All this talk about creating custom GPTs has gotten me brainstorming. Here’s an AI idea that I’d love to use:

Take all the unread items in my RSS feed and summarize the contents as if presented in a lively podcast. Include a ‘Follow-up’ section in which topics that have been recently covered in previous episodes are described even more briefly as simply updates rather than re-explaining the whole topic.

Take that text transcript and generate an audio version of it with voices, music, etc. Add that episode to my personal RSS feed for this ‘RSS Digest Podcast’ that I’m subscribed to in my podcast app. Tag the summarized RSS articles as ‘RSS-Digest’ and mark them as read.

Could also be great for catching up on social media feeds.

A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not.

1️⃣ Matt Birchler used an AI tool to dub one of his videos into French and back into English. The results are surprisingly solid. [🔗 @matt // isfeeling.social]

2️⃣ Perhaps my favorite edition of the Default Apps craze sweeping this corner of the blogosphere. [🔗 Keenan Schneider // gkeenan.co]

3️⃣ Lickable Slack. [🔗 @gavinmnelson // threads.net]

4️⃣ Aqueux has some of my all-time favorite desktop wallpapers, and Hector recently updated it with Sonoma versions. [🔗 hector.me] (Via Josh Ginter)

5️⃣ Getting after it after becoming a parent isn’t impossible. Just fucking hard. [🔗 brendan // semi-rad.com]

6️⃣ This aspect of Spatial Computing is going to be very cool indeed. [🔗 @firtoz // threads.net]

7️⃣ This is the first I’ve seen of this testimonial.to web service, but it looks slick for gathering up goodwill for a thing in both text and video form. Kudos to MacSparky on all the love for his projects! [🔗 testimonial.to]

Thanks for reading 7 Things. If you enjoyed these links or have something neat to share, please let me know. And a reminder that you can get more links to internet nuggets that I’m finding every day by following me @jarrod on the social web.

7 Things

Regarding many of us reconsidering Apple’s services amid their price increase, it struck me that TV+ is the one I’m least likely to drop. I’d drop Apple Music before it (could switch to Spotify). I’d drop iCloud+ before it (could switch to Google Drive or Dropbox). I’d drop Fitness+ before it (plenty of good fitness apps out there). I’d drop Arcade before it (I’m just not a frequent gamer, despite it having good titles and a compelling model). And I’d certainly drop News+ before it (with all the ads, it hardly feels like a premium experience anyway).

But TV+ is the only place I can watch my favorite shows. Trying, Ted Lasso, For All Mankind, Shrinking¹, Severance, The Afterparty, and our newest hook, Lessons in Chemistry, to name just a few of our most-loved programs of the past few years. It’s where both my wife and I now turn first for new things to watch. And that content is available nowhere else.

Not that I want to drop the rest of the services. I’m quite happy with the value I get out of Apple Music, Fitness+, and iCloud+ too. But if I were to drop Arcade and News+ from the Apple One bundle, I would end up paying $9/month more than if I just kept the full Premier plan.

“But what about iCloud+ storage?” you might be asking. “Why not just drop down to a lower storage tier? Do you really need 2 TB?” No, I don’t. But, wouldn’t you know it, there actually aren’t any iCloud storage tiers between 200 GB for $2.99/month and 2 TB for $9.99/month. Considering our iCloud Photo Library and Messages history cracks 200 GB on their own — not to mention iCloud Backups, iCloud Drive file storage, or any app data — they’ve got us stuck at 2 TB.

If Apple Music was the candy trail that lured us into the Apple One bundle, it is TV+ (along with iCloud+) that was the Trojan Horse that now guards the exit.² Well, that and the fact Eddy Cue has done his math well.

And, considering Apple can pull the strings to adjust the individual pricing of each service along with the overall bundle, I don’t foresee that reality changing. I fully expect Apple One to always be on the razor’s edge of feeling like it’s too costly, while the popular services will always add up to be more expensive on their own. So Apple will keep getting north of $500 per year out of us for the privilege of using their core services.

Hey, I’m so excited to be here on episode #528 of Clockwise with you all! Long-time listener, first-time caller.

Wait, did you just say “four people”, Dan? Cause there are definitely five of us altogether here. And “four tech topics”? Yeah, I think you’re experiencing an off-by-one error, buddy.

Oh, okay, I guess we’re just blowing past my comments and onto washing clocks with cats. Cool. Um…can you guys even hear me? Is this mic on?

⏱️⏱️⏱️

Mikah Sargent: Tell us about a recent software bug that has gotten on your nerves.

Not to pile onto Rosemary’s answer (and what Federico Viticci said the other day), but I’ve been struggling again with a bunch of Shortcuts bugs lately too. It’s been painfully laggy when building shortcuts both on my iPad and my M1 Mac mini. Getting shortcuts to show up consistently in the share sheet has been impossible — I just have to try again, sometimes again and again. And there are a number of actions that just don’t work when you’re running them. Plus all the never-ending sync and duplicate conflict issues. These are things that never used to be a problem, but have gotten worse and worse over the past few years…weirdly, it seems, right after Craig Federighi declared that Shortcuts was “the future of automation on the Mac.” If that’s true, the future is looking ever dimmer and I hope that report about Apple taking a pause in next year’s OS development to address bugs includes those in Shortcuts.

🕒🕒🕒

Rosemary Orchard: Is it good for big tech companies (Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc) to be involved in the creation of standards (Qi, USB, etc.) or is it better for them to be defined by external bodies, and who should those be if you think it’s better for them to be external?

I feel pretty strongly that the big tech companies should be involved with creating and updating standards, and for a couple of reasons. For one, they’ve attracted a lot of the most talented and brilliant engineers, and those are the people we want to help develop the technology that we will all end up using. Plus, they probably have better insight into how products are being used in the real world by real people. Through their customer service arms, they hear about the struggles that everyday users face, and those friction points should inform and shape standards. But, I think the standards bodies should be chaired or headed up by an impartial third party.

I’ll also take a moment to recognize that I’m heartened by the fact that Apple seems to be contributing more, or at least more visibly to important standards. We all know that they played key roles in developing USB-C and Thunderbolt, but now they’ve essentially given away the designs from MagSafe to Qi2, a bunch of the HomeKit framework to Matter, and now it sounds like their Home Key tech will form the foundation for that new Aliro smart lock standard. They put a lot of R&D and care into the UX for their own products, and by them being intricately involved in making standards, the rest of the industry is benefiting too.

🕒🕒🕒

Dan Moren: Should Apple be forced to make its messaging system (iMessage) work with others and embrace a standard that works with everybody, or is this something that is a bit of a “tempest in a teapot” or overreach from Google’s side (now that they’re asking the EU to strong-arm Apple into interoperating)?

You know, this will probably come across as me being an Apple apologist, but no, I don’t think they should be forced into this decision. Don’t get me wrong, I would love for Apple to support a more modern texting standard like RCS so that the world can start to transition away from SMS and MMS. I would enjoy the typing indicators, better group threads, reactions, and other benefits it would bring when texting Android users in my life, of which there are plenty. I can’t decide if Apple has concerns about RCS in general — maybe regarding encryption and how messages are stored? — but it’s hard to imagine that RCS would be worse than SMS in any way. Or maybe they’re dragging their feet because it probably won’t help iPhone sales.

But there are plenty of other alternative messaging services out there for people to stay in touch across platforms. Google itself runs (and has killed) more than a few. For the EU to force Apple into either adopting RCS or adapting iMessage to work on Android would feel like an overreach when it’s not a case where there are no other options for people to use.

🕒🕒🕒

Jason Howell: It used to be that video game movies and TV shows (like the Mario Bros movie and the rumored Legend of Zelda movie) were really risky and cringy, and there weren’t many examples of good products that had come of those, but have times changed?

In short, yes. People seem to crave nostalgia more and more these days. I’m all for it! I, myself, have been able to get better insight into pop culture because of adaptations like these. The Last of Us was never a game that I was going to play. But I got to enjoy the story of it because of the HBO series, for example.

I think it’s natural that when you love something, you want more of it. If that means big-budget shows and movies for niche intellectual property, I think these past few years have shown that people will vote for it with their dollars. Bring on the Spyro the Dragon live-action mini-series!

🕒🕒🕒

Bonus Question: What is the coolest natural feature you have ever personally seen?

I’ve been to a lot of cool places, but I can’t say that any particular one of them sticks out. If I had to choose, which I guess I do, I would say Mount Rainier in Washington State. It’s an imposing figure stationed in the background of every view from Seattle and Tacoma. And quite intimidating when you know you’re about to attempt to climb to its summit.

🕒🕒🕒

My question: Are you a read-later or watch-later saver, and, if so, how do you manage your queues?

I have a huge save-for-later problem. At this current moment in time, I have…oh, roughly 1900 articles saved across two apps that I’m definitely still going to read. And 693 YouTube videos that I’m for sure going to sit down and watch when I get a spare 209 hours.

My journey through read-later apps is a storied one, but right now I’m saving them into Pocket with a swipe left from Reeder, my RSS app, or with Pocket’s share extension. For saving YouTube videos, I use the excellent Play app by Marcos Tanaka, which too few people know about. I use its share action in the share sheet. There used to be a shortcut that I’d use for everything, and it would sort out which app to send the link to based on its URL, but Shortcuts’ bugginess (see above) led me back to the native extensions.

⏰⏰⏰

Well, I hope all that came through and you can fix my audio in post. You guys didn’t really leave me with much time to get in those answers — I had to talk so fast!

Oh, what’s that? This is an open invitation? Great! Maybe I’ll see you next week! 😉

Podcasts Crashing Clockwise

For the PenPals project this month, I’m corresponding with Robert Silvernail. Below is a glimpse at our final exchange, as summarized by ChatGPT:

Robert apologizes for forgetting to discuss two topics in his previous email and proceeds to update Jarrod on his office’s “No-takeout November” initiative. In an attempt to avoid the expenses and calories associated with daily takeout lunches, Robert suggests a monthly challenge where coworkers take turns bringing in homemade meals. He shares the success of the initiative, featuring dishes like Bean Soup, White Chicken Chili, Potato Soup, BBQ chicken, and Breaded Chicken Tenders. Robert humorously mentions a cheat day with Arby’s brand Curly Fries but emphasizes the use of low-calorie BBQ sauce. He details the upcoming meals, and in the next email, he promises to delve into “Squirrel Season” with a teasing cliffhanger. Jarrod responds positively, appreciating the camaraderie among coworkers and expressing intrigue about the squirrel story, urging Robert to spill the details.

If you’d like to be a penpal for this project, please reach out! I’d love to get you on the schedule.

PenPals

Humane, the secretive company that has slowly been pulling back the curtain on their ambitions, turned on the spotlight and stepped out onto the stage today. I was expecting some sort of keynote event, but Humane’s Ai Pin unveiling came in the form of a 10-minute video showing off its design, accessories, and capabilities. Here’s the whole thing if you haven’t watched it yet:

Introducing Humane Ai Pin from Humane, Inc. on Vimeo.

First things first

It struck me that they started with the colors. Not that it was a good or bad way to start, just different when comparing to Apple (which, c’mon, their team has so many ex-Apple employees that I’m certainly going to draw rely on that comparison) and how they typically introduce products. The variations and accessories always come last, but Humane showed the three colors off right away.

We’ve been chasing the idea of a personal digital assistant for decades now, but in earnest ever since the likes of Siri, Alexa, and the Google Assistant made their way into our pockets. The Ai Pin takes things to the next level being a cyborg eye meets ChatGPT meets personal knowledge management (PKM) system. And it looks genuinely helpful.

But.

But it’s yet another device that is trying to be the “do everything” gadget. And it’s at a severe disadvantage that it doesn’t tie into my phone, which is the device that knows the most about me and has for over a decade. The Ai Pin is a fresh start, for good and for bad. It sounds like there would be some legwork to be done ahead of time in the Humane Center dashboard to onboard your Pin with data that will make its “experiences” more relevant for you. Once you start using it, the Pin will, of course, learn more about you and get better over time. But only with the things that you use it for. It won’t know anything about the dozens of notes I jot down on my phone every day. It won’t have the context of the webpages I’m scrolling or the conversations I’m having online. It won’t have insight into the YouTube videos I’m watching and saving. Because all those things will continue to happen on my other devices.

You won’t be able to go all-in on a gadget like this right away, and that’s going to severely limit the usefulness of it. And if it’s not proving useful, will I feel compelled to keep wearing it all? Humane’s up against a real chicken and egg problem here.

Would I wear it?

Let’s talk about what it would be like to strap one of these gizmos on every day. Props to their hardware engineering team, it looks like a solid device with the fit and finish one would expect from a team full of people who had tenured time at Apple. The magnetic attachments, the control gestures, and even the charging case will all feel familiar to someone steeped in the Apple ecosystem.

But to answer the question, no, I wouldn’t be thrilled about wearing the Ai Pin. I can see where Humane is coming from with the design. They want it to be out of the way. It’s in the company’s name: Humane. For many of its interactions, your face and your hands — arguably the most human of our features — are unencumbered by the Pin. You don’t have a screen, neither physical nor digital, between you and another human. But it does draw attention. You’ve got a healthy-sized badge-looking thing hanging off the front of your shirt. With a battery, which is not historically lightweight. It makes noises. You touch and tap it from time to time. It has a light. A light that, critically, alerts others that they’re likely getting recorded on video or microphone. Oh, and it shoots lasers.

I can understand why, given their desire to get technology out of the way, Humane hasn’t turned to smart glasses as the obvious solution. I suspect they feel that literally obscuring your face with a gadget would be institutionally antithetical to what they’re trying to accomplish. A non-starter, even if they could pack all the necessary technology into a sleek pair of glasses frames.

But, if that is indeed their feeling toward smart glasses, I disagree. I think glasses are already so commonplace that they blend into our daily lives much better than an accessory you strap onto your clothing. I’m so impressed with how inconspicuous the Meta Ray Ban Glasses look while being an always-ready camera, a pair of personal headphones, and Siri-like assistance via voice commands that I’m considering giving substantial money to the Facebook company to try them. Not a possibility I would have entertained just a few months ago.

On the other hand, my impression of the Ai Pin is that I would feel very self-conscious wearing it. Maybe that feeling would quickly pass, just as it did with wearing my Apple Watch and AirPods. But I can’t shake the feeling that the Pin would feel more intrusive than glasses with the same capabilities. I’m inclined to believe that people around me would feel the same way. Its form factor and placement lack the benefit of familiarity that things like smart glasses, smart watches, smart headphones, and the like enjoy.

An AI OS

Oh, and this is all written assuming the best-case scenario that the Ai Pin does everything it is supposed to without getting tripped up into making factual errors that have plagued all AI systems so far. But it’s not a unicorn device in that regard. In fact, one of their demos in this not live, (presumably) laboriously rehearsed, expertly produced, meticulously edited, and hotly anticipated introduction got the answer to that eclipse question wrong.

That’s not a great start. Relying on something proudly powered by generative AI for nearly everything it does is going to require a huge amount of trust if it’s to replace something as reliable as my phone. And we all know that trust is devilishly difficult to build and — as I expect Humane is going to learn — exceptionally easy to break.

I’m intrigued

Let’s end on some positive notes. I award Humane full points on building that sweet Perpetual Power System with hot-swappable battery booster packs. That looks awesome and Apple should be taking notes for the Vision Pro. There’s a bunch of cool ideas going on with the Ai Pin. The Personic Speaker for a sphere of sound, the laser display that follows your palm, the Nearby feature, recapping your day. Each an impressive bit of technology, all of it packed together in a small, wearable device.

I could go on and on about this 10-minute video, but I’ll leave it saying that I continue to wish Humane the best of luck. Their goal is audacious, but the people crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.

(Regarding my pre-introduction reactions to the Pin: $24/month for a phone/data plan, photo storage, AI experiences, and more is still a heck of a price. But I’m less confident now that I would be satisfied paying it month after month, nearly $300 per year, just to continue to get the basic functionality out of my $700 gadget. And I may have squandered the better title on that blog post.)

Greatest Hits

David Pierce at The Verge got a day-early scoop on that Ai Pin from Humane:

The Pin itself is a square device that magnetically clips to your clothes or other surfaces. The clip is more than just a magnet, though; it’s also a battery pack, which means you can swap in new batteries throughout the day to keep the Pin running. We don’t know how long a single battery lasts, but the device ships with two “battery boosters.” It’s powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor and uses a camera, depth, and motion sensors to track and record its surroundings. It has a built-in speaker, which Humane calls a “personic speaker,” and can connect to Bluetooth headphones.

And what it does:

The Pin’s operating system is called Cosmos, and rather than operate as a collection of apps, Humane seems to be imagining a more seamless system that can call up various AIs and other tools as you need them. It sounds a bit like ChatGPT’s plugins system, through which you can attach new features or data to your chatbot experience — which tracks with reports that the Pin would be powered by GPT-4.

So what’s this newfangled thing going to cost?

The documents show that Humane wants the Pin to be considered a fully standalone device, rather than an accessory to your smartphone. $699 gets you the Pin, a charger, and those two battery boosters. But the real story is that it costs $24 per month for a Humane Subscription, which includes a phone number and cell data on Humane’s own branded wireless service that runs on T-Mobile’s network, cloud storage for photos and videos, and the ability to make unlimited queries of AI models, although we’re not sure which ones specifically.

I’m ready to be blown away at what this thing can do and have it take the world by storm. But as of right now, I’m having a hard time imagining wanting to wear this everywhere — along with carrying a phone, a watch, and AirPods with me everywhere. Unless it can replace anything of those things, it’s going to be a tough sell for me to add it into my daily carry.

I will say that $24/month is a good deal for a cellular plan, data, storage, and AI queries.

Linked

For the PenPals project this month, I’m corresponding with Kev Quirk. You can follow along with our conversation both here on my site, and his site at kevquirk.com.

Here’s a glimpse into our first exchange, as summarized by ChatGPT:

Kev and Jarrod embark on a collaborative penpal project, sparking a conversation around Jarrod’s newsletter hosting concerns. Kev shares insights into Buttondown and Micro.blog, highlighting the tension between control and convenience. The dialogue extends to diverse topics, encompassing their personal backgrounds, the challenges of farmhouse renovations, and a shared passion for blogging. Kev, in his late 30s and residing in North Wales, provides glimpses into his life managing a 200-year-old barn, a variety of animals, and a demanding cybersecurity career. The exchange reflects the excitement of newfound digital camaraderie, connecting through shared interests and genuine curiosity about each other’s experiences.

If you’d like to be a penpal for this project, please reach out! I’d love to get you on the schedule.

PenPals

For the PenPals project this month, I’m corresponding with Robert Silvernail. You can follow along with our conversation here.

Here’s a sneak peak at our second exchange, as summarized by ChatGPT:

Robert apologizes for the delay in responding, attributing it to a busy month filled with training, conferences, and a feud with local squirrels. He reflects on the nostalgic aspect of letter writing, recalling late-night discussions about tech, Scouts, and other topics. In response to Jarrod’s previous question about transitioning between organizations of different sizes, Robert shares his experiences, emphasizing the skills acquired during his time with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). He highlights the challenges and learnings, particularly in time and people management, which have proven valuable in his current role as a Technology Coordinator. Robert encourages Jarrod to pursue volunteer opportunities and shares details about his ongoing involvement with the Ionia Free Fair, including network expansion plans and the search for a new ticketing system. Despite the delayed response, Robert expresses interest in continuing the letter exchange. In Jarrod’s response, he forgives the timing delay and shares his own squirrel-related challenges. He agrees with Robert’s sentiments about the BSA experience and acknowledges the valuable skills gained. Jarrod expresses interest in joining a band again and encourages Robert to explore his storytelling skills, suggesting using his personalized domain as an outlet. He looks forward to continuing the letter exchange.

If you’d like to be a penpal for this project, please reach out! I’d love to get you on the schedule.

PenPals

A weekly list of interesting things I found on the internet, posted on Sundays. Sometimes themed, often not.

A quick heads up: I’m doing more link and quote posts over on my microblog day to day. Those posts have a lot of overlap with the type of stuff that I typically share here on 7 Things. But it’s fun to get them out individually as I see them, and I like sparking conversations about them with that network. And, frankly, it’s easier to share them there. If you want to see more like this, consider following me: @jarrod@micro.blog

1️⃣ Look at this fantastic Apple Store that never came to be. Now that’s a town square I’d hang out at. [🔗 Filip Chudzinski // storeteller.de] (Via Michael Steeber)

2️⃣ Hilarious, sad, and true. This SNL skit about the ridiculousness of American measurement systems, etc. is all of these things. And well-timed seeing as I had just listened to this segment of Upgrade. [🔗 Saturday Night Live // youtube.com]

3️⃣ Did you know Pixar had a special ‘Think Different’ poster made just for them? I bet you won’t guess which character it featured. [🔗 @dariusdesign // threads.net]

4️⃣ I always love these remastered and colorized views back into history. It makes it all seem more real (duh) and relatable. Check out that Warners theater! [🔗 NASS // youtube.com]

5️⃣ You can do some pretty crazy stuff with CSS, like these incredible(ly) fun screensavers. [🔗 Bryan Braun // bryanbraun.com]

6️⃣ What’s this? A promotion site for a physical book that includes games built around an intricate 3D model? Pretty neat! [🔗 shifthappens.site]

7️⃣ Damn, do I ever want to visit these 50 best bars in the world. The interior architecture of Paradiso, for example, is just exquisite! [🔗 worlds50bestbars.com]

Thanks for reading 7 Things. If you enjoyed these links or have something neat to share, please let me know.

7 Things