First MacBook Pro with Touchscreen, 1 Week iPhone Duo Review, Claude Duet vs Muse

0:00 She has to touch it. She can't not touch it. Welcome to Primary Technology, the show about the tech news that matters. It is another massive Apple Week. We have the first touchscreen Mac ever. We have a new iPad mini, a bunch of M6 products, plus Anthropic filed for their IPO. I've had an iPhone duo in my hand for a week going to do a review.

0:18 You can get a Mac Studio now for a cool thirty thousand dollars if you really wanted to, and a ton more. This episode is brought to you by Origin Framer and you, the members who support us directly. I'm one of your hosts, Stephen Robles, joined by award winning co host Jason Aten. How's it going, Jason?

0:33 I mean I'm gonna take some credit. I th being ornery as You are I mean a co host has paid off for us. It it it is it is paid off. We have an award. I haven't I don't have the physical award yet, but I do have our letter signifying the official ~ win for that. So If you're listening to this ju he just held up a jury summon, but it's fine.

0:50 That's exactly right. We have so much to talk about. ~ first of all, I lost miserably in our debate about what hand you people use their iPhone in and Jason is clapping. I am a right handed person and I use my phone predom predominantly in my right hand. And apparently I am in the vast minority of people who do that.

1:10 Jason was the opposite. You you use your ha phone in your left hand more. Is that right? I'll almost exclusively except and I Yeah. Hmm. hesitate to say this in a in a recorded venue, but I did realize that there are times of I for some reason like the other day I was driving and I had somehow an alarm was set and I had to shut off an alarm.

1:30 Yeah. Sure, sure. So I had to reach for my phone. And clearly I'm gonna use my right hand because that's the area that the phone is going to be on. That's the Sure. so what I'm trying to say is the only time I use my right hand is when I'm driving. But I don't use my phone when I'm driving, than you're driving. Course not.

1:43 okay, mom? Of course not. I've literally set up a domain and hover while driving. Anyway. It has auto p the But anyway, I'm not I'm not proud of it. And there's a lot of traffic. car has autopilot. They don't call it that anymore. But they call it auto steer, I think, which is also a bad name because it doesn't steer, it just keeps you in the middle of the lane.

1:57 Well my car is sold, it doesn't have any an it doesn't have auto anything. But anyway. that's true. Your your car still has a bubble nose. It does, But here's it does. so I was thinking about this thing, Steven, and I'm not going to glow. But ~ it But I am. occur no no no no. It occurs to me I actually think this is great because it this is what makes us such a good co host partnership. That's we we actually have an award to back that up.

2:16 Hmm. Award winning. Award award winning co host partnership. Yes, exactly. That's right. But it's because Typically I I thought about this. I'm like, no, that's not just my preference. I'm pretty sure that this is the way most people use their Mm. phone. I just think about it like that. And Steven, Hm.

2:34 you are like such an enthusiast that it's hard for you to imagine why anyone would use it differently than you do. That's okay. Like this is, I promise you, this is not a backhanded compliment. Sure sure sure. Because the number of times when you're like a hundred percent convinced that everyone in the universe must do it this way.

2:47 I thought. Yeah. And I'm just like, no, I know people. This is definitely not the way that they do it. You're a man of the people. You're a man of the people. You knew. And so let's read it. 'Cause we got we got a bunch of five star reviews. Thank you for that. I also read a bunch of the YouTube comments.

3:00 I read the first one hundred agreeing with you, and then I fell into a dark night of the soul, so I had to stop. There are like four or five people who agreed with you, Steven, let's be fair. Yeah. Out of a thousand. Out of a thousand. So Apple User Pro from the USA. Thank you for your five star review.

3:14 Said I'm right-handed, but always carry my iPhone in my left pocket and use it with my left hand. Hudson Adams from the USA said I'm right-handed and I use my phone in my right hand. So I got one win there. Thank you for Uh-huh. the congrats on the award. Rob Owens from the USA. And they asked if we talk about AI agents a lot and we don't mention Grok a lot.

3:33 I personally don't use Grok a lot, but I will say I have a my wife's cousin's husband. What do you call that? Your your Your cousin. your cousin-in-law. Your cousin-in-law. Yeah, I don't know. He works in the health insurance industry where he like sells health insurance or whatever. And I hopefully this is not doxing him.

3:53 I didn't say his name, so it's fine. But he actually uses Grok to great effect. And he added doing like wild stuff, reason like aggregating plans for his clients and putting together reports. So Yeah, Grok can do wild things. I just don't use it. And now that I have access to Claude Duet, which I just got access before that we've recorded the show, I'm not going to be using Muse either.

4:13 So there you go. But anyway. Mm-hmm. Evil Manatee. Great name. I also love manatees, just saying that. Even the evil ones. even the evil one. Says I'm right handed, but use my phone left handed. So that was and battery percentage on. I lost twice on that one. Mike MCS, left handed left pocket. So, okay, dominant hand, you know, dominant pocket.

4:35 MTR City Joe from the USA said right-handed, but I've always held every iPhone I've ever used in my left hand. So again, point for you. Solomon Dix from the USA, five-star review. Thank you for that. I hold the iPhone in my left hand while using my right hand for more specifically like scrolling and stuff.

4:50 So he's kind of a two-handed phone user. So he's using his right hand to scroll and then he's holding it in his left hand. And then finally, James J. Kelly says, ~ first time reviewer, thank you for that. yeah, just said nice things about the show. So thank you. But yeah, all the comments on YouTube, a vast majority use if they are right handed, use their phone in their left hand.

5:09 And I don't I don't get it, but I appreciate it. So there you go. D I mean, you know. do you ever is it because you're doing stuff with your right hand? Is that what it is? ~ this is one of those things that I don't fully understand w how biology has evolved us this way, but it just I mean, picking it up in my left hand and then using my left thumb is by far the most comfortable way to use it.

5:32 It's not that I can't use it in my right hand, but it does it feels weird. And I don't know, like if I'm looking at my phone, I'm typically not doing anything else, despite the driving comment earlier. But but Sure, sure. I I think it's just but it may be that I and this could be it. It may be that I'm used to using my right hand for we talked about this with like the keys, right? Or with other things.

5:53 Right, right. It's like, no, the keys are gonna be in my hand 'cause that's the one I'm gonna have to use to unlock the things. Or if I'm writing, I do that with my right hand. So my left hand sometimes just feels like a spare. So like phone, perfect. Okay, all right. All right. Well, if you haven't yet, you can leave us a five star rating and review an Apple Podcast.

6:10 Let us know, right handed, left handed, what hand you use your phone in. Also what pocket. I feel like the pocket that you choose to put your phone in has a lot to do with what hand you use it mainly with. Well, maybe it's the other way around. Which hand you use it with probably has a lot to do with which pocket you put it in.

6:23 You can let us know in the in the in the five star Indian review. And one picture I want to share. This is Kartik at the believe he's in India. He's ~ not only watching one of my shorts, but he has our primary tech polar brand on the night plane. I he's taking it to work every day and he's propping it now just on the lid of his MacBook Pro, which could be a touch screen MacBook Pro in a couple weeks.

6:41 Mm. We'll see. We'll see. But thank you for that photo. All right. Apple had one billion products. I I'm tired, Jason. I'm just tired. It's just so much. Tard. I feel like It's just release everything. It's like the Kylo Ren meme with the more, more. I guess, Yeah. you know, John Turner's just coming out the gate.

7:01 I was talking to David Sparks on MacPower Users and this will come out Sunday, but it feels like Siri AI forced a lot of products to be delayed. Things like the home view, the home pod, maybe the newer Apple TV. And with that, we've now just had like a what is it, a pig in the python is the term where there's like a Jason's face.

7:21 You never heard that term? G what does my face tell you about whether I've ever heard this term? Yeah, I don't like like when a snake eats something, you know, there's this huge bulge in the middle of the snake for a time. And it's like there's a bunch of products that because they were delayed have got pushed up till now. And so there's just all the things.

7:38 Like there were probably Mm. things that were long planned, like the touch screen Mac and the iPhone Duo, but then a bunch of peripheral type things like the home view, the home pod two, the Apple TV, that were probably planned to be released. A year ago, two years ago, but Siri AI delayed it. So we have this crazy fall with 1,000 product launches.

7:58 That's a theory, maybe that. But suffice to say, we have a lot to talk about. So iPad Mini, it was the first day of this three-day press release release cycle Apple has done in the past. Jaws tweeted it, you know, kind of teased it at the beginning of the week. iPad Mini, it's new. It has an OLED screen, like rumored, 8.5 inch. It's a larger display.

8:20 With a same footprint body. So they decreased the bezels, which I'm very keen to see how that looks. But you have a nanotexture option now, which you didn't on past iPad minis, the A20 Pro chip. So it's powerful, same chip as the current iPhone. Has the C2 modem, has Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and thread because of the N1 chip.

8:41 Starts at 699. And yeah, this is now a very difficult decision because. You can either have a nanotexture iPad mini built into your phone, or you could buy the standalone iPad mini, which now has a larger screen and is an OLED. And it's like I know Apple just wants you to buy one of their products or as many as you want, but it's like the impossible choice now.

9:03 It's like iPad mini, iPhone Duo, iPhone and iPad mini. So anyway. I mean you can get an iPhone eighteen pro, an iPad mini and a Mac Mini and still spend less money than for the amount of An iPhone duo. storage that you get for the iPhone duo, yeah. Well, we're gonna talk at length about the iPhone Duo because I have thoughts.

9:19 Okay. And and ~ what device you choose to pair with your iPhone. I that is the that is the question, I feel like, now. And my iPhone 18 Pro Max also feels like the monolith from 2001 to Space Odyssey. Whenever I lift it. But anyway, we'll talk about that. So iBad Mini is out. Also, products that I think they just wanted to put an M6 in to get it out there and updated is the spec bumped iMac and the base model m6 MacBook Pro.

9:47 They have been updated with the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Thread because Apple's just putting their N1 chip in all these products along with the new six. So that's cool. but if you're in the market for an iMac or the base model MacBook Pro, then you can get one with an six. Before you go to the creator show, can I say something about that Mac the iPad mini?

10:05 Yeah. yeah, yeah. Because I told you that I'm probably gonna sell my iPad Pro. I'm gonna have to spend Yes, you did. some time with the mini, hope to review it, but the fact that they put the OLED display on it is like killer. Yes. Yeah. And the screen's a little bit bigger, that's fine. It supports the pencil pro, like so you don't even have to buy a new Apple Pencil.

10:22 Yes. Yes. ~ and that A20, especially if you get the 512 where you get the dual new neural core. engine thing. Yeah. Neural engines, yeah. I I feel like it's gonna really be I mean it's also like gonna cost you eight hundred or nine hundred dollars at that point, but it's gonna be killer. And Sure. Yeah.

10:41 I was curious because did you see this this is why I wanted to ask you, 'cause I ~ hypothetically you and I might have been on a briefing together to talk about the iPad mini. It's possible. Sure. It's pause. Sure, sure. I don't I might have dreamed that. But the the thing that you n that they knew they were gonna get questions about was why not 120 Hz? But Right.

10:59 The story I saw was it does have a hundred and twenty hertz panel in it that is just limited to sixty hertz. My question is, But that's not from Apple though, right? that's the story that they're saying is that the panel ~ that they put in it is is a hundred and twenty hertz panel that's just limited by software to sixty hertz. And I'm thinking, like, is that just a price differentiation thing?

11:18 This feels a Hmm. Yeah. lot like BMW putting the elements for the heated seats, but then wanting to charge you a subscription after the fact. That would not feel great. And that would thank you for saying that was the one thing I forgot to say. The the no promotion on the iPad mini, especially when you look at the pricing, because the iPad mini is closer to iPad Pro pricing than base model pricing.

11:38 And I think what is it? I mean the iPad Air doesn't it start at like three ninety nine? The iPad Air does not start at $3.99. I think it's $6.99. does it? It's got an M4 in it. Yeah, but I'm looking it up right now. iPad Air, which hasn't been updated this year, I don't think. shoot, starts at seven fifty.

11:56 Never Yeah, okay. never mind. Okay. I get Okay, so iPad minis is cheaper than iPad Air. I the promotion just feels like I'm probably the only one that cares about it on the iPad mini. Maybe not. Definitely. But I edit when I edit podcasts, which I know I'm the only one that's doing this, ~ the promotion's really nice.

12:18 And I wish they would have put it in there. Anyway, I made my request known. We'll just say that. I made my request known. They were expecting it. Yeah, they they were they were ready for it. So, okay, so the M6 i Mac M6 MacBook Pro. There's also Creator Studio updates. These updates are not live yet, so it's not like you can update your apps right now.

12:38 But there's some really interesting stuff. Jason wrote an article about this, we're gonna talk about in a second. But the Creator Studio apps like Final Cut, Logic, PixelMater Pro. One of the most interesting ones, I think, is Final Cut. Motion VFX will now be the plugins and a lot of the animated effects will be built into Final Cut.

12:55 If you remember, Apple purchased Motion VFX last year and it was wondering like, how are they going to build this in? Well, we're now we're here. And you'll be able to get Motion VFX plugins and animations and titles in Final Cut. I am curious what amount. Of Motion VFX packs will be available in Final Cut.

13:16 Like Motion VFX had a huge library. And I had purchased many packs. I purchased like MKBHD's Motion VFX pack for a hundred bucks. And I just I purchased like a podcast documentary style animation title pack that I use in a lot of my videos. So I'm curious, like, am I gonna see those in Final Cut? Or is there some kind of select, you know, amount?

13:39 And this does seem to be just the Creator Studio version. So if you're on the one-time purchase final cut, like you paid $300 and you're not doing the subscription, you will not have access to these things. So remains to be seen. This comes out in November, this update. And there's also better implementation of round tripping like an image to PixelMator. So if you want it to you have an image and final cut, you're trying to overlay it on a video, but you want to edit it, there'll be a round trip to PixelMater Pro on the Mac and bring it back. And also, PixelMator Pro now has a generative fill tool built into the app.

14:11 This will be on the iPad and on the Mac. That is very interesting. You know, Photoshop has their generative fill. I'm sure there'll be lots of side by side testing of how these two ~ go well together. And then there were updates to iWork, which are really fascinating. I'll throw it to you about the iWorks.

14:26 Or did you have any thoughts on Final Cut and PixelMator or any of Well ~ I would be interested well, I'm gonna explain something, but then I wish they would have done this thing to also Final Cut. Logic, I don't know how that would really work, but maybe, but I feel like final cut for sure. But yeah, so they added two things.

14:42 One, they have an AI assistant. They kinda did before, but they added more of an AI assistant powered by Ch by Chat GPT of all things. I don't get it. I don't g I don't get it. Or of well, I they don't say it's Chat GPT, but it's open AI. But and then Right. The part that I was really interested in is that they added an MCP support model context protocol.

15:01 Yes. So you can connect, you know, Claude or ~ Codex Codex or Chat GPT work or whatever those things to pages, numbers, keynote and have it do things for you, right? You could just give it a bunch of text and be like, make this beautiful in pages or make me a presentation, or you can give it a numbers document and be like I don't know, probably convert this to Excel.

15:25 Do do ego do equation stuff. No, I'm just kidding. Like, do stuff. Tell me, yeah, are my sales going up or down? Or where should we like just give it massive amounts of data and have it do things? And I actually think that's really cool because the story for a long time has just been that Apple is so far behind.

15:39 And I think that the way that they are doing this is better than the way Microsoft, especially, is doing it, but also Google, because Microsoft is like, you opened a document. Here's Copilot. And we're like, no, I just I just opened a document. I just needed to do like do a thing. And it's like, here's Right, right.

15:54 Copilot. What did you want to do? I'm like, get out of my face. I just let me use the things I paid for. It looks like you're updating your resume. It's right. Should I tell your employer? You know? Would you like me to start looking for jobs? It's like, Copilot, go away. I don't want you to do that.

16:03 Exactly. I've notified your manager, they might hear from other jobs. Yeah. Yeah. Go Google, on the other hand, is a little bit, at least in the Google workspace stuff, like a little more chill about it. You have to like seek Yeah, yeah, it out. Whereas I feel like Microsoft is like Yeah, someone looking over your shoulder, like, hey, what you doing there?

16:21 Can I can I help? It's like, no. Would you like me to yeah. So I yeah. Whereas with so with Apple though, I feel like this is there is an AI assistant stuff, but the NCP is, I think, the part that makes a difference because I'm sure there are a lot of people who use their Macs, who use pages, who use that stuff.

16:39 Yeah. Yeah. But I think that Google did such a great job just conditioning ki students to use Google Docs that that's what people just keep using. And I feel like this actually gives you a reason because pages, honestly, really good page layout software if you don't need the advanced features of InDesign.

16:55 It's actually really good at that. Right. Yeah. And this is a cool thing where you can now say, like, hey, I need a little bit of help. I made a flyer, but I don't really know like what yeah, I don't think you should just have Chat GBT make your flyers. Those are disgusting. But I feel like you can ask Right, right.

17:08 it to do things. And so I do I don't know, I just think this is the right approach. I think it's really interesting. There's gonna be a built-in chat bot, you know, in some of these. So this is ~ from the Apple Newsroom article, which I'll link below, but keynote pages and numbers introduce intelligent assistance, and there's this chat sidebar that you can ask it for changes.

17:26 You can ask it things like write speaking points for these slides or help me animate my slides. You know, so think that is gonna be interesting, cool to play with. The Apple Intelligence features in Keynote up until now have been pretty bad. Like there has been a paste an outline into Keynote and will generate a bunch of slides.

17:44 If you have tried that even now with Creator Studio, it is bad. Like it makes bad slides. They don't look good. They're not formatted well. So I'm curious if this is improved. And then like Jason was saying, that MCP support, there's a keynote interchange format. This is in like Keynote is introducing support for this format and an open JSON bundle for that MCP and agents to work with it.

18:06 So I'm curious about this. You know I've I might be speaking at Podfest in January I'll try some of these features to see, you know, how it does building a keynote. But again, this stuff is coming in November. And stay tuned. I think it's it's interesting. At least they are providing more value to the Creator Studio subscription, which if you were on the Adobe side and you were paying whatever, a thousand dollars a month for all those apps, like I think Apple's making somewhat of a compelling case here for Creator Studio.

18:35 That's pretty good. And now the big story is the touchscreen MacBook Pro. Now, MKBHD, who put published, he was at the event, there was this event in Los Angeles, which was this is just high level, first of all. Invites went out to this Pro Intel event in Los Angeles. It was gonna be hands-on time. Apple called it an experience, and there's just been various iterations of like how is Apple gonna announce a product? And I feel like they've done it every way this fall.

19:03 You know, the iPhone event was the typical the invite press to the Steve Jobs Theater. They watch the same video, the same live stream that we watch. There's creators there and news journalists that get hands-on time and then everybody goes home. And then we had the welcome home event, where there was an event in New York.

19:20 Creators and news get hands-on time with the devices, but there was no official of like video or presentation per se. There was like the home view ad, but there was Mm-hmm. no explanation of the products aside from what the people experienced on the ground. And then we all saw the videos on YouTube and social media afterwards.

19:39 But there was no live stream, it was just like the home view ad. Now we have Pro and Tell, and we had two days of press releases. iPad mini on Monday, M6 stuff on Tuesday. I was refreshing the Apple Newsroom every 10 minutes starting at 9 a.m. because I assumed they would drop the press release like the two days before.

19:59 But they chose to wait until the experience at one. But As I was refreshing all the social media feeds at one PM Eastern, it was John Turnus on stage, like doing a a live presentation, but just for the people in the room. And there was no live stream to tune in. There was no video live stream like the scary fast event or others.

20:22 And so I don't know if they're just trying like every iteration of announcing a new product to see what works and what they like doing, but it just it was very different. And then I like the newsroom article didn't come out right at one PM. And so I was refreshing the different social feeds and seeing five second clips of people taking, you know, video with their iPhone of the screen that's playing in the room and seeing like, glowing Apple logo is back.

20:47 That's amazing. And ~ this okay, it's official touch screen. And I started seeing the words proLed, and I didn't know what that meant. I was like, why are these people tweeting the word proLed? And so it was a very interesting choice to not do a live stream but have quasi a live event. But invite people there, I don't know, maybe they're just testing the waters.

21:06 What does that feel like? I mean, it what are they doing? Well, this one felt even more kind of abrupt than like the duo thing because I like I was following along and it's like at one six it was all over. Like like he John Turnus got up there, It was over, yeah. Five minute event. talked for a minute or two, they showed a quick video thing or something, and then it was like it was just over.

21:23 And then they were and so the real reason that they bring everyone there is so that they can have the hands on. This is not that dissimilar to like the five iPad Pro event, the scary fast event. Like that was although they were just smaller scale. They're closer to like what the duo or excuse me the home view event was because we just would go to New York, you're in the townhouse, they had like a short little presentation, you watched a video, and then you had time to to interact with the things.

21:51 This is just on a larger scale. I think they did it in LA because it's they want it to be they want the sort of vibe and cachet of it being a pro creative tool type thing, right? And so they brought it there. But yeah, I I think it's interesting the mechanics of it because they also Also like dropped an IMAC and I don't think that was anywhere.

22:11 Like it wasn't of nowhere to any event No. that was there an IMAC. It was just like yeah, this one has an six now. And then also it wasn't just so there was that at at one PM Eastern, you know, they do all that, the creators get hands on time. And apparently they had just kind of like a full day with the people that they invited because I was seeing posts from like Federico Vittici, Christopher Lawley, Andrew, Edw ~ the YouTuber Andrew, and like they did a concert at night Mm.

22:40 where there was just like a DJ and they were doing stuff at night. And like I couldn't tell like Okay, I guess this is just like an all-day experience event thing. So anyway, that was interesting, just how they've been doing that. ~ so the actual product, it is a MacBook Pro. There's not a suffix like Ultra or anything else.

23:03 It is a MacBook Pro, but it is with a Pro LED XDR display. And you might be thinking, are you saying pro OLED? Are you saying something else? Pro L E D Pro LED? No, it Pro Led. ProLED. And if you watch Apple's video on YouTube for this product, they say it many times in the video. It is a ProLED XDR display and touch.

23:27 That's like the full name. MacBook Pro with ProLED XDR display and touch. That is it. It is an M5 Max or M5 Pro. Like the rumors, we did not get an M6 Pro or Max chip. It is all about the display. It now has a dynamic island. It has 2000 nits of brightness. It is a touch screen. Promotion. You can get it up to 16 terabyte SSD, 128 gigs of memory. It is the first ever touch screen Mac.

23:53 Now, there are a lot of hands-on videos ~ on st on shorts and stuff. I will link MKBHD's first look. He has a lot of hands-on time with it, talks about his experience. It is honestly wild to see someone touch a MacBook Pro screen and scroll between spaces and pinch and zoom on the display. And To MKBHD's credit, he started his video with the Steve Jobs moment saying nobody wants to touch the screen.

24:21 Yeah. Nobody wants to touch the laptop screen. So kudos for ~ for the callback. But they had in in Apple's announcement video, they talk about a lot of use cases ish. You know, they show people in kind of like design and CAD type apps pinching and zooming on different aspects with their finger on the screen.

24:44 And there was a a lot of the demos, and even there's a video of John Turnus on the Hello Apple Instagram account of him like stroking the wallpaper that says Pro and it like plays harp sounds. so you can do that. One use case that I've seen mentioned several times on social media is developers who are making an iPhone or iPad app can now use the touch, like see what it is like to interact with the app via touch.

25:13 on the device they're developing it, which that was the first time where I was like, okay, that that makes sense. Like I could see why that would be beneficial. There's a lot of demos of music apps like Logic Pro dragging the EQ around or playing a literal digital piano on the screen. And it you can do like 10 plus touch input support.

25:36 So you can play like full chords on this piano. ~ I'll also link Dave to D's video. he was there at the event and he was like, Yeah, you know, my arms kind of got tired after a while because I was I was holding it up to do this thing, touching this screen, and you know, that's you're not gonna do that forever.

25:56 You know, that if you're gonna Right. be working for hours and hours on a laptop, that's just not how you're gonna do it. Also, as you see the hands-on videos of this touch screen MacBook Pro again, I'll link Dave T D's video. This is what this is his. If you ever see a screen off after being touched in this hands on area, it is a disaster. As you would expect.

26:17 Like you there's gonna be fingerprints and smudges all over it because you're touching the screen. And if you have a nanotexture product from Apple, you might know like getting fingerprints off the nanotexture, not as easy as getting it off the glossy screen. And that this is a big touch surface area to get fingerprints on.

26:34 So th listen, this is like watershed moment. This is the first touch screen Mac ever. Which is wild. So we have to see what developers do with it. I'm very curious how Mac OS will be on a touch screen interface. You know, there's very small touch targets in the menu bar. Are you gonna be but you're probably not gonna be doing that.

26:54 But anyway, anyway, Jason, you wrote an article about it. Tell me your thoughts. Well, I th I quote an article almost entirely about the fact that they brought back the glowy logo, which is my favorite thing. the glowy logo, yes. And it Yeah, this is my favorite thing of the whole thing, is that they were like 'cause it's been ten years since they've sold a MacBook Pro with the Glow logo.

27:10 They think that the Yes. MacBook Air continued to like twenty eighteen with the Glow logo on it. But the MacBook Pro was done at that point and they replaced it with the polished alum or you know, metal logo or whatever. And I just I like two things about that. One You know, it was a couple of years ago with the M1 that they brought back like SD slots and they just like we people Yeah, yeah.

27:33 just let's just make it the best computer possible. Let's let's stop The computer people want. worrying about this Johnny Ive minimalist, you know, whatever thing. Let's just Yes. give people what they want. And I do think the thing about the glow logo in some of our listeners is like, who cares? It's whatever. It's just a light on the back of the thing.

27:50 But it is It is a representative for you don't even see it when you're choosing the computer, right? So this is Right. but it is one of those details that just shows how much Apple cares about those about those Yes. types of things that just really delight their users. And it also does the thing that does the exact same thing that the new colors on an iPhone do, which is it signals to everyone.

28:11 This is the new one. This is the one I mortgaged my house to buy. Cause you can yes. Cause you can only get the glowing Apple logo on this new ProLED XDR with touchscreen display Mac. It Yes. is not on the M6 MacBook Pro that came out the day before this. It is not on any other MacBook Pro. And I to the glowing logo point.

28:32 And they're still selling the other MacBook Pros, 100%. Yeah, you can get right? Yeah. an M5 Pro MacBook Pro, no touchscreen, save Right. $400. It's a $400 difference if you spec the same spec. five Pro or five Max MacBook Pro with and without touchscreen. So I'm gonna not gonna lie though, four hundred bucks for that.

28:47 I mean, the display on the MacBook Pro is pretty killer. But the tandem OLED is like whew. It's pretty killer. This is even ~ and that's the thing. Like, if you like, I don't know how much I would use touch screen. You know, it doesn't support Apple Pencil. This is not some kind of flip around screen, like a, you know, a think pad where you can like rotate the screen.

29:03 Do not flip it around. Do not flip it around. Don't bend it the opposite way, like everyone's doing with the iPhone Duo. Like, this is just for your finger, not Apple Pencil. You know, it is not meant to lay flat or become a tablet. This is just if you want to reach out and touch your laptop screen for whatever reason.

29:21 But to the glowing Apple logo point, Apple knows what it's doing. Remember, John Turnus has been there for twenty-five plus years. And when they announced it, or slightly before, Turnus's profile picture on X changed to this, which is him sitting in front of the new MacBook Pro with the glowing Apple logo in front. And I you this may be reading too far into things, but I don't think it is. I think Apple is saying to the people who have been with Apple for the last two decades: listen, we hear you, and we know like this is important to you.

30:01 And now the guy in charge, it's important to him too. Important enough that we're going to put it back into our products. And there is no functionality to a glowing Apple logo. There is no improvement on the experience of ac actually using it because like you said, it's facing the other way. But it is something that is important to Apple users.

30:23 It is nostalgic. And I think John Turnus is saying, like, yeah, we're gonna bring this back because we want we want our user base to know like this is important to us too. And I think that's cool. I think that's good. Yeah, I just the word I just use is it's delightful. And that is an It's delightful.

30:36 important part of a product. It is one that you don't think about until you realize like, ~ this is not as much fun to use. And then you and it I mean it is kind of like the this is this some of you may disagree, but like it's like when you put on the Vision Pro and instantly you can see around you. You can't use anything yet. But they Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, right.

30:59 thought about the fact that if we're gonna cover someone's face You gotta see. Yeah, yeah. You should be able to see immediately, right? So like all of the amount of engineering that went into making sure that that happened first, unless it's dead and then it takes four weeks to charge, but that's a totally different story.

31:12 But right. Would you s would you say, Jason, that a glowing Apple logo on the back of a MacBook Pro might be whimsical? I would use the word delightful, but I could potentially give you whimsical. I mean, I I'm I'm Okay. I'm just I'm just throwing that out there. not anti whimsy. I'm I definitely think it's a delightful thing, right? Because the only thing that take okay.

31:32 Yeah. I was dis I was designing that t-shirt in real time. I'm not anti-wimsy. I'm gonna try and lay that I'm gonna try and lay that out. It's it's a hundred percent true. But the only thing holding it back from being whimsical is it is a thing you don't see when you're using Sure, sure, sure, sure. the computer. If it was somehow a element that you do see, like I think some of the I think some of the interactions that they built into macOS are going to be a little bit whimsical.

31:56 Yes. I think people are going to drag down to refresh a Safari page if they have this computer just for the heck of it. And then they're gonna wonder why all the pixels in the middle of their screen start to go bad after a year and a half of just doing this. No, I think Listen, I spec'd out the MacBook Pro with touch with ProLED.

32:13 Hold on, let me try that again. I spec'd out the MacBook Pro with ProLED XDR display with touchscreen support. ~ the one that I would want is like forty three hundred dollars. And I said That's not that bad. No no no. I just spec'd out a fourteen inch that I Yeah. would want and it was seventy one hundred dollars.

32:34 Well, it's got a hundred What are you doing? You could try to run local AI? and it's got a hundred and twenty eight gigs of memory, yes. No, see that I was trying to be reasonable, okay? I was trying to let's just do it. Let's just do it for fun. Let's just do it real quick. So you want s you want sixteen?

32:44 No, no, no, no, no. Here's here's Sixty four, I mean? let's do this. Let's just do this together. Let's do this all together. We're the here with our audience. I would here's the one I would do, Jason. I would do a 14 inch. I would do silver because I'm like that. I would get the nanotexture glass. I'm a believer now. After using it on my iPad Absolutely.

33:01 Pro, I'm a believer. I would get I would get the M5 Pro because I already ha I have an M4 Max Max Studio. I'm not trying to That's true. but I wouldn't get the bin version. I would pay the two hundred dollars to get the eighteen core CPU and twenty core GPU. I wouldn't get twenty-four gigs of unified memory.

33:20 I would get at least forty-eight. That's true. This isn't gonna be your main machine. It's not my main machine, but I would like some. And I I usually go one terabyte, but I would go two terabytes for this because I want, you know, hopefully some longevity. So I'm at $4,300. Now I tried, I saw how much I would get for my MacBook Air, and it just wasn't enough. It wasn't enough.

33:44 But I would because here's the other thing we haven't talked about yet. This is thinner and lighter than the MacBook Pro has been previously. It's not a lot. It's like half a pound lighter, but a lot of people who were there at the hands-on said, like, you feel the difference compared to a typical MacBook Pro.

34:03 And that was honestly one of the more interesting things. Like to have this incredible display in a lighter laptop, because I love my MacBook Air for how thin and light it is and how easy it is to just carry everywhere. And I've had a MacBook Pro. I think the last one I had, you know, I had the M5 MacBook Pro review unit, and it was just too big and chunky.

34:28 I just didn't want to take it places. And I don't feel that way with MacBook Air. And so I am curious. Maybe I'll get a review unit. Who knows? But if this one is light enough and thin enough to cross that barrier and say, no, I'll take this with me. Like I I want to take this with me. And maybe the display is good enough where it's like, I definitely want this with me.

34:48 Because when I go outside and I work on my MacBook Air. I have to crank that brightness to a hundred percent and even then it's not brightened. I mean, to be fair, the current MacBook Pro would solve that problem for you. The current MacBook I know. Pro has the second best display Apple's ever made. But it's not a proLED XDR display with touchscreen Mac.

35:04 I understand, but your argument can't be that that are that it might be a good enough display to want to take with me because the current MacBook Pros display is amazing. It's not it right, like we all agree the best display they've ever made is the iPad Pro, right? The iPad Pro. Tandem OLED. four and five iPad pros have the tandemola.

35:21 That's by far the best thing they've display they've ever made. I think the s I've never used a studio display XDR, so I can't say for s I can't compare it to that. Looking at it right now. Yep. But I think the MacBook Pro display is the next best one that they've ever made. And then probably the studio display X Dr.

35:34 and then maybe the X the old X Dr. I don't know. I don't know the I d I don't care after that. Maybe. I know, Like I I can do top two, that's it. I know. Yeah, yeah. And the fr like if I was a laptop guy, I would consider this. And I could probably get great trading value for my Mac Studio here because I got eight terabytes in this thing.

35:53 And I saw people getting wild trade in values if they had a four terabyte or higher Mac. I don't even want I don't no, I do want to know. I do I do actually They're gonna just strip it for parts. want to know what I would get for this Mac Studio. As a trade in. I He's gonna buy a MacBook Pro Live on the air, folks.

36:09 No spoilers, you should watch Mac Power Users this Sunday because I do buy something on the air. If I get Jason, the Apple trade in value for my current Mac Studio would cover the cost of this new MacBook Pro. I would get forty eight hundred dollars. Mm. Seeing the zero dollars after trade in message on the top of this display like Apple knows what they're doing.

36:39 Yeah. Well, also that's like I don't know what you paid for that new, but probably twelve hundred dollars more than that. A few thousand. It was a few thousand more. Yeah. Yeah. So it's I think it was around seven or eight thousand. it's kinda tough to like s to take so w to take like I paid eight thousand dollars Yeah. It would have hit.

36:53 and now I got a MacBook Pro and three hundred dollars or whatever. I'm not trading it in. I'm not trading it in because i my prediction machine I need all the ports. And I'm not gonna use a dock, you know. David Sparks, he's he's doing the Caldigit dock with his MacBook Pro and he's you know, the thing is like cooking eggs while he's recording.

37:11 The dock. The dock itself. Doc, I got a Thunderbolt one right. I mean a O W C Thunderbolt one. I don't know. The one he got it gets real hot when he's just he's got It's it's it so much stuff plugged in. could probably keep my cup of coffee warm, but it's not that warm. Yeah. So anyway, no, I'm not doing it, but maybe I'll get a review. Anyway, that's the touchscreen macro pro.

37:27 We'll see once the initial reviews come out. Read Jason's article. I'm c listen, it's a new era. Like we are now in a world where we have touch screen max, and that has not been the case until now, which is wild. Touch screen max. And last thing before we take a break, because we have to talk about iPhone Duo.

37:44 I want to give a quasi review. You can there's a new Mac Studio out, Jason. I don't know if you saw this. is this the quad max studio that you can daisy chain together? And did you buy four You can of these, Steven? Listen, you can get a Mac Studio. One configuration has now been ~ is now available that wasn't before, which is the 512 gigabytes of unified memory on the new, on the M5 Max or M5 Ultra Max Studio.

38:10 If you want to upgrade from the 96 gigabytes of memory that it comes with to the 512 gigabytes, it is a $15,500 upcharge. And then if you want to just go all out. and get the 16 terabyte SSD, no trade-in. It is a cool 30 grand, $30,000 computer, Jason. I mean that's a pretty amazing computer though, let's be honest.

38:41 I'm not mad about it. Like if I like Daisy Chain four of those and you get two terabytes of unified memory to run whatever model on device. But even just one of them, like I don't have thirty thousand yeah. dollars for this. But I actually am really glad that Apple is making that computer. They should have just made that configuration and called it Mac Pro.

39:05 That and that is what it is. Like this Yeah. is this is the Mac Pro of today. This is the most pro thing they've ever made. The most like excessively pro thing that they've ever made. yeah. Yes, Right. yes. And I think the only thing that's a drawback to it is y all expansion is via Thunderbolt. But guess what?

39:21 Thunderbolt's pretty fast. It's more Real fast. than fast enough for almost anything you might want to use. That's right. That's right. I'm so glad this computer exists. I am not I will never buy this because it's crazy. I would review it. If you send me one, Hundred percent. I'll I don't I unfortunately don't do anything worthy of reviewing it, but I have been doing an awful lot of local L L stuff, Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm saying.

39:44 including local agent stuff that this would be perfect for. That's what I'm saying. That Llama local model in LM Studio, whatever that new one that Turnus and Zuck were tweeting about back and forth, I'll run it. No, you need actu you need at least two of these for that. Send two Apple. I'm just saying.

39:59 I will do it. I'll do it. I'll run LM Studio. I will vibe code another dozen apps. We look. Can you can you just imagine? Wouldn't you really want to just pull the FedEx guy aside and be like, Do you know what's in that box? Do you have any idea? What this thing came straight from Buckingham Palace. This box I this box.

40:17 They're for the crown jewels are in this box. This box cost more than my college tuition. All four years. I Cost more than that truck you're driving there, buddy. for sure. Can I say of vibe coding apps? I'm now up to twelve. I'm I'm up to twelve apps now. I I appreciate that because I'm pretty sure that when I mentioned you in your apps I said about a dozen. So I'm glad you've reached that level.

40:39 Is now up to a dozen. I'll link my page down in the show notes, but 12 apps, many of them are in the app store. A couple n brand new ones like Lookout and Shortcuts menu is now in the app store. Anyway, just I'm so far behind. listen, this is why here's what you do. And we're gonna get to this in personal tech, what Claude has done for me. Yeah, Sponsored by Beard Fm dot app.

40:57 right, exactly. ~ you can go to the updates page where I just list all the updates across all the apps, and there's even an RSS feed that you can subscribe to and just get all the updates via RSS. So look at that. Yeah, one okay, Steven. Put that back up for a second. ~ yeah, okay, I'll sorry. Okay, This is not a criticism. The way sure.

41:12 you can tell and Steven has no problem admitting that this is true. The way you can tell that this is vibe coded is the fact that there's a su there's a little ~ eyebrow header above latest updates that says every app. Literally that's the way you know that Claude did this. yeah yeah yeah. you I mean if you go to my homepage, every rounded rec call out box for every app where it has like the slightly tinted background and the very thin outline, that's all clawed. But like yeah.

41:38 Yeah, sure. I know, but that every app thing is a hundred percent the way you know that that thing was vibe coded. Yeah. Well, and that's why my literal homepage says vibe coded apps. The in the biggest Yep, absolutely. text possible. One last thing I wanted to mention about the the MacBook Pro. You mentioned in our pre-show this interview with Wired, which I will link in Apple News because we have News Plus, you can actually read the whole interview.

41:59 I'll also link the nine to five Mac article in the show notes if you want to read some poll quotes. But Wired must have got early access because they talked to Joswiak, Turnus, and Suruji about the new touchscreen MacBook Pro. And there was one point I thought it really interesting. This was ~ Jaws, Greg Jaws React.

42:17 This is a quote attributed to him. Most pros own an iPad, and almost every pro owns an iPhone. So this is something that they're natural with. Talking about touch on the new MacBook Pro. And there's a quote: There's a generation of young creators and young people using our MacBook Pros that expect to touch.

42:32 And I do think, I think about my own kids, who my oldest just got his first MacBook Pro earlier this year. His entire life has been touchscreen devices. iPad, iPhone. And the other day I was thinking about, you know, what devices are around this house? What do I want to trade in? And my M4 iPad Pro I had handed down to him to use for whatever. And he uses Logic Pro on that iPad.

43:02 And he makes beats and he makes ~ you know tracks and all of that. And I asked him the other day because he's had it for about a year and now he has a MacBook Pro. I said, Do you still use the iPad Pro? Like, do even need that anymore? And he said, Yeah, I use Logic Pro on it because I like it better on the iPad Pro.

43:20 Like it does, it's different than it is on the Mac. And I think that quote, again, talking about the glowing Apple logo, seeing that quote from Jaws, I think Apple is paying more attention to its user base, trying to understand its user base. And I do think that. word about the next generation of creators and young professionals, they have grown up with iPad as the main computing device for many years.

43:46 And there's kids today for like their main computing device or device they use all the time is an iPad. And so it does make a lot of sense that when those kids are ready to do creator type work or whatever, that the device they use has a touch screen like they have used for the their entire lives. And so I think yes, not only is it gonna do cool things and music apps and, you know, touch screen Macs the first time, but I think it's it is also forward looking to say like this is what the next generation of creators are going to use and we wanna make the device that they they want that they want to use.

44:18 So Yeah. Does it seem weird though? Like it does feel a little bit uncharacteristic of Apple that there are now s kind of a lot of decisions you have to make if you're gonna buy a MacBook Pro because you're like, do you just buy the six, right? Which is like a higher number and it's Yeah. Right. but it's basically a MacBook Air but with more ports and better battery and a nicer screen. Right?

44:41 Yeah. And then you have the five Pro and the five Max old version. Yeah, yeah. And then you have the M5 Max and M5 Pro Pro LEDX DR with touch version for Yeah. $400 more, but you can't actually just spec up a M5 Max Max normal version. You can't just click give me the better display. It's a whole separate category of thing.

45:03 Right. It's a skew, yeah. And it's it does feel a little bit like do you think okay? My question is, do you think this is the way that they intended it to be? Or do you think they're like, the touch isn't ready. Let's release a a rev to the same version before. Get those out the door with the M5, the M5 Pro, the five Max, and then we'll do the other ones later.

45:24 And it will feel weird because we will also update the base one with an M6. And then we will have so it's like there's like this weird like you know how in school you used to do those sentence diagram things where you're just like Yeah, yeah, yeah. you have the six and then you have like the Pro LED XDR with touch and then Right, right, right.

45:40 you have the normal. It's like Because really you have these two that seem like they sit below the six, but they're not. They're super better. Like the five Pro and the five Max still smoke the six. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But then you I don't know, like this feels kind of strange. I think it is a transitionary period.

45:55 I think with the phone, Apple is saying, let's see what phones people resonate with. Do people want an iPhone Air? Do they want the thinnest and lightest phone no matter what? Do they want a folding phone? Do they want a pro big phone? I think like they're experimenting there. With the computers, do you want a $30,000 Mac Studio?

46:15 Do you want a touchscreen Mac? Do you want a MacBook Neo that's $600? Like, what do you want? And I think it is a a bit of a scatter shot to see like what sticks, what do people want. But also with the MacBook Pro specifically, I think three to four years from now, every MacBook Pro will have a dynamic island.

46:38 I think every MacBook Pro will probably have the tandem OLED. Maybe not the base model. We'll see. You know, the base model MacBook Pro is always kind like a weird area where it's it's a pro, but it's like More MacBook Air than Pro. It's like a MacBook Air with more ports kind of thing. Like I mean actually it's like you shoved a MacBook Air inside the chassis of a MacBook Pro.

47:00 Yeah, exactly, exactly. But I think the all the Pro and Macs, MacBook Pros, they'll all have a Dynamic Island, they'll all have a tandem OLED. Maybe the touch screen will be an add-on then. Like maybe there'll be a four hundred dollar do you want touch or not? I think it will look more streamlined a few years from now.

47:18 And this is like the first foray. Like, let's see. Do people care? Do people want this? And so I think it is a bit confusing now. I think to the people like you're saying, six is higher than five. Shouldn't I buy that? I think if that's if s that's how someone's thinking, that is probably a customer that should just get the six.

47:36 Because if they don't know ~ even why the pro and Max five Pro and Max exist, I think they're probably a user that would just do fine with the six. Like just do that. So yeah, I think it's a bit confusing, but I think it's also like they're seeing what works right now. And we're just gonna put it all out there, see what happens. People are gonna buy stuff.

47:54 People are gonna buy no stuff no matter what, like all this new stuff. And so it's just experimentation. Yeah. Well, and I'm not necessarily like nostalgic for the era when there was a grid of four products. Like I get that we're way, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. way, way past that. But your I think your answer is yes.

48:08 This is very uncharacteristically Apple in the way that we think about what Apple has always been. Because Apple has typically said, here's the products. This is what we make. This is what we think our users want. And it does feel a little bit now like They're like, What we think people want these things?

48:24 And I think it started with the Vision Pro. Like, I don't Mm. know, we think people seem to like headsets. What if we made the most expensive one ever made and put it on it's like so heavy you can only wear it for forty minutes at a time? Didn't really work. So I'm hoping that these products work out better.

48:38 And I will say last thing, and then and then we'll get to the iPhone Duo. You know, if you go to the Apple Store page, they are still trying to simplify it's like you we got MacBook Neo, Air, Pro. Good, better, best. Right? Like we still have the three tiers. And when you go to MacBook Pro, you got two options. Do you want a touch screen or do you want the regular?

49:01 And now you can keep diving down because if I click learn more on the non-touch MacBook Pro, then you the M6, five Pro, five Max, and you have more decisions to make. But I think they are trying to see, like, are you a touch? You want the touch? Or no? And we'll see. We'll see we'll see how it goes in the next couple of years.

49:23 Yeah. I mean, But you said it. She has to touch everything, right? Lost World, by the way. You you never ask. You need to put in a rundown Ask Jason movie quote. Thank you. Thank you for the comment I know you said that I know. You that was correct. That was the last regardress. I was looking at my piece of paper where I had written down the words the Lost World and I couldn't remember why I wrote that down. And then I'm like, yeah, because he asked me and he never asked me.

49:42 I need to put in the rundown. this this is the second week I say I'm gonna do it and then I haven't done it. So we'll see. I'll try to do it for next week. I we have to talk about iPhone Duo. I've been using it for a full week. I have so many thoughts about it. But before we do, I want to thank our friends at Framer.

49:55 Listen, if you need to make a website, you want to do maybe A-B testing, you want to do some AI agent stuff with your website and have it build it, you gotta try Framer. Friend of the show, Parker Ordellani, built his webpage with Framer and it looks amazing. We've talked about that on the past episodes.

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50:31 And that's the kind of stuff Framer can help you with. You can talk to your agent, it can make the website for you, it can run A-B tests on your homepage. see which call-out, which landing page performs better. It can do it all. And agents and humans work in tandem. Those agents can bring the speed and scale, while you, your team, people bring taste, judgment, and control. And that's the combination.

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51:37 That's Framer.com/slash primary. Rules and restrictions may apply. Love their landing page, Framer and Primary Technology. Promo code. Primary. thanks to Framer for sponsoring this episode. And our friends at Origin. Still one of the coolest landing pages. You gotta go just to scroll your mouse around there.

51:54 I wonder how this would be on the touchscreen MacBook Pro, honestly. I feel like that might be kind of cool to scroll around this little homepage with your finger. But here's what it is. You know about the hugging face issue with the open AI, AI agents. Cybersecurity breaches, things like that. Well, Origin HQ is here to help your business protect itself from that.

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53:18 OriginHQ.com slash primary technology. Go see how see the cool website that I was talking about too. thanks to Origin for sponsoring this episode. Okay. Have you spent any time with an iPhone duo just by chance? Zero time, Jason. Zero time. Vicariously I watched like your four days in a row or whatever the heck you did.

53:35 I watched, I think, all of all of them. W I will link my playlist. one of them was a little bit maybe like the What? one the honeymoon's over. I was like, hold on. What's he gonna say? I thought you sent it back based on that headline. Listen, I A B test the titles on all these videos and so Yeah, of course that's not title that wins. 'Cause it's the one that Well sounds the most like I'm gonna chuck this thing in the ocean.

54:04 Well, and I meant it to say, listen, there are bugs, there are weird things in the UI. Like those things just happen. They c they're they come up. Like the the software, even Apple's own apps, are still not one hundred percent on the iPhone Duo. So I will link my playlist. I did five videos, kind of just my day-to-day experience with the iPhone Duo.

54:24 I'm gonna have a full review video coming out this weekend where I'll give kind of my final thoughts and full recap. Before I get into to my thoughts, I do wanna mention there has been a lot of Cracked screens on social media. And this has been on Reddit. There's been lots of posts about this, but there's this like some lines will appear cracking, you know, a crack in the screen.

54:46 Apple has acknowledged that this is an issue with a number of duos. They say a small number, that th they will replace the iPhone duo, contact Apple Care. Even if you didn't have Apple Care, of course, they will replace the iPhone Duo. So first gen device, yes, there's a there's a You know, hardware shoe in a small batch, so those are getting fixed. Also, apps just not optimized.

55:10 That has been the story. You heard that in all the reviews. I actually built an entire web page again using Claude to keep track of apps that are updating for iPhone Duo. There's now over 800 apps that are iPhone Duo ready. And so I'll put that link down in the show notes too. I have apps that I recommend that I've been using on Duo and apps that developers have been sending to me just on social media.

55:30 And you can browse by category, you can browse by date added. ~ Marco Arment just released a new app yesterday ~ for the iPhone Duo and the iPad. It's actually really cool. It's called Finalist, I think. I forget what exactly it's called. Fine liner maybe? Fine liner. I'm sorry, that's the word. Fine liner. but it's here on the webpage.

55:50 You can just search for there it is, Fine Liner. And so you can go here, check out all the duo optimized apps. I will save. I'm still developing my final thoughts, like to be honest. and so that's why I'll, you know, put those in the review for this weekend. Because here's the here's the deal. If you go with an iPhone Duo, whatever iPhone you go with this year, like it's your iPhone. It's the device you have to use every day.

56:17 And there's novelties to a new device, there's cool things about the iPhone Duo. It is not going to be for everyone. Like this is a very different device. If you are someone who likes weird quirks because the technology is new and you get to experience something different, the iPhone Duo has been super fun.

56:36 I've really enjoyed it. There's been a lot of times where it's like, ~ the the best analogy I could think of is like using the iPhone Duo as your main device is like living in a world made for a different phone. Because you are living in a world made for the iPhone seventeen, eighteen pros and maxes. Like The entire internet is made for those phones.

56:59 And using the iPhone Duo today is trying to fit a square peg in an iPhone 18-shaped hole. You know what mean? And a lot of the internet is is like that. Like scrolling reels and TikToks, which is something a lot of people do. Like it's a weird experience on the iPhone Duo. Because if you do it on the outer screen, it's like very small.

57:26 You know, it has to crop to the squarish screen. And so watching reels is not as fun on the duo front screen as it is on iPhone eighteen pro. Can you all Why why why is it not as fun? Like who cares if it just crops it so it's the same aspect ratio? Okay. Way smaller. It's just way smaller. It's way smaller.

57:43 And because Instagram, you know, I think this goes to the app optimization. Like they're probably still figuring out what to do with all the controls. But because the Instagram UI is here in the sidebar, you have all the like, share, and comment icons on the reel itself, plus the caption, plus, you know, the reels and friends on the top.

58:02 So like it's just small. Like it's much smaller than even looking on like a regular 18 Pro or 17. And yeah, you can open the duo and you can watch reels that way. And then you get, you know, a letter-boxed experience with, yeah, I it's bigger, sure. But like if you were to look at a reel on both the iPhone Duo and the iPhone 18 Pro Max, we'll say, ~ here's a a re you know, side by side, if you actually look at the amount of content you will see.

58:39 You're holding a much bigger device with an open iPhone duo and not seeing a ton more content. And the content itself is like cropped funny. Like on the 18 Pro Max, you can see the reel goes all the way, it's edge to edge, top and bottom. Like you can see the reel goes all the way below the Instagram control, like tabs, and goes all the way up into the dynamic island area.

59:03 Whereas on the iPhone Duo, it stops right above the controls. And it goes to the top edge, but it's not the same aspect ratio. Like it's a different. But the Well, that's the thing. The phone isn't the same aspect ratio. video is not. Even though the video is letterboxed, the video itself is not the same aspect ratio.

59:19 Like you're getting a cropped video. So that is what I mean when I say like you're living in a world where every piece of vertical content was made for a different iPhone. Yeah. Now, long form content, pretty cool. Like I've enjoyed. Playing a full YouTube video, like a long form YouTube video, opening up the iPhone Duo and watching it what widescreen.

59:44 Again, if you compare it to like an 18 Pro Max, it's not a huge difference in the amount of video you are seeing, depending on the aspect ratio of the video. But the iPhone Duo, strangely, feels lighter when you're holding it open than the 18 Pro Max does. And it's just a trick of the mind because I think the total weight of the duo is actually more than even an 18 Pro Max.

1:00:13 But for some reason, holding the duo open, it feels actually lighter. When you close it, it's the weirdest thing. It feels heavier closed, just because the weight distribution, I think, and and you know, center of gravity. So there's a lot of parts of the duo that feels again like you're a square peg in a round hole in a in a lot of parts of the internet.

1:00:32 And then even like browsing safari. You know, if I go to a website, like my beardfm.app website, like you see, like it's it's small on the outer screen. Like it's not a super great experience, but it's fine. It's fine. And yes, you can open the iPhone duo and you can see a lot more of the website. And you know, that's cool. If you hear lightsaber sounds, it's because my Star Wars lightsaber from Disney World is just turning on and off randomly in the corner, and I don't know how to stop it.

1:00:58 So just throwing that out there. So it is Living in a world made for a different iPhone. All that to say, it is super fun, super fun to use. And there's been many times in my day-to-day life, and I would be curious, like this is why hopefully you get to try your hand at a duo just for a little bit. Because, like you, I go to a lot of events with the kids.

1:01:21 It might be a rehearsal, it might be a game, it might be I'm sitting in the car for a while doing something, you know, and waiting for them doing a thing. And Previously, I would bring my iPad Pro with magic keyboard. I love it. It's got built-in cellular. Awkward to use in a car, especially if you're in the driver's seat and you the steering wheel, like how it navigate.

1:01:39 You have the thirteen inch? Yeah. I have the 13 inch, yeah. and I did it before with my 11 inch M4, because ~ I had the smaller one then, and it's better with the smaller one, especially in the car or whatever. But man, I for the last week have been using iPhone Duo. I will open it up in the car and it feels great to use.

1:01:58 And I can use the Apple Pencil with it. And I will often remote into my Mac Studio for my iPhone Duo when it's open, and that's a great experience. Or, like I said, watching videos on the iPhone Duo or split screening Claude and social media. So as people send me their apps optimized for iPhone Duo, I can copy a link on this side and paste it over here for Claude and let Claude work on one side and and not the other.

1:02:22 And so it is super fun. And I think for someone like me with very specific use cases. Like I edited Primary Tech Daily on the iPhone Duo this last week with the Apple Pencil. That's super fun. Is it better than doing it on the iPad Pro? Not better. But the fact that it the iPhone in my pocket and I can open it and have a mini iPad. And that's why I've alluded to it before.

1:02:49 Like, Apple is making the decision so hard because we now have the best iPad mini ever with an OLED display. And I'm like, well. Man, do would it be better to carry an 18 Pro and an iPad mini with the ONET? Like, do I want to do that? Do I want just one device, the iPhone Duo, to do it all? So anyway, I last thing I'll say, and then I don't know if you have questions or comments, but ~ I missed the telephoto. I did the thing where ~ and I put this in one of my videos, again, I'll link the playlist.

1:03:23 You can create a smart album. In photos on your Mac specifically. You have to do it on your Mac. You can't create a smart album like on your iPhone or iPad. And you can put in a bunch of criteria for ~ photos taken with a certain camera, namely your iPhone 17 Pro or 16 Pro, whatever. And you can choose lenses like filter by lenses, and it will create an album and show you all the photos you took with the telephoto lens specifically.

1:03:54 And so in the last year with my 17 Pro Max, I've taken 372 photos and 119 videos, specifically with the telephoto lens. And looking at these, it's like I have to think, what would it have been like without the telephoto lens? Like I went to the live VergeCast recording at CES earlier this year. Like I took this photo with a telephoto lens.

1:04:18 I could have taken that photo with the regular lens. It just wouldn't look as good. ~ like with the iPhone Duo. at all my kids' dance recitals. This was the Nutcracker last December. And I was pretty far back in the audience. ~ but I could go to that telephoto lens and get a decent picture. Like I will not be able to get that picture with the iPhone Duo this year.

1:04:36 And I know Apple made the handoff feature. I know you can double fist iPhones if you really wanted to. ATT doesn't have the handoff feature unfortunately. But I'm not the kind of person that wants to carry two phones or even think about two phones. Like I don't even like the cognitive load of what phone am I going to take today.

1:04:53 I'm a one phone guy. I just want to know this is my phone and this is the one I take everywhere. And so I have to make the decision, and this is what I will save for my review, because I honestly don't know. Is the telephoto camera worth it? And is living in a world not yet optimized, but slowly being optimized for iPhone Duo?

1:05:12 Is it worth living in that interim period? The optimized thing is less of a bother to me. The fact that reels are a little weird on iPhone, I think is actually good. 'Cause I watch less. Like I'm less inclined to scroll them on the iPhone duo and that's probably a good thing. And I'm more inclined to like do some work.

1:05:30 So maybe that's better. But it is ~ you know, you would be in the interim period right now. So anyway, I'll stop talking. Tal No, you're good. talk to you. I just think I can't decide if people using the iPhone Duo enjoy it because it's different or enjoy it because it's good. And I th in part of th again I d I did not I did ask for a review unit and literally radio silence.

1:06:01 Didn't even get a no. Like, okay, you'll send me a eight thousand dollar laptop so I can run local models, but you won't send me an iPhone Duo. I know, it's weird. It's weird. But whatever, the availability of them is very diffic is very limited. Is limited, yeah. So whatever. I I'm not mad about it. Although apparently if you break the screen you can just walk into an Apple store or they'll hand you a new one.

1:06:19 I'm just saying. Okay. Not immediately. You do have to wait. The r the reports have been that it takes a while, so anyway, but yeah. But I So I I wanna I I'm just saying I haven't actually had one in my hands. I should go to our local Apple store and just touch Go play with in that kind of stuff, whatever.

1:06:36 But I think they got the form factor wrong. Because the the biggest complaint I've heard from people is essentially what Gruber said, which is that when it's closed, it's the worst iPhone they've ever made. And I do feel like that's important. You ki because if it was only going to be good when you open it, Then that's just an iPad mini.

1:06:58 Like, and they just released the new one Right, right. of those and it's f by all accounts, like, sweet. It it answered all the things we cared about except for the promotion. It's like they they put the OLED on it, it's whatever. And so I d but I can't decide if people are enjoying it. I'll go back to the same thing and you can tell me what you think.

1:07:15 Because it's different or because it's good. And it seems like it's more of the former right now, and maybe eventually it will be the latter, but that it's it's not yet. Honestly, I agree. And I think if you are like us and have been an iPhone user for years and years, I've been using an iPhone since the iPhone 4.

1:07:38 The iPhone experience, it's changed a little bit. You know, the iPhone 10, genuinely new, you know, no home button, notch, all of that. But since then, like, yes, we've had the dynamic island, we've had some slight changes. This is the most Different an iPhone experience has ever been. And honestly, that in itself is interesting and fun.

1:08:03 Like the fact that this feels like a different kind of iPhone is maybe the most attractive part of it. And so to your point, not like if my choice was to use this outer display or an iPhone 18 Pro, no question. I would not want to use the outer display as my phone. Like that is not a good experience.

1:08:25 I don't think it's horrible. Like in some instances I actually like it. Like when I was on a field trip and taking pictures, I actually like the small square form factor for picture taking. One, it feels more camera like, but I also felt more discreet. Like holding up the camera to like do this, as opposed to my 18 Pro Max, which feels like I'm holding up a surfboard.

1:08:50 And it's And then ungainly sometimes, like single-handedly. Like holding my phone like this and like most of the phone sticking out, it feels less secure than my iPhone duo, just like I'm basically have the entire phone in my hand almost. So sometimes I liked the form factor of the outer screen, but it is the novelty of being able to open it and have a little iPad.

1:09:13 Sometimes just watching the video, it's like, this is nice. Or I do find I do remote into my Mac a lot for whatever reason. And doing that even on the 18 Pro Max because of the aspect ratio of the screen, even if I rotate it to landscape, like it wasn't as good of an experience as doing it with my iPhone Duo open.

1:09:34 So like that remote control of a Mac, iPhone Duo wins when it's open. And that's something I do. And again, that is a very specific use case. There might be IT professionals out there who would be like, I'm in. I that's my job. I remote into computers all day every day. Yeah. Like I that's I need that immediately.

1:09:52 And so if that is your specific use case, like, my goodness, the iPhone Duo might be the perfect phone for you. I also like the iPhone Duo in my pocket as opposed to the eighteen Pro Max. And honestly, if there was one choice that I would make now that using the iPhone Duo, if I went back to the Pro phones, I would sell my Pro Max and go with a Pro, which is what you do anyways. Because man, a smaller Pro phone But with all the features and telephoto, man, that's a compelling case right now.

1:10:20 ~ now that I've used this for a week. But I do think the novelty is what's exciting. But there are a few genuine use cases that again are very specific to individuals. Like I might like me and Jason Snell are the only people I know that have edited podcasts in Ferrite with the Apple Pencil. You do it too.

1:10:40 Yeah, I do it. You do it too. But I don't know, like I I love the fact that I can do it on this phone in my car. Like that is so cool. Is it better? I mean, it's not better. And when I edit the full episode for this today's episode, I'm gonna do it with my iPad Pro because I need universal control to drag my chapter artwork from my Mac to Ferrite on my iPad, and there's no universal control for the iPhone Duo.

1:11:09 And so there's still like it's fun, it's novel. And I don't and I still truly am undecided. Like I'm not going to dual phone it. Am I going to go duo or pro? I'm still not sure. So you tune into my review because I really don't know. But yeah. I so all that to say I think I agree. Like the fun and being different is actually one of the biggest factors for it.

1:11:33 Yeah, and I but I do think, what do you think about the form factor itself? Because like I've used both Samsung and Pixel Folds, and I do think that that form factor is better. I understand why Apple did it and they seem very, very proud of the fact that it's the same aspect ratio, open and closed, although it's that's only true I mean it's technically true, but it's only effective if you rotate it, right? Like you open it and Yeah.

1:11:57 it's just still one to four point one one to one point four or whatever, but it's you get to rotate it first. But I just think that it I don't know, it it it seems like that was not maybe not the right call. Again, b because it's a world made for a different aspect ratio phone, I think today, yeah, it feels like the wrong call.

1:12:17 especially when what a majority of things people do with their phone is probably scrolling reels and TikTok and social media feeds. And like text messaging, not a great experience on the outer display, because once you bring up that keyboard, you see a very t very limited number of messages. Like is then if you have a big message, like you're gonna be scrolling a lot on that.

1:12:39 top part of the outer display. But, and this would be true of the i 18 Pro rather than the Max, but like one handed typing for me is easier on this. And it'll probably be even easier on the Pro. But coming from the Pro Max, like I like that part of it. And yeah, it's n it's novel, you know, and it's I don't know. I like the shiny titanium slides.

1:13:03 Like that's a superficial thing. But I like how this phone looks. Like it looks like a really nice iPhone. Like a really nice piece of hardware. And the fact that I can prop it up when I go eat lunch out on the patio and I don't bring ~ something to you know prop my phone up on, I can do the little laptop thing and I could have the video playing and it can be its own thing. Built-in speakers, by the way, very good because it actually has like a like d good stereo speakers, and when you have it open, like it's oriented properly, like good speakers. But I I will and I will say this in my review, like this is not for everyone.

1:13:40 I think there'll be a lot of people whom if they tried if they buy a duo coming from their sixteen or their fifteen, like they're gonna be like, what in the world? Nothing looks right. Like I totally get that reaction because again, the entire internet is made for the vertical iPhone form factor. But I mean, people are having fun with it.

1:14:01 I mean, I've been making a bunch of shortcuts, silly ones, like when you open the iPhone duo, it can make a sound. And people love that stuff. Even people that don't have iPhone Duo, they're like, that's pretty fun. Maybe I want to do it for that. And I think that the fact that it could be a fun device, you know, maybe that that alone is it.

1:14:19 Let me actually this is a a shortcut I made. If you want to have your iPhone duo, play a sound. You can do a lightsaber sound when you open or close it. I have the transformer sound, like it's fun. It's fun. But yeah, it's it's not gonna be for everyone. And my word, I should and now I need to shut that automation off.

1:14:39 But it has been fun in the last week. my word. I don't ~ I'm still undecided. So I have a day left to decide when I make my final review, like what I'm actually sticking with. And we'll see. I I think the aspect ratio and the different apps not being optimized, that stuff doesn't bother me. The telephoto is the wo is the big choice that I have to make.

1:15:02 Do I not care? am I willing to give up a telephoto camera for the next year? ~ or not? And that that I think is, you know, do the smart album trick that I talk about in my video and just see like what is the content I would have missed if I if I didn't have it. So anyway, that's the iPhone Duo. Hopefully you go you should go play with one.

1:15:22 Just like just just pull up a chair in the Apple store, sit literally sit down at the table, just play with the iPhone duo for like two hours and just see. So I'd be like, listen, you know I just interviewed Ron Johnson. He said it was fine. You could say that. David Sparks. He said he went to his Apple store for two hours.

1:15:40 David was at this apple store for two hours playing with one. So if you go in the middle of the day, like when it's not busy, I think you could do it. I'll I'm gonna I visited the Apple store yesterday. I'm gonna about my experience later. All right. But anyway, all right, that's the iPhone duo. I'll put I'll be posting my review this weekend.

1:15:55 ~ hope you watch it. Lightning round. Anthropic has officially filed their S1 to go public, their IPO. The prospectus. You know, when a company files to go public, to be publicly traded, there's a lot of stuff, like a lot of information that they release, like who makes money in the company and like how are profits split and all that kind of stuff. But there's also just crazy things in the prospectus.

1:16:20 I will just this is a poll quote from the S1 that they filed to go public, and I will link the government PDF if you want to go read it. But it says, quote, concerns have been raised both within our organization. And by other researchers, regulators, policymakers, and industry participants, that sufficiently advanced AI systems could, if not, developed, deployed, and operated with appropriate safeguards, oversight, and security measures, pose catastrophic or existential risks to humanity, particularly if such systems are misused, replicated, weaponized, or allowed to operate with a high degree of autonomy.

1:17:00 So basically, we might not be profitable if humanity is destroyed. Just throwing it out there. You wrote an article. I mean, that's true. Well, unless the Go ahead. unless the robots just continue on afterwards, and we have no idea how profitable it will be, right? Yeah. Maybe even more so. Maybe even more.

1:17:16 I mean, get rid of the humans and there's just money for everyone. Money for everybody. Who needs money? Anyway. Yeah, Yeah. I think the the most striking thing was so Anthropic was started by Dario, Amadei, and his sister, and five other people. There's seven of them. And it's super interesting because you have companies like Facebook, Meta, whatever, where Mark Zuckerberg has effectively total control over the voting, not total control.

1:17:43 He has enough he has a majority control over the voting shares of the company, so he can he can't be fired. He can just do what he wants. Right. If the board is like, dude, we're firing you, he can be like, let's take a vote and they all lose, right? And it doesn't matter. They all it is automatically.

1:17:54 So he effectively has control. Anthropic is also wanting the they're creating a F class share for the founders, F for founders. I think that's what the F means. And they would the seven of them together would have no less than fifty point one percent control of the voting shares of the company. So that they would still have control and then they would be and they're forming the company as a public benefit company, which means that they are going to have a there's gonna be this trust b board that will also be a part of like appointing a certain number of the board of directors.

1:18:32 So to guard the company's mission, but then the founders get to pick the rest of them. The whole thing is like anthropic is gonna be the largest IPO ever. If you buy shares, this is not stock advice. Neither Steven nor I know anything about stocks. Like, whatever. I own one share of Apple. And it's just because I have the paper certificate, not Yeah, yeah.

1:18:49 because I buy and I'm just literally never gonna sell it. So you don't have to worry about me being biased because I just it sits in a safe. That's the only reason I have one share of Apple. Yes. But I just feel like they This is not necessarily going to be a good deal for investors if the company starts making decisions about safety and whatever that are like just imagine the conflict between we should productize this and market it and they're like, No, because it could destroy humanity and then they're like, No, we should do it because you have an obligation to be make us money.

1:19:20 You're putting money Rise. into this company with essentially no control over the outcome. And I just that's just weird. And I don't understand why investors continue to do this, Steven. Well they keep investing in companies that might end us. No, well, there's that. This seems to be the first one though that you can invest in that might end us.

1:19:39 No, investing in companies where they're like, yes, founders, it's cool. You can have total control. We think it's a Yeah, yeah, yeah. good idea for people who have a different set of incentives than these stockholders to have effective control over the direction of a company. I don't think any company should exist that the board of directors can't fire the CEO.

1:20:01 Hmm, right. I just don't th I just don't think that that's a terrible idea. It's we've Right. seen it over and over again. It's just a terrible idea. And I And I guess the only AI company set up like that is Google right now, maybe? Well, Google's founders have like an outsized control. They have more voting power than they have economic shares, but I don't believe they have total control.

1:20:24 I don't I mean, I don't believe they have majority control, I should say. Right. Whereas like OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta, they do. Well, I mean open AI's open AI's private. Right. So like they're not a Right, right, right, public company and so who the heck even knows what's happening over there? Because Sam Altman apparently has no shares of open AI, but yet he got fired one day and then they rehired him the next day.

1:20:44 So I feel like he has control. Right. I think he does. I think he does. I don't know. Like it just seems like he's in charge over there and more Yes. Yes. in charge than ever. And Meta definitely Mark Zuckerberg like gets up in the morning and he's like, Whoop he's like, What shall we do today? What am I gonna tell Adam Lusseri to change about Instagram today?

1:21:00 W which knob am I going to turn today? Yes. The engagement knob, the put muse somewhere else knob, No, I just the upload Jason's DMs knob I just imagine now it's like we're getting up in his bedroom and there's two big knobs on the wall. One is AI slop and one is muse, like just how much muse? Over eagerness.

1:21:19 Over eagerness. And he just decides like am I gonna turn it this way or that way every I morning? I actually almost wrote an arc article about the two knobs. Maybe I should. There's engagement and over eagerness. Pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Just I think so. Just decides to crank it. Yeah. So it'll well, this'll be interesting.

1:21:35 I mean, this is I don't know if unprecedented is the word. I this is like It's definitely not unprecedented because well, the size of the thing is unprecedented. Right. The structure is unprecedented because we've never had one of these companies, peer play companies, come to the market, which is this big. It is not unprecedented for founders to be like, Yeah, you can you can buy shares in my company and give me money to spend however I want, but you can't tell me what to do.

1:21:58 Sure. Right, right. And it's a good gig if you can get it. I just don't think we should be doing it. Right. I will also link I don't know if you have you s been listening to like the Kevin Roos ~ podcast that he's been on and stuff. He was on Decoder and The Verge. I gotta read his book. You gotta read his book. I will also link ~ the new podcast that he's doing with Casey Newton, Machine Gods. And I started listening to this.

1:22:21 They were previously at the New York Times and they've left and now they started this new podcast, Machine Gods, in partnership with NPR, which is interesting. but you can listen to that if you wanna like really get in deep on the AI, what's happening, this anthropic IPO. Like you just want to hear the all the AI news, like this is probably a good show to s follow.

1:22:43 And I started following it and we'll be listening. It is some of it is very like deep in the weeds about the AI stuff. But if you really want to learn about that and hear about it. And the book that Kevin Roos wrote was what is the name of the book? I bought it on Apple Books. I don't know, but I think that the he told Ne Lai that like one of the I could headline ideas was like F that guy or something like that.

1:23:05 He could have made the title of the book F that guy. The book is called The AGI Chronicles, and I started listening Yes. to the audiobook by Kevin Roos. And I'm gonna link that in top five tech tomorrow. But if you really want to get into all of it, those podcasts are out there. They exist, if you wanna if you wanna do that.

1:23:21 Fall down that rabbit hole. All right, this is supposed to be lightning round, my bad. This is ~ Lightning Round Part 2, part dose. The Microsoft is offering buyouts to over 60,000 employees, and You it's either gonna be layoffs or get bought out, I think, is probably the word. But they also had like great earnings.

1:23:40 ~ profitability and revenue was up for Microsoft. So interesting times. I assume they're just trying to cut costs. AI. Is AI a part you think A AI a part of it? Like, sure. Yeah. It's hard to say. I mean, it might it's Microsoft, man, it's a big company. I I like sat down to I should write about this and I'm like this is the most boring set of layoffs I've ever even heard of 'cause I don't even know like what I don't even fully get what's happening here.

1:24:08 It's har yeah, it's hard to ascertain. ~ feel bad, you know, all the people that would be getting layoffs or taking buyouts, you know, sorry for for that. It's also seems to be a trend, just as the growing AI is AI efficacy of all these businesses, it's like what positions can be cut and so yeah. So that's Microsoft. And lastly, Amazon, while Apple is doing their wild touchscreen MacBook event, they threw out some new shows, Echo Shows. I don't know, you wrote an article, I'm gonna put your article in the show notes.

1:24:36 Can you tell me about the shows? Well, I didn't 'Cause I I didn't write an article yet about this, about Amazon stuff. I I will probably write an article, but they definitely like g Amazon has released almost as many well actually way more things this fall than even Apple has released this fall. They do the new Kindles and ~ yeah.

1:24:51 Yes, they did a whole event for that and then and it seems like I can't quite tell, you tell me. It seems like they had an event. didn't tell anyone and you weren't allowed to report at the event and then there was an abar an embargo on the event because everybody's stuff dropped at the same time, but I didn't feel like reading this.

1:25:10 It happened the same day that all the stuff came out. Am I crazy? It was weird. I the one again, I just saw like the The Verge cover it and then I saw Quinn Nelson, big YouTuber, love his stuff. He had Snazzy Labs. Snazzy Labs. He had like a partnership reel with the Amazon stuff and he was just talking about all the Amazon stuff.

1:25:28 And I'm like, this is the most bizarre like I don't know if Amazon was like, We want to pay a few influencers a ton of money to post this while Apple is posting their stuff because I don't know. Yeah. Well, but Like it was it was strange. It was strange. the one thing they did so Pan Panospinae's thing is like AI is great everywhere except for in the home.

1:25:48 Which I think you could argue argue that's probably true. Sure. Sure, sure. And so they released an Echo Studio, which is their high end speaker. Like it meant it's meant to compete with a home pod, Yeah. Right. Right. but now there's like a camera in it, which I mean every speaker should just have a camera in it, of course. I mean, that's obvious.

1:26:04 But I'm kidding. But the point is Yes, yes. they want to be able to essentially know everything that's happening in your house because that way you could walk up to and be like, which we need more of this cereal because of course the Amazon everything's about shopping. So you can just hold up the box of cereal.

1:26:18 In the past the only things with camera were the things that have screens. But now you're gonna have these really nice speakers sitting somewhere and they have a camera in them. I just think that feels weird. You think the Echo Studio speakers have Yeah. a camera? The Echo Studio speaker. Now you're just looking at a thing about the Echo Show.

1:26:36 I look at what they got show. You gotta look at the thing about the Echo Studio. I don't want a camera in my speaker. Yeah, y Jay Peters wrote this for The Verge. I'll I gotta slack it to you so that you can be up to n up to speed, but yeah. I'm sorry. Well I'm not we're not in a Slack, so I'm not sure who you're sending it to.

1:26:49 I see. I'm gonna text it to you. I don't know why I said slack. That's just what the I yes, I got podcasters say. They just say th we all slack that over to you right now. I yeah. I got your s I got your Slack by I message. I got it here. Yeah, I just have this Claude'll take care of it. It's fine. Claude, find that Slack message I just sent Steven and send it to him via Yeah, Claude Duet. Send this, send this.

1:27:04 Yeah, yeah, yeah, got it. messages. New Echo Studio has it. Yeah, don't like that at all. No. Yeah. And then they do have like No thanks. a echo sleep. It's like basically one of their or echo clock or something. It's basically an echo dot with you know they did the one with the LEDs in it. Now they Yeah.

1:27:21 just did one the whole face is a clock. And you can get a kid's version, of course, because everything has to have a kid's version and it has fun faces on it and it's just a clock. Here's the thing. I want to care, but I will just point to the Verge's most popular top five articles in the right-hand sidebar. Number one, Apple's Touchscreen MacBook Pro.

1:27:39 Number two, Apple's Pro Intel Event. Number three, Touchscreen MacBook Pro. Number four, touchscreen MacBook Pro. Number five, iPad Mini. Even the iPad Mini is still two, three days later, more popular than whatever Amazon is doing over here. Listen, I bought an Echo Show to compare to the home view whenever I get to review the home view.

1:27:59 So I will I will have thoughts come then, but yeah, okay, camera and a speaker. Sure. Yeah, they want to know what's going on in your house. Yeah, that d don't. Now, if you can look at my paper towels and just order some when I'm low, maybe that. Yeah, I don't think I want it to do that. I think if I maybe not.

1:28:15 I think to hold up a box of cereal and say we need more Cheerios is maybe fine. But you know what I never do? I never order Cheerios from Amazon. Right? I just go to Kroger No, I don't know what she is. and we just buy the Cheerios. It's fine. That's it that's it. ~ yeah. Yeah. Do you remember the Amazon dash buttons?

1:28:32 Yes, that was insane. Did you? I had like four of ~ A, they never worked. Like it the The problem is if they do work, your toddler gets a hold of them and suddenly the Amazon guy brings four hundred and fifty boxes of toilet paper. A pallet of toilet paper. You thought the reason no one could buy toilet paper in twenty twenty is because of COVID, but it was really because these buttons were out there No, no, no, it's Dash. That was it.

1:28:51 in the wild. They're they're all at one guy's house. They were if you didn't remember the Amazon the Amazon Dash button, they were a single button attached to a single product that when you click it, it would just order it. The problem is you can search for like Angel Soft toilet paper and there's like a thousand products. Sometimes it's Angel toilet paper, but it's out of stock. Sometimes it's a slightly different version, like ~ but it's in stock. And so having it attached to a single product like just didn't work. So they don't do that anymore.

1:29:15 But anyway. All right. Personal tech. Right before we started recording, I got the email that I'm off the wait list and I'm all into Claude Duet. First of all, I know you've been using it for several days. Is there a Mac app or do I just have to it's on the web. It's on the web. It's there is no Mac app.

1:29:31 Okay. So Claude Duet is the Muse type agent that Anthropic has launched. It is in preview right now. You have to join the wait list if you want to get access. ~ Jason got access a few days ago. I just got access today. And I'm already trying to tell it to do stuff. you know, I still have to spend some time with it.

1:29:49 But you tell me about Claude Duet. What has been your experience? Yeah, it's great. It's very different than Muse. ~ it is it is less capable in some ways, but that's I think a good thing. ~ so for ex So It's not sucking up your DMs. for example, I t think I was telling you in the pre show about this change that Delta made to no longer let you text them.

1:30:11 They're making you go through the app. Yes. So I was like, Hey, why don't you figure the story out for me? I want to know when it happened. So like did a bunch of research, found Reddit posts, found some other site that had talked about this, whatever, whatever. I'm just like, but I can't confirm that it actually happened.

1:30:25 I was like, hang on, here's a screenshot of the message I just got when I tried to text it and that's how I know that this happened. And it's like, cool. Conf confirmed. I can't add this to the document that I already created. And I'm like, is it too hard? Like are your fingers tired? I don't understand why. As I said, why? It's like I don't actually know why.

1:30:45 I'm just not able to edit that document. It's like weird. At least it admitted at least it admitted. Yeah. At least it didn't give me some complicated reason of why it can, Sure, sir. but it just was like, I don't know. It's just I'm not allowed to do that. It's like, okay, fine. But separately I was editing something and it it just was like, hey, so and so sent you a Slack message.

1:31:06 They're waiting for your edits on this. I I noticed that this is incorrect based on this thing and this and this. Do you want me to just make suggested edits? I was like, YOLO, just do it. Like, go ahead. Just add stuff. I don't care. Go for it. Yeah, sure. Just do I'm just saying yes to everything, Steven, with Claude Duet because And so and then I was like, ~ but but then it also gets a little bit confused because like I'm going to the Vegas Grand Prix, spoiler alert, and so I needed I got my media credentials, ~ okay. Excuse me?

1:31:31 so I needed to get my flight for that. I also got emails within like a day of that, that I also got my media credentials for both Abu Dhabi and ~ Qatar Grand Prix. I'm probably not gonna go to those because they're I was gonna say you can they're far away, all far they're real far away. they are far away.

1:31:49 And they're and then we'll see what December looks like. But so it was like, Hey, you have a call today about this, and they want to know also if you would be willing to moderate this panel at Web Summit for the same person. Do you want me to go ahead and book those flights for Vegas? I'm like, Vegas is not in, you know, that's not Web Summit. That's the Grand That's not web submit, yeah.

1:32:13 Prix. Right. Also the web summit thing is different than the call, even though they happen to involve the same person. I was like so I just respond, I'm like, You're confused. And it's like, hang on, tell me tell me why. So I did. I explained it and it's like, okay, these are not the same three things.

1:32:28 I get it. But so like there was enough proximity to the things. They're both happening in November. This call is happening about this other Right. thing that it was kind of confused about everything that was going on. So it's it's sort of like a toddler version of Muse where Muse is like ~ what's the scene in Teledega nights where the kids all hopped up on Mountain Dew, right? Like that's Muse, right?

1:32:45 That's me. Yeah, yeah. Where Claude is like a sophisticated toddler that's not quite capable of tying its own shoes yet, but knows that it shouldn't leave the house without shoes because it might scuff its feet. ~ That's good. That's good. So I like it. ~ it is on the iPhone, it is on the web. It does do a weird thing, Steven, Right. ~ Okay.

1:33:02 in in Chrome. And I think this is a ~ an iCloud passwords ~ extension problem. Every time I type something on the web to Claude Duet, passwords, the app just opens. Which, by the way, super disconcerting when but it has nothing Yeah. to do. I don't like it's not trying to get a password. It's just there's some in interaction where that text field must sort of prompt the iCloud passwords thing.

1:33:30 It must be like a secure input field. There's some weird thing happening there. Yeah. So on my MacBook Air, I just turned off that. website in iCloud Passwords. I'm like, you can never give this thing p like I don't even want you to ask. No. Actually, Yeah, yeah. no, I'm sorry. That didn't work. The way I solved this problem is now I'm only using it in Safari.

1:33:47 Because in Safari it wasn't causing this problem. Okay. It was gonna okay, okay. So it's clearly a chloma chrome extension problem. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, I think it's great. I have you can create different areas. So I have like Okay. a one f for various different things and you can just chat at it like in the in the whole thing and it will create you little Tasks and it'll be Are you done?

1:34:07 Do you want me to mark this as done? But it was easier for me to just conceptually have these three sections, right? It's like, okay, podcast stuff, column stuff, whatever. ~ Yeah, yeah. so I like it. I think it's great. I would never let it I wouldn't install a Mac app for it even if I wanted to, but I can ask it stuff about my clock conversations, right? It has all Right, which is nice. Yeah.

1:34:28 that context. ~ it ~ it's been super useful. I don't, I didn't I did end up booking the flights that I needed to. I did not ask it to do that because it wasn't Delta's website blocks it. Stupid. ~ Yeah, yeah, yeah. and so I wanted to book it through Google Flights. And I'm like, no, I don't want you to do that because I want it booked in the in the Delta app. I want whatever, whatever. So there's Mm.

1:34:53 some limitations and I will probably use it for more things. But seriously, it keeps suggesting like, hey, ~ I suggest this and I'm just like, yeah, do it. Yeah, whatever. Like let's just see what happens. That's it. So I'm I'm in the midst of doing that as well. So I just I just started it up, you know, this morning, downloaded the app.

1:35:13 I had a task of Muse r aggregating any mentions or embeds of my videos on websites because I was curious. And so I'm now having Claude Duet do that. And it already gave me the first report and it was actually found more than Muse for what that's worth. it was like this French website embedded your post.

1:35:34 It was like ~ okay, cool. All right, that's fun. ~ but because Claude already had access to my fastmail through Cloud Cowork, I set that up like months ago. I this is actually really nice. I had reached out to a sponsor just this morning. I was like, Hey, you guys gonna pay me sometime? And and apparently I just checked I just opened Claude Duet the app now and it was like, Yeah, they say the payment is coming before October thirtieth.

1:36:03 Which would be today, so we'll see. ~ but and Claude Duett said, the email skipped your inbox and landed in newsletters, which I have an email filter that sends any emails with the words unsubscribe or manage my preferences into this folder. And so sometimes emails get caught there. And I check it periodically. But Claude Duet is like, Well, the reply skipped your inbox and landed in newsletter, so the confirmation might end up there.

1:36:28 That's cool. Also Something's coming today via FedEx and you need someone at home to sign for it. Like that kind of stuff in my email. I might stop going through my folders that have hundreds of emails a day looking just in case for sponsors. I'll have Claude Duet do that. And that seems useful to me. I'm excited Well, to try that.

1:36:48 and it does some interesting things where well okay, one drawback to it, which I understand why this is the case and I will explain that in a second. But so I asked it, hey, I think Apple's gonna drop a video, presumably about Touch MacBook Pros, probably at one PM Eastern. Will you just let me know?

1:37:06 Now I was watching anyway, in this case, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, right. it said, So here's the deal. I can't watch constantly, but I will set up a schedule to check it at one one. 110, 130, 215, or something like that. Nice. Okay, great. Now, it doesn't watch things constantly. And the reason is, unlike Muse, it does not have its own dedicated box in the cloud.

1:37:28 Right. It does have access to a VM, but when it's done with the task, it just recycles that through. And they so they have way fewer of these VMs and we're like Right. Meta's just like, whatever, we got money. Just give everybody a Linux box in the cloud. It's fine, right? Right, right, right. So it isn't gonna be good for something where you have to have constant watching of something where Muse does that.

1:37:50 ~ but it will just set up a schedule for itself. And and I was able to say, well, first it said, I'll check it at 103. I said, could you check it closer to one? And it was like, Do you want me to check it at one? I said, Well, no, because if it drops at one in one second, you're not you're gonna miss it, right? If it checks it right at one, but the per the intern Right, right, right, right.

1:38:08 at Apple doesn't push publish on the YouTube video, you're not gonna get it. Yeah. Right, right, right. So it's like, what about one two or something like that? I like, Yeah, that's perfect. But anyway, That's pretty good. Yeah. it's good. It just doesn't do real time stuff like that. So also Right. if you were like, Could you watch for my flight?

1:38:22 if the flight price goes down, I wanna get a refund, you know, price difference or something, yeah, yeah. it has to set up a schedule. It's like, Do you want to check that once a day? Should I check on more than that? I'm like, I want to check it every fifteen minutes for eternity. No, I'm just kidding. It's like it's so Yeah, exactly.

1:38:35 anyway. That's cool. Well, I'm I'm excited to try it. I'm hoping it will ~ f I don't know, relieve some of my email stuff. And I'm also it's it's been blowing my mind kind of what Claude is capable of. I'm gonna save it for the bonus episode because this this has genuinely blown my mind. I got this from David Sparks and it is it's wild.

1:38:54 So anyway, we're gonna go record a bonus episode. I want to talk about my trip to the Apple store and w some other stuff Claude is doing for me. so if you want to hear the bonus episode. Get an after-free version of this show. Get the unedited feed, which I'm sure is well over two hours this week. And you get all the things. You can subscribe, support us with the link down in the show notes.

1:39:12 We would appreciate your support there. Subscribe to us on YouTube. You can watch us there. You can watch us in Apple Podcasts. And leave us a five star rating and review in Apple Podcasts. Let us know what hand you use your phone in, what pocket do you put it in, and are you left handed or right-handed?

1:39:23 That's what we want to know. So we're going to go record a bonus episode. Thanks everybody for tuning in. Thanks for listening and watching. We'll catch you next time.