reels about clear cases, they blow up. It's like people love the clear case because they do wanna show off the color. I always feel like that clear case with the white ring from MagSafe

It's the worst thing.

It's the worst. But maybe with the 16 e, you can get a clear case without that ring because it doesn't have MagSafe. Maybe that'll but then there's no color to show off.

Show off your white phone?

That's great of you. White or black. I do I will say and Sebastian DeWitt and the other, people on social media were saying the one camera look for the back of the iPhone is still pretty nice. It looks pretty safe.

It is. That's pretty nice.

Yeah. Now I wanna talk about the c one modem. So this is the first time this is pretty big news, actually. The first time Apple is making their own first party cellular modem, putting it in a phone. I think the obvious course going forward is that Apple will use their own modems in their phones. Whether or not they'll use the c one in the iPhone 17 this fall remains to be seen. I feel like the loss of wave, I feel like not a single voice will be heard, be crying that time. I feel like

Well, and it's not available in Europe. Right?

Right. You know what

I mean? And it's not even really available on anything except for Verizon. No. I don't think

I did a whole video on a on, AT and T. I did a video for Apple Insider when the iPhone

But I don't think it's the same exact thing, is it?

Yeah. When I went yes. When I went to I to when I got the iPhone 12, because that was the first time wave. I see now I gotta find this video. I, for Apple Insider, I did a video go I I drove to hold on.

I remember you went to, like, a stadium parking lot or something.

I went to a TGI Friday's parking lot. It was a TGI Friday's parking lot, by Universal Studios Orlando, and I tested the m m wave. Here's the video. Is it out? So I'll link the video in the show notes because this is great. Andrew O'Hara opened up the video for me. But here here's me, by the side of the road talking about the

Oh, my.

Five g plus tested. That is This is how many years ago? This was 18,000 years ago. This was four years ago.

That's amazing.

But I did I did the speed test. And look, I mean, I was getting 1,300 megabits down on an AT and T puts five gs plus when you're in the ultra wide, but the upload speed was abysmal. I mean, it was like thirty thirty seven. So anyway, but it was I mean, it's a real thing in, like, four places in every state.

Okay. That's that's the difference.

Yeah. There is

t t just Yeah. Only puts it in TGI Friday's parking lots. If you want the real five g everywhere, you gotta

be on the phone. And if, like, a box truck passes between your phone and the the Wave radio drops to, like, five megabits, so, you know Oh, I thought

you were gonna say the box truck explodes. Like, I just could see waves.

Burst in a flame. Spontaneous combustion. That's it. It's not that anybody really cares about Wave. So I feel like it'll it will come to to the iPhones for sure. Do you think we'll see the c one or some variant in the iPhone 17 models this fall?

Well, I'm gonna answer that in a second. But first of all, when it says Wave, what does stand for?

Millimeter. Millimeter wave.

Yeah. Okay. Most people just say millimeter wave and you just kept saying wave. So I was just

I don't know what it's been so no one talked about it because it's you. I don't even know. I was just I don't know what's okay. Yeah.

It's it's ever since the keynote where the CEO of Verizon showed up and he's like five g five g five g. That was the best super cut ever.

Yeah. It was a supercut. It's also ultra wideband. You can call it wideband.

That's what Verizon calls millimeter wave. They call it ultra.

It's the ugliest symbol in the status bar. It has like a u w with a five g.

I mostly turn off five g on my phone unless I'm traveling somewhere where I'm, like, mostly gonna be using my phone to tether. Interesting. But yeah. Well, I mean, what? Why? Like, I'm on Wi Fi most of the time.

Yeah. I mean, I find well, we

can get better battery life. So anyway okay. Yeah. Actually, I was looking at it because I might have that might have been a lie. Everything I just said.

Do you keep the five g on auto? Sure. Probably. Right?

I'm just trying to figure that out. And there's so many settings now in here. Oh, yeah. Five g is on auto. You're right.

On auto. Yeah. Yeah.

Great. So the your question, though, c one in the Apple c one is gonna be I don't think so.

Okay.

Because Apple has a licensing patent with Qualcomm, and I don't remember when that's over. But Qualcomm is not gonna be like, there's been a lot of bad blood back and forth between these two companies over because Qualcomm basically is a monopoly on the technology for cellular modems type things. And apple, if you remember, bought intel's modem business, that's where this came from. They bought it, they paid like a billion dollars and I think 2019 to buy intel's. And the reason was because intel just decided it wasn't worth it because Qualcomm owns this market.

And the c, the h, the u. There's someone forgetting.

The a.

The l. Yeah. The a.

The most important one.

This is Apple newsroom release from April 2019, and it was basically announcing that Qualcomm and Apple were dropping litigation between them. They could stop suing each other, but that they reached a six year license agreement effective April 2019. So that seems like it will be up this April. There's an option to extend including a two year option not to extend but I think with this announcement, yeah, so iPhone 17 likely because it's already in development like the iPhone 17 is already designed and done. Have you seen the renders?

Some of them. Just an update. Yeah. Qualcomm has said told investors that the the deal has been extended until at least 2027.

Oh, interesting. Okay.

So But not And that's from, like, yesterday.

Okay. Very good.

Because that was, like, the question investors are wondering, like, oh, if Apple's putting out its own chip, how does that affect whatever's going on? And so yeah. It's Yeah. I I just think it'll be a couple years before we see it in

So here my my other question then, with Apple now developing its own cellular modem, is it possible that we will see cellular data connectivity built into MacBooks?

I mean, if we don't, I'm never buying another one. No. I'm just kidding. No. Like, this is insane. Like, I ran the poll and I was like, okay. And for MacBook air, what do we what do we think is the most likely? And no one thinks cellular is coming to it. But I was like, please, like, there are more people who thought that potentially it would get, like, OLED or something like that. I don't even remember, but it was just ridiculous.

And we're not gonna we're not gonna rehash everything the ATP guys said, but Casey List and all the guys at ATP, Mark Arment, John Sirkes, they all want cellular in MacBooks, and I will and everyone who argues will just hotspot to your phone. You don't do that very often. If you if that is your defense about not building cellular into MacBooks, just hotspot because I I've done it. I, for a long time, just bought iPads with WiFi and would hotspot to my phone if I was in a cafe or someplace that didn't have WiFi. And it works, like, enough where it's annoying when it doesn't.

a Sure.

But the built in cellular is a big deal. And for a Mac, like on a MacBook Air, I would probably get a MacBook Air with that. I think that'd be pretty

Absolutely. I think for all the people who say just tether, which by the way, like tethering is fine. Like, okay. That's great. Sure. But I would say to you, from now on, only make Wi Fi calls on your iPhone. Don't use the cellular service. Like don't use it. You only tethered a wifi or to someone else's iPhone. If you anytime you wanna make a call or download data or use an app, you should just tether to something else.

I mean, I I get it. And and, like, yes, tethering used to be, like, this upcharge with a lot of cell character carriers and I think now it's included in most data plans so it is reasonable to tether. And I and I tether from my MacBook, when I need to but yeah I would love a built in cellular. So anyway that's the iPhone 16 e it is six I forgot I forgot the price rate it's $600.05

$99.05 99.

5 90 9 and then the iPhone 16 starts at let me look I think $7.99?

7 yeah it's $200 more.

$200 more. I will say you gotta give the credit to Apple for getting that pricing tier just Goldilocks right where you wanna jump to the next level. Just I I don't know

if we have to give them credit just to be honest.

No. Well, no. I mean, Tim Cook. He's he's got he's got the whiteboard with the like, you know, the charts and anyway. So yeah, I'm I'm curious. I'm gonna get one to play around with it and review it. And, the preorders of this Friday, which is the twenty first. So tomorrow, if you listen to this one day comes out, then you get it on the twenty eighth. But we'll see. Yeah.

don't think they ever said that, and that would be weird to make your worst phone your special edition.

That would be. Yeah. That would be strange. I don't know. I think e stands for

Super economical. Econ super economical.

Apple would not say that. I think 16 e stands for egregious that it doesn't have MagSafe. That's what the e stands for. Egregious.

The thing you're the most upset about is just

Listen. I talk about a lot of MagSafe accessories on my channel. I really like MagSafe. That's all I'm saying.

I I But I'm

not gonna get this phone, so it doesn't matter. I mean, it's my main phone, so okay. Alright. We have to talk about

Just going to get it as a paperweight.

Thank you. Great segue. We're gonna talk about my paperweight here in a second, and another paperweight. I'm gonna flash it on screen to tease it. Look at that.

I'm super gonna do that.

Apple Vision Pro. Well, I just use it every day.

I'm super gonna do that.

Yeah. Uses it every day. This is the app on the Mac. It's so cool. So you can choose from the different sizes.

Things things go to die. Yeah.

Things go to die. HP acquired parts of Humane, the AI pin startup, for a hundred $16,000,000. I don't even know if it's whatever I don't know what they're buying. I don't know what parts they're buying. Cosmos, their OS, who knows?

So I I I asked a couple people that I knew that were familiar with humane because I was curious about this whole, like, well, if you're within your return window, you can still get a refund. And I was curious, like, I wonder how many AI pins that is. And the number I heard completely unofficially was that that was like less than a few dozen. That was like the way it was worded. So I don't know if that's like anywhere from one to, I don't know, 50 or something like that in the last ninety days, which I actually don't know whether I should be more surprised that the number is that low or that high.

That is because I could equally

see, like, no one has bought any of these in the last thirty days. Who's buying them?

Because they had they had they had a marketing push, like, when it finally went became available, but it's been quiet, you know, ever since. Also, I love this slide in your article. You know, they say first and foremost, thank you for being an early adopter and truly grateful to have you head on this journey with us. And you say, what journey? Less than a year.

Yeah. I told you offline. I've never been so mad about something that didn't affect me personally because I never bought I should have I wish I would have thought about this, and I know that peep I don't know people even still do this. I wish I would have gone on to Facebook and marked myself safe from having bought a bricked AI bin. Right?

Yeah.

Because you have said, we failed as a company. We had a terrible idea that only YouTubers wanted to buy to try out, and we couldn't sustain this business model, but we're just gonna keep all that money. And then we're gonna sell the business off for parts. And sorry. We're we're making it so your devices don't work because at least like that iPhone that's back there, I could replace the battery.

It is, it is astounding, really.

And it says a lot about I'm sorry. Like, it says a lot about the failure of the leadership of the people involved as opposed to just the business model. And I think what's weird is I don't think this started out, they've been working on this a long time, long before chat gpt came along. This was not originally supposed to have like an AI angle to it. It was just, they were working on a device that would free you from having to use your smartphone, which turns out nobody cares.

Like Right.

The all the, like, the books, Palma, those are they're all not the Nook or what what they're what was the one? They're they they're all novelty devices. Recent one was but they're all just like novelty devices. People still just want to use their phone. Like it was the most it's the most useful form factor for the things that people do the most. And so just stop trying to invent a category of things that people don't care about and then take all their money and then shut the business down.

It is wild. And so I had I have another device here that I wanted to tease because so HP has now acquired humane and it will just go by the wayside. So that's that's one hardware device. HP is

Well, and they didn't acquire the hardware device to be honest. That's just ceasing to exist.

Just ceasing.

They basically hired all the people and they're gonna make them build AI into HP laptops, I guess.

Well, the other Sounds like

a winning idea.

The other hardware device, but I have much more nostalgia and appreciation for is this thing, which I just got off on eBay. Wow. The Palm Pre two. This thing, Please tell me if you had this. Listeners I

I never had that. What year is that from? Like 02/2003? A palm. 02/2002?

Two thousand '3.

Two thousand and '1.

No. No. Palm Pre two really.

Nineteen eighty four.

The Palm Pre two was 2010.

They were still making that thing after iPhones? Oh my gosh.

Well, yes. Because there was still like the the fight or whatever. So the original Palm Pre came out 02/2009, '2 years after the iPhone. That was the original Palm Pre. This is a Palm Pre two which improved things, like speed and the keyboard thing. This was so this was out in 2010. Mhmm. Palm, of course, then was acquired by HP, and stuff, but slider phone, full QWERTY keyboard underneath the slider. This honestly really loved the form factor. Like, look how small and pocketable this is.

but it's probably about the size of an iPhone SE.

Fair. Yeah. That. I just I wanted to get this because I actually wanted to make a video about it because I was curious, like, how does this software because I always felt like WebOS was way ahead of its time And I'll say, like, the responsiveness of the touchscreen and how well the web browser works, like, it was pretty astounding, how good it was. And I had the original Palm Pre on Sprint.

Finally, all that speed is coming back to just the little Yeah. The little Internet bits are just circling around that phone, like, furiously trying to get in, and it's like, I I they're teaching

me that. You're

too fast.

But, see, it's connected to the Wi Fi, but I'm gonna see if I can put a a micro, SIM card in here or whatever. Anyway, this I just wanted to mention this because and what were you gonna say? What was the the quick you had?

I mean, it does a lot more than the Humana app that ever did.

That's right.

And it's fifteen years old.

Still And

it still works. It still powers on. It still works. I mean, in fairness, if it won't connect to Wi Fi, it won't actually do any more than the humane AI pin except for it will power on.

I could take notes. Pretty. I could take notes. It probably

has a camera. Right?

Oh, it does have a camera. Hold on. Let me launch this camera. Let me see how good this camera is.

Guess is. What is that? 1.2 megapixel?

Look at that. Look at that camera. That's immediately more than the humane add pin.

Yeah. That's true.

Let's see. I'll take the picture. Oh, the flash was on. Now I'm not blinded.

It is a five megapixel camera on that thing.

Listen. Capacitive home button, so it was a capacitive home button to touch, so you just touch that, you go home. The the multitasking view that iPhone totally, like, took from this, like

Hijacked. Yeah.

The pre was first. Like, the palm pre was first. It did it all, and I mean look at this I can add I have my calendar I can do my calendar here look at this. This is gonna be this is my memory.

I mean you can't sync anything to it.

No no no this is it I'm using this as my phone it has Matt look it has YouTube but it has like the icon is like YouTube.

That's

Anyway

This is gonna be a journey. That's just gonna

be a journey. I can't wait to make this video. I just gotta get just gotta get a connection to the Internet. Anyway, the humane app in, like, such a debacle, but also so to I saw a rabbit r one also announced yesterday that they're showing off their large action model again and how it can take action or whatever. None of these devices the only here's here's what I will say.

Yeah. Also, I don't think that people wanna wear it on their shirt.

No. No. People wanna

wear it. Form factor. I mean, if it's like a secret service pin, then you look cool. But you walk around wearing that thing and people are like, not so much.

Yeah. Not so much. Someone on social media said they saw somebody at Disney wearing one of these the other day. I don't know what they were doing.

That's horrifying.

And, anyway, goodbye, humane goodbye, humane AI pin. We hardly knew ye.

But It's amazing how inhumane their their failure was.

We might have to end the show right now. I don't I don't know if I can go on.

That's good. That's good. You also have no argument. I mean, I'm right.

Yeah. No. That's that's true. Alright. We have to talk about well, I almost left the studio. Don't do that. I'm trying to share my screen. Anyway.

You really meant it. Show's over.

That's it. A couple weeks ago, I think it was right after we recorded last week's episode or whatever, but there was a brief moment in time where if you had an Apple TV, all of a sudden your Netflix content was a part of the Apple TV app. Like you know how all those other apps connect and you can put episodes in your watch list and you're up next and it integrates. For a brief moment in time, it actually was working where your Netflix stuff and Apple TV work together and then it disappeared and it's very mysterious. Don't no no one knows what happened except for our own Jason Aten.

I I don't know that.

Not that you know it.

You're overselling it a tiny bit.

A little bit. A little bit.

But the okay. So the weird thing about this was neither company, like, made any kind of an announcement, and it felt like if the war between Netflix and Apple over where the content was going to be aggregated was over, someone would have said something Right. Like Apple would probably want to make some kind of a big deal at, like, Apple TV, refresh or some some kind of something. Like, it so it just didn't really make any sense. And also, it wasn't working on everyone.

Couple times. But I

wanted to know because it's like all of these there's like a lot of articles written, you know, apple and Netflix clearly weird the hatchet. It's like, do we even know what's going on? And I talked to quite a few people and the understanding that I was given well so I think Netflix gave a statement to several places which basically said like this was a glitch or this was an error. It wasn't meant to happen.

Don't get excited.

And it is not indicative of any future product stuff. Right? We don't know for sure if that's the case because that could be a true statement. This thing that happened is not indicative of a future product. Like, if the thing was just an accident, it doesn't tell us anything about a future product necessarily.

Seems like an odd accident. Like, that you What

what is weird to me is everyone was talking about, like, well, how could this even be possible if Netflix hadn't built the capability to serve its content? And the understanding that I have from and I talked to several people about this is that the way that these services so like Google tv apple tv I guess, Roku Yeah. Fire is fire. Is that the four basically? Okay.

Okay. Okay. That was

I'm like 88% sure that that's what it means.

Okay. I'm a We're

a great tech podcast, by the way.

No. No. Listen. I don't know anyone else saying no. What does API stand for? I think you're probably right. Application programming interface. Is that what you said?

That's what I said.

That's what you said. Yeah. You got it. You got it.

Okay. Great. So So Well, I don't know what that means, but it's not how applications program an interface.

So basically so basically that that it's strange because that functionality seems to be there, and it's the fact that it's not active is some, like, purposeful block because of an agreement. Like, that is appears to be the case.

That's sort of what it just seems like, and it seems like whether that's a, like, specific contract that says you are forbidden from doing this or if it's, we don't we'd really like it if you didn't do this because we'd really prefer that everyone be in our app. Like, I don't know. Like, that's not information that I have.

Right. Right.

I would I would it sounds, though, like, maybe, most of like, people jump to a lot of assumptions very quickly, and I just I'm not sure that we know any more other than this is a really weird thing that happened.

Really weird thing that happened. The functionality is probably not coming soon. Straight I mean, and the crux of it is Netflix wants you to go into their app because that's how they get all the data. And again, I've talked about it before but there was a decoder episode where Nilay interviewed one of the Netflix co CEOs and he talks about all of the algorithmic programming and calculations that go on behind the scenes when you open the app to literally serve you things in real time, basically, based on your history, based on what's popular. And so that aggregation can only happen when you open the Netflix app.

I don't know for sure, and I'm I believe the Netflix Go CEO when they say those types of things, but it actually is confusing to me because the, like, I don't know that aggregating your inform they really just want people to make Netflix a destination. They want to be seen as a destination and not as on par as, you know, Handmaid's tale and whatever other shows are on all these other streaming services. They wanted to be like, I intentionally went into Netflix because if you think about it, if you've been watching stranger things and so stranger thing pops up into your continue watching, like that actually helps Netflix. So there must be a lot of benefit to Netflix to, like, making people go to the Netflix app instead.

Yeah. And and the Cozyo talked about it, like, they they just calculate all of that, and that helps them Yeah. Make their decisions. Even, like, the way YouTubers will try different thumbnails, like, Netflix does the same thing, like, multiple thumbnails per movie, per show, or whatever. But notably, still no app for Apple Vision Pro. It's been over a year. Still no Netflix app. Apple Vision Pro seems odd. I don't know.

It does seem,

no No YouTube app either.

Yeah. Although the Juno app, which if you downloaded it when it was available, is still fantastic.

It is fantastic, but then for YouTube to like did you I mean, YouTube blocked it. Right?

It works. You just I don't think you can download it anymore.

Right. Because you can't download it anymore. But anyway but but no Netflix app on Apple Vision Pro? I mean, that's something. I guess they don't have content that would show off the immersive nature or three d nature, but I mean I

mean, the one good thing about that is because you have to watch Netflix in a browser, it doesn't automatically try to forcibly serve you the three d version like the Disney plus app does.

Oh, yeah.

That's true. Every movie you pull up in Disney plus, it's like, here's the three d version. I'm like, no. I just wanna watch a normal movie.

Right. Right. Right.

But you have a headset on. Like, I I'll take it off. Don't make me take this off.

I will say, when you, when you get to the season two of Severance, the snow episode, the orc bow, watch that in Apple Vision Pro, at in the environment of Yosemite in the snow. It's it's nice.

Should I take it on a plane today?

Yeah. Finally. Yes. Yes. Do that.

See, I would do that, but only because my 16 year old daughter will be there, and it'll be mortifying to her.

Whatever the motivation needs to be, Jason. Do that. Bring it with you. %. You should do it. Let's do a little quick personal tech and then we have to get to our bonus episode where Jason's car apparently broke down again. Anyway, he sent me that picture. So but talk to me. You are using the analog system. Tell me about the I mean What is it?

We're a personal tech pod no. We're a tech pod guest.

That's right.

But when we talk about personal tech and sometimes personal tech can be low tech.

Oh, absolutely.

I feel like I just started reading a sponsor read. This is not

It just sound like

Not at all. No. Here's the thing. I, so just to be clear, I reached out to Aug Monk and I asked them, Hey, I would love I hear a lot of great things about your analytics system. And I have written many times about how my favorite technology is just paper and pen.

I try to use zero paper.

Really?

I don't I don't because it just takes clutter. It takes

the You don't think better with paper?

I guess I can't say for sure because I don't ever use it.

Yeah. I just am fine thinking exactly like I am. So Yeah. Because for me, what ends up happening is paper is a good way for me to be thinking about what I'm going to do as I'm writing. Like the act of writing forces me to process things differently than typing.

But L

E U C T a. Anyway, it's great. I love it. It, the killer feature for it is the pages have dots on them and so you can use it as like lines and whatever. So, so, but instead of doing it in that journal now, I'm just doing them on piece of paper.

Right.

And I don't carry the next pages around with me. However, I'm going to Austin for five days, and I am taking some of these today cards with me so I can make my list. Yeah.

So these are the today, next, and someday. Honestly Yep. The first thing that I just had a reaction to is seeing that someday card. I'm actually really attracted to that idea of writing down the somedays because I have Yeah. Some things that live in things in my Yeah. Someday, but I I never ever look at it. And so I do wonder if maybe having a physical someday card, I don't know, would would be a different feeling. I love this little bubble thing, the complete in progress, the delegated thing.

And you can use them however you want. Yeah. Right? Like, you can do it. They also have three little dots up at the top, and they give you, like, instructions that are basically, like, use that however you want. Like, you know, create your own little code that makes sense to your brain

Right.

How you wanna do that. And and I really like that. Like, it's a very flexible system. They basically just explain it. Like, today cards are for this.

What? What just happened?

No, but it's sitting right here. I don't understand why I said it was somewhere else. Apparently I went and got it at some point. I seriously looked behind me because I'm like is there someone else in here? How did this get here? No it's it's super just right here. This is the steel one. And so you just put your card right there in the front. Right right there and it just sits right there.

This is, I'm always attracted to the idea of using these kinds of things. Like, you know, I bought, the moleskin notebooks. I've have I bought, like, field notes notebooks, and I always, like, want to use them, like, I want to want to like them. Yeah. I just I can never integrate them into my workflow, but I didn't realize Elekmonk also is, like, again, they they have not sponsored I've never talked to Ugmonk, but they've the whole, like Yeah.

They do a lot of great stuff.

They have a whole desk collection. This reminds me very much of, like, Grovemade, which I love Grovemade stuff.

Similar, but I honestly would say that on the whole, the Augmont's AugMonk stuff is a slightly more premium version of Grovemade. And that's not saying anything negative about Grovemade. Right? Because I like their stuff here. This is the journal that I use, and this is the word that I cannot can't can't say.

I I think I have the notebook here. Is it lecture? Lecture.

Lecture? Sure. However you wanna say that.

Yeah. That that. I'll put a link to that. But I

just I just use it and I'll use the same thing when I'm, like, doing briefings. This is where I take notes for that kind of stuff. And then what I'll do is I'll transfer them to, like, Apple notes for stuff that isn't processing my thoughts. So

Do you do did you do you have the weekly kit?

This weekly kit?

For what? I don't know. Right? The ugly one apparently has something called a weekly kit. It has, like, the cards that the week No.

I don't have that. That looks pretty cool. I did not ask for that. So

Oh, man. I am I'm tempted to try this. This is

getting so expensive for Steven. I'm sorry.

Well, no. No. Because I mean, if you just want, like, the cards and the woodblock, which is, like, what I would get. It's like

And you can get, like, a subscription. Basically, it's like a three month. You get one pack per month or something like that. There's like 30 cards in a pack or something, but it's all very well made. It feels good. And this is ridiculous, to be honest. But there is something about when you sit down to think about stuff and to work on creative stuff, having nice quality like, this is really nice paper. Right? Like, it's Makes

a difference.

These are really nice cards, and so you feel like you're doing something. Also, totally just realized there's actually dots on the back of this, so you could it's perfect for, like, doodling ideas and stuff on. So

Well, maybe I'll finally take the humane AI pin off my desk and replace it with the

That's great. You should.

Starter kit. That's really cool. I'll put a link to it. We don't have any affiliate link or anything if you wanna try it. No.

And I'm gonna write a review of the whole thing, and so we will, include that at some point in the future when I when I do that.

I'd love to hear on community or via social like who and how many use like that physical tangible thing because I'm always you know I also have like the cortex, yearly theme journal. Like I literally have one of those journals. I think I wrote a theme in it one year and then never anything else. I just struggle to, like, I want everything digital because it's searchable, it's available everywhere, computer, iPhone, and so I struggle to know how a physical thing will fit in, into my thing but this looks really cool. We'll see.