So I introduce to you, the multi-agentic AI system ODAI built on top of the OpenAI Agents SDK:

Our Backend Source Code

This code comprises of a system whereby a user can have a text or voice conversation with many different agents which help with day to day tasks. It can read and compose Gmail, read your documents, check flight statuses, search for products, and even get the realtime info on Caltrains.

There’s a lot of code in there. The Readme covers it pretty well. All the AI is in connectors/ and the primary Agent is in orchestrator.py. There’s also an entire Twilio integration where you can call ODAI and talk to it.

You can’t run it locally since you’d need access to firebase and API keys for all of our partners, but you can try it out as we are keeping it alive at odai.chat.

You can also call us at 888-231-1152.

I would try things like asking about concerts, movie times, stock and crypto quotes, the weather, etc..

I am transitioning into doing consulting for AI and other backend work. If you like what you see here and need help with AI strategy or implementation, please email me at george@sibbleconsulting.com.

Enjoy!

Back then, I used an attorney to incorporate. Because I didn’t know any better, we became a Delaware LLC. But it took a month of back and forth, a lot of paperwork, and then I fell into the trap of the attorneys telling me I needed a hyper detailed operating agreement. I was young. I was naive. And what we have today didn’t exist.

When I founded Omnivore in 2013, I used a similar process, but much better attorneys. We were a Delaware C corp in about two weeks.

I founded my third startup two days ago…or today, depending upon whether you define it by submitting documents or actually getting incorporated.

But I did it all on my own. Online. In a few hours. And it took 2 days, most of which was spent getting my co-founders to sign the documents they needed to.

And 15 minutes after I Delaware accepted me, I had an EIN. I was sitting at a restaurant, took out my phone, and got a bank account in about 10 minutes.

I am amazed. Technology has perhaps not advanced anywhere else as fast as it has for starting a company.

Kind of says something weird about society doesn’t it?

I founded through Stripe Atlas. I’ve been a fan of Stripe as long as I can remember as they are one of the best designed APIs with fantastic developer-friendly documentation in the history of technology. Atlas is their product for incorporating a company so you can quickly use their platform to start accepting payments.

So, you submit basic information like name, address, SSN, etc., decide what kind of company you want to be (interestingly they still only offer Delaware for C corps…would have preferred Texas or Nevada), and add your initial share grants, which come with full paperwork including a vesting schedule and proper cliffs.

Your co-founders all sign the documents and everything gets sent to Delaware. But today was a state holiday there so I wasn’t expecting anything. Except there it was in my inbox. We filed yesterday, we are a full fledged corporation as of around 5pm tonight. With an EIN. And a bank account.

That’s insane.

Even better, Atlas partners with Carta for cap table management. I hit one button, and now Carta is managing my cap table with all the documents stored plus a data room already set up for my fundraising activities.

Sometimes I do enjoy how far technology has gotten us. If only more useful things had gotten so much easier and cheaper than making a corporation and all the necessary components maybe I’d be more impressed with society.

At Change:Healthcare, where I was employee #3, I worked on modeling health insurance claims data for saving consumers and employers on their healthcare costs. I frequently crunched claims numbers for potential clients for our sales guy. One day he came to me and said, “We have a meeting tomorrow morning and I need you to make a presentation on their data.” This alarmed me as it usually took a week or longer back in those days to prepare data since I was doing it all in Excel. However, I pushed myself very hard through a sleepless night and killed it the next day. I had accomplished something I felt very proud of.

The salesperson didn’t seem to notice the effort I had put in or how far above and beyond I had gone at a company where I didn’t feel I was well paid and owned very little equity in (despite selling for $143 million, I made under $5,000 when Change:Healthcare was eventually purchased).

So I went to him and asked him why he didn’t say thank you or show any appreciation. His response was simple:

“Why would I thank you for doing your job?”

That struck me hard. The concept that just because I was paid for something I didn’t deserve praise seemed odd to me, as someone who learned a long time ago that “please” and “thank you” can get you almost anything and open doors previously closed. This was also in the South where courtesy was much more common. Not to mention, as the YouTube video pointed out, I was raised on praise for getting good grades and it was something that was particularly important to me.

Sadly, this mentality that being praised for work was unnecessary seems to permeate society (or at least my career). I had a misunderstanding with a CEO once who didn't understand the release date I quoted him was an estimate. He had added dozens of features and we were months away from being able to release to production, yet he called me up that day and asked what time the site would go live. Despite my trying to explain to him we couldn’t, he told me he had briefed investors that we’d be live that day (without discussing with me).

I’ll never forget the next 24 hours. I put in a Herculean effort to finish everything necessary for our site to go live and somehow achieved it. All for little to no traffic thereafter. It was just to make investors happy.

Did he say thank you? No. Absolutely no praise at all.

At another company, I worked 100 hour weeks relentlessly and would get woken up by calls at all times of the day from the CTO. In the 9 months I was there, I wrote four times as many lines of code as the next employee down. Was I ever thanked? Of course not. In fact they were so resolute in finding ways to tell me I wasn’t doing a good job, on a quarterly review, the put down that I didn’t properly capitalize a variable’s name. That was the only negative they could think of.

What I really don’t understand is praising employees is perhaps the cheapest (it’s free) way of motivating them. Everyone wants to feel good and proud of their work. I and a group of people I’ve worked with for a decade are working on something new and I make sure to always go above and beyond to thank each employee for their contributions, especially when they put in extra time or get something done exactly how I had hoped. And when I ask for things, appending a “please” takes no effort at all. It’s how I’ve operated my whole career with people who report to me.

The way they react is incredibly positive. They know their work is appreciated and are always hungry to do more. In many ways, I think appreciation is worth just as much as monetary renumeration.

So my biggest takeaway after always showing courtesy to my employees is that it’s absolutely a strong motivator if you want happy, hard working employees. Not to say I also don't lay down the law when I need to, but that dichotomy of “You did good” vs. “This isn’t enough” is better than always keeping employees wondering where they stand.

So want to get more work out of your employees? Start by saying “Thank You” more often. It’s so little to you but goes so far for them.

Now if only praise went up the ladder as well…

Then came a lot of other interesting devices. I remember I was the first of my friends to have a phone with a camera. And it could do videos too. The concept of having a video camera in your pocket at all times was mind blowing. Blackberries were great devices for email, text and general work stuff. Then came the iPhone and the whole world changed. Our lives now seem centered around this device. We use it for everything from shopping to transportation to email to dating to pictures to….you get it.

The thing is, I miss being able to go off the grid. I miss being unreachable. I miss the days where I wasn't constantly getting notifications (although I turn off most). Slack is probably the worst offender and the bane of my existence. Ever since its invention, it’s been standard at every company I’ve been at that if the right person Slacks you, an immediate response is generally expected, at almost any time of day. I once woke up at 7am by a phone call from the CTO of the company I worked for because I didn’t respond to him fast enough on Slack.

So these days, I kind of don’t like my phone. Rather than it enabling me, I feel like it’s tethered me to it and it enables all sorts of intrusions into my life. I have an Apple Watch Ultra, but I never wear it because all it does is amplify the intrusion.

Fortunately, other people have the same feeling and some have done something about it. There’s a growing trend of “minimalist” phones. They frequently have a black and white screen, run Android, and have very limited capabilities on purpose.

The only problem is they are outside of Apple’s ecosystem and it’s basically impossible to switch between it and my regular phone on say a night out when I don’t want to be disturbed.

Which brings me to my request. Apple worked with carriers to do something very interesting with the Apple Watch. Technically, it has its own phone number, but it rings and you can use it to talk, even without your cell phone present, on the same number as your iPhone.

So what I want is a very minimal iPhone that also rings on the same number and lets me send iMessage. That's it. Maybe have Uber on it.

You can make it small and compact like a Motorola Razr. It’s your “I don’t want to be interrupted” device. The one you take when you want to leave work behind and enjoy the world.

I’d buy one in an instant. Spend good money on it too. The fact such minimal devices exist shows there is demand. One can only hope Apple would someday create such a device. Hopefully the right person is listening.

Look, the market was insanely overvalued. By almost any historical metric. The name for this was “the everything bubble” and lots of smart people were talking about it.

The S&P was down about 10% as of Friday and down another 4% in futures (although it’s actually recovering).

Clearly, the tariff announcement caught everyone off guard (including me). But the focus of the new administration for a while has been elsewhere. The Biden admin mostly financed its massive deficits with 2yr notes, about $9,000,000,000,000 (that’s nine trillion) of which need to be refinanced this year.

If bond rates stayed where they were, by the end of this year the federal government would have been stuck paying over $2 trillion a year just in interest.

That’s the end of this country as we know it.

As equities fall, they have fled into the treasuries markets and the 10yr yield has fallen drastically. Every basis point it goes down saves a billion dollars PER DAY in interest we have to pay for all this debt due this year.

If you look at market activity, institutions have been selling while retail (individual investors) are going on a buying spree with Thursday involving record purchases by your every day investor…that was then broken by a new record on Friday.

The sky isn’t falling and while I don’t think the economy is in a great spot, we have to readjust a few things to get our situation in a better situation for the long term.

There may be some short term pain but it’s done with good intentions because the other option is literally the end of times.

So, stay calm and remember markets always recover. I’m not a financial professional and this is not investment advice, but it’s unlikely VIX will stay this high for very long…

Of course that changed and by 2011, I was rocking one.

Back then though, there was something that constantly irked me. So many apps were coming out that required payment information. Want to book movie tickets? Yes you can now do that but you have to put in your credit card info for each card you might want to use.

Buy groceries?

Get an Uber?

Book a flight?

Book an Airbnb?

Etc.. Every app has their own payment info and was endlessly frustrating having to re-enter the same info over and over again, especially if you wanted to have options about what card to use or it got stolen/replaced.

After thinking a while, I had an idea. At AngelHack in 2011, me, a designer, and an iOS developer started from zero lines of code.

By the end, we had setup whereby you could open our app, store your payment details, and then by clicking a button in any other app, switch dynamically back to ours where you could checkout using stored payment credentials.

Quick and smooth purchases on your phone. A revolution in mobile commerce.

We came in 3rd out of like 50 teams, which we considered a success considering it was very clear the teams above us did a lot of prep coding we had not. We even got a few VC meetings out of it.

We lost interest in the idea though and it was a good thing. In 2014, Apple would launch Apple Pay, which includes the ability to pay for items in app.

It’s really kind of fascinating how far Apple Pay has come. I was ordering Starbucks earlier and the typical Apple Pay request to refill my card came up. I use it for every other purchase I can across my phone, iPad, and laptop. I switched from Chrome to Safari just for Apple Pay, and honestly - I don’t regret it one bit (passkeys are awesome too).

Had we built our system, Apple Pay would have crushed it, even though it has taken quite a bit of time for it to take hold. I don’t recall using it at all before Covid but ever since, I have every card in my Wallet. It’s even changed my spending habits in that I can so easily decide which card to use that it’s very easy to get significantly more rewards per purchase. At minimum, I make 2% now, frequently up to 6%. I have to carry four cards to be able to do that (Apple Card, TD Cash, Chase Sapphire, Amazon Prime Card). I rarely bother carrying my wallet anymore unless I have a specific need for my driver’s license, which will eventually become digital too.

Apple Pay continues to grow ferociously. It’s fun to look back and know I saw seamless in-app payments long before they ever became reality.

Now consider for a second that there is little to no cost to provide the service once the satellites are in space. All that cash flow can go directly into SpaceX’s other activities.

And then we have Starship. What a beast. It’s amazing that just over a month ago was the last launch of the largest rocket in the world where it successfully landed. The pace at which SpaceX continues to drive technology forward is absolutely amazing.

SpaceX’s COO said to expect over 400 launches of Starship in the next 4 years. We are just getting started.

The problem is this is not the direction I’d be taking AR glasses. See, I don’t want to replace my computer. My laptop works fine and my desktop has 3 monitors and a lot more computing power and RAM than will ever fit in something I can wear in the next decade or two. What I really want is an Apple Watch I can wear in my field of view at all times.

Hear me out. While I have an Apple Watch Ultra, I rarely wear it since every time I do, I find I’m more bothered by notifications than finding any actual use for it besides when exercising. I also still have to always be looking down at it just like my phone and I don’t find it significantly easier. However, what device do I use much more frequently during the day than even my laptop? My iPhone. For countless reasons. Probably the top are:

• Reading and replying messages

• Reading email

• Making calls

• Getting directions whether walking or driving

• Calling an Uber or making an Uber Eats or Instacart order

• Checking my calendar and getting reminders and notifications

I’d say those activities probably comprise over 50% of my usage of my iPhone on a daily basis, or at least what prompts me to pick it up. And the thing is, all of these fit very well into relatively simple glasses you could wear. I would love to:

• See text/iMessages as they come in and reply with my voice

• See and read emails without having to pick up my phone

• Make a call effortlessly (to an extent AirPods already allow this)

• See a map with directions on it at all times, rather than constantly have to turn my phone back on and look at it

• See where my Uber or delivery order is

• Quickly sneak a peek at my calendar or get a nice notification to join a meeting

Now, the iPhone already handles these pretty well, and in theory so does an Apple Watch, but just imagine having a heads up display like many cars have at all times right in front of you. There’s so much more it could do too. Perhaps my favorite concept is, within everyone’s comfort of privacy, reminding me of people’s names with AR overlays at networking events. It could possibly pip up some information on them like where they work and what their specialty is. I’m terrible at remembering names so this would be a game changer for me. I have always wanted something I could reference like a personal CRM so I could have better and more efficient communication. I mean, all I use Facebook for is being reminded of birthdays anymore. Imagine if that popped up over someone’s head.

But I digress. Again, what I’m saying is I don’t want a device for sitting on my couch and computing in the air. I want something that moves with me everywhere, prevents me from having to always reach for my phone, and interacts with the world. The best part of Orion’s tech demo was actually when it looked at a bunch of ingredients set out on a table. The presenter asked Meta’s AI to come up with a smoothie he could make with them. Orion properly identified the items and put little tags above them before giving a recipe with step by step instructions and nutritional facts.

I want more of that and less of a browser in my face

The hardware either way is looking about 5-10 years down the line. But I sincerely hope we redirect AR to actually augmenting the world and our connectivity instead of trying to make laptops in the sky.

Now, the shitshow started immediately. Many of these people had never been in such an establishment and didn’t know how to appropriately carry themselves. The waiter tried desperately to take drink orders before getting entirely exasperated. As I’ve done throughout my life, I took control of the situation. I brought the waiter over, wrestled my friends into behaving, ordered some appetizers for everyone, and basically handled all of the interactions with the restaurant staff all night so as to cause them as little a nuisance as possible.

However, that also meant at the end of the night they slipped me the check. It was $8,000.

I quickly asked how many cards we could split it on. The answer was 4.

Now, these were the days before Venmo, Cash App, or Zelle. And the variance in orders around the table couldn’t be more dramatic. There was a young couple so strapped for cash, they split a single beer. Then there was the guy who sold his startup who ordered filets for him and his wife along with two very expensive bottles of wine.

Again, as I usually do, I didn’t panic. However, everyone else was severely inebriated and everyone was apt to get to the next destination (a nightclub). I first scrambled to make notes about what each person actually owed (and of course they all argued with me since they didn’t factor in taxes and a mandatory 20% tip) and then grabbed the five most well off people at the table to decide what to do. They were surprisingly more frustrated than I was but agreed to chip in. In the end though, I ate a huge portion of the check at a party I was just invited to because I tried to prevent the wait staff from having a nightmare of an evening.

However, my friends were all good people and over the next few months I basically ate and drank for free. They all appreciated the loan and I got paid back reliably.

But this isn’t about them. That night I wondered: in the world of smartphones, how come we cannot pay using them at a restaurant?

I had been looking for a good idea and felt I had one. I set to work and created a really fantastic web app where you scanned a QR code to get to your tab. Multiple people could scan the code and then select which items were theirs. You could even split items as many ways as you wanted. While you were all interacting with the check, it updated in real time and showed who had picked what so you could all sort out that everyone was paying appropriately. Then, once everything was covered, it would charge every person’s card simultaneously.

It was probably the best demo I’ve ever made and people adored it. Then I hit a brick wall.

See, in order to display a check, you had to get what was on it from the restaurant’s point of sale (POS). At the time, this market was cornered by very old systems such as Micros and Aloha. And they did not play well with other software. In fact, during my research, I found that basically no one could figure out how to interact with them despite dozens of other companies trying to solve the same problem I was. Except for one: SubtleData.

SubtleData was a company out of Austin where its explicit goal was to allow apps to interface with restaurant POS systems. And they had cracked the code on how to do it. I started using them and found they had a very unique problem. See, their CTO was very good at figuring out how to interface with POS systems, but knew very little about modern APIs and how to create a solution that developers would implement. Rather than using a typical JSON API using best practices, he had implemented his own data request and response format that made very little sense and required multitudes more effort to learn and use. So in my implementation of their API, I translated it into a much more developer friendly version. SubleData took notice. They demoed my API to a big client who immediately said that was how they wanted to integrate. SubleData purchased my work and hired me to rebuild their API.

Sadly, SubleData soon went out of business due to a patent troll. However, I was the primary contact for most of their customers so I set about implementing a new manner of interacting with POS systems that went around the patent. It took around 8 months of development, but I got there, and thus Omnivore was born. It sold in 2022 for $50mm and its API powers 30,000 restaurants today.

However, what has shocked me the most is how much the POS landscape has changed. See, there had been many attempts to create new restaurant POS systems since the entrenched ones were awful.In fact, I had two friends that were CEOs of two different companies making new restaurant POS systems. Both failed.

See, the POS doesn’t just keep track of what’s ordered. It’s also a full accounting suite, personnel management application, and supply chain calculator. These are very complex systems with very unique requirements. For instance, a very large company trying to make inroads did a lot of user testing and realized that iPads were not optimal. Servers at restaurants quickly memorize the layout of the touchscreens they use and get very fast at using them, especially in bars. Due to limitations with iPad software, they could not update the screen fast enough while servers navigated it to keep up with human muscle memory. So they went with a Windows solution with a touchscreen instead. This is one example of the tremendous thought that has to go into designing these systems.

But today, I barely see Aloha and Micros anywhere. Here in Boston, almost everyone is on Toast. Clover is another great POS. Despite decades of companies failing to replace Micros and Aloha, it’s actually happened. It’s very fun to see. Perhaps my favorite part is that Toast actually does put QR codes on their receipts that you can use to checkout with your phone. Their software is nowhere near as feature complete as mine demo was (it doesn’t have any capacity for splitting checks) but the general idea is there. It only took 12 years for my idea of paying your restaurant bill with a QR code came true, but it did.

It’s been very fun to be an expert in this field and watch it grow so I thought I’d share the ride with you. Enjoy your Sunday evening.

I’m happy to say that a new phone has come out that has re-ignited my passion for mobile computing devices. While reception of the iPhone 16 was mixed, this phone dropped the next day. And since then, while there have been a few videos on my YouTube feed about the iPhone 16, there have probably be 5-10x as many for the Huawei Mate XT. The internet is going absolutely insane over it.

The Mate XT is the first phone to have essentially 3 screens and fold in two places. When entirely folded up, it works as any other phone and is only slightly thicker. When unfolded, WOW. It’s a 10” tablet. You can even partially unfold it so two screens are active. It has stunning displays and is a massive leap forward in smartphones.

The base price for it is $2,800.

And it sold out immediately in China, passing 3,000,000 units in its first 24 hours. If you want one, you can go to eBay where they are going for over $10,000.

This is the first device in a decade or longer I’ve seen that makes me believe there is still room to innovate in smartphones. It’s an unbelievably futuristic and feature packed design that will no doubt be incredibly useful. Sadly, it’s not available in the US as we have outlawed Huawei and it runs Harmony OS, which is not widely supported.

I have to say very directly that this kind of innovation makes Apple look pathetic. Even more, it makes Chinese phone companies look far ahead of their US and Korean counterparts. The device is even under 5mm thick!

Come on Apple. Stop sitting on your ass and do something new. The disappointing launch of the 16 followed by the explosive introduction of a tri-fold phone is embarrassing.

Let’s make phones fun again.

And what can I say? We should just call these new phones the iPhone 12 Mark 5.

There was already a tiny difference between the 14 and 15 last year. This year, there seems to be almost no new features beyond a dedicated camera button and some niche video features. It’s incredibly disappointing that the most valuable and arguably most successful company in the world has so little new to show after a year. I really wonder where those tens of billions of dollars in R&D go every year beyond faster processors.

It was interesting to see the general public’s reaction be a resounding “meh.” I followed a popular live comment thread during the presentation. Almost every comment was about how bored they were, making fun of Apple’s over the top and ridiculous marketing claims, and wishing for something (anything) exciting.

Perhaps what makes me most annoyed is that Apple used to believe that hardware should sell hardware and software is universal across devices. The iPhone 15 was the first iPhone ever to have a pure software feature restricted to a new generation of devices. On the 15 Pro, you could take a portrait and then refocus on a different spot. As a photographer, this was my primary reason for upgrading and a feature I use frequently. However, there was absolutely nothing preventing Apple from implementing this feature on earlier devices. It was artificially restricted to new devices to force people to upgrade. There’s another feature this year, some new camera capabilities with filters (I frequently use black and white) that seem to again be artificially restricted via software to the 16. Apple seems to realize the hardware changes aren’t enough to make people buy new iPhones so they are falling back on BS marketing tricks to do it. It’s very disappointing.

None of it is enough to make me want to upgrade, except it would essentially cost me nothing to do so and my battery life is at 87% which causes noticeable problems daily.

What a dull, lifeless presentation that revealed nothing of value or interest. Shame.

Well, I went into the store and found the new Pixel 9 Pro Fold. I was immediately surprised at how small it was. I put it side by side with my 15 Pro Max and it was both narrower, shorter, and about the same thickness when closed. The front screen felt tiny compared to my large device in fact, but was crisp, bright, and clear.

And then I opened it.

Inside is a massive mini-tablet sized screen that is just beautiful. Just like its iOS cousins, navigation was fast and apps were very snappy. But I immediately started playing with the multi-tasking capabilities. For a power user like me having two apps side by side would be a total game changer instead of always swiping back and forth between them. Even more, the device was shockingly thin when open, so much so it made my iPhone feel thick in comparison. I actually had to look it up right now and it’s only 30g heavier than the iPhone although you don’t notice it.

So in a smaller device, you get significantly more advanced capabilities vs. the iPhone. I suddenly realized this was the device to give me those great feelings again. Alas, I use FaceTime and my Apple Card entirely too much to be able to switch devices. We pretty much know the iPhone 16 is the same old same old so I don’t expect to get excited tomorrow. We probably have years before Apple gives us anything as exciting as what I saw today.

This is the oil tanker MV Sounion burning in the Red Sea. About a week ago, Houthi terrorists hit it with several missiles, provided by Iran. The crew evacuated and the ship has been burning. As this photo shows, it has also begun leaking oil. It was carrying 150,000 tons of crude or approximately 4 times the amount of the Exxon Valdez.

And all of it is about to get dumped into the ocean.

Yet there is very little media coverage. There are no worldwide calls to take action. This is going to be a monumental environmental disaster due to the abject failure of the US Navy to maintain safe transit through the Red Sea.

And that’s why we hear nothing. Because it is very inconvenient for the US. This ecological disaster does not fit a narrative that helps those in power, so it’s simply ignored.

Pay attention to who covers this event and how. It lays bare what people actually care about whether it be the environment or their pockets.

So I’ve had Apple Intelligence for about a month now and I have to say I’m not impressed. I’m not even sure where to start.

For one thing, unless you actively decide to use it, you never really see it. The writing tools are probably the coolest feature and where LLMs shine, except I barely write anything of length on my phone so I think I used it once and then never again. Photos also uses AI to create videos except it’s indistinguishable from the previous feature already available on the device except maybe you can get a little more specific in your request. Sure, Siri seems a little more helpful, but at least for me, I never use it beyond occasionally setting a timer when my hands are busy elsewhere. Sadly, the photo editing abilities that were just released like removing items from a photo do a pretty poor job. Google’s AI that is cloud based on its Pixel lineup does significantly better in this task.

One feature you can opt into and do see is notification summaries (if you get multiple notifications from an app, it will summarize them). I was looking forward to this feature as I have far too many notifications despite almost never opting into them (Uber, I don’t need to be reminded I am being dropped off on a bike path on every damn ride). But the summaries really don’t have enough text length to effectively give useful context and it shows. I frequently have to expand the notifications to really figure out what is going on. Maybe receiving multiple texts from the same person does it work okay.

And that’s about it. It hasn’t changed how I use my phone in the slightest. As for the rest of iOS 18, it’s a fairly useless upgrade as well. The new Home Screen icon colors are hideous and while I’d sure like to have nicely arranged icons, I use so many apps in any given day (I have maybe 50 in folders on my main screen) that the idea of figuring out which to prioritize and relearn muscle memory that is 5+ years deep (I can get to almost any app I want with my eyes closed) just to have a good looking home screen seems ludicrous. Perhaps the only feature I find useful is scheduling texts to send in the future which I use to send cute notes to my fiancee if I know she’ll wake up before me.

So, again, there is nothing new in iOS 18 that moves the world of smartphones forward. Just gimmicks. Honestly, I’ve been increasingly enjoying my Samsung Galaxy Tab Ultra which feels like a more advanced device than my iPhone these days. I’m not counting on anything interesting in this year’s iPhone 16 announcement either, although I will probably still upgrade since with my plan it’s free and my battery on my 10 month old iPhone 15 is already degraded to 91% capacity, which is also ridiculous. Has fast fashion come to smartphones?

I continue to be disappointed in the so called innovation in the smartphone space, especially with Apple. They seem very content while Samsung keeps pushing boundaries. I can foresee iOS/iPhone losing market share if they continue to sit on their hands which would decimate Apple’s stock.

So if you were hoping AI would somehow revolutionize your iPhone experience, I’m sorry to disappoint. But then again, almost nothing new has come to the OS in years. Shame.

PS: I do want to give a shout out to the Dynamic Island and Live Notifications. A few years after they started on the iPhone 14, they are really shining. I love being able to see where my Uber or Instacart orders are at a glance, even when I’m actively using the phone. The Island feels like an essential feature of the phone for me now and kudos to Apple for figuring out how to have useful widgets on the Lock Screen without us actually having to select them. It’s a fantastic compromise that keeps information I need close at hand.

My family said I was insane and made fun of me taking town cars instead of taking a cab like a normal person. But I saw the future and my rides were professional and comfortable, very different from a typical NYC cab affair. Uber I believe had just closed their series A round. Their explosive growth in valuation over the next decade now makes my family constantly ask me what the next big thing is.

The entire time I lived in SF, I did not own a car. Even with black, you could get most anywhere to and from downtown/Marina for about $15, the minimum cost back then and about the same as a single drink on a night out. Uber X rides would consistently be around $8 or so.

A mile and a half ride that takes 8 minutes in Boston that I take frequently now costs $38 for Uber Black.

Why do I take black? We’ll get to that.

But first, these prices are getting out of control. They seem to go up every few months. This ride was around $28 a year ago. Even weirder, the ride home is about $10 cheaper than the ride there consistently. I used to go anywhere without considering the cost but now I absolutely think twice and will walk much further than I used to.

Even on lower tiers, it’s an $18 ride, which is ridiculous for 8 minutes. So why do I take black? Because the quality of Uber Comfort and X is absolutely atrocious. First, I get very carsick easily so when a car has a strong smell or a bad driver, I may well feel ill for a good hour after arriving at my destination which can ruin, say, a dinner out. Meanwhile, the driver is talking loudly on the phone or blasting awful music while aggressively honking his horn. I don’t recall the last time I had a pleasant ride in Uber X or Comfort. Cabs are literally better. Black has also gone significantly downhill with around 20% of the cars stinking or the drivers behaving badly, but is still a significantly better and more consistent experience. I only take maybe 2 round trip rides a week so the extra expense more than justifies avoiding any issues for me.

And then there’s when I need to use Uber Pet to take my dog to the vet, as I did today. For those that don’t know, Uber Pet is basically slightly more expensive Comfort where you are allowed to bring a pet.

On the first ride of the day, we made it about two blocks before the driver started asking me for directions. She simply couldn’t follow the GPS. Repeatedly along the ride she would ask which way to go and I’d just read it off the GPS right in front of her. Annoying, but not a big deal.

Then there was coming back from the vet. The driver was rude, curt, talking loudly on his phone, and missed a turn that led to a 10 minute detour. My dog was whining and not doing well so I was a little short with him after he missed the turn (since I had pointed it out to him beforehand). But we eventually got home and I thought nothing of it.

And then, 20 minutes later, I got notified that I got charged a $100 cleaning fee by Uber.

Shocked, I reached out to Uber asking what mess I was paying for since my dog had just sat down the entire time. I also immediately researched Uber’s policy for pet hair since if I’m not paying extra for normal shedding, what am I paying for?

To quote Uber’s official policy:

For minor issues related to pet hair, animal odor, or typical wear-and-tear, a cleaning fee will not apply. For larger messes—including urine, feces, or large scratches—drivers will be eligible for standard cleaning fees.

It appears Uber has an automated response when you send in a complaint because I quickly received a message back with a picture of the “mess”:

Uber charged me $100 for that? I obviously quickly replied and quoted their own policy.

I shared the photo with my fiancee who also pointed out something else. This is my dog.

My dog’s hair color is black. The hairs in the photo are white. This isn’t even a photo from my ride.

It took about an hour but as soon as a human looked at the photos, Uber issued a refund and apologized. So basically, an Uber driver tried to scam me out of $100.

Thanks a bunch Uber for reminding me of the rapid decline of civilized society.

I adore how they all seamlessly work together. The ability to have my messages, FaceTime, phone calls, and photos seamlessly integrate into each device is not only useful, but expected at this point.

I haven’t always been on the iPhone bandwagon though. I actually had the original Motorola Droid before an iOS device. Then after a few years, I got the original Samsung Note, which was a marvel at the time. Then I switched to a Pixel (can’t remember which one…it was about 2013) before going back to the iPhone permanently. I also was a full Linux user for about 5 years (laptop and desktop) when I was coding heavily. While I adore Linux and it’s exceptional when you are spending all day writing code or in a terminal, for general lifestyle use it simply doesn’t beat the Mac, especially with all the integrated features above.

My forays into Android were pretty disastrous. I push the limits of my devices and frequently find their interfaces to be what holds me back in my workflow. At the time of when I used it previously, Android and its apps were very unstable which would bring me to a halt. It was too much to bear so I’ve had iPhones ever since.

However, that doesn’t mean I don’t keep up with new devices….and I think it may be Android’s time to shine.

The first device that I saw some incredible new features in was the Samsung S24 Ultra. It’s a beautiful piece of hardware that appears to have some amazing software features on it like AI editing of photos and realtime translation in calls. Now, Apple with iOS 18 is going to be adding many of these features to bring its software up to parity with new Android devices. However, I started to get an itch to try one of them.

When the new iPad Pro with the M4 chip was announced, I decided to get one to see if it fit into my workflow. I used it for a few hours and then it sat unused for a week before I returned it (if you’ve never taken advantage of Apple’s gracious return policy to try out a device…give its a spin). It’s amazing hardware held back by abysmal software. The screen is stunning but unless all I used it for was consuming Youtube videos, it really felt useless.

Another piece of hardware I’ve always had my eyes on was the Samsung Galaxy Tab Ultra, a 15” monster of a tablet. Again, beautiful hardware, but would the software match?

Well, recently I’ve been called upon to develop an Android app, so I finally got an excuse to buy a new device. I picked up a Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 Ultra.

It’s hard to say why, but I use this tablet multiple times a day and absolutely love it. It’s the perfect size, has a great screen, feels good in the hands, and I am shocked at how stable its software is.

Even more so, I’m amazed at how much better the software is than an iPad.

Above all else, I use multitasking heavily on it. I’ll have a Google Meet open with a browser open next to it so I can do research. I’ll have Gmail with Spotify. Youtube with Chrome. It supports running up to 5 apps on screen simultaneously (4 with one in each corner and one floating). It’s significantly more akin to a desktop than my typical experience with a tablet. Even more, all the apps seem refined and stable. The OS itself is good looking and has more customization than I can ponder. Back in the day, I would have spent hours making it all look pretty but these days I am more productivity focused. If I had an Android phone though, rest assured I’d spend countless hours making it look cool. There are millions of potential setups while iPhones just have the dull array of apps.

And you know what? I significantly adore this tablet over the iPad.

Meanwhile, a form factor that started as a gimmick has now become the highest end phone available: the foldable smartphone. Recently, the Galaxy Fold 6 and Pixel 9 Pro Fold have been released.

And then I saw this video.

I want it. Now. I would be so much more productive on my phone (especially on the go) with the ability to have apps open side by side.

So why not get it? Quite simply, I use FaceTime waaaay too much to be able to switch. Apple has me locked squarely in their ecosystem and for the very first time ever, I’m disappointed in them. I have always believed that many Android devices are in fact better hardware but significantly worse software. But now? That has been turned on its head. Apple is so far ahead in market share they seem to have been very happy releasing small updates to hardware every year. Although, iPhone sales are finally slumping as people are holding onto their devices for longer.

Now, the above foldable devices are among the most expensive smartphones ever made so they may not go mainstream anytime soon, but I do believe if you use your phone heavily for productivity, it’s by far the best form factor. Rumors are Apple won’t be releasing a foldable device until at least 2027 and it might be an iPad before a phone.

I have to say, this is extremely disappointing. Foldable hardware (especially the latest Pixel) is advancing quickly and we finally have the software to make it super useful.

For the first time ever, I look at my iPhone somewhat in disgust realizing all the capabilities I’m missing out on while I also admire Apple for adding features so necessary that I can’t leave it behind as almost everyone I know uses one.

If anyone at Apple is reading this, please work on making better updates to your hardware and start pushing the envelope. Our mobile devices can clearly do so much more than you would have us believe and Android is finally pulling ahead. I’d rather not have to give up my iOS environment so please get a foldable out.

It’s going to be really hard to resist getting a foldable at this rate.

In a surprise move, an EU Commissioner sent a letter to Musk threatening him with legal action if he doesn’t prevent Trump from spreading “disinformation”. As always, I say that it is not government’s job to determine what is truth and fiction since they have a vested interest in those decisions.

Musk had a pretty hilarious reply.

Quite.

I really do find how we got to this place fascinating. Twitter back in the day was heavily left-leaning with most prominent conservatives getting banned off the platform. It was the center of group and “right think” on the internet. It was highly suspected (and later confirmed) that they coordinated with the federal government to stifle speech and speakers that they did not approve of with seemingly many ties to the so called deep state and the intelligence community.

For the government, everything was going smoothly with Twitter as they love being able to craft and control the narrative.

And then came Elon Musk who made a bid to purchase the company. All seemed well until Musk got 2nd thoughts. He appeared to have noticed the depth of the bot problem on the platform which he claimed increased their user totals artificially.

Meanwhile, after Musk’s offer and open talk of making Twitter a more open platform, liberals went nuts seemingly not wanting to lose their safe space. But shockingly, when Musk tried to back out of the purchase, those same liberals all insisted he overpay and lose money. It was a certain cognitive dissonance that happened overnight I will never understand. One day people were saying Twitter had to prevent the sale and the very next day the same people were insisting they sell.

Meanwhile, I was surprised they were willing to sell at all. As Musk has defined it, Twitter/X is the “town hall.” And the government had their hands deep in it. What more could they want? And in the most shocking decision, after Musk dropped his complaints about the price, Twitter agreed to sell and the rest is history. Musk has become perhaps the strongest proponent of free speech in the world, X is the Wild West, and Musk is now set for a major event supporting one Presidential candidate that those same people who previously controlled twitter absolutely abhor.

I really do think if Musk hadn’t tried to back out, they may not have even agreed to the sale. Short term malice has ended up backfiring in a huge and hilarious way.

While it was clear to see happening, it now appears this could be the end of this bull market mostly driven by a belief the Mag 7 could never stop going up. The Nasdaq 100 was already down 11% over the last month and NVIDIA has lost a quarter trillion or so of value.

Either way, get ready for an interesting Monday on Wall St. I’ll be watching closely.

The result is that Intel’s stock is down 31% over the last month with over $30 billion in market cap wiped out in a single day last week.

This really shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone.

Intel thought x86 was unstoppable and somehow they would never be topped. Well, let’s examine how their hubris might well cost them the company.

As evidenced by Apple’s M series chips, ARM has taken a huge bite out of x86’s market share. While ARM was focused on power efficiency, Intel was trying to brute force power out of older designs by throwing more watts into every successive chip. In the massive laptop and data center segments, this is a losing strategy. Not only that, but they significantly missed out on EUV by not investing a decade ago. Now the combination of TSMC, AMD, and ARM are slowly but surely eating away at Intel’s market share. All 3 companies are worth significantly more than Intel at this point. AMD has revolutionized processor design especially for the data center and continues to improve every year. Since Intel was stuck on outdated fab nodes, it lagged behind in both speed and efficiency. Only a decade ago, Intel snubbed AMD by saying, “They [AMD] are in the rear view mirror.”

Furthermore, Intel completely ignored AI until it was upon us. While NVIDIA has reinvented itself from a gaming company to an AI data center provider, Intel famously dismissed CUDA (the system that powers all modern AI) “a footnote.” During that time, NVIDIA has skyrocketed to the world’s 3rd most valuable company while Intel itself may soon be a footnote.

Intel’s not only cutting jobs, but many of the perks that are reportedly highly valued by their skilled workforce. With the FTC recently invalidating non-competes, I can only imagine a lot of brilliant workers will be jumping ship to competitors seeing as how their stock option packages are dwindling in value.

I was an Intel fan for many years until AMD destroyed them in the HEDT market with Threadripper. Ever since then, my eyes have been opened to Intel’s myopia to small, incremental increases in speed that meant the company basically didn’t innovate for 10-15 years. One should never get complacent when in the lead and Intel is a prime example of that.

Clearly, something is very wrong with Starliner. When it launched, NASA said the maximum length it could be in space was 45 days. We’re past 50 days now. If you don’t know, several of the thrusters used to maneuver in space malfunctioned when it went to dock with the ISS. Tests on Earth show that it’s an issue related to teflon burning off and clogging up the ports. How this was not discovered on Earth and solved years ago is anyone’s guess but speaks very poorly of Boeing’s quality control.

Boeing is not only very cozy with NASA but also with Congress. So while NASA engineers are probably saying the best bet is to return Starliner without its crew, NASA administrators are probably hearing from both above (Congress) and from Boeing that the astronauts should return on the broken Starliner as planned. No doubt Boeing is exerting strong pressure as a failed mission would probably kill the entire program, cause hundreds of millions of losses, crater their stock, and be yet another huge PR disaster.

Although on a podcast today, a NASA official hinted at an even more interesting tidbit.

He said there was “strong political pressure” to make sure the astronauts get home safe. That is, it’s election season and a spacecraft disaster would be very bad for the administration at the current time potentially affecting the election.

So basically NASA is being pulled in a dozen different directions and has a very difficult choice on its hands. To me, by far the obvious call is to let Starliner undock and return to Earth without its crew. A SpaceX Dragon capsule could then rescue the astronauts. It’s be a disaster for Boeing (more or less depending upon if the capsule makes it home safe) but it would ensure the astronauts’ personal safety which should be the only concern of NASA, although incidents such as Challenger have proven that’s not always the case.

At this point, Boeing has made so many engineering mistakes in recent years I seriously question if their planes are actually safe. Such a shame for what used to be the best name in aviation.