{"id":5984,"date":"2026-04-26T16:52:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T02:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/?p=5984"},"modified":"2026-04-26T16:52:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T02:52:26","slug":"mobileviews-607-from-heathkits-to-3d-printers-vibe-coding-redefining-making-for-the-next-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/26\/mobileviews-607-from-heathkits-to-3d-printers-vibe-coding-redefining-making-for-the-next-generation\/","title":{"rendered":"MobileViews 607: From Heathkits to 3D Printers &#038; Vibe Coding: Redefining Making for the Next Generation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px); height: 150px;\" title=\"MobileViews 607: From Heathkits to 3D Printers &amp; Vibe Coding: Redefining Making for the Next Generation\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podbean.com\/player-v2\/?i=gfxvc-1aab2a1-pb&amp;from=pb6admin&amp;share=1&amp;download=1&amp;rtl=0&amp;fonts=Arial&amp;skin=1&amp;font-color=auto&amp;logo_link=episode_page&amp;btn-skin=7\" width=\"100%\" height=\"150\" scrolling=\"no\" data-name=\"pb-iframe-player\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-5985\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MViews-607-Jon-me-aiframe-1024x478.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"478\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MViews-607-Jon-me-aiframe-1024x478.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MViews-607-Jon-me-aiframe-300x140.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MViews-607-Jon-me-aiframe-768x359.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MViews-607-Jon-me-aiframe-1536x717.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MViews-607-Jon-me-aiframe-2048x956.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><b>Jon Westfall<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and I kicked off episode 607 with the news that <\/span><b>Tim Cook<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is stepping down as Apple\u2019s CEO to become Chairman, with <\/span><b>John Ternus<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> taking the helm this September. We speculated that his leadership might usher in a full &#8220;Neo&#8221; ecosystem\u2014budget-friendly iPads and iPhones\u2014that could finally bring the cost of a complete Apple setup under $1,500 for students. Jon is already leaning into this student-centric future by using <\/span><b>NotebookLM<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to &#8220;chunk&#8221; his 75-minute lectures into digestible videos and activities, a strategy that is saving him hours of summer prep.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I spent some time on a &#8220;mini rant&#8221; about the state of <\/span><b>budget Android tablets<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">; while you can find great hardware for under $150, these devices almost never receive security or OS updates, effectively making them disposable e-waste. On the infrastructure side, the &#8220;router apocalypse&#8221; continues as the FCC&#8217;s ban on foreign-made hardware looms, though <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/tech.yahoo.com\/cybersecurity\/article\/eero-gets-fccs-green-light-to-continue-importing-new-consumer-routers-in-the-us-203924640.html?guccounter=1\"><b>Amazon Eero<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> recently secured an exemption through October 2027. To prepare for a post-exemption world, I\u2019m preparing to experiment with <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/openwrt.org\/\"><b>OpenWrt<\/b><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on an old travel router.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We wrapped up with a look at the startling 2026 price hikes for storage\u2014where a SSD drive that cost $350 last year is now nearly $1,000\u2014and a discussion of encouraging\u00a0 <\/span><b>maker culture<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for young people. We debated whether encouraging preteens to use 3D printers and <\/span><b>AI coding tools<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> like Codex is better than traditional hobbies, reflecting on the Heathkits and &#8220;dangerous&#8221; chemistry sets of my own youth.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-5986\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MViews-607-aiframe-1024x572.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"572\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MViews-607-aiframe-1024x572.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MViews-607-aiframe-300x167.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MViews-607-aiframe-768x429.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MViews-607-aiframe-1536x857.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/MViews-607-aiframe-2048x1143.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><br \/>\nAvailable via <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/mobileviews.com-podcast\/id301171904?mt=2\">Apple iTunes<\/a>.<br \/>\n<a href=\"\u201chttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@ToddOgasawara\/podcasts\u201d\">MobileViews YouTube Podcasts channel <\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"\u201chttps:\/\/www.audible.com\/pd\/MobileViewscom-Podcast-Podcast\/B08K565TQS?qid=1640555789&amp;sr=1-1&amp;ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&amp;pf_rd_p=83218cca-c308-412f-bfcf-90198b687a2f&amp;pf_rd_r=TXEJVWB2VW471GJ9XQQ0\u201d&lt;\/a\">MobileViews Podcast on Audible.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jon Westfall and I kicked off episode 607 with the news that Tim Cook is stepping down as Apple\u2019s CEO to become Chairman, with John Ternus taking the helm this September. We speculated that his leadership might usher in a full &#8220;Neo&#8221; ecosystem\u2014budget-friendly iPads and iPhones\u2014that could finally bring the cost of a complete Apple [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[126],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-podcast"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/ppKRG-1yw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5984"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5988,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5984\/revisions\/5988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mobileviews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}