The Two Blokes Talking Tech podcast – Episode # 753 – Apple’s big plans, Open AI woes, Social Media Ombudsman and Trev’s Travel Tech

TBTT #753 – Apple’s big plans, Open AI woes, Social Media Ombudsman and Trev’s Travel Tech

Podcast: Two Blokes Talking Tech
Date: 8 October 2026
Hosts: Trevor Long and Stephen Fenech

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[00:00:00] Trevor Long: I’m back. He’s still here.

[00:00:01] Stephen Fenech: I haven’t gone anywhere.

[00:00:04] Trevor Long: I did. I went somewhere. But before we get to that, Stephen, there’s an elephant that needs to exist in this room.

[00:00:10] Stephen Fenech: What?

[00:00:10] Trevor Long: Okay. It’s this one. Welcome to our new partners, JBL.

[00:00:16] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:00:17] Trevor Long: I thought we’d address it in the pre-show because it’s been 15 years.

[00:00:21] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:00:21] Trevor Long: And we sincerely appreciate the support of Netgear over that time. However, change in teams, change in life, and change in everything. And we’ve welcomed JBL, long-time supporters of both Tech Guide and Safety.

[00:00:34] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, they are.

[00:00:34] Trevor Long: And they felt like, to me, like the perfect, perfect partners for Australia’s number one tech podcast.

[00:00:41] Stephen Fenech: That’s it.

[00:00:43] Trevor Long: So welcome and thank you to Marcus and Noleen and the team. Yes. Now, great partners.

[00:00:49] Stephen Fenech: And here, what’s their sales takeoff now?

[00:00:53] Trevor Long: Unbelievable. This is going to be huge.

[00:00:55] Stephen Fenech: Can you imagine?

[00:00:56] Trevor Long: I don’t think they’re ready for this Christmas.

[00:00:58] Stephen Fenech: Maybe they better prepare.

[00:01:00] Trevor Long: I don’t think they’ve got enough speakers.

[00:01:02] Stephen Fenech: I don’t think there’s enough earphones and headphones.

[00:01:03] Trevor Long: I don’t think there’s enough room in your homes, folks, for the multi-room that JBL can provide. We’re good at this. Don’t worry. It may take me a while to ease in. You know, I may, yeah, I may misspeak.

[00:01:15] Stephen Fenech: Just for those who’ve heard the Tech Guide podcast, there’s a similar— there was a similar change at that end as well.

[00:01:21] Trevor Long: Nice.

[00:01:21] Trevor Long: Well, I’ve got another change potential. But it’s up, it could be up to the viewers. It could be up to you. What? Okay. What are you talking about? This here, right? You’re looking at this.

[00:01:29] Stephen Fenech: Okay.

[00:01:29] Trevor Long: I was just playing around and I thought, could we go circles?

[00:01:32] Stephen Fenech: Circles? Why not?

[00:01:33] Trevor Long: I mean, what do you think? Yeah.

[00:01:35] Stephen Fenech: What do you think?

[00:01:35] Trevor Long: I’m open. Circles versus hexagons.

[00:01:38] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. Change is good as a whole. I think, I think, can you make it random or can it change during the show?

[00:01:44] Trevor Long: No, I don’t want to change it during the show.

[00:01:45] Stephen Fenech: Ah, so you’re either circles or hexagons.

[00:01:48] Trevor Long: Yeah, I think we need to decide what the brand is, you know? See, this is you.

[00:01:51] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. Wow. It’s like I’m in a rainbow. Oh, that’s not bad.

[00:01:55] Trevor Long: You like that?

[00:01:55] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. I like it.

[00:01:56] Trevor Long: I think it’s slightly better than these. I think if we were to decide to modernize.

[00:02:04] Stephen Fenech: I think let’s go. Yeah, let’s go, sir. Yeah. Change of sponsor, change of circles from hexagons.

[00:02:09] Trevor Long: Oh, there it is. It’s official.

[00:02:10] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:02:11] Trevor Long: The two blokes.

[00:02:11] Stephen Fenech: We’ve had our production meeting live on the show. As we usually do.

[00:02:15] Trevor Long: I literally didn’t show Stephen any of that beforehand.

[00:02:18] Stephen Fenech: That was, I saw it when you did, guys. That’s how much notice that Trev gives me.

[00:02:24] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:02:24] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:02:24] Trevor Long: That’s how we roll.

[00:02:25] Stephen Fenech: So here we go. That’s good. It looks quite nice.

[00:02:27] Trevor Long: I’ve been thinking. I really like thinking about this for 38 days.

[00:02:30] Stephen Fenech: Is that all you’ve been thinking about for 38 days, really? One of the things.

[00:02:34] Trevor Long: If I’m honest, I did it at 8:25 this morning.

[00:02:37] Stephen Fenech: There you go.

[00:02:38] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:02:38] Trevor Long: But I was ready.

[00:02:39] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:02:39] Trevor Long: And in the next 24 hours before this episode actually goes live, I’ve got to update the COVID image and all the different bits and pieces of the show as well.

[00:02:46] Stephen Fenech: Okay. Oh, you mean the thumbnail as well and the—

[00:02:48] Trevor Long: Yeah, like the standard cover image versus the ongoing weekly one. Okay. You know, you gotta do that as well.

[00:02:55] Stephen Fenech: Been there, done that.

[00:02:56] Trevor Long: It’s a lot of effort.

[00:02:57] Stephen Fenech: This week as well, yeah.

[00:02:58] Trevor Long: It’s a lot of effort.

[00:02:59] Stephen Fenech: And it’s like the first time in however many years I said, “What? You changing it?” Yeah. “Change?

[00:03:03] Trevor Long: What?” But I’m super excited to have the support of a company like JBL. It’s a good brand, great company.

[00:03:11] Stephen Fenech: And first company I recommend for headphones, earphones, value and quality.

[00:03:15] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah. JBL sound. That’s why they call it that.

[00:03:18] Stephen Fenech: Well, you know, I’ve got the JBL Synthesis system in my theater. Hawái. Yeah, they’ve got— that’s their hot— and you go to any public cinema, I think 60% of public cinemas have JBL speakers in them.

[00:03:29] Trevor Long: Really?

[00:03:29] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:03:30] Trevor Long: Well, they have been around for 80 years, so let’s see whether a lot of heritage there, they can get another 20 out of the two blokes. Although we’ve only committed to— what are we committed to? 4 more.

[00:03:40] Stephen Fenech: 4, is it 4 more years?

[00:03:41] Trevor Long: We’re gonna get to 20.

[00:03:43] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:03:43] Trevor Long: So does that include this one?

[00:03:45] Stephen Fenech: Well, we’re in our 6th year.

[00:03:46] Trevor Long: Oh no, 5 including this one.

[00:03:47] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, we’re in our 6th year.

[00:03:48] Trevor Long: So it’s actually 4 and a half more years I gotta put up with.

[00:03:50] Stephen Fenech: Wow.

[00:03:50] Trevor Long: I mean, I’ve gotta go through it.

[00:03:52] Stephen Fenech: Is that right? So after that, are we gonna pull the pin, are we? Or is that the option, that’s the option opens?

[00:03:57] Trevor Long: Well, I mean, you’ll obviously be quite aged.

[00:04:00] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, not too bad, mate. But it’s like, you know, when player signs a contract, they sign it with an option. For the next season option. So you’re going to— is this a contract with an option on the end of it?

[00:04:11] Trevor Long: I think it’ll have to have options because I think even if you were to retire from the game, you’ll still want to do this.

[00:04:19] Stephen Fenech: Of course. Yeah, of course.

[00:04:20] Trevor Long: I’m the same. Yeah, mate, I’ll do this. Well, this will become horrible content when we’re 80. We’ll be worse than Hughesy in an election. Do you know what I mean? Like, we’ll be just going cray cray.

[00:04:33] Stephen Fenech: Maybe, yeah. We can cut loose even further.

[00:04:39] Trevor Long: I mean, there’s no restrictions on what you, I mean, the only restrictions are on the platforms. We could do what Kyle Sanders does and just broadcast it direct on our own platform and have no restrictions from YouTube or anyone.

[00:04:50] Stephen Fenech: So it’s okay. But would we though?

[00:04:53] Trevor Long: No, we wouldn’t.

[00:04:54] Stephen Fenech: Probably not.

[00:04:56] Trevor Long: No.

[00:04:56] Stephen Fenech: We have to stick to what we know, mate.

[00:04:57] Trevor Long: Mate, stick to what we know, stick to what works and just keep banging on.

[00:05:02] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:05:02] Trevor Long: We’re in our 16th year, folks. We’re in our 16th year and I think this is our 4th sponsor.

[00:05:08] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. They pick and stick, our guys. Just like you, our listeners also pick and stick, and viewers on YouTube.

[00:05:14] Trevor Long: And to be clear, and you know, it’s inside baseball for people, but you and I both had this conversation. ‘Cause, and again, it’s inside baseball, but each sponsor is like mine and yours. We each have the deal. So this was my sponsor I had to replace.

[00:05:28] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:05:29] Trevor Long: And I went, I could send a prop to a million companies, but I don’t want a sponsor for 2 months. I don’t want a sponsor for 5 months. I only want a sponsor for 12 months. I want a sponsor that I know will just hang here until they’re not. Yeah.

[00:05:41] Stephen Fenech: Well, it shows, reflects the support both ways.

[00:05:44] Trevor Long: Yes. And I think so.

[00:05:45] Stephen Fenech: And I think you are like me. I tell companies the support you give me, I’m gonna give you right back as well. The support’s gonna be there.

[00:05:53] Trevor Long: And speaking of support, and this, we’ll go into this in great detail in the private feed, which we’ve already filmed. So jump on, if you’re on YouTube, click below in the description. Yes, watch it today. Day, or whatever verbose information I bothered to put into the description. And then you’ll see the private feed and a link, and you can watch the private feed in which I garnish Stephen with some goodies from Florida. That’s all I’ll say.

[00:06:15] Stephen Fenech: But yes, and we get a recap of your trip too, which is—

[00:06:18] Trevor Long: yeah, so it’s pretty much— yeah, Stephen doesn’t talk. It’s pretty much 29 minutes of me talking about my trip and 1 minute of him going, “And oh, ah,” and saying thank you for what you bought me.

[00:06:28] Stephen Fenech: And the bill, the bill you gave me.

[00:06:29] Trevor Long: Yeah, because you gave me a bill. I’ve given him a future bill.

[00:06:32] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:06:32] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:06:32] Stephen Fenech: Like your Lego play. Yeah.

[00:06:35] Trevor Long: Which I still enjoy every time. Every time you send me a text going, this is your fault. It’s my favorite thing.

[00:06:41] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:06:41] Trevor Long: All right, mate, let’s not muck around. Let’s do this.

[00:06:45] VOICE OVER: Welcome to Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:06:47] Trevor Long: Not a bad price.

[00:06:48] VOICE OVER: With Trevor Long from eftm.com.

[00:06:50] Stephen Fenech: Really handy device.

[00:06:52] VOICE OVER: And Stephen Fenech from techguide.com.au.

[00:06:56] Trevor Long: We were both, you were thinking of the sportsman. We were both during that, I’m thinking, are they mentioned in any? They’re not in Stings. You’re blushing. I was so nervous. I’m like, I don’t wanna have to edit here.

[00:07:06] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, they are in the Stings, but are they?

[00:07:08] Trevor Long: Are they not? I don’t think they are.

[00:07:09] Stephen Fenech: Oh man, okay.

[00:07:11] Trevor Long: No, I don’t think they are.

[00:07:12] Stephen Fenech: No, I think they’re in the EV podcast, not in the tech, the Two Blokes Once.

[00:07:17] Trevor Long: Wow, anyway. Yeah, dodged that bullet there, didn’t I, hey? 2 Blokes Talking Tech, episode 753. I missed a couple. Thank you to Val Quinn for filling in. Very easy to fill my shoes. They’re big. They’re just fillable. Val could just smooth in anyone’s shoes.

[00:07:34] Stephen Fenech: Val was good off the bench. She did a great job.

[00:07:37] Trevor Long: And the reason there was no video shows, because we don’t like Val’s guns being on YouTube. He just sits there. Have you noticed?

[00:07:43] Stephen Fenech: And his beautifully perfect teeth.

[00:07:45] Trevor Long: Have you noticed everything he does, he has his shirts up this high. I said it’s a guns show. It’s a gun show.

[00:07:50] Stephen Fenech: Gun show.

[00:07:50] Trevor Long: Did you rib me for that?

[00:07:51] Stephen Fenech: No.

[00:07:52] Trevor Long: Were there pre-shows? Not that I didn’t listen. A little bit, yeah, a little bit.

[00:07:56] Stephen Fenech: It was, you know, basically just chatting about what was keeping us busy. And but now it was similar to this, a slight pre-show and then, okay, now it’s time for this and then boom.

[00:08:06] Trevor Long: Fair enough. Yeah. Well, episode 753. Thanks to the great people at Arlo who will have you hooked up with home security if you need it. Solar, wired, wireless, whatever you need, they’ve got you covered. And JBL with some of the greatest audio equipment you can get, some of the best headphones, great noise cancelling. Awesome, great for travel, great multi-room systems, and I’ll tell you about them shortly. Stephen, great to be back.

[00:08:29] Stephen Fenech: He’s back, baby. He’s back, baby.

[00:08:31] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s been a long time.

[00:08:33] Stephen Fenech: It has. You’ve been out of the country for longer than, what is it, 40 days, 38 days?

[00:08:38] Trevor Long: 10% of the year. Wow. In one trip.

[00:08:42] Stephen Fenech: Wow.

[00:08:42] Trevor Long: No, is that right?

[00:08:43] Stephen Fenech: So the whole of September you were in the US.

[00:08:44] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:08:45] Stephen Fenech: So you left it late August or—

[00:08:48] Trevor Long: 30th of August, yeah.

[00:08:49] Stephen Fenech: Late-ish.

[00:08:49] Trevor Long: Oh, I mean, I think I got to there early September because we were in IFA for a couple of days of September.

[00:08:57] Stephen Fenech: Of course, of course.

[00:08:57] Trevor Long: But yeah, 38 days away and at least 30 of 31 of them in the USA.

[00:09:02] Stephen Fenech: But it’s good that you’re with your family though. Absolutely.

[00:09:05] Trevor Long: I don’t think they’re sick of me.

[00:09:08] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, did it get to that point where you’re thinking, “How’d you go with the missus and the kids and everyone?

[00:09:13] Trevor Long: Good, good.” I think we all realized that, no, we all got on. I mean, Amanda labels them crash-outs. We all have our crash-outs and I definitely had a couple. Crash-outs is when someone got a bit irritated by the world and started taking it out on my family.

[00:09:30] Stephen Fenech: Crash-outs, that’s what they call it.

[00:09:32] Trevor Long: Yeah, it happened. Instead of saying get the irits or get the shits, crash-outs is what we called it. So I’m guilty of that, but that’s a long time. And also you gotta remember, in the same room. Yeah, you’re in each other’s pockets the whole time. Until Florida, Amanda’s dad was in one room, me and Harry sharing a bed with Jackson in another bed in a twin room. And then Amanda and Vivi in their own beds in one room. And then when we merged into Florida, once we got rid of Jackson and Amanda’s dad, it was two beds.

[00:09:58] Stephen Fenech: Got rid of, they went home, we mean.

[00:10:01] Trevor Long: Yeah, Harry and I sharing a bed again and Amanda and Vivi sharing a bed. And you’re like this far apart. Like, how good’s that? Everyone knows who farts and snores and everything. It’s all happening, you know? There’s no mucking around.

[00:10:10] Stephen Fenech: Righto.

[00:10:11] Trevor Long: So, you know, you can be in your, It can be a lot.

[00:10:15] Stephen Fenech: It can be a lot. Well, last time I did that with my family, it was like talking. It was 2009.

[00:10:22] Trevor Long: Had we moved to decimal?

[00:10:26] Stephen Fenech: Yes, we had, you idiot. It was 2009. My kids—

[00:10:30] Trevor Long: I’m really proud of that one.

[00:10:32] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that was not bad, you idiot. It was 2009. It was before I was still working at the Telegraph. I was still working at News Limited. And yeah, that was a lot of preparation went into that before I could take the time off. Yeah. I had to do 3, 4 weeks of the connect lift out.

[00:10:48] Trevor Long: Greatest thing in the world is the out of office though.

[00:10:51] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:10:52] Trevor Long: Like I just said, I’ll be back mid-October.

[00:10:53] Stephen Fenech: Did you look at emails? Yes. You were looking at them?

[00:10:57] Trevor Long: So basically every day or two I would go, let’s just clear through this.

[00:11:01] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:11:01] Trevor Long: ‘Cause there’s things that happen that—

[00:11:03] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but you’ve got downtime on you. You might be sitting in front of the television somewhere in the hotel.

[00:11:06] Trevor Long: No, it’s nice. You just see it on your phone anyway. So I felt it was better to just quickly clear the inbox, you know, sort stuff that needed to be done, and a couple of things needed to be done and whatever.

[00:11:15] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, Instagram held an internal inquiry as to the lack of presence by Trevor. They thought, well, is something wrong with the algorithm here? They sent out a search party for him.

[00:11:25] Trevor Long: Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see when I start making content again how it goes, ’cause it might be like starting from scratch. Start from scratch. Anyway, we were talking about Apple last time we spoke because I was in the car and you were back in your studio, and we were talking about the Apple iPhone, iPhone 18, Pro, Pro Max, Duo, big event watch. And you’ve since obviously talked to Val about your reviews and all those things. But we’re now in this weird space, Stephen, where it’s early October and normally if you worked at Apple, you’d be like, oh God, the phones are out. Let’s take a break.

[00:11:55] Stephen Fenech: Put your feet up. Yeah.

[00:11:56] Trevor Long: But these people have now got to deal with the launch of the Duo in 2 weeks from now, a couple of Fridays from now. Pre-sales are the 16th. So is that next week? Yep. So you’ve got the Duo coming. And then there’s some pretty intense Mark Gurman rumors. Yes. Who, by the way, cutting grass, is now launched a podcast.

[00:12:14] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I see this.

[00:12:15] Trevor Long: Stick to your blog, bro.

[00:12:16] Stephen Fenech: Stay in your lane.

[00:12:17] Trevor Long: Stick to your daily subscription article stuff, mate. Fair dinkum. Otherwise, give us some leaks. So basically he’s strong, like he was wrong that they were launching a HomePod with a screen style home device in September. That didn’t happen.

[00:12:33] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:12:34] Trevor Long: But he’s almost certain it’s happening basically next week.

[00:12:36] Stephen Fenech: Well, but HomePods without a screen?

[00:12:38] Trevor Long: Like home device, color, color.

[00:12:42] Stephen Fenech: So you’re talking about a HomePod that’s got a, like a, like an Echo sort of type? Yeah.

[00:12:47] Trevor Long: So with the display potentially?

[00:12:48] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. You know what, you think about it, if Apple’s now sort of there, you know, Siri’s now got AI, they’re sort of moving into that area, there’s Apple Intelligence. It’s kind of one of the, it’s one of the clubs that’s sort of missing from their bag, isn’t it? They’ve got to really, because, you know, let’s face it, Alexa has just Taken off ahead of them with a screen smart speaker. They’ve got the potential to, with us, with a smarter Siri, to really gain some ground there.

[00:13:15] Trevor Long: Like today, Mark Gurman saying in an unusual partnership with LG, Apple is readying a doorbell, deadbolt lock, thermostat, indoor camera, outdoor camera, floodlight camera to rival Amazon and Google as part of its major smart home.

[00:13:26] Stephen Fenech: So LG has partnered with Apple. Yeah.

[00:13:29] Trevor Long: And, and he’s saying that that partnership is separate to Apple’s own privacy-centric home cameras and sensors that are coming next year. Wow. Um, like, it’s— yeah, so he’s saying the accessories they’re talking about are new HomePod Mini, new updated Apple TV with Siri AI, and the smart home hub.

[00:13:48] Stephen Fenech: Right, so the smart home hub will be the screen.

[00:13:50] Trevor Long: Echo screen.

[00:13:51] Stephen Fenech: I’ve seen, I’ve seen the new HomePods, the little HomePods with all different colors. Yeah, that’s just an update. Um, so the other—

[00:13:58] Trevor Long: an update with a smarter Siri though. Like, that’s, that’s critical.

[00:14:01] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that’s true, that’s true. So they’ll, they’ll be sort of like Gen 2 or 3 or something of those, won’t they? But that’s the Smart Hub. That’s smart. That is the right move because like they would, they would make an amazing display. It’ll look really nice. And so you can imagine having right there, say beside your bed or wherever you need all the stuff that it could display, kind of like having you not, you wouldn’t, won’t need to have your phone next to your bed. You can just have that there. But I’m just wondering that the rumor is the design is going to be, remember that old G4 Mac, you know, with the domed base and the swivel head? Yeah. The rumor is that it was going to look like that. But I think, I don’t think Apple’s going to go backwards in sort of design language like that.

[00:14:42] Trevor Long: I don’t know. I think it’d be amazing to take that inspiration though.

[00:14:46] Stephen Fenech: It’d be great.

[00:14:46] Trevor Long: It was very successful, very popular.

[00:14:48] Stephen Fenech: And by the way, at time it is also 15th anniversary of Steve Jobs passing, which was a couple of days ago. And so I think Tim Cook and John Turner shared toad posts about how, you know, he was such an inspiration and everything like that.

[00:15:03] Trevor Long: But isn’t this unusual though, to have so much stuff happening in October, let alone potentially later in October?

[00:15:09] Stephen Fenech: When was it? Was it last year? I reckon they had iPads and everything, remember? So I think they’re on a similar run here. And if you believe the rumors, John Ternus is apparently right into like— because he’s a former hardware engineer, right? Or still is, but he’s now CEO and he’s right into— the word is he wants to do more. He’s in the design labs a lot more often than Tim Cook was, and he’s a lot more of a hands-on CEO than Tim Cook was.

[00:15:37] Trevor Long: There was also talk, wasn’t there, that he was in favor of a faster product cycle? Yes. Yeah, like innovation and release.

[00:15:43] Stephen Fenech: So yeah, he said he wants to launch more products, or rumored to have said that. So yeah, this could be it. So what we’re talking— so HomePods, Smart Hub, the— what was the other one— Apple TV. And what I wrote, I wrote about the new MacBooks. And for months, years, there’s been rumors that the new MacBook with a touch OLED screen is going to make its debut and Someone shared, I think when they released macOS 27.3 beta or whatever, there was a facility for a press and hold an app icon like you can on your phone and your iPad. So that was kind of a clue that it might be. There’s also other touch gestures as well. So will they finally have a touchscreen MacBook?

[00:16:28] Trevor Long: I mean, you’re right, it’s been rumored for years.

[00:16:31] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:16:32] Trevor Long: And They’ve never really said why they haven’t.

[00:16:35] Stephen Fenech: Well, I’ll tell you why they haven’t, because they want to sell you an iPad. Yeah, they want to sell an iPad as well as a MacBook.

[00:16:41] Trevor Long: But what’s funny is I often think I don’t know that I’d use it a lot, but then when you come across someone— have you ever been at a, I don’t know, maybe in a meeting or a briefing or something with someone who day to day uses a touchscreen Microsoft Surface or something like that, right? And you notice them just swiping through and you’re like, oh, that is actually super convenient, you know, just to do this.

[00:16:59] Stephen Fenech: But like, I mean, like a diehard Mac user like you and me, it’s going to take a lot to get used to doing this on a, on a full screen.

[00:17:06] Trevor Long: I think what people miss, especially Apple people who haven’t used a touchscreen laptop, what you miss is it’s not about clicking OK. You know, you can still do that with Enter or your mouse. It’s about sometimes things like, oh, this picture, zoom, pinch, things like that can be like— Apple Maps is the worst on Mac. Yeah, because the gesture is opposite to what you think it is. Like, it moving moves the map instead of zooming in and out. Like, there’s some— I can’t remember what it is, but there’s stuff that’s just weird. Yeah, and a touch would change that. Touch would fix that.

[00:17:38] Stephen Fenech: The other difference too, and, and I mentioned that, you know, they want to sell you an iPad Pro as well as a MacBook Pro, right? But the experience on an iPad Pro and a MacBook are completely different. You’re using, for a start, iPadOS, not macOS. And so the experience is sort of not, not as similar as they should be. So is this the start of maybe macOS and iOS and iPadOS sort of beginning more, becoming more of the same system?

[00:18:07] Trevor Long: Yeah, I mean, that started, didn’t it, when they, you know, when they separated iOS and iPadOS and, you know, they started doing things differently. So yeah, it makes sense, but I don’t think it’ll ever be the same. Yeah, I don’t think it’ll ever be the same. I think the fear that they had that having a touchscreen computer would ruin their touchscreen tablet sales, I think they’ve realized that all these merged devices are not actually cannibalizing each other. Things are okay.

[00:18:33] Stephen Fenech: People who buy an iPhone with a touchscreen will also buy an iPad with a touchscreen. Yeah. So it’s not like it’s going to, you know, I don’t know, cutting each other’s grass too badly.

[00:18:40] Trevor Long: I had a caller this week on the AFTN podcast ask me about the Duo and whether or not it would help them replace a tablet. And I said, in very small circumstances, I think you could go without a tablet. Yeah, yeah, it’s an iPad Mini killer maybe, but I don’t think so in the most part. I think iPad Minis are mainly given by parents to kids and in like a cockpit of a plane where it’s just the best form factor for a device.

[00:19:01] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, true.

[00:19:02] Trevor Long: I don’t think it changes that market much at all.

[00:19:04] Stephen Fenech: So it’s interesting to see how the, the Fold, the Duo is going to be received by customers. I know there’s going to be— look, the foldable category is going to grow as a result of this. There’s no doubt about that. A lot of people coming to a fold, I think, well, obviously the people who buy the Duo, it’ll be for 99% of those customers to be their first foldable device.

[00:19:25] Trevor Long: 100%.

[00:19:25] Stephen Fenech: It’s not like Samsung customers who’ve had one for 8 years are going to go to Apple’s one. So that’s going to be interesting to see how that’s received. But it’s just that the cost of it, I think, is sort of— and I spoke on on my podcast with Val actually last week about Vodafone releasing a 48-month plan. So that’s convenient timing for, for the duo. And we are holding on to devices longer anyway.

[00:19:50] Trevor Long: So yeah, no, no question. Yeah, I, the one thing and you know, you’ve been hands-on, you would have talked about it with Val, I’m sure. But, and again, this same caller and it was a lovely lady and without being disrespectful, I would suggest she was 55, 65, like she wasn’t a 20-year-old.

[00:20:06] Stephen Fenech: So my age, she’s always saying.

[00:20:07] Trevor Long: Our age, right? Maybe older. Okay.

[00:20:09] Stephen Fenech: Yep.

[00:20:09] Trevor Long: But so she had an iPhone 11 Pro Max. Oh, and I said, let me be clear though, if you’re a Pro Max buyer, yeah, you’re not actually getting much of a bigger screen. When you sit, when you open the iPad iPhone Duo, yeah, and you put an iPhone Pro Max against it, yeah, when you’re scrolling TikTok or Instagram, the screen ain’t any bigger. It’s just wider by, by touch and that’s not showing. You’re going to get black bars on vertical videos. So there’s this weird thing that it’s not actually a bigger screen for everyone. It’s not a bigger screen for Pro Max users in most use cases.

[00:20:40] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it just— yeah, you’re right, it’s slightly wider. But I guess I like the fact that like the Fold 8, you get a different aspect ratio when you open. Like the traditional Fold was square no matter how you held it. So the Fold 8 and now the Duo has the— you can hold it widescreen or you can hold it portrait.

[00:20:56] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:20:57] Stephen Fenech: So it’s still giving you the same behaviors of how holding a regular phone, but just giving you slightly more screen space.

[00:21:06] Trevor Long: I mean, I just, yeah, I’m super— the other thing, observation about this is I’ve got no, no question there’s going to be more people lined up than usual because just because it’s new. But also I think preorders will be good, but I don’t think they’ll be I think the second week or the first full week and second will be bigger because I think most people who are likely to spend that much money, yeah, they’re going to want to go, want to see it first.

[00:21:29] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I agree. And you know what’s surprising too? And Apple has always been like this. They never had it in the store to look at. You know, the day that the Samsung Fold 8 and Fold 8 Ultra came out, you could go to a store and hold them and feel them during the pre-order period. They came out right during the pre-order period. You don’t reckon and that pumped up their ties for the pre-orders. People are thinking, this is amazing, I’m going to buy this.

[00:21:55] Trevor Long: In terms of pre-orders, it would have been smart to have it in stores for sure.

[00:21:58] Stephen Fenech: Or maybe the pre-orders don’t start till next week. So do you reckon maybe they’ll have them in store like, like the Vision Pro, you know, like hived off sort of, you know, you can buy appointment, you can have a play with it maybe. Because as you said, mate, and I’ve said it too, the second you get this in your hand, you’ll think, wow, this is a slick bit of gear.

[00:22:17] Trevor Long: Yeah, heavy.

[00:22:18] Stephen Fenech: Did you notice that? Heavier than the Pro Max it is. Yeah. So yeah, I think once you get in your hand, you go, whoa, this is, this is nice. So I don’t know whether they’re hurting themselves by not doing that or whether they’re just going to wait for it to go on sale and then for people to come into the store the day of launch and say, right, here we go. Because they could really boost their preorder sales if they did allow customers to at least see it in person and maybe have that appointment-only play with it. Yeah, they’ve never done it in the past though.

[00:22:51] Trevor Long: They’ve never done anything but the Vision Pro.

[00:22:52] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, the Vision Pro, I think, yeah, they had that early before release, didn’t they, for people to see at least before it was actually announced?

[00:22:59] Trevor Long: Before release?

[00:22:59] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I think it wasn’t either. I think it was just the day of release.

[00:23:02] Trevor Long: It’s just that you couldn’t, you couldn’t, you couldn’t just walk in and buy it though. You had to literally, like, ask. You had to get a briefing on the thing.

[00:23:07] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, exactly.

[00:23:08] Trevor Long: But you know, it’s a funny time for Apple. Like, we would normally be done with Apple by now. That’s, that’s my main takeout here is, and you’re right, I think it was 2 years ago, I don’t think it was last year, I think it was 2 years ago they had a bit of a run of things.

[00:23:20] Stephen Fenech: Yes.

[00:23:20] Trevor Long: Just email drops, not events, email release drops.

[00:23:24] Stephen Fenech: Well then I’ll ask you this then, with, well, we sort of, we know in the next couple of weeks we know there’s new products coming, which ones they are we don’t know, but next year iPhone 18, 18e, and Air 2, perhaps an Air 2. Is that going to be an event or is that a, is that a press release?

[00:23:42] Trevor Long: That has to be an event.

[00:23:42] Stephen Fenech: You think so? Yep.

[00:23:43] Trevor Long: Right. That’s an event. That’s a March event to take the focus away from Samsung.

[00:23:50] Stephen Fenech: Samsung. Yeah. Because Samsung will probably launch in February. Yeah. I’ve, I’m just thinking, when will that be? Because like last year, this year they launched, it was a bit later than normal, wasn’t it? So it was like mid to late February.

[00:24:06] Trevor Long: It came really close to what could have been MWC in some ways. Yeah, it came close to their original S timing.

[00:24:12] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I think—

[00:24:13] Trevor Long: I don’t think we ever really established why that was.

[00:24:15] Stephen Fenech: I did establish why that was. I understand it was because there was still some dithering about the S25 Edge, whether they were going to do another version for the S26. So that was still in the lineup only a month out. Then they said no, then they dropped it. And that’s why the delay happened.

[00:24:32] Trevor Long: Yeah, right.

[00:24:32] Stephen Fenech: That’s my understanding. Yeah. So, well, I hope it’s not February 25th because I’ve booked Empire of the Sun tickets for Afterpay Arena, so I’ll have to sell them. I’ll have to sell my ticket if Samson’s got an event on.

[00:24:47] Trevor Long: Will you offer 4 equal payments over 8 weeks for the buyer?

[00:24:51] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, if that’s what it takes. Yeah, for sure. But then when I booked it, I’m thinking it’s like I got the early notice and I’m thinking now I’m in the queue and I bought my ticket like the full package. And then as soon as I paid for, I’m thinking You know what? I think Samsung’s going to have their event around this time.

[00:25:07] Trevor Long: I think it’ll be earlier.

[00:25:08] Stephen Fenech: You think so?

[00:25:08] Trevor Long: I hope so. I think they’ll try and get back to the first week.

[00:25:10] Stephen Fenech: Because remember last— this year we went, remember the Monday after my son’s wedding? My son got married on the 20th of February. On the Monday or the Sunday, even the 22nd, we were on a plane to— where do we go for that?

[00:25:23] Trevor Long: We were to San Jose, wasn’t it?

[00:25:25] Stephen Fenech: San Jose. Yeah. So was it or not?

[00:25:28] Trevor Long: I’ve got no idea.

[00:25:29] Stephen Fenech: The S26 Ultra.

[00:25:30] Trevor Long: I’ve got no idea. No, it’s San Francisco. It was San Francisco. You’re right. You’re right.

[00:25:35] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. So yeah, we’ll see how that goes.

[00:25:38] Trevor Long: It’s a fascinating time. We will wait and see. But yeah, we’re— I mean, Mark Gurman. Yeah.

[00:25:43] Stephen Fenech: Where does he get all this stuff from? He must— I’ll tell you where he gets it. I reckon he’s got a sort of leg into the manufacturers and the component suppliers. And I reckon he’s got a contact in that area.

[00:25:56] Trevor Long: It’s not in Apple Park. No, it’s not.

[00:25:59] Stephen Fenech: It would be weird if Apple sort of said, listen, you can’t I can’t say, confirm this, but we’re gonna leak some information to you occasionally. Are you happy with that? Yeah. I wish I’d get that phone call. I’ll say, sure, I’ll take that.

[00:26:12] Trevor Long: It’s just so many people say that it’s planned leaks. So many people say that everything they do is planned leaks.

[00:26:18] Stephen Fenech: You think about it and it does play into their hands. It really does. You know what?

[00:26:23] Trevor Long: Well, we’re talking about it.

[00:26:24] Stephen Fenech: I think Apple is a smart company that, consult, why don’t we just float this rumor to see how it’s received? And they’ll go, and if the people sort of like, they’ve had rumors out there, ultra people laugh at it and think, okay, well, we know that’s not right.

[00:26:39] Trevor Long: Things like what we said about the ultra being, yeah, I think that’s a Samsung word. Let’s be real. I think it’s a, and they found a different word, although it’s a Microsoft word. I don’t know why duo, duo, but anyway. Um, yeah, but yeah, I think, I don’t think Apple’s doing it intentionally. I think he’s just come across, see, when you’re It’s fine for us. And we were talking about this as a family when we were in America. In fact, our driver from San Francisco to the airport was very talkative.

[00:27:04] Stephen Fenech: Trevor loves that, by the way.

[00:27:05] Trevor Long: Which my kids were laughing at ’cause he ignored the Uber preferences for quiet. They literally saw him swipe that away. And so he was lovely. He was from Azerbaijan. And he was asking questions like, “What’s different about Australia to America?” And Amanda was like, “I’m sitting here thinking it’s tipping. It’s this stupid tipping.” And shout out to the two blokes at the Wyndham Hotel in Disney Springs. Springs was a great place, but I didn’t have any money, so I couldn’t tip you. Oh, sorry, mate, I don’t have— I don’t carry cash. Yeah, and they’d removed the ATM from the reception, so I couldn’t get any. Anyway, um, he asked all these questions, and Amanda said— Amanda’s answer to what’s the difference between America and Australia was, it’s just bigger, and there’s so much more of everything, so many more people, so many more places, so that in a city, just pick a city size, there’s 5 5, you know, Chick-fil-A’s. There’s 5 Chipotle’s. Whereas in Australia, that same demographic area, there’d be one Guzmán y Gómez. You wouldn’t have 5 of them. It just, you couldn’t cope with it. And so when you’re, what I’m getting at is we could be as influential in Australia as Mark Gurman is in America in tech. But because America is so big and the readership is so big, his reach is phenomenal.

[00:28:14] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, for sure.

[00:28:15] Trevor Long: And so he would be writing stuff.

[00:28:16] Stephen Fenech: He does work for Bloomberg.

[00:28:17] Trevor Long: And he’s also made a name for himself over many, many years, by the way. And so those factories, those distributors, those whoever they are, it doesn’t take much to reach out.

[00:28:25] Stephen Fenech: They come to him probably. Oh yeah, he doesn’t reach out to them.

[00:28:28] Trevor Long: I would think that’s quite highly likely.

[00:28:30] Stephen Fenech: Did she demand to also say that you drive on the other side of the road?

[00:28:33] Trevor Long: We drive on the left, mate. We weren’t looking for those kinds of differences. Differences, no.

[00:28:40] Stephen Fenech: And people here talk with an accent. Is that what she said?

[00:28:43] Trevor Long: He actually said, you guys are the most easy to understand Australians. And we went, who the hell have you been in your car with? Mandy goes, Queenslanders.

[00:28:50] Stephen Fenech: Probably. Oh, shots fired there, boy. But, or maybe Irish people.

[00:28:56] Trevor Long: Irish. But he was specifically talking about Australia.

[00:28:58] Stephen Fenech: Okay. Because I know like Jo watches the odd show with a lot of Irish people in it and she has the subtitles on sometimes. Let me just to confirm what they’re saying.

[00:29:08] Trevor Long: We’ll get on with the show in a minute. But I had the worst situation while I’m away. I’m watching. We haven’t talked streaming. We’ll do that next week on the private. But I was churning through The Gentleman. The Guy Ritchie series. There’s a new version of that.

[00:29:19] Stephen Fenech: Yes, new season.

[00:29:20] Trevor Long: There’s also a new series of Mobland. I haven’t got—

[00:29:21] Stephen Fenech: anyway. Yeah, I’m into that.

[00:29:23] Trevor Long: So I’m watching and I get a few episodes in. Next flight I get a few episodes in. I go, okay, on the way home, 3 episodes. I’m going to do 3 episodes, then I’m going to sleep. I’ve got my plan.

[00:29:31] Stephen Fenech: Is this Mobland or what?

[00:29:33] Trevor Long: No, no, no, The Gentlemen.

[00:29:34] Stephen Fenech: The Gentlemen.

[00:29:34] Trevor Long: 3 episodes together.

[00:29:35] Stephen Fenech: Netflix?

[00:29:36] Trevor Long: Ready to go. It is on Netflix in America, but I thought it was on somewhere different here. Anyway, it’s weird because Mayor of Kingstown is in America. It’s just dropped on Netflix.

[00:29:45] Stephen Fenech: What?

[00:29:46] Trevor Long: And that’s a Paramount show.

[00:29:48] Stephen Fenech: Okay, I can tell what you’re going to say here. Anyway, by the time you loaded it up—

[00:29:51] Trevor Long: no, no, so I’ve done, I’ve done all these downloads, I’m good to go, and I sit down and I watch the first episode. Unbelievable. The third last episode, and I go, next, download error. I hadn’t checked that it is successfully downloaded, so I’m freaking—

[00:30:05] Stephen Fenech: so you watch the first one.

[00:30:07] Trevor Long: So I’ve got 3 episodes left because I’d already watched the first whatever they were, 6 or 7. 2 episodes left and they both got download errors.

[00:30:15] Stephen Fenech: So you couldn’t watch the next season?

[00:30:17] Trevor Long: I couldn’t watch the next, the 2 episodes to end the season.

[00:30:19] Stephen Fenech: Mate, that happened to me on the way to Meta, to the way to San Francisco with Stan. Stan, I don’t know what happened there. I downloaded The Westies.

[00:30:29] Trevor Long: Oh, it’s good.

[00:30:30] Stephen Fenech: I watched this. Yeah, yeah. And I smashed it. But on the plane on the way over, I’m trying to get the app, the app wouldn’t work. He’s, oh, no internet connection. It was just fro— Nothing would work.

[00:30:41] Trevor Long: And see, Amanda was peed all the time in America because Paramount Plus doesn’t work there. If you connect your tablet to Wi-Fi, it goes, you’re in America. It’s not allowed here.

[00:30:50] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, geez, really?

[00:30:51] Trevor Long: Like, how stupid is that?

[00:30:52] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I know, that’s a problem.

[00:30:53] Trevor Long: It’s so—

[00:30:54] Stephen Fenech: but now the Westie, I end up watching it on the way back.

[00:30:56] Trevor Long: Good though.

[00:30:57] Stephen Fenech: And watched the rest of it. Yeah, great. I’m waiting for season 2.

[00:31:00] Trevor Long: Oh, that’s gonna be a while, mate.

[00:31:01] Stephen Fenech: Definitely season 2, yeah. No, but I thought he’d left it open for season 2.

[00:31:04] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it did. Yeah.

[00:31:06] Stephen Fenech: And they never said the Westies once in the whole show.

[00:31:08] Trevor Long: Oh, that annoys me.

[00:31:09] Stephen Fenech: I know they’re West Side, West Side. Yeah, but they never said Westies at all. It was the Irishmen and the Italians. Yeah, good show though. Enjoyed it.

[00:31:17] Trevor Long: Oh, thanks for the recommendation, Trev. We appreciate it. Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:31:23] VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long and Stephen Fenech.

[00:31:29] Trevor Long: And we do it with the support of the great people at JBL, and they’ve just released the JBL Cove. This is a multi-room system, so whether you’re filling just a single room or your entire home. JBL Cove gives you the freedom to build the perfect whole home audio system. Uh, this is your system, your way. So you can pair multiple speakers throughout the home, listen on one speaker or every speaker, or play different things in different rooms. So it’s a really adjustable system for your home, which gives you more sound and more freedom. You can play music anywhere in your home with seamless Wi-Fi streaming. So there’s the COVID M1, which is a compact Wi-Fi home speaker. Rich JBL sound in a compact design, self-tuning audio that adapts to the space, and it’s ready for stereo surround and multi-room listening. There’s a whole range of possibilities and options you can get when you build out your Cove system, and you can check out that whole system, all the different options— the COVID P1, the X1. There’s a range of them that’ll suit every part of your home, and you can build— just build it out. You don’t have to buy all the speakers at once. You can just buy one speaker and enjoy it, and then expand into stereo, expand into a second room, expanding on a third room. If you’ve got everyone around, play music in every room.

[00:32:40] Stephen Fenech: And it’s modular too. If you said that you can, you can add your rear speakers to your soundbar and all that.

[00:32:44] Trevor Long: Spot on.

[00:32:44] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:32:45] Trevor Long: And you know, you could play one thing in your room and your kids can play something in another. It can be completely independent of itself as well using the, the One app, the JBL One app. Total sound control. They’ve got you covered. You can find out more, read all about it at jbl.com.au.

[00:32:59] VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:33:03] Trevor Long: Big story I did miss, and I, I knew that there wasn’t a lot going going on because I would have gotten phone calls and things because I, you know, I told the Today Show I was away and, you know, things like that. But I— random people working in the newsroom didn’t know I was away. So I did get some texts from some people, you know, at Sky News and at Nine, just, can you talk about this? And I’m like, I’m away. And I’d say, what is it? What do you want to talk about? I’m curious. I tickle my curiosity. And one was OpenAI, and it was put to me as an OpenAI hack of Medicare. And I thought, oh my God. Yeah. I said, Amanda, just say no. I thought, hold the phone, this could be coming out of retirement stuff here. I might need to step up. This could be so big, you know. Then I looked at it and I thought, you know what, I think it’s gonna be under control back home. And the assessment I made, I actually, I did write, I think 4 articles while I was away on FreeFTM. And some of them just because I had commitments, others because I thought that I needed to put my voice to it for the site. And this was one of them that I did and it was early, it was day 1 and I kind of made some assumptions of it. But I’ll put it to you this way, the way I, explained it was that I don’t describe it as a hack. I describe it as a vulnerability that was discovered by OpenAI. So I actually think that the OpenAI system was asked to find this data on health details and, you know, do some stats. And it tried and then it tried again and then it went, oh, I can’t get it here and I’ll keep trying it. It just tried really hard and it kept trying and it found what I describe it as an open door, not a locked door. It didn’t, it didn’t break the lock on a door. I say it walked through a door that it found that might have been hidden.

[00:34:33] Stephen Fenech: Hidden.

[00:34:34] Trevor Long: And, and the example of that I’d give, that if anyone has used HTML and built a website from scratch, not the modern style WordPress and all stuff like that, but you know, a website is just a computer, it’s just a directory of files. And back in the day you’d have an HTML directory and then you have a /images and /code or whatever, right? And one of the things that you can do in a Linux server, for example, is you can, you can set the images directory to be like read all or it might only be readable by certain applications on the server, and that application might be Apache that runs the web server. But if you make it read all, then perhaps if someone just goes images/, it’ll list all the images in that directory. And while not all those images might be displaying on the public website, you could see all the images, yeah, and click on them and download them. That’s not a hack, that’s just— that’s— you found some way a vulnerability of the security, like an open window. So my question is? Who’s asking the people that run the Medicare statistics website? Because it’s not the Medicare website. Who’s asking them how they left open a vulnerability in their system?

[00:35:38] Stephen Fenech: I think the way they described it at the time, and we were at Meta when this happened and I did some radio over it about it. And the way that OpenAI described it is, well, unauthorized access is how they— they didn’t call it a hack. No, they call it unauthorized access of the site. So basically, as you described, they went in a door that was hidden and reason. And they came out and look, they came out and apologized.

[00:36:02] Trevor Long: Val and I, they’ve been very strong in their apologies.

[00:36:04] Stephen Fenech: Of course, yeah, Val and I spoke about this last week, how they’re sorry. And we basically described the fact that OpenAI, this agent, was sent out to find this medical data and it was going to do it any way it could. There was nothing in its— there were no guardrails to say find this information but don’t, don’t go outside the lines. And it never had that guardrail. So it just went and found it.

[00:36:29] Trevor Long: It found it. It was asked to find it and it found it.

[00:36:30] Stephen Fenech: It achieved its objective. So it’s the, the person who set up that, that, that request didn’t have the guardrails in place. And they described it though as an unauthorized access because no, there was no hacking involved. They didn’t have to, you know, guess passwords or anything like that. It was just a passage that they found.

[00:36:50] Trevor Long: So shout out to Cam Wilson. Who works at the ABC now as their AI reporter. I used to be a crikey and did a lot of, a lot of work on the social media legislation last year and the year before. He posted on Threads, which I did see, uh, an email from OpenAI to Medicare on the 10th of September. Um, so, and this, so this is, I’ll read this verbatim. It says, hello, we are notifying you of a security vulnerability identified during our review of OpenAI model activity involving the statistics website. An OpenAI model identified a way to make the server carry out instructions sent through the public reporting interface without a private account or password. It was able to access and read portions of the internal program file settings and obtained a list of files and create and read back a small test file on the server. That, that’s, that’s the server not being locked down properly. Yeah, that’s OpenAI saying, hey guys, we’re letting you know we found a vulnerability. That’s like a white hat hacker. Yeah, exactly. You know what I mean? Everyone knows what a white hat hacker is. It’s someone who finds vulnerabilities.

[00:37:50] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:37:51] Trevor Long: For the benefit of the company they find. So Medicare should be saying, the government, thank you. Yeah, but Elmo’s out saying OpenAI hacked us. Yeah, but what he should be saying is OpenAI exposed too far.

[00:38:02] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it exposed them.

[00:38:03] Trevor Long: We’re all, we all agree they went, it went too far.

[00:38:05] Stephen Fenech: I get that.

[00:38:06] Trevor Long: And the guardrails should be in place. Yeah, but what they exposed was a vulnerability of the, of the server. And I think that that’s really the question here is for But small businesses and big businesses and governments and banks, you know, you’ve got to lock down everything to make sure that no guardrails are not going to be placed on every query.

[00:38:29] Stephen Fenech: They’re not.

[00:38:29] Trevor Long: They’re not going to be placed on every query.

[00:38:31] Stephen Fenech: That then opens up the other huge debate that’s still out there about, well, what should the guardrails be? What rules are we going to all play by? You know what? You watch the grand final the other night. And there’s a referee and there’s rules. You’d use an AI, there’s no rules at the moment. So where does, I know that OpenAI that happened that into the Medicare site, the unauthorized access was back in June. Okay. So they’re July, August, they had 3 months. It happened 3 months earlier.

[00:39:04] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:39:05] Stephen Fenech: There is still, I think while you were away too, Microsoft really revealed their human American humanistic AI code of conduct, which kind of said, you know, AI is not a person, it’s a tool, and we’re in charge and not it, and blah blah blah. So where are the other companies’ set of rules and code of conduct?

[00:39:24] Trevor Long: Who on earth is expecting random tech companies from Uzbekistan who are building AI, and China, to abide by these rules that Donald Trump, you know, comes up with around a table in the White House?

[00:39:36] Stephen Fenech: That’s the other issue.

[00:39:38] Trevor Long: That’s the challenge.

[00:39:38] Stephen Fenech: One of the several other issues is is the fact that, and I’ve said this on the show and even on radio stations as well, AI at the moment is an arms race. It’s an arms race to get out built better, faster, more popular, and they’re building a car with no brakes on it. They just want to go as fast as they can, and that’s the issue. And Trump, President Trump is there saying, go, go, come on, we want to beat China. China’s there against us. And he’s not sort of saying calm the farm, he’s saying go hard. So the situation is that they’re racing hard and we’re seeing all these little things pop up, you know, Anthropic, the bloke saying it got out of its box and we could all be dead in 10 years. And that’s not very reassuring to your average user. So when there is a rulebook that everyone has to agree on, like that we need to have some sort of common instructions and guardrails and etiquette on AI moving forward. Do you agree with that?

[00:40:38] Trevor Long: Yeah, I do, but I just don’t know how you do it.

[00:40:40] Stephen Fenech: Well, I think government to government, like every country’s got their own rules, their own laws, and often the laws are— we’ve got a lot of them in common. So common sense would come up with the same guardrails in all countries.

[00:40:53] Trevor Long: The problem is you would think these companies are so competitive. And take for example, again, just in the 4 weeks I was away, Meta announced Muse, OpenAI announced Dots or Bots or something. Like basically they’re all now announcing agentic, high-end agentic stuff, which is the idea that you give it all your accounts and it can actually do things for you. Now, I’m fascinated by that idea, but I’m scared to hell what it would do if I gave it that access. So I’m not ready to give my— I’ve linked my email to some of my AIs, but not with the ability to send emails, only with the ability to read my drafts and look at things and compose drafts. I think we are in a world of pain if you think that’s gonna send things for you on your behalf without you seeing them first.

[00:41:41] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, you have to have the final say on it.

[00:41:44] Trevor Long: But these companies—

[00:41:44] Stephen Fenech: But even like spending your money and all that too. You can have agents that can go buy your tickets and flight, airline tickets, concert tickets, whatever, buy you stuff that you’ve been waiting for to come down to a certain price. So yeah, how comfortable you are with that. I know I’d like to approve any kind of purchase. Or any kind of email reply. That’s just me, but I don’t know how open the generation—

[00:42:07] Trevor Long: I don’t think the next generation coming through give a rats. Yeah, if there’s too many emails, they’re fine. Yeah, just if an email comes through from my boss and it’s about a time, just put in my diary and let him know it’s done. But if you don’t know that meeting’s coming up, you’re not ready for it.

[00:42:19] Stephen Fenech: You still use— what’s your main one, Claude?

[00:42:21] Trevor Long: Claude is my main AI that I use, and Fixer is the one I use on my email that auto-drafts everything.

[00:42:26] Stephen Fenech: It’s called Ray Donovan.

[00:42:26] Trevor Long: No, I did see him in an ad while I was over there.

[00:42:29] Stephen Fenech: I’d name it Ray Donovan.

[00:42:30] Trevor Long: Yeah, good idea.

[00:42:31] Stephen Fenech: He’s a fixer.

[00:42:32] Trevor Long: But you know, like, while I wrote— I did write an article while I was away. I used Claude to build an app.

[00:42:36] Stephen Fenech: Wow.

[00:42:37] Trevor Long: I built an app on— it’s in the App Store. Yeah, like, what to do what? Uh, time zones. So Stig and I used to use an app called Zones, and it’s disappeared from the App Store. And I said, oh, you can still download it, you can download all old apps. And I couldn’t get it, it was very weird. And rather than searching for a new app, because yes, I know this app exists, there’s millions of them out there, get there. But rather than doing that, I just created an app. And so this widget on my phone here, all those time zones, that widget and this app created— I just asked Claude to create it for me.

[00:43:03] Stephen Fenech: Wow.

[00:43:03] Trevor Long: And I can just add a city, I can manipulate it, I can set that as my home city, I can do all the normal things you would— like, unbelievable. Done it all in Claude. And once it’s done, I was working on this, is working. Then I went, hey, can you do this for Android as well? Did it on Android, installed it on a Samsung, no dramas at all. Submitted to the App Store, took a bit of approving, but it’s approved, it’s there now. You can search for Stig Time It’s called StickTime. StickTime. StickTime on iOS and Google Play. Now, mate, 6 months ago, I wouldn’t have thought that I could have an idea and develop it into an app and release it in an app store, but you can now.

[00:43:38] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, wow.

[00:43:38] Trevor Long: Like, isn’t that wild?

[00:43:39] Stephen Fenech: Crazy.

[00:43:40] Trevor Long: Isn’t that wild?

[00:43:41] Stephen Fenech: It is, yeah.

[00:43:42] Trevor Long: So, you know, we’ve talked so much about the different things you can do with AI, but I just feel like they’re all moving towards this bot agentic space. Yeah. And that’s actually the worst potential space.

[00:43:51] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, where they’re doing stuff on our behalf and sometimes without our knowledge.

[00:43:56] Trevor Long: Yeah, like, hey, get some medical statistics from Australia.

[00:44:00] Stephen Fenech: And it’s gonna create an international incident.

[00:44:02] Trevor Long: I’m not gonna report to anyone that it found stuff that it shouldn’t have ’cause I’m probably not gonna know it shouldn’t have. Yeah. That’s mad stuff.

[00:44:09] Stephen Fenech: But it sort of goes to like, who’s responsible for that? If they asked the AI to do what it did and it broke the law kind of thing, right? That’s OpenAI’s fault, isn’t it? 100%. It’s like the problem we’re gonna have with self-driving cars. So who’s at fault if there’s an accident?

[00:44:26] Trevor Long: Yeah, well, but those things get defined. Why is AI different to self-driving cars? So if in America, if a Waymo smashes into a car, Waymo’s responsible. It’s the company that built and authorized the car. It’s the company that was certified to have the car on the road. Is that same thing happening? Is that same level of testing happening here? Because remember, no law was broken here. If the law was broken—

[00:44:50] Stephen Fenech: yeah, yeah, right.

[00:44:51] Trevor Long: And I know you’re all sitting there thinking OpenAI was before the Senate and they’re still apologizing. I get it. But they’re also— they’ve got to do that to the government. They’ve got to do that because they need— they need the government contracts as much as they need you and I paying $20 a month. Yeah, right, exactly. It’s a very important thing for them. Yes. But why— I think the simple resolution there is why is AI not being taken with the same caution and legislation and regulation as self-driving cars.

[00:45:15] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:45:16] Trevor Long: In New South Wales, there’s no Waymos on the road because the government needs to approve it.

[00:45:19] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:45:20] Trevor Long: Because it’s their roads.

[00:45:21] Stephen Fenech: But that same approach, like you said, has to be taken for AI. We’ve been calling for it for ages, like the guardrails, the rules. Like we, I think it’ll give, if you know your lane, if you know that, okay, it can’t do this, it can do this, then I think that it would, that speed up the development of AI. As a tool that everyone can use and be more comfortable with.

[00:45:42] Trevor Long: Mate, if you think that all these companies are gonna slow down their development because of some simple little agreement, no.

[00:45:46] Stephen Fenech: That’s the problem.

[00:45:47] Trevor Long: Mate, there’s billions of dollars at stake here.

[00:45:49] Stephen Fenech: I know. They’re trying to race, it’s a race to the top.

[00:45:52] Trevor Long: I think they’ve all realized that if they don’t go hard on this, they could end up with, Meta is the biggest company out there in the social media world because no one else really challenged them. Yeah, no one else really challenged them and no one wants Meta to dominate this space or OpenAI. No one wants one company to dominate.

[00:46:11] Stephen Fenech: Muse was announced when Val and I were at Meta and we saw Zuckerberg in his keynote announce it and also announced a little like a little Tamagotchi charm thing to be able to control it without a phone. And yeah, yeah, but it’s not released in Australia though. During our sessions they said, oh yeah, scan the QR code and download it. And we went, okay. And it said, oh, not available in your country. Said, okay, I’ll have to wait a bit longer. Yeah, but yeah, they were talking it up. It was very impressive, the demos they gave and what it could do and all that. It’s, yeah, as you’d expect a big company like Meta to get.

[00:46:44] Trevor Long: You’re not ready to hand over your accounts?

[00:46:46] Stephen Fenech: No, no, not yet. But I can, it can do things like research stuff and find out things for you and, you know, present reports and put things together like other AI agents. But I think Meta with, you know, I think it’s a lot closer to people in terms of their data and what they know about them. That could be for a change beneficial to the user, having them knowing that data rather than them just sort of, we’re just a data farm for them to make money on. They know our data as well to help us in that regard when it comes to Muse and AI. Yeah.

[00:47:21] Trevor Long: All right, well there we go. That’s my thoughts and update in addition to what you’ve heard from Steve. Stephen and Val last week here on Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:47:28] VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long and Stephen Fenech.

[00:47:36] Stephen Fenech: Well, the, you have done an interview on your, on the, with the telecommunications industry.

[00:47:42] Trevor Long: Yes. Cynthia Gaber is on the EFTN podcast this week, which you can hear in this feed if you want.

[00:47:47] Stephen Fenech: But the, the TIO has only really obviously telecommunications, right? It’s in the name. That’s their main concern. So if you’ve got a drama, you can go to the ombudsman and then they take it to the companies and that is your sort of your appeal process.

[00:48:04] Trevor Long: We talk to people on the radio about this. You know, you’ve got a problem with Telstra, well make sure you’ve called them and worked through it. But if you can’t get a resolution, just go to the TIO.

[00:48:11] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, exactly.

[00:48:12] Trevor Long: That’s the best way to get an answer and a response.

[00:48:14] Stephen Fenech: And the thing with that is that if any inquiries are made, if you send something, talk to the TIO and they have to investigate the company, say they’ve got to investigate Telstra, Telstra gets the bill. Is that right?

[00:48:26] Trevor Long: That’s how it works. That’s 100% right.

[00:48:27] Stephen Fenech: So they get the bill. So it’s in their best interest for you not to go to the TIO.

[00:48:31] Trevor Long: And they’re obligated to pay that bill under regulations from the government in the code, right?

[00:48:35] Stephen Fenech: But in your interview, and I’ve been saying this for a long time, we should— you were talking about social media. We were just talking about Meta earlier and how there should be a social media ombudsman.

[00:48:44] Trevor Long: Yeah. So the TIO has been part of a conversation with the government around the Digital Duty of Care Act, which is essentially an e-safety thing that talks about how companies need to, you know, treat people with respect and do things right. And the TIO is basically— their submission is, hey guys, this is all well and good, but don’t you think you need an ombudsman for this? Now, of course, they’re trying to bolster their business and build a bigger business out of it, but— and it’s not a, you know, it’s not a profit business. This is, you know, essentially an— I don’t know if it’s a not-for-profit, but anyway, it’s a government-style arm thing.

[00:49:13] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, but it’s for customer service.

[00:49:15] Trevor Long: It’s a customer— it’s an Australia— it’s a thing for Aussies. And I said to her, I told I’ve told the stories that you and I have had over the years about, you know, my Instagram account’s been turned off because I violated the terms and conditions. I’ve got nowhere to call. I can’t send an email. I’ve talked to this robot and it just gave me the same answer 6 times over. After I’ve done everything I can with Meta, I should be able to go, you know what, stuff you, I’m going to the— and I, I suggested to the Ombudsman that they rename the Communications Ombudsman. Yeah, I think she might have suggested it first and I just agreed. But anyway, I suggested that was a good name because it’s, it’s how we communicate, right? Yeah, yeah. The Communications Ombudsman should be able to make your complaint about your Instagram account for your small business having been shut down.

[00:49:56] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, or Facebook or whatever.

[00:49:57] Trevor Long: And the fact is, as I said to her, you know what, when we get involved, when you and I ring our contact at Telstra and say, listen, Joe Bloggs here, can you just sort this out?

[00:50:05] Stephen Fenech: Come on.

[00:50:06] Trevor Long: And they pretty much do because you— it’s getting escalated to another level and it’s never a problem.

[00:50:11] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:50:11] Trevor Long: So if the TIO or the communications ombudsman, whatever they’d be called, have a great line of contact with people at Meta and Facebook and Instagram and Threads or whoever, TikTok, they have these lines. As soon as the message comes through, they’re going to ‘Okay, let me have a look. Oh, you’re right, it was a bloody false positive again.’ Yeah, it was the AI. And they get their account back. Probably take days, not weeks.

[00:50:31] Stephen Fenech: That’s a brilliant idea that I’ve called for for ages. Now, what’s to stop a company, what’s to stop Meta from setting that up for themselves?

[00:50:43] Trevor Long: Well, nothing.

[00:50:44] Stephen Fenech: No care, no responsibility.

[00:50:45] Trevor Long: They don’t have any customer service now, why would they?

[00:50:46] Stephen Fenech: But that’s the thing. Put it this way, if the ombudsman gets involved and says, right, these are the new laws, you have to have a point person to sort out these dramas. So that means Meta has to create a whole new department of people for Australian customers to deal with their issues. Which is whenever you and I, we’ve had hundreds of these calls and emails, oh, my small business, they’ve locked me down. They thought I was sharing weapon imagery when I was just looking at showing them my tools for my trade or whatever. And you hear all the different excuses. They appeal it, nothing happens. And in many cases we’ve leaned on our contacts at Meta and wherever else and their accounts are reactivated. So Meta obviously don’t, that isn’t enough motivation for Meta to say, well, you know what? We need a department for consumer service. Consumer, they’re gonna have to be—

[00:51:39] Trevor Long: They don’t have a department for customer service.

[00:51:41] Stephen Fenech: It’s gonna be gun at your head. Okay, the ombudsman’s getting involved and you’re going to do this whether you like it or not. Yeah, that’s what we’re—

[00:51:48] Trevor Long: I just think it’s a no-brainer for government. It’s a people-pleasing policy. You know what, I respect all the hard work they’re doing in trying to keep kids safe online and all that kind of stuff, but I feel like they might be over-regulating the world a little bit, but we’ll get to that another time. But if I’m Albo looking for a, you know, bump in the polls, I just say, you know what, we are empowering the eSafety Commissioner and the Australian Communications Media Authority to create an enforceable code of conduct for online platforms. Name them, just like they have with the social media bill. These— this is the platforms. If these platforms are going to operate businesses, take sales, and make profits from Australians, right, then they must abide by these regulations, which require them to have a form of contact for the communications ombudsman to deal with them. So there’s a —two-way street going on there, and they must pay for that service because the number one thing that it did in the telco industry was improve customer service. Yes. Now, it’s not perfect, less complaints, it’s not great, but if the, the threat for Telstra, Optus, and Vodafone is if we handle our customers badly, they’ll go to the TIO and that will cost us physical money. Yeah, but hey, here’s an idea: handle them well. Yes, and treat them, treat them properly. Less, they won’t stop it, but less will go to the TIO and our bill will be less. And they have, they’ve cut complaints by many fold. Yes. So why shouldn’t we hope that the exact same thing happens with Meta and TikTok and whoever the hell else?

[00:53:17] Stephen Fenech: Like, all the press releases I’ve really received from the TIO in the last 2 or 3 years, 90% of them have been how there’s less complaints and how everyone’s the, the less least complaints we’ve had for 6 years or whatever.

[00:53:30] Trevor Long: And if— and normally if the only time it’s opposite is when there’s a data breach or something. Exactly right. That’s right.

[00:53:36] Stephen Fenech: But I think, yeah, if they can be the overwatch there for social media as well.

[00:53:41] Trevor Long: I just got a notification which says Telco complaints at the lowest level in decades. I literally just got that. Wow. See there? I don’t know if that’s embargoed, but anyway.

[00:53:50] Stephen Fenech: Okay, well, by hopefully by 5 o’clock Thursday afternoon, we’re good.

[00:53:53] Trevor Long: Isn’t that funny that we— I literally just got that. I read their mind. The annual complaints data from the TIO reveals complaints are at their lowest level in two decades. Wow. I just got that email while we’re talking.

[00:54:03] Stephen Fenech: While we’re talking about it. How’s that?

[00:54:05] Trevor Long: And again, why wouldn’t Meta want that? Why wouldn’t they want— well, I’ll tell you why.

[00:54:11] Stephen Fenech: Less drama. Mate, it’s like, you know, it’s water off a duck’s back. They don’t care. Yeah. Meta is just this this massive business that’s got 2 billion users and the 0.0001% of people whose accounts are getting knocked off, no skin off their nose.

[00:54:30] Trevor Long: And that’s the thing. It is actually such a small percentage. Yeah, but it’s so troubling for the people who are involved.

[00:54:36] Stephen Fenech: And often these people are too— they’ve paid advertising dollars, they’ve spent money with the company and they’re still doing that. I remember your famous You know, during the— remember they kicked all the news sites? They kicked all the news sites off. And I, like you, had spent thousands of dollars on Facebook, but we still got the punt. Yeah. So, you know, it needs to be a fairer system in place for those people who are in the unfortunate position of having their accounts shut down. And a lot of these people that come to us desperate because that’s their livelihood. Part of their livelihood is their social media. They run their businesses that way. And for them to just be tossed aside no real course of action, no means of sort of working through the system to getting into the right person. There’s nothing. They’re just faced with a brick wall.

[00:55:27] Trevor Long: So the challenge is the TIO can’t make this decision on their own. It needs to be a government decision. So what I encouraged in the AFDM podcast is talk to your local member. I know people don’t do it enough, but it matters. Your local member, A, is desperate for your vote, B, is essentially obligated to take your complaint to the relevant minister. So what you want is you want to say to your local member, you know what, I’ve heard Trevor and Stephen talk about how we can complain to our telcos, about our telcos to the TIO, and that has reduced telco complaints. There’s a major problem in society right now with these social media companies kicking people off. And if definitely, if you’ve had a story about it, tell your local member and tell the TIO so they can use that as essentially evidence and data that will help them build this case. Honestly, it’s just such a no-brainer for Annika Wells and Albo to do this.

[00:56:19] Stephen Fenech: One of my favorite things to say is the squeaky wheel gets the oil. If you speak up about it, enough people talk about it, then something will be done.

[00:56:27] Trevor Long: Yeah, do it, folks. Yeah. The TIO should be the communications industry ombudsman, and we support it right here at Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:56:36] VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long. And Stephen Fenech.

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[00:58:18] VOICE OVER: Everything about tech you never wanted to know. This is Two Blokes Talking Tech.

[00:58:26] Trevor Long: Well, I am back after 4 weeks away, and I did take a solid break from social media. We talked about this a bit in the private. You did, yeah.

[00:58:34] Stephen Fenech: Instagram, you know, the visits went down by 30%.

[00:58:38] Trevor Long: Yeah, their monthly active users are going to be lower this month, that’s for sure. But it was interesting to kind of, you know, look, so obviously there was a, like a week there where I had the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max that I was using. So I did use that. People ask me what tech I use. I use that for some of the photos pretty much in New York. But outside of that, I found myself, again, the Meta glasses. I think they’re just fantastic for some moments.

[00:59:03] Stephen Fenech: That storm had already begun when you were here about the privacy. Ah, that, well, yeah. Bondi Beach setting up curved glass, bins. Yeah, that’s just bloody get up and campaign is doing their best. That’s gone a bit beyond the pale now.

[00:59:16] Trevor Long: And, um, but I, I, I, I did, I did a video, uh, a roller coaster, Stephen.

[00:59:22] Stephen Fenech: So, oh, that’s proof you were on a roller coaster.

[00:59:23] Trevor Long: The reason I did this video is for you. The kids, the kids go, you’ve got to give Stephen proof that you did it. Yes, it’s a proper roller coaster. It’s pretty good, eh? Because you can set them at—

[00:59:32] Stephen Fenech: how long did you set that for?

[00:59:33] Trevor Long: 3 minutes? This was— so here’s what’s funny.

[00:59:35] Stephen Fenech: Oh, that’s a solid roller coaster.

[00:59:36] Trevor Long: Yeah, not well. How’d you handle it? Not well.

[00:59:39] Stephen Fenech: You’re a bit nauseous afterwards.

[00:59:40] Trevor Long: So it started and And then I think something happened and I tapped it or something. What is that ride?

[00:59:46] Stephen Fenech: What is it?

[00:59:46] Trevor Long: I don’t know what it’s called, mate. I can’t tell you. I can’t remember. Kids will tell me. Wow. Pretty good, pretty fast. And it stopped. And then Harry was in front of me. I said, it’s like the thing stopped and was going to go up a click, click, click thing. I said, can you see the light? He goes, no. So I started it again. So luckily I captured it.

[01:00:00] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I’m pretty sure in the app you can set it up to 3 minutes long, I believe.

[01:00:03] Trevor Long: 5 minutes now. 5 minutes? Yes. I also use them for the helicopter. The open door helicopter. Because I thought it was a really cool way to go, look at this, my God, you know, because I was using the phone, but just the reality of, you know, look around. But let me be clear, when I use the Meta glasses, they’re off. Like, I went to wear the Meta glasses, they’re off. And I go, I’m going to use them now. And I turn them on. Like, that’s how I use the Meta glasses. I wish it was easy to turn them on.

[01:00:26] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it’s just a shame to hear all the drama. Ever since the knockoffs came out, they’ve been an issue. Like, for 6 years they’ve been fine.

[01:00:34] Trevor Long: Yeah, knockoffs and Kylie Jenner bringing attention to them, I think. Maybe, yeah.

[01:00:37] Stephen Fenech: But, and a lot of people, you know, In all the stuff I’ve had in response to this sort of the privacy stuff was that a lot of people when they talk about the cameras and I’m thinking, well, you think about the use of the camera, they’re the eyes of the system. And for visually impaired people—

[01:00:53] Trevor Long: Do you know what I started to see a lot of on TikTok? Are people demonstrating that. I had a bloke the other day who’s wearing them. He’s visually impaired and he’s like, this is unbelievable. I saw a guy put them on his like 90-year-old grandmother who’s blind and held a bit of paper in front and said, hey, I’m gonna read this. Like, yeah, overwhelmed. Amazing. Yeah, that stuff’s amazing.

[01:01:12] Stephen Fenech: I had an interview on the Tech Guide podcast last week with their head of wearables, Meta’s VP for wearables. I can’t remember his name now, but— and I put that to him as well. I said, well, you know, on the privacy side. And he was saying, well, look, if people aren’t comfortable around you, don’t wear them. And as simple as that. I went, okay. And they just released the audio only with no cameras. And I said, is this in response to that? Yes. No, they’ve been in development for 2 years. Audio is the number one use of the glasses. So we thought we’d do an audio-only version. Yeah, fair enough. But then he told a story about a guy, a friend of his who’s totally blind, was at dinner with him. The guy had his Meta glasses on. He was able to read the menu through the glasses. He even did a keynote address blind with the Meta glasses giving him his audio prompts through the speakers in the glasses. So he did a— and so a lot of people realized that, realized is that the cameras aren’t just there to take photos and videos. They’re the eyes and ears of the cameras.

[01:02:09] Trevor Long: Well, the audio is a big factor. That was another thing I like. ‘Cause so when we’re at Disneyland and Universal Studios, my kids and my wife are on the rides and everything. And so I just sit there with the bags and I just hold them. But what I do is when they go straight on the rides, I go and I look around. ‘Cause I love the theatrics of a theme park. It’s the same reason I love Vegas. It’s just not real. Do you know what I mean? Nothing about it is real. And so you walk through these villages they’ve built that are not real, but they’re so beautiful. And so I go do that and then I sit down and I just wait for them to come off. And so I’d be sitting there listening to the baseball, listen to music without having to have AirPods in, which I think is a better way to be. Now the other massive bit of technology I used was Waymo. Like it’s the only way I get around wherever it’s available. Like it’s just so good.

[01:02:52] Stephen Fenech: So do you do it just because you get off on the fact that there’s no driver or it’s just faster to get it to you?

[01:02:58] Trevor Long: They’re always quick, they’re always there. Especially in San Francisco, they’re everywhere. Look, I think they’re a better drive. I think that’s the, like we had an Uber driver from, where was it? Even the kids noticed. I think it was from San Francisco Airport to the hotel when we landed from Florida. And it was one of these drivers on the throttle, you know, squirting the throttle, squirt, squirt, rather than just finding the point.

[01:03:20] Stephen Fenech: I know how much you love that. I hate it.

[01:03:22] Trevor Long: That’s good ’cause Vivi’s got a REL, so I’m like, “Bub, that’s why what I teach you is,” to find the acceleration you need and then just— Don’t just jab at it. Don’t just jab at it, right? But so I find Waymos to be a better overall experience. Smooth ride. Okay. Yeah, it’s not perfect because while I was at Apple, I told Jackson and Harry to get accounts and there was one time where Amanda and Vivi were stuck in one that was just taking them around the block. It just wouldn’t stop. It wouldn’t, it couldn’t find a place to pull over at the hotel. And they both had both cars. They were behind each other. They didn’t realize they both got stuck behind a truck. Stig and I had this in San Francisco. Maybe 6 months ago, you’re in traffic, you were just in the city and the trucks just pull over to offload gear and the thing just thinks it’s just sitting there. We saw one that was doing this and I blame the truck driver because he didn’t have his hazard lights on and the car’s looking, it’s going, well, this truck thinks it’s stuck in traffic. Yeah, but what’s awesome is they’ve now got, you know, the Jaguar I-Paces they have, they’ve now got their little Zeekr ones, which are little vans. They have elevator-style opening doors. They’re just a bigger, more space on the inside.

[01:04:24] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I see them. It’s such a great experience.

[01:04:25] Trevor Long: You sit down in the car and it plays your Spotify playlist.

[01:04:28] Stephen Fenech: LA have them too? LA got them?

[01:04:30] Trevor Long: LA’s got them. Florida, there’s, they’re in a few cities in Florida. They’re in Dallas. And you saw the CyberCabs in— Saw the CyberCabs in, in Dallas, but I think in Austin is where they’re being used mainly, the actual ones. But I saw plenty of the actual gold ones in at least in Texas.

[01:04:43] Stephen Fenech: Did you catch a barbecue when you were in Texas?

[01:04:44] Trevor Long: Yeah, we went to Terry Black’s Texas Barbecue. And you know, but from a technology perspective, the other part of the observation for me was just teaching the kids and Amanda to use Wi-Fi. WiFi more. Like, I got them all mobile data, like on their Kogan, you know, international roaming. Yep. And Amanda’s like, I’ve already gone through it all in like 3 days. I went, connect to the WiFi for Christ’s sake.

[01:05:02] Stephen Fenech: Amanda was here for the first 3 days.

[01:05:04] Trevor Long: Yeah, like we got a 7-day package, she went through the data. Oh my God. Of course you’re going to burn through the data, right? I found that interesting to see, you know, how well they were. WiFi’s everywhere in America. It is, yeah. You’re like in a cafe, it’ll be there.

[01:05:16] Stephen Fenech: You can go without roaming, I think, in America just purely on WiFi.

[01:05:21] Trevor Long: And also the other shout out for technology for me is just Google Maps. It’s Unbelievable. Yeah, like it is unbelievable, especially ways. Yeah, if I’m driving, driving ways. But Google Maps, if you’re in New York and you’re looking for, you know, the MLB store or the whatever and you want to know how to get there, it tells you the public transport in a brief. It’s brilliant. Yeah, also New York’s so much better now. You’d have to get a MetroCard. You can just tap and go with your Expresso. Yeah, you can too. So all the kids, I just— you just— and I keep saying to Amanda, you don’t have to turn your phone on. You just— your phone off, just tap it goes. It’s the express transit pass. Same thing as the Opal system in here. It’s—

[01:05:55] Stephen Fenech: oh, so hang on a minute. So you get the express on an app on your phone?

[01:05:58] Trevor Long: No, no, just in the Apple Wallet. No, just in the Apple Wallet. You just have your credit card set up as your express transit.

[01:06:03] Stephen Fenech: So like here, like the Opal cards here?

[01:06:05] Trevor Long: Yes. Okay. But you don’t need to open— you don’t need to unlock your phone and validate it. You just tap your phone. Boom. And it automatically uses it.

[01:06:11] Stephen Fenech: And you caught the subway in New York?

[01:06:13] Trevor Long: As much as we could. New York’s awesome. I love the subway. Amanda hates New York. New York. Really?

[01:06:19] Stephen Fenech: With passion. Why?

[01:06:20] Trevor Long: Too many people. I took her to Times Square. I said, you’re gonna hate this. Oh, really? Hated it.

[01:06:25] Stephen Fenech: Hates New York. She hates crowds.

[01:06:26] Trevor Long: Love Boston, love Dallas.

[01:06:28] Stephen Fenech: But she goes to the baseball, there’s people there.

[01:06:30] Trevor Long: Like, yeah, but that’s— you’re going, there’s a crowd, you’ve got a seat, everyone’s gonna see you sitting. Yeah, okay. New York’s just—

[01:06:34] Stephen Fenech: take her a little seat with you.

[01:06:35] Trevor Long: Filthy busy place. Really? Yeah. Okay. Wow. Horrible. She hated it.

[01:06:39] Stephen Fenech: And that’s because I was— when was last time I was there? I was there in March, and, uh Yeah, it was, it’s busy all the time, New York. But anyway, anyway, and the weather was good, it was warm, eh, for you? Warm?

[01:06:49] Trevor Long: Oh yeah, it was warm, it was hot most of the time we were around. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then in Florida it rained because it’s Florida, it’s what it does.

[01:06:57] Stephen Fenech: I suppose there’s no one you had to call at home because everyone was with you.

[01:07:00] Trevor Long: That’s right.

[01:07:00] Stephen Fenech: You didn’t have to call back, call a FaceTime call.

[01:07:02] Trevor Long: Like, you know, we’ve got the family group chat. You needed to be careful not to, you know, send photos in the middle of the night for people. But otherwise, yeah, there was no— That’s good. Time frame. Anyway, Waymo, Meta Glasses, Google Maps, without question, just such great— travel today is so much different to 10 years ago.

[01:07:19] Stephen Fenech: Is it ever? Yeah, remarkable. And you didn’t carry cash, it was all, um, not a dollar cards.

[01:07:25] Trevor Long: No, Amanda had some cash and so we—

[01:07:27] Stephen Fenech: did you have a travel card with American dollars on it? No, I just used to just cop the conversion fees.

[01:07:32] Trevor Long: Who gives a shit? Oh, that’s a big, big impact, mate.

[01:07:35] Stephen Fenech: It’s not, they charge you conversion fees and that’s not It’s really not that big a difference.

[01:07:40] Trevor Long: What bank were you banked then, mate? But yeah, Amanda, we had a really cool valet at the Dallas Hotel. Lovely, lovely guy. And I’m like, I gotta tip this guy. So every time I’d be in the car, I’m like, Amanda, you need to give him another $5. Stacy’s here. And in the end we missed it a few times. I just got $80 out and gave it to him. I said on the second last, I said, mate, this is for the week, right? Just thanks very much. Wow. Tipping is such a pain in the ass. That’s the big difference too, eh? Stupid thing. Wow. All right, mate. Great to be back. He’s back, everybody. Welcome, JBL. Yes. Thank you, Arlo, for your continued support. And Stephen, let’s do it all again next week for episode 754.

[01:08:15] Stephen Fenech: I might clear the schedule. Yeah, I might be here. I’ll let you know. Wow.

[01:08:18] Trevor Long: Let you know. I know I’ll be here. I’ve made a commitment to JBL, so if you’re not here, someone’s going to be here, bro.

[01:08:23] Stephen Fenech: I’ll be here.

[01:08:23] Trevor Long: All right, mate. See you then. Ciao.

[01:08:25] VOICE OVER: This is Two Blokes Talking Tech with Trevor Long and Stephen Fenech.