Jon Westfall and I were joined by Sven Johannsen for MobileViews Podcast 604. We spent a good portion of the show reflecting on a major milestone: Apple turned 50 on April 1st. Beyond the nostalgia, we dove into Google’s latest AI subscription changes and some clever new hardware gadgets..
I’ve been getting a lot of mileage out of Google AI Pro, and they recently gave their subscription service more value by bumping the storage from 2TB to 5TB for the same $200-a-year price. One of the most impressive new features is NotebookLM’s cinematic video creation, which I used to analyze and summarize 18 years of our own podcast history. We also discussed Google Flex OS, which now offers a three-dollar bootable USB stick for people who want a low-barrier way to try Chrome OS on their existing hardware.
We shared our “origin stories” with Apple, and it was a fun look back at how the technology evolved: I also recounted my favorite customer service story from 2010, where an email to Steve Jobs’ office resulted in me getting a launch-day iPad despite a UPS delivery delay—and UPS actually made its first-ever Saturday delivery in my region just to get it to me and other iPad pre-order customers..
We revisited the MacBook Neo. While critics focus on the 8GB RAM limit, the build quality is miles ahead of the “plasticky, bendy” Chromebooks that dominate the budget market. Jon noted that his students are the real target for this device; they want to be in the Apple ecosystem but often can’t afford the Pro models, making the $499 education price a potential game-changer.
We closed out the episode with discussions of the WiFiPorter Sven bought to provide guests to his home with a seamless guest WiFi connection and the MCON magnetic transforming game controller that Jon recently purchased.
Available via Apple iTunes.
MobileViews YouTube Podcasts channel
MobileViews Podcast on Audible.com