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You've heard Tim Cook say it a million times, they're not first, they're best.
Search this video
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In this case, they're two or three years behind.
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They wish they were one year behind, and that's historically where they are.
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They're pitching this local and private thing.
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I don't know if anyone would care or if it would change adoption versus Chad GBT or Claude or Gemini if it was like, we sent it to the cloud and you just have to trust Apple. Like, no one cares.
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>> Ryan Jones has been one of the top indie app developers in the app store for more than 13 years.
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He's watched new design aesthetics come and go. I don't like it.
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I'm going to say it right now. I don't like it.
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Played by Apple's everchanging rules.
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>> You expect for Cook his app store in particular and that 30% cut it can take.
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>> Sold beloved businesses and even won Apple design awards.
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Now he's building Flighty, one of Alex and my favorite apps for flight tracking.
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So, who better to discuss Apple's latest updates from WWDC, the new Siri, and where Vibe Coding is actually headed.
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>> Oh, is this a scoop for the show? This is scoop. >> All right. >> Access, right? >> God bless.
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I'm Ellis Hamburger, founder of Meaning, a storytelling studio for tech companies.
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>> And I'm Alex Heath, founder of sources.
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news, your home for scoops about the AI race. >> Welcome to Access.
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Ryan Jones, welcome to the show. Uh, how's it going? >> It's good.
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It's been a um whirlwind the last couple days between meeting Apple people, flighty fans, trying to figure out what all this means for flighty and me as a user and the world at large with the AI wars, everything. Lots of thoughts.
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>> It was good to see you, Ryan, at your uh your dinner you do after WWDC every year.
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I feel like that's become the uh the quiet power center of indie app development.
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It's always fun to pop into there.
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>> We're not supposed to talk about that.
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So, you're banned for now. >> Okay. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine.
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>> You've been uh you've been blacklisted.
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I mean, I'm sure the guest list is pretty popping, though, cuz you've been you've been doing this for longer than pretty much anyone.
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I feel like at this point >> that is weird.
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I was thinking walking around Dubdub uh on Monday that I wouldn't say we're the old guard, but it is weird cuz I still feel like we're brand new, but this is year seven of Flighty and you know, I had Weather Line for four years before that, so I guess I kind of am. It's crazy.
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So, going back to your design aesthetic and the way that you've leveraged all the new iOS stuff over the years and won the Apple design award, um, what do you make of the current state of iOS design and the new liquid glass updates?
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I mean, I assume you're one of those people who's like, we want to have our own point of view with the design of this product.
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Do we really want sliders letting people adjust everything?
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I feel like some designers in the space are probably saying, "Oh, that's like admitting that liquid glass actually isn't a correct idea."
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What do you make of all that and the new changes?
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>> Yeah, iOS 27 just got it this week.
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>> Yeah, it I think you nailed it, Ellis.
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It is from a This is a classic. Users ask for a slider.
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Users say, "I want to figure out how much transparency you want."
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And you should not give it to them.
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You That is They're not asking for what they want.
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They want you to make it better because they're not going to know which is the right choice to make.
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And and you just introduce all kinds of complexities when you put in a slider like that.
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This is it's a it's a it's a whole design theory thing that would take a while to get into, but more or less the designers who are the experts who know how this decision of more transparent or less transparent plays out across all the different depths of the UI and the interfaces, how that actually matters.
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And when you give people a slider like that, you're kind of, in a way, in a very short phrase, you're showing that you didn't think it through entirely a year or two ago and figure out exactly how it all played out.
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And you kind of got yourself in situations where you can't just pick one because it doesn't work across all the different depths of it.
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So, you have to let people pick and then they're going to run into scenarios where it's not great when you get into whatever two forms deep with a X with a close button on top of another close button that's also glass. Those kinds of things.
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>> Um, >> yeah, but you're exactly right that we wanted to have a uh design aesthetic that is our own but feels at home on iOS.
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Um, and we appreciate some of the refinements that they did.
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Uh, to get to start with the keynote a little bit.
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The first segment was 15 minutes of more or less like, hey, we need to clean up some of this liquid glass stuff.
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Um, I actually thought the whole keynote to give like a overview point of view.
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When you think about it, kind of the whole thing was we might have made some mistakes.
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Let's do a little bit of cleanup.
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Like >> on the liquid glass stuff, we need to clean the UI a little bit.
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We maybe went a little fast, so we have some bugs, so we need to do some bug cleanup.
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Maybe parental controls wasn't working super well, so let's do a little clean up there.
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Uh maybe Siri has whatever it is now, 12 years of broken promises.
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We need to totally revamp that.
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So, I thought it was a pretty I think humble was the word Gruber used last night on his show, and it's spot on.
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like the whole thing was a pretty humble, hey, we're going to do some cleanup across the board.
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And it was nice to see it on liquid glass because we've been running into problems kind of introducing it.
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They had this rule last year to give an example of you weren't allowed to do glass on glass.
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So, for example, the tabs on the bottom of an app, if you're going to make those in glass, then in flighty, you have a sheet or a card behind it with all the flight content and that they were like, "No, that can't be glass.
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You can't have glass on glass."
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And this year they're like whatever, just make it look good.
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Um, so they've kind of loosened the reinss on that.
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And then they've done a lot of cleanup on Mac OS and then across kind of the edges of Liquid Glass where stuff gets blurred and you can't even really tell which layer the button is on versus the content behind it.
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So there's been a lot of a lot of great cleanup in that area.
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I was >> literally the edges and corners they made an announcement of, which was pretty funny.
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And then some, of course, were saying that the corners actually weren't properly rounded.
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>> And every window on Mac OS now has the same tighter corner radius, ensuring greater consistency across all of your apps, even if they haven't been updated.
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>> Ryan, we were we were both at Apple Park uh in Certino for the keynote, and I I was noticing uh before you posted what you were going to look for, and you said a cohesive and thoughtful AI strategy, where Apple will get its 30% in the new Siri.
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uh how they're gonna let apps monetize, how good is the LLM, and then any Turnis impact.
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>> Did you feel the turn or not yet?
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>> Turn was turn was a zero. >> It was zero.
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I mean, he was very much there.
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He was like taking photos.
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He was at the media reception the night before, >> but it was it was the final cook show, which, you know, I guess is uh to be expected, but >> makes sense. Yeah.
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>> What surprised you um you know, relative to what you were expecting going in?
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And yeah, what did you make of the the this o overall story?
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Yeah, this is kind of my uh I'm channeling my Alex Reporter angle here of like what am I looking for going into it?
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It's helpful to kind of remind yourself because when you come out of it, you just think about what was done and you don't really think about like wait a minute, they didn't say anything about vioded apps, that kind of stuff.
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Um >> I was surprised by that. >> I wasn't as much.
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I think that's a thing that's so new that they don't really have their hands around it yet.
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You know, they they think slow.
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They take 6 to 12 months to kind of think these things through.
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And it's such a titanic of a ship.
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If you put out a rule about any of that stuff, you can't just later a year like you can fix liquid glass, you can fix bugs, you can't really change app store rule 6 months later.
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That's just not being a good platform.
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Anyway, not to go into that too far, but I did think they had a good cohesive AI strategy that plays to their advantages.
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um you know they're not a frontier model.
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They're not playing in the agentic world.
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And that's kind of what I would hope kind of what I hoped to see from them.
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I want them to recognize the advantage we have is one button allow Siri to index all the stuff on my phone instead of open chat and authenticate with Gmail authenticate with Gcal authentic or those are the same one but you know what I mean >> almost makes me want to go back to using normie apps like I did last year because Siri'll have access to all of it >> the thing that yeah this is kind of jumping into Alex's kind of world.
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But I've been thinking about how this is kind of where's the end state of this and I I'm starting to think tell me what you think of this that their real key that they have that other people don't have is iMes and photos.
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That's the thing that they can index that nobody else can index >> at least in the states. >> Yes, that's true.
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But same theory applies like if you just put put in WhatsApp for the example.
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Um those so you're going to have iMessage and photos if you use Siri AI but these big companies like Google, Facebook, I know it's the same company but WhatsApp, Instagram X, those guys aren't going to donate their content to Siri to be indexed.
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their content to Siri to be indexed. you think so in a way >> I was wondering about this because in my Siri briefing um the other day they were explaining how it works and it's opt in to the index right and what we're describing for those who haven't seen it is the new Siri can appear on any screen and know the context of the screen and
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it can do it in any app at a very basic level it can understand text um just like raw text and images it doesn't understand UI or interactive elements the developer needs to offer that up to Siri to ingest Apple told me uh unless you know something different that this index is private, personalized on device, never goes up to Apple for training or any kind of like data mining. >> And if that's the case, I actually think
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>> And if that's the case, I actually think developers might, even the big ones, they may opt into this unless they really just want to strategically stick it to Apple.
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You you don't think so, though?
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>> I mean, it's really hard for me to imagine Gmail saying, "Yeah, you can ask Siri to find your email."
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They want you to open Gemini or open Gmail and press the Gmail.
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Press Gemini inside of Gmail. >> Yeah.
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Cuz they're charging the subscription.
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They'll eventually have ads in there.
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>> Chat everything for them.
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Like >> it also just might be a big like rebuild of how they even store data, right?
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I mean, I use Poke all the time to add things to my notion pages, and I'm not sure how those are stored, but I doubt it's as straightforward as Apple's local notes database on your phone or something like that. >> Yeah, that is.
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So, one of the kind of um super nerd dialogues that's going on after Dubdub is they announced this intents and entity model.
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So at a very simplistic level, Notion would donate is actually what the the word they donate to Siri. Say here's the text. >> No way. That's the word. >> That's the word.
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And it's actually makes sense because um it's not a two-way connection really.
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And Apple doesn't really have to use it.
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So you're they're cuz if you get like some spammy gross app that donating stuff, Apple's going to kind of ignore it.
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So that it's kind of like here, use this if you want.
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Uh it's it's interesting.
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They're always super careful about the words they use with that stuff.
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>> What is the vibe with developers about this?
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I mean, do you think people will take a wait and see approach?
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Would you are you going to let Flighty, you know, hook into the index? >> I would love to.
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There is no flight entity.
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So Siri >> Oh, because they have this entity construct that Siri has to work with that a developer has to offer up.
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They were using that word and I'm like, what the hell is an entity? I don't >> Yeah.
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So imagine there's imagine there's a layer a horizontal layer at the bottom of all the apps and then the next layer above that is Siri figuring out here's everything I know about you and it's going to tap into the apps below and the way Apple does it cuz it's extreme control and all those things is they defined let's say a 100 entities like okay if you have text tell us what text you have and we'll index it.
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If you have photos, tell us what photos you have and we'll have another agent index that.
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If you have voice, tell us what that is and we'll have someone index that.
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They don't have a flights one.
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So, we can't say here's Alex's flights.
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So, then when you go up a level above that to Siri AI, if Alex says, "What flights do I have coming up?"
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It knows about the ones in Apple first party stuff but no developers have been able to donate up into the context about you your flights and the kind of the you asked about the developer thoughts.
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I think this is an example where Siri in a way is like GBT3 GBT 3.
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5 because this whole concept of tell me exactly what you have and I'll then index it is not what these models don't need that just connect it they figure all that stuff out. >> Yeah.
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Um, so they're in a kind of it's kind of a couple years old of you have to tell me what all the content is and then we'll index it versus all developers are like, >> yeah, you could do a fly MCP node and I could use cloud to control everything already.
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I mean, I don't think you do that currently, right?
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But you could and it would be way more useful to the end user than what Apple's done. >> Yeah.
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And in an example for the audience, like APIs are very deterministic.
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You say, "Here's a flight number or I'm going to give you a flight number.
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Here's the flight number." MCP is not like that.
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It's like here's a bunch of content.
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You figure out what it is.
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And the beauty there is the app that's donating it to use Ellis's new favorite word can change the content over time and doesn't have the other person that's reading it doesn't have to say, "Oh my god, we didn't expect a flight."
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Because this AI is so good. It just recognizes it.
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So, it's way more fluid and faster evolving.
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But that's just not the way Siri is.
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It has these deterministic 100 things and flights aren't one of them.
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So, we've filed our necessary complaints and raised our hand and said, "We would love people to be able to ask flight questions and fingers crossed for next year, I guess."
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>> Can you also help me understand like is this actually the holy grail for search?
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So I think you know a company like Apple in my view has always been historically awful >> at search whether it's with mail it's with messages uh notes especially that's the reason I don't use the notes app anymore is because I can't get through anything in search
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>> and you know AI isn't very good at that historically like they use the retrieve augmented what is it Alex the rag >> the retrieve augmented generation I mean is this actually like a new uh way to make your entire phone searchable in a better way. Like, is that new here or is
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Like, is that new here or is it just kind of the same as we've had, just giving it more and more stuff? >> I am with you 100%.
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And then Alex read my tweet of stuff I'm watching for.
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For the last 10 years, I've written on there search that actually freaking works and cellular fallback that actually works.
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And then the one year I didn't write it cuz I've given up. They in theory did both.
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Um, you're you're totally right.
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I have no idea if they've actually executed it.
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It was in the section of the keynote that was like >> they did frame it like >> stuff.
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Here's all the stuff that never worked that we're going to make it work.
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And search was one of them.
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And they kept hammering it in a way.
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You could tell in their tone that it was like we actually made it work. We promise.
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And I think I've I've downloaded iOS 27.
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Probably you guys have too.
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and it's doing this indexing thing and I'm on day three of indexing and it is still indexing.
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So >> you're I haven't done it yet. You're still indexing.
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>> My impression is that they're like we're going to build a huge local index.
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Yeah, here's mine still going.
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A huge local index and actually make this stuff good.
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>> I just don't get this approach.
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I mean, I get it from Apple's POV because they're the ondevice privacy company and they clearly think that this is going to be a strategic differentiation for them uh with where AI is going.
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But it's just it's very cumbersome.
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I mean, the fact that it's taking days to index your phone when I'm doing a currently right now hour plus long over 70st step multi-turn prompt with using five MCPS and Chrome use on Fable.
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Like that's where the world is right now and Apple's taking three days to privately index your phone.
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I just there feels it feels like there's a big disconnect, you know?
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>> Yeah, that's where the nerd world is right now. I mean, I'm with you.
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But you've heard Tim Cook say it a million times.
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They're not first, they're best.
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Um they're they're never they're always they're in this case, they're two or three years behind.
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They wish they were one year behind and that's historically where they are.
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Um there's a lot of interesting strategy angles we could take here.
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One is I totally agree with you that they're pitching this local and private thing.
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I don't know if anyone would care or if it would change adoption versus Chad GBT or Claude or Gemini if it was like we sent it to the cloud and you just like no one cares.
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>> I don't think anyone cares and I brought this up to Apple exacts I met with Monday and you know I think it's a hunch they have that people will care that there there will be a Cambridge Analytica moment for AI.
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I mean you're seeing you're seeing some of the lawsuits about chatpt already and I think they don't like that.
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There was a lot of subtle shade I think at CHACPT and that partnership has clearly gone south for them.
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And Ellis and I were texting about how it really reminds us of the Facebook versus Apple narrative around AT tracking stuff.
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>> And if you think way back for the real nerds out there who remember Apple did a deep product partnership with Facebook and integration right in the early days.
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I mean, Mark Zuckerberg used to say that Steve Jobs was a mentor and uh it was when social was early and it was before ads took off and all this stuff and and then we saw how that panned out, right?
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And now, you know, around 2019, Apple and Facebook became like the mortal enemies of big tech and Apple tried to really leverage its privacy stance to to kneecap Facebook and and I feel like that's happening with Open AI right now. The exact same arc.
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I think it's um an underlying reason like subconscious reason and a conscious reason of why they're doing so much partnerships with Google.
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They've just always done that and the two companies are kind of side by side going after the world instead of kind of head-to-head and they just complement each other well is that exact reason >> flighty is an incredible app.
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I just want to say up top I I don't want to glaze you but it is probably top three apps for me in terms of value in my life. I fly way too much.
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And for those who don't know Flighty, go download it and play with it as we're talking because man. >> Yeah.
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Is that uh something your wife says?
19:10
Alex, Alex, I think you've been a bit too flighty lately.
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This is the third time up to San Francisco.
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>> Ellis says the naming guy.
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I was worried about that, man.
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My initial spreadsheet of all the names, flighty was like, "That's a great name, but is it going to get attached too much to the other word?" >> Oh, no. It's great. Flighty's perfect.
19:27
I mean, that's kind of the ideal in my mind, especially if you're in a category that isn't mega crowded.
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You have a bit more room to experiment.
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Even with headlines that I write every day, so often trying to take a familiar phrase and twist it a little bit or a familiar word and twist it.
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And what that does is it borrows the memories and feelings that people already have.
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Like the name already sounds familiar but a little bit different versus something that they have to hear.
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uh completely brand new and build new associations with.
20:01
So yeah, I think Flighty's great.
20:03
I mean the the bigger question with names like that, do you have any clones that are flightier or flights that are accidentally beating you in SEO?
20:14
>> We had the first flightier and he literally just stuck an R at the end of flighty.
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It was just T yr, which is like the easiest trademark claim of all time.
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So he got disappeared pretty quick.
20:23
Um, >> no one's tried to vibe, no one's tried to vibe code a flighty competitor yet. >> They're trying. >> They're trying. >> Yeah, it started.
20:31
I mean, as a product founder, it's so depressing because I really try to contribute something new.
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Whenever we like work on a certain feature, we look at what's out there and then bring our own thoughts to it and try to contribute something new.
20:43
And it stinks to see people just straight rip it off and not add anything or try to like bring something new to it.
20:49
Um, so I've kind of distanced myself from it.
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We got a good IP lawyer and I told him, "Don't go after people that are just, you know, having fun.
20:59
But if someone's getting serious and they're copying us, just make it go away and don't even show me cuz it's depressing."
21:05
>> I think it's nice you have a user base of people who deeply care about quality and accuracy, who cannot miss their business flight to an elite dinner, uh, which as we've discussed is Alex twice a week.
21:18
So yeah, there's that as well.
21:20
Well, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I mean the flighty UI is obviously, you know, great.
21:24
You're an Apple design award winner, but the real edge you have is the data.
21:28
Is that is that fair to say? >> I think so.
21:30
I think it is design, too, though.
21:32
Like, it's the first thing people say.
21:33
Um, >> I guess that's credit to the data being great.
21:37
If the data wasn't great, that would be the first thing they would say.
21:39
They would say it's pretty, but it doesn't it's wrong.
21:40
Um, you know, when we were talking about initially starting the company, um, I was pleasantly surprised at how many people said, "There's a couple apps out there that do this, but they're just so hard to use."
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Cuz I knew that we could bring a fresh perspective to that and like put in the work to make it really user friendly.
22:00
Um, and I didn't know if that was a thing people just said or would actually respect and understand when they used it.
22:05
But I I think so many people have experience with airline apps and that's what they kind of benchmark it against.
22:12
Um that when they use it and you know you don't have to hunt around and guess where features are that it's kind of a breath of fresh air.
22:18
But that along with the data has to be has to be great.
22:20
And yeah that's that's the core >> kind of harder part to copy which you know I guess someone could do it over time but it's going to take them a few years.
22:33
And um we're starting to build real expertise and advantage in that a lot with the AI stuff we can do these days.
22:39
And that that's the key thing that we see with vibecoded apps that pop up.
22:45
People will say flight is so expensive.
22:47
Someone's going to vibe code this and then it pops up and it's just so inaccurate, just bad.
22:51
And we see people constantly be like, we'll see a little app pop up, someone they'll tweet about how they're going to take on Flighty.
23:01
Then a week or two later, the person's like, "Wow, I had no idea. I am out."
23:06
Um, and it's And you're like, "Yeah, this is uh this happens every 6 months for the last six years." >> It does. It does. >> You're right.
23:14
I mean, air airline apps generally do suck.
23:16
I will say I'm I'm >> Is Delta the only good one? >> No.
23:21
You're two years behind, man. Yeah.
23:21
No, Delta, we're we're past Delta, man.
23:26
Delta's Delta's very like mid mid2010s now. >> Okay, don't mind me.
23:30
>> United has really upped its game with its app. I'm a United loyalist.
23:33
I do the the Burbanked SFO flight weekly.
23:35
Um, and I will say like I'm impressed with what they've done.
23:41
It's the most, you know, fullfeatured airline app.
23:44
But, you know, last night was a great example.
23:47
I was coming home late from SF back to LA and it still didn't have like the terminal that I'm supposed to go at and you know at SFO it's a little confusing.
23:55
I mean you can get between them.
23:56
You can walk between them but if you have the Uber drop drop off it's much easier to just go directly to the right terminal.
24:01
And I'm looking in the app everywhere on the boarding pass everything and it has the the gate hadn't been assigned yet and it didn't have the terminal and I was it was like an hour maybe a little bit above an hour before the flight.
24:11
Uh and you know I was just like man why am I even looking at this? I got to go to Flighty.
24:16
Of course, Flighty had it.
24:16
So, you you still have an edge even on United. >> Good to hear.
24:20
Yeah, there it I never would have thought I would have lost a lot of money if you told me seven or eight years ago that our biggest competition would be United.
24:28
I would have been like, absolutely not.
24:31
>> They've got the live widgets.
24:31
They've got activity stuff.
24:33
I mean, they they're really embracing all the iOS stuff in a way that's surprising. >> Yeah.
24:39
A little a little business insight.
24:41
Scott Kirby said he's the United CEO.
24:42
They said on um strategy that they spent around, this is just rough, um like $100 million a year for the last five or six years to get their stack right in order to make the app great.
24:53
So this that's kind of an insight into >> they could just buy you for $100 million. >> We talked to them.
24:58
They uh they they're smart.
25:01
They um you know, he made comments about buying us uh publicly and >> Oh, he did >> it. Yeah. He said it on strategy.
25:07
said we should just buy flighty and just set those guys up in a office and just have them tell us what to do.
25:13
Let them keep running flighty and >> just tell us what to do.
25:17
>> But the magic of flighty is that you're a airline agnostic, right?
25:19
So that would break that >> you'd be going in house.
25:23
It's like open AI buying tbp.
25:27
>> Shout out to I like those guys on yesterday.
25:30
>> Good job on you know the analogy. >> Yes, I do.
25:32
Um and people that's the first thought that they have with flighty.
25:35
like if the airlines try to buy you and you think about it for a little bit and it doesn't make any sense.
25:39
Um it's not the right fit.
25:40
Um yeah, it's it's a good person to work with maybe to partner with.
25:47
Um the good news is everybody in this kind of flight tracking game is starting to get their data in better order and understand that it's not that great to just silo like let's just start sharing data and see if we can get this stuff to be more accurate.
25:59
So from a partnership it makes a lot more sense for airlines.
26:03
>> I guess that's part of it.
26:03
uh a lot of them who haven't traditionally revealed their data even to like Google flights, they're just trying to retain any semblance of differentiation they can, right?
26:16
And I guess you've seen firsthand kind of like who is and who isn't sharing their data over time.
26:21
>> The best way I describe it is it's a spiderweb.
26:22
People think you just subscribe to API that's like let's get all the flight information and that is not how it works.
26:28
There's multiple intermediaries.
26:30
Some of them have this, some of them have that.
26:32
nobody has this, four people have that.
26:35
And the the thing that it causes at a very high level is there's holes where nobody has.
26:39
But then it's kind of almost a harder technical problem when multiple people have one thing.
26:45
Like let's take Alex's flight yesterday.
26:47
Someone was probably showing us one terminal, another data source was showing us another terminal, one was showing no gate, and one was showing another gate.
26:55
And he knows the answer cuz he he's in the airport.
26:57
He can go walk and find the answer.
26:58
But as a server or as a cloud service, we have to figure out which one's the truth.
27:03
And it's very hard to know which one of those multiple inputs is the correct one.
27:10
>> So this is why your balance sheet has that strange uh 5,000 interns line item on it that are on the tarmac at every terminal around the world.
27:18
I mean, it is silly when you're at the airport and you could see the data in front of you, but not on your phone.
27:24
Some of these old wires just don't seem to be fully connected yet. >> Yeah.
27:29
And the weird thing that you're doing in your brain and you don't even notice it or you don't even really know is people will go look on Google flights and then they'll go look in the United app and then they'll go look in Flighty and then they'll ask Chad GPT or whatever people do and then you find out you find the one that's accurate and then you think like ah why don't the others have this?
27:48
It's like well that's the problem I just described.
27:49
We don't know that's the one that's accurate.
27:52
Everyone's telling us different things and figuring out which one's the one that's actually accurate is the hard part.
27:56
>> Well, so is there anything in particular you're looking forward to using from uh the new iOS?
28:01
I I don't know if it's going to make it any easier to grab people's flights from the actual local mail app.
28:06
I feel like you do that through Gmail right now, which is one of my favorite features.
28:10
Uh anything else you're you're excited to use?
28:14
>> To be honest, because that flight entity thing is missing, it's extremely limited. Um it's really tough.
28:18
Uh, >> that is wild to me that you have to petition change. org.
28:24
All our listeners add the flight entity to the >> fact that Ryan has to do this that he has to petition Apple to create a flight quote unquote entity to let Siri look at it when like MCP exists is just so wild to me.
28:40
>> It's a little old school.
28:40
I would not Matt I would not be surprised at all if iOS 28 is we don't have to do that anymore. It's so easy.
28:49
You just donate the contents of X, Y, and Z.
28:51
You, a developer marks what's private and what can be donated and you don't have to do the entity thing. We just read it.
28:57
And we made Apple intelligence so smart and now it knows what a flight number is. It's it's coming.
29:03
It's uh we have reinvented folders part 11.
29:07
Um well, there is one thing that I was looking through in the notes that I thought you might be able to use uh if you had any interest in it.
29:17
Not that I'm recommending it at all, but I saw that developers have a new way to reduce subscription cancellations through retention messaging. Did you catch this?
29:28
I wonder what that actually looks like.
29:30
>> I did and uh we used it already.
29:30
We were one of the um chosen few who got to use it over the last year.
29:36
It was kind of introduced last year and as like a opt-in beta thing and we've had it running for about a month now.
29:42
Um, I can't say that I've seen any meaningful impact or change, but what Ellis is talking about for everyone is when you press everyone knows where the manage subscription screen is now in your um app store.
29:58
And when you press that button, developers now have there's pretty limited as usual for Apple.
30:02
Like you can have I think it's 500 characters and one image.
30:07
And you can say, are you sure you want to cancel this?
30:10
You're not going to get delay notifications from Flighty anymore.
30:13
and calendar sync is no longer going to work.
30:16
Um, and then you can offer like no, I don't want to cancel anymore or you should try the monthly plan cuz it's lower price. That kind of stuff. Um, yeah.
30:25
What I guess the larger thing here that has been a kind of an undercurrent that may be interesting for you guys is there's it seems like there's excitement and um re-energizing at the app store level of what can we do to kind of embrace the fact that AI is happening a lot on the phone and is happening a lot in apps.
30:48
Like two years ago, I had this worry and all all the app developers were like, "Uh-oh, we're now the old thing.
30:55
everything's going to be in the cloud and AI and it may pan out that way still, but I don't think it was a foregone conclusion that all this innovation would be vibecoded apps, vibecoded apps and what can we do in apps now?
31:06
Now apps can build faster.
31:06
Um, so they're energized I think in the Apple world about now what do we do to rembrace this kind of second technological wave that apps can take advantage of.
31:18
>> You think they will embrace that?
31:18
I I I feel like I haven't gotten a good read of how they actually feel about all this. >> I think they will.
31:23
Um, I think it'll be in an Apple way.
31:27
It'll be with safety first.
31:29
It'll be a year or two behind.
31:33
Um, two years from now they'll have some sort of agent construct.
31:35
Uh, maybe the app store gets a little more modern.
31:38
You know, that it's it's a little stale in terms of nobody really goes there to look for new apps anymore.
31:44
It's not a place of discovery.
31:46
But if there's so many back in 10 years ago, there were so many apps and you were like, "Oh my god, look at this ability that I didn't even know I could have lightflight status in my pocket."
31:57
And so people would kind of go surf the app store.
31:59
And it's borderline similar to that now where there's just stuff you didn't even know was possible.
32:04
You know, we have Tik Tok and we have Instagram and there's a lot of discovery that happens off of the app store.
32:10
But I think it's I think it's not crazy to imagine people surfing the app store again.
32:14
I think it's also a question of do we need apps for a lot of these things that people are vi coding anyway. >> Yeah. What do you guys think?
32:22
It's a very interesting question. I don't know.
32:25
>> Well, I think the alternative is not no app, but it's just a workflow or an automation that you set up through something like Poke or Claude or even Apple's redesigned shortcuts product.
32:40
And I think, you know, when I worked with Wabby, one of the reasons um I really enjoyed working with Eugenia, she really took this highle view that like these aren't the same as the apps that we'd be using in the app store in the past.
32:51
These are almost like containers for prompts that all share uh design system so you don't have to care about that and they just work and help you.
33:00
I'm kind of expecting that that workflow construct pans out a little bit like the API and MCP stuff we were talking about.
33:07
Right now, I feel like apps and the vibe coding tools, you have to be a certain technical proficiency to go build this workflow.
33:13
Um, or you have to have the intent beforehand is maybe a better way to say it to like, oh, hey, shortcuts, build me this thing that whatever makes a reminder and sends me directions whenever I want to go to the grocery store.
33:28
Whatever it is, I think that stuff's going to get in theory 5 years from now when we're sitting here.
33:34
It's so smart that it knows Ellis's partner just mentioned go buy milk.
33:38
He doesn't have to have a little thing he opens on his app that says go buy milk, do the reminder, whatever. It just does it.
33:44
So, it it is a very I don't know where we're going.
33:50
Um, >> how'd you know my favorite use case?
33:55
I don't know where we're going and I don't know if people will accept it in terms of privacy because it's starting to get things are starting to get weird.
34:01
Uh I don't know if anybody knows where it's headed.
34:04
>> Here's the good thing with the entity approach if any is that it at least helps users understand what things they can even touch or point to.
34:11
And all those entities I think directly appear in the shortcuts app now, right?
34:16
And so it's clear like the things you could do and the things you can't do, which I do think is a legitimate problem for everyday people trying to create these workflows.
34:24
You know, a lot of times the AIs will say that they can do it.
34:26
Um, with that said, we got to get flights in there.
34:31
Obviously, to go back to what Alex said a minute, like Alex said a few minutes ago that there might be a Cambridge Analytica moment.
34:38
Um Joanna Stern was talking about I guess she got off the wait list and is able to use it and she was talking about how she before the talk show last night she said, "Hey, I have 30 minutes in San Jose. What should I do?
34:51
What's interesting that it's around here?"
34:54
And it found in her voicemails from a couple days ago, her uncle said something about, "Hey, call me back for XYZ."
35:06
And the Siri said, "You could, you know, go walk around this part cuz you like to take a walk and you could call your uncle back cuz you haven't called him back yet."
35:14
And I think that was kind of like, whoa, how did it know that?
35:17
And then it it's got little breadcrumbs.
35:20
You can figure out where it knows that.
35:21
But I I think we're going to have a moment of, oh my gosh, like it knows everything.
35:33
And there's a lot of messages and photos are as private I think as it gets and voicemails maybe even more so.
35:38
I didn't even think about that.
35:40
I think there's going to be a lot of stuff that you don't even really think or realize is on your phone that now this AI has access to.
35:48
>> And this is a theory I have too because a big thing about the new Siri that people probably won't realize until they try it is it doesn't have memory.
35:54
>> So there's no there's no constantly updating memory file of you.
35:57
each chat is like starting over, which to me feels >> araic.
36:03
Like it's a it's a it's a non-starter for me.
36:05
Like I just won't use it because Claude and Chat know so much about me.
36:09
But I guess to people who maybe haven't tried these assistants, it's fine.
36:14
>> But the vibe I got at Apple and talking to folks was that they're very worried about creating uh a memory file of people.
36:21
>> Uh even screenshotable memory file.
36:24
>> Well, I mean, you would think they'd be in a position to do it, right? Right.
36:27
They've even got the secure enclave.
36:29
They do everything on device.
36:29
They're taking days to index your phone already.
36:33
Why not have a ultra private, you know, secure enclave stored memory file of you?
36:38
Uh, and it could be the most valuable memory file because it sees everything on your phone.
36:42
Uh, but yeah, I I think they they're very like uh tiptoeing into all this and I don't know if they'll ever do it.
36:50
I mean, they kept, you know, they don't really say much when you ask about the future in these briefings, but they they wouldn't commit to anything.
36:56
>> From a zoomed out point of view, it's what you would expect from Apple.
36:58
It's just really hard to know if 3 4 years from now, they're going to add it and we're all going to be saying, "Why didn't they add that 3 years ago? This is crazy.
37:07
It's everything's just moving so fast that I think from a big corporate point of view, it is it does make sense to go slow."
37:12
I would say the world has kind of proven that we need memory.
37:16
Like that's what 2 3 years old now at this point.
37:18
It's kind of table stakes.
37:21
>> Is there any particular way that your team has codified or thinks about using AI in the right way?
37:29
>> So, we've done three or four things behind the scenes now that use it and we have our first kind of userfacing feature coming out at the end of the month that's largely or fully AI built uh or sorry AI feature.
37:42
You know, we're super product focused, super user focused.
37:47
um we don't necessarily you sometimes you hear people saying um take the don't worry about what the technology can do just build features and then add the technology into it.
37:56
I think that's a little >> solve problems first.
37:59
>> That's a little bit naive like you kind of have to understand you have this new tool set like I used to have a hammer now I have a jackhammer like I can do different things with that now and so you kind of got to have it in the back of your head.
38:10
So we've built that kind of skill set over the last 2 years and it is a completely different kind of way of thinking.
38:18
So I'll give the feature that's coming in a month.
38:20
Um as an example just to kind of land it for people but >> Oh is this the scoop for the show? >> This is the scoop. This is >> all right.
38:30
>> Yeah, >> we'll take it. >> Access, right? It's >> God bless.
38:33
So, when you land, let's say you're making an international connection and sometimes you're like, I don't know.
38:40
Am I getting my bag beforehand?
38:42
Am I going through security?
38:44
Am I doing passport control?
38:44
Am I doing it at the final destination? Did I do it beforehand? All of those steps. Am I riding a train? Can I do security here?
38:52
All of those steps during a connection, which is a very high stress point for a lot of travelers.
38:56
Previously, if we wanted to make a feature that would help users get through those steps, it would be I mean, I don't even know how you do it.
39:04
You would make a huge matrix of every single terminal at every single airport, for every single nationality, for every single final destination cuz those are the things that go into like Ellis is a US citizen, so he does different steps when he comes into the US, but he does different steps if he goes to China as a US citizen.
39:22
So, there's infinity variants to these things.
39:27
Um, and it would have never been, we would have never even approached the problem of let's try to tackle a connection guide when someone lands like that.
39:35
But this is right up the alley of what AI can do.
39:38
So, we've kind of built the harness that goes on a model of what terminal and gate are you coming into, what terminal and gate are you going out of, then what is your passport nationalities?
39:54
And you can input multiple if you want.
39:55
And then what's your final destination?
39:57
Because that determines what kind of security you have to go through.
40:00
And then when people land in an airport, we give them it's not we don't think people want turnbyturn directions.
40:05
And you know, you don't want it the like turnbyturn map.
40:09
You just want the big landmark stuff you've got to do.
40:11
So it'll say for example, walk 5 minutes to the tram, take it going south two stops, go through security, then go through passport, don't do the bag recheck, and then go back to terminal 3.
40:25
And it tells you the exact steps of those kind of what do I have to do in this connection world, and then gives you the typical time that it's going to take a user to go through those steps.
40:36
>> Alex is under your spell right now. I can see his face.
40:38
Ryan, you are going to make this Greece trip I have in July.
40:40
Is this launching it by mid July >> for you? Sure. >> Okay, please.
40:45
Because I am terrified of what looks to be travel airport nightmare in Greece right now.
40:51
The EU has instituted a new kind of passport control system.
40:56
Like they they have to do a biometric biometric capture phase and then you have to go back into the line.
41:02
The lines I mean you look you look on Tik Tok it's like hours and hours of lines.
41:06
It looks I'm like I'm borderline considering just paying for one of these VIP services to have someone escort us through all this.
41:13
>> Uh so I may end up doing that.
41:13
But this sounds awesome and is going to help me not feel stressed about my Greece trip. Uh so thank you. >> Yes. Yeah.
41:20
It's got some cool, you know, it knows um again in the nationality context in the in the uh in Europe they have these e-gates which is a faster way to process and only certain nationalities can do the e-gates. So it knows that.
41:32
Um what other cool stuff does it do?
41:35
If you put in your seat number, we try to we have the model figure out how long it's going to take you to get off the plane.
41:39
So, Alex obviously will be in 1A and it'll take him a second to get off.
41:43
And >> of course, >> me and Ellis will be on YouTube. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I'm down in steerage.
41:51
>> It's going to be another 11 12 minutes for sure. >> Yeah.
41:54
Alex is already sipping his latte.
41:57
>> And I have a child that is like a monkey on each of my feet.
42:02
>> So, that also adds uh 21.
42:02
6% 6% uh increase in in transit time.
42:07
>> Yeah, we'll have to teach teach the model about your children.
42:11
>> That That's actually funny.
42:11
You could ask that in on boarding.
42:14
>> Yeah, >> this will make our predictions a lot more accurate.
42:17
>> Just add 10 minutes to everything. >> That's very cool.
42:19
Uh this has made me realize that I want to know what our flighty passports are like for the year, Ryan.
42:25
Uh how much have you been flying this year?
42:27
I want to know if I have you beat. >> Oh, you do. I know I have LSP.
42:31
>> I'll check mine as well.
42:31
So, for 2026, I've got 39 flights, 40,000 miles, uh, 14 airports, which means I'm I'm Dude, I'm already about to surpass.
42:44
>> You just go to the same airports.
42:44
My word, I only have 15,000 miles at 12 airports.
42:48
You just go You're just going back and forth between SF and >> I do a lot of SF.
42:52
Uh, but I've had a couple long hauls and I'm going to have two long hauls in the next month.
42:59
>> This is the story of a founder.
42:59
All of my passport is screwed up because a user will send in a like, oh, this is not working correctly with this flight and I add it and I look at it and I want to look at it myself.
43:10
>> So, my passport in my flighty is just an absolute wreck.
43:13
>> The friend view you have now cuz I used to add my friends once to track them or like my wife if she was traveling without me and the friend view now is is amazing because you can see people's flights without >> adding it.
43:24
Um, but yeah, I mean I I was also thinking is is that an opportunity for you to create more of a social experience around travel because you have >> for moms >> pay $1,000 a month for this to know when their kids flight is arriving.
43:42
>> Yeah, there's this social aspect is a thing that we have internal debates about on the team.
43:48
Um, it's kind of I guess it's kind of like our we be very care we're very careful about it kind of like Apple is with safety and trust stuff.
43:56
I'm kind of the one making us go a little slower.
44:00
The other two guys are like let's do more, let's do more.
44:02
Um, so we try to find a a balance between let's not do a leaderboard of like who can fly around the world the fastest the most versus it is interesting to know kind of what your friends are up to.
44:14
So, I think you'll see us go a little further in that direction, but we don't want to go the full like you're ranked number 12 in the world kind of thing.
44:23
It's just it's just not I don't think a super long-term interesting.
44:28
>> Maybe we could land it here. Uh land. Haha.
44:30
I didn't I didn't even plan that. Um >> not funny. >> Okay, thanks Alison.
44:34
Um, Ryan, you to me exemplify this era of indie app development that felt like the golden era where you were you you had weatherine before this, sold it, you've had flighty for seven plus years. You've got a team.
44:49
Uh, it seems like the business is going well.
44:52
Uh, you really think about the craft and the design and you focus on a platform, right?
44:56
And and there's we were talking earlier about the other developers we all know in this community that have made great careers on this.
45:04
And I've been thinking about like the future of development and app development with vi coding what we've been talking about with stuff like what Wabby represents but also just lovable all these tools cla like Patrick Carlson I think said like software is going to become like pizza right like like made on demand and infinitely personalized.
45:23
Um, so if you buy that vision, which I don't know if I do fully, I think craft will always matter and always differentiate, but that there will be this explosion, this Cambrian explosion of people creating their own software.
45:34
How are you thinking about this kind of amazing career you've had in the next 10 years?
45:38
And if you had, you know, someone you were mentoring who was just coming up and trying to figure out, can they be the next flighty?
45:43
Can they be the next Weather Line, what advice would you give them when you look out at what's happening with with Vive Coding?
45:51
>> Oh man, there's a lot there. Those are good.
45:52
Those are good questions that keep me awake at night.
45:54
Um, I'm not totally bought into that and I try to be really careful that I'm not like just speaking my own book or whatever the correct analogy is for like in my own, oh, apps are the most important thing in the world.
46:07
I'm not totally sold on this UI is going to be created on the fly thing.
46:14
I think if anything, this is tapping into Ellis's world.
46:16
If anything, it'll just get completely skipped over and everything will become voice or audio.
46:23
I have a hard time believing that normal people are going to interact with AI through text.
46:30
I think nerds like us are good with typing a lot and reading a lot.
46:37
But if you just look at this, the numbers of Tik Tok and YouTube versus Twitter, people aren't text first. their voice video.
46:47
It's the native things that you can see and hear.
46:55
So if anything, I could see a world where we kind of skip over this.
46:58
But I guess that also plays into the gen you could generate UI on the fly thing.
47:05
people instead of one of the problems I had yesterday with the keynote was or two days ago there was a lot of just text and text and text these answers that Siri was giving were just mountains of text there was no images they weren't even doing bulleted lists they weren't even doing tables it was just paragraphs after paragraph and I don't think that's what a normal person wants to interact with um so back to the theory here.
47:31
I think there's a chance that there's a little bit of that generate generative UI that happens, but my guess is that's probably a stepping stone to whatever the next paradigm is.
47:46
Um, and in terms of the next generation of apps, like I said a minute ago, I kind of thought two years ago, oh my gosh, we're all this AI is going to happen in the cloud because you need everything to be processing on servers.
48:01
You need the servers to be crunching the information.
48:02
So, we need flighty to be this MCP callable thing that's in the cloud so that someone's Gemini can tap into it and talk to it constantly.
48:13
And at the moment, it's not really going that direction.
48:17
Apps are kind of hotter than they've ever been.
48:21
So, I don't know if I have a I guess I'm wise enough now to not make a prediction that is that is illinformed.
48:26
I don't know if anybody knows where this stuff goes.
48:31
I think Alex, I've heard you talk about that like we just we just don't know.
48:35
In hindsight, we'll look back and we'll say, "Oh my gosh, how did we not figure this out?" But nobody really knows.
48:42
But in terms of uh new people coming up, I think what I you know, we're in a fortunate position that at the Dubdub stuff, people will see my flighty shirt and and younger developers will come up and say, "Oh my gosh."
48:54
And take selfies and stuff like that.
48:57
And it's it's just super surreal.
48:58
first of all and flattering and then they'll ask me similar type questions and I think the advantage or the thing that I would tell them is nobody knows but this is 100% a real wave and a real platform shift.
49:15
It's not the crypto thing that was kind of a head fake.
49:17
It's not whatever was before that that I can't remember that all the VCs told us was going to take over the world. Like this is a real one. Get on the cutting edge.
49:28
Understand what's going on. Play with tools.
49:30
Don't just sit there and read about it. Go do stuff.
49:32
You have to be creating in order to understand how this stuff actually impacts.
49:38
And there's not that many people that are willing to put in that work and do it.
49:43
There's a lot of people willing to sit on the couch and watch Tik Toks about it and and get informed on it and kind of think about it.
49:51
There's not that many people that are willing to get nerdy about it and get their hands dirty and try to kind of push us forward.
49:56
And you know, not everybody, we don't all have to be whatever Boris, we don't all have to be like the smartest PhDs in the world um at anthropic and claude, like there's plenty of or anthropic and open AI.
50:09
There's plenty of niche small applications and I do think that that is a thing that I don't know long term what the format of it is, but I do think craft niche subscriptions.
50:22
There's never going to be a scenario where these big models can do as much as flighty can do with flights.
50:31
And there's always going to be a world where there's people that care a lot about flights.
50:34
So if you understand what these tools can do and you understand the tool set and then you find your niche or your people that care more deeply about it than everyone else, you can put those two things together.
50:50
No matter if the format is apps or MCP or voice audio, whatever that is, I where I'm at with it.
50:59
>> That's almost what I'm more excited about is not necessarily 1 billion vibecoded apps that are all kind of messy, but a million a thousand true fans apps from people who are only able to make something beautiful that they're passionate about for the first time.
51:14
You know what I'm saying?
51:17
Um, and I mean it's not like you need to generate AI for every single use case on Earth when there really aren't that many use cases, you know, >> in the average person's life.
51:29
>> Ryan, we really appreciate your time.
51:31
Uh, great to recap Dubdub and hear about where Flighty's headed.
51:33
Uh, and thanks for thanks for coming on the show. It was great. >> Yeah, thanks Ryan. >> Good to see you guys. Thank you for having me.
51:41
>> And that's it for this week's interview.
51:42
Stay tuned after the break for Alex and my reactions. All right, Ellis.
51:49
Good to chat with Ryan about all things Apple as always.
51:52
I consider him uh one of the the forebears of iOS design developer culture and yeah, felt really great to have him this week of all weeks with WWDC.
52:05
Yeah, I mean, even going back to when I was a reporter, I mean, seeing him on Twitter in those early days, but we never really made the connection, but he always seemed like one of those guys who was just very smart and savvy and cared about the right things.
52:20
>> And uh yeah, we didn't really, you didn't get to ask your favorite question uh on the show, I guess, cuz it hasn't happened yet.
52:25
But um I will be working with Ryan and his team on some story stuff over the coming months.
52:30
And I'm just really looking forward to it even more now.
52:34
I mean, he really is a mench and seems to be thinking about things in all the right ways.
52:38
And, you know, I mean, there just aren't that many like business operators I feel like you run into in the startup world that don't need to make a billion dollars to seem like they're impacting the world in a good way and that also are like really holding that idea that design is how it works so close to their mind.
52:55
So yeah, nice to see how he's thinking about using AI not just to add a chatbot to Flighty, but to actually make sense of a billion lines of information and make some connections.
53:08
And >> uh as he said, it's right up AI's alley.
53:12
And I think that's really what needs to happen next for AI to appropriately come to consumers um in a good way.
53:20
>> And I think we landed on uh that you should not change the name. The name is good. We'll stick with flag. >> Yeah, great name. Great name.
53:27
But there's some good tagline opportunity, I think, for Flighty.
53:31
>> Well, it's interesting, too.
53:31
I mean, it all depends what the tagline needs to do.
53:34
Like, I think he has the luxury of having, I would assume, a, you know, somewhat wealthy, somewhat savvy, uh, travel pro audience like yourself that really cares about efficiency, the value of service, uh, when it's good, when it's bad.
53:50
And uh I wonder, you know, how much he's trying to grow his addressable market and to whom.
53:58
Um because I do think the pain points he brought up, especially around international transfers, are just about as painful of a consumer painoint as you could ever find. >> Yeah.
54:11
>> That's solvable by the world of software. >> Yeah.
54:13
It's one of those rare but incredibly high stress, high leverage moments where if you have an amazing product that can solve it, it's worth a lot.
54:23
Even though those things don't happen that often for people and it's cool that he's thinking more about that.
54:30
What did you think about uh the Apple stuff this week?
54:32
We haven't actually really gotten to catch up on it. I mean, I was there.
54:35
Ryan and I were talking about being there, but uh I mean, I agree with him like you can kind of see how Apple's taking it slow on AI. they are fixing things.
54:44
Seems very much like a snow leopard year for people who remember that.
54:48
Uh but yeah, I don't know what do you make of it.
54:53
>> So I think my instinct is very much in line with what he said and what our old friend MG Seagler wrote about as MG Seagler does about Apple waiting for the right time and then swooping in with the well-designed solution that is palatable to billions of people.
55:09
I would usually be of that schools of school of thought and I think it might actually play out.
55:15
However, when Apple introduced the iPhone, there weren't a billion people already using pocket PCs and palm trios, right?
55:23
It was still such a nent category.
55:25
So even if the business and tech people were like Apple's late for most people, they were still early.
55:31
Meanwhile, today, Chad GPT has a billion weekly active users, and they're building a whole lot of association and muscle memory in people's mind that that is where you go to for answers.
55:43
Meanwhile, Siri has never been the place for answers for 15 years because no one can find a way to really make it work reliably or get the answers that they want.
55:53
And so, you know, coming back to the storytelling angle, uh I would imagine that there is going to be a massive marketing campaign uh around this.
56:04
And I wonder if they will be willing to be a bit tongue and cheek about it about how it hasn't been perfect thus far because I do think there are a lot of examples throughout history, uh Domino's Pizza is a big one, where acknowledging that the product wasn't great actually is a huge step forward to rebuild that trust.
56:20
Um but yeah, it'll be interesting to see how they roll it out because to some sense what they announced this week is what they advertised two weeks or two years ago with Bella Ramsey that they got sued over.
56:33
Uh so yeah, it's to some extent they already made the ads.
56:36
But um >> yeah, you could look at it one way like oh they're finally shipping stuff that works even though it's not, you know, anywhere near what Claude can do or chat can do.
56:46
Or the other way is well they're finally shipping what they said they were going to do two years ago and that in two years think about what's happened with the rest of the AI industry.
56:53
You have people like Boris the head of cloud code which Ryan referenced talking about how you know not only does he not you know really write code anymore he's not even really prompting anymore.
57:04
He's writing loops these recursive loops that prompt Claude to code for him.
57:08
So that's on one extreme of what's happening.
57:12
And then Apple's like, "Yeah, we have like better models than Xcode.
57:17
We don't really have a POV on vibe coding."
57:19
And you know, Siri can work a little bit like chatt, but it has no memory.
57:24
And we have this weird thing called uh intense or you know, whatever where Ryan can't even ingest, you know, he can't even send flight info to us >> which just feels like antiquated.
57:36
But >> here's what they need to do. Mark my words.
57:40
uh setting aside AI and the existing expectations of AI around question and answer and writing help that the world is deeply familiar with.
57:50
What the world is not yet deeply familiar with but Apple has the capability to nail here is easy automations and they showed off some of those during the keynote like every time I leave work text my partner my ETA that leverages a handful of ondevice sensors and data in order to do that.
58:08
and data in order to do that. What they should do is they should have a campaign called there's a shortcut for that and not like you could write in your notes app with AI which is probably the same or even worse than what someone is
58:26
already doing by pasting their emails into into chat GPT or Claude but showing off all these kind of ingenious little shortcuts that really aren't deserving of being entire apps but can really simplify your life or at the very least catch your attention. And I think that's
58:38
And I think that's something that they need to do um because they do seem really well positioned to actually execute on that.
58:44
I mean, I'm not having the most success these days setting up MCP automations that are rock uh rock solid.
58:49
I don't know if you are uh but even with Poke, you know, it's like they go in and out uh all the time.
58:57
>> Yeah, I the Mercury one I use a lot in Claude.
59:00
Um, and it it has like an off problem where it'll it'll it'll need to be reoffed uh every now and then, but it works.
59:08
>> And >> what are you doing with that?
59:10
>> Uh, I mean I use it to help analyze all my >> You say, "Show me the money. >> Show me the money."
59:14
Literally, >> it tells you how much money you made.
59:17
>> Literally, I mean, it's built growth projections for me. It's super helpful.
59:20
And I just got access to the Substack MCP that is not public yet.
59:23
They're doing it in private beta.
59:25
And while we had this convo with Ryan >> early Christmas for Alex. Wow. >> Oh my god, dude.
59:31
I had uh I've had Fable, the new anthropic model, which was a source of scoop that that was coming um this week.
59:38
uh running a hour-long like 70 turn three MCP connector at least plus web search plus computer use prompt to create me a massive uh sources growth report strategy document using my Substack data and Mercury data and all of the above and competitor data and can't wait to dig into that after we get off here.
1:00:03
>> Well, that all sounds cool, but did you look at any of the insights so far?
1:00:06
>> Well, no, we've been in the podcast. I'll look at it after.
1:00:09
>> You You've been doing it in the background.
1:00:11
>> I started it right before we started the podcast and it just finished. >> Oh, wow.
1:00:17
>> I guess I'll let you go.
1:00:17
I guess I'll let you go then, Alex. >> Um, yeah. No, I'm excited.
1:00:21
Uh, anything else going on in your world? Everything good? >> Uh, yeah. What's going on?
1:00:26
Um, playing a fun new game in my free time called Mina the Hollower.
1:00:32
>> Oh, >> nice to get into a very cozy handcrafted little Switch game.
1:00:38
Um, I'm trying to I mean, it's an interesting thing with AI these days.
1:00:43
There's I don't know if you ever feel this just kind of the the decision or even the opportunity paralysis of like I can do anything now, you know, and you could theoretically spend all your time working on your business.
1:00:55
I I I have a sense I mean obviously you don't have kids yet, but I have a sense that you spend a lot more of your free time on the biz than me, whereas I'm just trying to find like a few minutes to relax.
1:01:04
and really does feel good to just kind of hone in on something that isn't procedurally generated or usergenerated that took someone years to make and just kind of enjoy having that in your hands, you know? Yeah.
1:01:18
>> Everything in moderation.
1:01:20
>> Did you see uh Ocarina of Times being remastered for the Switch? >> I did. I did. Very polarizing trailer.
1:01:24
I feel like uh a lot of people are saying that it just looks kind of AI in the in the in the way that they rolled it out. Um >> don't AI Zelda.
1:01:39
>> That's the new that's the new kind of derogatory term.
1:01:41
I guess >> that's it for this week's show.
1:01:43
Thanks to Ryan for coming on.
1:01:45
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1:02:20
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