Speaker 1: Al Zome Media.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host ed Zittron,
Speaker 2: otherwise known today as Woke Joe Rogan. Good. We are
Speaker 2: live kind of from the iHeartRadio studios in New York. Today.
Speaker 2: I am joyed by mister Mobile himself, Michael Fisher, and
Speaker 2: of course Alex Krantz from The Verge.
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming, thanks for having to be here,
Speaker 1: Thanks for having us.
Speaker 2: So today is about where the magic's gone in tech.
Speaker 2: Got two great tech journalists with me and I myself
Speaker 2: have done some writing on tech, I guess and the
Speaker 2: Big Thing. And this kind of started actually from a
Speaker 2: conversation between you and me, Michael, where it was about
Speaker 2: kind of like what are we even looking at in
Speaker 2: tech anymore? Why things aren't fun? Like what like it
Speaker 2: feels like we've stopped getting the most fun thing I
Speaker 2: have found is I'm actually gonna pull it out in
Speaker 2: my pocket and there's no video, so you're never gonna know.
Speaker 2: Like this anchor charge, it's like thirty bugs. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's a sick no. Like battery packs are cool, but
Speaker 2: otherwise everything that comes out that's meant to be exciting,
Speaker 2: like the Humane pin and the Rabbit are one which
Speaker 2: obviously we're bad from the beginning. Sorry anyone who thought otherwise,
Speaker 2: you were wrong, And like the Daylight tablet, which will
Speaker 2: get to of course, these things just have turned out
Speaker 2: to be just not even fun, not you can be
Speaker 2: kind of shitty, but fun, like there's something you can
Speaker 2: look at. Even some of the great tech failures, like
Speaker 2: that weird frame that you could upload things to from
Speaker 2: like twenty to fifteen, like a few of these weird
Speaker 2: Indiegogo things, there was a cute weirdness to it, but
Speaker 2: now it's just almost just nothing.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of reasons for that.
Speaker 4: There are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like there are like a lot of
Speaker 1: compounding problems that have like that have deposited us here today.
Speaker 1: But I will say that I think that there are
Speaker 1: some of those examples you gave are still could have
Speaker 1: been fun. I think I think Rabbit is still trying
Speaker 1: to like salvage the situation and make it, say any work.
Speaker 1: But I mean, and I think you know, it took
Speaker 1: it took a giant swing, which was this this thing
Speaker 1: that we've learned I think you shouldn't do at this point,
Speaker 1: which is try to replace the smartphone call the smartphone
Speaker 1: the enemy and say we're going to replace it with
Speaker 1: this wearable thing. And when you deliver a product that's
Speaker 1: so undercooked, I think that's the problem, Like when I
Speaker 1: undercook can't even get there.
Speaker 3: And I think also just everybody's in this big quest
Speaker 3: to beat the smartphone, right, Like everybody wants to make
Speaker 3: the next smartphone so they can make all the money
Speaker 3: the way Apple did, and what is it? And so
Speaker 3: they're all like, throw it at the wall? Is this it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Even like you, I mean, I think you're right when
Speaker 3: you say, like the rabbit and you look at these
Speaker 3: AI devices and stuff where there feels like there's sort
Speaker 3: of a mus cynicism. Yeah, to these products where you're like, oh,
Speaker 3: you're just out here to make money. There's not like
Speaker 3: something fun and exciting here. Like the Daylight Computer is
Speaker 3: a good example. They're like, yeah, we're going to you know,
Speaker 3: make computing black and.
Speaker 2: White, just just for the listeners. You might not know
Speaker 2: about it. Can you describe the day loge?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Daylight Computer.
Speaker 1: You just reviewed it, right, Yeah, I just came off
Speaker 1: the back of it. Yeah. It's like I think I
Speaker 1: called it an ordinary Android tablet with an extraordinary display,
Speaker 1: because the special thing about it is the display. And
Speaker 1: David Pierce said, you know, yeah, like he thinks, uh,
Speaker 1: this is this is a display company. This isn't necessarily
Speaker 1: a consumer product.
Speaker 2: But what is it though?
Speaker 3: It's like an LCD display that only does black and white.
Speaker 1: Correct, And the special thing is that it has a
Speaker 1: fast refresh rate that makes it very smooth. So when
Speaker 1: you're manipulating it, it's like using a black It's like
Speaker 1: using an iPad from the Fallout world, yeah right, where
Speaker 1: it's also is Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like using an e ink Android tablet
Speaker 3: if the e ink could go fast, right.
Speaker 2: That's why I was excited about it. So what's bad
Speaker 2: about it?
Speaker 3: I mean the problem for me, fundamentally, I've used a
Speaker 3: lot of Android e Ink tablets. I'm a nerd about
Speaker 3: these things, and fundamentally the problem is they're built for
Speaker 3: black and white, which is cool. The Internet isn't. Oh
Speaker 3: so you're like, Okay, I'm going to download this app,
Speaker 3: I can't see any of the buttons.
Speaker 2: Cool, So they just did not prepare for people use
Speaker 2: the device.
Speaker 3: You can like, I mean.
Speaker 1: That's true of the of those e readers. No, that
Speaker 1: that is true, but I think daylight. Like to their credit,
Speaker 1: they have come out and said, look, we don't want color.
Speaker 1: You know, it's this very granola very like if you
Speaker 1: watch the coverage of the.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen I've seen the Instagram ads.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and like that is their pitch, that is
Speaker 1: their whole thing is like, your screen is too colorful
Speaker 1: and too addictive, and you should you should be able
Speaker 1: to use your tablet outside in in daylight, and it
Speaker 1: should function as you expect. You should be able to
Speaker 1: do whatever you want. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: ideally you're not, as you know, drawn into this vortex
Speaker 1: of of of TikTok end list feeds because you know,
Speaker 1: you don't want to watch YouTube on it. You do
Speaker 1: someone the reading delivery, right, which which is a whole
Speaker 1: industry now, isn't it right?
Speaker 3: Like the light phone is another example where people are
Speaker 3: just like, what if we took all the cool capabilities
Speaker 3: of your phone and then like turned off a bunch
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen the ads for that, that weird phone
Speaker 2: where it's like, oh, we we block out all the
Speaker 2: things you use your phone for, so the thing that
Speaker 2: you wouldn't use your phone. It's just very confusing, and
Speaker 2: I love posting. I love looking at my phone ninety
Speaker 2: two hours a way.
Speaker 3: You are an online.
Speaker 2: I will die if I don't go online. But also
Speaker 2: it doesn't feel like any of these companies. Same thing
Speaker 2: with Rabbit, same thing with Daylight. It doesn't feel like
Speaker 2: they've actually talked to a person, like an actual person,
Speaker 2: like a normal person, someone who uses Facebook and Instagram
Speaker 2: to talk to their friends or get a I spam
Speaker 2: and someone who has like a regular job, someone who
Speaker 2: isn't in tech at all, and just said what do
Speaker 2: you think? And then when that person said, I don't know,
Speaker 2: why do I have this? What do I do? They
Speaker 2: should have gone, oh shit, I shouldn't have released it.
Speaker 2: But it doesn't. It doesn't feel what Rabbit I think
Speaker 2: is a separate thing because I think they're fully cynical.
Speaker 2: I think that they just.
Speaker 1: Don't give a shit. It has to be held out separately.
Speaker 2: Out Daylight. It almost feels like they just focus the
Speaker 2: simple people who chose to Well, but you were you
Speaker 2: said there was there was something cynical about it, So yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean I think for me, like I said, I've
Speaker 3: used a lot of similar tablets to this. So when
Speaker 3: they reached out and were like, hey, we have this device.
Speaker 3: It's it's electronic paper. And they're very careful of saying
Speaker 3: electronic paper, not eat ink, because that's like an actual
Speaker 3: branded thing and eat ink will descend from the heavens
Speaker 3: to just slap you down if you use it inappropriately.
Speaker 3: And they said they're eat ink, and they they said
Speaker 3: they were electronic paper, really cool refresh rate, and they
Speaker 3: wanted to like do this whole daylight thing and the
Speaker 3: warm light stuff, and I thought all of it. I
Speaker 3: think the warm light stuff is very unproven science. That
Speaker 3: is just what is where It's like, the idea is
Speaker 3: if you look at an orange light before you go
Speaker 3: to bed, that'll make you sleepy. Blue light wakes you
Speaker 3: up and makes you just wasn't the case.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was bad timing for daylight for sure because
Speaker 1: required came out with that thing. It's like, yeah, like,
Speaker 1: all these studies are not conclusive and also some new
Speaker 1: ones have proven very cool. Yeah, It's just.
Speaker 3: Like and so that's also right, it's eight hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: That's the problem for me. So here's the thing I
Speaker 1: don't think the CEO is I had some time to
Speaker 1: talk to the CEO and I in a vacuum in absentia.
Speaker 1: I kind of was like, this guy's got to be
Speaker 1: a Charlatan, right, he's got to be gone for a
Speaker 1: cash grab.
Speaker 2: What he is?
Speaker 1: What my takeaway was is that no, he's he's a
Speaker 1: he's a display nerd who really cares about making this
Speaker 1: particular kind.
Speaker 2: Of display tex.
Speaker 1: He looks and the display is cool, and they like,
Speaker 1: they didn't take an off the shelf component from Sharp,
Speaker 1: which I also thought, and stuff it into a white
Speaker 1: label Android tablet, which is what I thought they did.
Speaker 3: Like this is that it's Android, but the hardware is
Speaker 3: they built?
Speaker 2: But did they make an effort with the software?
Speaker 1: Yeah? The thing is that the devices they see that
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's early. And this is the thing
Speaker 1: we complain about with almost every product where it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: well this is just Niagara Lundren top of Android. But
Speaker 1: we have all these ideas. I'm like, great delivery ideas
Speaker 1: before I have a press like, aren't you It's very frustrating.
Speaker 2: I wish I could do that with the bank. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I've got the money this month, However, right I will
Speaker 2: one day and I'll have lots of it. Well, I
Speaker 2: mean that's how I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: That's it called a credit card. And then the understanding is, okay,
Speaker 3: you have to pay extra because you borrowed it. Whereas
Speaker 3: these companies are like, hey, give us your money. We're
Speaker 3: gonna give you a product. It's not going to be
Speaker 3: a good product, but if you just wait, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 3: you can pay me bad product, pay me to wait,
Speaker 3: pay me to wait, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think the uncertain thing for me is like, it's
Speaker 1: the price. The thing that for Daylight, if Daylight was
Speaker 1: down at at you know, two hundred and three hundred bucks,
Speaker 1: three hundred four hundred, put that in a premium and
Speaker 1: I'm like, look, okay, it's an intentional product for a
Speaker 1: very specific market and and that's that's great. So I
Speaker 1: hit them on that a lot. I was like, you've
Speaker 1: got to make me understand why this is seven hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty nine dollars and to hear them tell it,
Speaker 1: it's the work that went into the display, plus the
Speaker 1: tiny you know, minimum water quantities they have to they
Speaker 1: have to hit.
Speaker 3: So it's like so it's basically, bitch, you gotta eat.
Speaker 1: No. No, it's like to make it, maybe gonna make
Speaker 1: a big margin on each tablet. That's the thing they're
Speaker 1: like they are No, I assume that at least with
Speaker 1: that from the factory.
Speaker 3: They just put in a lot of effort. And these
Speaker 3: things are much more expensive to make than they have,
Speaker 3: which one.
Speaker 1: I can see that side of it now, Like I'm
Speaker 1: on clicked, like I've gotten some experience with that, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, I get it. I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's true. I'm not. I don't know enough to know. No,
Speaker 1: eight hundred dollars, Yeah, that's right. Yeah, today the click
Speaker 1: i phone is now a thousand dollars accessory.
Speaker 2: Listeners at home. So Michael is using this case on
Speaker 2: his on his iPhone. It's called a click size. It
Speaker 2: is clicks for iPhone phone and this allows you to
Speaker 2: type with your with your figure a nice click.
Speaker 3: To it, got a little keyboard.
Speaker 2: What does that cost?
Speaker 1: This is one twenty nine or excuse me, one thirty
Speaker 1: nine or one like it? I do like it. And
Speaker 1: I'm not just saying that because I am I so founder.
Speaker 1: I'm very biased.
Speaker 2: You can't trust me, God damn it. So the thing
Speaker 2: is with something like that is it actually feels useful
Speaker 2: because people type stuff on their phone. Sometimes I'm just
Speaker 2: like fucking around with that. Actually that's the word thing,
Speaker 2: it's they feel like less fun things to fuck around
Speaker 2: with these days, and that's something even like CS for
Speaker 2: years has been like this. Everything. I'm sure next year
Speaker 2: is just gonna be all AI again, but even the
Speaker 2: years before it felt like they were less fun things.
Speaker 2: There's the kind of exterior ring of security camera, toilet
Speaker 2: light and dildo companies or from China, and they're raasally
Speaker 2: they're called like the Shengzong Chang zong Dong romance company
Speaker 2: and they sell eleven different products, many batteries, and they're
Speaker 2: all the very nice people. Then you've got like the
Speaker 2: cat litter company that always turns up. You've got the
Speaker 2: Wi Fi grail company that always turns in, that one
Speaker 2: folding machine, the one folding machine that will never launch.
Speaker 2: But even then the folding machine are kind of like that.
Speaker 2: It's like a folksy dumb product that will never launch.
Speaker 2: But otherwise it's like where's the magic, Like when was
Speaker 2: the last time we had something fun?
Speaker 3: Even I mean, i CES is a weird one because
Speaker 3: it is so I think most of the people coming
Speaker 3: there are coming to sell things in American markets, right,
Speaker 3: and if you don't need that, if you sell online,
Speaker 3: you don't necessarily need to go to cees and have
Speaker 3: that big presence. Because you don't. You can just sell
Speaker 3: directly to the consumer. You can just skip it. And
Speaker 3: we see that with stuff like like the stuff I'm
Speaker 3: really into right now is I in Ao I think
Speaker 3: is how you say it, which is like a gaming console.
Speaker 1: It looks like a giant sidekick, right, yeah.
Speaker 3: About one. It's called the I in Ao. It's a
Speaker 3: y A n eo. I'm absolutely malacring the name A
Speaker 3: y A n eo. The flip ds and this thing
Speaker 3: is the dumbest, most fun thing I've used in a while.
Speaker 3: It's like a steam Deck. But if the steam Deck
Speaker 3: ran on Windows and therefore sucked.
Speaker 2: Two screens, why do you enjoy it?
Speaker 3: I think I like it because it's different. It's doing
Speaker 3: something new, and there's like like, Okay, the software is garbage,
Speaker 3: but that's kind of their fault because it's hard to
Speaker 3: do software, and like you shouldn't launch things with garbage software.
Speaker 3: Steam Deck it's fine, but it's also cool because like
Speaker 3: there's like it's just got a good display. There's like
Speaker 3: a really good thought behind it, and it's like, you
Speaker 3: know what, there's gonna be people who really really like
Speaker 3: this thing and are going to have fun with it,
Speaker 3: and it's mainly gonna be nerds who want to play
Speaker 3: Nintendo DS ROMs. Yeah, and I'm like, yes, cool, I want.
Speaker 2: That feels like the first weird thing I've heard of
Speaker 2: in it while other than like the Rabbit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think the ones that become a success
Speaker 1: are like almost unavoidably not as weird. Like the thing
Speaker 1: that jumps to my mind was, what's the last time
Speaker 1: I was really impressed by something that I kept after
Speaker 1: the review period or bought after the review period. It
Speaker 1: was the Meta ray bands. It's like, wow, oh my god.
Speaker 1: They stuff really good speakers yeah, and a really and
Speaker 1: a pretty good camera into sunglasses and a bunch of
Speaker 1: AI stuff that you really shouldn't talk about, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like it's it's a really great accessory I've heard good.
Speaker 3: Thing because they just they just work like on the
Speaker 3: train a lot, yeah, and it just sounds good and
Speaker 3: like everybody in the train car gets to listen to
Speaker 3: my music with me. But then I sound really good
Speaker 3: on phone call, so I don't.
Speaker 2: Care how you can use some vocals. Yeah, so that's
Speaker 2: vergin on useful.
Speaker 3: It is absolutely extremely useful. Except for Meta.
Speaker 2: They make that.
Speaker 3: They made it because they have like Meta has this
Speaker 3: big vision for AR and VR, right, so they have
Speaker 3: they have the whole the quest and all of that junk,
Speaker 3: and then they were like, well, we need to do
Speaker 3: AR stuff and we need to start normalizing what AR
Speaker 3: is going to look like. So we're going to start with.
Speaker 2: These glasses so you can't see anything in them, you can't.
Speaker 3: Know and so it's all audio. Bos was doing this
Speaker 3: a couple of years ago. There's a few people who
Speaker 3: have done this, and it's like, you know, when BOS
Speaker 3: did it was a stupid concept and even the first
Speaker 3: set of ray bands were really stupid. And then this
Speaker 3: time the quality was just good enough where you're like, okay,
Speaker 3: I get it now. How much of those they're like
Speaker 3: two fifty or something?
Speaker 1: Oh god, yeah, between two and three hundred and something.
Speaker 3: They're fairly. It's one of those things where you're like,
Speaker 3: I just got paid, I don't got any bills, do
Speaker 3: anytime soon, Let's do.
Speaker 1: This, And they actually accomplished something that like a lot
Speaker 1: of these AI companies that we've touched on earlier, have
Speaker 1: tried to do and sort of failed to do, which
Speaker 1: is get you out of your phone. So for me,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, I'm a stupid influencer videot like
Speaker 1: thirty percent of the time it's just bad. But like
Speaker 1: I'm firing up the camera, right, That's why I got
Speaker 1: my phone out, just to use the camera for something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and when you have a camera built into your glasses,
Speaker 1: you can just literally hit a button on it.
Speaker 2: And how the lens that you're looking at, well the
Speaker 2: human and I is thirty five millimere right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have no I don't know what. I don't
Speaker 1: remember what the spect what the perspective is.
Speaker 3: Like, it's weird because it's off because.
Speaker 2: Of New York Times. He does lovely videos of him
Speaker 2: cooking using them. Oh Tony, he's got his berman's mount
Speaker 2: and dog. But Bruno love Yeah, and he'll be like
Speaker 2: talking to Bruno and like making stuff. He's got his name.
Speaker 2: That's fun. I actually really enjoy that stuff. It feels
Speaker 2: bad the meta is doing it though, like the idea,
Speaker 2: but also how it feels also weird that meta made
Speaker 2: something good. I'm just very confused because all right. The
Speaker 2: VR stuff with Quest, I know we're like ment to
Speaker 2: like most people like, oh Quest is good. It isn't good.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. Casey, my very close friend,
Speaker 2: Casey's gonna hear it's gonna get pissed off and get
Speaker 2: a signal message the Quest's fine. But even the new one,
Speaker 2: I still get sick. Yeah, I still feel weird. It
Speaker 2: still doesn't go on my face.
Speaker 3: Right. That's why they did the glasses is because they
Speaker 3: know there's there's.
Speaker 2: Kind of glasses.
Speaker 3: I'm coming back to the glasses because they like they
Speaker 3: did they did these headsets and everybody was like, oh wait,
Speaker 3: this is not the future for AR and VR. People
Speaker 3: look stupid. Like I saw my nephew come Like one day,
Speaker 3: I went over and I'm visiting. I'm saying hi to everybody.
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, where is he And they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: he's upstairs. And I go upstairs and there's just a
Speaker 3: little kid all alone in a room, like wagging the
Speaker 3: sticks around. And that's the dumbest thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 3: Like I wanted to give like I wanted to give
Speaker 3: him a wedgie, right, And I'm like, that's that's a
Speaker 3: bad response. For an aunt, just like put my hand
Speaker 3: in my pocket and walk away. And and but that's
Speaker 3: the way it is for everybody. And so they're like, Okay,
Speaker 3: we got to do these glasses because if we do
Speaker 3: these glasses, then that won't be as dumb and stupid looking.
Speaker 1: And I should just give a shout out to a
Speaker 1: company that not a lot of people remember, and I
Speaker 1: bet you do, but we remember Focals by North.
Speaker 2: I wonder the name. I don't remember what they did.
Speaker 1: They shipped a pair of glasses that were very like
Speaker 1: they were a little chunk here. They were obviously something
Speaker 1: a little a little off about these glasses. Horrible display,
Speaker 1: but no, but they had a display, and when you
Speaker 1: put them on your face, all of a sudden, what
Speaker 1: materialized in your vision was a little trom like heads
Speaker 1: up display and you could see your text messages from
Speaker 1: your phone. You could get drive driving directions, term by
Speaker 1: turn directions, little points of interest things, and it was
Speaker 1: like it was appearing in your eyeball. Of course, it
Speaker 1: was very strange because when you're talking to somebody you'd
Speaker 1: see it. They'd look kind of above your eyebrow, and
Speaker 1: then you'd be like, are you are you checking your
Speaker 1: messages while.
Speaker 2: I'm talking to you.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, that's where you get the sunglass version, right.
Speaker 1: But like, this was a great idea. The technology was
Speaker 1: very fascinating, and then, as often happens, they were purchased
Speaker 1: by Google, and Google either mismanaged it or killed it, and.
Speaker 2: It killed it probably both.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just brutal, I mean, and that was the
Speaker 1: last time I felt like we were on the cusp
Speaker 1: of maybe the next chapter of Personal Mobile Computer.
Speaker 2: I yeah, Google Glass look cool. I never got to
Speaker 2: play with it. And I think Robert Scobel has done
Speaker 2: a lot of bad things, But that weird picture of
Speaker 2: him in the shower I genuinely of the show. So
Speaker 2: list there's a really disgusting fellow called Robert Scobull, famous
Speaker 2: for reasons I'm not actually sure. He kisses up to
Speaker 2: Elon Musk now wants to marry his tesla. I believe
Speaker 2: I haven't really checked that fact and its opinions, so
Speaker 2: you can't sue me. So Robert Scobel took a picture
Speaker 2: wearing his Google Glass while what looks like screaming in
Speaker 2: the shower, and I mean, just.
Speaker 3: A lot of people talked about that photo.
Speaker 2: It was very the inverse of pornography. But that moment
Speaker 2: was really unfortunate because Google Glass was too expensive and
Speaker 2: all that, and I don't think anyone should have ever
Speaker 2: looked at it as the future arriving that day. But
Speaker 2: the idea of a heads up displays cool. I think
Speaker 2: heads up displays a cool think. Yeah, I don't agree
Speaker 2: with thee. We need to get away from our phone's thing.
Speaker 2: What we need is better society so that it's worth
Speaker 2: looking away. Sam, that's the actual This is an escapism.
Speaker 2: We made a tool to escape from the world. It
Speaker 2: rules kind of ripping off Paris marks from tech one
Speaker 2: save us there. He made a similar point about the
Speaker 2: vision pro to distract us from real life, which is
Speaker 2: a bit much, but he's not totally off Boom. It's
Speaker 2: weird like heads up displays feel like a future. I
Speaker 2: don't know if it's the big capital T, but that's
Speaker 2: a way that they could be useful while getting us
Speaker 2: away from constantly staring. Because there are times where I'd
Speaker 2: like to walk through New York City and just listen
Speaker 2: to music but also know where I'm going because I
Speaker 2: don't ever and heads up display would be good. But
Speaker 2: it's almost like they shouldn't be trying for fifteen years,
Speaker 2: that they need to get to a completely different level
Speaker 2: of chip plus display plus everything else and then do
Speaker 2: it really well.
Speaker 3: It's just because they are all so desperate to be
Speaker 3: the next iPhone hyper like, like I love you know,
Speaker 3: I think everybody in this room currently has an iPhone.
Speaker 3: They're they're they're very good devices. Yeah, and everybody wants
Speaker 3: to be the next one because then they get the
Speaker 3: thirty percent lock in they get. They just all just
Speaker 3: cultural cachet. Yeah, it just makes you the next big thing.
Speaker 3: And so Meta has been doing that. Google has been
Speaker 3: doing that poorly. Uh, Samsung, you know a lot of
Speaker 3: these people do it, and they all fail at it
Speaker 3: because the text is not there yet, right, Like glasses,
Speaker 3: You're not gonna get glasses until you have actually good displays.
Speaker 3: They can also pass.
Speaker 2: Through and can turn off and make way with you.
Speaker 3: And most importantly, that you don't look stupid wearing yes, Like,
Speaker 3: if I want to give you a widge Weggie, you've
Speaker 3: you've lost the plot. And I'm I'm liberal with the Wedgies.
Speaker 3: So actually it's like a fact room the urge.
Speaker 2: So with my song glasses on the entire time. You
Speaker 2: would have to know, but I would, Well, then there
Speaker 2: is half they take them off by the second pat.
Speaker 1: You gonna get some of the details of the flames on.
Speaker 3: Them, well guy Fieri moment.
Speaker 2: So it feels like augmented reality is at least where
Speaker 2: there could be fun now. Yeah, but it feels like
Speaker 2: it's not twenty seven twenty fifteen when they had that
Speaker 2: weird burst of them. It feels like they've all stepped
Speaker 2: back for it, which sucks because it feels like we
Speaker 2: actually need R and D money there.
Speaker 1: Ye, yes, because I feel like that's the thing. The
Speaker 1: point you were just making, Alex, is that the technology
Speaker 1: needs to catch up to the aspiration, right, And we've
Speaker 1: seen a lot of the stemo and again the most
Speaker 1: promising one got bought and killed. Yeah, and I've never
Speaker 1: seen anything get close.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think I think the ray bands are close,
Speaker 3: and they're planning apparently to put a lot more like
Speaker 3: invest a lot more there, right Like they just this
Speaker 3: week I think did a whole reorg the week we're
Speaker 3: recording this, did a whole reorg of this of the
Speaker 3: meta division. And so they're like Oculus, you go over
Speaker 3: here and you go over like an under an ad
Speaker 3: sales guy who I don't remember the name, and then
Speaker 3: the ray bands. They're like, Okay, this is like this
Speaker 3: is our focus. They've they've got plans for some glasses
Speaker 3: the next couple of years that are like much more involved.
Speaker 3: We've heard like Google bought Vocal and we haven't heard
Speaker 3: anything there and so it could be dead. But also
Speaker 3: like everybody's talking about AR right now, so it feels
Speaker 3: like maybe they're coming back.
Speaker 2: I think that. So I had an episode about this
Speaker 2: rock calm bubble. Yeah, well, I think what they're doing
Speaker 2: right now is freaking out because they don't have and
Speaker 2: they all want to be the next iPhone. But what
Speaker 2: they realize is there is no next iPhone right now. Yep,
Speaker 2: there is no next Google or Facebook or anything.
Speaker 3: So they're chasing AI.
Speaker 2: That's the chasing AI. But come on, come on.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, you've done a very good job
Speaker 1: in the past three weeks, so demonstrating on this very
Speaker 1: show why AI is not as exciting.
Speaker 2: But that's a good point to bring up.
Speaker 1: Though.
Speaker 2: How do you two feel about AI?
Speaker 1: Well, I feel I'll say this details with what you
Speaker 1: were just saying, I the company are not the only
Speaker 1: ones desperate for the next iPhone. I am desperate anytime again. Pierce,
Speaker 1: you know, wrote that little blurb about, you know, the
Speaker 1: season of AI gadgets is here before any of the
Speaker 1: Humane and Rabbit stuff came out, and I was like
Speaker 1: crossing my fingers as somebody who covers the stuff and
Speaker 1: as somebody who has loved the stuff for as long
Speaker 1: as I can remember. I love the excitement of new
Speaker 1: things coming out and introducing new possibilities, and I feel
Speaker 1: like the AI. I have an increasingly severe grudge against
Speaker 1: the AI bubble, the hype cycle for raising my hopes
Speaker 1: actually putting some pretty cool hardware in my head. Say
Speaker 1: what you want about the Humane payment. That hardware rocks
Speaker 1: and then absolutely cutting its legs out from under it
Speaker 1: because most of its functionality is based on an LLM
Speaker 1: that you can't trust because it tells you the sun
Speaker 1: is going to set forty minutes ago at eleven in
Speaker 1: the morning.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think like AI is. You know, I'm super
Speaker 3: excited about Apple Intelligence, mainly because I'm going to be
Speaker 3: able to make the best ship posts to send my
Speaker 3: friends because you can do image generation and it's hideous,
Speaker 3: it's terrible looking, and I'm so excited to just troll people.
Speaker 3: But otherwise, like you know, AI is one of those things,
Speaker 3: like we've built lying machines, and as far as large
Speaker 3: language models go, they're really bad at it, to the
Speaker 3: point where Tim Cook's like, well, I wouldn't say one
Speaker 3: hundred percent get it right, And I believe that's actually
Speaker 3: a bad thing you to say, dude. And everybody's saying
Speaker 3: that because they're like, don't worry about it, don't worry
Speaker 3: about it. I Meanwhile, the researchers are like, actually, language
Speaker 3: models aren't the thing. Don't you should worry about it.
Speaker 3: But everybody's like, but we can make money now, and
Speaker 3: so we can't well.
Speaker 2: Jenson Wong wang when he's not serving PC gamers like me.
Speaker 2: But that's the thing though, That's something he was saying
Speaker 2: that Michael was actually kind of the impetus of us
Speaker 2: being here today. Something in this show that people say,
Speaker 2: people say about me all the time is oh, you're
Speaker 2: just a pessimist, you and all this stuff. I love
Speaker 2: this shit. Do you know how excited I am when
Speaker 2: I get a new dumb gadget I can mess around.
Speaker 2: You've got a charger, I right here, anchor charger. I'm
Speaker 2: so excited. I got two, so I've got redundancy. So
Speaker 2: happy with that stuff. I love my little gizmos and gadgets.
Speaker 2: I love this stuff, and I haven't really had anything
Speaker 2: to The steam deck was the last time I was
Speaker 2: really like excited for and then excited after. Yeah, and kind.
Speaker 3: Of the vision pro oh interesting, but it's.
Speaker 2: Like there's always a but, and the butt is usually Yeah.
Speaker 2: But the people who made it, they didn't really give
Speaker 2: it to real people. Yeah, they gave it to a
Speaker 2: focus group and it was a McKinsey one, so three
Speaker 2: quarters of them were paid to say whatever they wanted
Speaker 2: to hear and the rest didn't turn up. And it's
Speaker 2: just frustrating because there was a time I think it's
Speaker 2: just love the rock kombabb but there was a twenty
Speaker 2: year period and we've got new stuff, new stuff, new stuff.
Speaker 2: Even the bad stuff was kind of funny. Yeah, even
Speaker 2: all this dorky indieg Go bullshit, like the Coolest Cooler
Speaker 2: which had a speaker at a margerite. You knew that
Speaker 2: was never gonna work, but you kind of enjoyed them try.
Speaker 2: And then they scammed a bunch of people. That was
Speaker 2: also bad.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but you stopped getting fun, like there wasn't something
Speaker 5: to look forward to. But the vision pro reason I
Speaker 5: brought it up is my first hour with it was
Speaker 5: so exciting, and then I realized that I had like
Speaker 5: light bleeding in so I started fucking with it and
Speaker 5: I couldn't get it on right, and I spent like
Speaker 5: another hour trying to make it work, and it just
Speaker 5: turned out that like I didn't have the right size thing,
Speaker 5: which dramatically improved it, and I was using it fairly often.
Speaker 5: I'm like, this is not there yet, but this is
Speaker 5: different and cool and watching movies on its great.
Speaker 2: Then I tried to watch on a plane, how'd that go?
Speaker 2: I got a migrant and I have yet to finish June.
Speaker 2: People say this and Ultimore or whatever it is from
Speaker 2: that to me all the time, but it's it's very
Speaker 2: strange because it almost doesn't feel like anyone's trying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well go ahead.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, like, the VR thing is a
Speaker 3: weird one because it is so dependent on the person, right,
Speaker 3: Like I had a friend who also just recently did
Speaker 3: a cross country flight, wore their vision pro, watched June
Speaker 3: and June two. Nice back to back and they were they.
Speaker 2: Loved it, absolute legends.
Speaker 3: Yeah, whereas you would have presumably thrown up everywhere and.
Speaker 2: They would My head just felt like it would explode it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Uh and and and that's just because like your your
Speaker 3: vestibular response is totally different than their vestibular response, and
Speaker 3: it's that's what's gonna happen there. And that's why VR
Speaker 3: is a dead end. And that's why Meta now has
Speaker 3: like been like you go over here, we tried.
Speaker 2: It watchful hand of Baz, Yeah, we did that.
Speaker 3: What was it the Meta Quest pro was that?
Speaker 2: Was that the one where they had the Pro one
Speaker 2: they canceled?
Speaker 3: Yeah, where they released it and everybody's like this is
Speaker 3: garbage and they're like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, they released it. I think what it was
Speaker 2: was they released it at the same time as the
Speaker 2: Quest two, which was like three hundred four hundred bucks.
Speaker 2: People like, this is pretty good. Yeah, Like the expectations
Speaker 2: were low, and they're like, but what if you paid
Speaker 2: fourteen hundred dollars for something that wasn't as good? Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it was more powerful?
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and that's you were saying a second ago,
Speaker 1: like it doesnt feel like people trying anymore. I think
Speaker 1: that's not it. I think people are trying at the
Speaker 1: wrong thing. Yes, former journalists should be become a journalist
Speaker 1: again because we miss him. David Ruddick was just complaining
Speaker 1: about this on LinkedIn and he was just like, you know,
Speaker 1: with respect to the product managers who I call my friend, Like,
Speaker 1: product managers are ruining the segment because and even you
Speaker 1: can take it out above the PMO. Like, it's like
Speaker 1: companies have realized that if they do enough marketing to
Speaker 1: create artificial demand, then that is a way to make
Speaker 1: money in the short term and you can keep the
Speaker 1: business growing.
Speaker 2: Well, is that just what they believe is the case.
Speaker 1: It may well be right for the long term. It's
Speaker 1: certainly not true. Yeah, but for the short term it
Speaker 1: may be you get spike and it feels like there's
Speaker 1: ten times as much of that as there is for
Speaker 1: every ten examples of that, there's one example of a
Speaker 1: company it's actually like, hey, we actually have a good idea.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a little weird idea, but we think enough
Speaker 1: people buy it, will buy it and find delight in
Speaker 1: it that we can make a business out of it. Right,
Speaker 1: And if more people did that instead of like what,
Speaker 1: how can we make money and get out as quickly
Speaker 1: as possible, right then, I think we have those glory
Speaker 1: days if.
Speaker 2: You can make the money and get up by doing
Speaker 2: some people want to buy it. It's just frustrating, true, Alex.
Speaker 2: It's are you enjoying any devices other than the strange
Speaker 2: north White steam deck?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the garbage steam deck that I'm not even gonna score,
Speaker 3: because you should buy it. It's it's it's not going
Speaker 3: to be good for most people, but it's so much
Speaker 3: fun to like fuck around with. I don't know, I
Speaker 3: like that's one of the reasons I got really into
Speaker 3: e ink because it felt like it was much closer
Speaker 3: to like There's felt like there was something there that
Speaker 3: could be solved pretty quickly. But that was like five
Speaker 3: or six years ago, and it hasn't happened.
Speaker 2: What's slowing it down.
Speaker 3: Because everybody wants to make money through vertical integration, so
Speaker 3: they're like, well, I don't want you to actually get
Speaker 3: anybody else's books on your device. I want you to
Speaker 3: get my books.
Speaker 2: So everyone wants to do a platform play, right.
Speaker 3: So everybody's doing a platform play. So it's it's money again, right,
Speaker 3: Like everybody's like I need all as much of the
Speaker 3: money as I can get to my little side. Because
Speaker 3: Apple did that and it worked really well for Apple.
Speaker 2: They never worked for anyone else.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean Amazon, it kind of works on.
Speaker 2: Amazon already had that scam going.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true, that's true.
Speaker 1: And you haven't seen that meaningful evolution in the kindle
Speaker 1: with such an the scribe in a long time.
Speaker 3: Which is insane garbage compared to a lot of the
Speaker 3: stuff because like China, and this is the other point
Speaker 3: is there's a lot of innovation happening in China. A
Speaker 3: ton do you ever.
Speaker 2: Use the odin?
Speaker 3: The odin?
Speaker 2: So there was this It's an Android gaming console before
Speaker 2: the Steam deck, so just to be clear, probably not
Speaker 2: as fun, but super fast. You could do PlayStation remote
Speaker 2: on it, almost like predecessor to the PlayStation porter, which
Speaker 2: is literally just playing PlayStation and it was great. And
Speaker 2: what they did is a crazy idea. They were like,
Speaker 2: why don't we make it really easy to run the
Speaker 2: specific gaming apps you like? And what if we made
Speaker 2: the buttons good?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And what are crazy?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: Sold out? Indiegogo did really well. Comes out of China,
Speaker 2: and it's like this current sinophobic climate's fucking frustrating. Because
Speaker 2: let them in, please borrow the innovation from them. They
Speaker 2: seem China seems to be fucking trying with tech right.
Speaker 3: And one of the reasons they're trying because I kind
Speaker 3: of went down a rabbit hole with the eating thing
Speaker 3: where I was like, why is nobody trying this, Like
Speaker 3: you're getting all these really cool eat ink readers out
Speaker 3: of China and nothing here, And it was because we're
Speaker 3: so obsessed with that lock in. We're so obsessed with
Speaker 3: how do we build that bigger model. We don't want
Speaker 3: to just sell one thing. We want to sell you
Speaker 3: the services, We want to sell you the platform, and
Speaker 3: and America is just super hyper focused on that, where
Speaker 3: China's like, yeah, I mean I don't care who you use, well,
Speaker 3: I mean by our ship.
Speaker 2: I mean as they also have one monopoly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's like we all operate within this one.
Speaker 2: We're all controlled by ten Cent. But yeah, but it's
Speaker 2: frustrating because I feel like what it might also be
Speaker 2: is that they're like, how do we make the next
Speaker 2: trillion dollar company or billion dollar company? They're like, what
Speaker 2: if you made a fifty million dollar company? No?
Speaker 3: Yeah, fuck that, Well you got you gotta you gotta
Speaker 3: get your your your investors right, you gotta get your stockholders,
Speaker 3: you gotta do all of that. And and apparently money
Speaker 3: is not free. People don't just give money away.
Speaker 2: Got to give one hundred million dollars to Adam Newman
Speaker 2: again so that you can make the next bad company.
Speaker 3: I think that happened.
Speaker 2: It did. He got two hundred and fifty million dollars.
Speaker 3: Well, I just I want to fill that hard up.
Speaker 2: That sounds rate so good.
Speaker 1: Well, and like we I don't mean to keep bringing
Speaker 1: it back to humane, but that was the thing I
Speaker 1: kept saying in the Humane briefing. I was just like, guys,
Speaker 1: I know this is not what you want to hear,
Speaker 1: but this would be a great little accessory for the phone.
Speaker 1: You could still do a lot of cool things and
Speaker 1: have it linked to your phone, and then it wouldn't
Speaker 1: be well, a bunch of things would.
Speaker 2: It did not work, but.
Speaker 3: You didn't catch on fire. That's that's exactly.
Speaker 1: I'm still here.
Speaker 3: You're still here.
Speaker 1: But like the it wasn't a bold enough vision. And
Speaker 1: they didn't say this, I assume this. It wasn't a
Speaker 1: bold enough vision one to get a bunch of people
Speaker 1: motivated to do because if you're replacing the smartphone. Big
Speaker 1: quotes around that. Well, that's a that's a mission that's
Speaker 1: at least difficult. That's like a moonshot. And then B
Speaker 1: you can't get enough investors excited to your point to
Speaker 1: give you all the all the money that you just
Speaker 1: want to put together.
Speaker 2: Just a note for listeners. That's the humane AI pin
Speaker 2: Google it. It's terrible. Seven one dollars twenty four dollars
Speaker 2: a month, just the basic thing. But the human was
Speaker 2: so weird though. And this is the thing that I
Speaker 2: will never understand and they will never tell me, is
Speaker 2: how did you put this out the door? How did
Speaker 2: you look at this thing?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: It overheats in two minutes? Oh chat GBT sometimes doesn't work.
Speaker 2: Basic shame. I mean I would not want to do it.
Speaker 2: I would be like.
Speaker 3: They kind of had to write like they they kind
Speaker 3: of hit their their point where it's like should to
Speaker 3: get off the pot?
Speaker 1: This is the question I don't know I asked that
Speaker 1: about it. It's just two x human is it rabbit?
Speaker 2: Cynical one believe.
Speaker 1: I think Rabbit had to launch before the what we
Speaker 1: all knew was gonna happen, which was Google was going
Speaker 1: to do us Apple was going to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, people saw how it operated so that they could
Speaker 2: say this, it looks cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does look cool.
Speaker 2: He is on the board of teenage Engineering. He is
Speaker 2: on the board. This boys are sick. Okay, we're going
Speaker 2: to talk about the Rabbit.
Speaker 1: It's time.
Speaker 2: So those listeners who don't know about the rabbit. Is
Speaker 2: this two hundred dollars AI device and it claims to
Speaker 2: have something on it called a large Action model. Large
Speaker 2: Action Model claims it was trained on six hundred plus
Speaker 2: apps to distinctly control your raps, but for some reason
Speaker 2: it only launch with four or five. Turns out that
Speaker 2: when you ask the lamb to do something, it would
Speaker 2: sometimes just not work. Sometimes you would say or to
Speaker 2: me McDonald and it would go sorry, Uber isn't working.
Speaker 2: And it turns out, due to some friendly hackers that
Speaker 2: it turned out that it isn't actually using a large
Speaker 2: action model. It's connected to playwright, a script thing. I'm
Speaker 2: sure more technical listeners are going to email me corrections.
Speaker 2: I'm very sorry. But in shut instead of running a
Speaker 2: large action model an actual AI thing, it was triggering
Speaker 2: scripts using chat GPT. Now I could do a whole
Speaker 2: episode in surprise. I haven't over the whole thing that
Speaker 2: there used to be an NFT company, but putting all
Speaker 2: of the obvious horrible things aside, it just fucking sucks. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just really bad in a way that is almost unbelievable.
Speaker 2: I recommend you going look. Dave three D did a
Speaker 2: whole thing about it before it came out that was
Speaker 2: very good. But go and look at Linuses and Linus.
Speaker 2: I know people have problems with him, but his the
Speaker 2: thing about the rabbit was great because it was mostly
Speaker 2: him trying stuff it not working, and it goes what
Speaker 2: what what, which was very entertaining.
Speaker 3: It's very funny.
Speaker 2: But it's just broken.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they raised another thirty two million dollars in March.
Speaker 2: It feels like I am living in a different universe
Speaker 2: to the.
Speaker 1: Rest of the world.
Speaker 2: I see this. It's bad. The YouTube's like, this is
Speaker 2: the worst thing I've ever used. Investorsla absolutely, Yeah. I
Speaker 2: need to get in on the shit now.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Elon Musk has just sent them wrote them a check.
Speaker 3: He did not, to my knowledge, for write them a check.
Speaker 3: He wouldn't do that.
Speaker 2: It's an epic andvice device.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think you're alone. I think there is
Speaker 3: a weird tension happening where we have Silicon Valley. We
Speaker 3: have all these investors in Silicon Valley who are all
Speaker 3: just desperate to make money and never took a single
Speaker 3: history English course like any liberal arts. They think that's stupid.
Speaker 3: And then there's the rest of the world. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: these people are so focused on money they forget the
Speaker 3: rest of the world. They never touch grass. And so
Speaker 3: they'll put on the vision pro and be like, this
Speaker 3: is going to change the face of computing, and not
Speaker 3: consider the billion of different other ways people use computers.
Speaker 3: Or they'll see the the rabbit with the worst name
Speaker 3: on the planet. By the way, a majority of women
Speaker 3: I know the rabbit was coming.
Speaker 2: Out, was like, why gonna pay two hundred dollars for that?
Speaker 3: I got one in my drawer next to my bed.
Speaker 1: What the hell, guys, I'm dying to know more about
Speaker 1: that weight. I didn't even put.
Speaker 3: That the rabbit is a very notorial, like that's that's
Speaker 3: a term for a whole type of sex toy that is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had no idea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so like when they were like, we've got
Speaker 3: the rabbit, and I was like, do you oh it's
Speaker 3: a different rat Like now bring out the ra You're like, whoa,
Speaker 3: what's happened to Cees? I knew you guys were doing
Speaker 3: sex text now.
Speaker 2: But wow, so I moved the thing away from c
Speaker 2: That's depending on But I think I think that it
Speaker 2: is that that there's the kind of disconnection from the
Speaker 2: real world, but there's also I don't know if these
Speaker 2: people use stuff. I just don't.
Speaker 3: I don't think they do.
Speaker 2: I don't know if they use it. Like I really
Speaker 2: want to just get behind Marc Andreeson at one point
Speaker 2: and can't say the rest of that, but I mean,
Speaker 2: look over his shoulder and see the funds eyes on
Speaker 2: his iPhone right like I want to see it because
Speaker 2: I don't think these people interact with the real world,
Speaker 2: will touch gross. But I also don't think they like
Speaker 2: I don't think well app vision pro is different because
Speaker 2: public company whatever. Yeah, but like the Rabbit, for example,
Speaker 2: I don't think they fucking can I like, these little
Speaker 2: pigs will buy this.
Speaker 3: Well, they'd already bought it, right like, like they announced
Speaker 3: the thing, they made these huge promises, they did a
Speaker 3: ton of pre sales, and then it came out and
Speaker 3: we haven't heard how the pre sales or how the
Speaker 3: sales have.
Speaker 2: Hundred thousand units after Oh we don't they don't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, well, and I don't know what we're gonna
Speaker 3: hear about that, right, like we.
Speaker 1: Are not it's coming from I think, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: if they I'm with you. I think there are dubious
Speaker 1: business motivations to a lot of this, right. But I
Speaker 1: can't help but think that if I was inside one
Speaker 1: of these organizations that I wouldn't look No, I know,
Speaker 1: I would have been caught up in it. I would
Speaker 1: have been caught up in the ambition. I would have
Speaker 1: been caught up in the promise, especially when you consider
Speaker 1: that the design process of a lot of this stuff
Speaker 1: goes back to the time where we were most of
Speaker 1: us are getting our first chance to interact with chat GPT,
Speaker 1: and I'm like to make me a text adventure in
Speaker 1: the style of Star Trek Deeps Race nine. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it did it, And I was like, oh, oh my god.
Speaker 1: You know, I remember where I was when that happened.
Speaker 1: It was like the first time I put on a
Speaker 1: VR headset. I remember the first time I was actually
Speaker 1: blown away by AI. And if I was in an
Speaker 1: inside a company or a recently hybrid companies, like we're
Speaker 1: going to change the world with this tech. I think
Speaker 1: I would have I probably would have been on that
Speaker 1: boat for like a year before I started getting real
Speaker 1: internally by.
Speaker 3: Chat GPT initially, yeah, yeah, I like for me, I
Speaker 3: used it, and it just reminded me of the aim
Speaker 3: bots from like I'm old here, I'm an apologies to
Speaker 3: the audience. I'm sure you're all twelve, Hi, why are
Speaker 3: you listening?
Speaker 2: Sure, I'm older than you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're old people. But the AIME bots, you'd go
Speaker 3: and you log in and you type and and type back,
Speaker 3: and then there's we've seen this so many times and
Speaker 3: this one I was.
Speaker 1: Like, Okay to Eliza, yeah, we're back to this.
Speaker 3: We're back to this, Like the pattern recognition and recreation
Speaker 3: machine has gotten just really really good, and I was like,
Speaker 3: that's fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's kind of That's actually where I was as well, like, oh,
Speaker 2: you can do a text bace adventure, and I think
Speaker 2: i'd have heard that. I would have gone cool, all right,
Speaker 2: and just kind of just say because I run a
Speaker 2: PR firm, yeah, I have clients in AI, but nothing
Speaker 2: that touches this show because I'm scared of that. And
Speaker 2: it's like it's a few clients night who have even
Speaker 2: just do a I think that's the thing. I don't
Speaker 2: surprisingly enough AI companies aren't super excited to work with
Speaker 2: me when I'm talking about them actually having to do stuff.
Speaker 2: But it's like with chat GPT, for example. I know,
Speaker 2: I actually understand totally Michael, why you were excited like that.
Speaker 2: I can understand why others might have been excited by that.
Speaker 2: I just don't understand how they're still that way because
Speaker 2: nothing has happened.
Speaker 3: Money, honey, I guess, But I mean money is a
Speaker 3: very powerful driver.
Speaker 2: If you work for a financial institution. I get, But
Speaker 2: like gadgetw even just regular people don't seem excited. It's
Speaker 2: just so weird. It feels like living in two realities
Speaker 2: at once.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And like there was a sign that someone posted on
Speaker 2: blue Sky was like we put the AI in an
Speaker 2: inn I p A. It was a Dell advert what. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I just I feel like I like it. I have
Speaker 2: a friend who is in a dot com boom company, yeah,
Speaker 2: like a textbook related one, and I'm really tempted to
Speaker 2: call him and be like was it like this was
Speaker 2: it like this, and if he says yes, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: do nothing because I can't invest in anything now because
Speaker 2: I run a bloody podcast. I can't do anything. You
Speaker 2: can't short ship. It's like the big short. But Steve
Speaker 2: Goss just like, well, I'll just go home.
Speaker 1: I guess I think like we have to give give
Speaker 1: credit to the to the entire thing. First of all,
Speaker 1: the marketing approach to AI has been really frustrating because
Speaker 1: everything is a I know, stuff that was that existed
Speaker 1: before in its has been ported directly, unchanged and just
Speaker 1: rebranded as as AI, just much in the same way.
Speaker 1: I think somebody brought up to me at the at
Speaker 1: the John Deere event. I was just at could we
Speaker 1: will not be talking about okay?
Speaker 3: I had so many questions somebody brought up.
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, it's like slapping a non GMO
Speaker 1: label on an unchanged box of weed. Things like. It's like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: AI is just being marketed much too aggressively, So you
Speaker 1: have stuff stuck in here kind of getting caught in
Speaker 1: the in the flat. That's like, that's really useful, but
Speaker 1: it's it's these it's a seasoning that you put on
Speaker 1: something that is already used. Yeah, it's not in itself
Speaker 1: a self contained thing capable of driving a whole new
Speaker 1: range of especially gadgets, which again makes me very sad,
Speaker 1: because every time you would touch a new AI, I
Speaker 1: think the plot a the plod note, that little self
Speaker 1: contained AI voice recorder was like, this is very cool.
Speaker 1: I wish it were an alternate universe in the year
Speaker 1: two thousand and I could actually get excited about this
Speaker 1: because what this is is a feature that belongs in
Speaker 1: the Google recorder And oh sorry, I just finished this
Speaker 1: video and that's exactly what Google built in to their
Speaker 1: recorder when that was done, and I.
Speaker 2: Was like, okay, well home with that for now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's bummer pivots A.
Speaker 3: Yeah, everybody, I mean yeah, I think they're just going
Speaker 3: to pivot back and forth. Everybody's gonna be constantly oscillating
Speaker 3: until like something sticks because they're so desperate for that
Speaker 3: next thing. They're so eager that everybody's just looking for
Speaker 3: the money. They know it somewhere and like right now
Speaker 3: it is all in n video stock and they're hoping
Speaker 3: that it will somehow come to them at some point.
Speaker 2: Why not you, I don't know, It's like why not
Speaker 2: build some fucking hardware to put video stuff in. I
Speaker 2: realized those black bell chips aren't what we're talking about,
Speaker 2: But I don't know. It's almost as if no one
Speaker 2: wants to do the work in the middle. They're like,
Speaker 2: I've got an idea and I need to make a product.
Speaker 2: Can I skip the middle part? It's boring, it's expensive,
Speaker 2: it takes forever. I need to have this shit on
Speaker 2: the market in six months, and it can't be. And
Speaker 2: I it is the growth that all costs for rot
Speaker 2: economy ever in about one hundred times. But it's also
Speaker 2: frustrating because I actually think, if they put in the effort,
Speaker 2: this would be cool. When it comes to AI. Part
Speaker 2: of my frustration comes back to that thing we were
Speaker 2: saying earlier about how we've been let down, because I
Speaker 2: would actually love it if I could reliably tell my
Speaker 2: phone to take distinct actions. Send the calendar invite to
Speaker 2: Alex and Michael, Yes, three pm at the iHeartRadio studio,
Speaker 2: and just fucking send it and it would know how
Speaker 2: maybe it goes. Do you want eastern a Pacific time?
Speaker 2: Or wait? I said, New York you already know. And
Speaker 2: it sends the invites and they find your emails. That
Speaker 2: would be useful. I wish in my regular email job
Speaker 2: I could have it through the spreadsheets and the documents.
Speaker 2: It can't, it can't actually do these things. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: this please make that the future. No, it isn't the future.
Speaker 2: We need to They can't even describe what it is.
Speaker 3: And it's just because it can't do that future yet, right, Like,
Speaker 3: there's the thing we have now. The thing that everybody
Speaker 3: got really excited about was they released GPT three point five.
Speaker 3: Everybody went, oh, crap, this can write this can write stuff,
Speaker 3: and it can write it not like garbage for once,
Speaker 3: and this is huge. And all of the researchers just
Speaker 3: roll their eyes because they'd seen this for ages. They
Speaker 3: were like, yeah, it's a lare language bottle. That's what
Speaker 3: they do. They calm down, and everybody's like no, And
Speaker 3: then the downloads increased. The downloads increase, and everybody's like, wait,
Speaker 3: I think there's some money here, right, and let's just
Speaker 3: like rye, this hype just right into the ground as
Speaker 3: long as we can write it, as long as we
Speaker 3: count until it gets it around. And that's pretty much
Speaker 3: what happened just right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm trying to im like I'm still you know,
Speaker 1: I'm halfway between like the stuff that that we're all
Speaker 1: talking about and then the stuff that I see again
Speaker 1: in these little flashes of like what I'll be on
Speaker 1: a trip with and Kevin neither will be. I'll be like,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? He's like, well, I have a cold,
Speaker 1: so I can't do voiceover for my video. But I
Speaker 1: built a model of my own voice, so now all
Speaker 1: I have to do is type in something and script
Speaker 1: in the model in my voice reads into the audience.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well that's useful. Cool, all right, Well
Speaker 1: you don't bookmark that like generative fill stuff where it's
Speaker 1: like it's not like I'm typing into mid journey, like
Speaker 1: make me a photo of a high turtle eating macaroni
Speaker 1: and cheese while watch. It's like, no, I mean that
Speaker 1: is yeah, but like when you wroteate a photo right
Speaker 1: in it and you have to fill in the stuff
Speaker 1: with with fake scenery just to make it look okay,
Speaker 1: so you can run a blog post, It's like that's useful.
Speaker 1: So there's these little a lot of.
Speaker 3: These smaller things that it could be super super useful,
Speaker 3: but that's not what they want to focus on because
Speaker 3: that takes actual work. That takes there's more development than
Speaker 3: need to happen.
Speaker 1: You're already big enough that you've bought whatever little company
Speaker 1: came up with that, and you built like you're Adobe.
Speaker 1: You built it in a Photoshop.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so then everybody hates you because you're Adobe.
Speaker 2: I think it's almost like they are really good at
Speaker 2: features but terrible at products like these aren't useful because
Speaker 2: the actual user interface of phones is really good and
Speaker 2: also very bad. I will lose what I am doing
Speaker 2: on my phone sometimes. I have five hundred and eighty
Speaker 2: seven Safari taps up.
Speaker 3: That doesn't surprise because.
Speaker 2: The UX on there is so wonky and it's so
Speaker 2: like it's not like on a computer where you have
Speaker 2: like like a Actually that was just like close crum
Speaker 2: taps on my computer too. But I don't lose shit
Speaker 2: as much, but I still do on the computer.
Speaker 1: Yea.
Speaker 2: I I don't miss meetings because I generally forced myself
Speaker 2: to be on time, as I was not today, and
Speaker 2: it's the fact that I have to moderate so much
Speaker 2: of this stuff. Yeah, everyone's talking about AI. That really
Speaker 2: pisses me off. Why can the phone if AI is
Speaker 2: the goddamn future. Why are we so far from well.
Speaker 3: The other part of that is the security in privacy,
Speaker 3: Like we just saw as we're recording this earlier today,
Speaker 3: Apple said, actually, a bunch of these features that we
Speaker 3: announced at WWDC, like Apple Intelligence, which is gonna make
Speaker 3: Siri like do a lot of the stuff we all
Speaker 3: want it to do. They're not coming to Europe because
Speaker 3: the DMA, and they're like, oh, you know, we're worried
Speaker 3: it's gonna like do something about the privacy. Recall is
Speaker 3: another example that was the Windows feature where it was like,
Speaker 3: what if we just to me. I was editing our
Speaker 3: postport and I was like, this rules. I didn't even
Speaker 3: think about the security because I was like, oh, it's
Speaker 3: going to take a picture and I'm just gonna know.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, I'd recently been trying to look for
Speaker 3: a text message from ten years ago. So it is
Speaker 3: feeling very like this is perfect for me specifically, and
Speaker 3: then everybody's like, this is the worst thing to ever
Speaker 3: happen in my life.
Speaker 2: What's great is they didn't actually solve the real problem,
Speaker 2: which was search searching for things. Spotlight is actually really good, yeah,
Speaker 2: but it's not good enough. No, it could just be
Speaker 2: a little bit better. Searching for stuff on your messages
Speaker 2: could be better. That would require them to make that better.
Speaker 2: They're like, no, if we just what we did, which
Speaker 2: is what we just call it, like, just wrote it down. Well,
Speaker 2: just wrote down literally everything you've ever done, got.
Speaker 3: In a plain text file, and then we'll just use
Speaker 3: AI to train on that and it'll be great. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And I'm like, yeah, that is definitely a solution.
Speaker 1: It's reminding me of something. I switched to a text
Speaker 1: message provider like fifteen years ago, and I was intoxicated
Speaker 1: by the prospect of being able to search all of
Speaker 1: my text messages for all time, which took down a
Speaker 1: few times, and over the course of the past like
Speaker 1: two years, I've been like, I must delete that entire archive. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just a massive liability.
Speaker 2: I have all wait emails, but not my text Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, I keep all of them. Don't worry.
Speaker 1: I guess you and I will go down together.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I'm taking everybody.
Speaker 2: You're indicted in all kinds.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I hopefully please don't indict me.
Speaker 2: Please don't indict anyone who's on Better off line.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 6: Request so.
Speaker 2: Returning from a commercial break that I'll announce next time.
Speaker 2: It's just I wonder if it's something to do with
Speaker 2: the venture capital climate, but not just that they don't
Speaker 2: want to invest in things that aren't going to grow huge,
Speaker 2: but also I think they're scared of hardware. They just
Speaker 2: the concept of hardware is expensive. It's expensive. But also,
Speaker 2: like you've been saying, there's not really a platform like
Speaker 2: there is if you own the hardware device, but you
Speaker 2: need to come up with some noxious way to charge
Speaker 2: them more.
Speaker 3: Yeah, everybody is obsessed with how do we get that
Speaker 3: extra that extra money right With the exception of some
Speaker 3: hardware in this room currently.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much that we just had an addrec.
Speaker 3: But for the most part, everybody is obsessed with us.
Speaker 3: When we saw those with video games, I think that's
Speaker 3: one of that was like one of the first ones
Speaker 3: we saw it with where they're like, what if we
Speaker 3: charge you just to play online with your friends even
Speaker 3: though it doesn't cost us anything to do that? Really well,
Speaker 3: I mean customer.
Speaker 2: I think it became with it became Jesus Christ began
Speaker 2: with the game. It was Moro wind or Oblivion that
Speaker 2: they had the horse armor. That was the big moment.
Speaker 2: They charged two ninety nine for some armor for your horse.
Speaker 3: Did you get it? No?
Speaker 2: Maybe the eldestcrolls online. But nevertheless, that was the moment
Speaker 2: when it but they were like uh.
Speaker 3: And then we got the more micro transactions. They're like, oh,
Speaker 3: do you want to do a cool little like handwave
Speaker 3: and destiny five dollars and I paid it, un like you,
Speaker 3: I paid the five dollars. I was like, take my money, Bungee.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Since we're talking about old timey things. The first time
Speaker 1: I encountered this was with Napster, when Napster went legit.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that very brief moment.
Speaker 3: You were still with Napster when I went I moved.
Speaker 1: One to it? Nouse. You know I've done the linewired
Speaker 1: and because I ruined several computers. Yes, And then Napster
Speaker 1: comes out and it's like, hey, we're going legit. Just
Speaker 1: pay us this very affordable monthly fee and you get
Speaker 1: on limited music. I'm like great. And then I got
Speaker 1: to the part of the you know, front page. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you ever stop paying us, you will lose
Speaker 1: access to all that music. I'm like, what, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, and what is this and.
Speaker 3: Now that's how Spotify works exactly?
Speaker 1: Yes?
Speaker 2: Now or do you have a free account?
Speaker 3: So yeah, I don't pay for Spotify neither.
Speaker 1: Because I'm an influence.
Speaker 2: I pay for Apple Music.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I really I get it through my my
Speaker 3: my phone bill for some reason.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's great. So I'm like, I do I pay
Speaker 3: for it? But unclear?
Speaker 2: But it's just weird because it feels like there were
Speaker 2: very obvious problems that people have, Like phones are the
Speaker 2: whole stop using your phone thing is stupid. Can't you
Speaker 2: in the top list Thatt b I had a really
Speaker 2: good piece. It's like I love my phone. I love
Speaker 2: being on my phone. Yeah, the problem is there's too
Speaker 2: much shit in it and that doesn't Google I need
Speaker 2: you to search for me. You're also not good in it.
Speaker 2: But it's the I feel like they are selling us
Speaker 2: back the idea of interfaces, except they're not even doing it.
Speaker 2: They're not actually automating anything. That's the thing with the AI.
Speaker 2: That is the problem of AI other than all the
Speaker 2: other ones, which is it's not doing anything for me.
Speaker 2: What is it doing when even the Apple Intelligence thing.
Speaker 2: We just did an episode on Excited about the prospect
Speaker 2: of what they could do, but also they didn't actually
Speaker 2: say much Siri can do actions across multiplaps.
Speaker 3: And also it's not coming until well after launch, right.
Speaker 2: Is it Jesus Christ?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Or some of the features they were really like
Speaker 3: they weren't clear on which features are coming immediately, which
Speaker 3: or later.
Speaker 2: Just this obfiscation and it's almost I mean, because that
Speaker 2: was WWTC Google Io.
Speaker 3: We just finished this big developer conference season. And while
Speaker 3: it was ostensibly for developers and ostensibly for the rest
Speaker 3: of us, and it should have been developers, because never
Speaker 3: has the relationship between these platforms and developers more fraud
Speaker 3: the stuff that's happening in Europe with the DMA has
Speaker 3: made it really really difficult, and instead it was for
Speaker 3: investors and saying here, we've got we've got our AI
Speaker 3: thing too. We are in on the hype, and it's like,
Speaker 3: you don't have to be like we talked about I'm
Speaker 3: gonna do a little plug here. We talked about this
Speaker 3: on the Verge cast the verges Sorry, what what where?
Speaker 3: Where I sometimes talk about stuff too, And we talked
Speaker 3: about it over there, and it was really really clear
Speaker 3: that they just they'd done this for the investors and
Speaker 3: if they hadn't been doing AI this year, and it
Speaker 3: was really clear that that was kind of bolted on.
Speaker 3: Everybody would be talking about how stupid and dumb and
Speaker 3: delightful your phone looks because you can change the color
Speaker 3: on it now, right, Like you can change the user interface,
Speaker 3: and like there was these cool moments that happened and
Speaker 3: they just were like, no, no, no, forget that AI.
Speaker 1: Yeah go buck, No, no, man, that's it. I mean
Speaker 1: like it's that that And that has been the case
Speaker 1: since I got into this business. Right, It's like you
Speaker 1: go to a show and well, what's the theme this year?
Speaker 1: You know? And I think we saw seeds of this.
Speaker 1: Soone in twenty seventeen when Google first spent like half
Speaker 1: of Google io talking about bots. What are you doing here?
Speaker 3: I think it was the same year that Facebook when
Speaker 3: they did f eight was it fate? Oh, and they're like,
Speaker 3: we're going to revolutionize the world with chat bots in Facebook?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Where are those?
Speaker 2: M was the m assistant right with me? With Facebook?
Speaker 1: It was so fucking But it's always there's always that big,
Speaker 1: you know, overarching theme, and it's again to your point,
Speaker 1: yes it is to you know, curry favor with with
Speaker 1: investors and make sure no, Google's not being left behind.
Speaker 1: We can't afford to be seen as being left behind.
Speaker 1: And then you know, you get the search query that
Speaker 1: the glue on pizza stuff, the go eat rocks thing,
Speaker 1: and of course they've got the egg on their face
Speaker 1: now because and I cannot, for the life of me
Speaker 1: understand why no one internally said, hey, stop, let's let's
Speaker 1: actually because.
Speaker 3: Google is one of the biggest companies in the world
Speaker 3: and it is a nightmare to work in.
Speaker 1: I've heard that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Tony Fidell, who built like Nest and all of that stuff,
Speaker 3: he wrote a book that was all about how he
Speaker 3: knows business and one of the really actually interesting parts
Speaker 3: in it is how his just relationship with Google collapsed
Speaker 3: after he was Nest was acquired. They acquire Nest and
Speaker 3: then like immediately, you know, his boss is like, actually,
Speaker 3: I'm not your boss anymore. This guy over here is
Speaker 3: your boss. You're doing this. And then that guy's like, oh,
Speaker 3: actually you're doing this. And it was just constantly changing
Speaker 3: because it's such a big amorphous, right thing. Yeah, And
Speaker 3: like a lot of these companies are that way. Google's
Speaker 3: probably the worst at it. Amazon's pretty bad at it.
Speaker 3: Apple is generally pretty good at it. Apple's whole thing
Speaker 3: is just like the culture of the place can sometimes
Speaker 3: get in the way. It's a cultish yeah uh, and
Speaker 3: Google is also a cult. But it's like what if
Speaker 3: we were like a big kind of disorganized there was.
Speaker 2: A run by show regular listeners, and now McKenzie graduate
Speaker 2: sound off as shy Well confuses me, is like Liz
Speaker 2: Reid has been there like decades such chief now, but
Speaker 2: so her boss is probably a ragavan who form ahead
Speaker 2: of ads who also used to run Yahoo. Please listen
Speaker 2: to the episode. Great episode, arguably the weirdest thing I
Speaker 2: ever discovered of them what I see in the era. Anyway,
Speaker 2: It's just it's frustrating as well, because you can they
Speaker 2: must have no shame, They must legitimately just be like
Speaker 2: who gives this ship? Like the only way you are
Speaker 2: able to release products this bad is when you just
Speaker 2: to your point, it was for investors, but now the
Speaker 2: company is for investors. Yeah, because I think that that
Speaker 2: is the rubicon that's being crossed.
Speaker 3: That's why like someone like Panos Ponee who's now at Amazon,
Speaker 3: or Steve Jobs had these like panas Pine used to
Speaker 3: ran the Surface department, ran all of the surface products
Speaker 3: at Microsoft for years.
Speaker 1: One of the most gifted presenters at press events.
Speaker 3: I mean, he knows how to present things favorite and
Speaker 3: he really understands how to build these things, and and
Speaker 3: it like, I think he made a real moment with
Speaker 3: the Surface because he cares about the products. And he's
Speaker 3: now at Amazon and they won't let me talk to him.
Speaker 3: And it's fine, I'm okay with it. But and that's
Speaker 3: because he's going and like, okay, we've got to fix
Speaker 3: Amazon's like product lineup, because.
Speaker 2: It's what if it was good?
Speaker 3: Yeah, what if it was good? And and and you
Speaker 3: see that and but those are the rare guys, right,
Speaker 3: Like the reason these people are so beloved is because
Speaker 3: they do care. Jony I have terrible ideas a lot
Speaker 3: of times. Apparently it was like his idea to put
Speaker 3: the eyes in the vision pro Oh really, yeah.
Speaker 2: It would be lies. Yeah, what if what if the
Speaker 2: watch was a triangle?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: No, that's the rest of it.
Speaker 2: By the way, I want to see Jony I. Apparently
Speaker 2: Sam Woman really badly wants to make a device with them. Yeah, honestly,
Speaker 2: give them as much money as they want. I will
Speaker 2: see what I want. I want to see the homomobile.
Speaker 2: Ask Gadget that these idiots past.
Speaker 3: Zero ports zero display.
Speaker 2: Call it the hexagon.
Speaker 3: You just think at it.
Speaker 2: It's a new new type of Bluetooth devices. You can
Speaker 2: connect your Bluetooth device.
Speaker 7: I think, oh, ship, it's it looks gorgeous, which is
Speaker 7: I'm fine if things look good, but if they just
Speaker 7: completely useless.
Speaker 3: Cards Yeah, no, no, I mean and and But that
Speaker 3: was the thing is like he's kind of like a
Speaker 3: lesser example because he does have some bad ideas. He's
Speaker 3: so about the minimalism and weirdness that it goes to
Speaker 3: like somebody tell him no. But that's why Steve works.
Speaker 3: That's why or Steve Jobs works. I don't know if
Speaker 3: Steve jobs, he's dead. That's why Steve Jobs works. That's
Speaker 3: why that's why Panels work was because they can actually
Speaker 3: they actually care about the products. They actually want to
Speaker 3: make something good. And most of the time now, like
Speaker 3: Tim Cook, I'm sure he cares about the product because
Speaker 3: he is the CEO and he has to make money
Speaker 3: and and and please his investors and stuff. But he
Speaker 3: is a supply chains guy.
Speaker 2: Right, Like I also feel like Apples, laptops have been
Speaker 2: really good, their phones have been they have.
Speaker 3: Gotten They've gotten really good because everybody was like slagging
Speaker 3: on the laptops, being like their garbage. You haven't updated
Speaker 3: the MacBook Air, your most popular device in half a decade,
Speaker 3: do something, and they're like, oh, we we probably should.
Speaker 3: And then but they only really did it and they
Speaker 3: actually had you could put their own process.
Speaker 2: Which is right, and silicons great.
Speaker 1: That's the thing I think I'm my problem as I'm
Speaker 1: discovering in the middle of this conversation, I love this,
Speaker 1: this is good, is that my problem is not with
Speaker 1: the devices, because everyone who buys them, the millions of
Speaker 1: people who give Apple whatever it's three trillion dollars market
Speaker 1: cap or whatever it is right now, are very happy
Speaker 1: with them because they're very good products, and anytime they
Speaker 1: try something that I would like, Like, you know, for example,
Speaker 1: I thought the touch bar was kind of a fun idea. Yes, fun,
Speaker 1: but but it it creters and it's not supported in
Speaker 1: whatever you get this developer thing. But there are no
Speaker 1: options anymore for these types of products, Like your phone
Speaker 1: has to look like that. I'm pointing at Ed's iPhone fifty.
Speaker 1: Your phone has to look like that. And even if
Speaker 1: you go crazy and you make something that I really appreciate,
Speaker 1: like a foldable, which is one of the big reasons
Speaker 1: I still use Android phone because foldibles change the way
Speaker 1: I use phones and they're great. They still have to
Speaker 1: unfold into vaguely something that vaguely reminiscent of that rectangle.
Speaker 1: And a laptop, Oh my god, we just saw a
Speaker 1: Qualcomm you know, processors introduced into like I don't know,
Speaker 1: seventeen new laptops from a bunch of new new companies
Speaker 1: and they all look like the existing Intel powered laptops
Speaker 1: that they've been shipping forever.
Speaker 3: Because in most cases they just something I think. I
Speaker 3: think Microsoft and HP were like the only companies that
Speaker 3: do something.
Speaker 1: New, but even that's not new, like you can go asues.
Speaker 1: God bless them.
Speaker 4: They make these crazy, weird laptops with multiple screens. You
Speaker 4: get these foldable screens, and honestly, those do they're not
Speaker 4: just they're not gimmicks, like they change the way you
Speaker 4: compute it, and in some cases they are very very useful.
Speaker 1: But no one wanted to take a risk. No one
Speaker 1: wanted to take the affordance of all that space freed
Speaker 1: up by this arm based chip and like the reduction
Speaker 1: of fan size and everything. No, they're just everyone's just
Speaker 1: being very conservative because same reason that phone makers only
Speaker 1: make white and black phones in quantity, because that's all
Speaker 1: people buy. We make clicks in a very fetching yellow
Speaker 1: color and that's thirty percent of them or something like that,
Speaker 1: because those people want white a black and I get it,
Speaker 1: but I don't like it. I would encourage people to
Speaker 1: remember that fun can be a reason to consider a
Speaker 1: piece of technology. When did we decide that fun is
Speaker 1: not a priority in our in our like buying, when.
Speaker 3: We decided selling more products matter more than selling cool products?
Speaker 2: And shareholder supremacy?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the business I agree with you both on
Speaker 1: the business side, but as consumers like when did when
Speaker 1: when did we just go like pick up a phone?
Speaker 1: Like I don't know, maybe it's I think, I think
Speaker 1: that is you.
Speaker 2: I don't say this is a bad way. You're right,
Speaker 2: I understand what you feel that way. But it's their
Speaker 2: job to sell these things. It's their job to make
Speaker 2: these things us exactly like the two screen laptop is
Speaker 2: issues and Lenovo so these things are crazy, Like you've
Speaker 2: got the you've got the screen where your keyboard is,
Speaker 2: and then you have another screen. Make have a go
Speaker 2: at it, do a proper national campaign, make some weird
Speaker 2: choices for because that's not a mass device. But guess what,
Speaker 2: there are cool things you can do with it. Many
Speaker 2: people use two screens. Do a big enterprise push, do
Speaker 2: a big business push. When I see the ai IPA ad,
Speaker 2: that should be the double screen one's. And what's weird
Speaker 2: is like Dell, for example, that company was dog shit
Speaker 2: for a long time and now they're pretty good because
Speaker 2: they weren't. Why if we make good good computers, use
Speaker 2: our computers you see, Yeah they dogshit? Well if they
Speaker 2: were good nah. And it's just and I think it's
Speaker 2: this disconnection of the company from the product on both
Speaker 2: a business and just a culture level, like the people
Speaker 2: building things like it's so weird to me that Meta
Speaker 2: made the ray bands because all of the people who
Speaker 2: run Facebook now so it's Mark Zuckerberg. Javier Olivan Coo,
Speaker 2: you've got boz the ultimate growth, All costs, ass whole
Speaker 2: every terrorist attacks are justifiable for growth. Literally he said that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's really grim thing. Alex Schultz form of growth guy.
Speaker 2: All these are growth people. I'm shocked that there's anyone
Speaker 2: building anything in Facebook other than the Torment Nexus and
Speaker 2: it's plugins.
Speaker 3: Well, that's because Mark said, build you have to build
Speaker 3: me a hardware because nobody wants nobody, like everybody hates
Speaker 3: us because we're terrible at software. You've got to go
Speaker 3: build me some cool hardware so I can get as
Speaker 3: far away from the phones as far.
Speaker 2: So I'm lot for only because you said he could
Speaker 2: build build me a hardware. But I could imagine Mark Zuckerberg,
Speaker 2: just like his cold dead eyes looking build.
Speaker 3: Me a hard I assume that is exactly. It just leaves, yeah,
Speaker 3: killed it for me, slams the door.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I think if they brought back the HDC Chacha
Speaker 1: it would do pretty well. Read Chacha right, that was
Speaker 1: a physical quirity keyboard Android phone with a Facebook button
Speaker 1: on it that would let you directly share.
Speaker 2: Tens of them.
Speaker 1: So absolutely it could be the new minimalist phone for
Speaker 1: the Facebook friendly. It could be the boomer phone.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, that's the boomer phone.
Speaker 2: The Great Coal has one with just giant numbers.
Speaker 1: Still around, right, They're still around, owned.
Speaker 2: By like a private equity phone, so not for long yeah,
Speaker 2: I was, that's that's a they'll be sold to a
Speaker 2: barbecue company or so by a private equity.
Speaker 3: Marina will buy it next year. I don't worry about it.
Speaker 2: Great things. What's funny though, is that see yes with
Speaker 2: the grill stuff. So, as some of you may know,
Speaker 2: I make excellent barbecue at home, I do smokers. I
Speaker 2: admit I got in a little bit of trouble at
Speaker 2: ces lustmor Is there because I went up to these people.
Speaker 2: I start asking them grilling questions, not like being an ASO.
Speaker 2: I was like, so, how does this help with the cooking?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: They're like, well, you see you go on the app
Speaker 2: and you can see recipes. Sure, but the device pause, Uh,
Speaker 2: well you can connect it and wife, I'm like, excellent,
Speaker 2: then what And that's because you can't really innovate that
Speaker 2: anymore other than the combustion thermometer, which is incredible. It's
Speaker 2: made by a guy who made a video a few
Speaker 2: years ago called your Raven is a Liar and it's
Speaker 2: got eight I'm not connected with this. It's just excellent.
Speaker 2: I have to has eight sensors in it so it
Speaker 2: can find the coldest point in your food. What like
Speaker 2: all my hate the various caters use me. I've got
Speaker 2: my detractors on these saying I don't like anything. The
Speaker 2: combustion thermotos excellent, is so good. I finally got my
Speaker 2: b F Ribs down with it. But that's the thing
Speaker 2: that one's a great example of solving an actual problem.
Speaker 2: That most people they use the thermometer, they don't know
Speaker 2: where to put it and they don't know if they're
Speaker 2: in the right place, and they're I personally and deeply
Speaker 2: anxious person so constant anxiety, which is great for a
Speaker 2: twelve hour cook. With this, it works, and it works
Speaker 2: really well, and there's not a bunch of other bullshit.
Speaker 2: It costs like one hundred and sixty nine bucks, so
Speaker 2: it's not cheap, but it solves a problem.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, it's like you think with all of this money
Speaker 2: in AI or AR or all these things, they solve
Speaker 2: a problem. We've had very similar problems for like ten years.
Speaker 3: I think part of it is a lot of these
Speaker 3: people do not they think they're solving a problem, right right,
Speaker 3: Like I think everybody in this room is probably good.
Speaker 3: We're good writers, right like. We all's part that's part
Speaker 3: of how we make our living. Like when you're doing
Speaker 3: a video, Yeah, you write the script like, we're good, Like,
Speaker 3: this is a skill we have and we can do.
Speaker 3: If somebody sends us a horrible text message, we will
Speaker 3: grow because we don't want to answer it emotionally, but
Speaker 3: we'll still respond, like and we'll respond the hell out
Speaker 3: of it. It will be real written, well written. But these
Speaker 3: people don't value that because they think that's just that's
Speaker 3: a thing they can surmount with AI, right, like, that's
Speaker 3: that is the thing for him. And I run into
Speaker 3: this like I was talking to a woman the other
Speaker 3: day who gave me the first legitimately good use for
Speaker 3: large language models. She had a really bad blind date
Speaker 3: and the guy sent her like a long, long email
Speaker 3: and she's like, read this email for me because I'm
Speaker 3: not going to read it because I don't want to
Speaker 3: go on another date with a guy. Then respond to
Speaker 3: it like politely saying saying no, I don't want to
Speaker 3: see you again. And I was like, you figured it
Speaker 3: out that because like if you did that to me
Speaker 3: at work, I would be furious. Blind date, Yes, go, yep.
Speaker 1: That's no that that you're right, and that is the
Speaker 1: more specifically than the only good example for like it's
Speaker 1: the only good version of that demo that every company
Speaker 1: insists on thinking. It was just like, who send a
Speaker 1: text to my wife and tell her that I'm going
Speaker 1: to be late for dinner? Now make me sound more
Speaker 1: sad about it? No, apologize, just text.
Speaker 3: Your wife you start.
Speaker 2: It's like more effort to do.
Speaker 1: It's ridiculous.
Speaker 2: And how do you even know what good is? You
Speaker 2: can't write right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Exactly.
Speaker 2: And I must also say, just as a note, there
Speaker 2: are people out there who have like cook disorders and
Speaker 2: learning learning disability called dyspraxia for example. It's physical, but
Speaker 2: there are people with dyslexia. Those are not When I
Speaker 2: say you should be able to write email, just to
Speaker 2: be really clear, not the people. I mean, you have
Speaker 2: an individualized problem. And I also must be clear, none
Speaker 2: of the AI companies give a rap fuck about you.
Speaker 2: They do not care that it's not You are not
Speaker 2: the person they are selling accessibility. They are selling to
Speaker 2: someone who does not exist that they made up right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that is who it is. Because the rewrite stuff is crazy.
Speaker 2: And then the oh, I have these five ingredients in
Speaker 2: my kitchen.
Speaker 3: That's my favorite one. I'm like, ever happened to someone
Speaker 3: you just only have.
Speaker 2: I mean, no, you can't work out what you like
Speaker 2: unless you've got I've gone onion, one piece of ham,
Speaker 2: three knives of a cuman check GPT. Like what is
Speaker 2: the situation where you can't look at it and go
Speaker 2: all right, fine, Like I'll make a sandwich.
Speaker 3: Like because you're you're imagining what they imagine when they're
Speaker 3: doing this is themselves. They're just like looking in the
Speaker 3: mirror and they're being like, Okay, I put on my
Speaker 3: little padic.
Speaker 2: In your vest, I put on my clothes, put on.
Speaker 3: My little bluetooth headset. I haven't looked at my spouse
Speaker 3: in three weeks. I'm gonna have my assistant text them.
Speaker 3: Oh shit, my assistant got laid off. Okay, I really
Speaker 3: wish I had an AI assistant who could text them
Speaker 3: so that they don't leave me, because they probably.
Speaker 2: Because the divorce would be quite messy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it would be expensive. They will take.
Speaker 2: All of my stock, but I don't care.
Speaker 3: So yeah, and like that, I mean, that is a gross,
Speaker 3: gross exaggeration. Are many of you lovely human being? Yeah,
Speaker 3: there are plenty of people who have lovely relationships there,
Speaker 3: but that is like the thing there. They are they
Speaker 3: are very cynically going after this one group who to
Speaker 3: your point earlier, they're not talking to real people. They're
Speaker 3: not going out to like fucking middle of nowhere rule
Speaker 3: Nebraska and being like what do you think of this?
Speaker 3: Because they'll be like can it connect to the internet? Yeah,
Speaker 3: it needs the internet to do everything? Cool. I can't
Speaker 3: use it at all because I don't have Internet.
Speaker 1: I wonder and I have a real question here, and like,
Speaker 1: is it that so many problems have already been solved
Speaker 1: that it's harder to find new ones, like or that
Speaker 1: the new ones we find are too niche and too
Speaker 1: narrow and too because you can't dedicate Google's resources to
Speaker 1: solving like a.
Speaker 3: Fixable problem is I would love to just say, fix
Speaker 3: my schedule for the week? Oh, I mean same, right,
Speaker 3: Like that should be easy.
Speaker 2: You shouldn't have been lying about this. I'm calling you
Speaker 2: out Motion, you ossholes, all right, you motherfuckers. I see
Speaker 2: you on Instagram every goddamn day. I've supercharged my adhday
Speaker 2: with motion. Fuck you, it's not how it works. You're
Speaker 2: a bunch of scumbag. I'm so sorry that's a little much,
Speaker 2: but you light I loaded your goddamn product, and it's
Speaker 2: like I'll rearrange your SCHEDULEM like go, and it just
Speaker 2: it like tries to like suggest I do something once
Speaker 2: like that does not work. What the fuck you do?
Speaker 2: And I just don't trust it anymore and it doesn't
Speaker 2: do it. And I cannot find any real users. I'm
Speaker 2: sure they exist, but that's the thing. It's that is
Speaker 2: a problem to be solved. But I also think you're
Speaker 2: right in the there are no big problems, right, I
Speaker 2: feel like no more lands to.
Speaker 1: Conker, tens of thousands of little problems and little niche
Speaker 1: like issues and certainly stuff that I run into every
Speaker 1: day that shouldn't be a problem. And Google Home is
Speaker 1: what you know, over a decade old, and those things
Speaker 1: are just absolutely trash. But like those are little things.
Speaker 1: There's one light in my room doesn't go off with
Speaker 1: the rest of it goes like no one's gonna Those
Speaker 1: are troubleshooting bug fixes. Like we were not doing this
Speaker 1: whole maps thing again. We're not. We're not saying like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know how it's hard to get around the city,
Speaker 1: or you know how you got to print out map
Speaker 1: quest directions, Like no, we drove down every road on
Speaker 1: the planet, and now you have Google Maps. Yeah. Like
Speaker 1: I feel like those big ambitious problems just don't don't
Speaker 1: obviously present themselves.
Speaker 2: We do need to go back to this idea that
Speaker 2: there are no more lands to conquer. It's the thing
Speaker 2: I've talked about before, that there are no more big problems.
Speaker 2: And I think we're finally maybe this is the first
Speaker 2: time in history we're really being made to reckon with
Speaker 2: the fact of how these companies make money because it
Speaker 2: consumers are perhaps dealing with a death by a thousand
Speaker 2: cuts right now. It's the ten ten million little problems
Speaker 2: we face, which are usually a response, sorry, a result
Speaker 2: of technical debt. It's just things built on top of things.
Speaker 2: People I've talked to inside of Google have said this,
Speaker 2: that they just build shit on top of other shit.
Speaker 2: Google Home one of the most evil apps of all times,
Speaker 2: invented by the devil to separate you from your thermostaff
Speaker 2: But that is a result of them being like, Okay,
Speaker 2: we've brought net Tony Foddell. Yeah, genius, genius guy. They've
Speaker 2: got these amazing They've revolutionized the smart I'm not sure
Speaker 2: if any of you remember when the Nest came in.
Speaker 2: That was a huge deal. You had this shitty honeywell
Speaker 2: thing and Nest actually worked and it worked, did exactly
Speaker 2: what you wanted to look. It looked cool, but it
Speaker 2: also very satisfying. And guess what, it worked. It actually worked,
Speaker 2: and they went, Wow. So we just bought Nest and
Speaker 2: they've got these cameras and they've got these thermostats and
Speaker 2: they work really well and the software pretty reliable. People
Speaker 2: like that, But we also have another app that people hate.
Speaker 2: What if we added the thing people liked to the
Speaker 2: thing people hate, then they will love it instead. I
Speaker 2: don't know what happened what actually happens to thing I'm
Speaker 2: just describing, which is someone from Google absorbed Nest and
Speaker 2: then said, you are run by Steve. Now don't know
Speaker 2: if it's or her name was Steve, but you are
Speaker 2: run by this department, and we'll build on top of it,
Speaker 2: will connect all the bits of Nest into this app,
Speaker 2: because we must have everything in one place. When you're
Speaker 2: not really solving problems other than company apps and making
Speaker 2: a feature work rather than a suite of things work.
Speaker 2: This is the result. And I think we're finally reaching
Speaker 2: a point where just there's not enough exciting stuff to
Speaker 2: hide from the fact that most computing experiences are cluttered
Speaker 2: and bad. Well that's many, many times of the day.
Speaker 3: That's for the fixes. Right, Like Google, I think we
Speaker 3: can all agree, is not doing great as far as
Speaker 3: like search goes right. Like you go and you search
Speaker 3: something on Google, it is so much worse. Now I'm
Speaker 3: using Cogy, the paid one. At the moment, it's like
Speaker 3: it's interesting. I'm still trying it out, but it doesn't
Speaker 3: feel measurably worse, which is not great for Google. And
Speaker 3: that is something that could be solved and that would
Speaker 3: be a huge boot, right, Like, it is hard to
Speaker 3: find things, and these companies have all decided that they
Speaker 3: are going to solve it by just taking all of
Speaker 3: the content and then may maybe or maybe not accurately
Speaker 3: convey Google.
Speaker 2: I was like, and then you will be able to
Speaker 2: use such to find your UPS tracking number and it
Speaker 2: will tell it when you'll get to tell you, and
Speaker 2: then when you're trying to do a return, it will
Speaker 2: automatically generate that that could happen. Yeah, you know when
Speaker 2: it just movedy.
Speaker 3: Don't worry that. Yeah, there's a lot there are these
Speaker 3: useful things. They're nowhere close to ready and then they
Speaker 3: go and they promise them way too early, and then
Speaker 3: like AI is getting poisoned. There's so much really interesting
Speaker 3: things that could have paid for a while, and there
Speaker 3: has been for a very long time, and instead they're like,
Speaker 3: what if we just make a bunch of money by
Speaker 3: pushing lying bots out into the world and that won't
Speaker 3: backfire in any way, shape or form. And it's like, no,
Speaker 3: it's already backfiring, and it's just gonna get worse. Like Google,
Speaker 3: you shot yourself in the foot. Microsoft with being you
Speaker 3: shot yourself in the foot because you're like, what if
Speaker 3: we release these lying machines at the same time we
Speaker 3: have our garbage search engines that can't see the lies
Speaker 3: and it'll be fine. No, you've just made the web
Speaker 3: like almost impossible to navigate.
Speaker 2: And that one is very much like it was a
Speaker 2: way to sell cloud computer space. It was a way
Speaker 2: to promise the eternal growth machine could keep growing. But
Speaker 2: also like Search, I've done the episode that's a whole thing.
Speaker 2: It just feels like they're not building things for people
Speaker 2: like it. Really like if I worked on Google Search
Speaker 2: and I saw them launch that, I probably wouldn't quit.
Speaker 2: If I had a mortgage. But I would take my
Speaker 2: LinkedIn offline. Yeah, I wouldn't want to be associated with it.
Speaker 2: If you like, yeah, I deface the line vacations, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I would, yeah, vacation. But it's just someone like a
Speaker 2: in a sane society suned up. A shy would have
Speaker 2: been fired immediately, immediate. Liz sent off, Brabagar Ragavan would
Speaker 2: have been sent off. These people would have been fired,
Speaker 2: not just for but they've already not been fired for
Speaker 2: making search bad, but for publicly breaking the probably the
Speaker 2: biggest contribution tech has made ever, like at least in software, and.
Speaker 3: Instead it's like a little hiccup and they're like, don't worry.
Speaker 3: AI is going to fix this.
Speaker 2: Cow just AI is going to fix the AI pro
Speaker 2: how well, you know.
Speaker 3: That's the other part of it. They're like, well, AI
Speaker 3: will fix it because AI just needs to learn more stuff,
Speaker 3: and if it learns more stuff, we'll do that. Okay,
Speaker 3: but didn't you just there was just I think The
Speaker 3: Atlantic wrote a really great story about how they run
Speaker 3: out of stuff to tach the AI on and so
Speaker 3: they're like, what if we just make more machines that
Speaker 3: make a content from AI synthetic content data.
Speaker 2: So if you go back to the PKI episode, this
Speaker 2: is a big problem the synthetic data. And by the way,
Speaker 2: did you know that that will break them?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's gonna be great.
Speaker 2: Habsburg Gai is well. Jaythan Sadowski calls it one of
Speaker 2: the funniest terms ever. But it's so funny as well
Speaker 2: because there are so many times, there's so many things
Speaker 2: to fix, and just using the phone is kind of
Speaker 2: a ball Like it's it's like you have this click
Speaker 2: click keyboard company. I'm surprised that that didn't come out
Speaker 2: like one of the weird like not quite works for Apple,
Speaker 2: but seems to get all their revenue through the Apple store.
Speaker 2: Companies like these, these ones that have just kind of
Speaker 2: bubbled up and hung around in a good way. Like
Speaker 2: it's just solving a very specific knee.
Speaker 1: Right right, very like specific.
Speaker 2: There are plenty of people who don't like clickie, who
Speaker 2: want a clickie keyboard, people who like keyboards, like that's
Speaker 2: a thing that you can connect to a person who
Speaker 2: does not about.
Speaker 3: Kim Kardashian bowl one, right, that is famously a thing
Speaker 3: she loves.
Speaker 1: One of the first things I learned about being on
Speaker 1: the side of the business and I'm not allowed to
Speaker 1: talk about the customers stuff. Give me the permission.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I hear Henry clutching his clicks as his
Speaker 2: last words. Well, I like the device. No, it's it
Speaker 2: sucks as well. And getting back to something of saying
Speaker 2: earlier as well, I want to be excited about this
Speaker 2: stuff I loves.
Speaker 3: Is there anything you're excited about?
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah, that's a good like the steam Deck. The
Speaker 2: next I genuinely believe, and I know the o led
Speaker 2: was the second one. No, that's not what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: Whenever they do the next steam Deck, I'm so excited
Speaker 2: for that.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be cool.
Speaker 2: I love the Steam Deck. I think it's one of
Speaker 2: the coolest things I've ever used. It is like a
Speaker 2: really great PC gaming console. PC gaming consoles, they've tried
Speaker 2: them a few times that never quite work, but this works.
Speaker 2: It's a bit too big.
Speaker 1: Play isn't great, but yeah, don't.
Speaker 3: Worry about it. It's cool and it's it's customizable in
Speaker 3: a way that you don't generally get with products nowadays,
Speaker 3: and it's just it's fun to use. Like that's that's
Speaker 3: what I got.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 3: I got into the I in Ao, I got into
Speaker 3: these weird like Steam Deck replacements, because there's a place
Speaker 3: where I'm like, oh, something's happening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, game play is kind of immune from this, from
Speaker 1: this thing, because like you can go back to a
Speaker 1: Nintendo Sweat right now. I still love my switch and
Speaker 1: Razor kicks out a new gaming accessory every cees. You've
Speaker 1: got this crazy, ridiculous webcam that like most people don't
Speaker 1: need but streamers love, and the RGB nabled lights and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. There are a lot of gadgets to
Speaker 1: be had in the gaming world. I feel like if
Speaker 1: I were one.
Speaker 2: Beginning with e I'm completely blanking.
Speaker 3: They do the lights, El Gato, they make.
Speaker 2: Really good Dane producer there, it's Eato. They make great
Speaker 2: ship as well.
Speaker 1: And production gear and camera NERD's like, there are still
Speaker 1: gadgets out there for specific niches.
Speaker 3: But it's definitely niche.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're also little professions, but they're like it's specialized gear.
Speaker 1: It's not really a gadget. There is just yeah, plan,
Speaker 1: I got this weird thing.
Speaker 2: There is something exciting happening where the normalization of photography
Speaker 2: written large is pretty magnificent. The photos I can take
Speaker 2: on my iPhone with portrait mode are not my ds
Speaker 2: A lot. I've got an Alpha three, I got a
Speaker 2: Canon five DS. I've done a lot of photography, got
Speaker 2: some nice glass too. And yeah, when I take them
Speaker 2: out and I get the right lighting, lighting, and I've
Speaker 2: I've made sure I do the settings.
Speaker 3: Right, you feel like you've earned.
Speaker 2: And I nailed and I nailed there. Sure it's great
Speaker 2: ninety eight percent. The other time, though, my phone's in
Speaker 2: my pocket and I can get a really good photo
Speaker 2: and it's easy. I can upload it somewhere, it's easy
Speaker 2: to share with a friend. I could do a little editing.
Speaker 2: I can make a podcast at home in my pajamas
Speaker 2: in Las Vegas. I can have it edited. There are
Speaker 2: actual things that happen that are so good in tech,
Speaker 2: and they see these things and they're like, shit, all right,
Speaker 2: what problems to humans happen? Like I don't I don't know, yah,
Speaker 2: And they go to their assistant and like, what problems
Speaker 2: do you have and they start talking like yeah, sure,
Speaker 2: And it's just it's frustrating because if the tech industry
Speaker 2: would realize this was happening, they actually have a lot
Speaker 2: of good stuff to do. The normalization of whatever professional
Speaker 2: things are. You can record a podcast that sounds really
Speaker 2: good from home now in a way that you couldn't
Speaker 2: four years ago.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah. Also, I think like some of this is
Speaker 1: just it is. I don't know if you want to
Speaker 1: call it, like I've victimless. Crime is not the word.
Speaker 1: It's like this was, this was, this was inevitable. Right
Speaker 1: when stuff got this good, and when when you got
Speaker 1: able to do those things that you just talked about
Speaker 1: on your phone, you have a production studio in your pocket,
Speaker 1: like we had to get here. There was there's no
Speaker 1: longer any reason for Motorola to make a phone that
Speaker 1: with double action hinges.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we figured it out. And the same thing happened
Speaker 3: in Hollywood, right like they were like, oh, superhero movies
Speaker 3: make money. What if we only did? And that was
Speaker 3: really cool for me, a superhero nerd for two days,
Speaker 3: and then.
Speaker 2: I was like, that's a really good example because they
Speaker 2: saw that superheroes did well. What they didn't realize was
Speaker 2: the movies were good and the actors were good in
Speaker 2: the roles. Iron Man didn't do well because people love
Speaker 2: the concept of Tony Stark. It's because Robert Downey Junior.
Speaker 3: Nobody I f icking knew who Tony Stark was whenever it
Speaker 3: came out.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I Guardian's the Galaxy was good, not
Speaker 2: because of Guardians of the Galaxy, but because the act
Speaker 2: is a very good that's excellent. Scimora like, yeah, I
Speaker 2: forget who plays pee Quill, but the guy from the Office,
Speaker 2: there's gonna be someone who's so pissed and.
Speaker 3: It wasn't incredible.
Speaker 2: The guy from the Office, I'm like a huge guyianso
Speaker 2: the gag because he found have a bunch of comic
Speaker 2: artwork from it. But they saw that, and that's why, Yes,
Speaker 2: there you go. I have the guy from that show
Speaker 2: with person Trace Williams. Yeah, treat Williams. Sorry. So the
Speaker 2: thing is they see that, and then they spilled out
Speaker 2: all these ship ones. They're like, what what don't you
Speaker 2: like about it? They're all three hours long. That's more
Speaker 2: superhero you fucking ingrades.
Speaker 3: And just take your slop.
Speaker 2: You don't want your slot, take your slop. And I
Speaker 2: guess that maybe we are in tech slop era.
Speaker 3: We are in tech slop era.
Speaker 2: Oh no, we're actually in tech slop era. That's the
Speaker 2: title of this episode.
Speaker 3: But it is we're in this moment where it's like
Speaker 3: we they are more focused on their bottom line. They're
Speaker 3: more focused on pleasing people who don't care about the
Speaker 3: technology than actually making good technology. And there's there's a
Speaker 3: lot of good examples where that's not the case. We've
Speaker 3: talked about a lot of those here, but a lot
Speaker 3: of it is just garbage. And so for me, that's
Speaker 3: why I go and I mess with these steam deck
Speaker 3: competitors and eat ink devices because that's the areas where
Speaker 3: it feels like, yeah, there is the slop, like right now,
Speaker 3: and tell Panos does something about the Kindle garbage device.
Speaker 3: I do not want one in my house. Sorry to
Speaker 3: everyone at Amazon. Fix it. But these other Onyx books
Speaker 3: is making like really really cool interesting stuff here. It's
Speaker 3: not great yet, but they're trying. And every time, like
Speaker 3: I write a review, then the next thing comes out
Speaker 3: and it changes little and I'm like okay, then I
Speaker 3: feel very powerful, and then I just want to like
Speaker 3: write a hole like here's what I want actually from it,
Speaker 3: and then I'm worried that I'm got too close, I
Speaker 3: got too into it.
Speaker 2: It's funny though, that you're afraid to write that, right,
Speaker 2: just be like fix it, yeah, because like you're afraid
Speaker 2: the company would be mad when the company should.
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, no, then I'm no. I'm more afraid that,
Speaker 3: like I'm doing labor and not getting paid for it.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm getting paid for it, but like.
Speaker 1: Right, the unpaid consulting check is not.
Speaker 3: Yeah it where's my consulting check now?
Speaker 1: But I wonder about the Actually, that's what I've been
Speaker 1: thinking about kind of weirdly for the past few minutes.
Speaker 1: It's just like, there is still obviously really good reporting
Speaker 1: out there. There are still really good gadget reviews out there,
Speaker 1: there's still people calling companies to account for for the
Speaker 1: the stuff we've been talking about for two hours. But
Speaker 1: I do wonder how much disruption is actually being introduced
Speaker 1: by this kind of like rise of influencer marketing that
Speaker 1: kind of like there's clouds the whole thing, and nobody
Speaker 1: can tell the difference. I found I started to find
Speaker 1: fifteen years or twelve years ago that people could not
Speaker 1: tell the difference between sponsored content and.
Speaker 2: Even when you lead in quite aggressively, yeah.
Speaker 1: Because well, oh, I'm like I tweet and someone replies
Speaker 1: asking a question that I've answered in the original tweet,
Speaker 1: you know, because nobody pays attention. It's it's it's it's
Speaker 1: an attention span problem that I don't I don't know.
Speaker 1: We could spend another two hours talking about the changes
Speaker 1: that would need to happen in the media world to
Speaker 1: actually kind of make it close to good, but I
Speaker 1: don't know that it would make a difference. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: based on people's willingness to actually listen or ability to listen.
Speaker 3: It's wild how many times we'll put a review up
Speaker 3: and you know, the Vergeon, we do not accept units.
Speaker 3: We send them back after we review them. We've got
Speaker 3: very strict policy. Used to we wouldn't even eat food one.
Speaker 6: And I love it.
Speaker 3: And nowadays, like we get people being like, oh, you
Speaker 3: just spawn con for Apple, and I'm like, rude. I'm
Speaker 3: mainly just offended more than annoyed, because I'm just like,
Speaker 3: but it's it's the same thing. There's this assumption that
Speaker 3: everyone has paid to play, and you see that even
Speaker 3: with PR, you get a lot of these younger PR
Speaker 3: people being like, hey, how much can we pay you
Speaker 3: to get our product on your site. I'm like, well, nothing, absolute, yeah,
Speaker 3: And it's it's shockingly common.
Speaker 1: Mark is running, you know, a really great review on
Speaker 1: MKBHD and then we have two weeks of discourse because
Speaker 1: somebody on Twitter with a large audience said, you know,
Speaker 1: I just don't think it's right that can kill a
Speaker 1: can kill a company, you know with this, with this
Speaker 1: thoughtless headline, I'm like, no, that's a review of a
Speaker 1: product that didn't.
Speaker 2: That's how this works. I think that there is a
Speaker 2: problem within the media, that there is a fear that
Speaker 2: if you step outside of the lines in gaming for
Speaker 2: good reason. I was in there before all of that
Speaker 2: horror show happens, and now it's those people you will
Speaker 2: actually get, especially so much worse for a woman. But
Speaker 2: in gadgets there's a fear of losing access. But I
Speaker 2: also think no one wants to say anything that's particularly
Speaker 2: different because I don't know what if they're wrong, And
Speaker 2: the answer is you've been wrong plenty of fucking times.
Speaker 2: Why stop now? Like, no one wants to make the
Speaker 2: step and say this sucks. I mentioned Dave three D earlier,
Speaker 2: great YouTube, Dave two D pardon us.
Speaker 1: I think three D is yeah, ten years from.
Speaker 2: Now there are And he did this thing about about
Speaker 2: the rabbit and about the pin, and he was just saying,
Speaker 2: what are these companies doing like, what is this? I
Speaker 2: looked around, really no one said that there was a
Speaker 2: thing in Bloomberg being like, so, why is it so
Speaker 2: good that you're doing this? It was like a month
Speaker 2: before it came out. It's just completely insane. And I
Speaker 2: understand that when you see the world, everyone's saying AI,
Speaker 2: everyone's saying this is gonna be big. Everyone's saying the
Speaker 2: same thing. It's scary to step out. But also my
Speaker 2: Keith Olbman, have you no shame? But it really is like,
Speaker 2: do you not want to just say what you see?
Speaker 2: If you believe this, I actually am fine with it.
Speaker 2: Please explain yourself because in the case of the rabbit,
Speaker 2: the case of the humane I know the argument is
Speaker 2: are it's just for affluent people. Whatever, It's still a
Speaker 2: lot of money. It's still who knows whether someone didn't
Speaker 2: actually save for the rabbit or save.
Speaker 3: A lot of people.
Speaker 2: Two hundred bucks isn't screw you if you think two
Speaker 2: hundred bucks isn't a lot. If that is your response
Speaker 2: to something as a justification for being shit, that's uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: I always said that wasn't an excuse, especially since it
Speaker 1: was being like compared directly to the to their humane
Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, yeah, it's cost less, but still
Speaker 1: doesn't do it.
Speaker 3: It wasna yeah, yeah, in fact, it did even much less. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it's you can put an Android phone on it now.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 1: I wanted to do that for my video. It didn't
Speaker 1: come out in the time.
Speaker 2: It's just frustrating that guy who was like, oh, he
Speaker 2: killed the product. No, they killed the products. Marcus just
Speaker 2: said what was in front of him, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I had a friend, Sharie Smith, who would review laptops
Speaker 3: and sometimes she'd give him a bad score, and the
Speaker 3: companies would call and be like, well, wh why did
Speaker 3: you give us a bad store? And you made a
Speaker 3: bad product. Make a good product and I'll give you
Speaker 3: a good score.
Speaker 1: It's that easy just talking about this off air. It's
Speaker 1: just like, no, look, I will tell you why, and
Speaker 1: I'll take you through the process and oh, I've just
Speaker 1: narrated my whole video for you again.
Speaker 2: Just go and if I like it, I'm gonna lose
Speaker 2: my shit over this. I'll be emphatic about how much
Speaker 2: I like it. When I like something, I love it,
Speaker 2: I get into the guts. Val Use, how was I
Speaker 2: really enjoy it? And I wanted to do that again
Speaker 2: with take, like I actually really miss it.
Speaker 1: And I think people What people don't get is that
Speaker 1: that's actually that makes it easier. Like when I run
Speaker 1: a review, that's that's good. Yeah, it's great because I
Speaker 1: get to geek out the product. The product people are happy,
Speaker 1: which like I doesn't know what I do, but they're
Speaker 1: not yelling at me, and the commenters aren't aren't yelling
Speaker 1: at me either. You get the occasional like how much
Speaker 1: they padio for this, and like everyone else is just
Speaker 1: like oh yeah, yea, I was geeking out about this too.
Speaker 1: I'm glad it's not a dumpster fire.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Great, cool, it's it's much more of a hassle to
Speaker 1: do a bad review.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a bad review. I mean the Vergion. This year,
Speaker 3: we did three that were like lower than average, and
Speaker 3: people were like, what because we give the rabbit a
Speaker 3: really low score. I believe we give it like a
Speaker 3: three or or four. You know, we give it a
Speaker 3: three because the Humane Pin got a four because it
Speaker 3: did slightly more, and then the vision pro got a
Speaker 3: seven and we all joke now and say it probably
Speaker 3: should have wit a six. But but even then it
Speaker 3: was pretty like like the Vision pro actually still did
Speaker 3: the thing right.
Speaker 2: It was those moments.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but seven should be outlined. I'm just gonna say
Speaker 1: seven should be retired.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know, it's very uncommon in our space,
Speaker 3: and a lot of times if you are using the
Speaker 3: garbage products, you don't want to talk about them, and
Speaker 3: then you're using the mediocre products and you're like, how
Speaker 3: do I make that sound interesting?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, yes, now we're just talking.
Speaker 3: You're just over here talking about no no, no no,
Speaker 3: we have a great time.
Speaker 2: Sorry, no no, no, no, I'm hat that's why you're here.
Speaker 2: And so it's funny. I've been asked recently to do
Speaker 2: more review stuff. But that's the thing. It's like, what
Speaker 2: if I hate it? Man, just say you hate it.
Speaker 1: It'll be the most and I can do no.
Speaker 2: But I can absolutely rip something a pop. Also, do
Speaker 2: I want to like if it's like something I truly despise, fine,
Speaker 2: absolutely the injustice inside me. But it's like something that's
Speaker 2: just kind of shit, like a six out of ten
Speaker 2: review that sounds horrib.
Speaker 3: I mean I definitely. When I first I went from
Speaker 3: from one place that had a very kind of strict tone,
Speaker 3: and then I went to a place with a much
Speaker 3: looser tone, which was Gizmoto at that point owned by Gawker.
Speaker 3: And I started there and I was ready to go,
Speaker 3: and I got a product in and I think, I mean,
Speaker 3: I gave it a really bad review, and it was
Speaker 3: mainly because I was just I was like, it was
Speaker 3: not very good, and I was like, I'm gonna dig in.
Speaker 3: And it was the meanest thing I've ever written in
Speaker 3: my life. I even think about it now and I
Speaker 3: cringe a little bit because it was so mean, But
Speaker 3: it was also so fun to write. And you you
Speaker 3: get older and you learn and you temper things, and
Speaker 3: so you're like, well, maybe I don't need to compare
Speaker 3: it to like a baby dropped on its head and
Speaker 3: a target, Like maybe that is not appropriate.
Speaker 2: So we're approaching the end now. Yeah, So for both
Speaker 2: of you, what is actually something you really really really
Speaker 2: love in tech? There you go, everyone on Reddit you
Speaker 2: want something positive? Jeez, you got you mean, like like
Speaker 2: a gadget you just really really love.
Speaker 1: I have a question, like a currently available one or one.
Speaker 2: One that used the history of yea yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: even from history. I don't mind.
Speaker 1: I will get I'll blend the two. I'll give you
Speaker 1: where I think a company really got something right and
Speaker 1: it didn't do very well. Motorola, as you know, revived
Speaker 1: the Razor for twenty nineteen. It brought back the Razor
Speaker 1: as a foldable Android phone, and it was pretty cool,
Speaker 1: but I had some stuff wrong with it. One of
Speaker 1: the greatest. Then the next year they brought out the
Speaker 1: Razor of twenty twenty, and I tell you, for somebody
Speaker 1: who is terminally nostalgic, this thing maintained the industrial design
Speaker 1: of one of the most famous phones of all time
Speaker 1: and concealed within it a really quite good Android phone
Speaker 1: with a bad camera because it's made by Motorola, but
Speaker 1: you know it's and it was very fragile in whatever,
Speaker 1: but it was beautiful. I still I very few gadgets
Speaker 1: that I don't just throw in a drawer or return
Speaker 1: or whatever. This one I didn't have the heart. It
Speaker 1: sits there on my shelf in the back. It's out
Speaker 1: of focus in most of my videos, and it's a masterpiece.
Speaker 1: And I love it when a company just absolutely nails it,
Speaker 1: and I hate it when it either doesn't have the
Speaker 1: ability to market it enough or it just doesn't capture
Speaker 1: the public imagination, and I don't think it did very well,
Speaker 1: but I loved it. Was the coolest, one of the
Speaker 1: coolest things I've ever reached.
Speaker 3: That was a cool fucking phone. Yeah, I think me
Speaker 3: right now, it's arc the browser. I recently switched to it.
Speaker 3: I won't shut up about it anywhere I go. So
Speaker 3: you guys have to listen to it too. You're talking
Speaker 3: about all your tabs earlier. I'm also a tab monster,
Speaker 3: and it just works. It better, like collates the stuff
Speaker 3: for me, so like it does the job. I waited
Speaker 3: like two years to use it, and now it's got
Speaker 3: a bunch of AI features that I think are kind
Speaker 3: of stupid, But you ignore the AI features and you
Speaker 3: just focus on the core product and it rules. And
Speaker 3: it just came out. The iPad version came out the
Speaker 3: week we're recording this.
Speaker 1: I've heard that a lot. I've heard a lot of people.
Speaker 3: It's one of those things where you do have to
Speaker 3: take a minute. It's not something immediately like I get it.
Speaker 3: You have to kind of sit with it a second
Speaker 3: because the first time I looked at it was like,
Speaker 3: this is stupid, and immediately all.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, from people find you Michael.
Speaker 1: If people can find me at Captain two Phones mostly
Speaker 1: on Threads, it's Captain the Number two Phones. I'm also
Speaker 1: still on X you know, I have No Choice and
Speaker 1: Instagram and I make your YouTube videos at the Mister Mobile.
Speaker 3: And you can find me at Alex Hcrans. I think
Speaker 3: on threads and Twitter exists, but I don't check it
Speaker 3: very often. It's also Alex Hcrans. And then I'm at
Speaker 3: the Verge. I write and edit at the Verge. I'm
Speaker 3: on the Verge cast every Friday and sometimes on Tuesdays.
Speaker 2: All Right, my name's ed Zychron you can find me
Speaker 2: a w W anyway. Sorry, you've been listening to Better Offline.
Speaker 2: We've been recording this in the beautiful iHeartRadio studios here
Speaker 2: in beautiful New York City. Daniel my producer, Thank you
Speaker 2: so much, Daniel. I'm calling this thing Better off Live.
Speaker 2: Now We're going to do this in multiple cities. I'm
Speaker 2: proud and happy that we did this. Thank you, Michael,
Speaker 2: thank you Alex. It's been one for and thank you
Speaker 2: all for listening. Thank you for listening to Better Offline.
Speaker 2: The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song
Speaker 2: is Matasowski. You can check out more of his music
Speaker 2: and audio projects at Matasowski dot com, M A T
Speaker 2: T O S O W s Ki dot com.
Speaker 6: You can email me at easy at better offline dot
Speaker 6: com or visit better offline dot com to find more
Speaker 6: podcast links and of course, my newsletter. I also really
Speaker 6: recommend you go to chat dot where's youreaed dot at
Speaker 6: to visit the discord, and go to our slash.
Speaker 2: Better Offline to check out our reddit.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline is a
Speaker 1: production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 3: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool
Speaker 3: Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
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