The Deep View: Conversations

Jason Hiner: Welcome to The Deep View Conversations podcast. I'm Jason Hiner with my co-host, Sabrina Ortiz. Sabrina, good to see you.

Sabrina Ortiz: Good to see you too. We're here in Dallas for work. So we might as well chat about some of our favorite things, you know, testing gadgets, devices, and AI. And we figured we'd record the conversation instead of just our typical phone call.

Jason Hiner: That's right. Turn the cameras on and like make content out of it because that's what we do.

Sabrina Ortiz: Exactly.

Jason Hiner: Very good. So, you know, one of the things that we wanted to talk about, we would have inevitably talked about if we didn't turn the cameras on, is that there's just a lot of devices that have come out this year. You know, we've been in a previous life, you know, we also just reviewed hardware and now we do it all through the filter of AI. And a lot of these devices, and this has been the case for the last couple of years, but really in 2026 big time, they lead with a lot of the AI features. When they market these devices, they lead with AI.

Sabrina Ortiz: There are a lot of bold claims too that a lot of these devices are AI devices too, which I think we might have a bit of a differing opinion on too.

Jason Hiner: That's right. That's right. It's funny. I thought I had like a strong opinion on this. And then I, you know, in talking to you, like I was surprised though, you have an even stronger opinion about, you know, the state of the AI device, which is essentially, we haven't really seen it yet.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, exactly. That's a consensus I would say. For it to be a true AI device, I think it would have to, every operation that it carries out would have to be optimized by AI in some way and provide things to you that you wouldn't be able to get with the more, the standard version of the device. And I don't think that's happening yet.

Jason Hiner: Okay. Yeah. But there are some really interesting, there are some interesting things that have happened though. There are a few that I really, there's, there's one especially that we have a split, we have a split decision on, which is what I think is like the most interesting and best feature that has come out this year, which has been Google Rambler.

Sabrina Ortiz: Jason.

Jason Hiner: I know. I know. So the thing is, is, you know, you and I both use Wispr Flow. We've talked about this on the podcast before, but we both use Wispr Flow, which means you can talk to your computer, especially on your laptop. And you know, I've talked about like when we're in public spaces and you can't do that, it's sort of like, oh, it's almost painful.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, it's so huge. Like today in the airport, I used Wispr Flow to write my Deeper View. I use Wispr Flow almost exclusively whenever I write the, our Deeper View section of our articles, because that's, you know, the part where we add our analysis, supposed to be more conversational, supposed to be our tone. So I just talked to the computer as if I was talking to a friend and explaining what my analysis of it is. And then of course, [unclear] for text. But

Jason Hiner: Yeah, yeah. So the,

Sabrina Ortiz: What makes Google Rambler so good?

Jason Hiner: But so let's, before we go to the Google Rambler, Wispr Flow has apps on Android and iOS, but they're just bad. Like they're not good.

Sabrina Ortiz: I don't think so.

Jason Hiner: Really? I just, I just find them almost unusable. Here's why.

Sabrina Ortiz: Sure.

Jason Hiner: You just have to, you know, on, on your, on your computer, you just hit the function key and boom, you start talking on iOS. You like hit it. You have to hit the keyboard. Then it goes over, you know, the first time you use it goes over the app.

Sabrina Ortiz: You still can't use Google Rambler on iOS.

Jason Hiner: That's true. You can't. That's fair.

Sabrina Ortiz: So we can't, we can't talk about that iOS. So that's out of question. So now what's a matter of like, whether you want the floating window or not, I guess.

Jason Hiner: It's fair. So on Android, yeah, there's the floating window, which also gets on my nerves because then it covers things up and then I move it around and it's just a pain.

Sabrina Ortiz: It's better. It's objectively a better product.

Jason Hiner: On Android?

Sabrina Ortiz: Because it actually gets to know your tone.

Jason Hiner: Okay. So, so here's, so here's the thing. I don't use it for texting.

Sabrina Ortiz: Me neither.

Jason Hiner: I thought you use it for texting.

Sabrina Ortiz: I, I, when I was burned by it, I did use it for texting, but then I found that in general, I don't need voice to dictation on my phone that much because the only time I ever use Wispr Flow is for work. Yeah. And I'm working on my laptop and then using Wispr Flow is easy as hitting the space button.

Jason Hiner: Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. So, so I use it when I'm, because like in the airport, and I've only got one hand on my phone and like on, because I, I, now this is like a first world problem, but like I carry Android and iOS. I always do. And I can just pull out, I find myself when I want to use dictation, I always will pull out my Android because I can just hit the Wispr Flow. It's just in the keyboard. I hit the button. Sorry. Rambler, Google Rambler on their built-in keyboard because it's everywhere. It's as accurate as Wispr Flow on the, on the phone, but it

Sabrina Ortiz: Still doesn't know your tone as well.

Jason Hiner: The tone it doesn't do. So, but my tone in emails and slacks and that is pretty, is much more flat. Whereas like in text, it's not. And so I can't really text with it. I don't text with it. So that's where I don't need it.

Sabrina Ortiz: But where your slacks, like as somebody who slacks you all day are short, like you can type out, yes, looking now, you have to, and you need dictation for that. And you need Wispr Flow specifically. Like you don't think even Siri would be like looking now. Yes, be right there. Be there in 10, be there in five. Sure. Let's move the meeting. Let's not move the meeting. They're never longer than that slash.

Jason Hiner: But they don't, they fail enough that or like, I can't get to the button on Wispr Flow because my thumb, whatever, can't reach it. Whereas it's always on Rambler. It's always right there. Rambler is on Google keyboard. And so it's just the little mic button with the AI.

Sabrina Ortiz: But here's my problem, though, like if we're talking about AI features here, you're not applauding the AI feature. You're applauding the fact that it's integrated into the keyboard.

Jason Hiner: It's fair. That's fair.

Sabrina Ortiz: So that's not an AI feature thing. That is a maybe a kudos, hat tip to an OS thing to Google or hat tip to like whoever designed the UI of Rambler. But it's not an AI thing. The AI capabilities are just as impressive on Wispr Flow. if not better.

Jason Hiner: It's true. Wispr Flow is still like a little bit better than Rambler.

Sabrina Ortiz: So the actual AI technology, which is what we're critiquing here.

Jason Hiner: The AI is good on Rambler.

Sabrina Ortiz: Okay.

Jason Hiner: Other than, you know,

Sabrina Ortiz: They're even

Jason Hiner: And and so

Sabrina Ortiz: At best, at best, it's not a technological feat.

Jason Hiner: Fair. But like on iOS, then it's so painful, right? Like even it's better on Siri AI.

Sabrina Ortiz: Oh, for sure.

Jason Hiner: But it's just it's rough. And then Wispr Flow is just such a kludge on the iPhone.

Sabrina Ortiz: So to your point, I think that if we're discussing AI, I don't think it's a matter of Google Rambler is great. It's a matter of Siri sucks still.

Jason Hiner: Yeah, it's true.

Sabrina Ortiz: And then it's like a instead of giving Google a point for integrating what now should be standard, we should drop Apple some points for not meeting the standard, you know,

Jason Hiner: It's better like Siri AI is better than it was before. Like the dictation works for more things. But it's still not nearly as good.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah,

Jason Hiner: About 50% of the time it still doesn't quite work. Like it'll miss the first part of what you said. It will get it wrong more often.

Sabrina Ortiz: And you're also using like two different languages, which I know is a very niche use case, but I'm sure a lot of people do hear it. Like I have the Spanish keyboard and the English keyboard and Siri for the life of it cannot detect when you're just talking what language you're in which which Wispr Flow does a good job with. So and again, Apple makes it very difficult to integrate any third party into like a keyboard. It's basically impossible. So

Jason Hiner: Which is why Wispr Flow is so bad on

Sabrina Ortiz: But again, that's not a Wispr Flow. Their technology is great. That is an Apple ecosystem problems. Again, whoever gets points here against them is Apple, whoever gets the most points at Wispr Flow. And Google gets okay, yay, you're maybe hopping on the bandwagon. But technological advances, it's—they did nothing new.

Jason Hiner: Yeah, all right.

Sabrina Ortiz: They brought nothing new to the table. [unclear] the hottest point.

Jason Hiner: The hottest take.

Sabrina Ortiz: So yeah, so I think

Jason Hiner: Very good. All right. Since we're on since we're on Siri AI, let's talk a little bit about it some more because it's probably the most anticipated, you know, it is a hardware, I wouldn't call it it's a software feature, but it's really a hardware feature because for all of Apple's hardware, it matters. There's a lot of Apple users out there, obviously, over over a billion devices using not that many that can use Siri AI though. So it is still limited to the last, you know, few generations that of devices that have more RAM. It is better. There is now an app, you can see the chats, but it has a couple things working against it. And most of it's that it's one, even though there are some things that are better and some simple things that I could ask it, that would be good. What's the weather? More, more, yeah, more simple, like maps things other than that. But I kind of don't partially because I'm out of the habit. And then partially when I've tried it, and I've done it a little bit, like it still is not as solid as ChatGPT, or Claude or even Gemini, which, you know, the Gemini models are in there. And so I find myself struggling to trust it and to use it. And it's, it's still behind. And I think the fact that they went with Google, and then Google is behind in the frontier, you know, race, although they have recently caught up a little bit more, but throughout 2026, they've been so far behind. I think that also hurt Apple and Siri AI, which uses some of the Gemini models along with their own models. It's just still not very good. And what's your, that's my experience. And so I find myself not using it very often. What's, what's your experience?

Sabrina Ortiz: I think I'm just not the right person to test AI on a phone in terms of like how much I would reach for it. I don't use AI on my phone for phone functions. I use AI on my phone, like the ChatGPT app, because I'm specifically looking for the ChatGPT assistance for something super specific, maybe like us chatting about how often I should feed my plants or something like that. And I just to your point, I don't gravitate to whatever the phone's assistant already in it is. I just go to whatever app. So to your point, yeah, it's probably a lot of that, just me being used to using whatever app. But when I was testing Siri AI, Siri AI is actually very good. If you use all of the apps that Apple has. So like if you're using the mail app, which for instance, I don't use the mail app, I use the Gmail app. So I had to like, okay, move on and sign everything into the mail app. I'm like, okay. And then once I did, it was great. Or if you're using the notes app instead of Google Keep, then, then that's great. And then if you're using messages and those are all amazing messages,

Jason Hiner: Messages is great. Messages is probably one of the best parts about it. Yeah, Siri AI, you know, because obviously, a lot of us if we use that, I use it as my personal device, a lot of my personal messages are there. It's great to ask it, you know, what was

Sabrina Ortiz: Who said what?

Jason Hiner: Yeah, he said what what time did Sabrina and I say you were going to meet to record our video stuff like that. It's amazing.

Sabrina Ortiz: Or like, can you pull from even my email, like you could ask to do multi step actions. And it's really good. So I can't really knock Siri AI. But again, I don't really use the phone's native assistant to your point, probably because it was so bad for so long, I just gravitated towards other assistance. And now building that context will take a lot of time for me for actually, because again, I you have to move everything from the other apps that I'm already used to using, even though my my personal device is an iPhone, I'm used to using like, Google Docs, Google Keep, all now I text on Telegram and all these different apps. So it's like, Oh, none of my context is actually in here as it would be more convenient. And also, I just don't really use AI for things like send a text message or look through my email or stuff like that. I will more so use AI for queries of me going through my everyday. And while I could use a Siri for that, I'm just not in the habit of and these other apps know my context a lot better at this point.

Jason Hiner: How about like friends and family who are not in tech or AI? A lot of them still were you I found a lot of them were still using Siri. I knew plenty of, you know, people in my life that are not in tech or AI, they were still using Siri to dictate texts to, you know, ask questions and all of that. Are you hearing your like friends and family like that using Siri and saying, Oh, this is better?

Sabrina Ortiz: I think Apple just has this really amazing advantage of like whoever's in the walled garden is going to use it regardless. And they might always either complain about it. Like, you know, you've heard Siri complaints forever, but they're never going to stop using it. So I don't think I've ever explicitly heard anybody be like, Whoa, Siri so much better, but I've also never heard anybody say, and I'm not going to use my iPhone anymore because Siri's not good. You know, so it's like, they have such a good advantage there in that everybody who's in the ecosystem will never leave. So I think that's also why they've been able to be a little bit behind on the AI. You know,

Jason Hiner: That's fair. That's fair too.

Sabrina Ortiz: And I can't even—again, I don't knock them because the AI is really good. Siri is very capable. It's just a matter of fact that it's it's embedded in the Apple ecosystem. And if you've diversified into any other app, you can't really get the most out of it.

Jason Hiner: Yeah.

Sabrina Ortiz: So yeah,

Jason Hiner: Because you can just hit the power button and pull it up, you know, I've used it to try to use it for like some of the quick things that I would do for ChatGPT or Claude. And what I found is some of the answers are like incomplete. Some of them weren't quite right. And so I sort of lost some trust in it pretty quickly. Now, it's closer than it was last year before, or, you know, six months ago, even before Siri AI was. But but I find it's like not as complete. It's not as trustworthy in terms of getting the right stuff or give me enough information. Sometimes it gives it very truncated, you know, and

Sabrina Ortiz: You're also just become so accustomed to the style of whatever chatbot you've been using. Like for me, like I could even tell like, when I talk between like Gemini and ChatGPT, ChatGPT being my chatbot of choice, I'm like, Oh, this is like a little too friendly or like, I'll be like very small little like changes in tone that put me off. And I think that's a big point to your point to like, you're probably used to like, maybe the verbosity of like one of your go-to chatbots, and then when Siri's talking, you're like, uh,

Jason Hiner: We've been kind of in it too long. Like we've been using ChatGPT since 2022. And, and so that makes it tough like our perspective is a little different. But, you know, I think we were always trying to keep an eye on like, how are people that aren't as like AI pilled, like as we are, how are they, you know, using these things and it's helpful. And, and it is making progress. And the biggest thing that missed, I said this at WWDC, which was that they, they sort of missed the boat on agents. And now I didn't expect that they would, but still it's like now it won't be till next WWDC till we see, you know, agents. And there was a report that came out this week that, okay, now they're working on agents because it's like, they should have just had a very simple agent, just called it like goals or something, right? Like where you just put your goal in and the agent like goes and does something for you. Oh, it's kind of changed now with like dots and Claude Duet and Meta Muse. And like now it's more like proactive agents, not just like, can it take a task for you? So maybe it'll work out fine for them.

Sabrina Ortiz: I think it was good that Apple didn't, because if they announced another thing and then it didn't work out again, it would have been very catastrophic for that. I'm happy that

Jason Hiner: They just needed to catch up

Sabrina Ortiz: The foundation, right? They put down the foundation. And also, again, I work in this, I've been covering it since 2022. I don't have a single use for a dot, a Muse, or a Duet, or any of these things. I don't, maybe [unclear], if I started using it. But in my personal opinion, when it comes to AI things, you shouldn't have to use something to figure out, okay, and now what problem can it solve? You should have a problem. And then once the problem is presented to you in your life, how can I incorporate AI to fix this? And I don't think I've had anything in my life where I'm like, I need a dot.

Jason Hiner: When you read my article about dots, you'll start using it.

Sabrina Ortiz: You think so?

Jason Hiner: You'll start using it. Yeah. When I tell you some of the things that it's done, surprisingly, I bet you'll start using it.

Sabrina Ortiz: Hey, that's the prediction.

Jason Hiner: It's on camera now.

Sabrina Ortiz: Maybe we'll clip myself being like, oh, I never use this. And then be like, actually, I love this thing. That'd be great.

Jason Hiner: That'll be our next podcast. We're going to talk about the agents, proactive agents, because that's like the next thing. All right, well, let's talk about some more hardware first.

Sabrina Ortiz: Before we move away from Apple, obviously, they've had a crazy time of releases. I think we should touch on some of those.

Jason Hiner: Yes, please.

Sabrina Ortiz: Duo at the top of them, of course. I haven't gotten a chance to test it. I lost a pre-order war. My pre-order is not coming until the new year. But Jason, you have had some time on it with it. And so I want to hear, I guess, you some of your thoughts with the AI lens specifically, because there's so much we can unpack hardware, but just AI.

Jason Hiner: Okay, just AI. I will focus my thoughts. It has really one use for AI. And I know it's the one that I've said, which is that if you are babysitting agents, so if you're a developer, if you're a knowledge worker, and you're one of those person that's always got five agents running, and so because of that, you're tied to your laptop or your computer more than you ever have been in years. And we've seen this earlier this year, like this comical thing in parts of New York and San Francisco, people walking around with their laptops open and it's like, what are they doing? Oh, they don't want to shut it because their agent will stop running. So comically, now the AI companies have sort of fixed this by making the apps able to, you're able to like run your agent from your regular phone. Like you can sort of look at it, but it's still sort of a pain. There's not much real estate, but with a foldable, now you open it up and you've got your chat pane and then you've got like your controls or your list of jobs or your running agents over on this side. And so like you can pretty much like run your whole thing, you know, from there. It's just so much better. And it's not just the iPhone Duo, but there are a bunch of people that were like, oh, I could really benefit from that, but they weren't going to switch from iPhone to Android to do it, right? Because it's great on the Samsung Z Fold 8, which you've tested. It's great on the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold. That's such a mouthful. It's great on those devices as well, but you weren't going to switch.

Sabrina Ortiz: It's gotten to a point where they're just really good, you know, like they're light enough, they're compact enough, they're not like this brick in your pocket. So I totally agree with you. If you're like any type of power user, whether it's using a ton of agents, or even if you just use an app a lot and you want to have like ChatGPT next to whatever you're working on, having the bigger screen is super helpful.

Jason Hiner: If you want to work mobile, like it just gives you, it just gives the ability to work more, to do more work mobile and be a little less, you know, connected to your—chained to your desk, to your laptop.

Sabrina Ortiz: It's a dangerous game though, because now you have a bigger screen, so you're more tempted to do work all the time.

Jason Hiner: Exactly. That's true. It's a slippery slope. Like, okay, I can get out and touch grass more, but if I'm out there looking at my phone the whole time, I think if you, maybe the balance is like, okay, I'm out there and when I need to, I can just do whatever I need on my phone and I can stay there. I don't feel any like, oh, now I have to go home and get back to my computer.

Sabrina Ortiz: Especially if you have a job where you're on the go, you will get pulled into things randomly. Like so many times I'd be writing an article and then like, you know, I'm boarding a plane because we travel a lot for the job we do and it's like, oh, my 17, like my screen is so tiny, Google Docs is also awful on, like, iOS specifically. So it's like, what do I do? And like with a foldable, it's like, this is so nice, so much easier. So anyway, so that's great.

Jason Hiner: Big screens.

Sabrina Ortiz: On the big screens, on the Duo, we touch upon some of the other foldables, which were also great. There's also the HomeView, Apple's HomeView.

Jason Hiner: Yes, which you've tested. So I haven't tested this one you have. You've got to go hands on it. It's not out yet.

Sabrina Ortiz: No, it's not out yet.

Jason Hiner: But you got the chance to test the devices.

Sabrina Ortiz: I think that's where the new Siri really shines. Because I don't think you would have been able to have any form of a home assistant that was really compelling in any way with the old Siri. And by that, I mean, like you just need a Siri that understood your conversation, like, understand multiple rounds, you know, multiple turns, multi-turn conversations. And as an assistant, like if you want a home assistant, you want a smart pod, a hub, a smart home hub, and you happen to be in the Apple ecosystem already, I think it's a really compelling product. It looks very sleek. It looks very nice. I like that it has like up to six people. You can have up to up six users, so whoever walks up to it, it could detect your face and then it will show you whatever's on your Apple ID. But again, it's just if you're in the Apple ecosystem, if not, like for me, my boyfriend, it would be useless for him because I would just walk up to it and it'd be like, oh, my information. He would walk up to it and have really nothing because he doesn't have any of the Apple apps and you know, his primary ecosystem. Exactly. So, but if you do have a family where everybody's an Apple user, I think I would feel compelled if I had to purchase a smart assistant at the moment. I would probably go for that one now because of the new Siri.

Jason Hiner: Interesting. I know, this one, it doesn't do anything for me.

Sabrina Ortiz: I know. I know.

Jason Hiner: And like, I tried all of the Google Home and Alexa devices and I like kicked all of them out. You know, I just don't like having an all-in-one thing and it just doesn't really do a whole lot for me that I don't can't do on my phone or like with the watch too.

Sabrina Ortiz: I think I would like this one for FaceTiming purposes would be the biggest purpose.

Jason Hiner: Oh, interesting. Yeah, that's fair

Sabrina Ortiz: Because like, it's fair. I can't face like, you know, you can make video calls with the Alexa, but I can't FaceTime and I want to FaceTime. That's how I communicate with all my friends really. And I would love to have just like, especially when I'm cooking,

Jason Hiner: In the kitchen.

Sabrina Ortiz: Right in the kitchen and just have it there and like be able to FaceTime, be hands like, you know, off cooking, do whatever and chat. And again, now you could do it within your Apple ecosystem. I think that's pretty cool. Anyways, I am a sucker for home AI things and I don't use them as much, but I do have all the all of them lying randomly in my apartment. So I'm excited for this one, particularly,

Jason Hiner: But I want to ask you about another one because smart glasses is a category you've covered a lot and kind of public sentiment turned pretty hard against smart glasses this year. And I like, Meta Ray-Bans or Oakley Meta Oakleys that which I really like, as you know, like the one pair of sunglasses, I really don't I hardly wear them in public at all anymore. Like if I'm taking a walk,

Sabrina Ortiz: It makes them uncomfortable.

Jason Hiner: It does. And it's so interesting because now, you know, the ecosystem had kind of been gravitating that direction. But meta released a pair of glasses without cameras in them,

Sabrina Ortiz: Just audio.

Jason Hiner: Yeah. And you tested the Meta Ray-Bans audio.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah.

Jason Hiner: And I saw them, I tested them a little bit at Meta Connect. But then you tested the product.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah.

Jason Hiner: And so would love to get your take after using it for a little bit

Sabrina Ortiz: So much better, like ease of just being able to walk into a universe without people having to fear fear me because I have cameras on my glasses, you know,

Jason Hiner: Yeah.

Sabrina Ortiz: My issue with the Meta glasses will always be that I don't particularly care for Meta AI. I don't use it. I don't trust giving it a ton of context, which was as we've been talking about this whole entire conversation, more helpful because of meta's reputation outside of AI. I'm not even like if I'm not trying to dissuade anybody from using Meta AI, but just me as a consumer knowing Meta's a gazillion breaches, data problems, situations, selling data, all the different things. I just don't really feel comfortable. So for me, the Meta glasses are awesome. They're great. I like using them, particularly for mics. I think they're great for speakers and mics, you know,

Jason Hiner: Audio glasses,

Sabrina Ortiz: Literally audio glasses. AI glasses, I don't know so much. Because I just don't, Meta AI just doesn't really have to do it for me, you know? Let's leave all of the superstition or all of meta reputation aside. It's not embedded into anything in the way that Siri would be or even Gemini would be because Gemini has access to all of the Gemini apps and my email and this and then Siri would have again, like we just spent talking about my messages. Meta AI, I could give it access to it, but it's not just organically in anything. So yeah, that's my thing.

Jason Hiner: And you're not really rushing to add your stuff to it because of those breaches. So I ran into this this year. So I was testing, I have tested the new model. So during the middle of the year, the language models that used to be on the glasses were Llama. Their open source models Llama 4 was the latest one. And then they announced Meta Muse Spark, their new model. And they had that when it flipped over to that in the spring, they did get more useful. Like the AI was more useful. You could talk to it, you could have back and forth. It was just a stronger, more capable model. And so the glasses got more useful. But I do have this same problem that you mentioned. I don't give it access to anything except Instagram. And so there's only so much it can do. Like now if I was, you know, a lot of people use like Instagram Messenger or like Facebook Messenger as much as like you or I use iMessage, you know, and Apple or at least they use it with some of their friends and contacts. I don't, I use it very rarely. And so it just doesn't, it doesn't have a whole lot of access, you know. And they haven't really integrated Meta Muse, the agent into it, you know, maybe when that does, it'll get a little better. But still, like I'm not going to give it access to my email or Slack or iMessage, not that even has an iMessage connector, probably Apple would never allow that. But it's just, it's just not likely that I would ever do that. And so that limits what's the glasses are going to be capable of.

Sabrina Ortiz: Exactly. And also a big thing with like AI glasses is them being able to see the world from your point of view. And the ones that have cameras, which are amazing. And I'm so glad they made them. So not at all like, you know, dogging them for doing that. But it's just now you lose the visual context, which is the whole kind of point of smart AI glasses, so they could see what you see.

Jason Hiner: So one of the main things. Now, you are also,

Sabrina Ortiz: I was going to go there too,

Jason Hiner: The Google ones, right? The Google ones are coming from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster.

Sabrina Ortiz: They're intelligent eyewear.

Jason Hiner: They're intelligent eyewear. They're not that different from Meta Ray-Bans. So they're a little bit me too, which is interesting.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yes.

Jason Hiner: They don't do anything that different. But

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah,

Jason Hiner: We all have a lot more, we tend to have a lot more stuff in Google ecosystem as you're getting to. So are you more comfortable with Google having that stuff?

Sabrina Ortiz: For sure. Google already has a lot of that stuff over me already. Gemini already has access to it. And also beyond that, I've actually spent a lot of time in this past week, you know, with everything glasses, because at least at the time of filming, the glasses will be essentially launched to the world this week. Their take on privacy with the glasses is really, really cool. I will much more in depth in this in an article, but for instance.

Jason Hiner: Read it on The Deep View?

Sabrina Ortiz: Yes, exactly. But if you're doing an AI search of Gemini while wearing the glasses, if there's a person in the photo, it will just blur out the person's face when they're sending it, when they're sending the query to Gemini. They took a ton of different precautions of that nature. Again, there's all detail and more, but they really are taking it very seriously. And also the biggest, biggest difference for me from using them, I've used them at this point three different times. I used them at the Google activation before launch and then a Warby Parker one and then a Gentle Monster one. So I've had them on for a total of like probably three, four hours. Gemini makes all the difference.

Jason Hiner: Okay.

Sabrina Ortiz: Gemini, like it's generally like, I would, I think I would actually use the AI glasses for what they're intended as AI glasses, because Gemini, I'm familiar with Gemini. I use Gemini. Gemini as maybe good technically speaking as the models from ChatGPT or Claude, Anthropic, I mean, not so much, but like for everyday things, I mean, I think Gemini is great. And for me, from when I was experiencing the glasses, it made like the world of a difference. Like I kept even saying to the product, I'm like, I'm not just saying this, but I've tested AI glasses for years and I never use the AI and I think I will actually use the AI.

Jason Hiner: Interesting. Yeah. Will you use it as much as you use? So on your iPhone, you've written about this, talked about it, we've talked about this podcast before, you reassign your action button to the ChatGPT voice so that you can just have natural language conversation with it. Will you use it like that? Do you feel like you can use it similarly?

Sabrina Ortiz: I do think I would use it like that if I was wearing the glasses and I do think I would actually wear these glasses. First of all, there's more styles, more frames. There's two different brands, you know, Warby Parker and Gentle Monster, they're very cool. Even though that's not really the problem with the Ray-Bans, but anyhow, there's a lot of options that look good. I feel more comfortable wearing them because if somebody felt uncomfortable because I had cameras on my face, I'd be like, no, but like, let me tell you about Google. These aren't the Meta ones, I promise. I would feel a little bit better being able to disclose that. These aren't the Meta ones, these are the Google ones. Also, the battery life is a bit longer. I think they're reporting that it's nine hours, but I was talking to some of them there and that's nine hours of like, you know, as much use like video and content capture, which I never really am going to do. How many photos am I going to take or videos am I going to take on them? But like I was talking to some people and they were saying like, they could last up to 12 hours with them if it's just like queries. And I also wear glasses every day. So I think I would actually wear these. And if I'm already wearing them on my face and it just makes sense to just do the one tap and talk to Gemini about anything rather than pull out my phone and have to click a button and talk to ChatGPT. And I talk, I use Gemini Live almost at this point interchangeably as much as I do use ChatGPT voice.

Jason Hiner: Oh, interesting. Yeah. Okay. Nice. They're, they're aimed at you.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yes, exactly.

Jason Hiner: You are a core.

Sabrina Ortiz: I'm patient zero for these for this product specifically.

Jason Hiner: Yeah. I don't wear glasses. And so I really would only wear sunglasses or if like I wanted to get like transitions or something, if I specifically wanted the AI, but I find myself using the ones that I have less and less the AI glasses, somewhat because of the backlash against them.

Sabrina Ortiz: For sure.

Jason Hiner: Yeah. So, but there is one other pair of glasses I want to bring up and then let's talk about 2027. So I also tested a pair of glasses that has a much different approach.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah,

Jason Hiner: The Brilliant Labs, Halo. So this one is like very privacy focused. It's an open source product. It has a camera on it, although it's sort of like set back because it's a low res camera. And it's only for like, you can't use it to capture stuff with. It's using local models on your phone. And what it does is it's capturing. It's more like Granola, except if Granola was sort of, you know, on ambiently, like you can very easily turn it on. I mean, you can with Granola, but you still have to use your phone. But but then it would also it also captures what you see, but it does essentially closed-captions it. And then when it does it, it drops the audio files and the photo files immediately. So they don't have access to it. Nobody has access to it. But what you have then is the captured audio and description of what you saw. And so it's really sort of that are like kind of like memory glasses. And then they've also built like vibe coding, you can vibe code apps, you know, on them to like, if you want, if there's something you want to do with the glasses. So I found that sort of fun. And then there's sort of some play, you can tell that some of the designers in that are based in Asia, because it has like this very playful nature, sort of like kawaii, you know, in Japan, or or some of the things like in Korea, right, that are very playful and has like a kind of cartoon nature, you make an agent when you start it, and it has like this agent that does it, you can sort of gamify your environment and play against friends and stuff. And so it's just sort of a fun, interesting take, very privacy focused. And I was just I was interested in there just aren't that many unique takes on glasses, and it's a unique take. But it's still I would call it like a glasses enthusiast product, right. And so somebody that's really enthusiastic about the future of glasses would be like, Okay, I would want to do this because it's fun. They also only weigh 40 grams. So

Sabrina Ortiz: Google's actually Google's are 40 grams.

Jason Hiner: Interesting. So a glasses specialist told us last year that like the average pair of glasses wants to always be like 35 grams or less. And most of the technology glasses, the smart glasses, AI glasses are like 50 4950 52, you know, the Meta Ray-Bans display is like 79, right, especially heavy. So, you know, 40 is a lot closer to like all day wear, it also has all day batteries like 14 hours of battery life, which is good. So it's an interesting, it's an interesting one. We had the we had Bobak on the podcast. The CEO.

Sabrina Ortiz: They have an optical sensor, right? Like you see stuff in in them.

Jason Hiner: They do.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah,

Jason Hiner: Right. It's like, it's one of those ones that shines into your eye.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah,

Jason Hiner: Like the Halliday. That's right. Oh, that's right. Now they have in-lens display. So because of that, they're only 399. So it has a color in-lens display, or, you know, optical display. So so that and there. So they are trying to also hit a price point. Yeah. And it's as much of a platform as it is like a product, you know, in some cases. And so really interesting.

Sabrina Ortiz: Those are interesting. I don't know if I would be the like the person for them. But to your point, maybe they're setting the foundation for like when we are becoming more like more, we offload more and more to AI. Yeah, like then they really have potential there. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt that reminded me to hear you talk about those and or about those. Yeah, my honorable mention will always be specs, Snap SPECS.

Jason Hiner: Okay, yes, please. Because you had a good look at them.

Sabrina Ortiz: It's impressive. What they accomplished.

Jason Hiner: Yeah, it's hard to be really early. And I feel like they're really early.

Sabrina Ortiz: They're genuinely and I've actually talked to analysts about this, too, like they're the only company that can genuinely claim that they have a facial computer, right?

Jason Hiner: Yeah,

Sabrina Ortiz: There's no puck. There's no tethering. There's none. Everything is on your face.

Jason Hiner: Yeah,

Sabrina Ortiz: Even the Meta version, the meta what is there just I think meta

Jason Hiner: XR XR glasses,

Sabrina Ortiz: That's what they're called.

Jason Hiner: Yes.

Sabrina Ortiz: Those have a yeah, yeah. And I actually, yes, they're lighter than the SPECS. They look less bulky, which everybody, you know, of course, saw the memes of Evan, the CEO with like the big chunky monsters at Snap SPECS. Yeah, but their thing is like, because they're so chunky everywhere, it's very evenly distributed, the weight. Yeah, with the Meta XR glasses, I just felt like they were so top heavy, no matter what we did, like that we adjusted it, we changed the [unclear] and they were still comfortable. Well, don't get me wrong. But like, now we have this wire and this puck in my pocket. And on top of that, these are like top heavy. And I'm like, at this point, I just rather have the monster chunky clunky ones. And they don't look like glasses either. Because guess what? These aren't supposed to—people, I think people miss the point, okay? with the Snap SPECS, they are not supposed to be regular glasses, they're supposed to be replacing your, like, Apple Vision Pro.

Jason Hiner: That's right. In a pair of glasses,

Sabrina Ortiz: Exactly,

Jason Hiner: That cost $2,000.

Sabrina Ortiz: The price point

Jason Hiner: Is a problem.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, the Meta ones are cheaper.

Jason Hiner: Yeah, Meta ones $1,299, snaps like $2,100. Apple Vision Pro is still $3,500 base level. So it's expensive, but it really is like a future

Sabrina Ortiz: Product. It's the first facial computer. I think that's really cool. Like, I don't think, does everybody need to go and buy it? No. But in terms of like technological advances, this is pretty awesome. And in the world of AI too, it just makes a lot of sense. To your point, having that portable, like big screen on the go so you could do so much more work, I feel like if you're in that camp, of course, like a foldable phone is definitely much more feasible for everyday use. But I could see a universe where having something like a headset all the time with you might actually make sense. I think the SPECS will get there where they're and look better. And then I think there'll be an actual market for them. They're just early right now.

Jason Hiner: Yeah, I think it'll be an enterprise product. I think there will be, I think there'll be industries that will use it, right? Like if you're, if you're like a technician in the field and you run into a repair and you can't quite figure out what you're doing, but you want to be able to show somebody remote and they can walk you through it, right? We've seen these examples with AR and even VR to a degree for a long time. Like it is real. I mean, even they talked about this with Microsoft's, the versions of AR glasses that Microsoft did, HoloLens. And so, but it was just too big and too bulky at that point. There were some uses of it, but it was just too early. I do fear that this one is too early.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, it's too early right now. I will say that too. Yeah.

Jason Hiner: But it is, but if you look at where it was from, you look at Apple Vision Pro, you look at HoloLens and you look at where they are with this, like is such a clear leap forward. And so like I said, I think there will be some enterprises that are like, absolutely, we'll spend two grand on that and it can do some really interesting stuff for it. We'll see if that's enough to keep it going.

Sabrina Ortiz: A work from home perk too, like instead of getting a monitor or getting like, hey, you could get a monitor, but we could also get you like, you know, this portable like work system, like something like that.

Jason Hiner: Then you could take it with you when you go to a hotel.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, exactly.

Jason Hiner: Yeah. That's true. It's really interesting. I mean, that's one of the Vision Pro promises too. Same thing with Meta XR glasses that you mentioned with the puck, you know, is that you'll be able to, you know, take your laptop and then have like a big monitor just in your view. It's also better for privacy if you have something, you know, private, proprietary that you don't want somebody to shoulder surf you, you know, so it has other uses as well. But glad you brought them up.

Sabrina Ortiz: So, so in industries, like I think one of the things SPECS is really good at it's like it's in the actual plane of existence, everything's placed very realistically, you know. So I guess the augmented reality is very good. Essentially, that's the better easier way to say that. And there's some industries like you mentioned, maybe engineering, we're seeing things to scale or into Yeah, or where that's going to be very valuable. Sorry, that's enough for me, Ranting about those.

Jason Hiner: For sure. You know, you can see where if it could save you having to take a prototype and get on a plane, but instead you can do it and collaborate with a colleague, you know, 2000 miles away on something like then then that almost one trip buys the glasses, right, right, a $2,000 ticket, plane ticket, right, to go halfway across the world and hotel. So, so it's going to be interesting to watch them. Alright, let's talk a little bit about 2027 because what we have said is we haven't really seen AI products and the ones we have have not been good. You know, we've had, you know, AI pins and, you know, other devices

Sabrina Ortiz: Not a massive leap forward yet. They're all just like note takers for a certain degree or like, you know, a transcriber.

Jason Hiner: Yeah, we've had AI rings, we've had all kinds of devices, they've just none of them have been really very good. What do you think? What's your expectations for next year for AI devices and specifically the one that we know the most about, even though we still don't know anything about, which is OpenAI. We know OpenAI is working on an AI device, Jony Ive and his team, you know, joined OpenAI to work on this. They've been working on it for a while, they now, you know, have intimated that, you know, next year something's coming, even when you and I were OpenAI DevDay in September, we have some of the stuff with dots, you know, their agent and the way that they, it was pretty clear, you know, and even they sort of said when we asked, well, could this be, you know, have a really interesting like hardware when they're like, ah, we'll see, you know, so they have people, a lot of people, almost four or 500 people working on whatever the hardware, you know, thing is, which has come out in the Apple lawsuit with them. So they're working on something. What's your thoughts on OpenAI and other companies actually delivering a real AI device in 2027?

Sabrina Ortiz: I don't think we're there yet. I don't think we'll be, I think we'll be past 2027 when we get a real AI device. I think part of it is we don't even, I don't think it's as a collective society. We've developed one use case for AI that everybody needs. That's a bit, that's not just a chatbot. So the problem is we're trying to find like almost a physical manifestation of a chatbot. But the thing is, those are just apps on phones, you know, it's just software still. So I think maybe when, as a society, maybe if everybody gets to a point where everybody has an agent and it's like, oh, well, we need a device where it's like an agent directory. And like, maybe at that point, there'll be something where like, there'll be a physical need and a physical manifestation. But until then, no, I don't, I don't think anything. I think the closest thing we've gotten to an AI device is maybe robots, but like, are we going to get to a point in 2027 when everybody's mass adopting a home humanoid robot?

Jason Hiner: No. Not even close. Not even close.

Sabrina Ortiz: So no, I don't, I actually don't, and I think OpenAI's, I think we'll end up being like something underwhelming, to be honest. I think it's gonna be like the HomeView, like Apple's HomeView or something. And it's like, that'll be great. It'll be useful, but it won't be again, this like, AI device that people keep chatting about.

Jason Hiner: I want to push back on that a little bit because nobody thought that they wanted an internet device in their pocket until the iPhone came out, right? Nobody thought they wanted in a tablet until the iPad came out. So I think there is the opportunity for a company to release a device that people say, oh, that's, I want that. And then that may actually get more people interested in AI because we've talked about the fact that in the US, 60 to 70% of people have a negative view of AI, right?

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah.

Jason Hiner: And only about like 20 to 30% are using AI regularly. So it's still, we're still very early. So some of them have a negative view, even though they haven't used it yet, and that's why they're not using it. Some of them have a negative view, even though they are using it. But, but in general, people are wary of it. They're worried it's going to take jobs. They're worried like it takes too much energy or water or whatever. There's some, there's some myths around some of that.

Sabrina Ortiz: But also the data center buildouts are real too.

Jason Hiner: For sure.

Sabrina Ortiz: So for sure.

Jason Hiner: So I guess I think there's a potential, there is the potential for somebody to release an AI device, but then people say, oh, I want that.

Sabrina Ortiz: What would you define as an AI device?

Jason Hiner: A device that its first and primary function is to run AI is to run some AI application or function or task

Sabrina Ortiz: Or in a way that your phone can't already.

Jason Hiner: Yeah, or in a way that's easier or better than your phone can do it. Yeah. The one thing that I'm not, I don't know. I'm also skeptical about what OpenAI will release. Some of the things that have come out like they've clearly thrown everything at the wall. They've leaked to see what people get excited about. Clearly, you know, they've leaked that they're doing glasses. They leaked that they're doing an AI pin. They leaked that they're doing all kinds of things.

Sabrina Ortiz: Speculative, by the way. We don't know that they've leaked anything.

Jason Hiner: Sorry. This is like journalists like people.

Sabrina Ortiz: Jason is very distrustful of like, of leaking in general. Because whenever a report comes out, it's a leak.

Jason Hiner: I disagree. I think that they are. It's so funny. They're so smart about it that they do it like, you know, three people removed so it can't go back to them. But you know, anyway, that's a whole another topic. But I think that, you know, they have run some trial balloons, right? Like of what, see what people get excited about, which has been none of them. And like the most recent thing that they've done after the Apple thing, because there was some accusations that they had taken Apple technology. So they sort of found what's the thing we're working on? This is again speculative, but like that's the most unlike anything Apple's doing. And it's like a battery powered speaker that you can take with you to any room of the house, right? And it can be your always on sort of AI assistant. So you don't have to take out your phone. It seems that OpenAI is very obsessed with it being not on screen. If you listen to the interviews, they're obsessed with the idea that the ideal AI device does not have a screen, that we spend too much time on screens, that we want to spend less time on screens.

Sabrina Ortiz: And that it's an Echo-like speaker.

Jason Hiner: Exactly. Is it an Echo that's battery powered that you take around some people speculate it. Oh, maybe it's actually a robot like that you that like, you know, can motor around your home and follow you and stuff like that.

Sabrina Ortiz: Nobody wants that, I don't think.

Jason Hiner: But, but maybe it was R2-D2 or something, you know, as the sort of idea. But all of that is to say, you know, to your point, there's no consensus of what we want or what would actually move the needle and potentially get more people interested in the AI. But I do think that possibility is out there that if somebody came up with a version of AI that had context about you, that was easier than your phone, that was you're able to access and could do something for you that, you know, your phone really isn't as much today, then there that could actually be one of the things that gets more people using AI.

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, it's interesting because I think that would require it to be nothing that we've seen so far. And unfortunately, if you knew the answer, we probably make a lot of money, but it's like, we can't even think of the box out of it's going to require thinking out of the box. And we can't even imagine what that is, right?

Jason Hiner: Taking some risks, trying some things

Sabrina Ortiz: Completely. Yes, a completely new form factor or something brand new.

Jason Hiner: And we've seen people try that so far, and it's gone pretty badly.

Sabrina Ortiz: Because I think people are just putting AI into every object you have like, okay, an AI pen and AI glasses, AI pen, like, no, we need a brand new thing, a brand new category. And that's the challenge, I think.

Jason Hiner: Yeah, we'll see. It's going to be exciting to watch because I think there's going to be a lot of different things tried.

Sabrina Ortiz: I love covering these gadgets. They're always fun.

Jason Hiner: Yeah, they're going to be weird and sort of wacky and interesting. And so stay tuned for more in 2027. We'll be there for CES. I expect we'll see some some weird stuff at CES too.

Sabrina Ortiz: I'm sure. CES is always, you know, random.

Jason Hiner: Yeah,

Sabrina Ortiz: Yeah, cutting edge.

Jason Hiner: Lots of trial balloons there where people see, like, they put an idea out and see do people get interested in it or not. So I like those prototypes too. They're always fun. So yeah, we'll cover those.

Sabrina Ortiz: And hopefully the launch season is basically wrapped up ahead of the holidays. So

Jason Hiner: That's right. All right, Sabrina, thank you. Thanks everybody for watching and listening to The Deep View Conversations. We'll see you next time.