The State of Consumer Tech with Lisa Eadicicco

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2:40That's right, we're here in New York City, New York State, and we've got a great guest, Lisa Edichico from CNN. Thank you so much for joining us, Lisa, on this horrible wet day. Truly one of the ugliest days in New York history. But nevertheless, we're going to talk about consumer tech today. And everyone says, oh, Ed, you've got to be nicer. You've got to like things more. But what's a gadget you've actually liked this year? Like what's stuff you've been enjoying? Yeah, and it's kind of funny because I feel like when I think about gadgets, I think about them two ways. There's one, like the gadgets I would actually buy and that I actually use every day.

3:14And then two, the ones that are, I think, interesting for what they say about the industry or that have been fun to write about and fun to cover. And for the things that I have enjoyed using this year, I would say it's a lot of the things you'd expect. Like the Nintendo Switch 2 was a fun one this year. The new Apple Watch, because I'm a big Apple Watch user, things like that. And then there's the other category of things that I think have been really fun to write about. And for that, I would say the Galaxy XR definitely stands out. So what is the Galaxy XR? So that's the Vision Pro competitor, right?

3:48Yes. So how comfortable is it? Start there. I would say, I mean, none of these things are super comfortable, to be honest. It's still this thing that's bigger than a pair of glasses, bigger than something you're used to wearing on your face. So it's always going to be a little bit uncomfortable. I do think the Galaxy XR was very easy to adjust and get to fit correctly. For me, I feel like a lot of these headsets usually are a little too big for me or might like fall off my head or something like that. The Vision Pro, I have a giant bones, giant head. And that thing, trying to get that thing on was like balancing a cup of tea on my head.

4:24Exactly. It's never that comfortable. It's kind of weird. Yeah. I do feel like it was easy to adjust. It wasn't the most comfortable thing to wear. And I only wore it for like maybe about 20 minutes at a time. So I do feel like wearing it for extended use cases, the kinds of things that Samsung and Google think you'll use it for, like productivity and entertainment. I think that's I don't know how comfortable it would be to wear it for like, you know, if I'm working on a project or watching a movie or something. So you wouldn't do like your actual work inside it? I would try it. I think it would just take some time to get used to, you know, wearing that thing for like an hour or longer.

4:59Because as like a Vision Pro truther, and I think I mentioned this in person previously, but I can't use my Vision Pro. right now i can use it but i can't update it unless you keep it on your head during the update which is one of the most insane ideas ever but i genuinely like that when i was trying it i was so torn because 85 of the time i fucking hate it i just i really i was just like mad at it because like it would something would like my cat would brush my head and now it would be out of focus but there were these times i'm getting out and be like this is actually really cool i'm like writing I wrote a whole thing on it like it was back in the earlier days of the show I was like oh I really like this it's got some music in the background and then again like Babu my cat would knock me in the head because he's very affectionate that's what cats do no he's a lovely affectionate cat massive part of the show and then I'd need to readjust it and then I would start to get a headache did you find that the software was good on the Galaxy 1?

5:56like how was it in comparison? yeah so there's a couple of big things that stand out to me I think the Gemini integration is really good and it should be because that's the one thing that Google and Samsung are kind of pitching as setting this apart from the Vision Pro and previous attempts at mixed reality and VR. But the idea that you can just look at something and ask a question about it, like in my demo from October, I was looking at photos in Google Photos. And yes, it's cool that you can look at them on a giant screen and everything. But for me, what felt like the new thing that this is bringing to the table is being able to look at that photo and be like, oh, where in the world do those types of trees usually grow?

6:33And I can like that combination of like knowing what you're looking at without having to really specify. I do think the Vision Pro is better at certain things like media, for example. Right. I mean, some of the like spatial videos that have been created for the Vision Pro are just like breathtaking when you look at them. But I don't know that I would buy a Vision Pro for that reason, but it is very impressive. That's the thing. Like even with both of them, they have the same problem where it's like, this is a cool idea. Like, oh, I know where that tree is now. Like, great. But it's like, practically within my life, when am I sitting down being like, when, where's that tree from?

7:07Like, where is the, where's the practical use of them with the Vision Pro? It's like, great. I can put this on my head and walk around with it. I can kind of see who is this for? Yeah, I think that's the big question. And I feel like that's kind of, at least for me, when I try to look at, okay, what new products have been successful and did actually start a category and catch on with consumers and which ones haven't. And the thing that I've kind of noticed is the ones that haven't are when you really try to kind of force a user behavior that isn't there. And sometimes I feel like that's what's happening with these headsets is that the technology is very, very cool.

7:43It's very advanced, but it always feels like it's a step towards something more natural that we haven't gotten to yet. And you could say that about the Oculus Rift that came out more than 10 years ago. And in some cases, even the headsets today, I still feel that way about. And the Steam. Have you seen the Steam frame? We just had the Valve. I haven't tried it. I've seen. I don't think. I think I just had Steve from Gamers Nexus on. He tried it a bit. But it's with all these things, it's like, I wish they'd have waited four years. Yeah. I wish they'd have waited. Because there are those moments, like you mentioned with the spatial video, where it's like, holy shit, this is actually really cool.

8:20Like I watched like a basketball game on the Vision promo. I'm like, this is actually. It's hard until you try it, right? And the best of things, I don't feel like that many people are going to have the opportunity to really try it at length to work it into their lives. But yeah, the idea of like, oh my God, it really does feel like I'm sitting courtside right now. That's very cool. And the other thing is that even if it's just a big TV, that is cool. The problem is, is you can just sit down and watch a television. You just turn the bloody thing on. I have this Nebula X1 projector, which I fucking like.

8:49It's like an anchor. It's so good. Soundcore now. And I just got like a nice screen. i pull up and that just even that it's like two or three minutes to diddling around but i now have 100 inch screen in my apartment that's so much less work than the vision pro because the vision pro is like constant maintenance and i feel like if they waited i don't know it may case kagawa friend of the show he suggests that this will just never happen i honestly don't necessarily know if i disagree with him on this one but it's like i really hope it does because if it was just something like maybe i don't know like a hat that just worked that would be cool but we're like no not even close right exactly and i think that's kind of why a lot of these companies are kind of working towards these smart glasses instead because they are natural they do feel like something you would wear whether there was tech in them or not but um again i feel like convincing people that this is something that's actually going to be more convenient might be difficult.

9:48Although I don't know. I mean, people who wear glasses might say, hey, I need new glasses anyway. That looks cool. Maybe I'll try it. The thing is with the smart glasses is I just have to wonder about the social problem. Because I know if one of my friends, other than like Victoria Song who came on wearing them, if someone was wearing them when I was like at a bar, I wouldn't want to look at them. I have to wonder how most people would feel about that. I think there's that that's an important part i also feel like the interaction element is going to be weird socially because you're out let's say we're sitting here talking or we're at a cafe and we're talking about something and i'm like oh let me go look that up on my phone if instead i were to say i can just ask gemini in my glasses and you're just staring dead out right exactly well that victoria sung was from the verge was showing which it's like when you're looking is this weird kind of dead eye yes this dead eye step because you're just your eye is staring at the corner and I just wonder like as cool as it is what's the point of the smart glasses as well like I can I see the Vision Pro as a more and even the Galaxy one as a more fundamentally sound idea than the glasses because at some point it's like okay if I'm wearing glasses like I need guidance where I'm going I guess that's useful but like am I just putting this on versus okay I'll put on a helmet and watch a sports game?

11:09I think the way that I see glasses, if they do take off, the reason why I would almost think of them as like kind of like the way you think of AirPods and wireless earbuds, like something that's on you. You can use it to listen to music, to take calls as you're walking. And then it also has that optional display so that you can, you know, see where you're going or look at directions or whatever you might want to look at, like the time, whatever. So kind of like bridging together, like what you would use a smartwatch for and what you would use wireless earbuds for yeah i see that and i i just wonder as well will apple even bother will google even like actually if google does it again i have to respect them after the whole google glass debacle it's cold and wet out but the good news is that i bought a bunch of cashmere sweaters from quince which fit really nicely and are both warm and go with just about anything, especially the leather racer jacket I got recently too.

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14:37With Toyota, you got more choices and less compromise. Visit buyatoyota.com for a great deal on an efficient Toyota today. Vehicle's projected resale value is specific to the 2025 model year. For more info, visit Kelly Blue Books, KBB.com, Toyota. Let's go places. One iced coffee 99 cents please For real? No way Mmm Mmm One iced coffee 99 cents please For real? No way Mmm What a deal Your new morning groove Iced coffee from McDonald's any size for just 99 cents till 11am Price and participation may vary Cannot be combined with any other offer

15:27Are they still around Google Glass? I can't remember. I don't know where the latest on Google Glass stands. I don't think they are. I know they kind of pivoted to enterprise. Yeah, that's why I wasn't sure if they'd done away. Because I know Microsoft has basically killed HoloLens, but they have a very small enterprise division. Yeah, I mean, at this point, I feel like, I don't know for sure. I can't speak for Google. But it would make sense for them to, I feel like, focus more on Android XR and the future of that platform at this point. Well, for me, taking a slight change, the one thing I will say is, this is an unpopular opinion.

16:03I'm going to have my ass for this one. I love the iPhone Air. And I heard that they're delaying the next one to like 2027. I'm very disappointed. I'm very upset by this. I love the iPhone Air. I do like it too. Everyone's mad at me for it. No, I think it's a good phone. And for Apple, I feel like they don't, you know, that's all they need is a good iPhone. People will buy it, right? It doesn't have to reinvent the wheel every single time they come out with a new phone. I do think where Apple can struggle sometimes is when you have these in-between models that are like not too different in price from whatever the cheapest iPhone and the most expensive iPhone is.

16:35Like for whatever reason, this is just, again, my own observation. Apple's audience has a hard time latching on to like whatever that like in-between model is whether it's the plus or the mini or the air it seems like it's hard for them to generate demand it does kind of feel like a weird if i wonder i hope because the whole thing it feels like i didn't think of it as an in-between as well because you're right it feels like they would naturally try and make the main ones this thing because that's the whole reason i like it feels like a smaller it feels like an in-between between an ipad mini and an ipad but i love i love the ipad pro i love having a very thin device and every phone's getting fatter it feels like yeah and i think we're at the point also where people aren't super wowed by how thin technology can get because we've been there for a while.

17:22So I don't think this premise of an iPhone Air really hit the same way the iPad Air did, the way the MacBook Air did. And I think it's just kind of for that reason that we're desensitized to it. And I think Apple shoppers tend to fall into two categories. Either I've had an iPhone for years and I'm not even thinking about what phone I have. I'm just going to get the next iPhone whenever my current one dies. And then you have the people that do get excited about new iPhones. And those people do care about things like maybe not having an extra camera or, you know, the best battery life or whatever.

17:54It's also the camera's pretty bad. I've gotten around it, but it sucks. Yeah. I mean, like, I'm not, I'm the person that takes casual photos all the time. And I think the camera's fine. I haven't been blown away by it in my own just, you know, usage here and there. It does feel like we're approaching peak phone though. Oh, I feel like we've been there for a while. Like the iPhone 17 Pro Max, whatever, it's just, it's the same phone. Exactly. I feel like we've been at peak phone for a while. And I do feel like that's part of what Apple's trying to do here with the iPhone Air is show that it can make something that's different, that's unexpected, that's not just the same phone repackaged.

18:33And then people hated it. So now they don't know what to do. I do feel like, and this is a common argument, but I do feel like it's a step towards a foldable iPhone, at least in my opinion. That's what I want. Because the technology needs to be, they need to engineer the phone differently for it to be foldable. It's not just about the crease and all that, but you have to think about the battery, the components. And like engineering wise, that was a big step forward with the iPhone Air. I have to wonder as well if the reason they've jumped on the foldables is they're still very experimental. Jerry Riggs everything there was someone who did a review of a foldable and they made it like one of the Google ones that set on fire and it just from like bending it too much it's like if we're still there Apple doesn't want to touch this with a 50 foot pole yeah I feel like foldables have gotten really good I feel like Samsung's in particular like because they have been doing this for so long it's finally gotten to the point where the fold feels like a regular phone yeah and that's really cool but i do feel like it's still a subset of the phone market most people just want a new phone but i agree i feel like the minute there is a foldable iphone i'm gonna buy one mostly out of curiosity but also because i really do enjoy using foldable phones and it does make the experience feel a little different and this like the iphone air to me as soon as i picked it up i was like this just feels like a z flip that doesn't fold in half like yeah like the That's the Motorola one.

19:55Oh, no, Galaxy. Yeah, that's like the Galaxy flip phone one. And then, of course, Motorola has one as well. Yeah. I know Michael Fisher, Mr. Mobile himself loves those things. Yes. There's like the Trifold ones as well. I love these crazy Chinese phones where it's like three giant things that you unfold. Probably breaks very... Samsung just announced theirs like last night too. Yes. Yes. I want more weird phones. Me too. I want phones to be weird again. I had a Microsoft Kin back in the day. Remind me of them. the samsung juke i had all these weird phones tell me about what is the microsoft kin i remember the name but i don't remember what it was so this was and this was like way before i was writing about phones i was just like this thing's weird i want it um it was their social media phone oh my god yeah oh so like your front screen picture now i gotta look at this yes that was like peak weird phone it like had this cover screen that would look like your facebook feed and then you would open it up and there would be a keyboard on the inside yeah i had the second generation one so that one looked a little bit more like a regular phone.

20:53So the one that looks like an egg? No, not the egg one. The other one. Yeah, that first one. Yeah. So they had one one that looked like a Palm Pre, it looks like, and then one that kind of looked like a normal phone. 2010 as well. Yeah. What a classic 2010 decision. Exactly. I loved it. I thought it was so cool, but it was so glitchy. And that's why I ended up getting rid of it was that like the operating system just crashed one day and I just couldn't use it anymore. And this is before I really knew how to troubleshoot things and before I was really even interested in technology. And I just got it.

21:28I think at that point, I finally switched to a smartphone. But yeah, I mean, phones were weird back then. And it was really cool. And I kind of missed that. But I feel like foldable phones, to your point, are filling that void. Because if you look at the common thread between weird phones is that they're all trying to be some kind of like hybrid device. Yeah. Like those phones of the 2010s were like, oh, you still kind of want to use your keyboard, but you also want something that feels like a smartphone and, you know. My favorite was, so I definitely, the BlackBerry Storm. I don't know if you remember that as far as, there was that weird generation when everyone was just trying something weird and there was this horrible, horrible BlackBerry where it was like haptic, but it just felt like pressing into fudge.

22:08Oh, gosh, yeah. It was so cool. But I just looked this up, Samsung Juke, what the, looked like a key ring? Yeah, it was supposed to be like a MP3 player slash phone. It was weird. But also it came out at the point where you could already store your music on a regular phone. But I don't know. I thought it was cool and weird. And it's tiny. And it was so tiny. Yeah, it was so tiny. I kind of love how small it is. It looks like a chocolate bar. Yeah, yeah. It like swings open. I miss when we were doing weird shit with phone. Me too. There was that weird, there were just everyone. Everything just looks like this now.

22:42Yeah, everything's a brick. Yes. And it's a shame. It feels like everything is just kind of normalizing around it when we need more weird shit. But I guess we've now seen what happens when you're actually, no, the iPhone Air wasn't weird enough. That's the problem. Exactly. I think that that's, you know, when I talk about those like in between phones, and I think what makes it hard to kind of really create a lot of demand for those phones is that they're not different enough. They're just in between and they're not that different in price. And I think that's, you know, a big part of what can make it difficult to kind of sell somebody on that.

23:14It's not that much less expensive than the Pro, but it's thinner. So like, do you? And also, there's still like$1 ,000. These are not cheap. No, not at all. No, it's meant to be like a pro that's thinner, I think, except, you know, hardware is different, obviously. And it's pretty fast. I like it a lot. It's just, I'm annoyed because the camera is, it's just shitting up. It's not that it's bad. It's like just a little bit worse. It's like it can't really zoom. You have to digital zoom. Yeah, it doesn't have a lot of zoom. Even digitally, it doesn't zoom in that far, yeah. It's weird how little has happened with Apple in the last year as well, because they tried the Vision Pro and then they just went, ah, mm-mm.

23:51Yeah, I don't know. I feel like the Vision Pro is one of those things that it's going to, I don't know. I feel like people were expecting it for a long time. The expectations were really high. And I think for Apple, they're especially high because they have this history of creating, not necessarily being the first, but being the first to get people excited about a new category and show how this should be done, like with the smartwatch. Like the Apple Watch was not the first smartwatch by any means, but it was the first one that got kind of popular or popular enough at least. And they were smart enough to treat it as a fashion item, which...

24:25Right. Although that's not what it is at all now. It's so funny to see how that's... Not that they don't care about fashion. Do you remember the launch though? Yes. The launch was like a Vogue spread and they were really... There was a$10 ,000 Hermes one. Yes. Oh my God. I remember that. Respect to the... I love that they tried that and they just walked away. Just like, yeah, that's a sports thing now. And that's the thing is like when you create a new category, it's really hard to predict what people are actually going to use it for or what they're going to gravitate towards. I think they were doing it just for the marketing.

24:54I think it was literally just to get people to write about it in a different way. But also smart watches were so ugly back then. They were. That's the other thing is that the reason why. What were the other ones? There was like a. There was the Pebble which I loved so much honestly. They're back. It looked. Yes they are back. You know the original Pebble watch didn't look like anything special. Wasn't it an e-ink as well? Yeah. Yeah I love that. It was like funky and weird. It was like had a monochrome display. And I just loved. And it's funny because I'm not usually this person like that cares about customizing things.

25:26But you could customize the watch face to be like literally anything you want. And talk about like weird gadgets. Like I feel like that was also like not weird, but they had such a fun community around it that would develop all these custom watch faces and things like that. And it was just really it was a cool little device.

25:52Running a business is hard enough, so why make it harder with a dozen different apps that don't talk to each other? One for sales, another for inventory, a separate one for accounting. Before you know it, you are drowning in software instead of growing your business. This is where Odoo comes in. Odoo is the only business software you'll ever need. It's an all-in-one, fully integrated platform that handles everything. crm accounting inventory e-commerce hr and more no more app overload no more juggling logins just one seamless system that makes work easier and the best part odoo replaces multiple expensive platforms for a fraction of the cost it's built to grow with your business whether you are just starting out or already scaling up plus it's easy to use customizable and designed to streamline every process so you can focus on what really matters, running your business.

26:44Thousands of businesses have made the switch, so why not you? Try Odoo for free at odoo.com. That's O-D-O-O.com. This is Mario Lopez with one with Mario Lopez Daily Podcast. Toyota is moving toward a more sustainable future by giving you the freedom to choose from a full lineup of hybrids, plug-in hybrids, regular gas, and 100 % electric vehicles. So, pick from stylish cars like the Camry, Corolla, and Prius, as well as efficient and spacious SUVs like the RAV4 and Grand Highlander, all backed by Toyota's reputation for reliability. In fact, for 2025, Toyota is the best resale value brand for the fifth year in a row, according to Kelly Blue Book's KBB.com.