Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► From Relay, this is Connected, episode 553. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace. I'm your annual chairman, Federico Vittici, and it's my pleasure to introduce Steven. Hello, Steven.

00:00:19 ◼   ► Hello, it's me. I don't have a title. I will never get tired of this. I was concerned that it would get tiresome after a while, but no, it never gets old. It's still funny that you don't have a title. I'm sorry.

00:00:35 ◼   ► Hey, we're going to play the Rickies in just a couple of weeks, so maybe I can take Keynote Chairman Mike's title away from him. Hello, Keynote Chairman Mike.

00:00:46 ◼   ► Hello. I wonder if it's tiresome for other people. It's not tiresome for us, but I'm expecting it's probably tiresome for some.

00:00:53 ◼   ► If you hate it, let us know in the feedback form.

00:00:55 ◼   ► Not on the Apple Podcast Reviews.

00:00:58 ◼   ► No, not there. We're going to get to that, though, because some people think that the feedback form, I think, is the podcast review form in Apple Podcast.

00:01:08 ◼   ► Yeah, that's not great.

00:01:10 ◼   ► Not the same thing, y'all.

00:01:11 ◼   ► Okay.

00:01:12 ◼   ► Follow-up.

00:01:16 ◼   ► Vibe Coding, which we've been talking about. Federico explained it to us last week.

00:01:21 ◼   ► Cade, pronounced as in Arcade.

00:01:24 ◼   ► It's very funny.

00:01:27 ◼   ► I look forward to the follow-up next week.

00:01:28 ◼   ► No, no way.

00:01:29 ◼   ► We don't know how to pronounce Arcade, you know?

00:01:31 ◼   ► Arcade.

00:01:32 ◼   ► Cade.

00:01:33 ◼   ► Cade.

00:01:34 ◼   ► In Italian, cade means he or she falls.

00:01:38 ◼   ► Cade.

00:01:39 ◼   ► Oh, no.

00:01:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:40 ◼   ► Cade and I can't get up.

00:01:43 ◼   ► Well, that's interesting.

00:01:47 ◼   ► What are video game arcades called in Italy?

00:01:50 ◼   ► Sala Jockey.

00:01:52 ◼   ► Sala Jockey?

00:01:54 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:55 ◼   ► Jockey is games and sala is just like room.

00:01:58 ◼   ► We don't call it the arcade.

00:02:00 ◼   ► The room of games.

00:02:02 ◼   ► We don't say we go to the arcade.

00:02:05 ◼   ► So you go to the game room.

00:02:07 ◼   ► There used to be many Sala Jockey when I was little, and now you don't see those anymore.

00:02:11 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:12 ◼   ► Sala Jockey.

00:02:13 ◼   ► That sounds fun.

00:02:14 ◼   ► It's kind of like Chicken Jockey, which is a different thing.

00:02:16 ◼   ► No, that's a very different thing.

00:02:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:18 ◼   ► What did Cade say, Steven?

00:02:22 ◼   ► Well, after they got off the ground, Cade said, after your conversation about vibe coding,

00:02:28 ◼   ► I realized it could solve a really simple problem in my research.

00:02:32 ◼   ► I'm an infectious disease scientist at a large U.S. university.

00:02:36 ◼   ► Hopefully Cade still has a job.

00:02:39 ◼   ► But the open source, microscopy software we use doesn't have a batch save feature, which

00:02:46 ◼   ► means it can take hours to individually save images despite the editing only taking minutes.

00:02:52 ◼   ► Using GPT-40, I was able to get a workable macro made in about 30 minutes.

00:02:58 ◼   ► Thank you all.

00:02:59 ◼   ► I would like to speak on behalf of RelayFM, LLC, and Mac Stories Incorporated that we take

00:03:05 ◼   ► no, we are not in any way responsible for what comes out of this infectious disease research

00:03:13 ◼   ► university.

00:03:13 ◼   ► This has got nothing to do with us.

00:03:15 ◼   ► We didn't tell Cade to do this.

00:03:17 ◼   ► You, Cade, decided to vibe code your way into infectious disease analysis.

00:03:23 ◼   ► Not us.

00:03:24 ◼   ► Not us.

00:03:25 ◼   ► In fact, I think I specifically remember last week saying if you work in infectious disease

00:03:31 ◼   ► research, do not do this.

00:03:33 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure I said that.

00:03:34 ◼   ► It might have been quiet, but I definitely said it.

00:03:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:03:38 ◼   ► This is how the new pandemic starts.

00:03:40 ◼   ► Don't do that.

00:03:42 ◼   ► Vibe coding.

00:03:43 ◼   ► Vibe coding.

00:03:43 ◼   ► You've, you've, you've, I don't know.

00:03:46 ◼   ► Whatever.

00:03:47 ◼   ► I'm not taking it any further.

00:03:48 ◼   ► I'm very pleased to hear this, actually.

00:03:50 ◼   ► I think this is great.

00:03:51 ◼   ► Like, Cade solved the problem.

00:03:54 ◼   ► Like, I think this is awesome.

00:03:55 ◼   ► Dan also wrote in and said, since listening to your episode with no coding experience, I have

00:04:00 ◼   ► a small one-person speech therapy practice and have been looking for a simple CRM for ages

00:04:05 ◼   ► to manage referrals.

00:04:06 ◼   ► All of those out there are too business focused and don't work for what I need as a healthcare

00:04:10 ◼   ► provider.

00:04:11 ◼   ► I spent a few hours coding a web app using Gemini Pro 2.5 and ended up with a serviceable CRM

00:04:17 ◼   ► that I can build on over time.

00:04:18 ◼   ► It is amazing, given my zero coding skills.

00:04:20 ◼   ► I've been thinking about this and in reading this, this is Mike talking now.

00:04:24 ◼   ► This isn't Dan anymore.

00:04:25 ◼   ► Hey, Mike.

00:04:27 ◼   ► Hello.

00:04:28 ◼   ► Is this like the best end result for AI that like everybody can make their computers do

00:04:34 ◼   ► computer things no matter what their skill level is?

00:04:37 ◼   ► Right.

00:04:37 ◼   ► It's one of them.

00:04:38 ◼   ► Like, this seems like to me, I haven't done this yet, but I'm, I'm actively thinking about

00:04:44 ◼   ► like, I'm trying to pay attention to things I might want to do this for.

00:04:48 ◼   ► Right.

00:04:48 ◼   ► So I can have a reason to try this.

00:04:50 ◼   ► But I just think that this is the dream, right?

00:04:54 ◼   ► You get the computer to do the thing that a computer can do.

00:04:58 ◼   ► You can't.

00:05:00 ◼   ► And you don't have to spend tens of hours learning JavaScript or whatever, you know?

00:05:06 ◼   ► I just think this is cool.

00:05:07 ◼   ► And again, it's like, is this the best version of it?

00:05:10 ◼   ► Absolutely not.

00:05:11 ◼   ► Right.

00:05:12 ◼   ► Like, this is not the best version of it.

00:05:13 ◼   ► But is this working for Cade and Dan?

00:05:15 ◼   ► Yes, it is.

00:05:16 ◼   ► And so I just think that that's fantastic.

00:05:18 ◼   ► It's way better to have a little CRM to just try and do it in a Google sheet.

00:05:23 ◼   ► And it's better to have a little CRM than programming a microscope, probably.

00:05:28 ◼   ► Well, I don't know.

00:05:29 ◼   ► I mean, it depends.

00:05:30 ◼   ► Look, the other thing is, we could potentially have been the reason that some infectious disease

00:05:35 ◼   ► gets solved, if you think about that.

00:05:37 ◼   ► Oh, that's true.

00:05:38 ◼   ► We could, you know, like maybe Cade now comes, like, it comes into some big discovery because

00:05:44 ◼   ► the microscope is working correctly.

00:05:46 ◼   ► We want to be listed on your Nobel Prize.

00:05:49 ◼   ► Yeah, if you don't mind.

00:05:50 ◼   ► There is something, Mike, I had not thought about your question about vibe coding being

00:05:58 ◼   ► the best end result.

00:05:59 ◼   ► I think in part because I spend a lot of time with programmers and, you know, there's sort

00:06:05 ◼   ► of the weirdness around that.

00:06:07 ◼   ► But there is something that your question has changed in my mind a little bit.

00:06:11 ◼   ► And it makes me think about sort of the early days of computers and like people were like

00:06:15 ◼   ► figuring out basic and stuff as kids.

00:06:18 ◼   ► I think if vibe coding can help teach you something, it's good.

00:06:23 ◼   ► Like that has certainly been my experience and using chat GPT 4.0 to do some WordPress stuff

00:06:32 ◼   ► for 512 pixels.

00:06:33 ◼   ► Like I can see what it's doing and it's helping me like close a gap in my knowledge, but I'm

00:06:39 ◼   ► already somewhat knowledgeable about PHP and how WordPress works.

00:06:43 ◼   ► So if you're starting from nothing, like I would like to see what that educational angle is like.

00:06:49 ◼   ► But it certainly is interesting to consider that this is a positive outcome for most people.

00:06:55 ◼   ► I think you're being slightly optimistic with the idea that it might be teaching people programming.

00:07:00 ◼   ► I think I am.

00:07:01 ◼   ► I think most people are copy and pasting and then telling it it doesn't work.

00:07:04 ◼   ► But I think that's fine for like your own personal use cases.

00:07:08 ◼   ► Like I think that that is like totally fine.

00:07:12 ◼   ► Like you're just doing the thing.

00:07:14 ◼   ► A thing that, look, let's be honest, right?

00:07:16 ◼   ► I know people are like, oh, but what about the pro?

00:07:18 ◼   ► Cade or Dan were not going to employ anyone to do this for them, right?

00:07:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:07:22 ◼   ► There is no lost money in this, right?

00:07:25 ◼   ► Like what was going to happen was Cade was going to be upset with their microscope and Dan was going to continue writing things into numbers or whatever, right?

00:07:34 ◼   ► Like, but what this has enabled them is to actually have a thing that they need at the budget that they have most likely, right?

00:07:41 ◼   ► And so I just think it's cool that these people have these options available to them where they would otherwise just be kind of stuck, you know?

00:07:51 ◼   ► Or like Dan would have ended up buying some very expensive software that they don't need to do a thing that is very simple.

00:08:00 ◼   ► And like, and I share this, like we've looked at CRM tools in the past and they are just nightmarish because they are all trying to cater for the most, like biggest sales teams.

00:08:12 ◼   ► And we've always ended up coming back to something like Airtable or whatever instead, because it's just simple compared to like use this Salesforce thing, which wants to take over your entire business, you know?

00:08:30 ◼   ► There's a lot of money in that sort of corporate software and they can't help themselves, but try to take over everything.

00:08:35 ◼   ► Well, yeah, because the more money there is, the more money they want, right?

00:08:39 ◼   ► And so they, like, for example, Salesforce buys Slack so they can also have routine communications.

00:08:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:08:44 ◼   ► And what a good job they're doing.

00:08:47 ◼   ► Slack never changes.

00:08:49 ◼   ► Slack, what Slack gets is more features I don't want, like always, constantly.

00:08:57 ◼   ► Here's brand new parts of Slack that you don't need.

00:09:00 ◼   ► But here you go.

00:09:02 ◼   ► We have one.

00:09:02 ◼   ► Today it told me I could make a folder.

00:09:04 ◼   ► I don't know what for, but it's like, hey, make a folder.

00:09:07 ◼   ► I'm like, I don't.

00:09:08 ◼   ► Why?

00:09:08 ◼   ► What is the folder for?

00:09:09 ◼   ► Did you make a folder?

00:09:10 ◼   ► I didn't make a folder because I don't really know why I would make a folder.

00:09:14 ◼   ► Like, what is the folder?

00:09:15 ◼   ► Here you go.

00:09:16 ◼   ► It says folder new.

00:09:17 ◼   ► And I click it and it's like, create a folder.

00:09:19 ◼   ► It's like, why?

00:09:21 ◼   ► What is it doing?

00:09:22 ◼   ► But, like, you wanted to put a little blue dot next to the plus button in all of my windows for me to tell me to, quote, make a folder.

00:09:29 ◼   ► But I don't know what the folders are for.

00:09:30 ◼   ► And so, like, just leave me alone, please.

00:09:32 ◼   ► You know?

00:09:33 ◼   ► Make a folder.

00:09:36 ◼   ► We talked about podcast reviews a few weeks back and asked people to go to Apple Podcasts and drop us a review.

00:09:45 ◼   ► So, people have done that, which is really nice.

00:09:49 ◼   ► And that link will be in the show notes again today if you want to do that.

00:09:53 ◼   ► But Robin wrote in.

00:09:54 ◼   ► And, I mean, I'm glad that this isn't in the podcast directory because it's pretty funny but also really bad.

00:10:03 ◼   ► But it's, uh, I was going to read what Robin wrote.

00:10:05 ◼   ► Robin wrote, I asked ChatGPT for a limerick on the podcast.

00:10:08 ◼   ► It gave me a delightful mess.

00:10:11 ◼   ► So, this is what ChatGPT wrote.

00:10:13 ◼   ► The connected crews quite a delight with tech news and banter just right.

00:10:17 ◼   ► For Mike and Stephen and Snell, their insides all gel and Cortex fans listen every night.

00:10:24 ◼   ► And Snell, what happened to me?

00:10:28 ◼   ► You're gone, baby.

00:10:29 ◼   ► Why?

00:10:33 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:10:34 ◼   ► Sorry about that.

00:10:36 ◼   ► I mean, look, I'm happy.

00:10:38 ◼   ► I get, like, everything in here.

00:10:39 ◼   ► You know?

00:10:40 ◼   ► It knows.

00:10:41 ◼   ► He also gets Cortex.

00:10:42 ◼   ► It knows upgrade.

00:10:43 ◼   ► It knows Cortex.

00:10:44 ◼   ► I'm, like, in this limerick left, right, and center.

00:10:46 ◼   ► But this is Federico or ratio right here.

00:10:49 ◼   ► It really is.

00:10:50 ◼   ► This is not right.

00:10:52 ◼   ► And this is, at this moment, is when Federico stopped users ChatGPT forever.

00:10:57 ◼   ► You know?

00:10:58 ◼   ► Just the disrespect of it.

00:10:59 ◼   ► Hello, Claude.

00:11:01 ◼   ► Frenchie bandit with ChatGPT.

00:11:04 ◼   ► We should see if Gemini would do a better job, you know?

00:11:07 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:11:08 ◼   ► For $249 a quarter.

00:11:11 ◼   ► $4 million a month.

00:11:13 ◼   ► They will write you a good limerick.

00:11:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:11:17 ◼   ► We'll get to that later on.

00:11:18 ◼   ► A couple of news items.

00:11:20 ◼   ► Fortnite is back in the App Store.

00:11:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:11:23 ◼   ► So, basically, Apple kind of held Epic's submission.

00:11:28 ◼   ► They did not reject it.

00:11:29 ◼   ► They did not accept it.

00:11:30 ◼   ► This kind of broke Fortnite because of the way in which they submitted the application.

00:11:35 ◼   ► Epic wrote to Judge Yvonne Gonzalez-Rogers and was like, we think that they shouldn't do this because we're following all the rules now.

00:11:43 ◼   ► And the judge wrote a letter saying, you should just deal with this yourself.

00:11:48 ◼   ► And if you can't, there'll be a hearing at the end of May.

00:11:52 ◼   ► Someone from Apple who's responsible can come to this hearing.

00:11:56 ◼   ► Then, about two days, about like a day later, it was approved.

00:12:01 ◼   ► Apple was given zero statements about this.

00:12:04 ◼   ► And now, Fortnite, our long national nightmare is over.

00:12:09 ◼   ► Fortnite is back and number one in the App Store.

00:12:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:12:13 ◼   ► A couple of things here.

00:12:14 ◼   ► I cannot believe it's been five years since this started.

00:12:17 ◼   ► Yes.

00:12:18 ◼   ► Like, I keep reading that.

00:12:19 ◼   ► I keep thinking, that's got to be a typo.

00:12:21 ◼   ► And, like, I go to text whoever wrote the article, like, wait a second, that's not a typo.

00:12:25 ◼   ► Yes, it is the top free thing in the U.S. App Store as of right now.

00:12:29 ◼   ► They are, as you would imagine, promoting their own system.

00:12:34 ◼   ► And they're doing this in a couple of ways.

00:12:37 ◼   ► The big way is earning Epic Rewards and V-Bucks.

00:12:42 ◼   ► And they're also, which I don't really know what V-Bucks is.

00:12:45 ◼   ► And none of my children are home for me to ask them.

00:12:49 ◼   ► Okay, V-Bucks is the currency inside of the app.

00:12:52 ◼   ► So, you're not earning V-Bucks, you're buying V-Bucks.

00:12:54 ◼   ► So, you're buying V-Bucks to then use that virtual money to buy things inside of Fortnite.

00:13:01 ◼   ► Got it.

00:13:03 ◼   ► They are also promoting that across their other applications.

00:13:08 ◼   ► So, Epic has more than just Fortnite.

00:13:10 ◼   ► So, they're making a big push, which is not surprising.

00:13:15 ◼   ► And honestly, like, I don't even mind it.

00:13:18 ◼   ► Because you know what?

00:13:19 ◼   ► We've never had competition like this in the App Store.

00:13:21 ◼   ► And it's really interesting to see what it could look like.

00:13:24 ◼   ► I mind it.

00:13:25 ◼   ► I'm annoyed about what they're doing here.

00:13:26 ◼   ► Like, the whole point about this has been like, oh, it's bad for the customer, right?

00:13:34 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:13:35 ◼   ► They're not giving you more for your money.

00:13:37 ◼   ► Did you think they were going to just take 30% off?

00:13:42 ◼   ► Like, they want that for themselves?

00:13:44 ◼   ► I thought you would get more V-Bucks for the same amount of money, right?

00:13:49 ◼   ► But, like, if you do 1,000 V-Bucks for $8.99, you get an extra $200 or something like that, right?

00:13:56 ◼   ► Like, as a bonus or something like that.

00:13:59 ◼   ► Or, 1,000 V-Bucks costs $8.99 through in-app purchase or $6.99 with the Epic Game Store purchase.

00:14:08 ◼   ► Which is what, like, everybody else is doing, right?

00:14:11 ◼   ► Spotify is doing that, right?

00:14:12 ◼   ► It's like, if you buy it through in-app purchase, it's this.

00:14:15 ◼   ► Is that correct, Federico?

00:14:17 ◼   ► And if you buy it through web purchase, it's this.

00:14:20 ◼   ► Is it cheaper?

00:14:20 ◼   ► I think it is, yeah.

00:14:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:14:23 ◼   ► So, I'm really surprised that the way that they're doing this is you get Epic Rewards.

00:14:27 ◼   ► Which maybe you can spend for V-Bucks, too.

00:14:30 ◼   ► But this is just not the way that I expected them to do it.

00:14:33 ◼   ► I find that to be really weird.

00:14:35 ◼   ► But, you know.

00:14:38 ◼   ► You know, they need all the money to pay for that litigation and lawyers and stuff.

00:14:43 ◼   ► I guess so.

00:14:44 ◼   ► I guess so.

00:14:45 ◼   ► It's interesting.

00:14:47 ◼   ► V-Bucks?

00:14:50 ◼   ► More like...

00:14:51 ◼   ► No.

00:14:51 ◼   ► I don't have anything to do with it.

00:14:53 ◼   ► No.

00:14:53 ◼   ► I got nothing.

00:14:53 ◼   ► Okay.

00:14:54 ◼   ► Down.

00:14:55 ◼   ► Fossil arm.

00:14:56 ◼   ► Down, Steven.

00:14:56 ◼   ► Fossil arm.

00:14:57 ◼   ► Big news.

00:15:00 ◼   ► Everybody ready?

00:15:01 ◼   ► Incredible news.

00:15:03 ◼   ► Okay.

00:15:03 ◼   ► This is from Bloomberg via MacRumors.

00:15:07 ◼   ► Apple is planning to open its AI models up to developers via an SDK in iOS 19.

00:15:16 ◼   ► This would include the LLMs that power Apple intelligence notification summaries, writing tools, Genmoji, and everyone's favorite image playground.

00:15:28 ◼   ► Does anyone care about this?

00:15:29 ◼   ► Was anyone asking for this?

00:15:31 ◼   ► It's a shallow and narrow framework.

00:15:37 ◼   ► Look, here's the thing.

00:15:39 ◼   ► So, this Apple intelligence tools.

00:15:42 ◼   ► I want to guess that Mark did not read the technical white paper that Apple published last year about their models.

00:15:49 ◼   ► So, they work in a couple of different ways.

00:15:51 ◼   ► There's a small model that is called AFM.

00:15:54 ◼   ► So, AFM stands for Apple foundational model.

00:15:57 ◼   ► And it comes in two flavors.

00:15:58 ◼   ► The small one, the little model, which is called AFM on device.

00:16:04 ◼   ► And that is when Apple says, oh, it's downloading Apple intelligence and it runs on device.

00:16:09 ◼   ► That's what it's downloading.

00:16:10 ◼   ► It's downloading like, what is it?

00:16:12 ◼   ► Like three, four gigabyte or something.

00:16:14 ◼   ► Possibly more.

00:16:15 ◼   ► That's AFM on device.

00:16:17 ◼   ► And that deal, that is a large language model that deals with the on device generation stuff.

00:16:24 ◼   ► Then they have AFM server.

00:16:25 ◼   ► And that is the Apple intelligence large language model running in the private cloud compute stuff.

00:16:32 ◼   ► Now, for that size and performance, I struggle to imagine, based on the current version of AFM, who's the developer who will want to say, well, you know what?

00:16:53 ◼   ► Instead of using the new Gemma 3, what's it called?

00:16:56 ◼   ► Gemma 3N that they rolled out yesterday.

00:16:59 ◼   ► We're going to talk about that later.

00:17:00 ◼   ► Or instead of using like a small Mistral or a small Deep Seek, like instead of using one of these small on device models, I really want to use AFM.

00:17:09 ◼   ► I really want to use the Apple one.

00:17:11 ◼   ► The only advantage that I can think of instead, like if you want to stay local.

00:17:16 ◼   ► So if you don't want to call a cloud model, you just want to run on device.

00:17:21 ◼   ► The only advantage I can think of is that obviously in this case with AFM, your app wouldn't need to come bundled with any additional model in the download.

00:17:33 ◼   ► So you wouldn't have to download the three gigabytes or you wouldn't have to put out like a three gigabyte app on the App Store, right?

00:17:40 ◼   ► You wouldn't need to worry about the license.

00:17:43 ◼   ► You wouldn't need to worry about anything else.

00:17:45 ◼   ► You would just call a native API.

00:17:47 ◼   ► Apple is going to give you an SDK and that's potentially nice.

00:17:50 ◼   ► I want to see if there's an updated version of AFM.

00:17:54 ◼   ► That's the thing.

00:17:55 ◼   ► I want to see if there's a better version of the Apple Foundation model improved from last year that maybe could tip the scale for developers to say, you know what?

00:18:07 ◼   ► Instead of calling Gemini 2.5 Flash or GPT 4.1 Nano or something, or instead of downloading, you know, a Mistral model or a Gemma model on device, we can just use the Apple stuff.

00:18:22 ◼   ► I really want to see how they advertise this and what kind of performance they show, like to convince developers, hey, come here and use this instead of this other open source thing.

00:18:37 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:18:38 ◼   ► Can I give you some breaking news?

00:18:40 ◼   ► I was just coming here to say this.

00:18:42 ◼   ► I'm going to read something to you.

00:18:44 ◼   ► What happened?

00:18:45 ◼   ► May 21st, 2025.

00:18:47 ◼   ► This is an extraordinary moment.

00:18:50 ◼   ► Computers are now seeing, thinking, and understanding.

00:18:52 ◼   ► Despite this unprecedented capability, our experience remains shaped by traditional products and interfaces.

00:18:58 ◼   ► Two years ago, Johnny Ive and the creative collective Love From quietly began collaborating with Sam Altman and the team at OpenAI.

00:19:06 ◼   ► Oh my God.

00:19:07 ◼   ► A collaboration built upon friendship, curiosity, and shared values quickly grew in ambition.

00:19:12 ◼   ► Tentative ideas and explorations evolved into tangible designs.

00:19:16 ◼   ► The ideas seemed important and useful.

00:19:19 ◼   ► They were optimistic and hopeful.

00:19:21 ◼   ► They were inspiring.

00:19:22 ◼   ► They made everyone smile.

00:19:23 ◼   ► They reminded us of a time when we celebrated human achievement, grateful for new tools, and helped us learn, explore, and create.

00:19:30 ◼   ► It became clear that our ambitions to develop, engineer, and manufacture a new family of products demanded an entirely new company.

00:19:37 ◼   ► And so, one year ago, Johnny founded I.O. with Scott Cannon, Evans Hankey, and Tang Tan.

00:19:43 ◼   ► We gathered together the best hardware and software engineers, the best technologists, physicists, scientists, researchers, and experts in product development and manufacturing.

00:19:53 ◼   ► Many of us have worked closely for decades.

00:19:57 ◼   ► And so, one year ago, we're going to say, I'm going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:02 ◼   ► Oh my God.

00:20:03 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:03 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:04 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:04 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:04 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:05 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:06 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:14 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:16 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:17 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:17 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:17 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:18 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:19 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:20 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:22 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:23 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:24 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:25 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:26 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:27 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:28 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:29 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:31 ◼   ► We're going to say, Oh my God.

00:20:32 ◼   ► This, I have chills right now.

00:20:34 ◼   ► This is insane.

00:20:36 ◼   ► This is insane.

00:20:37 ◼   ► This is on the open AI website.

00:20:39 ◼   ► There's a 10 minute video that I can't wait to watch.

00:20:42 ◼   ► I can't believe this.

00:20:44 ◼   ► Like, I can't believe this.

00:20:47 ◼   ► I don't even know what this means, right?

00:20:49 ◼   ► It doesn't really mean anything yet, but like what it means is Johnny Ive is building stuff

00:20:56 ◼   ► again and it's with open AI.

00:20:58 ◼   ► Oh my God.

00:20:59 ◼   ► And, and I'm, and I'm, I'm scrolling through.

00:21:02 ◼   ► So here's a, here's a, here's a, uh, uh, I don't mean it to be an unpopular thing.

00:21:08 ◼   ► I don't mean it to be controversial.

00:21:10 ◼   ► I'm just stating the facts, uh, this kinds of news right now.

00:21:16 ◼   ► If you want to find these links, like there's so much stuff on what used to be called Twitter

00:21:22 ◼   ► and basically nothing on blue sky and Mastodon.

00:21:25 ◼   ► And it sucks because like all these people that I would like to follow, for example, I

00:21:28 ◼   ► just found out that Mike Mattas, remember Mike Mattas?

00:21:32 ◼   ► Uh, he made paper, right?

00:21:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:21:34 ◼   ► And yeah.

00:21:35 ◼   ► And to Facebook, excited to share love from an opening.

00:21:38 ◼   ► I have come together to form IO, a new company creating the next generation of AI products

00:21:41 ◼   ► and interfaces.

00:21:42 ◼   ► I've rarely felt so inspired by a project and team.

00:21:45 ◼   ► So Mike is working there.

00:21:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:21:47 ◼   ► I heard about that.

00:21:48 ◼   ► I think on threads.

00:21:49 ◼   ► I think it's on threads.

00:21:50 ◼   ► Some of this stuff finds its way to threads, but like there is quotes on this.

00:21:54 ◼   ► Like for example, Johnny Ive, I'm reminded of it.

00:21:56 ◼   ► I'm reminded of a time three decades ago when I emigrated to America as a designer.

00:22:00 ◼   ► I was drawn to the exhilarating and innocent optimism of Silicon Valley.

00:22:04 ◼   ► I can't believe this.

00:22:05 ◼   ► They are purchasing IO for $6.5 billion.

00:22:09 ◼   ► open AI is yeah, let me tell you that Johnny Ive knows how to make some money.

00:22:16 ◼   ► Let me tell you that.

00:22:17 ◼   ► Oh, so I mean, I am assuming love from remains.

00:22:20 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:22:20 ◼   ► Love from remains and Johnny and love from are going to be doing the design, uh, open

00:22:27 ◼   ► AI and IO along with the fact that IO is now part of open AI.

00:22:34 ◼   ► This is, I mean, if I were Apple, I would be trembling, still waiting to find the thing

00:22:43 ◼   ► that Johnny Ive is working on at Apple, which they always remember that's like, oh, he's

00:22:47 ◼   ► going to keep working on stuff.

00:22:48 ◼   ► Can't wait to see what that is.

00:22:49 ◼   ► I mean, this is, I don't know, like who knows, right?

00:22:53 ◼   ► But this is about as bad as it could be for all of the current companies.

00:22:57 ◼   ► I think like, I know that Johnny Ive catches a lot of flack.

00:23:01 ◼   ► Like I know that, right?

00:23:02 ◼   ► I understand that, but he is also the greatest product designer of all time.

00:23:06 ◼   ► In my opinion, no question, no question, no question, right?

00:23:09 ◼   ► Like there are people up there, right there, like Braun is up there, right?

00:23:13 ◼   ► Like people are up there.

00:23:14 ◼   ► Right.

00:23:14 ◼   ► But I just, in the modern world, the things that he has made untouched, right?

00:23:22 ◼   ► Like, I just don't think anyone is operating at that level.

00:23:25 ◼   ► They have defined our society and culture.

00:23:29 ◼   ► I mean, it is what it is from the smartphone to the tablet, to the, to the earbuds, to the

00:23:33 ◼   ► AirPods, to the Apple watch.

00:23:35 ◼   ► He's made stuff that has defined modern society over the past 20 years.

00:23:41 ◼   ► And that's like, it's not an exaggeration.

00:23:43 ◼   ► It is what it is.

00:23:44 ◼   ► And if you think he's still got it, which I have no reason to believe that he wouldn't

00:23:48 ◼   ► still got it, right?

00:23:49 ◼   ► Like, I just don't know why he wouldn't.

00:23:51 ◼   ► This could be a problem.

00:23:54 ◼   ► In a, in a, in a joint statement to Bloomberg, I've said, I have a growing sense that everything

00:23:59 ◼   ► I've learned over the last 30 years has led me to this place and to this moment.

00:24:03 ◼   ► Oh man.

00:24:08 ◼   ► But, but, but, but for one sec, let's just go back to that.

00:24:14 ◼   ► Where was that letter?

00:24:15 ◼   ► Um, as IO merges with OpenAI, Johnny and Lovefrom will assume deep design and creative responsibilities

00:24:25 ◼   ► across OpenAI and IO.

00:24:28 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:24:29 ◼   ► So, chat GPT designed by Johnny Ive basically is what I'm reading here in the short term.

00:24:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:24:36 ◼   ► Oh man.

00:24:37 ◼   ► With hardware, maybe software products to come.

00:24:40 ◼   ► Uh.

00:24:42 ◼   ► Wow.

00:24:43 ◼   ► Well, well, uh, okay.

00:24:48 ◼   ► So, we were saying about Apple Foundation models.

00:24:51 ◼   ► I just want to just put a note on something real quick.

00:24:54 ◼   ► Like, just as like a thing that I wonder about, right?

00:24:56 ◼   ► And like, I, I don't really know much about, um, Sam Ullman, but what he clearly has is the

00:25:03 ◼   ► ability to convince people to do things, right?

00:25:05 ◼   ► Like, he, he clearly has that.

00:25:06 ◼   ► Like, he can convince everyone to give him a lot of money.

00:25:08 ◼   ► I really wonder in Johnny Ive, it's like, does he see him like a Steve Jobs kind of figure?

00:25:14 ◼   ► Like, does he see that?

00:25:15 ◼   ► It's like, is that why he's doing this?

00:25:17 ◼   ► Like, does he see in him of like, oh, I know a person who was like you.

00:25:21 ◼   ► Like, a, a, a person who could lead product and like, get things done.

00:25:27 ◼   ► Cause I've got to wonder, like, why else would he do this?

00:25:31 ◼   ► Like, he, he doesn't need this, right?

00:25:34 ◼   ► Johnny doesn't need this.

00:25:35 ◼   ► Johnny's good.

00:25:36 ◼   ► Like, he's like generationally good, right?

00:25:39 ◼   ► See, you just got to assume that he sees something.

00:25:42 ◼   ► And, you know, if you're Johnny Ive, you hope that you still have the ability to see what's

00:25:51 ◼   ► good and what's not.

00:25:52 ◼   ► But yeah, I, I find this truly fascinating news and I'm very intrigued.

00:25:57 ◼   ► What you just said, I, I, I think it's fascinating that way, what you just said, uh, uh, friend

00:26:04 ◼   ► of the show, Parker or Tolani just also basically tweeted the same thing you just said, which is

00:26:10 ◼   ► hard not to read all of this as Johnny basically saying apples fallen behind and Sam is the closest

00:26:15 ◼   ► person to a modern Steve Jobs.

00:26:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:26:18 ◼   ► I mean, look at the picture of the two of them.

00:26:19 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:26:20 ◼   ► They're hugging, you know, but that is just like, it's Sam in the front and Johnny in the back.

00:26:26 ◼   ► Sort of like, you know, Sam slightly out of focus.

00:26:29 ◼   ► Sam's face looks like that meme with the guy from the Incredibles that the, on the left

00:26:40 ◼   ► it's in color and on the right it's in black and white with one side of the face is slightly

00:26:44 ◼   ► darker.

00:26:44 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:26:45 ◼   ► How do I describe the, Oh, ozone.

00:26:48 ◼   ► I think his name is no, no.

00:26:50 ◼   ► The, yeah, it's the, the villain from the first movie, right?

00:26:54 ◼   ► It's like the kid, like everyone's special.

00:26:56 ◼   ► No one's special.

00:26:57 ◼   ► I do think that there's, there's something to, um, to the idea that, that Johnny Ive likes

00:27:06 ◼   ► to work with visionaries.

00:27:07 ◼   ► Like, and then he needs it to a degree.

00:27:09 ◼   ► I mean, we absolutely, the criticism of him after Steve Jobs death was there's no one to

00:27:14 ◼   ► keep his ideas in check.

00:27:16 ◼   ► And we got some weird ideas from an office that's all glass and people walk into the glass walls

00:27:21 ◼   ► to, uh, you know, some product decisions that maybe weren't the best in terms of, uh, hardware

00:27:27 ◼   ► design.

00:27:27 ◼   ► And maybe he, he needs that.

00:27:30 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:27:31 ◼   ► I don't think Sam Altman has the pull that Steve Jobs had in those areas, but we also haven't

00:27:37 ◼   ► seen Sam Altman's ideas for a hardware project, except for that creepy eye scanner thing that

00:27:43 ◼   ► we didn't talk about because it was too weird.

00:27:45 ◼   ► So it is very interesting.

00:27:48 ◼   ► I am not sure I'm willing to go as far as Apple is screwed, but it is, it is potentially the

00:27:56 ◼   ► most interesting news of, um, of like in like the AI sphere and, and a long time.

00:28:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:03 ◼   ► It's obviously it's fun to say like Apple is cooked here, right?

00:28:07 ◼   ► Like it should, they're just like a funny thing to say, but it is just like, there will

00:28:11 ◼   ► be people who, who think it seriously.

00:28:14 ◼   ► Right.

00:28:14 ◼   ► You know, I'm not saying, I don't know if Federico did or not, but, uh, I mean, I mean,

00:28:20 ◼   ► I guess what I'm saying is there's, you know, slightly sizzled at least, you know?

00:28:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:26 ◼   ► It's not good.

00:28:27 ◼   ► It's not good for everyone, right?

00:28:28 ◼   ► Because something, something is coming, right?

00:28:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:28:34 ◼   ► No one knows what that thing is.

00:28:35 ◼   ► Like we're going to talk about Google IO.

00:28:37 ◼   ► Google IO is trying everything.

00:28:38 ◼   ► Like Google, Google, I should say is trying to, something is coming next, right?

00:28:44 ◼   ► It would be a decent bet that the person who came up with the thing that currently is could

00:28:50 ◼   ► maybe do it again.

00:28:51 ◼   ► Now there's nothing to say that he could, right?

00:28:54 ◼   ► There's nothing to say that Johnny Ive has in him the ability to do the next thing after

00:29:00 ◼   ► the iPhone, right?

00:29:01 ◼   ► But maybe he can, right?

00:29:04 ◼   ► Like maybe he can do that.

00:29:06 ◼   ► And of course he wasn't wholly responsible for creating that product.

00:29:10 ◼   ► No.

00:29:10 ◼   ► But he's very important in making that product.

00:29:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:29:14 ◼   ► The other thing I can't believe I'm coming down on the side of like defending that this could

00:29:19 ◼   ► work.

00:29:19 ◼   ► Cause I, I, I just don't know.

00:29:21 ◼   ► But the, the Humana AI pin, right?

00:29:27 ◼   ► Or, or some of the other AI hardware things that we have seen, all of which I think it's

00:29:32 ◼   ► safe to say are failures.

00:29:33 ◼   ► That's like, mom, we have Johnny Ive at home.

00:29:36 ◼   ► It is.

00:29:36 ◼   ► No, it is.

00:29:37 ◼   ► I was going to make a different thing, which is it's so funny to actually hear Steven talking

00:29:41 ◼   ► through his head in his hands.

00:29:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:29:43 ◼   ► Is he even saying that?

00:29:44 ◼   ► He can hear he talking through his hands.

00:29:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:29:48 ◼   ► But there were other smartphones before the iPhone.

00:29:53 ◼   ► There were other MP3 players before the iPod, right?

00:29:56 ◼   ► Like Apple, one of their things is like, let others try weird ideas.

00:30:01 ◼   ► And then they hit on it.

00:30:03 ◼   ► And Johnny Ive was at the center of most of those.

00:30:05 ◼   ► And so while the fact that we have not seen an AI hardware product make sense so far, doesn't

00:30:13 ◼   ► mean the category is a bad idea.

00:30:15 ◼   ► No.

00:30:16 ◼   ► I do think that creating a product like this in 2025 is unbelievably harder than it was

00:30:25 ◼   ► in 2007, right?

00:30:27 ◼   ► The iPhone coming into the smartphone market in 07 is just fundamentally different than an

00:30:32 ◼   ► AI product coming into the smartphone market of 2025.

00:30:35 ◼   ► But maybe he's the guy to do it.

00:30:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:30:39 ◼   ► The table stakes are so high.

00:30:41 ◼   ► Can I read you some quotes from Johnny?

00:30:43 ◼   ► Please.

00:30:44 ◼   ► I want them.

00:30:45 ◼   ► You know I want them.

00:30:46 ◼   ► I have felt that my most important and useful work is ahead.

00:30:49 ◼   ► That's nice.

00:30:51 ◼   ► But reading from the end of the article, there have been public...

00:30:55 ◼   ► This is not a quote.

00:30:56 ◼   ► This is just the Bloomberg.

00:30:58 ◼   ► There have been public failures as well, such as the Humane AI pin and the Rabbit R1 personal

00:31:03 ◼   ► assistant device.

00:31:05 ◼   ► Now, Johnny says, those were very poor products, said Ive, 58.

00:31:09 ◼   ► There has been an absence of new ways of thinking expressed in products.

00:31:18 ◼   ► Huh.

00:31:20 ◼   ► You know the meme with The Simpsons with Ralph and his heart?

00:31:25 ◼   ► That is everyone who worked at Humane.

00:31:27 ◼   ► Right now, everyone who worked at Humane is like, oh no, Papa didn't like it.

00:31:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:31:34 ◼   ► No, and also like I was thinking of Tim Cook as Ralph on the bus saying I'm in danger after

00:31:39 ◼   ► reading his article.

00:31:40 ◼   ► Basically, there's a Ralph Wiggum meme for every possible scenario.

00:31:46 ◼   ► Of all the things that we've had plenty of things disrupting the show over the years.

00:31:51 ◼   ► From my internet going down to me catching a burger, like a person trying to break into

00:32:00 ◼   ► my home live on my own camera.

00:32:01 ◼   ► I don't think anything will ever beat that.

00:32:03 ◼   ► I don't think anything's ever beaten that.

00:32:05 ◼   ► But I did not have Johnny Ive coming back like this on my bingo card.

00:32:10 ◼   ► Back from the dead.

00:32:11 ◼   ► I mean, it was obvious they were working on something together because it's basically

00:32:17 ◼   ► said as much.

00:32:17 ◼   ► It was announced that they had started this startup.

00:32:21 ◼   ► And, you know, I think it's one of the most interesting things about that is the relationship

00:32:27 ◼   ► with Love From, like that it is, that will continue.

00:32:31 ◼   ► You know, I don't know what Love From is doing.

00:32:33 ◼   ► Like they're doing stuff with Stripe and they made the postcard for the king and stuff.

00:32:37 ◼   ► Airbnb.

00:32:38 ◼   ► Airbnb.

00:32:39 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:32:40 ◼   ► Which we should say, just like, see what I'm doing?

00:32:43 ◼   ► John, John, one true John and Cardi B both, both went.

00:32:51 ◼   ► No, no Megan Thee Stallion.

00:32:54 ◼   ► Oh no.

00:32:54 ◼   ► Oh, Steven.

00:32:56 ◼   ► Now you see, now John's cool and you're not.

00:32:59 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:32:59 ◼   ► I want to know.

00:33:00 ◼   ► You know, there's, there's a screenshot in my photo library of me saying in a text today,

00:33:05 ◼   ► I learned someone named Cardi B exists and Federico's response is, oh, Steven.

00:33:09 ◼   ► Cardi B could have been there too.

00:33:11 ◼   ► But anyways, John was at their keynote, what, like two weeks ago or last week where they

00:33:16 ◼   ► announced a bunch of cool stuff and y'all did some stuff on app stories and on the website,

00:33:19 ◼   ► like go check all that out.

00:33:21 ◼   ► It's really interesting and cool.

00:33:23 ◼   ► But yeah, John is just like, he's doing stuff.

00:33:25 ◼   ► It's great.

00:33:26 ◼   ► Maybe John's going to meet Johnny now.

00:33:28 ◼   ► Maybe that's what happens.

00:33:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:33:30 ◼   ► Do you, maybe.

00:33:31 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:33:34 ◼   ► I'll do anything by the way.

00:33:35 ◼   ► I'm just putting that out there.

00:33:36 ◼   ► Like, I will do anything.

00:33:38 ◼   ► I just want that to be said into the universe to meet Johnny Ive.

00:33:43 ◼   ► I would do, I would do anything.

00:33:45 ◼   ► Didn't you meet Johnny Ive?

00:33:45 ◼   ► I just want people to know that.

00:33:46 ◼   ► No, you saw Johnny Ive.

00:33:48 ◼   ► I saw Johnny Ive and it was suggested I go and speak to Johnny Ive.

00:33:52 ◼   ► But I said, why would I do that?

00:33:54 ◼   ► Why would I do that?

00:33:56 ◼   ► He doesn't want to talk to me.

00:33:57 ◼   ► And so I didn't go and talk to him.

00:33:59 ◼   ► So my example of this is when I went to the iPhone 15 launch.

00:34:06 ◼   ► It was the only iPhone thing I've been invited to, but it was really cool.

00:34:09 ◼   ► And Avi Tevanian was walking around and no one was talking to him because no one knows

00:34:15 ◼   ► that he, you know, made BSD and Next Step and stuff.

00:34:18 ◼   ► But he was there.

00:34:20 ◼   ► You should have gone and spoke to him.

00:34:23 ◼   ► Hey, Avi.

00:34:23 ◼   ► Because it would have been fine, you know?

00:34:26 ◼   ► Like, my problem was everyone wanted to speak to Johnny in that moment.

00:34:30 ◼   ► And so, like, I wasn't going to go up and talk to him.

00:34:32 ◼   ► Because it's like, what do I say?

00:34:34 ◼   ► Like, hi, I'm Mike.

00:34:37 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:34:38 ◼   ► But I'm saying, like, I want to speak to Johnny in, like, a professional context.

00:34:41 ◼   ► Someone let me interview Johnny Ive.

00:34:43 ◼   ► That's what I really want to do.

00:34:45 ◼   ► Man, crazy town.

00:34:47 ◼   ► What a, man, sometimes recording this show live when breaking news happens is just so much fun.

00:34:56 ◼   ► And it's been a minute, I feel like, since it's happened.

00:34:58 ◼   ► Sam Altman just tweeted, thrilled to be partnering with Johnny, in my opinion, the greatest designer

00:35:05 ◼   ► in the world.

00:35:06 ◼   ► Excited to try to create a new generation of AI-powered computers.

00:35:13 ◼   ► Oh, my God.

00:35:16 ◼   ► They're doing it.

00:35:17 ◼   ► AI-powered computers.

00:35:18 ◼   ► That's a very interesting phrase.

00:35:19 ◼   ► Do you think, this just pops into my head.

00:35:23 ◼   ► It's not a fully formed thought.

00:35:24 ◼   ► But do you think Sam Altman, like, getting, I'm putting that in huge air quotes, getting

00:35:29 ◼   ► Johnny Ive, like, it's just a giant flex to all the other billionaire tech people.

00:35:33 ◼   ► Like, I got him.

00:35:35 ◼   ► Zuckerberg didn't get him.

00:35:37 ◼   ► You know?

00:35:38 ◼   ► I got him.

00:35:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:35:39 ◼   ► They would all want him, right?

00:35:40 ◼   ► Like, all given the opportunity.

00:35:42 ◼   ► Everybody wants to make hardware.

00:35:44 ◼   ► Get the greatest hardware designer that exists.

00:35:46 ◼   ► Like, yeah, anyone will take him, which is why Love From has been able to charge obscene

00:35:52 ◼   ► amounts of money just to consult, right?

00:35:54 ◼   ► Because then you get to say, I got him.

00:35:56 ◼   ► I can't even imagine how much money Airbnb paid.

00:35:59 ◼   ► Oh, dude.

00:36:00 ◼   ► Just ungodly amounts of money.

00:36:03 ◼   ► Just so you get to be the person who says, like, oh, yeah, he's making my thing.

00:36:08 ◼   ► Everybody wants him.

00:36:09 ◼   ► But this is like, oh, no, you, like, you got him.

00:36:12 ◼   ► Like, you didn't just get him to consult.

00:36:14 ◼   ► Like, he works for you, with you right now.

00:36:19 ◼   ► Because he's not even the CEO now, right?

00:36:22 ◼   ► Sam Altman, is that right?

00:36:23 ◼   ► He's like, someone else is the CEO, but he kind of still runs the company.

00:36:26 ◼   ► It's weird.

00:36:26 ◼   ► Very strange.

00:36:27 ◼   ► What a time.

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00:38:25 ◼   ► Yesterday was Google I.O.

00:38:27 ◼   ► We spoke a couple weeks ago about their Android announcements that ran before I.O.

00:38:34 ◼   ► And we assumed that I.O. was going to be all about A.I., which, of course, it was.

00:38:39 ◼   ► There's a lot of stuff here.

00:38:41 ◼   ► I feel like even more than previous years, Google just threw a lot of stuff out there.

00:38:47 ◼   ► And it's honestly was like a little overwhelming to watch it live because it was just one thing

00:38:53 ◼   ► after another.

00:38:54 ◼   ► A couple of just meta things for me, though, and then we can get into the announcements.

00:38:58 ◼   ► I wish Apple did live events.

00:39:01 ◼   ► Like, yeah.

00:39:02 ◼   ► Oh, OK.

00:39:04 ◼   ► It was, I thought it was so good, like, them on stage and they had demos.

00:39:09 ◼   ► And, you know, Microsoft is doing this, too, with Build, which was last week or a few days

00:39:15 ◼   ► ago.

00:39:15 ◼   ► Although right now, I think Microsoft wish they weren't doing that.

00:39:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:39:18 ◼   ► There's a story that, OK, we got to talk about this for like three seconds.

00:39:21 ◼   ► There's a story out today.

00:39:23 ◼   ► Mike will find it.

00:39:24 ◼   ► I'll put it in the show notes, I think, of Build was interrupted by protest.

00:39:29 ◼   ► And during like the recovery of that, of like getting back to the demo, the person on stage

00:39:36 ◼   ► basically like switched to Microsoft Teams for a second and leaked a bunch of stuff about Walmart's

00:39:42 ◼   ► AI plans.

00:39:43 ◼   ► Yep.

00:39:44 ◼   ► And just a few things here.

00:39:45 ◼   ► One, what is your demo computer, your actual computer?

00:39:50 ◼   ► Like, have a demo machine.

00:39:52 ◼   ► That's all that's on it.

00:39:54 ◼   ► But if you are going to use your actual computer, for the love of everything, close every other

00:39:59 ◼   ► application.

00:40:00 ◼   ► Like, I feel so bad for this person.

00:40:02 ◼   ► I honestly do.

00:40:04 ◼   ► But it was so easy to avoid.

00:40:06 ◼   ► That's all I'm saying.

00:40:07 ◼   ► Anyways, Google I.O.

00:40:11 ◼   ► We got a bunch of links in the show notes.

00:40:12 ◼   ► We're going to walk through some of the things that we thought were the most interesting.

00:40:17 ◼   ► And we're going to start with Google Beam, which replaces Google Starline, which we saw

00:40:24 ◼   ► I think two years ago.

00:40:25 ◼   ► And it basically makes video calls feel much more personal.

00:40:30 ◼   ► And there's a video The Verge does.

00:40:33 ◼   ► It's wild.

00:40:36 ◼   ► So you sit at this table.

00:40:38 ◼   ► There are six video cameras rendering you in 3D at 60 frames a second.

00:40:45 ◼   ► All that's infused with AI to make it smooth and make it look really cool.

00:40:49 ◼   ► Apparently, HP is shipping something later this year.

00:40:54 ◼   ► It's going to be in a bunch of offices.

00:40:55 ◼   ► I wrote in the notes, seems physically heavy for vaporware.

00:40:59 ◼   ► But if it ships, it's not vaporware.

00:41:01 ◼   ► This is like the reintroduction of this technology.

00:41:07 ◼   ► This is what Google does, right?

00:41:09 ◼   ► You'll see something, and then the next year you'll see it again.

00:41:11 ◼   ► And you'll see it every year until it's a thing.

00:41:14 ◼   ► And at least this time, they have committed to it actually being a product that's shipping

00:41:20 ◼   ► and listed a bunch of companies that are going to put it in their offices.

00:41:23 ◼   ► But the thing that I find interesting, so Alex Heath did a little video about this on The Verge.

00:41:28 ◼   ► Everything he describes is my experience of spatial personas.

00:41:34 ◼   ► So, like, I would like to try this, but, like, you know, it's like, oh, there's nothing like this.

00:41:39 ◼   ► There is.

00:41:40 ◼   ► Like, everything he's describing about a sense of presence.

00:41:43 ◼   ► And you can see facial expressions.

00:41:45 ◼   ► And it doesn't feel so fatiguing to do the meeting, because it's not like a regular...

00:41:49 ◼   ► Like, all of this is...

00:41:51 ◼   ► I feel like I experienced the spatial persona meetings, and so I would like to experience what this is like.

00:42:00 ◼   ► But I do feel like that there are similarities here.

00:42:03 ◼   ► But it does look cool, and it looks like some of the footage that they've shot, I don't know how they did it,

00:42:08 ◼   ► It gave an idea of how, like, you can kind of see the effect, and it does look very good.

00:42:15 ◼   ► Like, it does just look like someone's sitting on the opposite side of a table to you.

00:42:18 ◼   ► It's cool.

00:42:19 ◼   ► Maybe we move the podcast to that instead of Zoom.

00:42:23 ◼   ► Love it. Let's do it.

00:42:25 ◼   ► Has anybody made the joke, Gemini-O, yet?

00:42:28 ◼   ► Has that, like, been a thing that anyone said, or am I the first person to say that?

00:42:31 ◼   ► You've been exposed to Steven for too long.

00:42:34 ◼   ► But it's good, though, right?

00:42:36 ◼   ► Like, Gemini-O.

00:42:37 ◼   ► I love it.

00:42:37 ◼   ► Because this is what this was.

00:42:39 ◼   ► This is what this was.

00:42:39 ◼   ► Yeah, of course he does.

00:42:40 ◼   ► Of course he loves it.

00:42:41 ◼   ► It was all Gemini, all the time.

00:42:44 ◼   ► Like, it's almost at this point kind of embarrassing that Google is called Google.

00:42:48 ◼   ► Like, they shouldn't be called that anymore.

00:42:50 ◼   ► They should just be called Gemini, because it's in everything.

00:42:53 ◼   ► I mean, it worked for Meta, I think.

00:42:56 ◼   ► Did it?

00:42:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:42:57 ◼   ► Hard to say.

00:42:57 ◼   ► I mean, they did it.

00:43:00 ◼   ► It worked.

00:43:00 ◼   ► Like, people do call them Meta.

00:43:02 ◼   ► It's like, we do not call Google Alphabet.

00:43:04 ◼   ► Nobody ever calls them Alphabet.

00:43:06 ◼   ► That whole thing is just a mess.

00:43:08 ◼   ► Because they didn't do it right.

00:43:10 ◼   ► And the same guy runs both companies.

00:43:12 ◼   ► It's very confusing.

00:43:13 ◼   ► They didn't do it right.

00:43:15 ◼   ► There were a few things that I found interesting.

00:43:18 ◼   ► I think, Federico, I'm sure you did too.

00:43:21 ◼   ► we probably find different things interesting, where I guess I'm probably, the things that

00:43:26 ◼   ► I liked from this were more of the products, and I'm expecting you, like, more of, at least

00:43:32 ◼   ► found more of the, like, API stuff a bit more interesting, because that is more your speed

00:43:36 ◼   ► right now.

00:43:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:43:37 ◼   ► So, one of the products, they showed up a couple of things that were effectively either

00:43:42 ◼   ► currently shipping as of right now, or going to be shipping very soon, versions of what

00:43:47 ◼   ► Apple tried to do, really, with Apple intelligence.

00:43:49 ◼   ► So, Gemini Live, which is, you know, so Gemini is the app.

00:43:54 ◼   ► Gemini Live is the, like, where you can talk to it.

00:43:57 ◼   ► Oh, no, I'm doing the ad breaks that we did.

00:43:59 ◼   ► Yeah, they sponsored a long time ago.

00:44:00 ◼   ► It's, they've basically put this feature in, so you can open your camera and, like, show Gemini

00:44:06 ◼   ► what you're doing, and what you're seeing, and you can talk to it about what you're seeing,

00:44:10 ◼   ► and it will talk back to you.

00:44:11 ◼   ► So, it's essentially, like, the ultimate version of the visual intelligence, and they're also

00:44:16 ◼   ► adding integrations for apps.

00:44:18 ◼   ► It looks like, well, Google Apps right now, but maybe other apps will be able to integrate

00:44:21 ◼   ► with it.

00:44:21 ◼   ► So, like, for example, you could do the thing where you point it at a flyer and say, add this

00:44:26 ◼   ► to my calendar, and it will do that, and it knows what to do with that.

00:44:29 ◼   ► Like, I found that really interesting.

00:44:30 ◼   ► There was a thing where Sundar Pichai says, when he's talking about another thing that

00:44:36 ◼   ► they're doing, something we call personal context.

00:44:38 ◼   ► I'm like, oh, no!

00:44:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:44:40 ◼   ► Where they are able to, and they are going to be shipping a feature where Gemini can learn

00:44:49 ◼   ► about you from across all of your Google apps, so, like, all of your Gmail, all of your

00:44:54 ◼   ► calendar, all of your docs and sheets and everything to provide information, results, and answers.

00:45:00 ◼   ► Like, for example, he was like, you could reply to an email in Gmail, and the personal context

00:45:07 ◼   ► will know everything about you across all of your Google apps.

00:45:12 ◼   ► And that could be very powerful as a way to help you write things, for example.

00:45:18 ◼   ► So, I thought that was interesting.

00:45:20 ◼   ► The thing that I liked the most was just a, it was a video of, like, a thing that they're

00:45:28 ◼   ► trying to do as part of their Project Astra, which is, Project Astra for Google is, like,

00:45:34 ◼   ► these are the things we're working on that will come later.

00:45:37 ◼   ► So, like, that thing I was mentioning about, like, the visual intelligence-y thing, that

00:45:41 ◼   ► was part of Project Astra.

00:45:42 ◼   ► They showed it last year, and now it's here.

00:45:43 ◼   ► But they're showing computer control in the Gemini app on Android.

00:45:47 ◼   ► So, you, Gemini on Android, can, like, actually do things for you.

00:45:51 ◼   ► And I recommend watching the video that's linked in the piece on this in the show notes, where

00:45:55 ◼   ► there's, like, a guy fixing a bike.

00:45:57 ◼   ► And he's doing a bunch of things.

00:45:59 ◼   ► So, he asks it to look up a YouTube video, and you see YouTube open.

00:46:03 ◼   ► It starts scrolling, and it clicks a video.

00:46:05 ◼   ► Like, it's doing it.

00:46:07 ◼   ► There's one thing where he, like, needs it to make a call, and it makes a call for him,

00:46:10 ◼   ► which is hilarious, because that's back.

00:46:12 ◼   ► Do you remember that?

00:46:13 ◼   ► The drama they had years ago about calling their hairdressers?

00:46:16 ◼   ► They're kind of like, oh, they can do that.

00:46:18 ◼   ► And, you know, so the AI is calling this bike shop to get him a new screw.

00:46:22 ◼   ► You should watch this video if you haven't, Stephen, because this guy has a lot of problems

00:46:26 ◼   ► of his bike, and maybe that will hit home for you.

00:46:28 ◼   ► Oh, I was watching it live.

00:46:30 ◼   ► Okay.

00:46:31 ◼   ► A few things.

00:46:32 ◼   ► One, Google, put a good bike in your demo video.

00:46:36 ◼   ► Okay.

00:46:37 ◼   ► It's, like, not a good bike.

00:46:38 ◼   ► Bike shaming.

00:46:38 ◼   ► I am.

00:46:39 ◼   ► I am.

00:46:40 ◼   ► And a person who knows enough about how to fix a bike to, like, be that far into it would

00:46:47 ◼   ► not be, I don't know.

00:46:50 ◼   ► It was fine.

00:46:52 ◼   ► You just think that they should know more, be better, right, at biking?

00:46:56 ◼   ► Be better.

00:46:57 ◼   ► This was a nice demo, I think, for a bunch of reasons.

00:47:01 ◼   ► Like, not just, like, the visual stuff, but the, how, sort of, the model was taking actions

00:47:08 ◼   ► in multiple places.

00:47:09 ◼   ► And if you think about it, like, those are things that Google is working on, like, right

00:47:14 ◼   ► now Google has these technologies, and sort of, they are, it's the classic Google problem

00:47:19 ◼   ► of this tech is being implemented in slightly different ways in different places.

00:47:25 ◼   ► Like, for example, when the model was opening a PDF and reading through a PDF and scrolling

00:47:31 ◼   ► through a paginated PDF, that was a version of computer use that Google has demoed in

00:47:37 ◼   ► a couple of different occasions, and they have their own version of computer use, for

00:47:40 ◼   ► example, when it comes to Gemini in Google Chrome, which is another thing.

00:47:44 ◼   ► Then the model was, like, saying, okay, I'm going to watch a YouTube video.

00:47:50 ◼   ► I'm going to find a YouTube video.

00:47:51 ◼   ► And YouTube video understanding is one of the current features of Gemini.

00:47:55 ◼   ► I think if you use it in, with 2.5 Pro, I think it used to be, like, exclusive in AI

00:48:01 ◼   ► Studio, and now it rolled out to Gemini.

00:48:02 ◼   ► So if you go to Gemini, you can just paste a YouTube link and say, hey, can you tell me

00:48:06 ◼   ► what this video is about?

00:48:07 ◼   ► And Gemini is going to, quote, unquote, watch the video for you and tell you what it's about.

00:48:11 ◼   ► So, like, they're bringing together this, and obviously the phone calls, right?

00:48:15 ◼   ► They're bringing together these multiple things that they showcased before under the umbrella

00:48:22 ◼   ► that everybody loves to use now of, like, agentic AI.

00:48:25 ◼   ► So, like, you're basically spinning, like, and there is a whole separate conversation here

00:48:30 ◼   ► about, like, the real innovation right now in these models.

00:48:32 ◼   ► It's not necessarily happening in the model itself.

00:48:35 ◼   ► It's happening on two fronts.

00:48:37 ◼   ► First, it's happening on the reasoning front.

00:48:39 ◼   ► So the model actually thinking and reasoning over each individual step and basically, you

00:48:45 ◼   ► know, enhancing the compute power, requesting more resources, taking longer to run to produce

00:48:50 ◼   ► a better output.

00:48:51 ◼   ► That's what everybody's doing now, from OpenAI to Google and, you know, and Anthropic.

00:48:54 ◼   ► Everybody's doing this.

00:48:55 ◼   ► And the second is tool calling.

00:48:57 ◼   ► So what Google showed here was a really fancy, visual, approachable version of multi-tool calling

00:49:06 ◼   ► in an agent.

00:49:07 ◼   ► So you have the model, you're having your conversation, and then the model is basically splitting the

00:49:12 ◼   ► conversation into multiple sub-agents.

00:49:14 ◼   ► There's the one that goes off and makes a phone call.

00:49:16 ◼   ► There's the one that scrolls through a PDF.

00:49:19 ◼   ► There's the other one that opens a YouTube video and watches the video.

00:49:23 ◼   ► And you're still holding a conversation with that model.

00:49:25 ◼   ► That kind of structure is what every single company is doing now.

00:49:30 ◼   ► Every single company is doing these asynchronous agents.

00:49:33 ◼   ► You look at OpenAI, what OpenAI is doing with RGBT, and especially when you use O3 and O4, or when you use Codex, which is their new asynchronous coding agent.

00:49:42 ◼   ► You look at Anthropic, how Anthropic with cloud research, how it works.

00:49:46 ◼   ► It literally, in front of you, spins up a bunch of sub-agents, and every one of them is doing its own research.

00:49:53 ◼   ► And now Google is doing the same thing.

00:49:54 ◼   ► So I think it's kind of funny.

00:49:56 ◼   ► And I think, by the way, that of all the companies, Google had the best demo.

00:50:00 ◼   ► Because they didn't even mention things like sub-agents or asynchronous.

00:50:05 ◼   ► They just showed a conversation doing multiple things.

00:50:10 ◼   ► Like with the robot doing multiple things.

00:50:13 ◼   ► And it was, I think, the best version of what all these companies are doing now, for sure.

00:50:20 ◼   ► Sorry about the parentheses here.

00:50:24 ◼   ► No, it's good.

00:50:25 ◼   ► It's helpful.

00:50:26 ◼   ► Like, I just thought that this was a really good demo video of kind of like one of the dreams.

00:50:33 ◼   ► Your device doing stuff for you.

00:50:35 ◼   ► Like, it's helping you.

00:50:36 ◼   ► Like, you're not...

00:50:38 ◼   ► It's kind of like your phone becomes an assistant for you rather than the tool that you use to do things.

00:50:43 ◼   ► Like, that you talk to your computer.

00:50:45 ◼   ► It just goes all the way back to Knowledge Navigator, right?

00:50:48 ◼   ► Like, it goes all the way back.

00:50:49 ◼   ► Yeah, let's go!

00:50:49 ◼   ► Maybe this is what...

00:50:50 ◼   ► Maybe that's what Johnny's doing.

00:50:52 ◼   ► He's going to build the Knowledge Navigator.

00:50:54 ◼   ► He's going to be in his bonnet.

00:50:55 ◼   ► He wanted to do it, you know?

00:50:57 ◼   ► You're going to make a Newton.

00:50:58 ◼   ► Like, it goes all the way back, right?

00:51:00 ◼   ► Like, just...

00:51:01 ◼   ► Everybody understands the idea and I think believes that you should just be able to tell your computer what to do and it should do it for you.

00:51:08 ◼   ► It's what everyone has always wanted.

00:51:11 ◼   ► It's what all of these voice agents have attempted to be, right?

00:51:14 ◼   ► It's what Echo is.

00:51:16 ◼   ► It's what Siri is.

00:51:17 ◼   ► It's what all of these things are.

00:51:19 ◼   ► But none of them have been able to do it.

00:51:21 ◼   ► This is what appears to be the technology that could unlock it, right?

00:51:26 ◼   ► That, like, it's actually your phone can do things in the background and also in the foreground of, like, operating the device, understanding how it works.

00:51:37 ◼   ► There's this thing, this MCP thing, which I only slightly understand, right?

00:51:41 ◼   ► But it's, like, essentially, like, it feels like an SDK, really, in a way.

00:51:45 ◼   ► Like, just a way to kind of, like, get computer programs to talk to each other.

00:51:49 ◼   ► But it's AI, right?

00:51:51 ◼   ► Like, AIs can talk to each other.

00:51:53 ◼   ► Kind of.

00:51:54 ◼   ► It's basically become this standardized format for plugging tools into a large language model in a sometimes concerningly non-secure way.

00:52:08 ◼   ► But it's improving, like, it's improving, like, compared to when it actually launched a few months ago, where, like, there was basically no authentication in front of MCP.

00:52:18 ◼   ► And everybody was like, well, you know, you just paste this thing into Cloud and it connects to your file system.

00:52:23 ◼   ► Good luck.

00:52:24 ◼   ► It's evolved really, really quickly over just, what is it, like, six months or so.

00:52:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:52:30 ◼   ► But, like, there's, you know, so you got that.

00:52:31 ◼   ► And you already kind of mentioned it.

00:52:33 ◼   ► But I just want to speedrun a couple of things to read a quote that I thought was very funny, right?

00:52:37 ◼   ► So then you've got, like, another thing where Google Chrome is doing the, like, going out and doing stuff for you on its own.

00:52:43 ◼   ► So you can have, like, Chrome doing it for you on its own.

00:52:45 ◼   ► Then you have something called AI mode in search, which is, like, a total reimagining of search, which is available in the U.S. right now.

00:52:53 ◼   ► Which is doing a bunch of things, including personal context, and also doing stuff for you kind of, like, agentically in the background.

00:52:59 ◼   ► Then you have this thing called visual shopping, which you've probably seen videos of already, where it can, like, put an outfit on you.

00:53:07 ◼   ► But then it also can go out and buy things for you on its own.

00:53:11 ◼   ► And there's Gemini in Chrome, which is, like, a whole other thing.

00:53:14 ◼   ► I want to read a quote from Casey Newton.

00:53:16 ◼   ► Two quotes, actually, because I thought it was very funny in platformer.

00:53:21 ◼   ► Also, the products overlap.

00:53:22 ◼   ► Would you like to search with AI?

00:53:24 ◼   ► You can now do that in Google Search and get an AI overview.

00:53:27 ◼   ► Or in another tab within Google Search called AI mode.

00:53:30 ◼   ► Or inside Gemini, the standalone AI search app.

00:53:34 ◼   ► And while the company continues to protest, it seems obvious that this new world will give you many fewer reasons to visit the open web.

00:53:40 ◼   ► Google will generate the things you want searched for.

00:53:43 ◼   ► And all the businesses that once relied on those services will need a plan B.

00:53:46 ◼   ► Those are, like, two things I found interesting.

00:53:47 ◼   ► But, like, the second part is, like, all of this is, like, oh, great.

00:53:51 ◼   ► Everything is here.

00:53:53 ◼   ► But also, why is anyone going to publish stuff to the web anymore?

00:53:56 ◼   ► I include that, really, because I know that it will hit Steven in the heart.

00:54:03 ◼   ► Shut through the heart!

00:54:04 ◼   ► Yes, that is exactly what it is doing, Tim, and I know it.

00:54:07 ◼   ► But, like, the thing is, Google are doing so much, and so much of it is exactly overlapping, and I can't understand that.

00:54:19 ◼   ► Like, there needs to be, like, a person at Google that's like, no, don't do that, because we have it over here.

00:54:26 ◼   ► Let's just bring it together instead.

00:54:29 ◼   ► I find it so weird.

00:54:31 ◼   ► That's a tale as old as time with Google, or at the very least, like, confusing and overlapping products.

00:54:38 ◼   ► Like, look at just their long list of dead messaging platforms.

00:54:43 ◼   ► There's no one at Google, seemingly, that has a high enough level view to be able to dictate those things.

00:54:51 ◼   ► Or the power.

00:54:52 ◼   ► Or the power.

00:54:53 ◼   ► And, you know, Google, historically, and I think to this day, I think to a lesser degree now, but definitely historically, is made up of a bunch of, like, disparate teams that don't always know or communicate with each other.

00:55:06 ◼   ► Like, and that's, that's fine.

00:55:10 ◼   ► Apple works that way, too, except someone at the top knows what's going on.

00:55:13 ◼   ► And Google just has never had that.

00:55:15 ◼   ► And it leads to this sort of thing.

00:55:16 ◼   ► And it leads to confusing products.

00:55:19 ◼   ► And, you know, looking through this, and we're going to get to the paid offerings in a little while.

00:55:24 ◼   ► It is not easy to understand, like, what all of these things are, and how they relate to each other, and I don't know.

00:55:33 ◼   ► I wish they were better at it.

00:55:34 ◼   ► I think they would find more success if they pared these things down before they went out the door.

00:55:40 ◼   ► They would cancel fewer things if they were a bit more editorial in the beginning.

00:55:45 ◼   ► Yep.

00:55:46 ◼   ► Anyway, those are some of the things I've found interesting.

00:55:49 ◼   ► I think that their filmmaking tool is horrific, but I just hate it.

00:55:54 ◼   ► I hate it so much.

00:55:55 ◼   ► It was, they, you know, they have Imogen and Veo.

00:55:58 ◼   ► That's, like, their image and video models.

00:56:00 ◼   ► And one of the things added to their video model is, like, it can create sound effects and speech and add them to the video, which is just like, oh, my God.

00:56:08 ◼   ► And then there was just this moment where, like, this guy's making this AI video in an app they call Flow, which is like an AI video editing tool.

00:56:19 ◼   ► Like, the way that it works is interesting, right?

00:56:23 ◼   ► That, like, you know, you can chop up a clip and extend the clip by changing the prompt and da-da-da-da-da.

00:56:29 ◼   ► It's like, I don't want this in my life.

00:56:31 ◼   ► I kind of wish it didn't exist, but if you're going to do it, this is an interesting way to do it.

00:56:34 ◼   ► But there was just this very dystopian moment to me of, like, this guy made a video, showed the video, and then people applauded.

00:56:41 ◼   ► It's like, what are you applauding?

00:56:42 ◼   ► Like, what are we applauding here?

00:56:45 ◼   ► Like, what is going on?

00:56:46 ◼   ► Like, why is it like, oh, yes, congratulations on this AI video you made.

00:56:51 ◼   ► Like, what is, that was so weird to me that people applauded that.

00:56:55 ◼   ► But anyway.

00:56:55 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:57 ◼   ► Remember that time Apple got in trouble for smashing a bunch of creative tools into an iPad?

00:57:02 ◼   ► Like, you know.

00:57:04 ◼   ► Google is not going to get the same backlash that that did.

00:57:06 ◼   ► But it is, I was just sort of reminded of that a little bit, watching that video.

00:57:12 ◼   ► And I agree with you.

00:57:13 ◼   ► I don't like it.

00:57:14 ◼   ► I wish it didn't exist.

00:57:15 ◼   ► I don't think it looked.

00:57:16 ◼   ► It very clearly had the AI look to it.

00:57:22 ◼   ► And, you know, it will get better over time, but I just.

00:57:25 ◼   ► That AI look has really changed, though, right?

00:57:28 ◼   ► Like, the AI look is very different to what it is now.

00:57:32 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, it's not, it's not Will Smith eating spaghetti like it was, you know, two or three

00:57:36 ◼   ► years ago, which has burned it in my consciousness for all time.

00:57:39 ◼   ► But I don't know.

00:57:41 ◼   ► You know, I just, as we said it before on the show, I just, we all just wish generative AI

00:57:44 ◼   ► would go away.

00:57:45 ◼   ► And like, agentic AI is so interesting.

00:57:47 ◼   ► Just get rid of the generative.

00:57:48 ◼   ► Like, just get rid of that.

00:57:49 ◼   ► Like, go.

00:57:50 ◼   ► Go away.

00:57:50 ◼   ► No videos.

00:57:51 ◼   ► No imagery.

00:57:53 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:57:54 ◼   ► What would we do without image playgrounds?

00:57:56 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:57:57 ◼   ► Just agentic AI is so interesting.

00:57:59 ◼   ► Like, why can't we just, can't we just have that?

00:58:02 ◼   ► Anyway, that's, that's the stuff I found.

00:58:04 ◼   ► Federico, what kind of spoke to you?

00:58:07 ◼   ► I wanted to go over, yeah, to go over some, some details that I saved.

00:58:11 ◼   ► Project Mariner.

00:58:12 ◼   ► This is the sort of like the agentic computer use sort of browser integration.

00:58:17 ◼   ► It can now multitask.

00:58:19 ◼   ► So you can sort of spin off 10, up to 10 tasks at once.

00:58:23 ◼   ► And that's basically a version of Gemini sort of using browser tabs on its own.

00:58:29 ◼   ► So if you don't want to do it, you'd be like, you know, browser tab, can you go here and book

00:58:34 ◼   ► a table for this day?

00:58:35 ◼   ► And then you go into another browser tab and you're like, I don't know, you know, understand

00:58:39 ◼   ► my kids soccer practice in my Google calendar or something.

00:58:42 ◼   ► So you can multitask with that.

00:58:44 ◼   ► I'm not, I still, the computer use stuff when it comes to web browsers is one of the things

00:58:50 ◼   ► that I'm really skeptical of.

00:58:52 ◼   ► And computer use in general, I do understand that wild implications for accessibility.

00:58:58 ◼   ► And I am intrigued by some of the upcoming models for computer use when it comes to like

00:59:04 ◼   ► understanding like a complex application, like say Final Cutter logic with natural language.

00:59:09 ◼   ► That's interesting for me.

00:59:11 ◼   ► But this computer using a web browser, I still struggle to understand.

00:59:14 ◼   ► We'll see.

00:59:15 ◼   ► But anyway, that's Project Mariner.

00:59:17 ◼   ► Still unclear.

00:59:18 ◼   ► Like is it going to be an actual product or an extension in Chrome?

00:59:21 ◼   ► Not clear.

00:59:22 ◼   ► It's like a lot of the things that I would want a computer to do for me.

00:59:24 ◼   ► I'm not going to be it.

00:59:25 ◼   ► Like I'm not going to be able to have it go and buy me tickets to a concert because like

00:59:28 ◼   ► that's going to be, they're going to find, they don't want me to do that.

00:59:32 ◼   ► Right.

00:59:32 ◼   ► Like that's like the whole thing.

00:59:33 ◼   ► That's pretty much like the thing that like perplexity is launching this comet browser, which

00:59:39 ◼   ► is based on Google Chrome.

00:59:40 ◼   ► And that's our whole thing right now.

00:59:42 ◼   ► Like it's a, it's a browser that does things for you in perplexity.

00:59:45 ◼   ► But I, I don't know.

00:59:46 ◼   ► Maybe it's just me.

00:59:47 ◼   ► Some, some of these things I don't understand.

00:59:49 ◼   ► Um, uh, agent mode in Gemini.

00:59:52 ◼   ► I think it's, this is one of my favorite announcements.

00:59:54 ◼   ► Uh, soon, uh, you will be able to integrate MCP tools in Gemini, uh, as well as, uh, search

01:00:01 ◼   ► and Chrome.

01:00:02 ◼   ► But I'm mostly interested in, in, um, MCP in Gemini, um, MCP can be confusing.

01:00:09 ◼   ► Um, you, in so many different ways, you can find MCP servers that are hosted remotely on

01:00:16 ◼   ► GitHub and you literally connect to a thing on, on GitHub via code made by somebody else.

01:00:23 ◼   ► Uh, you can download and install an MCP server on your own computer.

01:00:27 ◼   ► So at the very least, the code is on your actual machine.

01:00:30 ◼   ► That's a double-edged sword because well, the code is on your actual machine.

01:00:34 ◼   ► Um, there's just no, there's just no good way of doing it.

01:00:38 ◼   ► Thankfully, thankfully over the past couple of months, things have sort of standardized

01:00:42 ◼   ► a little.

01:00:43 ◼   ► So there's a popular directory for MCP tools called Smithery, Smithery AI.

01:00:48 ◼   ► That's a really popular sort of gallery for different MCP tools that have sort of verified.

01:00:53 ◼   ► And you know, you can, you can see how many people use it and so forth.

01:00:57 ◼   ► But by far, I think my favorite, um, MCP integration right now is the Zapier one because they made

01:01:04 ◼   ► it so easy to, to integrate with Cloud and other apps.

01:01:08 ◼   ► And they have this UI where they give you a private link that's tied to your account.

01:01:13 ◼   ► So they, they authenticate you with your Zapier account and that link is private to you.

01:01:18 ◼   ► And they have this interface where you pick and choose the tools that you want to use.

01:01:22 ◼   ► So instead of installing like 20 different MCP servers, you just installed the one Zapier

01:01:28 ◼   ► one, which contains like 50 different tools.

01:01:30 ◼   ► And they have a visual interface to do all this.

01:01:33 ◼   ► It's very nicely done.

01:01:34 ◼   ► I use it with Cloud all the time now.

01:01:37 ◼   ► And, um, and soon you will be able to do that in Gemini.

01:01:40 ◼   ► So that's exciting.

01:01:41 ◼   ► Um, they had the Gemini 2.5 flash update, which, uh, according to them, it's, uh, second

01:01:50 ◼   ► only to 2.5 pro in the LLM arena, which it's a whole other thing.

01:01:55 ◼   ► These benchmarks that I don't fully, I don't think they're necessarily reflective of actual

01:02:00 ◼   ► performance and quality, especially because the funny thing about benchmarks and leaderboards

01:02:04 ◼   ► is that these companies are training their models against the best possible outcomes for

01:02:09 ◼   ► the leaderboards, which kind of defeats the purpose, you know, you know, somebody actually

01:02:13 ◼   ► using a model and understanding what it does.

01:02:15 ◼   ► Um, so Facebook did that, right?

01:02:17 ◼   ► Yeah, no, everybody, everybody, everybody does.

01:02:20 ◼   ► Facebook did it.

01:02:21 ◼   ► Ben Thompson interviewed Mark Zuckerberg and he asked him about this and it's like, but

01:02:25 ◼   ► it's like, ah, ah, man, we make LLMs for so many things.

01:02:31 ◼   ► So I'm like, sometimes this is what we make them for.

01:02:34 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:02:35 ◼   ► You get LLM and you get LLM.

01:02:38 ◼   ► It's like, ah, come on, Ben.

01:02:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:02:41 ◼   ► Basically what it was like.

01:02:43 ◼   ► It was very funny.

01:02:44 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:02:44 ◼   ► Uh, they showcase audio previews in Gemini, including a mode that can, well, talking multiple

01:02:52 ◼   ► languages and also whisper, which was kind of creepy.

01:02:55 ◼   ► Um, but also quite impressive at the same time.

01:02:59 ◼   ► And as I was mentioning before, given that the innovation right now is happening in tool

01:03:03 ◼   ► usage and reasoning models, they also announced a version of Gemini 2.5 Pro, which is a big

01:03:10 ◼   ► model.

01:03:10 ◼   ► This one is called 2.5 Pro with DeepThink.

01:03:13 ◼   ► So it, guess what?

01:03:15 ◼   ► To give you even better responses, um, you don't need a new model.

01:03:20 ◼   ► You just need the existing big model to run for longer and use more compute power.

01:03:24 ◼   ► So that's what DeepThink is going to do.

01:03:26 ◼   ► And it's going to be in preview right now for Gemini Ultra subscribers, which is their, have

01:03:31 ◼   ► we, have we talked about the crazy expensive, um, subscription tier, uh, yet?

01:03:36 ◼   ► Probably not.

01:03:36 ◼   ► Not yet.

01:03:37 ◼   ► But yeah, we're going to talk about that at the end.

01:03:39 ◼   ► Um, what else do I want to mention?

01:03:43 ◼   ► Uh, personal, personal context is interesting.

01:03:45 ◼   ► Um, it's kind of similar in some ways to memory in ChatGPT.

01:03:50 ◼   ► Uh, and this feature, like this, this personalized assistant, I am noticing that people either love

01:03:59 ◼   ► it or absolutely hate it.

01:04:01 ◼   ► One of my favorite writers about, about AI right now, Simon Willison, they have an excellent

01:04:06 ◼   ► blog, like really old school blog with like, uh, blog posts and linked posts pretty much

01:04:12 ◼   ► inspired by Daring Fireball.

01:04:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:04:14 ◼   ► Who would do that sort of thing in 2025?

01:04:15 ◼   ► I know.

01:04:17 ◼   ► Right.

01:04:17 ◼   ► And it stands out because like, there's all these grifters on, on X and on YouTube with

01:04:21 ◼   ► like these AI influencers.

01:04:23 ◼   ► And here's an actual developer.

01:04:25 ◼   ► Wow.

01:04:25 ◼   ► This is an old school blog.

01:04:26 ◼   ► And with an old school blog that is so full of useful information.

01:04:31 ◼   ► every single day has to be one of my favorite.

01:04:33 ◼   ► The little orange and white RSS thing.

01:04:36 ◼   ► Oh man.

01:04:37 ◼   ► Look, look at this.

01:04:39 ◼   ► This is incredible.

01:04:41 ◼   ► Simon is the real deal.

01:04:42 ◼   ► The LLM command line tool that I've been using lately is made by Simon.

01:04:46 ◼   ► An incredible, incredible open source, uh, tool.

01:04:49 ◼   ► Um, in any case, uh, if you take a look on Simon's blog, you will see, I really don't

01:04:55 ◼   ► like ChatGPT's new memory.

01:04:56 ◼   ► And, uh, Simon has been writing about this for a long time and, and I, and I sort of

01:05:00 ◼   ► like, I disagree, but I understand why this idea that people want to use, uh, a large

01:05:05 ◼   ► language model in its sort of like pure essence.

01:05:09 ◼   ► Like they don't want personalization.

01:05:11 ◼   ► They don't want the model to, to change responses based on what they think they know about you.

01:05:16 ◼   ► Uh, so it'll be interesting to see this personal context in Gemini, just how much it'll influence.

01:05:22 ◼   ► Like if I ask Google, Hey, uh, tell me about California.

01:05:25 ◼   ► Is that, is the answer going to be influenced by how many times I've been to California over

01:05:30 ◼   ► the years?

01:05:31 ◼   ► Uh, so that'll be, that'll be fascinating to see if you can turn it off or not, how much

01:05:35 ◼   ► you can customize it.

01:05:37 ◼   ► Um, and we talked about AI mode in search.

01:05:40 ◼   ► Uh, only referenced.

01:05:43 ◼   ► I don't, I don't really understand what, like this is, this is that thing is like what I was

01:05:48 ◼   ► saying, like what, what, um, Casey Newton says, like it's confusing for me to be able to separate

01:05:53 ◼   ► all these things from each other.

01:05:55 ◼   ► because they just still seem to overlap and become the same thing.

01:05:57 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:05:58 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:05:58 ◼   ► Um, so this is basically Google doing perplexity, right?

01:06:02 ◼   ► Uh, the AI mode.

01:06:04 ◼   ► I mean, if you compare them side by side, it's basically perplexity, perplexity with a sidebar,

01:06:08 ◼   ► uh, AI mode, which is, uh, but of course it's powered by Gemini, uh, which is again, 2.5

01:06:14 ◼   ► and especially 2.5 pro one of the best models right now.

01:06:17 ◼   ► Um, and so they're feeling the pressure, I guess, from people searching in Chagipity and search

01:06:24 ◼   ► where search is no longer like stringing together a bunch of keywords, but like it can be multiple

01:06:30 ◼   ► sentences, uh, strung together.

01:06:32 ◼   ► So they're, that's what they're optimizing for.

01:06:34 ◼   ► I guess where it, where it gets kind of confusing is that on top of that, you have the shopping

01:06:41 ◼   ► integration and you have the visual shopping and you have the more agentic behavior where

01:06:47 ◼   ► you're like, okay, and now go find this ticket for me.

01:06:50 ◼   ► So, um, I don't know.

01:06:52 ◼   ► We'll see.

01:06:52 ◼   ► It's rolling out in the U S I mean,

01:06:54 ◼   ► it's out in the U S for everybody, everybody right now.

01:06:57 ◼   ► And this is very different from AI overviews, which, you know, I'm sure you've seen at the

01:07:02 ◼   ► top of Google searches.

01:07:03 ◼   ► This is once again, basically like a chatbot UI.

01:07:06 ◼   ► Uh, it sort of gives you a page of results and then you have a right sidebar with more

01:07:11 ◼   ► information.

01:07:11 ◼   ► You can click through and do a bunch of things.

01:07:13 ◼   ► It was a funny thing with Sundar said, cause like this AMO thing has existed for a while,

01:07:17 ◼   ► like in the labs feature or whatever.

01:07:19 ◼   ► And he was like, he was touting that like, typically a search in AI mode, people write

01:07:25 ◼   ► two to three times more words than doing a Google search.

01:07:28 ◼   ► It was like, what is that?

01:07:29 ◼   ► What is that?

01:07:31 ◼   ► What are you saying?

01:07:31 ◼   ► Like, is that good?

01:07:32 ◼   ► Like, is it bad?

01:07:34 ◼   ► Like, you know what?

01:07:34 ◼   ► Like, why is that like a, ah, so great.

01:07:37 ◼   ► Like, you know what I mean?

01:07:39 ◼   ► It's like, it's just like a strange thing to tout as like a benefit of this feature.

01:07:43 ◼   ► It was like, people write more stuff in the box.

01:07:45 ◼   ► It's like, okay, like, okay, like I know because I am aware of this.

01:07:50 ◼   ► Like when I am searching for something in ChatGPT, I search more with more words.

01:07:57 ◼   ► And like, there are two reasons for this.

01:07:58 ◼   ► One, because I just feel it's a bit more like chatty than like, I know what to look for on

01:08:05 ◼   ► Google, but also because I feel like I have to give it more information.

01:08:09 ◼   ► So like, because I know that without that, it is a less efficient thing.

01:08:13 ◼   ► But if I give it all of the information, I can get the answer I want better.

01:08:17 ◼   ► So it is essentially saying that like these tools require more effort from the user.

01:08:23 ◼   ► I just found like it's a strange thing to be like, hey, people type more.

01:08:27 ◼   ► It's like, okay.

01:08:28 ◼   ► Like, this isn't like a thing we're all looking for.

01:08:31 ◼   ► Like, oh man, if only I could type more in my Google search.

01:08:35 ◼   ► Like, ah, why can't I do that?

01:08:37 ◼   ► If only just found it very strange, uh, Android XR got a, got a bit of time.

01:08:42 ◼   ► Um, Android XR is a big project spanning all forms of AI, uh, sorry, like alternate reality

01:08:53 ◼   ► stuff, like mixed reality stuff.

01:08:54 ◼   ► It's like, it's their headset that they're working with Samsung on, but it's also glasses.

01:08:58 ◼   ► Uh, and they spent quite a bit of time, um, essentially showing their reference design,

01:09:06 ◼   ► which Samsung has made, but it's not going to be a shipping product, which is basically

01:09:11 ◼   ► the Meta Ray-Bans, but with a display inside.

01:09:14 ◼   ► Uh, they did a demo.

01:09:16 ◼   ► The demo was fine.

01:09:17 ◼   ► Uh, it was clearly pushing the device really hard.

01:09:21 ◼   ► Like there was the video stream came from it.

01:09:23 ◼   ► It was very choppy, but like kind of like whatever is how I feel about that.

01:09:26 ◼   ► Like, I don't particularly feel like it needs to be, uh, live streaming.

01:09:31 ◼   ► That's like a product point that it needs.

01:09:33 ◼   ► Um, I thought that the idea of Meta Ray-Bans, but with a little screen inside so it can show

01:09:41 ◼   ► you stuff.

01:09:41 ◼   ► It's like, ah, okay, like that's it, right?

01:09:44 ◼   ► They've announced they're working with Gentle Monster and Warby Parker.

01:09:47 ◼   ► I thought the Warby Parker thing was just funny to me of like, so, okay, there's two brands

01:09:52 ◼   ► that make good looking glasses and like, they're gonna, you know, it's, they're both doing stuff

01:09:58 ◼   ► now, but it's, it's like understanding.

01:10:02 ◼   ► So, so Victoria's song at, uh, uh, the Verge had a good point about this is like, they understood

01:10:07 ◼   ► the right thing from Meta.

01:10:10 ◼   ► You have to make products people are actually going to want to wear.

01:10:13 ◼   ► So they need to be designed by people who design products that people want to wear.

01:10:18 ◼   ► Like you can't just make the, here's the Samsung ones.

01:10:22 ◼   ► Like that's not the thing.

01:10:25 ◼   ► Like Samsung don't understand how to make attractive eyeglasses.

01:10:29 ◼   ► Like you need to work with companies that do that.

01:10:32 ◼   ► So yeah, I thought it was an interesting demo.

01:10:34 ◼   ► I'm intrigued to see what comes of it.

01:10:37 ◼   ► Um, also X-Ray will make in San Federico.

01:10:40 ◼   ► I'm sure you're excited about that.

01:10:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:10:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:10:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:10:42 ◼   ► I thought the glass demo looked like excellent.

01:10:45 ◼   ► Like, um, I'm sure there were wifi issues.

01:10:50 ◼   ► Uh, yeah, but it's like, I don't, I don't like fault them for that.

01:10:53 ◼   ► It's like, that's not what I care about.

01:10:55 ◼   ► Like, I don't care about how well it live streams, right?

01:10:59 ◼   ► Like the things that it was doing that were interesting, right?

01:11:03 ◼   ► Like it could take a pic, you know, take a picture, showing viewfinders.

01:11:06 ◼   ► It was showing directions.

01:11:07 ◼   ► It was showing little pieces of text.

01:11:09 ◼   ► Now, as I've said a long time ago on this show, I'm not sure I want notifications in my eyes.

01:11:14 ◼   ► Like, that's actually a thing I do not want.

01:11:16 ◼   ► Like, I don't want that.

01:11:17 ◼   ► But for things that I'm asking it for, being able to get, uh, turn by turn walking directions is that, that I would love that.

01:11:29 ◼   ► Oh my God, I would love that.

01:11:30 ◼   ► Right.

01:11:30 ◼   ► To just be able to see where, like, not have to get my, have my phone out while I'm trying to navigate somewhere.

01:11:36 ◼   ► Like, just, just use my eyes like that.

01:11:40 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:11:40 ◼   ► Looked fantastic.

01:11:41 ◼   ► What's, what's interesting about that is we're talking about our phones and other things wanting to be more proactive, but something in your eyes, you want to be basically solely reactive.

01:11:52 ◼   ► I think is what you're saying.

01:11:53 ◼   ► And I agree.

01:11:54 ◼   ► I think that's spot on.

01:11:55 ◼   ► It's just interesting to me, like the, the difference that there caught my attention.

01:12:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:12:00 ◼   ► It, it, and I think it's just the, there's like a spectrum, right?

01:12:05 ◼   ► Where it's like your, your watch is somewhere in the middle, right?

01:12:08 ◼   ► It's like the kind of proactive reactive.

01:12:09 ◼   ► Um, but like, I just, the, the more connected it is to my physical senses, the less I want it to take over without me asking.

01:12:21 ◼   ► That's kind of how I feel anyway.

01:12:23 ◼   ► But yeah, I, I thought that looked really cool.

01:12:25 ◼   ► Um, and it's fascinating to see that like 10, 11 years later or whatever it is, they actually, the technology exists for Google Glass to be like a thing that people are willing to accept.

01:12:38 ◼   ► Hmm.

01:12:41 ◼   ► Should we talk about, uh, should we talk about, uh, pricing?

01:12:47 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:12:48 ◼   ► Um, how much less does everything cost, Steven?

01:12:52 ◼   ► Uh, so Google AI pro you get, uh, the 2.5 pro and deep research and Veo two and the Gemini app.

01:13:03 ◼   ► You get that AI filmmaking stuff flow that Mike talked about, uh, you get notebook LM with basically five times more audio overviews and notebooks and stuff, Gemini and Gmail docs, Gemini and Chrome, and two terabytes of storage.

01:13:19 ◼   ► That's Google AI pro that is $19.99 a month in the U S.

01:13:25 ◼   ► Which used to be called Gemini advanced.

01:13:28 ◼   ► That's right.

01:13:28 ◼   ► That's yeah.

01:13:29 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:13:29 ◼   ► It's basically, I think almost exactly the same plan, just with these newer features.

01:13:33 ◼   ► And then there is Google AI ultra for $125 a quarter.

01:13:41 ◼   ► So that's what?

01:13:42 ◼   ► 42 bucks a month, uh, 42 bucks a month.

01:13:46 ◼   ► You get all the pro stuff.

01:13:48 ◼   ► Why would you do that?

01:13:48 ◼   ► Why would you charge it that way?

01:13:50 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:13:51 ◼   ► Uh, I don't know.

01:13:52 ◼   ► Why don't you just charge me monthly?

01:13:53 ◼   ► I thought it was $120 a month.

01:13:57 ◼   ► I did too, which is like, wow.

01:13:58 ◼   ► Um, well, and that's, that apparently is, uh, discounted.

01:14:03 ◼   ► Normally it's going to be two 50 a month.

01:14:04 ◼   ► That's like drawn with the outline with a.

01:14:07 ◼   ► Strike through on it.

01:14:08 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:14:09 ◼   ► Um, you get everything in pro you get basically like Gemini app turned to maximum.

01:14:15 ◼   ► You get Veo three.

01:14:17 ◼   ► You get, uh, the highest limits in notebook LM.

01:14:22 ◼   ► You get the highest limits in Gemini and docs and Gmail and everything.

01:14:26 ◼   ► You get project Mariner, uh, which is the, the agentic research stuff that Federico talked

01:14:32 ◼   ► about.

01:14:33 ◼   ► You get YouTube premium and 30 terabytes of storage for photos, drive, and Gmail.

01:14:41 ◼   ► Uh, all that is Google AI ultra for one 25 a month for three months.

01:14:47 ◼   ► Wait, no, it's not one 25 a quarter.

01:14:49 ◼   ► It's one 25 a month, but you sign a three month contract.

01:14:54 ◼   ► So I misstated that.

01:14:55 ◼   ► Or is it just $125 for the first three months and then $250?

01:14:59 ◼   ► I think that maybe actually, that is very confusing.

01:15:02 ◼   ► It's too much.

01:15:02 ◼   ► You know, it is that Google AI ultra is available.

01:15:04 ◼   ► I'm looking from the Google blog, $249 a month with a special offer for first time users for

01:15:10 ◼   ► 50% of your first three months.

01:15:12 ◼   ► Okay.

01:15:12 ◼   ► So it is $250 a month.

01:15:14 ◼   ► Okay.

01:15:14 ◼   ► So, so forgive my quick math of, uh, that is confusing on the, it's very confusing.

01:15:21 ◼   ► The Google AI plans page.

01:15:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:23 ◼   ► Um, AI ultra is us only for now and Google AI pro is free for students through quote

01:15:31 ◼   ► finals in 2026.

01:15:33 ◼   ► Um, so you, if you are a student, you can see if you're eligible for a student discount,

01:15:38 ◼   ► there's a page about that.

01:15:40 ◼   ► Um, that's $250 a month is a lot.

01:15:44 ◼   ► That's a lot of money.

01:15:45 ◼   ► That's a lot of money.

01:15:46 ◼   ► What's the expensive open AI one?

01:15:48 ◼   ► Is it $200 a month?

01:15:49 ◼   ► Uh, they're all about $200.

01:15:51 ◼   ► So open AI pro is $200 and a Claude.

01:15:57 ◼   ► They have two versions of Claude max, uh, which is, let's see, uh, either a hundred or 200.

01:16:06 ◼   ► Okay.

01:16:07 ◼   ► So it's a little bit more than that, but maybe they're offering more, um, yeah.

01:16:14 ◼   ► It's expensive.

01:16:14 ◼   ► Federico, uh, let's just, let's put our cards on the table for a second.

01:16:20 ◼   ► What are, what, if anything, are we paying for with AI tools right now?

01:16:23 ◼   ► What do you mean?

01:16:26 ◼   ► What do you mean?

01:16:26 ◼   ► Like, are you paying for Claude pro or chat GPT?

01:16:31 ◼   ► You're paying for all of them, aren't you?

01:16:33 ◼   ► Yes.

01:16:34 ◼   ► Okay.

01:16:34 ◼   ► Hey, why would you do this to him?

01:16:35 ◼   ► Why would you make him say it?

01:16:38 ◼   ► So Federico is spending, uh, money everywhere.

01:16:41 ◼   ► I'm doing the, I don't think, but, but, but, but I don't think I'm going to pay for the Gemini

01:16:47 ◼   ► ultra one, uh, because I mostly use Gemini over the API and that's built via the Google

01:16:54 ◼   ► cloud console, whatever.

01:16:56 ◼   ► So I don't need the consumer subscription.

01:17:00 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:17:00 ◼   ► Okay.

01:17:01 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:17:04 ◼   ► I'm paying for chat GPT, the regular one.

01:17:08 ◼   ► 20 bucks a month.

01:17:10 ◼   ► 20.

01:17:11 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:17:11 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:17:11 ◼   ► Me too.

01:17:12 ◼   ► And I was paying for Gemini, but then somehow I got it free.

01:17:20 ◼   ► I think with my Android phone, like they got like a year or something.

01:17:25 ◼   ► Um, oh no.

01:17:28 ◼   ► Okay.

01:17:28 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:17:28 ◼   ► I remember now I got it for free.

01:17:30 ◼   ► I got like free for a year on my personal like account, like Gmail, like Google account.

01:17:35 ◼   ► And then I'm paying for it on a business account.

01:17:38 ◼   ► Uh, well now it's all integrated with Google workspace anyway, but I was going to pay for

01:17:43 ◼   ► it because I wanted the good notebook LM.

01:17:44 ◼   ► Like I wanted like the, I needed more space.

01:17:46 ◼   ► Um, and so I was going to pay for it, but then they kind of rolled it into Google workspace

01:17:51 ◼   ► and increased the price.

01:17:52 ◼   ► And so it's like, all right, so I got it.

01:17:54 ◼   ► I got, I, I don't, I don't pay extra for it.

01:17:56 ◼   ► So the only one that I'm like paying for is, uh, the regular open AI, um, subscription.

01:18:02 ◼   ► Not the 200 dot, not the 200 one.

01:18:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:18:07 ◼   ► I'm doing the 20 bucks a month at chat GPT.

01:18:09 ◼   ► That's it.

01:18:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:18:10 ◼   ► You're probably also getting the Google one.

01:18:12 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:18:13 ◼   ► I think something you pay for somewhere you're getting it somewhere.

01:18:15 ◼   ► They, they basically, I think turned that on for a bunch of workspace accounts, which I

01:18:20 ◼   ► found really frustrating because the price went up.

01:18:21 ◼   ► They turned it on and then increased the price of workspace, which is just like, well, who are

01:18:26 ◼   ► probably also paying for that, but I have not, I have not really, I've not spent much time

01:18:31 ◼   ► with the new Gemini stuff.

01:18:32 ◼   ► I tried it out.

01:18:33 ◼   ► I don't know, six months ago or something, but definitely not any of the, any of these newer

01:18:38 ◼   ► things.

01:18:39 ◼   ► Gemini, Gemini is getting better and better.

01:18:41 ◼   ► Like it's getting better and better all the time.

01:18:43 ◼   ► And it's like particularly good on an Android phone, obviously.

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01:20:05 ◼   ► So the open AI news that we covered a second ago, the breaking news, that aside, I feel like

01:20:17 ◼   ► there's been a real shift in the way we're thinking and talking about Google in the era of AI.

01:20:23 ◼   ► I feel like six months ago, maybe even three months ago, it was like, well, Google is there

01:20:29 ◼   ► like they're in trouble, right?

01:20:30 ◼   ► Because ChatGPT search and these other tools are going to make people search less.

01:20:34 ◼   ► And it seems to me, and some of this was in that Casey Newton column that Mike mentioned

01:20:39 ◼   ► earlier.

01:20:40 ◼   ► It feels like this IO is, in a way, was designed to counteract some of that and say like, no,

01:20:48 ◼   ► like search is still really important.

01:20:49 ◼   ► We're making search better with AI, but we're also doing these other things.

01:20:52 ◼   ► Is the way that y'all have thought about that, is that shifted after IO in any way?

01:20:57 ◼   ► I still think Google's in trouble.

01:21:01 ◼   ► I just think that they're attempting to meet the moment more.

01:21:04 ◼   ► Like Google search is at risk.

01:21:09 ◼   ► And the way Google makes money, which is Google search, is at risk.

01:21:15 ◼   ► Like one of the reasons they're pushing so hard is because of that, right?

01:21:20 ◼   ► So like I think Google is struggling.

01:21:22 ◼   ► But, you know, my opinion of Google's ability is significantly better than when they started,

01:21:30 ◼   ► right?

01:21:30 ◼   ► Bard was a joke, which is why they had to rebrand it.

01:21:34 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:21:34 ◼   ► Because it was just so bad, right?

01:21:36 ◼   ► Like it was getting things so wrong.

01:21:38 ◼   ► And I like Gemini.

01:21:40 ◼   ► Like my experience using Gemini has been very positive.

01:21:43 ◼   ► My experience with the Google AI summaries has been very negative.

01:21:47 ◼   ► Like I kind of don't understand why they're so different.

01:21:51 ◼   ► Like I feel like I get better responses from Gemini than I do from the Google AI summary thing.

01:21:59 ◼   ► But yeah, I think you're right.

01:22:02 ◼   ► Like they're in a better spot now.

01:22:04 ◼   ► I think people look at them as being more of a leader again.

01:22:09 ◼   ► But I still think that like Google's core business is a threat.

01:22:16 ◼   ► They need to try and work out how that's going to not fall apart for them, I suppose.

01:22:22 ◼   ► Sure.

01:22:24 ◼   ► I feel like if the current landscape of the tech products that we use is to stay the same,

01:22:37 ◼   ► Google is the company that's best positioned right now, given the status quo of devices that

01:22:44 ◼   ► we use and they are trying.

01:22:47 ◼   ► I feel like they have the most compelling ecosystem right now of existing products.

01:22:54 ◼   ► What Johnny apparently is calling legacy products in the promo video that I need to watch later for IO.

01:23:01 ◼   ► So if we are considering legacy products, and at this point, I mean, even glasses and headsets are legacy products, to an extent, especially headsets.

01:23:10 ◼   ► But if we consider the current ecosystem of legacy products, Google right now has the most compelling one.

01:23:17 ◼   ► Because they have a really good AI, and I know that Apple people, Apple fans that listen to this show don't want to hear this.

01:23:26 ◼   ► But they have a really good AI integrated with the system in a way that Apple dreams they could have it.

01:23:33 ◼   ► So if we consider the current landscape, they are well positioned.

01:23:40 ◼   ► If we consider that everything is changing, they are also at risk, right?

01:23:47 ◼   ► They are, like, especially search, given that their core business is, you know, ads, search, and all that stuff.

01:23:57 ◼   ► And they're not necessarily making money off of Android, really.

01:24:02 ◼   ► I do think that, though, the company that is in the worst shape right now is Apple.

01:24:11 ◼   ► Like, it's just objectively speaking, you know.

01:24:16 ◼   ► Clearly, people are, and I think it's so funny, I think it's so funny, that either over the feedback form, or in the Discord, or on Blue Sky, or God forbid, on Mastodon,

01:24:29 ◼   ► we get this feedback, still, after two and a half years of these things existing, from people saying, oh, you know, it hallucinates.

01:24:39 ◼   ► It's, you know, it's, you know, it's snake oil.

01:24:43 ◼   ► I mean, do you think that half a billion people, half a billion people, using ChatGPT on a monthly basis, or whatever it is, daily basis, I don't even remember.

01:24:53 ◼   ► Do you think that half a billion people are stupider than you?

01:24:57 ◼   ► And that you, the feedback sender, are the clever one for having assumed over the past couple of years that these products, there's nothing, absolutely nothing good about them?

01:25:10 ◼   ► That half a billion people, just for ChatGPT, I mean, how many, if I consider all the other services?

01:25:17 ◼   ► They're just stupid. They're using these services, they're using these products, because they're under some kind of, like, collective gaslighting, or something?

01:25:25 ◼   ► I think, I think the thing, this technology just elicits a lot of very strong emotions in people.

01:25:31 ◼   ► I mean, but when you look at the numbers, when you look at the numbers, like, leave, you know, nerds, nerds tend to be people who appreciate the empirical method,

01:25:42 ◼   ► and the scientific method. So just take a look at the numbers.

01:25:46 ◼   ► Do you think that it's possible that given these numbers, all those people are part of a collective hallucination?

01:25:56 ◼   ► Or is there something potentially good about these products?

01:26:03 ◼   ► I mean...

01:26:05 ◼   ► I don't think it's got to be as hardcore as that.

01:26:07 ◼   ► Yeah, I understand where you're coming from, like, because I, you know, you know me, like, you know me, I don't, I find it frustrating when people just repeat the same things over and over, and like, you know, the joke of like, oh, I told you to put glue on pizza, like, I just, I don't think it's funny anymore.

01:26:25 ◼   ► It's kind of funny.

01:26:26 ◼   ► I don't think, I know you like it, but I don't think it's funny anymore, really. It's just like, yes, that was a thing that happened, but it doesn't happen now.

01:26:36 ◼   ► So, you know, they fixed it.

01:26:37 ◼   ► But I just, I am acutely aware of the fact that this causes a lot of feelings in people.

01:26:45 ◼   ► And so I think it elicits a response that is unlike other stuff in technology, because it is, it's still, it's a hot button, and it's going to continue to be one for a long time.

01:26:58 ◼   ► And I think that a lot of the things like the glue on pizza thing, it is a very hard thing to shake out of people, because it's like, if you, if you come at it from a spot of like, I don't want this technology, then you're, you are going to be leaning way harder into all of the problems of it.

01:27:17 ◼   ► Similarly, of like the environmental stuff, of which there are environmental concerns, I think everything that I've seen, it's like, it's in the middle of what a lot of people think.

01:27:27 ◼   ► It's like, it's bad, it's not as bad, it's worse than a Google search, but like, how much? And yeah, but I don't know, because I'm not smart enough to understand it.

01:27:37 ◼   ► But like, I feel like I've seen a lot of people whose opinions I do trust, that talk about it, of like, it is definitely worse than a lot of the things we're doing on computers currently.

01:27:48 ◼   ► But to what actual degree? And I think it's people overestimate it, maybe.

01:27:55 ◼   ► Yeah. And I can be mad that XAI is using tractor-trailer-sized gas turbines in poor neighborhoods to power Grok, of all things, and think that there are uses for this that are helpful, and pay for chat GPT, right?

01:28:16 ◼   ► Like those, yes, some of those things are in conflict with each other, but it's just the same conflict we feel over like, we like Apple products, but think there needs to be change in leadership.

01:28:25 ◼   ► Or, I really like driving my truck, even though I know the gas mileage isn't what, you know, I would be getting with a hybrid, right?

01:28:32 ◼   ► Like, all of us make conflicted decisions all the time. AI is just the latest, and we've been doing this a long time, a long list of things that gets nerdy-oriented people worked up.

01:28:49 ◼   ► And so, I don't think it's got to be as hardcore as what you said, Federico, but I also think that, like, all of us need to understand that almost everybody, except for maybe those bros on X that you were talking about, like, trying to scan people with AI courses or whatever, except for those guys who we all dislike.

01:29:05 ◼   ► Oh, my God. So many of them.

01:29:06 ◼   ► Right? You know, those guys wearing two polo shirts popped. Heyo!

01:29:13 ◼   ► That was a thing, all right? There was a place in time where people were wearing multiple colors.

01:29:18 ◼   ► And that dude just bought Johnny Ives, so.

01:29:20 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, now we always had multiple colors.

01:29:23 ◼   ► So, I think basically everyone has conflicts about it. Even on this show, right? And Federico, you and John have talked a lot about this, right? Like, y'all don't like how these models were built, but you do like what the technology unlocks in terms of your workflows and what you can create, right?

01:29:43 ◼   ► Those things are in conflict. And so, that is all inherent to this. And any hardcore statement about, like, this is 100% good or 100% bad. Like, there's just not, like, there's just not useful because it's not true. And everyone's going to fall in between those two, those two things at some point.

01:30:04 ◼   ► So, anyways, I'll get off my soapbox. I just, that's been rattling around in my head for a week. So, thank, you know, thank you for letting me get that.

01:30:10 ◼   ► Well, everyone has soapboxes. That's kind of the point of the conversation. You know what I mean? Like, this is, I think we've spoken about this many times.

01:30:18 ◼   ► In all the years that I've covered any, I've been interested in technology and have spoken about technology professionally, nothing has elicited the kind of responses that this technology exists, that elicits in people.

01:30:29 ◼   ► Good, bad, in the middle. Like, it is really interesting. Like, there is a lot of emotion in this, which is just an intriguing thing to see unfold.

01:30:41 ◼   ► Okay.

01:30:41 ◼   ► Feelings.

01:30:42 ◼   ► Thank you for, yeah, yeah.

01:30:44 ◼   ► We're allowed to have them. You know what I mean? And we're allowed to express them. It's important to remember there's nuances, right? And just, like, we're just all here just talking. You know, we're just here, we're just talking. And that's the way the show is always going to be.

01:30:57 ◼   ► Anything else? Anything else from IO we want to get back to? We sort of got derailed there for a second.

01:31:08 ◼   ► I don't know. I think we covered everything. But we didn't have time to talk about my Mac Studio. So we'll talk about that next week.

01:31:15 ◼   ► I copied that to next week's document. I was like, nope, not making it to that. But yes, you have a sick Mac Studio that you're doing wild stuff with.

01:31:23 ◼   ► Yeah, boy.

01:31:24 ◼   ► Well, until then, if you want more of us, we're around. You can find Federico's writing and work over at Mac Stories, where he is the editor-in-chief.

01:31:36 ◼   ► Lots of great stuff. I know you guys are gearing up for WBDC. You just did the Airbnb thing. John's hanging out with famous people. It's awesome.

01:31:46 ◼   ► Mike hosts...

01:31:47 ◼   ► I'm going to say Coddy B.

01:31:48 ◼   ► No, I don't know. I mean, who am I to say?

01:31:51 ◼   ► Some people say Coddy B.

01:31:53 ◼   ► Some people say.

01:31:53 ◼   ► Some people say.

01:31:54 ◼   ► Many people are saying.

01:31:55 ◼   ► If you want to hear more of Mike, he hosts a bunch of shows here on Relay and check out his work at Cortex Brand.

01:32:02 ◼   ► You can find my writing at 512pixels, and I co-host Mac Power users here on Relay each and every Sunday.

01:32:09 ◼   ► I'd like to thank our sponsor this week, Squarespace, for making this possible.

01:32:13 ◼   ► If you like Connected and want more of it, check out Connected Pro, the longer ad-free version of the show that we do each and every week.

01:32:20 ◼   ► The link is in the show notes. It's just $7 a month.

01:32:23 ◼   ► Until next time, gentlemen, say goodbye.

01:32:26 ◼   ► Adi with it, you.

01:32:27 ◼   ► Cheerio.

01:32:28 ◼   ► Bye, y'all.