Mac mini M4 Review, iOS 18.2 Updates, Apple Intelligence Fails, ChatGPT vs Google Search

Who is but the form following the function of what? And what I am is a man in a mask. Welcome to Primary Technology, the show about the tech news that matters. Another huge show today. We have an M4 Mac Mini review. Jason has it in hand, so we're gonna talk about that. Plus, Apple Vision Pro accessories, and the VisionOS beta now has ultra wide Mac screens. IOS 18.2 public beta with all the image tools. I played around with Image Wand. ChatGPT's search is now out, and it's actually pretty good.

Good. You know, I bet you most of our listeners don't believe I actually even have one.

No. I think you don't.

Because they've never actually seen me wear one. I just talk about using it all the time. Would you no. We don't wear it on

the episodes.

No. I never wore them. I never wore it on there. You because I didn't get

it sitting up

though. Oh, you might be right. Okay. Well, it's sitting right there. Yes. In case you can't see it.

We can't see it, but that we believe you. We we were sure we believe you. Someone said I needed to move the movie quote that we do every week back to the cold open, and so I think it feels right there.

I think so.

But I'm curious. Do you know what movie that quote was from?

You're gonna have to say it one more time because you said a lot of words.

I said a lot of words. I I just kinda rattled them off, and now I closed the tab.

Okay. So let

me look at the beginning. No. No. No. Hold on.

Okay.

I got it. I got it. I got it. I said, who who is but the form following the function of what and what I am is a man in a mask.

Oh, the man okay. It's that Guy Fawkes movie, with Natalie Portman and Hugo Weavey.

Yes. Yes. Yes. You're on the right track.

V for Vendetta.

Hey. You got it.

Okay. The mask was If the mask was not in there, there's no chance. Zero chance I would know what those words were.

That is the the most we're gonna talk about the election on this podcast. I might even cut that out. Anyway, we have some 5 star review shout outs to give, and then we're gonna talk about the M4 Mac Mini. Jason, he's gonna he would show it on camera, but he's using it right now to record. It's plugged in.

That's true.

Yeah. Don't don't hold it up while we record, because

I might hit the power button on the bottom.

Oh, yeah. Don't do that. Do that. We have 5 star reviews in Apple Podcasts from lpt0901 from the UK, Brandon Samples from the USA, the the do I don't know how I don't know what this is, but it's the doo doo Latalla from Canada. Forgive me if that's actually a name that I mispronounced.

Yeah. Right. I'm just

saying it was. You can look at that podcast. And then Graph from the UK. Thank you for those 5 star reviews. Leave us a review. They were a 4.9 star podcast, because someone said Jason wasn't affable enough.

I don't know if that's exactly the reason why, but I'm trying to be nice

to know. That wasn't the reason. That wasn't the reason. Someone leave it someone gave us a one star review for something else. So, anyway, we wanna get up to a 5 star podcast once again, which is, I mean, that's where we were for a while.

Yeah. I don't think that's a controversial thing to say, but apparently the way I said it sounded like, we have a gymnast. Like, we've taken a gymnast.

Exactly. So blue blue kibo on YouTube was, like, so what are your demands? Yeah. I thought of the line from the avengers when, Tony Stark says, we have a Hulk. You know, he's talking to Loki and the sour. Yeah. We have a gymnast. We have a Hulk. Alright. Let's get to it. Mac mini m 4. You have it in hand. You have a whole article reviewing it, and I'm gonna link that in the show notes, of course. You're probably gonna publish it while we're speaking because we're recording

before

it's actually live. But, but tell me about it. What what are the specs that you got? How's it been?

Yeah. The one that they sent me has the M4 Pro with 48 gigs of storage and then a 1 terabyte SSD. And

Wait. 48 gigabytes of memory. Yep. Because that would not be a lot of storage.

And, I don't know what they said. It's the 48 gig, 1 terabyte. Do I have to specify which is what

you're gonna do?

If the audience is smart, they'll figure

it out.

But, yeah, I said it wrong.

They got it. They got it.

And the reason I think I said it wrong is I literally was clicking the little Mac on it to check just to make sure I was saying the right amount of memory because I I was pretty sure it's 48 because the pro starts at, like, 24 or 40. It's weird because it's they're not the same. Like, no. 34 starts at 16 and then you can do 24 and then 36. And then this one is 32.

Studio right now.

It is absolutely ridiculous. I tried to put into this article, Geekbench, like, the results, but

Yes.

It was like, nope. You can't do that. It didn't say no. You can't do that, but it the image just disappeared. But I have them right here.

Right. Just more cores.

And so, like, in most GPU performances, it just scales parallel. Like, it just continues to, like, scale it. If you add more, you can do twice as much. Right? So, but it's kind of insane how fast this thing is and how like, I

used it. I wrote it like, I

used it for all the things you do on a computer, and then I listed a bunch of things that almost no one does on a computer, like match loudness and match loudness and audition, record audio and audio hijack, you know, color Yeah. Black magic raw and DaVinci Resolve, all of these things. And, you know, it was it's pretty much amazing. I I love using it. Really, the only knocks that most people would say are the power button, which is dumb. It's not a problem. Like, I'm never gonna

turn it off. Wait. Wait. Wait. With the power button, because there was some speculation on this, can you hit the power button without lifting it? Like, can you reach around? Or do you actually have to physically lift it to hit the power button? Don't actually turn it off right now while you record, please.

No. You can't. You you would have to lift it

a little bit. You'd have to

have some super small fingers to get it underneath that lip. There's just no way. It's I mean, that's I don't know.

Already 3 d printing, like, these little levers that would, like, attach to it, and then you could,

like There's not a whole lot of space there. Like, I'm looking at it, and I'm it's Yeah. Less than a half of an inch of clearance. So

Right. It's it's not a lot. I mean, again, I don't think the only time I've had to use the power button on my Mac Studio was, like, in the hurricane because the power was out and my APC battery died. Like, that was then to turn it back on, that was it. Because you can program your Mac to shut down and turn on on a schedule. You can have it to turn on automatically after a power outage, given, you know, you know, all the factors or whatever. But, like, I'm I rarely ever touch it. Automatically.

Well and I think you can also turn your Mac off from the the Apple menu. Right? You can just go to shutdown. Now you can't turn it on that way, obviously, because if it's off, there's no menu. So you'd have to, like, do that. But, like, I just it's I don't even my my laptops, I almost never I can't think of the last time I turned one of them off. The last time they even powered off was if they were restarting because of a software update. Right? Like, that's I don't know.

Well, I'm curious. With with MacBooks, I believe you can turn them on just by pressing any key. Like, you don't necessarily

Unfortunately, that's true.

Right. That's gonna be

The most effective way to turn your MacBook on is to try to clean the keyboard.

Right. Exactly. Can you turn on a I don't know this. And you you don't have to know this. I'm just curious. If you could turn on a desktop Mac by hitting the keyboard of something, I imagine it would have to be physically attached by a USB, but I wonder if that

I'm I'm almost positive the answer is no. I didn't test that but I because I don't care, but I did not But I don't think it's true. I don't think you could do that. Sorry. I have to be more affable. I don't think that that's true, but it's a great idea, Steven.

We're gonna change your title. The affable and gregarious.

The other affable guy.

Jason Aitken.

Yeah. No.

I wanna hear more about it. One question, though, because I'm looking at all the pictures in your review. Did you take these with your iPhone or, like, your big camera?

No. These are with the Nikon, with the z 6.

These are the nice camera. Yeah. These are very nice photos. They're very moody.

I just Like, it looks pretty nice. So, yeah, the problem is I had to do it this morning before the sun came up because I needed photos and

As soon as the sun

whatever, whatever, whatever. And I just all of that, it looks like it's natural light is these bloom cube panel LED things. So

Well, it looks good.

Real well. It worked real well. Yeah. Exactly.

Natural soft light. Yeah.

But I could

Well, another time I don't know if we're gonna get to it today, but we do have to talk about this stack of things next to the Mac mini. That's not even in, like, size order. You have your Scarlett 2i2 on top of a cal digit dock, which is smaller. I don't know why those aren't flipped, And then I don't know. We have

Well, the reason why is because of the cord pressure behind that cal digit that if it's done top, it just, like, tips backwards. So having it on the bottom keeps everything flush. That's literally the only reason I see. I'm I like esthetics. That stuff matters to me.

Yeah. Yeah. I get it.

I get it. But there is a problem with the Mac. Yeah.

I know your article says there's one problem. What's the problem?

K. So did you know if you start with the base model Mac mini, it's $599, and it has 16 gigs of memory and a 256 gig SSD. And if you wanna increase that 16 gigs to 32 gigs and you wanna increase that SSD to 512, you can double both of those things. And the cost of it is $1199. You could buy 2 base Mac minis for $1198. You would have the exact same amount of storage, the exact same amount of memory, and you'd save a dollar. And to me, that is preposterous, Steven. That is completely bonkers.

That might be the first, like, solid argument against Apple's tier pricing

It is that

I've heard because that is ridiculous.

Ridiculous that you could buy 2 whole Mac minis for the same in hand, you'd keep a dollar for the price of upgrading.

So I'm gonna do this right now live. So it's 5.99 base. Yep. If you go to 32 gigs memory, so doubling that and double the storage

It's $1199, which is $1 more than 2 Mac Minis would be.

That does feel like one of the more egregious I mean, that's where Apple listen. Apple makes its margins on memory and storage upgrades. Like, let's just be real.

But I feel like it's a little bit on a device. So on a on a Mac Studio where you're starting at $25100, the pricing is the same. And I I understand why the pricing is the same because, whatever, the SSD

Same chips. I mean, honestly

not gonna yeah. They're not gonna, like, discount it. But when you are starting at $599 and the the thing is, if you bought a second Mac like, I get it. People are gonna tell us, like, storage and memory, they don't work that way. You can't buy 2 of them and have 30 you know, it's not

Yeah.

Let's do that. Thing. But you'd also get a whole new processor, all that aluminum, another fan, more ports.

A second power button. Yeah. You got another power button. Upside down. Put it right up the back of sandwich. Oh, yeah.

You could stack them. Don't do that.

Power button right at

Don't do that. But anyway, I just feel like it is a little bit insulting when you start with this because I did write that this is the perfect computer of what you wanna do is have some kind of weird server set up and throw this thing in your closet, Steven. And it's it's great. But it does feel like especially egregious that it doubles the price if you're going to do that. And I I just I think I think Apple, like, my takeaway on that was Apple has some really smart people.

Or just buy an Apple Vision Pro, and you can use that as the monitor. Just kidding. Totally undo any money.

Of course, you don't get any extra rammer or storage Yeah. If you do that.

No. Don't do that. Don't do that. Well, this is this is very exciting. I'm excited. Mine comes in tomorrow as we record. I got the base model and the only thing I upgraded was the storage to 512 because like you say in your article, I'm gonna throw this in the closet. Actually, I'm gonna throw it in my entertainment center. Mhmm. And I am going to connect it to my home theater receiver if I ever wanted to just pull up the Mac on the TV for whatever reason.

think you'll notice a speed difference, even the m 4. But so I also was sent, I haven't finished the reviews yet, but we can briefly talk talk about them if you want to. I have the, m 4 imac with the nano texture display, and then I also have an m 4 MacBook Pro with a nano texture display, which, by the way, nano texture everything. Like, it's

Isn't that good?

It is so good, especially on a laptop.

I

Oh, tell me that. I'm telling you right now. I and I'll just give away my takeaway is that if they upgrade the MacBook Air with the option for an OLED or mini LED display with nano texture, they could they could double the price of the MacBook Air, and people will pay it. It'll be that worth it. It'll be so good. It'll be so good.

Why? I don't I'd I'm hearing from you. I hear Gruber talk about this on the talk show. It's a $200 upgrade on the Imac.

It's a $150 on the MacBook Pro.

Well, it's a bigger bigger display.

I'm just saying. It's but it is it is so in fact, what was funny is I I had it sitting on a desk, not here in my office, but I had it sitting on a desk that had, some overhead lights and then a window behind it. And I just was using it. No big deal. And then I opened up my laptop, my MacBook Air, and I'm like, what is wrong with this screen? And I realized there was so many points of light hitting it that you didn't even see at all on the on the Imac. It was fantastic.

But you have a keen eye. You're a photographer. You're looking at Apple Vision Pro OLEDs every day. Is is is it a noticeable difference when you look at like, talking about color, saturation, contrast? Is it a noticeable loss?

I mean, no. No. Like, could a colorist tell? Maybe. The I would say overall, the screen the the how do I differentiate this? Things like text and stuff to me, they didn't they don't feel softer. Actually, I'm gonna open it up right now.

The Mac I got the Mac Pro Center. Because that's the the the what I have heard is that the nano texture and, like, I've seen some videos. I've seen people when they you know, Apple actually had a little event in Los Angeles where they were showing off these Macs, and a bunch of influencers were there, And I see people doing the MacBook Pro side by side with the regular glossy and then the nano texture, and, obviously, the the most obvious difference is the lack of glare, or basically it kind of diffuses the glare across the screen. So if you have a light, the glare, anodextxture really lessens that. But at least in even in those videos, it does look like everything is slightly less saturated and contrasty, but I'm not sitting in front of it.

No. So I think that the display the what it appears is I mean, I'm looking at a random junk email that someone said all the text is perfectly sharp. Like, it's perfectly sharp. It's just it does the whole thing have a slightly softer feel to it. Yes.

Did did you get one of the nano texture iPad Pros when those came out earlier this year?

No. The but the joke is I when I got an m 4, I just put a paper like screen protector.

That's right. That's right. That's right. Oh, man.

But the difference is this nano texture goes all the way to the edge. Unlike those those iPads where there was actually a shiny glossy bezel and then there's a nano texture display. Both the Imac and the MacBook Pro, it basically goes to the to the edge.

Wait. Do you have so the MacBook Pro, is it connected to anything right now?

No. It's right here.

Can you, like, just go to the desktop and show it on screen? Yeah. So our our YouTube viewers can see. So if you're not watching I'm

just making sure there's nothing on my, to do list here. Hang on. Let me just nuke this, widget. There's a widget. Yeah. Yeah. It's, yeah. Hold on.

Leave one star review as anonymously on Apple Podcast. So if you're not on youtube.com/atprimarytechshow, the link is in the show notes too if you wanna see.

Yeah. So

show them now. Yeah. Go ahead.

There you go. And then you can text

on it

as you can see text.

So the very edge, something's happening with the vault.

I don't know why. It's because I nuked something and Outlook thought it needed to be involved.

So the so the black bezel around the screen is also nano texture Yeah. Glossy?

Correct.

Oh, interesting.

I'm not I'm trying to hold this up. Can

you No. No. No. I see it. I seize it. Okay. I seize it. I have to go I'll have to go back to the App Store and check this out. You're gonna make me I just I've I've always been leery of it. And maybe it's because I have the old matte screens in my head, which people who have been in the Apple world for more than 10 years will remember, you could get a MacBook Pro with a matte or glossy screen, like you just had that option, and then it went away for a long time.

have one more controversy about the MacBook Pro. I'm gonna give away my review. I haven't said it yet.

Oh, okay.

Well, there was not a lot for me to write about because it's just an m 4. And they sent me the base of base models. I think it has a 1 terabyte SSD, so it's they upgraded that. But Wait.

Did they send you the m 4 m 4 pro?

M 4 MacBook Pro.

So they sent you a more powerful Mac Mini.

So here's the thing. I'll explain that in a second. But it's an m 4 MacBook Pro with 16 gigs of memory

Yeah.

And, a 1 terabyte, SSD, which I think the only reason they give you the 1 terabyte SSD is no one could even port. They couldn't they know that we couldn't I couldn't even, like, put my stuff on it if you didn't give me that. Right. In fact, on this one, I don't even have my entire Dropbox downloading. I just have, like, a couple of folders.

Battery.

But here's the thing. That means that they could have made the battery in the base level better. Like, they could have given it more battery life, but they wanted all of them to be the same. And, obviously, the m four pro and m four max require more battery, right, to get the same amount of performance. And I I I tried to figure it out. I'm like, well, the difference in the chip is, like like, fractions of an ounce. Right? Like, nothing. And even the SSD

The m four max isn't a pound heavier.

Well, the m three max. But, yes, it's not like a third of a pound heavier.

No. The m four max. Excuse the m four max. Well, I'm just saying I was weighing it comparing to

an m three max. Right? Because I have one of those sitting here. And so I put it on a on a post, like on a scale, like a, you know, postal scale or whatever. And it was like a third of a pound heavier. And I think the only way to to explain that is battery. Battery is the only dense enough thing in there to make that much of a difference. And I feel like, why didn't you just fill this thing with battery? Make it the same way. Nobody buying a MacBook Pros complain about a third of a pound.

Thunderbolt 5 heavier?

Definitely. All that data is so heavy.

It is. Because I got a lot of photos on my phone. It gets pretty heavy.

But they could have given it so much battery life.

So what's the what's the weight difference?

It's like a third of a pound.

That's that's kinda significant actually.

It's noticeable. Like, I kept picking them up and I'm like, I I can't pick up the M3 Mac right now because it's literally just serving as a standard for my iPhone. That's all it's doing. It's not even on. It's actually been wiped but anyway. Wow.

That is that is kind of a shame then. Yeah. They could have made that kind of like a battery monster. Exactly. If they would shove more battery running an m 4. That's great.

But I I don't think they wanted to have to explain why the m 4 gets more battery than the other ones because like, wait. I'm paying more money for the M4 Max and I get less battery life until they Yeah. But I'm like, why are you artificially reducing this thing that could just last for days?

That is true. I will tell you, I'm going to be tempted if and when the M4 MacBook Air comes out, because I've been taking stock in my thing. You know, I have my M3 Pro MacBook Pro, and I had no reason to upgrade to an M4 anything MacBook Pro, so I'm like, I'm just not gonna do that. But I one of the reasons why I kept it, and maybe you can answer this too, the SD card slot, which correction from last week, I said the previous Mac mini had an SD card slot. That was false.

Yeah. The MacBook Pro is the best display Apple's ever made. Like, it just is so Well so, so good. It's it's better than the Studio Display. I would argue in some ways, it's better than the XDR just because it's on a laptop and you could take it with you and stuff. And it's not wanna have higher refresh rates. Not $6,000.

Right. Well, the MacBook Pro

is promotion. Right? Yep. You're right.

And so the XDR doesn't even have that. Right. And, I

mean, I don't ever notice that on my studio display, so I guess I don't care about that as much. But all that's to say, the display is noticeably better, especially, like, I watched Interstellar the other day. Don't ask why. Just reasons. I had to explain.

You don't need a reason. You can watch that any time of day.

I had explained black holes to my son, and so I watched Interstellar because, of course, that's how you would do that.

You you've been a good father.

Yeah. Anyway, so but I was watching part of it on my MacBook Pro, and it's just, I mean, having basically it's not an OLED, but it's as close as you're gonna get until you put an OLED on there to have that deep black, whatever. Yeah. It's so good. Now that said, if you're comparing them side by side, the MacBook Pro display is significantly better, but the MacBook Air display is not bad.

That's fine. I I'm looking at the the pro display XDR tech spec page. Yeah. And it's it's 60 hertz too. It's not even, like, 90 hertz or whatever. I I was wondering

if you could That is the worst. That is even worse than what I just said about pricing. That that thing is $5,000

without a

stand without a stand.

And if you want nano texture on that, it's another $1,000.

Steven.

I mean,

what is even happening? I actually it makes me think differently about the people I knew that bought one of these. And now at the time, there was no studio display, but still.

Right. But also the fact that this came out in 2019 with the updated Mac Pro. So this display is over 5 years old. Price is unchanged. I mean, this is classic Apple. Like, price is unchanged. Features, unchanged. That's it. That's it. I mean, I've I've I'm not tempted by this anymore. I was when it first came out, but I couldn't afford it back in 2019 anyways. But now the studio display is so good. But now now I'm like maybe I should get a Nanotech and sell this one.

I I will say hold on. I will just say Yeah. The the studio display overall is a little bit overpriced. And so I don't know that it's worth buying another one with nano texture. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah.

No. I probably wouldn't do that. I don't I mean, yes. But it's also a great display.

Like Sure.

In in my tech world, when I have the ability to buy something where once I have it, I'd never have to think about it again. When I have the option to do that, I do that. And, like, for instance, microphone wise. This is my podcast mic, the Earthworks Ethnos. I have a with the mic I record videos with, it's the Sennheiser MKH 416.

Sure.

And when I I got this maybe 2 years ago, and it is a nice feeling to think, I never have to even look up or think about microphones again because, like, it is just the perfect mic and I never have to do anything about it. And so the studio display is also that for me, like, when I got this I had the LG Ultrafine, which, whatever, fine display, but when I got the studio display it was like, I'm good. Like, I'm totally good. Like, this is exactly what I need, and I don't have to think about it. It's the great size.

little baby iPhone in there, which is gonna someday die, and it's gonna prematurely but think about it. Like, hold on. The argument against the Imac has always been, yeah, but what about when the computer dies and you wanted to just use it as a display? But what happens when you buy a display in the little tiny computer and it dies and you can't just keep using it as a display?

I mean, listen. The iPad

I'm not wrong.

I have an iPad second generation in the closet that if I plug it in, I could still use it just fine. And that thing is was iPad came up 2011?

You say you could use it just fine, but

you can't update any of the software on it, and you probably can't use half of the app anymore. What software is my display? I understand there's software that updates, but I mean, if this software just

stays on your ear

I was

talking about the iPad. I'm just saying. I'm just saying, like, iPad.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a fantastic display. I agree with you. I'm just saying it's weird to me that they put a thing in there that could prematurely like, because this is this is the same display they've been using literally for what? Since the 2015 Imax, maybe? The 27 inch Imax. Like, it's the same exact panel. 27 inch. It works amazing. It's it's fantastic.

Yeah. Great. And the webcam's fine. Don't me. I saw somebody asking about the the studio display on Mastodon, and they were like, oh, but the web the web the webcam is fine. Totally

fine. Yeah. The webcam on the Mac mini is really good actually.

On that note

It's much much better than the power button. Let me say that.

One of the few sarcastic moments, from Jason Aten. I wanna talk about we have Apple Apple Vision Pro accessories that came out. Jason actually has some in hand, so we're gonna show them on screen. But before we do, I wanna thank one of our sponsors for today, which is the Data Citizens Dialogues podcast. I mentioned this on last week's episode.

Every day. I have not used it yet today, but I was busy this morning.

You were busy. Did you publish your Mac import Mac mini review?

You just reminded me. I probably should.

I just got a notification that MKBHD's, video went live.

Okay. Well then I'm safe.

We were before we started recording we were talking about embargos lifting and, I've I don't know. I'm trying to think what I've I've had an embargo, but not for an Apple product before, But it is one of those things where like you you look at the time, you look at the date, you want to be very sure, but to be really, really sure, it's nice to know someone else published too. And, yeah. So the MKBHD review just went live because I got a notification. And,

yeah. Amazing.

I'm sure there's going to be plenty of others that go live here. Let's go let's go look at my YouTube homepage and see what is live. Here is we got the okay, yep. MKBHD made himself a miniature version of himself next to the Mac Mini, so there you go.

Because you do that.

And, yeah. How does it get 13,000 views already in the first 6 minutes? Ridiculous.

How many how how far how long do you have to watch to count as a view? 8 seconds. Is that what they count as a view nowadays?

8 or 10 seconds or whatever. I know. I just got another one for me right now. Yeah. Anyway, he's unboxing, the M4 Mac mini. There you go. I'll put a link to his video, but you should go read our Jason's article first. Please. About the

M4. Please do it.

Yeah. Please read them. Definitely do that first.

Send it to our customers.

Alright. You have some embargoed Apple Vision Pro accessories and we're gonna we're gonna fight to the death about which which of these cases are better.

We don't have to fight. We I mean, you

can win

if it makes you feel better. I don't really care.

No. No. It's fine. It's fine. The first one I which I think is interesting, and this was already shown.

I have it right here, and I haven't actually used it, but it's right here.

Wow.

It's in a box.

I I was about to ask you how it was, but

It's, well, here's the thing. I use the dual strap already.

You use

the dual? So this is really designed for people who wanna use the solo thing. Right? And which I guess is more comfortable behind your head. Right? But the problem with it is, like, you had to tighten it so much that you feel like your head is, like, in a crucible or whatever to yeah. It's real uncomfortable.

Is it crucible? Is it stocks? How about a crucible?

Situation, whatever it is. Can we just agree? Like, it's Yeah.

Yeah. Sure.

It's an unfortunate way to wear a headset that you're going to wear.

A novel. It's a novel.

The crucible is the thing that you put something in and you grind it, actually. So Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Okay. This is getting

this is

getting this is getting a higher than PG rated. So that's that's the head strap. Jason has to try it. I might actually get it. I did try there was another third party head strap, but it was, like, a hard plastic one. I talked about it on a previous episode. I returned that because it wasn't very comfortable. So I'm curious to try this Belkin one. But you also have a case for the Apple Vision Pro. This is going to be Apple selling it, the Belkin case. Oh my goodness.

I have an I have an Apple Vision Pro lunchbox right here. It's It does look like It does do 2 things that I like.

Okay.

Besides being half the size of the Apple one, But it's got a little connector up a little pouch up here for the battery. So the battery is not just, like, free riding in there. And then it has a little you can see there's a little protector for the lenses. So there's a little that little piece folds up, and it kinda, like, fits perfectly in where the lenses are to keep that protected as well. It's got a couple other packets. I don't really know what you would do with them. Maybe put your mac

mini in there.

Maybe put your mac mini in there so that if you wanna use it on a plane. Should I do that? Should I take a mac mini in the plane next week?

Please. Please do that. Just set up your little mac mini on the tray table. Plug it into power. Apple vision pro.

What if I just don't plug it into power, but set it there because no one else will know. Right? No one else would have any idea.

Well, here's my have you used it on a plane? No.

I've never used it on a plane.

Jason, what do you do? That's, like, one of the best use cases. That's, like, the one universally accepted use case to say Apple Vision Pro is great on a plane. Man,

people really do it. People really do that?

You're up there in 1st class anyway. No one's looking at you.

I mean, not flying to Portugal. I'm not gonna be in 1st class. Just to be clear.

You have a long flight. Take it in the Belkin case and use it on the plane.

I'm flying directly from Boston to Portugal. So

yeah. You should do it. Do it. Anyway, it's a cool case. I still I have the Waterfield Apple Vision Pro case. They sent me this early on, and, I really like the compact nature of this. And it actually fits in my backpack. So are you gonna take it with you to Portugal at all?

I wasn't going to, but actually now that

I have this little tiny case, I might. I think you should. I think you should. And, for science. For science.

For science and for, you know, the podcast.

Really? Yes. For the podcast.

For the podcast.

I I said I was going to put in the VisionOS 2.2 beta on mine to try the ultra widescreen Mac thing, but I still hadn't got a chance. But if you do the vision OS 2.2 beta, you can it's upgraded the resolution when you connect it to a Mac, and there's now wide and ultra wide modes, And have you tried this yet? Not yet. I have not put that beta.

I I depend so much on my VisionPRO because I use it every day that I can't

I can't tell if you're being joking. I'm totally joking. I was gonna say, I know you use it every day, but I think it's like it's that.

No. It depends on their Vision Pro that much, though, if they can't put the beta on it.

Yeah. And that's I'm gonna do it, but I'll have to charge it up. But, anyway, you can do the ultra wide Mac display, and I'm I'm curious. I've not tried this if you can. I know in the control center on Apple Vision Pro, you can basically do the Mac mirroring, like, you can trigger it from there.

It's almost as bad as trying to find something to watch on Netflix. You just have to keep going down rabbit holes.

I feel like they should change that to the like like a vertical contextual menu. Right? I mean isn't that what it looks like?

Or maybe if you could just tap on it and tell the the assistant what you wanna do.

I mean look at look at this. This is the contextual menu right now. You got find selection, look up translate, search web, speak, share, like

And there's an arrow there.

There's an arrow, but they're so small, it's so hard to tap. But anyway, so what you can do now in 18.2, if you have image playgrounds and access to the image generation, when you select text in Apple Notes, and this should be coming to the Iwork suite, like pages, numbers, and keynote later, you can tap create image, and it will just generate an image, from the text that you had selected, and so that's what I did here. The images are all like this kind of comic book y illustration. You cannot get a photorealistic image from Apple's image generation. Like it just will not do photorealistic anything, and it won't do people.

As a as a 12 year old is basically

I said it de aged him, and Zach was, like, that's a burn. I was, like, what? Obviously, that is a deaged thing. Like, one more anyway, but an interesting part of the chat GPT integration, if you start a command with using like use chatgpt, so if you tell the voice assistant on your phone, using chatgpt, generate an image blah blah blah, it will do a photorealistic image because it's actually an image generated by ChatChpT, and so this one, I can get it directly just by asking the voice assistant on my iPhone, or you can do this, you know, using a prompt, but that's ChatChpT doing it, not Apple Intelligence, and You can see a little ChatGPT thing at the bottom, and that's how I got this, I got a medieval knight riding a polar bear, which honestly is the the best thing that I've gotten so far from, any image generator. I thought that was great, but anyway.

Oh, that's unfortunate.

I mean, would would you because you're do you you have it? Yeah. Are you sending genmoji?

No. Well, sometimes. I my son who only has an Apple Watch, like, he's a text aficionado. Like, actually, he's just an addict. Maybe that's a better way of saying it. And he is he's actually pretty smart. Most of his responses don't sound anything like him. And we figured out that that's because he just taps whatever the, whatever the prompt is as a response. So you'll be like, Hey, could you make sure the garage door is shut? And his response will be like, of course, I'd be happy to.

Please drive safe.

Doesn't care.

No kid says that.

Anyway, so it's funny. But, anyway, he'll send things in and whatever. So I I have made it a habit of to him sending him back Genmoji because he thinks it's very cool. So he'll be like, I love you so much. And so or I think he said I love you forever. So I made a gen emoji of a heart with an infinity sign in the middle of it. And so he thought that was very cool.

Oh, that's pretty good. Yeah.

So that's good. And then the kids have really enjoyed having their photos made in image playgrounds.

Yeah. Right? And none of

them look anything like them. Although they kinda do it. Like, it'll hit certain characteristics. And it's actually horrifying when you make them enough of, like, yourself. You're like, is this what the world thinks I look like?

See, that's the thing. You know, I kept saying horrifying and people are like, they're not horrifying. Listen I've had several of these images like they're just I mean this is actually of, Whitney's grandfather.

I was like that's definitely not you Steven.

No no that is not me But even my kids It's

Harry Winkler, isn't it?

My son like, my son's image actually looks pretty good. It looks somewhat like him, but it's

He looks like Hans from Frozen.

Oh, yeah. A little a little bit a little bit Hansy. Hansian. I still don't I just don't I mean I get it. I should give it a more recent picture. Anyway, because it thinks it has more I have more hair than I do. It's it's fine. Now, you wanna talk about notification summaries and I do think, I've had increasingly bad experiences with it. But tell me about your

I don't understand why everyone likes it so much. That's the thing. I don't I don't understand. I mean, I well because

they're funny?

Yeah. But they're super not useful in a lot of scenarios. They are good at a couple of things. So for example, I have the New York times app and I get about 45 notifications, especially this week, a day per hour. Like it's just insane.

Well, the issue that I ran into and you can turn off summaries per app in case you're wondering.

And I suggest you do that.

I suggest you do. So last week, I was gonna record a podcast with a guy. He asked me to be on as a guest, and right before we were gonna record, he emailed me, and he said, I just spilled a bunch of stuff on my desk. I don't know what's happening. I need to postpone the recording. I said, no problem. And when I got that email last week, the summary said, you know, equipment issue reschedule. Like, that was the summary, and I was, like, not bad. I mean, that's Sure. What happened.

Right.

Like, I'll talk to, like, sponsors back and forth, maybe we're, like, doing a brand, whatever, and to summarize an entire email chain in one line, you're gonna get some bad information. Yes. It's just not gonna be summarized well. And so when I saw that yesterday, I was, like, okay, that this is not great. Like, this needs to be adjusted to just look at maybe the last message. Like, only summarize the last message, like, the new message, the unread Right. Not the entire change.

Or give context. It's like recording Yeah. You know, confirming recording, previous recording rescheduled due to equipment issues. That would be fine. Right? Like, you would understand. Right. My favorite, though, is we the Google Home app, we have the front, well, we have our backyard camera and our front yard camera or not our front yard camera. We have a front camera that will notify us if it sees people. Right?

It's yes.

Are we being invaded? What is actually happening? And it just meant that there was 3 notifications throughout the day that had said person seen in backyard. And it was me walking out to my office. Right. But the notification summary is like multiple people in backyard in front foyer. And it's like the cavalry is here. It's over. We're done.

One of my most proud I'm most proud of this joke that I made the other day because someone posted an Amazon notification summary, and it says package is 8 stops away delivered and will be delivered tomorrow, and I said Schrodinger's package.

Exactly.

And I I was so happy that I made that joke and I didn't see anybody else make it first. And but that is that is like I will because I have all the smart home things, and I have lots of notifications. And one of the annoying parts of, like, the garage is I do wanna get notified when the garage door opens and closes. Sometimes that happens a lot. Like, if my kids are going in and out or loading the car, you know, my and so I'll get a notification summary and it says garage state has changed multiple times.

It's in Georgia now.

It is both open and closed, Schrodinger's Garage. Mhmm. And and I'm and I feel like maybe Apple Intelligence could be tweaked to say, like, give me the last state, like, because that's really what's important, like, garage, multiple chase, you know, had open and closed multiple times is now closed. Right. Is now open. Like, that would be more helpful tweak.

I almost think maybe Apple could make some kind of an API for developers for notification types where a subsequent notification is essentially overriding a previous notification. Right? Because you don't need it to say I don't need it to tell me. And there are some maybe you do wanna know, but, like, I don't need to know that there was a a notification summary that 7 people rang the doorbell today, especially if it's gonna say there are 7 people at the front door.

Like There's a group of people at the front door, back door, and on the

Stephen, be honest. In our day and time, I've there's never a time when there are 7 people at our front door. Literally, not even if we were having a Christmas party, they wouldn't all show up at the same time. So in this day, like, the world we live in today, if you got a notification and there were actually 7 people on your front, you would be tear you'd be in the basement. Well, you don't even have a basement.

they should, Apple should just summarize it to just say you are surrounded. You're surrounded. The show's

Man, for, like, April fools or for Halloween, someone one of these one of these vendors should have been, like, the purges started.

You're under siege. You're under siege. Anyway, yeah. It's it's just gotta be tweaked. I should probably turn it off because I have summaries turned on for every application. I turned it off for a

lot of things.

Yeah. I had an Instacart the other day, and and there were, like, those summaries weren't helpful. It was, like, tomatoes, we have and don't have tomatoes, and yes, tomatoes. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know about that.

Yep.

But anyway, so that's Apple Intelligence. We have talked about chat gpt search, because that it was a huge thing that they announced months ago, and now it is actually live and you can use it. But before we do, I wanna thank our second and final sponsor, which is they're just one of my favorites. It's Audio Hijack by Rogue Amoeba. We're using it right now.

I did not.

They have a transcribe block. Did you know

this? I did not know that.

They have a transcribe block.

Hang on. Let me let me add it real quick to my little numbers too.

No. Don't change it. Don't touch it right now. Wait. We're done.

Yeah. It's so easy that I had to set it up on this Mac mini, this as we're getting ready to record. And if you just heard me say that, then it worked because that's how we're recording this. If you didn't hear any of this, then it didn't work. But it was super easy. I just dropped them in there, and we're good to go.

It's amazing. So try it. Macaudio.com/primarytech. Link is in the show notes. Our very gracious thanks to Audio Hijack and Rogue Amoeba for sponsoring this episode. Now chat t chat chat chat chat gpt search is a thing, which they also just bought the domain chat.com for, like, 1,000,000 of dollars.

Yeah.

Maybe that's worth it. I don't know. You can now just go to chat.com and get, chat g p t, but so chat g p t search is out. Now I feel like when this was announced months ago, it was a lot of fanfare, like GPT search or search GPT is gonna be a big thing, and it almost felt like it was gonna be a different application or like a different place to go, and now that it's out, it was kind of just, I don't know, it feels like minimal fanfare. It's kinda just snuck out there, but it's live, and if you use the ChatGPT app or if you go to the website, there's just a little search icon now.

Yeah. I think it's, very good. I was I was I

was formulating an idea, and

I realized I should finish that thought because people expect me to be contrarian. But, no, it's very

good. Yeah.

I'm I'm gonna write more about this, so I don't wanna give away too much of it at this point. But I do think there's a reason that Google is very nervous about this, and I think that they should be. Because just think about all of the bad things that exist with Google's search and basically none of them exist with this. And it's, and in fact, I feel like you can be in the chat GPT app doing a web search, and it does a better job of getting you to links than Google does because Google just wants to send you those AI summaries, and it starts to push links down. I did I did quite a few of these, just to play around with it because I I sincerely like, my thought is that it's could replace Google search for me personally.

it and I like the way

that it presents it a lot better. So I think Google this is, I think, one of the I'm waiting for some smarter people to chime in on this, but I think that this is a could represent an existential threat to what to goo I mean, because Google is a like, just think about how much money they print based on Google search.

Right.

It is absurd. It is like the most brilliant business idea in the history of the world. And,

I think it's their business. Isn't it like 90? Percent?

Yeah. And I'm just saying it's the best business idea anyone ever came up with, like organize the web, spend a $1,000,000,000,000, not really, but spend a bunch of money organizing the web, crawling it, making an index, serving that up to people. Don't charge them, just sell ads. It's the best ad business. It's it is the biggest bad bad business in the world. So this this could be yeah.

And I'm looking, I searched Google for how much what is the percentage of the revenue? I got an AI overview. I don't know how much to trust that. But it says Google's advertising revenue was 70 about 78% of its total revenue. Search ads are the primary source from Google search which accounted for about 57% of Google's total revenue.

Well, and just you you you commented that, like, oh, well, you know, 80% or whatever the number is is not that much. But it's I mean, 80% of whatever, like $305,000,000,000 is a whole lot of money. Really the only things that are left after Google's ad business is Google cloud and people who subscribe to like Google workspace, Right?

Like, to for business. And I promise you neither

of those things would exist if it wasn't for Google search because that's where all the money came from to build Gmail and to build Google Cloud.

Although, I will say I mean, I'm curious. They break down maybe I could search for this real quick between YouTube ad revenue and Google search ad revenue. I can see Google search ad revenue versus YouTube ad revenue because they just said ad revenue total. It seems like Google search and other revenue increased and I don't have to represent okay. It's not really telling me. Again, Google search

Well, I think YouTube's ad revenue is roughly 10 to 15% of Google search. So I think it's I think the way it breaks down is, like, roughly $30 ish billion for YouTube advertising versus, like, a 170 or something like that for Google search. I could be wrong.

Well, I'll tell you what, I just I just I just used the chat gpt search option. Here's what I got. It says in last year Google's total advertising revenue was approximately 237,000,000,000 gives a reference to Statista. Statista? How do you say that?

I would say Statista.

Statista, yeah. Of this Google search ads generated about a 175,000,000,000 accounting for roughly 73% of the revenue, Yahoo Finance. YouTube ads contributed 31,000,000,000 representing 13% of total ad revenues. Yeah. So I

was roughly right on the numbers, just not the percentages because I can't do math in my head on a podcast.

Right. But on a so I just did this exact I literally copy and pasted what I put into Google and what I and then put it into chatgpt and chatgpt gave me a better answer. Anyway, yeah. So, I wanna be using it more often, and I think it's pretty good. Yeah. It's pretty good. Agree. Pretty good. Alright. One couple quick things, then we're gonna get to a personal tech, which is you actually bought a a 3 in one charger. Well, before

you can I say one thing about the chat.com thing?

Oh, Oh, yeah.

There's something interesting because a couple years ago, HubSpot's cofounder published a post on LinkedIn about how he had spent $10,000,000 on that domain name. $10,000,000 he paid. And then 2 months later, I think it was, he sold it for more than he paid. No. And he didn't say at the time who he paid, who bought it or anything like that.

Name pollution. It's out there. Here's the I'll link this. This is the LinkedIn post from, Damesh Shah. He says, 2 months ago, I bought chat.com for 10,000,000 plus dollars.

Yeah. I mean, it's it's not entirely clear if it's possible that he sold it and then someone else flipped it to Sam Altman or

to open AI. I don't know. Like, if because if they bought it a year ago, why did

they wait this long? So I don't know. We don't know all the details. There's a whole lot of stuff going on, but all I'm saying is we know that OpenAI paid more than $10,000,000 for that domain.

Right. Which is wild. Bananas. I I thought about buying, steven.com for a lot of money, but there's no there's no reason No reason for that. So, alright. One other quick news. Last week, this is right after, I think we recorded last week's episode, but Apple acquired Pixelmater. Pixelmater I use Pixelmater for all my image editing needs on the Mac. I use Pixelmator on my iPad. And it's an incredible app.

it was

Macromedia, and there was no market for it. Like, everyone who was using nonlinear editing at the time was using Avid. Right?

And and so, like, they couldn't they couldn't figure out, like, a way to, like, sell it and stuff. And so, Apple bought it from they actually it wasn't it wasn't the entire app at the time. It was like their I can't remember what it's called. Key something something something. But anyway,

Keystone key grip thing. Key grip. That's what it was. They bought key grip from Macromedia, and they renamed it

to final cut, and they turned it into an actual thing. I actually was at, the NAB show back in I can't even remember what year it was. Like, it was, like, right after high school I was in college. So, like, 98 or something. Anyway and there's a demo.

That was my foray into video editing. I used Imovie when I got my first g 4 PowerBook, and then I got Final Cut Express because they actually there was like Final Cut Pro, which was like came in this massive cardboard box and I couldn't afford it, but I could afford Final Cut Express. I bought I think for like a $150 and that, sent me on the road that I'm in today. But anyway, so Apple's acquisitions, they've gone different ways. Sometimes they become stand alone first party Apple apps like shortcuts, sometimes features get merged into Apple's apps like weather, and what will happen to Pixelmator?

Alright. I have thoughts. I'm just gonna keep them brief. I live through the Lightroom versus aperture wars. I was a professional tiger photographer the time, and I was an aperture person.

miss dark weather? You miss dark weather?

I thought it was a great app. I mean, I love Carrot, so I'm fine with the fact that dark weather doesn't exist. But dark weather at the time was

like Dark sky.

Dark sky. Dark sky.

Why don't you go on the comments. Dark weather.

Well, that's how I feel about the weather app now.

It's dark weather. Exactly.

Dark sky. I'm sorry. Or it could go, like, the way of, like, what final cut in, like, logic where they bought something and they turned they kept it as a full featured developed app. I think the more most likely, acquisition because if you like, just think about some of their big acquisitions that they've had in the past. Right? Like Beats. Beats just kinda lives on as its own thing. No. Like, really. Like That's true.

It has cache too.

Like, it beats And it has an audience, and it's like, well, we don't have to build this audience. We just have to keep giving them things to give us money for and so that they did that. I don't think that there's any question that what's gonna end up happening is the features and technology from Pixelmator are just gonna end up in the Photos app. Like, that's

Oh, no.

Steven. Say that. Be honest, though. Like, think about it. They're not re they're not rereleasing aperture. There's zero chance that they're ever gonna release a pro app because that market is there's no room in that market. There is zero room for a pro photo app that pro photographers would use. There are a lot of prosumer photographers that would be like something more than than photos, but guess what? The the new Lightroom is that app. That is that app as opposed to Lightroom classic.

Listen.

I don't think that

We're gonna say You

gotta use your head, not just your heart, Steven.

We we're gonna make this wager right now. I don't know how long it's gonna take and we'll see. I don't know how many years down the road this will be. We'll we'll have to come back to this episode, mark it down and see who was right.

Episode 48. Okay.

I am saying they are not going to merge it into the Photos app. I think they're going to keep it separate and I think that Apple is going to make the play to have a professional photo app again. I don't think they'll bring back the Aperture name, but I think it will be a separate app and if you look at their strategy, like look at the iPad. Everyone asked for Pro apps on the iPad, and we don't talk about as much anymore, but Apple did give it to us. We got Logic Pro on the iPad, we have Final Cut on the iPad, even Final Cut Camera, whether or not how many people are using it or whatever, I think Apple wants to have that because that is the missing piece, like, in the puzzle, like, when it comes to you have video editing, Final Cut, you have audio, you have Logic, You don't have the photo editing app on there, and I don't think they want to complicate the stock photos app that much because it's still mass appeal.

Okay. I didn't think this would be the most controversial part of our conversation today or longest, so I'll try to but can you think of an example that where this where they've done this, where they have had a app and a space, they acquired some technology, and they just kept that and left it alone? Because logic and final cut don't count because there was I mean, they did have Imovie, but the difference with Logic and they had GarageBand. But the difference with Logic and Final Cut is they were filling a pro market that was inaccessible to most people. Because, again, an Avid system, I don't know what you had to have, 15, $25,000 to have an Avid system.

iDVD so much.

But I can't think of another market because there that does not exist in photos. The above consumer but accessible to anyone market exists, and it's Lightroom. Or or Pixelmator, that's fine, or PhotoMator. Excuse me.

Right. Right.

Right. But I don't I cannot think of an example where they bought a parallel technology, and then they kept it as a standalone. Like, they didn't keep the Beats app as a standalone next to I iTunes. I think

well, it might not be a pair like, they didn't have a parallel, but I do think the workflow app into shortcuts

They didn't have anything. They had Automator. Like, well, that's not the

same thing. But but they saw value in it even though it was pretty niche, like shortcuts is not widespread, like it's not like most people use it. But they did choose to keep it a separate thing and continue to develop it even though it's really buggy and they don't add a lot of actions a lot of times. Like it is still there, and you look at Apple Intelligence and the push there, I think Apple would love to say we have Apple Intelligence features for video. And you know they talked a little bit about this like in the final cut for iPad where you can like write on it and it will animate for you.

I think Pixelmator maybe. PhotoMator definitely not.

Oh, and maybe it's just one thing. Like, it could just be one thing.

But I mean, those 2 I mean, Pixelmator is a competitor to Photoshop. PhotoMator is Lightroom Aperture Photos. Like, I don't think there's any way Photomator continues to exist. Pixelmator maybe because Pixelmator is just a Photoshop, and Apple doesn't have a Photoshop, but they're not gonna take the Pixelmator Photoshop features and put them into photos because Right.

Right. Right.

That would be absurd. And so

I'm not think I I wasn't thinking about PhotoMater, I guess. I'm thinking more just pix just PixelMaters in my head because that's the app I use to, like, make thumbnails and stuff. And that I could see them keeping it like a first party, but then also But that's not a photo.

I just wanna be clear. That's not a pro photo app. That's a that's a graphic design app.

Right.

And they're not I don't think they wanna compete with I don't know. I think it's

Don't people bring photos into Photoshop though? I mean, the photo is literally in the name. Like

Do people bring photo? That's a that's a question.

You know what I'm saying? I mean, if you I know Lightroom is a thing, but

If you're a pro photographer, I feel pretty confident saying this, that you are only using Photoshop for the client that you hate who says, could you please take out the braces or could you please do this thing unless you're doing actual design work where you need layers. Like, otherwise, there's really no reason to go into Photoshop because, yeah, Lightroom has has, like, AI generative remove tool. Like, I almost did it this morning on a, on a cable hanging down, and then I realized it'll actually take me less time to just move the cable and retake the photo, which is what I did.

Alright. Well, Jason, I would like you if if you think this is worthwhile, an ink.com article arguing about what Apple is gonna do for with Pixelmator. Because I I piece. I could I on

on Apple and Pixelmator. Okay.

I love I love Pixelmator Pro on my Mac, and I just don't want anything to happen to it. I don't want it to go away. That's that's I think that's what I'm really speaking from.

Okay.

Anyway, okay. That was fun. Alright. Wanna hear about your 3 in 1 charger. Very quickly, I just wanna mention that we had a listener send me this article. This is from Stuart Whittingham and he said, a radio station attempted to replace their host with AI and it ended in disaster. And so I just wanna say, Jason, we have several good

How did they not see that coming?

We have several good years of hosting this podcast left before AI replaces us, so thank you Stuart for sending that. I feel safe. Now personal tech, we have talked about 3 in 1 chargers in the past. Jason was not a fit he he felt no reason to buy a 3 in 1. You don't need 3 in 1 chargers. Then I sent him a 3 in 1 charger, and it's I don't know for sure, but it sounds like he's now been converted because he seems to have bought one on his own.

Yeah. I mean

What happened?

I I actually what I did this week had nothing to do. I mean, you sent me something to the nightstand.

Which to do the nightstand.

Thank you. I do use it because You

do use it. Okay. Great.

Well, mostly I use it because once I set it up, it was easier to just not take it down. Right? Like, let's just

mess friction. Just leave it.

Just keep using it.

I get it.

I do notice that some days I wake up and it has not charged the AirPods because it's a little finicky. If you don't line it up quite right on that particular one, the the light glows, like, real bright. Like, it's starting to wake you up to let you know your AirPods are not charging, which is not a thing I actually care that much about. Like, I'd rather sleep. I can plug them into a cord in the morning for 5 minutes, and then I'm good for

the day. I would just aside from I I review a lot of 3 in 1 and now even 4 in 1. I don't know if you saw that video, Jason, but I have a 4 in 1 charger which can charge your iPhone, your Apple Watch, your AirPods, and another phone because there's a 4th g charger. But I will say the AirPods, there's some 3 in one chargers that has a little tiny magnet that will actually align the AirPods on the charger. Those are really the best.

I hard hard agree. Okay. Have a problem though, which is, you can't see my desk right now, but I have an addiction to adapters or charging adapters things. I don't know why. I just buy them. And so I did. I bought a 3 in one charger. But before our listeners get super excited, I found this I was okay. I'm going on a trip next week. I was getting my chargers together.

Oh, the back. Yeah.

Yeah. I love it. It's fantastic. While I was there, I was like, oh, you have a 65 watt charger that has 2 USB c's. And I've been using this anchor charger with 2 USB c's and 1 USB a. And I'm like, that's pointless. Why do I I don't even carry a USB a cable anymore, so that's dumb. I should just get rid of this thing. But while I was there, Steven, I found this, which is a USB c 65 watt charger, dual. And on the top, it has an Apple Watch charger.

Right.

And then I can turn my Apple Watch on the top of it. Although it's not gonna work in most hotels because most hotels, you have to plug them in, like, down or whatever. So I don't know. I just really thought that this was fun to have it.

Yeah. It's cool.

And, Steven, like I mean, I have so many of these things just like, why do I have that's not even I can't even pick them all up. So I bought a 3 in one charger. It's not what you think.

No. I know. I love it. I think, you know, I actually have a couple 3 in one. I'm gonna send you another one.

Oh my gosh.

I'm gonna send but this one will be for travel. This is, like, one of the fold out 3 in ones. Oh. So it's compact, but you can do Apple Watch AirPods and your iPhone, and it folds nicely. And you can let me know what you think about it.

Is it the 12 South that has the butterfly one?

You know, I reviewed the butterfly and the Native Union has 1 and Anker has 1. I reviewed all those. I honestly like them all less than the MagSafe Duo.

Oh wow.

Because they're very floppy. Like the little connector between them is real floppy, and I just don't prefer it. So I like just kind of the more They're slightly larger, but they're more sturdy 3 in ones or 2 in ones. And, like, I'll show you the, let's see if I can reach it without unplugging my headphones. I'm reaching for my backpack here.

this is

supposed to go.

How you're supposed to use it. Yeah.

You do a little triangle, and then you can charge your iPhone here, even in standby mode, and then the Apple Watch there. Yeah. And, you know, you could charge your AirPods Pro on either of those too. So this is what I use when I travel. But Belkin has a 3 in one version of this, where it stacks like this, but it has one more little pad that comes out for a dedicated AirPods thing. So, yeah, I'll send you that one because I'm not using it, and you can see what you're doing. -Okay.

Great. Can't wait.

-So Jason bought a 3 in 1. That's the bottom line. Alright. We're gonna go record a bonus episode, and I I wanna get Jason's take on new media versus old media during the election.

Oh, boy.

We're doing

we're doing this.

And that's why that's why we're doing it in the bonus episode. Listen, our bonus episodes are getting fun and you should really go take a listen. So if you wanna listen to the bonus episode and get an ad free version of the full episode, you can go to primary tech dot f m, click bonus episodes and support us there. That's why I'm Memberful and you get the chapters and you get the chapter artwork and all that, or if you just like the ease of supporting the show directly in Apple Podcasts, you can do that as well. You still get all the bonus episodes, you get ad free, but you don't get the chapters in the Apple Podcasts ad free version.