00:00:00 ◼ ► All right, I'm recording from, what the hell is this, Sonoma, Sequoia. There we go, Sequoia.
00:00:29 ◼ ► and so I'll just bring it up now. I am really, really enjoying, what is the official term for it?
00:00:38 ◼ ► I used it all the time at first, I think in no small part because it was new and fun and fancy,
00:00:42 ◼ ► but it is really convenient to be able to effectively, and I don't think this is literal,
00:00:52 ◼ ► And it seems to do a pretty good job of, like, mirroring the clipboard and stuff like that.
00:00:56 ◼ ► The one thing that drives me bananas about it is that all of the different gestures that I've
00:01:02 ◼ ► trained for the iOS simulator are not the same. So as an example, to scroll in the iOS simulator,
00:01:09 ◼ ► you have to click and drag, whereas in this, you scroll. And Command+Shift+H in the iOS simulator
00:01:33 ◼ ► it is freaking great. And it'll even pull through audio, if I'm not mistaken. I've only done that,
00:01:37 ◼ ► like, once or twice. But, you know, I genuinely, I'm not just saying this because you're sitting
00:01:42 ◼ ► right here, Marco. I genuinely think that the overcast Mac OS app, as long as you're running
00:01:47 ◼ ► on an Apple Silicon Mac, hi, John, is actually pretty good. But if you don't fancy that, or for
00:01:53 ◼ ► some reason you can't install it on, like, your work computer or whatever, but you can do the
00:01:56 ◼ ► iPhone mirroring thing, you can just pull the audio right through and use overcast on your iPhone,
00:02:04 ◼ ► really well done, and I've been really impressed with it, and I don't think we had talked about it
00:02:07 ◼ ► yet on the show. Because I, honestly, I haven't even used it yet, so I wouldn't have said anything
00:02:11 ◼ ► about it. John doesn't use iPhones, so he wouldn't have said anything about it. We did, we did talk
00:02:16 ◼ ► about it, although, actually, maybe it was rectifs. We were talking about using it to rearrange stuff.
00:02:19 ◼ ► That was rectifs, I believe. Yeah, all right, anyway, I have used it. Yeah, did you know that
00:02:23 ◼ ► iPhone mirroring works on Intel Macs? I'm actually a little bit surprised. I really honestly am.
00:02:28 ◼ ► I mean, but that's good, like, if you want to use overcast on your Intel Mac, that's how you do it.
00:02:31 ◼ ► That's true, actually. I didn't even think about that. Yeah, yeah. You know, there's a website,
00:02:34 ◼ ► too, I hear. There is an overcast website, allegedly. Maybe not last for long, but it's there.
00:02:50 ◼ ► of one of your posts, John, one of which was a semi-regurgitation of your pasta recipe,
00:02:56 ◼ ► which I saw a handful of people ask for, which I gotta chuckle out of. But apparently, we may or
00:03:02 ◼ ► may not have messed something up. Can you explain what's going on here, please? Regurgitation is
00:03:06 ◼ ► actually a good word. I'll get to that in a second. Many people pointed out that one of the things I
00:03:10 ◼ ► was complaining about, the generated podcast, that it didn't mention a specific example
00:03:15 ◼ ► from my article. It did mention it. Basically, I totally missed when it mentioned it because it was
00:03:20 ◼ ► at the very beginning and I was too busy snarking about something else. But the other reason I missed
00:03:24 ◼ ► it is that it mentioned it but then used it as, like, it was the mention of, like, emailing the
00:03:29 ◼ ► artist to do something. It uses it as an example of the person who created it maintaining the
00:03:34 ◼ ► copyright, right, so the artist creates it, they have the copyright for themselves, when I expected
00:03:38 ◼ ► them to use it as I did as an example of transferring the copyright in exchange for payment.
00:03:43 ◼ ► So I apologize to the Notebook LM podcast for missing their mention of that at the very top
00:03:49 ◼ ► because I was too busy snarking about something else. But do you think it has follow-up? Yeah,
00:03:55 ◼ ► that's one place we've definitely got them beat. There's not going to be a follow-up podcast unless
00:03:58 ◼ ► you specifically spoon-feed it to them. But Casey's word that he used, and I'm glad he used that
00:04:02 ◼ ► because I couldn't think of a good word for it. I was trying to think before the show started how I
00:04:06 ◼ ► should describe this. The more I thought about and discussed the Notebook LM podcast with people,
00:04:10 ◼ ► like, just going back and forth on Macedon and stuff about it, the more it seems to me that
00:04:22 ◼ ► at least for the first portion of it as sort of a, I was going to say, a paraphrasing of the content.
00:04:32 ◼ ► Regurgitation is similar in that it's like, okay, so here's the article, and then the hosts of the
00:04:37 ◼ ► podcast, the AI hosts of the podcast, basically do the equivalent of rewriting the article into
00:04:45 ◼ ► podcast speak. Like, they just speak it out loud rather than reading it. But they're not doing
00:04:50 ◼ ► anything more than trying to, basically rewording sentence by sentence, point by points in slightly
00:05:01 ◼ ► that's the word I couldn't come up with in case you can't with it. I think it's a really good word,
00:05:04 ◼ ► because they are throwing back at you everything that was in the article in a slightly less pleasant
00:05:09 ◼ ► form, but it's all there. And then in the second part where they sort of riff, reform on it,
00:05:15 ◼ ► it's more like they just took some of those words and again, looked at the Wikipedia pages that are
00:05:18 ◼ ► related to them, went back and forth. And I feel that's part of why I think a lot of people when
00:05:23 ◼ ► they hear these generated podcasts think they go on too long, is that they are, like, they're longer
00:05:31 ◼ ► than the article. You could have just read the article and it would take less time, and it's not
00:05:33 ◼ ► because they have a lot of commentary. It's because they take a long time to get around with everything.
00:05:37 ◼ ► Anyway, we talked about that last episode. If you want to hear those podcasts, if you skipped them
00:05:42 ◼ ► last time and you want to hear them, you can take a look. But I will say that, you know, doing live
00:05:48 ◼ ► commentary on something you've never heard before is a lot harder than it sounds, as a reason, like
00:05:52 ◼ ► Mystery Science Theater 3000, they pre-write and script all those jokes, believe it or not. They
00:05:56 ◼ ► just don't do it in real time. I don't ruin the illusion. No, I mean, so in notebook LM's defense,
00:06:01 ◼ ► like, you know, number one, I think there is a lot of media out there is just regurgitation of some
00:06:07 ◼ ► source post or source material or source press release. So like there is a place for that. But
00:06:12 ◼ ► also in notebook LM's defense, in each of those two examples, I only gave it one article. Like,
00:06:18 ◼ ► I think the actual use of the tool is meant for larger data sets. Like, oh, I have these
00:06:23 ◼ ► 15 documents or all these different sources that I'm trying to, you know, get some info out of or
00:06:29 ◼ ► summarize or make, you know, get some bullet points out of. When you feed it more information,
00:06:34 ◼ ► it would not necessarily behave exactly like that. I mean, it would still generate the same type of
00:06:39 ◼ ► thing with some of the same benefits and pitfalls, but it would have more broad source material in
00:06:43 ◼ ► most uses. But it's not just limited, like, I don't know the details of notebook LM, but I have to
00:06:49 ◼ ► think that it is what Apple would describe as a "world knowledge" LM, because the parts where I
00:06:55 ◼ ► was complaining that it sounded like it was reading from a Wikipedia page, it clearly has
00:06:58 ◼ ► lots of world knowledge in, like, before you feed it anything, right? It could comment on AI and all
00:07:04 ◼ ► those things. That wasn't in the article. That's why I'm like, oh, it's reading from Wikipedia page,
00:07:07 ◼ ► again, about some just, it has a lot of general knowledge. That's what it's bringing to the table.
00:07:11 ◼ ► So yes, you only fed it the one article, but it's got however many billions of words that it was
00:07:18 ◼ ► trained on. Well, I'm just glad I could contribute regurgitation to the lexicon. Yeah, that's good.
00:07:23 ◼ ► And, you know, like Margo said, sometimes that's exactly what you want. And that we, or we have
00:07:28 ◼ ► tons of forms of media out there today, where that's what we pay people to do, because it is
00:07:33 ◼ ► a service. Like it saves you the trouble of having to have, you know, read the thing yourself or
00:07:42 ◼ ► insight, but even just straight regurgitation does have a role. I'm not sure I'd want those
00:07:48 ◼ ► particular AI hosts doing the regurgitation, but you know, to each their own. You know, to be fair,
00:07:52 ◼ ► like I, there is, there are lots of things in my life where I would want real humans doing a
00:07:59 ◼ ► podcast about whatever I want to hear about, but I can't say there's nothing I would ever want this
00:08:04 ◼ ► kind of thing to do. Like I don't, this kind of thing, like I don't intend to make it a big part
00:08:08 ◼ ► of my life, but like I probably will actually use it for something sometime, either in, either this
00:08:15 ◼ ► exact product or some future version of it. What was that thing that Marilyn talked about? Like
00:08:19 ◼ ► the shipping news thing? Some people in the UK know what I'm talking about. Yeah, the maritime
00:08:23 ◼ ► report. Yeah, the maritime report where this human would read it with a certain intonation and
00:08:29 ◼ ► basically just, he's just reading off like the weather report or like whatever. Like it's just,
00:08:33 ◼ ► it could very easily be done by an AI trained voice because it's very standardized. There's
00:08:38 ◼ ► no riffing or anything, but people find it comforting and they like to have it read to them
00:08:42 ◼ ► and whatever that pleasing British person's voice is. Can we talk about the camera control buttons
00:08:47 ◼ ► on Apple's cases, Jon? Yeah, I kept referring to like the thing that Apple puts on them to transfer
00:08:53 ◼ ► the capacitiveness of your touch as a quartz thing, but it's not, it's Sapphire. Many people
00:08:58 ◼ ► wanted to correct me on that. I am happy to be corrected. I just want someone to make a case with
00:09:03 ◼ ► a Sapphire or like it doesn't even have to be Sapphire. It can be that plastic thing with the
00:09:07 ◼ ► metal things through it. I don't know, something that's not a big hole. And another week has gone
00:09:12 ◼ ► by, another week filled with Instagram ads for iPhone cases and another week without me finding
00:09:16 ◼ ► anything exciting or good. Well, I have a case from Spigen here that just arrived today that has
00:09:23 ◼ ► a button overlay. Yeah, they're out there. Like I said, there's the, is it the one with the copper
00:09:27 ◼ ► dots or is it a Sapphire thing? It's, it appears to be just solid white, but you can tell, but it
00:09:36 ◼ ► has a rim. Like if you look real closely, you can see like there is a rim around its perimeter of
00:09:42 ◼ ► some other materials. So I think it might be doing the same trick Apple does with theirs of just like
00:09:47 ◼ ► some kind of, you know, solid material that with like a conductive rim around the outside,
00:09:51 ◼ ► but it does work. It's the Spigen clear case. I'll put a link. They have a thousand cases. So,
00:09:58 ◼ ► and you know, you go on Amazon, you try to find this exact one. You won't find it. It's just in
00:10:02 ◼ ► a sea of other cases often by them. So it's hard to find, but anyway, I'll put a link. Somebody
00:10:06 ◼ ► else I think referred me to it. And as a clear case goes, it's fine. It's not, it's better than
00:10:14 ◼ ► Apple's in certain ways. The buttons feel better. It does unfortunately have a closed bottom unlike
00:10:20 ◼ ► Apple's. So that keeps getting in my way. And it's a clear case. So like it looks okay. It doesn't
00:10:27 ◼ ► look amazing, but we actually have other case recommendations or at least experiences. Yeah,
00:10:34 ◼ ► the case situation is grim, but many, many people want to suggest cases. And I've gotten the main
00:10:38 ◼ ► reason I want to read these out is to stop people from suggesting. Oh, wow. Maybe someone else will
00:10:44 ◼ ► find them useful. So here's the first one. This has been suggested for years, not just this year,
00:10:47 ◼ ► but every year we talk about cases. There is a contingent of people who really, really like this
00:10:51 ◼ ► case. And maybe, you know, one of the people who's listening, they might like this case too.
00:10:54 ◼ ► But the fact that they keep recommending it to me, it boggles my mind. Cause it was like the opposite
00:10:59 ◼ ► of everything case. They're like, Oh, you want an open bottom? Well, how about this? I'll put a link
00:11:05 ◼ ► in the show notes. This is the arc pulse case. I'm not sure if different brands have similar designs
00:11:09 ◼ ► in past years. And I would say case is, is a, is a J a generous term for this. This is the way,
00:11:15 ◼ ► the way I would describe it is it's like a princess layers metal bikini from return of the
00:11:20 ◼ ► Jedi, but for your phone, that's exactly what this is. It is a very uncomfortable looking piece of
00:11:26 ◼ ► metal that just sort of covers the corners of your phone. It goes like around the camera Mesa
00:11:32 ◼ ► and it covers the top and bottom corners of the phone and you know, has an open bottom and that's
00:11:37 ◼ ► it. They're like, this is great because really you just need the corners to be protected because
00:11:41 ◼ ► that's the main part that's going to hit the ground. If you drop it or whatever, which I'll
00:11:44 ◼ ► just to pause right there and say, that's mostly true, but it is very, very possible to drop your
00:11:50 ◼ ► phone onto something like say a set of cement stairs or something where you will hit the sides
00:11:54 ◼ ► and maybe your screen doesn't break, but you're going to scar up the side. So I'm right away. I'm
00:11:58 ◼ ► not even accepting the premise that the corners are the only thing you need to protect, but
00:12:01 ◼ ► why would I like this? I want a leather case for the grippiness of the leather. And I want it to
00:12:07 ◼ ► cover everything, including all the buttons and including the camera button with a, you know,
00:12:11 ◼ ► a pass through thing, you know, some kind of there. So this is absolutely nothing like anything that
00:12:17 ◼ ► I want out of a case and yet people keep recommending it to me. So A, please stop and B,
00:12:22 ◼ ► if you want a case like this, I have never seen one because it is a very rare, very interesting
00:12:26 ◼ ► form of case. We will put a link in the show notes and you can try it out because it basically gives
00:12:30 ◼ ► you the feel of a naked phone with substantial protection for the corners. And actually building
00:12:36 ◼ ► off of that, the opposite of that is the next section. If you want a totally textured back,
00:12:44 ◼ ► but no protection of any of the corners or sides, there's this entire category called leather or
00:12:51 ◼ ► just magnetic case backs. It's basically a flat plate of some material, oftentimes leather,
00:12:57 ◼ ► that uses MagSafe to stick itself onto the back of the phone and just covers only the back and
00:13:03 ◼ ► not the sides. Yes, and many people are suggesting this because, hey, guess what? Open bottom,
00:13:08 ◼ ► also open top, also open left, also open right, right? And honestly, this is actually closer
00:13:13 ◼ ► because it does have leather on it. So I could see people saying, hey, you want a leather case
00:13:17 ◼ ► and you want an open bottom. Just, you don't have to worry about the camera pass through because
00:13:21 ◼ ► there's nothing on the sides. I do find these attractive, but I will clarify that the leather
00:13:25 ◼ ► I want on my phone is partly and maybe for the most part, the majority wise for the sides,
00:13:33 ◼ ► because that's where I grip my phone and the leather makes my phone grippy when I grip it
00:13:36 ◼ ► from the side. So not having anything on the sides is not a feature for me. And then yes,
00:13:41 ◼ ► obviously there's the fact that I do drop my phone. I do actually want some additional protection
00:13:46 ◼ ► and yeah, the leather or that goes around helps with that. But if you want a case that's not
00:13:52 ◼ ► really a case, but has a really nice look to it and it looks like it might be comfy on the back,
00:13:57 ◼ ► hey, there's lots of magnetic back thingies that aren't really cases. These caught my eye because
00:14:04 ◼ ► back in the iPhone 4 days, I had for my iPhone 4, I had basically a stick on piece of leather that
00:14:12 ◼ ► had a little tiny circle cut out for the camera on the iPhone 4. It was exactly what this creates,
00:14:17 ◼ ► metal sides, otherwise no case feel, but a very nice textured leather back for grip. And I think
00:14:24 ◼ ► honestly for looks. And that I was so happy with. I freaking loved that thing. Just a stick on piece
00:14:31 ◼ ► of leather for the back, that was it. And granted the phones were a lot smaller and lighter back