merge-conflict-postproduction-for-recording-56-run-at-2024-12-29-050059-utc-mp3- === James: [00:00:00] Welcome back everyone to Merge Conflict, your favorite Apple developer podcast. Just kidding. All things developer, or does it, we just talk about Apple hardware now. I think that's probably accurate, Frank. Frank: No, uh, hi, James. We only talk about AI, Apple intelligence. That's, we are an Apple intelligence podcast. We're not that, but it's been, it's been a year of. It's been a year of AI, can't deny it. It's been 365 days, a whole year. Oh, I thought it was 365. 25. What happened to the quarter? Was it a leap year this year? No, it's every year is 365. 25. That's why we need every four years a leap day. It was a leap year this year. Can you believe that? Even numbers divisible by four. Wow. Totally didn't pay attention. James, what did you do on February 29th? James: Wait, so was it still 365. 25 or is it 366. 25? [00:01:00] Frank: Well, it's, it's three. So no one likes 0. 25 days. No one knows what to do during that 0. 25. So for three years, we do 365 and then another year we did 366. Works out, math works out. I see, I James: see, I see. Smell what you're stepping in. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. All right. All right. Um, okay, well let's do it. Uh, this is, um, um, the year interview last year, we did an apple 2025 in, in review, uh, that we're going to do a little bit different this year. I've been watching, uh, a lot of YouTubers, a lot of people on the YouTubes doing a year interview. Oh, the Vox one, two negative MKBHD pretty cool. We've had a lot of, um, professional. Uh, Frisbee. Uh, so that was really cool. But we have our own, I went back to our archives and picked out some of the hot topics, hot topics, the year, and we kicked off the year, Frank, uh, in. Virtual [00:02:00] augmented mixed Apple reality. When you decided to spend 3, 500 and get yourself a vision pro, can you do that? This is this year that happened this year, Frank. Frank: I can't, that's actually what's fun about doing these year end reviews. Like you think, Oh, what could have possibly changed over the last year? You know, when you're in it, everything feels slow, but we, yeah, reviewing last year's transcript from the pod is creepy and fun, like, Oh boy. Okay. We were off a little on a little, um, no, I cannot believe that the Apple Vision Pro, not quite. Quite a year old. I think it came out, what, at the end of January, beginning of February. Yeah. Something like that. So we're, we're at the 11th month review date. Uh, we were talking about it a lot last time. I think, um, we didn't know what was going to happen. We didn't know if it was going to be popular or not. I'm just going to say it, put it out there. Vision Pro, not popular. I [00:03:00] think that's, that's the biggest conclusion we can draw from, uh, its release. James: But I do think that it sparked the curiosity and what we saw throughout the year was more innovation happening in the space. Obviously Meta has been doing a lot of stuff. Snaps has been doing a lot of stuff for a long time. The, the Meta Ray Bans are extremely popular. I see a lot of ads on them, but they've also come out with new prototypes in this mixed reality space and their UI looks pretty similarly striking to Apple vision pro, but Apple vision pro. Uh, I do think started to get some really killer features throughout the year. Um, and some of the updates, especially with the Mac companion. I do think that, I think they should have led with that actually, if that would have been a world class experience, they could have said, bring your Mac everywhere with you, code, do whatever with you, blah, blah, blah, on the go, in a coffee shop, on a plane and whatever you got to. Big, huge, beautiful monitor with you, go. Frank: It's kind of funny. I had a friend say the [00:04:00] exact same thing. He said, uh, Apple should have marketed the Vision Pro as a new monitor. Yeah, here's a 3, 000 monitor you can all get. It's a little heavy. Your eyes are going to get sore. Your nose might feel a little funny in the end. Um, but here's a 3, 000 monitor because that is kind of a killer feature for it. It's always so funny when I go from the Vision Pro virtual reality, virtual monitor world. And then I look at my real monitor, it looks so small, so low resolution. I'm like, Ooh, get me back in VR. So I will say, so I said, Vision Pro, not as popular as obviously I hoped. I just hope everyone went out and bought one. You know, I think that would have really pushed the world, but not in this economy, James. Um, but I think what we did see is, um, there's still interest in that space. There's still a lot of people buying the Quest and that's a fantastic product. That, uh, Meta's putting out. And I think, uh, the, the Quest was obviously the better, uh, [00:05:00] mark. They found a better market niche, you know, they found that balance between engineering cost and, uh, price. I think, uh, Meta really knocked it out of the park. Apple being Apple and released, uh, It's still, in my opinion, a better version, but more expensive and all that kind of stuff. Classic Apple stuff. James: It's a, it's a V1. It'll only get better, but I do think that the space is here to stay and to evolve. And I'm excited to see where it goes. I do think that I'm, I'm continuously. Trying to reorganize my desk, get things off my desk. I hate everything. I want nothing on my desk. And one of the big problems is I got like this thing and that thing. I got the lights. I got you, you saw me for 20 minutes, play around my lights, trying to get around to get these lights on. I can't get anything going. I got cameras. I got this, I got, I got, I got bars. I got, why do I have so much stuff? I'm trying to get rid of stuff. Anyways, let's not have it. Okay. Um, on that, there was other hardware. I think for me, a big one this year was the rise of arm on windows, which has been coming for a long [00:06:00] time. I obviously have my project vault. Tara, which I love every single day at work. Um, but the copilot plus PCs copilot one copilot being absolutely everywhere being reinvented. I did some fun prototypes with my father in law where I just, it's in Bing. It's in a, it's in not just being, but it's on edge browser. Like there's just a button like that's copilot. Like when I open it. Uh, edge here. I'm not, if it's on the YouTube, let's see. And there's like literally just like a co pilot button and you bring it up. It's just like, Hey James, how's it going? And it's like, Hey, you're, you know, friendly co pilot. So that was really fun. But the co pilot plus PCs, there's a new co pilot button on there. There's new surface devices that maximize it, a whole ecosystem around them. I think that it was sort of a mixed bag because of how AI features rolled out. Like the recall feature, you know, got delayed a bit. There was other AI features that have been kind of coming into the devices, the on device ones, like the paint ones, the different editing things as well. Um, rolling out to different manufacturers. That being said, [00:07:00] everyone that I know that has one seems to love it. I still don't have one of the Copa plus PCs, but I do have a Windows R machine, and it is. Really solid. Um, and actually I haven't really been able to crash in a long time. I was able to crash my Mac mini over and over again, uh, today, uh, which was fun. Frank: Oh, good job. Great. I'll talk about that in James: a bit, uh, on there too. Um, I was like, what's going on? Oh, that's fascinating. Okay. You know, unplug that. Um, so I know it's copilot plus PCs. I think the big thing for me is. Arm on windows has gotten so good that even when I'm on my Mac, when I'm inside of VMware, when I'm doing all this stuff, it is butter and it is fantastic. These devices are smaller and more affordable. You can get great deals on these copilot plus PCs. I think if you've got them for anyone, I think that'd be awesome. Frank: Uh, yeah. And, um, I still don't have a copilot plus, so I just have to talk from the commercials I've seen James, because for the first time on Christmas holiday or holiday season.[00:08:00] I got to see some Copilot Plus commercials, and that's kind of fun. I don't normally get to see commercials, and they're pushing it, and I'll be honest, um, you know, you have the Apple Intelligence commercials, you have the Copilot Plus PC commercials. I think Copilot's doing a bit better than Apple Intelligence right now, so I think Microsoft's got the current advantage. We'll see if Apple can catch up with them, but those are definitely some sweet, sweet computers. James, am I the only one? That feels sorry for Cortana. Like, did we, you know, every year brings, you know, some people died. It's always kind of sad. Quincy Jones, sorry, Quincy Jones, but did, did Cortana die this year, James? James: I think, well, I mean, Cortana is always in our heart and core to the Halo series. Now, Cortana on device. Probably has, has, has left the filling, uh, fully. I think that, uh, she walked out and it's [00:09:00] just like, cool. I'm done here. My job's done here. Don my job's done. My job's done here. It was evolved. Cortana is an evolving, uh, you know, being, uh, in general. And, uh, you know, Cortana evolving, I think is for net positive. That being said, yeah, I was literally just this weekend. Um, I got done with the man. Bob mean, I got, I got one of these Xbox controllers on, as I'm holding up on the YouTube. This is, this one's really cool. It's got like a gold button. Wow. Let's see if I can do that thing where, you know, that thing where they It Frank: doesn't look gold, but we'll call it gold. Sure. What James: do you think that is? It's like a Frank: bronze? Yeah. Brass bronze. Yeah. I mean, it's just cause of the color, but I, I believe you on the gold. What I can't believe is the, um, clear plastic is back. What is this, the late nineties? We're back to clear plastic. I got, I want to James: see the buttons click. Plug this in, you know, I toggle this puppy to my Mac mini. It shows up as a game controller. Um, there's a game controller section, by the way, and the home button by default, it brings up, it brings up the launch [00:10:00] pad. Why would you do that? Don't so there's promoting the launch pad. No one wants to be in the launch pad. No one wants to be there. Um, anyways, I turned that off, but it was, yeah, just booted up the cloud gaming, X Box cloud gaming, boomed Halo collection, boom, playing Halo. What's up Cortana? She's back, baby. Uh, anyway, so cobalt plus PCs, fantastic. Uh, all the things that are happening on windows. I'm just, uh, so good. Uh, uh, in general, even though we bought Mac mini this year, uh, I did a year interview on my channel coming up tomorrow. And, uh, there's a bit of me that, that is. Missing, Missing MAUI. Frank: Well, I imagine there's going to be some inexpensive, uh, copilot plus PCs, uh, coming down the line. So we'll, we'll, we'll have an opportunity to join the future, rejoin the future, merge with the future. That's what we're looking for. James: Yeah. I just gotta make sure you're all your data. Oh, the cool part now is all your data does sync. Cause you [00:11:00] got the iCloud on the windows, you got the Mac, you got the OneDrive everywhere. It's all good. Um, what, Could be worse, could be stuck in space. Oh, Frank: James, that's, that's quite, quite the segue. Yeah. Um, it turns out we're doing a year in review. We have to look at some tech topics and I, we have to talk space. Space is tech. It's a final frontier. So I've heard. Nimoy said that, someone said that, I forget who, I think Gene Ronberry said that. Yeah, so I think there were two fun space stories I just wanted to talk about because space, space! Um, Good news and bad news. James, uh, something got stuck in space and something fell down from space. The Boeing one got a little bit stuck. Uh, you know, sometimes it takes 20 years to make a capsule that can do what it did in the 1970s [00:12:00] and that's fine. Yeah, we'll c we'll catch back up to our fathers at some day. Uh, so that was a little bit of a sad story, the Boeing capsule getting stuck up in space. But I think that all worked out eventually. I think the more fun story is that uh, we caught a spaceship. We humanity, all of us together, we opened our arms. Come to us, spaceship, James: come Frank: to James: us, Frank: embrace. Embrace. We embrace the spaceship this year. Um, yeah, I'm going to take credit for that because I pay taxes and that's a subsidized company. I'm taking, I'm taking credit for that. That's right. Um, thank you, Frank Krueger. What an achievement of humanity that we're, it's, it's an engineering thing. You know, you, you can make all the jokes about chopsticks catching the little tube or catching a 747 falling down backwards and all things like that. But as a controls engineer, James, um. My God, [00:13:00] it does not get better than that. Getting two very sophisticated machines to communicate like that. Getting a rocket, by the way, I'm talking about the SpaceX, uh, Starship launching, uh, the, the, the main thruster coming back down and being caught by the chopsticks. What an achievement of humanity. Uh, congratulations to everyone on that team. What a fantastic job you all did. James: Yeah, it's pretty cool. I mean, I do think regardless. You know, what happens in space, the positives and the negatives, it is space. I think everyone, you know, just like it was in like what the 70s or 60s or whatever, we went to space, it was the 70s, 70s, 80s, 70s, 60s, Frank: 60s, in this James: decade, Frank: in James: this Frank: decade, you know, 80, 80, just barely. I think they had to change the schedule to squeeze it into the 60s. It was like 1969 or something like that. Good night on the moon. Yeah. It's a wild, I mean, it's James: still, it's all inspiring. You know, I remember the first, what was it? [00:14:00] I mean, uh, one, when they, they landed the, the rover on Mars and they were moving, I mean, you watch it, we were sojourn when we were kids. Yeah, that's so cool. Um, yeah, I was at a conference in Bulgaria and one of the leads of the most recent, uh, rover missions, uh, from Mars. That she led, she gave a keynote. It was fantastic. Cool. Just, just a spa. I mean, it's so far away. Like I think what's mind boggling is like you can basically see things that are so far away in real time, like beaming down. It's like roughly real Frank: time. What? A little lag, a little delay, but yeah, real time. And these aren't like, you know, when I was a kid talking about, uh, thinking about the rovers and all that, I used to think of RC cars and, you know, little toys and things like that. No, these things are huge now. These, these are big, sophisticated robots with tons of sensors and just [00:15:00] amazing achievement by humanity. Again. Um, I don't think we put one up this year, but again. Space. It's cool. It could be also James: the year of the, the, the GPU AI driven robots. It could be, we don't, we don't know, you know, we got, we got a robot taxis, we got robots walking around, we got, uh, uh, your robot that you've been building for five years. Uh, we got, we had, I think handy was last year, but, uh, you know, we went on trips and this was like one of the first times that I saw more robots. Doing things in and about than usual. So robots out and about clearing tables, bringing dishes around, bringing stuff in hotels, like doing things. Uh, I've seen them off and on, but in more places that are just like, this is a normal hotel, there's a robot, just robots in your grocery store, cleaning the floors. No saying, I mean, Frank: yeah. James: Robots. Frank: Coming for you. It's interesting though. Um, I do want to make a comment though, that AI advances that we've seen in the last couple of [00:16:00] years. And the robot advances that we've seen in the last couple years are actually a bit unrelated. Yeah. Um, these are two technologies that are both just accelerating and getting better because we're getting better at compute. We're getting better at big data and training these things. Uh, currently robots are still using what I like to call 1980s AI. You know, your basic find the floor, find the object, lift the object, move the object there. That's, that's the kind of AI we were working on in the seventies and eighties. Intelligent AIs, you know, we're making some decisions on its own. I think we're still a little bit afraid to put that into a robot body so far, but that day will come, like you, you merge these two advancing technologies and it's going to be amazing. Like Boston Dynamics, the, the absolute leader in, well, China's catching up, but the leader in robotic technology. Uses very basic AI, nothing sophisticated. Uh, that's going to change. So when we [00:17:00] see those two, those two hockey stick curves merge, weird things are going to happen and I'm hoping I'll be in a retirement home. James: Yeah. Uh, it's been crazy. Like, you know, just talking about AI and GPUs, you know, just like. The AI trend, and we'll talk about more of the AI hype a little bit later and Apple intelligence things, but it is the year that just like kept giving. It's been years now. Right. I mean, it's not the first year that this happened, but you know, it's the first time NVIDIA became the, um, number one market cap company, uh, for the first time now, now Apple is back again, right? Frank: The James: big five, the Apple, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, all in the top five, they're moving around, jumping around, uh, which is just wild. But can Frank: you. Can you imagine that? Like to, to borrow something from Steve Jobs, um, the GPU, it's a feature, not an app and you know, Apple, they make the, they make this whole stack, you know, they make the Silicon [00:18:00] up to the hardware. Microsoft these days is doing roughly the same thing. They're putting us all on the server also, but you know, they're very diverse companies building a lot around computation, computation, but then you have these. People at NVIDIA who just make a GPU. Like, let's be realistic. They're making a processor. And by making a processor, they became number one, number two market cap company in the United States. Bravo to them. That's a processor. Who cares? Like, anyway, any idiot can make a processor. And everyone will catch up. People will catch up to NVIDIA. But good for them. Good for them for mark, catch, get in that market cap top. You know, James: it's been a name that's been synonymous. In my life for at least the last 20 plus years and video, you know what I mean? It's, it's not, that's the thing too, is, you know, and video might've been new to a lot of people in the last few years, but you know, for most of [00:19:00] us that play video games or build PCs, Nvidia. Intel, AMD, you know, these are all companies that we, you know, and all the RAM companies and all the hard drive companies, you know what I mean? Like these are all synonymous with us, uh, that we've known for years and just to see them evolve, uh, and what they can do, we know we saw it a little bit coming, right? Like with the Bitcoin mining and the things that you can do, it was a matter of time before the computational things get unlocked. So it was like really crazy to see, but. Uh, I'm excited to see 2025, what happens. We'll talk about predictions later on, but, uh, yeah, I don't think this year of GPU and AI is going anywhere because I do feel as though it's now we've talked about it, right? It's we're only at the, we're only at the beginning, right? We're not, we're not the, we're the, we're kind of like pre it's like the pregame. Right. We're just, we're outside. We're outside cooking hot dogs. The stadium hasn't even opened yet. Frank: We're in the [00:20:00] 1960s, basically, from a computation standpoint. Um, it's, it's, like the 1960s was when IBM was making all their big mainframe computers, and computers were very expensive again. And everyone was getting They didn't call it that back then. Cloud services. You bought a mainframe and everyone logged into the mainframe. That was a cloud, by the way. We had cloud in the 60s. We just didn't call it. Um, it's kind of funny. Time is a circle and we just keep repeating ourselves. I would say that, NVIDIA got that market cap because they're the first mover privilege, you know, they, they're first ones to get proper hardware out there and good for them. They're going to keep doing that, but we're in the 1960s. We're in the IBM phase, sadly of AI. I'm really looking forward to the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and the 80s. I'm waiting for the microcomputer revolution to hit AI again. And what [00:21:00] do I mean by that? I mean, we throw away these stupid GPUs. Why are we using GPUs for AI? That is the dumbest thing on the planet. We need specific hardware. We need TPUs, Tensor Processing Units. That's what, and we're getting them. So Apple's got the neural engine. Microsoft's got the not neural engine, you know, all of those things. And those will just keep getting better and better and better until they're competitive with the IBM of the James: 1960s. You just start to make super, super specialized hardware for what you're doing, for cheap, for cheap. Yeah, for cheap. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's what, you know. You know, GPUs because of how they're being used today. Right. It's like, you know, that that's the evolve and continue, but that that's what it was with gaming, right? This got better and they got more optimized for games and game. And then he realized, oh, I can also do these other things on it. Right. Frank: So James: totally true. Like, it'll be super interesting to be like, yeah, when we have not just a CPU, TPS, we have other, other things, other PUs in there for other processing units that are doing all sorts of other specific things. So that'd be really fascinating. So just get better and [00:22:00] faster and stronger. And talking about that, let's talk about the little engine that Um, I think it was MKBHD said his product of the year, and I will give it product of the year, Mac Mini, M4. Frank: Product of the, well, you're making me choose between my darlings. I have a Vision Pro, and I have a Mac Mini, and it's hard to choose. For me, it's still the Vision. I'm sorry. I know I'm, I'm. I'm a fan boy. I get it. And I, but I've, I've been in VR for so long. Yeah. That this is the first VR device that I've enjoyed. I've had quests all along. I had the Rift, I had all the, I had the dev Kit Rift. I've had cheap ones. I've had expensive ones. This is the first one that I like. This is the first one that I feel like I can actually be productive. Like it's not just all those things were gaming devices before. This is the first time it's, um. It's, uh, not the vision pro. So Mac mini, the product of the year. I'll [00:23:00] give it, I'll give it a second, number two. James: Number two. Yeah, I think that, uh, you know, I've been using it more every, every day, obviously, especially during the break, doing some coding on it, doing some real app development on it, uh, jumping between windows and Mac on it. Um, You know, my desk setup looks great. I've just been every day when I'm just kind of down here, I was like, Oh, I don't have anything to put my legs up on. Cause I'm down here. Frank: No desktop computer to kick around. James: I put it in the closet today. I still need to clear it out. I need to do it. Was it also a Frank: foot warmer? Would you use that NVIDIA GPU to warm your feet? It was a James: room warmer. So some people they'll, they'll go in the buy like a little heater. Nope. Not me. My thousand watt, uh, Uh, power supply and fans and everything. I'll just warm up the whole room for us. So we're good to go. Frank: I think we've made this joke several years, but I'm just going to keep making it again. I don't even have a heater in my office because if it's a little cold, I just start training a neural network and that room heats right on up, no big deal. [00:24:00] James: Well, let's talk about it. Let's talk about the AI hype and some Apple intelligence before we get into, uh, uh, the NET stuff, uh, and then some Apple predictions, but. Frank: James, the AI hype is out of control, I'm just going to say it. I am so waiting for this bubble to burst, can we please get past this stage of AI, I'm already over it. Um, so, uh, I'm excited. Year of AI, all that stuff, I think we said that last year though, so, a couple years of AI. Um, I, I'm, I'm so tired of the bubble, uh, the AGI stuff, especially anyone who says we are anywhere near artificial general intelligence has a really weird definition of intelligence because they're not there. These are fun little chat bots. They can teach you something. They can help us code. They can help us cook things. I still get all my recipes from AI now, but. If you ask it to, you know, [00:25:00] book you some tickets and call your mom and, you know, find a good gift appropriate for your ex girlfriend from 20 years ago, it's not going to do a good job. And you know what? A human could do a good job at all that because they are generally intelligent. So, the AI hype bubble is out. Honestly annoying me right now, especially coming out of Silicon Valley, especially all the claims to AGI. I, it drives me nuts. I can't stand that garbage. But, uh, AI is improving, but I'm, I hope this bubble bursts. And I hate to say that because, you know, it's a tech company. We all overdo it. And then we do a reset, and then we overdo it again, and then we do a reset. This is, this is the bubble bursting, this is the cycle tech goes through. Uh, AI's gone through it in the 60s, 70s, it went through it again in the 80s, 90s, we're doing it again in the 2020s. Um, it'll burst, and it'll, it'll diffuse. [00:26:00] All software will get elements of it. We'll all mature as human beings. We won't create these bubbles. We'll allow the next generation to create the bubbles. Um, but I I'm ready for the AI hype bubble to die off, but I, I, I still excellent technology it's here to stay, but my goodness, please, Silicon Valley, just shut up about AGI. We're not James: there. I think for me, we talked about it a few pods ago, but yeah, for me, I've Incorporate it more into what I do on a daily basis, whether it be coding, uh, we use it tonight, we'll talk about in our AI recap, uh, a little part here that we did, uh, just where I see things. I'm just trying to use it a little bit more instead of typing, talking more. Uh, that's kind of been my jam. You know, highlighting text, doing stuff of big documents, just trying to use it, uh, mostly for productivity features. Right. I think that's a great part where we're at. I think that that stuff has really evolved. Like a lot of the co pilot stuff in visual studio code, for example, and now there's [00:27:00] tons of, you know, now there's tons of. AI infused code editors and IDEs out there. Right. So, you know, we talk about VS code a lot. Obviously I work at Microsoft, so obviously bias towards our products, but a couple of, you know, free came out this year, Frank: but James: there's so many extensions. I think the thing that you're kind of talking about is like the agent thing that people have been talking about is like, kind of like where things can kind of do stuff and confirm stuff. Is that I kind of do want that, like imagine a world where we record in Zencastr was. on the AI train, if you're listening Zencast, or imagine a world where I could connect this to Fireside or I could connect it to something that's like, Hey, after this is done, process the video, create the transcript, um, create a title, create a description, upload it to YouTube. Like, you know, confirm with me then upload If I've connected the things, it's mostly automation, to be honest with you. Sure. But there's magic. All this is. Yeah. But there's magic AI bits in there, which is like, Doing this, the transcript, getting the transcript summary, like giving me options, like coming up with [00:28:00] things that are intelligent. Right. Maybe give me options for follow up. Right. And if it was really smart, then like, when we go into Zencaster, for example, it could then say, Hey, like I saw last week, you uploaded it to YouTube. Here are your comments from this place in that place. And like, let me do a summary of it. You know what I mean? Like there's great things that can come once the pieces all start to meld together. And I think we'll get there eventually. We're still, again, we're, we're crawling. We're crawling, maybe taking one step. Frank: It's gotta be one step, because the moment you give it permission to do things, that's gutsy. The moment you give the AI your credit card, then we'll know we've passed that hurdle. But no one's giving the AI their credit card right now. No one trusts it that far. We'll call that the Frank test. That's when it's, that's when we'll register it as intelligent when you're willing to, when you trust it enough to give it your credit card. But yeah, you're absolutely right. It's, it's the, um, acting on its own kind of stuff that agency having its own [00:29:00] agency, becoming an agent. Um, when it can AB test show titles. For us or something on YouTube or AB test thumbnails, things like that. You know, that's when it becomes useful. Um, and yeah, what is technology, but automation humans can do all this stuff. We just don't want to, James: it's kind of a waste of my time in a way. If it can do it for me, why not? You know what I mean? Uh, well, let's get to the big, uh, AI other hype this year, which was a different type of AI, which was the Apple intelligence. It's the year of Apple intelligence because before Apple intelligence was even out, Apple decided to market. Apple intelligence to everybody, even though you couldn't get it. Out there. Strange choice. Odd choice. Frank: It's still, I get it though, it's the leading, um, it's the leading, um, feature that they use for all their advertisements. So upgrade to an iPhone 16 and get Apple Intelligence. So it is their marketing system, [00:30:00] um, good for them, they're, they're trying to keep up with the world. Um, my personal opinion is it's too expensive. Not there yet. We still have a ways to go on Apple intelligence until it's even caught up with the other ones. Um, so I don't think 2024 was the year of Apple intelligence, but 2025 could be, but maybe more like 2026. James: Yeah, I think they got a ways to go being now more full time on a Mac. I will definitely say the product suite of. Of where Apple intelligence even shows up is extremely lackluster. It's it's image. And then I tried to image playground. Have you tried this? Frank: Yes. To a degree I I've used a few, uh, Apple also has a diffusers app and things like that, that you can play around with, not their James: Apple intelligence. Like. The image playground is like, cool, let me set it up for you. And then like, how's it download a model? I get it. It's got to download a model. That's good. It does it. [00:31:00] I like that. It does. Yeah, I do like that. That's great. It can update the model. It can do a bunch of stuff on device. And it's like, Oh cool. And then I'm like, you know, let me get a cattle dog. That's like celebrating the holidays by a fireplace. And it's like. Nope. Uh, it's like all this is like, it's literally like the worst AI image generator. I gave it a photo of me, my generator, you know, photo of this person, blah, blah, blah. This stuff. And it was like someone that didn't look anything at all. Like me in the phone. I'm just like, what is happening in this thing? And I was like, there's like, it gives you options. Like, Oh, add like a disco theme. And there's just put like a disco ball, like on the side. Like, what are you doing? Stop it. Like who, who released the software? Stop it bad. But I am more excited because. You know, I did log in to chat GPT in my Apple intelligence, the Siri thing. I haven't used it yet, but I did sign in. So that's a thing. Oh, I think I signed in with Apple. So maybe that is the account I've have 18 chat GPT accounts now, by the way. I know. Frank: Right. James: I don't know which button it's usually the Apple button, but I was like, how did I sign up before I did my Apple button or not in the Apple button? I don't know. [00:32:00] I was like, Oh, come on. But yeah, I agree. Apple intelligence, you got a ways to go. In fact. I'll tell you this much, iOS, Mac OS, let's, let's work on some polish, Apple. Let's polish these buttons, Frank: iOS James: 19, Mac, whatever version we're on. Year of polish. All we need is polish. Stop, stop doing other stuff. Year of polish. Stop rearranging the photos app. No one likes it. Yeah, stop changing stuff. Year of polish. That's all you need to do. Like, you know, I still get on my phone. Like, you know, it changes colors throughout the day and it goes into the dark mode. I still get icons that like change and then don't change. You open them. I don't like what is happening with this operating system. It's it's, you know, I'm, you know, every operating system has its quirks and I know Apple is doing new things, getting it done. Polish. Let's just polish this puppy Polish. Yeah. Anything's magical. You're a polish the toilet. You know, that's, and honestly, that will be [00:33:00] okay because our good friends over on the Dunnet Maui team have spent a few years on Polish and Dunt nine and done at Maui, uh, came out this year. New versions, Dunnet Aspire launched this year. The, it's the year. It's the year of a t net and T net aspire and for me, done at Maui stuff. And it was really cool. Actually, I was on LinkedIn earlier today. Well, this is the year that I also quit most social media, but there was like this meme account that was posting all these negative things about NET MAUI, like all NET MAUI and this, and like this thing and this. And then like the comment feed of like, of telling this account, like how wrong they were and like how people change over and like how much better NET NAGA like performance. And people are like, show us the numbers. You just can't say words without backing it and just like throwing shade. You know? And I was like, all right, yeah, that's, you know, cause the, the Maui team, like, you know, for it on an eight and then on a nine, they did add some new features and not a nine, but like, you know, that was, that's what they've been focused on is like making it super polished and quality and that like, Hey, [00:34:00] awesome. Let's do, let's do that. You know what I mean? And, um, it's been cool. All the sync fusion stuff, there's a whole new controls been added in there. And that's cool. Whole ecosystems evolving. I'm just super jazzed about what's happening. And obviously. With NET 9 and just the performance stuff, I've been upgrading everything and doing new functions in 9, new NET Aspire on everything and my functions. I've been loving it. You know what I mean? I know not everyone goes year to year, every single version, but you know, you mix around and do a bunch of stuff and I'm having fun, man. I'm having fun with the new stuff. Frank: Yeah. And you know me, I hate keeping up with versions, but, um, it's so much easier now with NET. I feel like NET is in such a good place right now. It's, it's, aside from the Android parts, very easy to install and get all set up and working. Um, Yeah, uh, James, let's, let's reveal a little bit about ourselves here. Are you a hundred percent converted on every app you've ever written over to [00:35:00] Maui? I'm still not at a hundred percent, but I'm almost there. I'm so close. The 2025 is going to be the year that I throw away all my old Xamarin stuff. I swear to it, but, um, I'm, I'm still not quite there. James: No, I got, uh, uh, so, okay. So my app set. So I have three apps. I have my StreamTimer, my Cadence, and my skiing app that we have. Those are the three official product ties, Frank: James apps, James: James apps in the store. Um, my StreamTimer, no, not, not at all. I got to like, now that one specifically, I, I don't even think I can build anymore because like it was using, it was using the Mac preview of Xamarin. Forms Well, yeah, so there's, so there's [00:36:00] a couple of them right now, because There. We'll see how that goes. Um, uh, my, my cadence and the skiing app both have a branch. The, my cadence one is like basically done. Yeah. Oh, we all have branches. James, we have branches, so we don't talk about the branches. the branches and migrated to do, and nine the branches are chilling, uh, there just going through testing and, and tweaks and other things like that. And it's, it's more of a process of not just like converting, but I wanna update other stuff. I'll say that's what happens. I did, I did, I did spend my holiday hacking on. My skiing app updates in Xamarin. Forms. I added, I added, I added a, uh, time was of the essence, Frank. Uh, I added a bunch of new, because my Apple certificates were expiring on [00:37:00] January 7th and I needed to get updates out. Um, so, okay. It's two things. That's really funny about that is that. I not only added a bunch of new features in Xamarin. Forms, the new map stuff, fix a bunch of bug fixes and a bunch of other stuff, uh, feedback, which is really, really cool to get updates out. I only have the, the only people only use this app. So people only use this app. I looked at all the stats. December, January, January, February, and that's it. Sometimes March, if we're lucky, we got snow, which means. I have from March to next December to get everything done, update, good to go. If that even needs to be updated, by the way, if it doesn't, I'm not going to touch it, but I'm going to have it ready. That being said, I was able to build and ship new updates with. AppCenter, which, oh my God, Frank: the old technology podcast, which James: all the news there, all the latest Xamarin, I upgraded it all to [00:38:00] the final bits, all final bits and pieces and the latest building on Xcode 15. 1 and Android, whatever the latest version is. Now, when you put it in there, a bunch of stuff's broken. I had to write a bunch of bash scripts and do a bunch of other stuff. It's all building. It's all working. Chipping. In there, I submitted yesterday, the app for review for Apple. Um, it's all there. Test flights. That was all there. If it ain't broke, just keep shipping. Uh, cause I opened it. I was like, oh man, when does App Center finally deprecate a hundred percent? And then I, uh, I open it, it's like, Oh, March 30th. I was like, I got time. They just keep pushing it. Just keep pushing it. Microsoft. I know it's bad, you know? Um, but, uh, the time is near because the Android stuff and the Xcode requirements are going to rev pretty soon. So it will, it will happen. Um, but I'm ready. Uh, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm [00:39:00] ready. It's all happening. Frank: Like, like you, um, I have pretty much working versions of all my apps in MAUI, James: in a branch. Frank: I haven't shipped, um, all my NET 9 versions yet. Um, that's kind of my, uh, and, and let's check back next, next, uh, next New Year. My New Year's resolution this year is just to Get rid of all the Xamarin stuff. Yeah, it's, it's, it's too long in the tooth at this point. It's honestly annoying to work with. So I was, I need, yeah, I was coding in James: visual studio code on my Mac, which is just C sharp and tell it like none of the C sharp dev kits and nothing builds. Right. You can't build it there, but I'm coding and what I'm doing is I'm checking in and then I'm just like kicking off the test. Frank: Hey, isn't CI great? That's the point of CI. Like who cares? Or what James: I've been doing is like, I'll be on the couch. Coding, hanging out with the family on the Mac, uh, Mac, uh, Mac pro or MacBook air. And then I'll go to my Mac mini boot up [00:40:00] VMware, plug in my Android device, and then, you know, test it from there. Cause it all works in digital studio and windows still. So that's been my, my setup is like going back and forth. So it's all happening. It's all happening. I'm ready. They're all on NET 9. So it's all good. Frank: Yeah. I'll just reiterate. Yeah. Um, NET 9 is a fantastic product and I think NET's in a really good shape right now, so it's just all old people like us need to catch up. I've created a bunch of James: new apps and new things in NET MAUI, you know what I mean? So I was like, ah, you know, all right, here we go. Um, let's do this. We got a few, uh, 10 minutes left. Let's do a few minutes here. Let's do a da, da, da, da, da, da. Let's do a. Uh, prediction recap from last year, a whole year ago, we did a podcast on January 1st, which was like, uh, Apple predictions, our Apple predictions. For 2024, let's see if we got them right. We asked chat GPT to take our transcript that was generated by AI that, uh, in here, robots talking to robots, [00:41:00] James, that's all you need. And then I shared that with you so you can open it. So top five predictions that we had from the transcript that we uploaded. Number one. Uh, was around Apple vision pro success, a chat GPT says that we said the rollout of Apple vision pro pro is anticipated by us to have mixed success. The hosts predict that's us. It will struggle initially with a limited release of about 500, 000 units and challenges in finding a killer app to drive adoption. However, they also see potential in long term growth as a product of doll evolves and the market adapts. Frank: Nailed it. Nailed it. I think most people were, um, predicting that also. So I don't want to give us too much credit. It's a new product. Um, but yeah, that's basically how it went. Yeah. What's the next one? Uh, AI integration into hardware. Apple is likely to continue leveraging its M series of chips to dominate. AI on device. Are we right? That was our [00:42:00] predict, our prediction. The M series is going to dominate. I think we've already proven ourselves wrong by talking about, uh, NVIDIA, having market cap. Yeah. But, um, I, uh, the, we did mention the unified memory in the chips. Um, that is more true today than it's ever been. You complaining about, uh, the image quality. Of the, uh, Apple intelligence. The cool thing about Apple intelligence is it's running on your own hardware, but because it's running on your own hardware, it's limited in size. They made it using, honestly, smart. I got to pay for James: that. I got to pay for the energy use of my Mac mini. Come on now. Frank: You do, you do James, but, um, it's because of the beautiful unified memory. Um, we just, I, I think. And I think I already said it earlier in this episode. I'm sticking with it. I, I, this is the progression, [00:43:00] um, TPUs on processors, on machines, I'm sorry, cloud providers, you'll find other ways to make your money. I believe AI is going to be using a lot of personal data. I'm not always comfortable uploading all that kind of data. I do believe that, um, AI on chip is still the way to go. It's still my preferred Way to go. Um, we're not there yet. We're not, you, you gave your review. Um, Apple intelligence, not pretty pictures yet. Uh, give it some time. James: All right. Next one, expansion of the M3 chips, maybe just M chips. It says predictions include the M3 chip becoming ubiquitous across Apple's hardware lineup, phasing out older M1 models and advancing desktop machines like the Mac mini or Mac studio to support more memory and AI workloads. Wow. Ish. Nailed it. Done. We got it. Yeah. I don't think either. Sorry. I don't think either of us predicted the M4 though. No. No, we didn't. And not [00:44:00] coming to the iPad first. That's for sure. Frank: No, definitely. James: Yeah, I think so. We obviously got the Mac mini and the Mac studio I'm sure is going to get revved with an M five. I bet. Um, that'd be my prediction, but yeah, like you said, more memory and AI workloads. I mean, I think that part of the more memory that again, the, the, the hardware of the year that MKBHD said specifically was the Mac mini. M4 base model, the 599 base model that everyone is just loving. Um, it's just a great little machine, you know, obviously we upgraded ours, uh, with all, all the things. Uh, but, uh, which I'm happy about. Um, but you know, it's a great machine. So I think we nailed it. Okay. What's the next one? Frank: Well, James: funnily enough, it's Frank: another Epic Vision Pro. We were, we were excited about the Vision Pro last year because it was a new product coming out. Um, so here's the AI summary of what we had to say. The ecosystem will likely include gaming and utility apps, but [00:45:00] consumer adoption might hinge on pricing adjustments. That is a very polite way to say Meta ate Apple's lunch with the Quest. Yeah. Uh, the Vision needs to be a lot cheaper. Um, and we're still looking for that killer app. I don't, I, I'm doing my best. I'm trying to release some killer apps for it. Um, but I don't think we've quite hit the killer app. So far the killer app has been the virtual monitor. Uh, and that's, that just doesn't justify the price tag right now. So I, I think we were right. I'm going to give us credit. I love giving us credit. Uh, but, um, Apple does need to find better price points for that hardware. James: Yeah. All right. Last one, improved AI user experience, a significant leap in AI integration is expected where AI systems are not only execute commands, but also guide users to better prompts and solutions. So make AI more intuitive and transformative, making a shift from its current exploratory phase to practical daily applications. A little bit? [00:46:00] No, no. For me at work, I would say me at work more, me on my personal machine, outside of VS code. Frank: No. Um, and, and we're technologists. We, we can see the potential in technology. We can use our imaginations, but, um, thinking that we would see drastic improvements last year, 2024, this, this past year, I think we're getting a little bit ahead of ourselves. Hi. Um, Yeah, we, we just got a new, you know, the, the, the new large language models, the lms, they are a revolution in the technology. What we always forget is it takes about five years to sit on that revolution and to truly absorb that revolution before new ideas come out and better ideas come out. Lots of people are working on that next step, but we're not there. Everything is still a chat interface. It's still just type, type, type, type, type, type. It's so much typing to [00:47:00] these stupid AIs. Uh, I'm over that. So I think the AI user interface still has a very long road ahead. And I think we got a little bit ahead of ourselves thinking that we would even be working on those problems. No, one's even working on those problems right now. Everyone's still putting a chat. Chat box in their apps. After we have five years of every app, having a chat box in it, maybe then we'll start to see some UI improvements, but I think I'm going to say we did not do a good job there. I think we got a little overhype y last year. James: I'd agree with that. Uh, let's roll into our 2025 predictions. Uh, we've talked a lot through them already a little bit, but what you got for me, Frank, give me your top, top few off the top of your mind. It could be anything. It doesn't have to be Apple. It could be a little bit of this, a little bit of that, what you got Frank: for me. Um, the quest is going to keep doing well. I keep hearing the Christmas season has gone by and kids want the quest, you know, [00:48:00] so I think, I think the virtual reality, it's, it's still going to happen. You know, it's AI and VR. That's what we're working with. Um. Which is a good thing. I think that we are going to keep pushing on VR. I think we have generations of gamers now, uh, who grow up wanting better and better experiences and the hardware is catching up to them. So, I do hope that this will be the year of, you know, the, The Quest 6, you know, whatever, whatever it takes to, uh, keep advancing that market. I hope that Mark Zuckerberg keeps throwing money into the fire and keeps working on those products, uh, because I think that there's a lot of potential there. I, I really do. And I'm not just saying that because I want to keep writing VR apps, which I do, but, um, uh, I, I just see potential. All I see is potential. Um, that, that's my first one. I have others. James: Yeah. I think for me, we kind of talked about it earlier. I do think that this'll [00:49:00] probably be the year on both windows, Mac iOS, Android. I think it's going to be a calmer year. This is my prediction. It's going to be a calmer year. I do think it'll be focused in on, uh, less. Less changes and more about the integrations and more smoothing things out. So for example, the passwords app could work better, right? This iPhone screen mirroring app could work better. The settings could be better. Like the deeper integration could be better. Like I think now if the Mac mini with all the hype that's around it, you know, maybe Apple in the next, whatever park they go to, uh, for it again, usually the Mac does move a little bit slower. Ideally, we can see some just better integrations, more windows manager, things that we're just really enjoying. It seems like a lot of things on Mac are turned off by default. Like let's make it actually a machine that. That an operating system that is a little bit more usable in some odd ways, I don't want to say it, but like, there's some things, for example, right? Like [00:50:00] there's things you just got to go turn on. I've been watching a lot of videos of like, Hey, I just got a new Mac. Here's like how I set up my Mac. Like, did you know in finder, you can go like, turn on a bunch of settings that like show you how many items are in this folder, how much memory you have left, like when you, when you, when you select items, like how much are in them? Like you can have a bottom bar that like shows you like the, the You know, the, the, the breadcrumbs of where you're at, like you can change the locations on the side. You can like drag and drop pin stuff. You can, you can like change the little bars. You can add, you know, airdrop here. You can do all these like little things. You know what I mean? Um, that's like, yeah, why isn't that just on? Like, did you know that you can actually. Okay, did you know that if you hover over a green button on your Mac, it'll show you size and remove, uh, sorry, size and move or fill in a range. But if you hold down the option key, it actually gives you a whole bunch of more options. Like what, why is this so hidden? And there's also like a move to iPad. That's also weird, but it's like, there's all these like really what has happened. [00:51:00] You know what I mean? It's like. Make this stuff smooth, you know, and, and windows 11, when they did a lot of new windowing stuff and all this other stuff, man, it just comes so long. And I think windows will continue to evolve. And it's just so good with windows management. It's like, let's just do windows management better on a map. All it really needs as like, just evolve that thing to be like, yeah, that's what we do, we move files around, like, that's what we do. We have all we do. We have, we have windows open and tabs open, like make that good. It's better. I'm, I am glad that like, it's better, but like, I got 18 widget things that need to do stuff. So my thinking for prediction of this year is some more improvements, subtle improvements, less. We've reinvented everything. The whole UI, we're going to change in this and that, like, I'll just make what you got better. I think that's the year, this is the year to do it. 2025 is the year. I think this is the year. And let's try not to get crazy with it because once we have these AI features, they need to be better. We need to, people need to sit on them. They need to figure out how to use them right. [00:52:00] Right now they need to be integrated deeper. And I obviously work at Microsoft, but I do personally believe that Microsoft has done such a better job of integrating copilot through Xamarin. Forms. Out the entire operating system and the productivity suite. Uh, that's there in many, many places. I mean, here just in my, on my Mac machine, I see more copilot buttons than I do Apple intelligent buttons. Frank: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'll throw out there as a pro tip, if you are new to a Mac, that option key is important. You'd be surprised how many menus light up. Um, if you think you know your menu bar, press the option button, then go to your menu bar. Everything changes in some apps. It's kind of amazing what features are tucked away. What? Why? I just, this is a classic, uh, Apple thing. Uh, the menus actually change when you press the alt, the option button. Yeah. James: Wow. This is cool tip. If [00:53:00] you select, well, if you select, this is crazy. I'm in downloads, I'm in finder. If you go to file. And then there's a move to trash, but if you hold down option, delete immediately. Frank: Wild everywhere throughout the OS. Just if, if, if you're in a new app, try that option button and see what it does. Okay. For my next prediction, because I believe a tornado is trying to get me, um, I want to say hands free driving is coming a long way. I think we are still far away, and mostly from a legal, um, regulatory perspective, from fully autonomous cars, you know. What we all want is the Batman car. You press a button on your key fob, the car comes to you and takes you to the Grand Canyon, you know. That's, that's what we want. Uh, we're not there. It's going to be, you know, 10, 20 years before we were there, just from a legal standpoint. That, that's the hurdle, it's not a technology hurdle. But I will say we have gotten over a lot of [00:54:00] technology hurdles. So, just a couple years ago, There is one or two hands free driving and it's mostly Tesla. Tesla was the only one properly working on hands free driving. We have really good lane keep assist and all that kind of stuff on automobiles, but proper hands free, there are very few companies actually achieving it. Uh, GM got into the mix. I see Ford. Finally grew up and started working on their own version of it. And then you have all the competition from China. All the Chinese manufacturers have really good, uh, hands free driving coming out. And I think 2025 is going to be the year when it's not going to be a standard feature, you know, these car companies got to milk us for everything we're worth. But. It's getting close to a standard feature in the way that lane keep assist and that kind of stuff became standard features. I really think, um, just from a safety perspective, it's smart [00:55:00] to have, um, hands free ability on all these cars. So I'm excited, If you don't know my history, I came up through the auto industry. And so I always keep an eye over there that I always like to watch that technology. And that's the biggest revolution I'm seeing right now. It's making some people nervous. Um, everyone's more or less comfortable depending on your attitudes about a 60 mile an hour, two ton hunk of metal driving you down the road and whether you feel safe with that or not, um, that's up to you. And, and the lawyers, I guess, but, uh, I think 2025 is when we're going to start seeing more and more car manufacturers actually releasing it as an option, a proper hands free, not just lane keep assist. James: Yeah. I feel like it's also going to be like the year of Waymo. They've been really rolling out a lot of new cities and they have a new business model and they're sort of like crushing that. So it's going to be really interesting. I don't know what Tesla's going to do, but we've seen glimpses there. But yeah, I do think like Waymo is. Just trying to normalize it [00:56:00] a lot more and more places. And, you know, once they get more and more of these vehicles on the road, the studies that they can do. The early results coming back just for like, you know, um, accidents versus actual people driver is like pretty impressive so far as well. See if it keeps going. So I think so, that'd be cool. Um, I think for me, uh, so this will be the year of Nintendo. I'm very excited, uh, year of Nintendo. So, uh, people don't know the Nintendo switch, um, which is my, one of my favorite, um, uh, video game consoles of all time is coming up on. Eight years, March 3rd, 2025 will be eight years already. Very impr yeah, eight years. Yeah. It's wild. I was, uh, I guess, uh, I guess I was like 31, yeah, 31, uh, wild. Uh, I'll be 40 by the time the next one. No. Um, so if people don't know, Nintendo [00:57:00] has been. I wouldn't say like delaying the switch to or switch pro or whatever the successor is, they haven't necessarily had to. It's still the switch. I mean, they're coming out with intent, like Heather and I just got Heather a game for her switch. She just got me a new Mario game. And they're coming out with games every month for the switch. And it's just like, it's just like such a great system. Uh, in general, between that and my cloud gaming, I'm going to have like a, the best of all worlds of every single possible AAA and Nintendo game feasible. Right. That's out there. Um, but. They have been slow to announce the details of the switch successor, but they have said that the details will be renounced. Like they, they, they exist. It exists that the announcements and the leaks are coming out now and all this other stuff in the Q1, Q2. So it'll happen. So I do think it's going to be ginormous. I do think that the switch, my prediction will launch, um, uh, either. I think it will launch with a new [00:58:00] Mario Kart game at launch. So Mario Kart 9, because 8 Deluxe is the best selling, I think, Nintendo game most ever, I think, in general. Um, I, in fact, I just bought the expansion pack because it was on sale, because why not? It was so good. Um, Mario Kart 9, I think, will be the launch title. But I also think that the new Metroid Prime game, which has also been delayed for like eight years. I don't think they'll put it on switch anymore. I think it was me get a switch to exclusive launch title and just to make it that that's my prediction for it. I think it's going to be huge. I think that the, there'll be backwards compatible. I think it'll work with also, I think it's just gonna, I think it's going to crush, um, in general. Um, And I'm excited for it. Like, I'm excited for video gaming again. Like I'm, I'm loving, like, there's a, I'm super excited. I've been wanting to get into it. Mike, my old games replay halo, like that's been remastered, but the new Indiana Jones game came out recently and apparently it's just like awesome. Um, so I'm super excited to get into that. I [00:59:00] think Gerald just like beat it. Um, so that's on game game streaming. So I'm going to boot that up now that I got my. Transparent, uh, remote. So I do think it's going to be awesome. I think it's going to be a year of games again, like actually the X Box series X and S are getting up there. The Siri, the PlayStation is actually getting up there. If you think of the PlayStation five PS five release date, it came out. Uh, four years ago. Yep. Frank: Wild. It, it, it's tricky with those game companies. Like you're mentioning, um, Nintendo holding the Switch. That's because if they announce Switch 2, Switch 1 sales die. So, they gotta be very careful about when they announce these kinds of things. Because it just kills the sales for the previous product. Exactly. Um, that's a tricky one. I, I don't honestly, I don't live in the gamer space, so I don't want to make too many predictions there. Um, what I would like to see in gaming is just more variety. I think, uh, the, the AAA titles are [01:00:00] a little boring in my opinion. Um, indie gaming, indie gaming continues to be the best though. I think you, you see, oh, what's, what's that current game? Um, Kill the princess or something like that. Um, there's just amazing creativity in the indie gaming space and. Me, this is not a prediction for 25, 2025. This is just what I want to see less AAA, more indie. Um, now that everyone's using Unreal Engine five, every game just looks the same and a lot of companies just keep putting out the same game with a different skin on it. Um, I'm hoping for more variety in the AAA game space. James: It'd be cool to get studios that are like. you know, studios like split up into smaller dev teams that are doing like small A titles or B titles. Yeah. Just size wise. Right. We think AAA, it's like, usually like thousands of people working on that. So much Frank: money, 800 million for a stupid pirate game and things like that. James: Let's get, you know, and it's cool to have someone as big, let's get some of the, the [01:01:00] mid size games that are out there that are like doing, doing really cool things, so that'd be great. All right. One more, each of us, what you got? Frank: Um, this is a. NET MAUI, James Montemagno, Xamarin Forms, Xamarin Forms, Dot Net Maui, Xamarin Forms Uh, smart homeness, how smart is your home? I continue to be disappointed by the smartness of people's homes. Uh, so my 2025 prediction is a little bit, a little bit sad. I don't see us progressing too far in that space, but I. Desperately want to see us progressing in that space. And I just wanted to say, I think the products we're getting are getting better. You know, we're getting, we're putting smart chips in smaller and smaller devices and they're getting a slightly better integrated. My echo dingus can do a little bit more, but every device I buy, I still have to create an [01:02:00] account, download an app, register the account, integrate dingus, you know, HomeKit's got its own issues. Google's got its own issues. So my prediction for 2025. People's homes will remain dumb. James: And everything will make you log in, sign up to account and have you register, give it your location. And we were just setting up like the little, uh, uh, e scooter, the segue. You got to create an account. You got to bind it. You got to do this thing. I know it's security. They get this, you got to do that. It's like. Oh my goodness. Like, Oh, I got Heather. One of those, uh, Ember mugs, the mugs to keep your coffee. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. You gotta have an Ember account to like log into the app. Frank: How could you possibly feed electricity to a coil if you didn't have it authenticated with a valid certificate? It would be impossible to get those electrons there. It's James: inappropriate companies. Stop it. Now, technically. She didn't have to technically, it would, it has a default setting that like when you turn it on, I'll go to one 35, but we don't want it at one 35. The [01:03:00] only way to change the thing is to connect to Bluetooth, which is she really likes it though. I got it on wood. It was like, so I got, I got her one. It is really neat. And I drink my coffee so fast. I don't need it to keep it warm, so it's good. But for Heather, she's a slow sipper. So it's like perfect for her. I will say this. I have been. You know, our, our listeners and viewers told us about home assistant like a year and a half ago. And there's, they're doing big things. They've rewrapped their website many, many times, much more pro. They have a home assistant voice edition coming out. It's a preview edition. They have the home assistant green. I think that there's some things happening there. I've seen a lot more videos. I would like to see that evolve into more ubiquitous. You own your IOTness because I've enjoyed the ZigBee integrations that I have, but even the ZigBee stuff that I have with Sinope, which I love, uh, has to call home. Right. It's not running locally. Uh, they, even though it's ZigBee, it's all there. It's, it's not in there. They might have an integration out with home assistant, [01:04:00] which would be cool. But again, I love the idea of it being. In there. So I would love to see you home as this and Jafar, but I agree with you. I think just IOT is a disaster matter, this and that new things is home kit. Like, what are you doing? Like they're trying, no, one's going to figure out anything. Like it's just, it's too Frank: complicated. We, we, we got to, sorry. I haven't. A master's degree in electrical engineering. I have a brother in law, very brilliant with technology. And he and I were trying to get a Sony soundbar working with the Sony TV. And we failed, James. So, you know what? Plug a cable into the cable. Oh, you, I wish, you know, maybe digital was the wrong way to go. Maybe we should all go back to analog. James: Dude, like, dude, like my, so, you know, my TV that I have here, I have this Plasma that I got when I first moved to Seattle in 2011. So that TV is over 13 years old and I fixed it twice. Mm-hmm . I opened it up. I opened it up, I changed, we talked about it. I changed ribbon [01:05:00] cables and circuit boards on it. and the puppy works. It's till it dots fu to get till it dots . I'll tell you this much like I've seen these new TVs and they're like glued together. They they're super crazy cheap dollar. I could give like an 85 inch TV for like 10 cents. And I was like, just give them away. They're like, if Frank: you can fit it in your car, you can have James: it. But they got, when you go to Airbnb, they got, they got, they got crap on it. All this crap ads. Like, what are you doing? Not only here's what I want to do. I want to take an HDMI cable, want to shove it in there and I want audio cable and I shove it in there and then it works and boom, that's all I want. Right. That's how I have it. I have a Yamaha cable and it, and the cable that. That goes into it. I don't H HMI arc. Nope. Uh, no, I am just optical cable into the TV into here and it works. So send my audio through light, baby. Frank: Yeah. I don't want to sound like a Luddite, but I am literally getting a video player from the 1980s. And maybe even the 1970s. And I am [01:06:00] so excited because it is an analog video signal out, analog audio out. I'm going to pipe that through a 1980s receiver into a 1980s boom box. And it's going to be amazing. And you know what it's going to do? It's going to work instantaneously without any configuration. Not a Luddite, but man, consumer tech has me depressed in this season. James: It is. All over the place. That is for sure. Um, yeah, I think for me, uh, man, this year upcoming is the last one. I think I had on top of my mind. Frank: It's that e bike you're finally going to get an e bike, right? No more peddling. You're, you're over peddling. No, I James: will always be a peddler. I just got a brand new bike back here. Is it a state bike? I got another fixie over there on Black Friday. That one's, uh, I'm excited for that. I think for me. I do think that there's sort of this [01:07:00] resurgence. And we're starting to see the trickle of it. Maybe 2025 will be the year talking about IOT, but there's two parts of it. One owning more of your data or having more local data. Like maybe it's the, the NAS, maybe it's the home server. Maybe, I don't know, some product category there. Cause I just reset up my, my NAS, my ready NAS and really enjoying got Plex on it. It's really cool. There's like some, a lot of cool happening there, but. Could be the year. I don't think that this year was the year, but I think I'm starting to see the trends of right to repair. And I want 2025 to be the right to the repair year. This is a bipartisan, this is a consumer right. Yeah, we should be able to open up our devices, buy parts, fix our things, all this stuff. Right. I shouldn't need someone to come to my house to, to open up my washing machine. I should be able to do now. Mess it up. I mess it up, right. But I should be able to mess it up. I bought it. I'm not, I feel like I'm [01:08:00] renting these devices from somebody. You know what I mean? I think legally you are. I think so. Uh, and, and, you know, I want. I want quality again. I want high quality products. You know, the reason I think I really liked this Mac mini is it feels, and it looks like a high quality product. In fact, you can even open it up. You can do quite a bit of stuff to it. Even the new iPhone, you can do more stuff. I'd say it's getting better. There's a lot of new stuff in the new iPhone, uh, iOS 18 that you can actually, you can actually. Replace certain parts are getting a lot better. Watch a whole video on it, which is really cool. I wanted to go further. You know what I mean? Like, I think we took for granted the, what we had the ability to open up and tinker around with. I mean, remember our old, like NESs and, you know, I mean, I used to open my NESs and replace the cartridge trays on it. And like. Get it. It's like the connectors would go again. You can't do that. You can't do that now. I mean, everything is so evolved. I get it, but like, Oh, let me like, let me open it up and put a different hard drive in, let me put different, let me [01:09:00] do a thing, like some of the thing. Let me do the, let me do the thing. You know, I, I see all this, I see all my gadgets and gizmos. From the last decade that I can't do any of that stuff with. So it slowly dies a death. Yeah. I mean, you build a custom PC. That is the ultimate right to repair cause you built the freaking thing. You know what I mean? And you can continuously upgrade and keep it going for longer. I want stuff to last. It's not going to happen. We love cheap stuff. There's a place for cheap stuff, but I'll tell ya, there's. Something out there, something's missing and I want this year to be the turnaround year. It's not going to happen, but like I want it to be. Frank: I, I like that prediction a lot because at least there's a movement, you know, there, there's almost a consensus online. When you say right to repair, it's hard to find someone, me being a devil's advocate, I probably could make an argument, but, um, it's hard to find someone who [01:10:00] doesn't want right to repair because it's just better for everyone. Yeah. I, yep, you can, I know, all the hardware engineers can list out the million reasons why things aren't repairable, and why every time you open something you have to cut through a warranty sticker. I get it. And, you know, I'm cleaning out my mother's house right now, and there's a bunch of gadgets I'm finding, and she asked me, Can, can we fix it? Can we update it or something like that? I'm like, Nope, we throw it in the, uh, sorry, we take it to a recycling place and we get it recycled. Um, even Apple's trade in, we found a couple of computers from 2013. Apple says, this is a great time to recycle that Mac. Well, James: I told you, I took my MacBook pro 2013 and I took it into the Apple store in, uh, Bellevue. And I said, I would like to, I would like to, I would like to, I would like for you, I would like to give this to you. I would like [01:11:00] for you to recycle it and make it environment. Yeah. And then they said, Oh, do you want to keep any of the stickers on it? I said, nope, you can recycle those too. And then I should have given you a sticker. Yeah. I thumbs up. I saved the environment. They did. You know what they gave me? They said, thank you for your recycling donation. So that was it. Then give me any, I didn't get anything, but I donated, I've sent in phones. I've done any, everything good. I would love for it to be easier to do this stuff. I also watched a video about recycling. Uh, gadgets and gizmos and all the different ways of doing it. Um, second use, uh, of stuff as well. You know, that's a big thing I've been thinking about is. Is, uh, you know, monitors, right. Selling more stuff on eBay, Craigslist, giving it back, buying stuff. Like if I did want, let's say, uh, let's say I want a new studio display. I'm trying to have people talk me out of it. Why buy a new one? If someone's going to get rid of it and I can say a 500 bucks, give it a second life does better, right. And just being with it. Um, [01:12:00] I can't do it for everything, obviously, but I, I want to get more on that mindset. You know, I, the 2024 goal of mine was to buy a lot less on Amazon. I think I did accomplish that. And the goal. Going forward is to buy even less on Amazon. You know what I mean? Uh, I used, yeah, I use stuff. Um, uh, Heather, uh, uses this great company. So it was for like women's clothing and there's any men's clothing. I was called thread up. There's a few of these online ones, but basically you can send them a bunch of stuff and then they'll, they'll recycle stuff or donate stuff, or they will sell stuff that's like reusable, right? Um, and then they, they, you know, you can buy all the secondhand stuff and actually some of it's in really good condition, some of it's like, you know, You, it's hard for them to process so many, uh, garments. But Heather got something and she's not sure if she stained it or if it was stained already. So she dyed it. She's like dyed it today. She was out there dyed it. She's like, that's fun. I gave it as a third life. You know what I mean? You know? Yeah. Which is cool. So, and she's like, I never dy anything before, but now I learned how to dye stuff and like, it's gotten really easy. Like you just go to Joanne Fabrics, [01:13:00] turns out, and like, here it is. You know, it's really cool. So second, third lives of things. Uh, which I think is a benefit, you know, like, like, you know, and my, you know, and my CPU over here, that's here. It's got a great GPU. We've got a great, uh, uh, power supply. It's got a whole bunch of RAM and take it out. I'm going to sell it. People are going to buy it and put it in their machines and hopefully give all this stuff, some new life, you know? Frank: Yeah, that that's definitely become my new goal too, especially since. Gosh, time flies by so fast. That 10 year old computer I was referring to, I thought it was only six years old. I thought, you know, we'd be able to get rid of that thing. No problem. What I'm realizing is I, you know, we've been collecting devices our whole lives. I, I need to do better about passing it on. Just, I don't, I don't need the money, you know, just find a kid in high school or in middle school that needs a computer and just hear. Take, take this computer. Yeah. There's it. There's the computer second life. I want to get better at that with all my, [01:14:00] cause what's the point of having my hardware collect dust on the shelf? Give that to a kid and let's move on. James: That's, that's my whole thing is like no hardware. I don't want, if I'm not using it, I've, you know, I have a cable rule, which is like, you know, if, if, uh, if I put all the cables in a box, if I don't use them within a year, You know, they're not out of the box at the end of the year, they'll get donated. Everyone needs cables, right? You know, why spend 10 on a new cable? You know, in fact, that's the other thing too. So if you need to buy a new cable, this may sound crazy to anyone listening, you need to buy a new HDMI cable, USB cables, go down to Goodwill, go down to Restore, they got cables. Oh my God, so many cables for day, like a dollar cables. Yeah. Cables for day. You don't need to buy my knowledge, but it was for days. Anyways, that is our predictions. That is 2024 wrapped up, put a bow on it. We even did longer than last year. We did 107, 101 hour and seven minutes last year. We did one hour, 15 minutes this year. That's going to do it for this year's merge conflict. People have a great, [01:15:00] amazing new year celebration. Let's kick off 2024. Five in style. I'm excited about it, Frank. I love you, buddy. Let's get close. We're going to get close to 500 this year. We're almost there. Um, we'll wait for the 2026, but I'm excited for the predictions. Yes. Uh, all right. You go get some sleep. It's super late there. I'm going to go eat some food. I'm super hungry. Let us know what your predictions are on the comments. Check out our YouTube so you can see all the cool Xbox controllers, all that stuff. So we're gonna do it for this year's Merge Conflict. So until next year, I'm James Montemagno. And I'm Frank Krueger. Thanks for watching and listening. Peace.