SPEAKER_01 0:13

Thank you for joining us. You got AWOL here, and I have a great friend of mine, Holden, who has been just amazing in so many ways in helping me as an artist be the best artist that I can and not have to focus on particular um you know tech things that either I'm not familiar with or you know take a very long time to learn when you're trying to, you know, there your goal or or you know your meaning is a little bit shifted by that. So he's been super helpful. He is an entrepreneur, he is a forward thinker, he is a tech phenom. Uh I got Holden here, man. Tell him tell him a little bit about yourself and uh how you and I are are connected.

Origin Of Appleosophy At Age Thirteen

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Yeah, I love to. So my name is Holden Satterway. I'm the chief executive officer of Redfruit Media, and um I just want to start off by wishing you a congratulations on your album release, and I'm I I'm very grateful to play a role in your in in your um development and uh out in uh and um partnership that we have together, and I'm really glad to be part of the journey with you. I'm really thank you. Yeah. And um just to give some background on myself, so um so um in 2015, so uh let's let's get back to 2015. So I started um an Apple News and Rumors page while I was uh 13 years old. Okay. And at the time I it was just it was just a hobby. And I I was in, I remember I was in sitting in the living room at my parents' house, and it was the first time I had access to social media. Oh shit. And I had a I have a passion for I had a passion for Apple products, and I wanted to express my passion by making a news and rumors page. And so what I did is I made an account just called Apple Tech News and Rumors, because that's what I was into. Okay, and um and basically it started it started from it started from there on Instagram. Uh, what uh what I would do is make social media posts, like reporting the news from Apple. There's a new iPhone announced, we'll report on that. It started from there, and then in and then uh we gained. I remember when I first hit 100 followers, I felt so nice. Like as a 13, 14-year-old, it felt amazing to hit the that first 100 followers, and then we kept on groamy, got 500, 1000 throughout the years, and then now today we're at around uh 35,000-ish.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Yo, get him, yo, you get this man to 40. I mean, come on, dude, because he's been working his butt off, seriously.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Yeah, no, thank you, man. And so, and then in 2016, uh um we rebranded from Apple Tech News Rumors. So that's such a kid, it's just such a uh child, I don't know, I won't say childish name, but it's very generic. So we want to create something unique, and we maybe we just we set on the name Applosophy. Okay, and that's how uh that's how what that's basically how that was decided. And to give you some context of how the name was decided, it was actually my dad's idea. Oh really? I want to give him the proper credit for that. Yeah. Um and uh yeah, it started from there. Um but yeah, and then uh do you want to talk about Christopher Granger?

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Yeah, let's mention Chris Granger, who was on this podcast one of the earlier episodes, is um his second half of of the team that they've created.

Building Community And Teaming With Chris

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Yeah, so yeah, so I met Chris around mid-2016, and the way we met, I believe, this bear with me, this was a while ago, but we met either on Telegram, a Telegram, Apple Community Group, okay, or Instagram. So just to just to backtrack a little bit, um, there's these like communities of like just like the Apple, the Apple community is very loyal. Um I mean it's a very loyal fan base, like maybe like people are how loyal with Star Wars and stuff like that. It's a very loyal community, and I believe we met each other off a Apple community. Either it was either on Instagram or Telegram. I believe it might have been Telegram. And that's how we met each other. Uh basically what I was doing is I wanted to create a team. Like I wanted I wanted people involved within the the community, and that's how Chris joined. Uh I found we found each other through there, and he's now our um he's the chief operating officer of Redfruit Media, which is the parent holding company of App Philosophy today.

SPEAKER_01 4:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

And um, and he's been with me since then, since 2016. And yeah, we've learned a lot. Keep in mind we were like 13, 14. I know it sounds crazy, but we're like we were a very young, we did this at a very young age. For sure, man. Blessed. Yeah. And it was we made a lot of mistakes throughout the what's nice about being young, it gives you uh you can make a lot more mistakes. Love that, man. Um, especially while figuring things out. I've learned a lot throughout the years. So um, yeah. So uh uh moving on to 2017, 2018-ish. So we've we grew our following with Athlosophy. Okay. And but and around 2018, we wanted to launch. We we we we've run a team as well. We've had we in terms of like team members, we've had people we have people who manage our social media, so it just wasn't me posting, we'll give other people access. Back at the time, it this wasn't really a company. Um, we weren't really making much money. We did sell merchandise though.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Okay, nice.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

Um weren't making much much money from that, but so it was more we weren't it wasn't really a business at the time, but I will say in 2018, we made the decision to launch Appleosophy.com.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

How do you spell that?

Launching Appleosophy.com And Early Wins

SPEAKER_00 5:58

So A P P L E O S O P H Y. Okay. Um, and we launched we launched Applosophy.com in 2018, and we got a good group of writers together from the Apple community to join the team. Okay, and we're posting like actually like news, like an article format. And so we'll we'll we s we started that around I believe December 2018. Okay. And we've had we have it what was so cool about this is I'll meet people and talk with people all throughout different countries. Like I'll meet people online through different who are from different countries. Of course. And the really cool thing is I've actually met some of them in person too, which is which is which is yeah, which is so surreal. So in 2018, we launched Appleosphy.com and uh we built up a a following there. Uh it's it uh it it started off a bit slow because we were trying really trying to get writers to write and stuff like that, and we were and we weren't we're we were not making really money from Apple Osvia at the time. It was just out of phase, we were just trying to get started up and then we'll figure it out. And then um and then around I think it was 2019-ish, we l we uh we had our first exclusive article. Um, and what does that mean? So an exclusive article, so an exclusive article is when a uh it's basically we pick we have a story that no one else has reported yet. It's not known information. Basically, uh we had we we we we were the first ones reporting the story, it's basically what it is. And our first it's funny, our first exclusive story that we reported that we reported on AppleOssy.com was actually Apple leaking their own stuff by accident. Oh really? And what was funny about this is one of our writers, he was he found this image, I think it was this uh this is public, it was public online. He found like this image, like marking image of an iPhone tennis uh uh smart battery case. But the thing is the smart battery case at the time uh didn't release yet.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Okay. And um so yeah, it was it was kind of a a leak in itself.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Yeah, and we were we were we had it we we reported on it, and then uh it's what's so funny about this, a couple of minutes after reported on it, the the um image that Apple accidentally published was taken down. Oh shoot, yeah, they're crazy.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

So maybe that helped your article too, right? It did.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

So here's here's the thing. So what's really cool about reporting on exclusive stories like this, other Apple news blogs have picked this up over time. So there's other or and tech websites, so big tech websites, uh like The Verge, I believe The Verge reported us. Oh, that's big time, dude. Yeah, and TechCrunch, I believe. I'm I can't I can't say I can't remember if it was that particular story, but they were they reported on our content before because we've had several exclusives. Uh there's another Apple News Remers website called Mac Rumors, not if I Mac or that. They're kind of our competitors, but um, we do report on our we do report stuff from them, and when we have exclusives, they report on us, just how it works.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Yeah, I'm sure you can get information from from them, um, and not just them, but there's so how many other Apple uh, let's see here, you know, rumors slash Teams uh um things are are going on out there. Is it are is there a lot of competition or is it is it you know just a few varies?

SPEAKER_00 9:16

So there's people. Here's the thing I've seen a lot of people start up like me and run have an Apple News and Rumors account like me or report uh or their Apple enthusiasts, they'll start an account, get thousands, thousands of followers, 15k and 20k. I've seen some who have people have like 100k and crashed out. Okay. Um it's part of it is some of it posting, some of it, some of it to some people, there it was just a hobby for them. They didn't want to make it a business, which I understand. I mean, some people that's just some people just want it to be a hobby. I totally respect that. I'm not I'm not holding that against anyone. And another example, I know someone who started an Apple News and Rumors page. He've owned it. I've known him for since 2017, 2016, like a while back in those Apple News uh one of those Apple community group chats. Okay, and I basically and he basically couldn't run it anymore, and he basically couldn't run it anymore because he was going to college and he and he viewed it as more of a hobby, and basically we acquired it from him.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

So okay, so then you can also own another information or yeah, so we own another Apple News Remember's page called Silicon Report.

First Big Leak And Industry Recognition

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Feel free to check it out. Um it's basically a semicast of what we report on from Apple Osvia at the time, but we try we'll make Silicon Report and Apple Ossip a difference is Silicon Report. We have a community on Telegram. We're trying to keep the Apple community thing going. Uh Apple community uh like Telegram chats and Instagram chats have kind of died out a little bit throughout um, but our goal is to kind of keep it going, keep that community going. So important. And then going to 2019-2020, I would say 20 in 2020, our biggest story I think we ever reported on was it was another Apple leak. Apple accidentally leaked something themselves, and we're one of my writers was the first one that noticed this. And the crazy part about this, so here's a leak. So I'm sure you you know the device, like the air tags, right? So there was a leak that Apple did and in 2020. I believe correct me if I have to check this, but I believe it was around April 2020-ish, I think it might have been during the summer. Um, but Apple published an iPhone, basically a support video on Apple support's YouTube channel. And I don't know how my writer noted this, but like on timestamp, like 32 seconds in, he noticed a reference to air tags in the video, and it wasn't even released yet.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

So what? So what he then writes an article about that and and gets the the the eye on you a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

So here's what happened. So um obviously this was a mistake by Apple, whoever was doing this. Oh, that's mistake. Yeah, they didn't mean to because it was unreleased at the time. Uh stuff like that does happen. I mean, it's a big corporation, and mistakes do happen even at the biggest corporations in the world. So it was just one of those things that it just slipped by them.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Yeah, and he had to be paying attention, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Right, and the fact one of my writers picked that up in this like you in this like support video was crazy. So, what we did is he reported on it. Um, shout out to my right Paraj Duita, he's a great writer. Shouts out, and um he he was one of the first to report on it. He was we were the first to report on it because we were the ones who discovered it first. Okay. And what we did is we took a screenshot of the video frame. We didn't post it. We embedded the YouTube video in our article so people can check it out. Okay. But once we published the article, not even like 10 minutes gone by, Apple pulled the video, which is wild. Oh shoot.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Well, they were, I'm sure, you know, they're big enough to where they have to keep eyes on on certain things.

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Right, yeah. They're yeah, Apple has people who work for them who are who have like CIA level like monitoring. Oh, I'm sure. Like I'm not next level. No, like I say that, I'm not joking, because they literally hire people from who are former CIA at NSA and people like that. That makes sense, actually. That work for their global security department, and that's a lot that's very common at corporations, by the way, just to clarify.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Is to what hiring security?

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Um hiring hiring like very high-level security experts and who have experience maybe either in government or just security in general, because corporate secur corporate espionage and corporate security is a big thing. Oh, for sure. Companies spend a lot of money on it, and they'll they'll do everything to protect the intellectual property, you know.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Makes sense, as they should.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Right. And so, yeah, but so we published the story, uh, the air tag story, and uh what was so cool about it is um it just blew up.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

Like he said it blew up, right? Nice, nice.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

So we got picked up by Mac Rumors, which which um um uh I can't remember which exact writer picked it up, but um, I know some of the writers at Mac Rumors are really good people. Shout out to them. Okay, shout out to Mac Rumors. They reported on they report on the story first, and then it just spread like a wildfire. Like then TechCrunch picked it up, The Verge. Um oh, even Business Insider picked it up, which is which is like a business.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

You were in the magazine, you're in the magazine.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

It wasn't the magazine, it was their website. Yeah, and they're also featured on Cena. So it was so cool. By the time when this article released, I was like 16-ish, 15, 16. Oh, dude.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

That's awesome, man.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

It's very satisfying to really to get that uh to pick up stories like that. Yeah, and that was that might be one of our biggest stories. Uh, we still have we have some um still we we still do we still have some some exclusive stories throughout the years, like in 2022. We uh we we we have a writer who's very into Apple Pay. And he he is the first to know if a reteller accepts Apple Pay, and we're very on spot with reporting that news compared to other news sources. Okay, and so we're very on. So a lot of the times, in terms of any Apple Pay related news or Apple services, we're very we we report on first most of the time, I would say. Um not all the time, but a lot of the times, and um part of it is just from our reader sending us images saying, Hey, look, the the store has Apple Pay now, they're advertising it. Uh here here's some here's some intelligence on this.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Yeah, you're getting some info from from the world.

SPEAKER_00 15:10

Yeah, so part of this is from our reader sending giving us tips, and that's that's a that plays a big role in how um news like news can be gathered. Yeah, exactly. For sure. So um so yeah, so that was in 2020. And then um Apple Os. So um during 2020, around April, I believe we met each other in around we I think it was April 2020, would you recall?

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Uh let's see here.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

It was a while ago.

Competition, Acquisitions, And Silicon Report

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Met each other what on the phone through through phone itself or met met met in person?

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Um through the phone, like how we established.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Yeah, I would say, yeah, maybe yeah, around 2020, 2021, because it was a little shortly after Chris and I had uh had met.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

So 2020 hits so COVID hits, and then um me and me and my business partner Chris had an idea to start another comp to start a subsidiary, well start another company called Tech Pod. Tech Pod. At the time it was called Tech Pod Social. And the goal behind this company was to create a social media management. It was a social media management uh website development agency, those are the two things, the main focuses. And the reason why we started it is um we've we we've been through the process with Apple Osophy. We wanted to we wanted to uh expand, we basically wanted to share our gift with other people, you can say, and our experience, and we really thought um, we really thought we can help small and medium-sized businesses because we've we have we have a good track record with growing Instagram pages that go from zero dollars to through forty thousand or sorry, thirty-five thousand-ish, so which is great. And so uh we started tech pod, and so I'm I believe this is how the story goes, but my business partner Chris, he was scrolling through I think it was Snapchat, and I think he ran to one of your I think it was ads. Is it do you do you recall that? Any of that? Yeah, definitely, definitely. And basically um It wasn't even an ad.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

It was it? It was a biometric where he was just in the area of where we were recording, and you know, Snapchat had one of those uh the geo geo geometric features to where you could know where someone was it was like a geotag. Wow, and um it's a cool feature because then you can find out what's going on around you, you know, without getting too much information on that person. But um that's how he pinged me.

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Wow, yeah, yeah. Wow, it's it's crazy it's crazy how he f he found your contact. I I I recall you spent a while finding your information. I mean, we loved he loved your music. Well, so when he found you first, he told me he told me about I remember he told me about you, and he's like, Hey, listen, hey, check out his music. I listened to some of your songs, I believe it was on SoundCloud, he sent me your SoundCloud link. Yeah, at the time, yeah, and I listened to it, and I loved I love the music. I love you, dude. I loved your voice, I loved your music. And I want and I even agree with Chris that hey, we want to be part of that. And that's how you're our first client in 2020.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Thanks for thanks for telling me that. That's pretty cool to hear that story.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Yeah, and you've been with us ever since, and we really appreciate uh I appreciate the work we've done, and I I I love working with you, and I hope to keep I hope to keep it going. 100%.

The AirTags Leak That Went Global

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Let me ask you this. Um what about um, you know, what are some of the things that you've done, you know, uh that you've helped me with that other artists could, you know, services that they either could be needing or um just things that artists need to think about when it comes to their tech and their website and how to stay connected.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Right. So with you, so um we've we've done the AWAL artist website. Shout out to AWALARTist.com. Feel free to check it out. It's one of my favorite designs personally. Don't get me wrong, all the websites we do for clients are great, but this one is my favorite. I I use I use that website in a lot of showcases. Uh when I have potential clients uh interested, I always show that website. So that's also so we yeah, so we manage the website, we help you with social media. In terms of the social media management, we kind of help with the with some of the content planning and post templates and some of the because it's good to have a post template for brand consistency. It's good, um, it's good to kind of have a brand like you know, with the able artist fonts and stuff like that. Like that that you've seen in the music videos. Um, it's really good to kind of have a brand, a personal brand kind of with your music and imagery with imagery with exactly yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

You know?

SPEAKER_00 19:36

And so, yeah, so we do that. We also help with some of your music distribution, even. Um, it's a long process. We all know it's a long process, lots of metadata to fill out. I mean, our checklist is how many things do you think we have in our checklist? Like 50, 70, 50.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

50 things. Every time a song comes out, I'm like, I call them. Yo, we got the music checklist call. We need to do this at six o'clock. Music checklist, we pull it up. All right, did we do this thing? Yes. Did we do this thing? It got a yes, got a green box behind it, so we can just go right past it. If you don't do something, that's the red box, you know? And if it doesn't apply, that's the yellow or the orange box, so that that way everything's color-coded and we we're just honed in on it. And let me tell you, I'm super grateful for you helping me create that checklist because that is one of the things that really helped me take uh my musicianship to the next level. And if you're an artist out there, you should create a music release checklist with all the things that you know you need to do for each track because we know you just got to be dropping tracks, dropping tracks, and I know it can be a little bit uh um grueling to do all of these things. So you need to find make yourself a team and find people who love to do that. Because I love to make music, he loves to help me make these connections with with all this stuff in the background, and uh, you know, you don't get to see a lot of that stuff. So, you know, you guys are really humble because yeah, I thank you for that, for being humble, because you know, you you don't need any spotlight or limelight, like you just you you're you're very goal and work driven, and you can tell in in the history that you just gave us, you know, starting your own business at at what age? Like that is just yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

13 ish is a hobby. Here's the thing uh it really depends what industry that what industry you're in, but you it is possible. Some industries you can turn a hobby into a into an actual business. It's doable, it's it's it's lots of hard work. Like I've said, I've we've made I've made a lot of mistakes throughout the years. Uh at a young age, it really helps me make become a better person, helped me become a better executive and leader. And you have to go through some of those challenges, really, because it's really a learn like it's learning. It's it was a it was a learning experience for me. And I'm kind of I look back at myself and I'm grateful that. I kind of went through that even though a lot of it sucked. I did not like going through that. But it happens. And business, it's a it's a hard thing in business. You have to go through that. Yeah. Good advice. There's a lot of there's yeah, there's there's hard decisions you have to make, and you have to you have to be tough and make those decisions. Yeah, even if they're hard. And you gotta know too, it's uh every decision in business is a person, it's not personal. Like like family, like always concerned my family first, right? And and shouts out every decision, every yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

Mom, dad, out there. I got to meet them. I got to meet dad, and he's dude one of the coolest people ever.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Yeah, no, yeah, thank you. Seriously, yeah, no, yeah. Yeah, his studio is awesome. Um yeah, my point is you have to make hard decisions, and I've learned a lot through that, and I'm glad. I look back at myself, I'm glad I made those. I'm glad I've gone through that because if I did if I did it now, I would have been at an older age, it would have been I have to I don't know how to describe it, but it would have been a bit trickier, maybe. Of course. Uh, because at a younger age, like kids make mistakes all the time. People are like, oh, you're just a kid, it's whatever. So for sure. Yeah, that kind of helps me a lot. I took advantage of that in a way.

Reader Tips And Apple Pay Scoops

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Let me ask you this um talk a little bit about CES and what that is, and and um what you've been able to learn throughout the years with that.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

Yeah, so CES is the consumer electronics show, it's one of the biggest tech conventions in the world, I would say. It's in Las Vegas, Nevada, every year. So I go to so CES, you can you can find all sorts of technology. You can find iPhone case manufacturers, you can find uh AI, you can find AI startups and stuff. Okay, you a lot of it's like consumer products, not really on the software side, but they do there is software companies that are there that show off their software.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

Okay, of course.

SPEAKER_00 23:48

So yeah, there's a lot of companies there, and I started going to CES in 2022. I think it was my first our first it was our first year. And what was cool about this is in um it was the first CES we went and we had uh press we have press credentials for it. Yeah, you were saying that. So what's cool about what's cool about uh CES is um if you're because we we call Apple Austri qualifies as a media publisher sweet star slash blog. Got the pass, you get the pay, you get the line, you're kidding. Yeah, so CS has some criteria you have to make, like follow like a certain amount of followers and website views. You submit to verification, you submit it, you submit verification, and there's a whole approval process with their media team, and we got yeah, it was cool getting approved for the first time and going it was the and uh yeah, it was really cool because uh me and Chris went and uh we had a great time our first year. Uh it was cool seeing all his companies. What's also very cool as a media as going in as media for CES, you get to see all of the nude you get to you get access to the press uh events, which not everyone at CS gets to go gets to uh attend in person. Gotcha just for media only.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

So special access.

SPEAKER_00 25:03

Yeah, so two days before CES, there is like a call something called media days, and that's when they do press conferences. It's more for the media and the use companies to kind of showcase. I have one-on-one with media, and it it it's just special time for us, basically. Of course.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Let me ask you, yeah, let me ask you this. Um, tech itself, what's one of the first things that whether it's Apple or or you know, a gadget that um really got you excited for technology and and you know what was built in that?

From Apple Media To Client Work With AWOL

SPEAKER_00 25:36

So, like what was like my favorite Apple gadget you can say, yeah. Well, it's hard to I'm always it's hard to say. Probably iPhone. Uh I mean iPhone was very innovative in 2007, and it's been it's something everyone can't live without every day. Um I mean, I hate to say this, but even Android users, I mean, a lot of a lot of I mean without Apple's innovative thinking, like Android may not be where it was today. I mean you need to see some of the first phones before even before the iPhone release, they're awful, like design-wise, at least in my opinion. Like like the the phone manif like was so innovative at the time with the iPhone was the touch screen technology, how that was being used. Back then, in back in like 2007, even before that, uh like phones, like cell phones were just they had like physical buttons and they or or they had a stylus. Oh shoot, as C jobs says, Who wants to use a stylus? Right, and so it was very innovative at the time that when Apple switched, when Apple released the iPhone, it was fully touch screen. It was so and the the funny thing about it, companies like Microsoft just didn't get it. Like you're like they were like, Why use your fingers when like you use a stylus? As Steve Bomber famously said, uh or something like that. Steve Steve Bomber shit all over it um at first. Now look, now look where the iPhone is now. And Microsoft released the phone in 2014, by the way. And Microsoft did, and it tra it failed. This is the Windows phone. Okay, last like less than two years. Exactly. Yeah, I don't showed you to be honest with you, I don't know if it was a really good phone or not. I'd never used it before, but but yeah. Anyways, yeah, talking again, my favorite device I would say is probably the iPhone. Going back though, um, going back, I've always been into I've always been into technology. I've remember there's photos of me as young as like two or three on using it in Emacs, which at the which is a Mac at the time. Okay. That was made in like 2003, four. Well, it's hard to say. It was it was between depends what model is it was made between 2002 and four. It was the E Mac was made to target more like like education like education, like schools and colleges and stuff. Oh, okay. It was a special configuration configured computer for that, but consumers can also get it. And I there's photos of me as like young as like two or three on the computer on Sesame Street on the Emacs, or I'll be at my grandparents' house and I'll be I'll be on their computer. They had they had an iMac like 2002, I think. Or it yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

So basically, like a TV, you know, for the older generation, that's kind of what that that would have been, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:16

Yeah, kind of. Yeah, I've I've I can my my point is like I've gone I've been in I've really been into the Apple environment for a long time.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

You can tell.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Yeah, and I mean my first actually Apple device I owned was an iPod touch first generation. Wait, yeah, it was an iPod touch first generation.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Let me think of it.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Well, such so sorry, let me go a little bit back. It was actually an iPod shuffle. Okay, but then I remember for Christmas one time and I was like, I think five or six, my uh grandma gave me an iPod touch. Okay, and I I remember I was like, oh my gosh, like what the heck? Like, that was so cool. I was I was so excited. Imagine like a six troll getting like an i like an iPod touch. You can play like video games on it and be jeweled and stuff like that at the time. I don't know if you remember that app.

SPEAKER_01 29:01

It was uh it still kind of exists, but and then downloading the the songs too was like a challenge to yeah, to download the song and then put this, you know, put that stuff. That's true.

Systems, Branding, And The Release Checklist

SPEAKER_00 29:10

Yeah, so to put music on there, you have to plug it into a i yeah, you have to plug it into your Mac or PC because you can get iTunes for PC. Um it still exists today, just call Apple Music for PC now. But you'll plug it in and then you'll drag and drop the you'll drag and drop the MP3 files that you have in your iTunes library, it syncs, and you have the music. Same with the iPod shuffles, nano's the whole entire lineup. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:31

Let me ask you something. Pretend I'm Tim Cook. Um, what would you say to him?

SPEAKER_00 29:38

So that's a great question. So uh under so Tim Cook, in my opinion, I think he's I think he's a great uh chief, he's a good CEO. Um he's in he created a lot of shareholder value throughout the years. Um if you look at Apple's like you gotta understand this from uh understand this from an investor's perspective perspective as well. Under T under Tim Cook's leadership, um, he his the Apple Apple stock has gone since like he he joined Apple in 2000. Well, he's always been with Apple, but he became CEO in 2011 after Steve Jobs passed away, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

And uh ever since he's been with Apple, he's created a lot of shareholder value. Apple's now a four trillion dollar company.

SPEAKER_01 30:19

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

And trillion would it take? Yeah, well, it's it's it's um sorry, not not net worth, but um the um the market value is around four trillion yeah on stock, yeah. On the uh on his stock on the on the stock chart. So yeah, under I respect I like uh so in terms of what I'll ask him though, yeah. So Apple's having been some Apple has been having some struggles with AI recently. Oh I'm sure we'll talk we'll talk about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Yeah, right after this, I think we should navigate to that because I think that's important.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

Yeah, so Apple has had some struggles with AI, and the reason why they've been struggling with this is they don't think like the like their thinking in creating technology is so much different than like Google Open AI. Apple wants to make a product that is like that is that is that is so good and meets expectations. Their expectations they want to spend their time on getting it right. But the big issue with the the big issue with why Apple's struggle in AI is they don't have the data they need to create these models. Think about it. So Apple, so Google, Google, so you have Google and Facebook and stuff like that, but they're AI models. The reason why their models are great is Google has all the data. Google Google tracks what you're doing all the time. They have act they have Google search, you can get all the data from there. So Google has no shortcuts at all making the models because they have the data they need. Google's business is making money from data. I mean, that's kind of the truth there. That's good. Um don't get me wrong, I do like Google. Their products are good, but their main the main way they make money and their main business is gathering data and then data collection.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

Let me ask you this about AI itself. Um what are some tools that you can either see yourself using in the future or that you um could see AI um advancing uh in the future?

SPEAKER_00 32:13

So I I'll I'll talk about my favorite models. Well, sorry, I want to finish off while I was talking about with uh Apple's struggles. Um with AI. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the reason why they were struggling was because of the data collection. They don't have the data, and uh and now they're coming to a to a point that they're Apple's trying to either make an acquisition or make a partnership with one of the with like Google or one of these AI companies to make a model for them for the iPhone. Okay. There is something called Apple Intelligence, it's Apple's AI model, but to be honest with you, I'll be honest, as an Apple fan, it's not that good. Like it's not my favorite. It it can do basic things, which is great, but it's so behind, and it's just it's and Apple's so big with the privacy thing, and it's not compatible with how fast AI is moving because AI requires a lot of data and just non-privacy. It's just it's just their philosophy and the whole thing is just so different from the other companies, and that's where really why they're struggling with the AI.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Gotcha.

Lessons From Starting Young And Leading

SPEAKER_00 33:07

Um, I will say Apple is expected to release a new Siri in 2016, sorry, in 2026 next year. And there's a lot of Siri, okay. Uh it's so Apple, here's a here's a so I hate to keep talking about this, but this the story. I'll just say so. Apple Intelligence launched in uh it launched, I believe, last year. And um Apple is supposed to release more features than they released now, like new Siri. It was like a re improved Siri, on a view Siri, but it's kind of behind compared to like Gemini and other Google devices. Yeah. And so um and so basically, like they're like they're oh sorry, they're struggling was um so Google basically has um you were talking about the Apple intelligence. Right, yeah, yeah, with Apple intelligence behind, yeah. So it was but so that those are the reasons why it's behind. Just the philosophy was just different. The philosophy. Now, in terms of what was my favorite AI model, so in terms of AI models, um, so AI, there's a new model almost every two weeks on average. It goes between I'm heard, I'm sure you heard of Chat GPT with open AI, there's Google Gemini. Um, it like in terms of like the model releases, it goes like in a it goes it goes like it rotates back and forth. So so Google released their model, uh Anthropic will then release their model, like they're all releasing new and better improved models. Then X AI, Groc AI will launch their model. In terms of so there's always new models coming out. Uh the what the the one I'm expecting to come out soon is actually Google's Gemini. Uh so the latest version of Google's Gemini model is 2.5. The latest the model I'm that people are expecting to come out is Gemini 3. It's supposed to be a really big upgrade. So that's probably the next model. I think that model will come out in a couple of weeks. We'll see. Okay. Hopefully. But I would say my favorite model personally, though, is uh I would say uh GBT 5 is good for chat GBT 5 is good for basic every like everyday things. I recommend that to anyone. It uh it's very user-friendly. Like I know like even older people. My grandma uses chat GBT. Does she really? Yeah, she has chat GT. I know. So it's very user-friendly. It's cool actually for research. Uh Groc 4, which is uh X AI's, Elon Musk's AI model. That's a very great model as well for research and for coding. So there's something so the word of the year is vibe coding. Is that that's actually the word of the year? So vibe coding is basically so basically it's used in AI models to produce code and make and make things using AI. So basically, what to explain it in the short sense, you can use AI to create like a website or a product, right? And basically you just say, hey chap GBT or whatever, make me this, this, and this, and it'll just do it. It may not do it the best, but it makes an attempt.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

So vibe coding is using AI to build products. So for example, um, I made an app using entirely using AI. It was an internal app for my company, and we used an AI model to build the app. It was an internal app, uh, iOS app that we use on my company at Red Free Media.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

Okay.

CES Access, Media Days, And Networking

SPEAKER_00 36:12

And I built that exclusively using uh Chat GBT5 and a program called Codex, which is like a terminal CLI. You can enter in the commands. Sorry, I'm I'm going a little too technical here, but some any tech people who are watching this will probably understand what I'm some of what I'm saying. Right.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

So they're out there, I promise.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Yeah, so there's that, and yeah, it was it was cool. In terms of like the whole via coding thing, it's good for some things, but it's not. You still need to check the code. I don't recommend just um stringshoting it straight with uh AI. You still need to understand what the what what's good with the whole using AI to produce code is it helps it can help you understand what it's doing because you can like really look through see what it's making in real time. And you there's a lot you can learn from that, and you can kind of learn the language slowly through that. And it's also good to still check the code because there'll be cases people will make apps using AI, and they leave like database passwords in the freaking code where people can just access. So you gotta check for mistakes, of course. It's not perfect, but it's coming to a point, it's getting good, but not all the way there. But it's really cool. Like, I'll be honest with you. Like, I was kind of blown away. The fact I made an app like that was pretty mind blown to me.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

It's crazy. Well, one thing AI got a pee. Alright, we are back. AI gotta pee. Coming back here. Oh, with the respecting perspectives, crowd. Listen, make some noise for yourself, make some noise for us, make some noise for the world, okay? We're trying to do something out here. So we're doing rapid fire, okay? 10 seconds on the clock. Worst pizza topping.

SPEAKER_00 37:52

Oh. That's hard because I'm not picky. But if I had to be very critical, maybe pineapple.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Pineapple?

SPEAKER_00 37:58

Don't get me wrong, I like the it sucks because I love pineapple on pizza, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

I know, dude. I'm the same way.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

It's pineapple.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Pineapple it is. Alright, Doritos or Pringles.

SPEAKER_00 38:07

Doritos.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Doritos. Scariest villain.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Hard to say. Um I mean the Joker is pretty scary. I mean, I already like the Joker. Yeah, that's a good one. I don't know why I popped it up first in my head, but there you go.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

Alright, let's see here. Um Star Wars or Star Trek? Star Wars. Coffee or tea? Coffee. Mountains or the beach.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

That's a hard one. Um so probably I love the beaches. I need to experience more mountains, but probably beaches.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

Beaches, okay. East Coast or West Coast?

SPEAKER_00 38:43

Well, that's hard. I haven't I've been I haven't been to because I live in central Texas. No way, I'll say West Coast.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

West Coast. All right, West Duo.

SPEAKER_00 38:55

Wait, what do you mean?

SPEAKER_01 38:56

Best duo, like one and two, like even it can be anything, like uh um a music group or like um appropriate. Oh, there you go. All right, all right. Okay, let's see here. You walk into a casino right now, what's the first game you're playing?

SPEAKER_00 39:10

Uh I'm playing blackjack. Oh shit. Um you know what here, here okay, sorry. Play this play the$15 minimum tables or or$20 um in Las Vegas. It lasts so much longer. And don't do the high, don't do like the double, was it high stakes ones? Like don't do it. Don't do it. Just have fun. Do$15,$20 minimums, and yeah, if the minimum's too high, hey, ask the floor manager, he may be able to make accommodations. Right, they'll give you a drink or two while you're I talked with some of the casino managers and they told me that like like half of the time, like you just ask they may approve it. It's not guaranteed, but just some little advice half there.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

All right, what's your dream car?

SPEAKER_00 39:46

Um, so probably a Tesla. Here's the thing. I'm not really into the car, I'm not a car guy, really, but I like technology and I do like I like EVs, so nice. Maybe a either a Tesla, if not, maybe a toy just a Toyota.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

Okay, here's the funniest thing because the the last question is second to last question is iPhone or Android, and I don't even have to ask him that question.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

Why shouldn't write that one down? I know, right? I know you're good.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

I'm not sure where that one came from. Um, okay, and then the last one pineapple or coconut?

SPEAKER_00 40:16

Ooh, coconut.

Favorite Devices And Early Apple Memories

SPEAKER_01 40:18

Coconut, got it, man. See, some people know it right off the bat, what they're gonna say, and then people like me with that question. I'm like, dude, I could spend an a whole day just explaining why each one would be better than the other.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

The issue is I'm not picky. Like I'll eat anything. I've had I've I'll eat anything, so well, not anything, but I'm I'm open to trying new things. And of course, so of course it's hard to say what I did. There is stuff I don't like, but like what?

SPEAKER_01 40:43

What's that?

SPEAKER_00 40:44

Well, there's for a while I didn't like mustard, but I kind of but here's the thing, it grown on me when I was younger. I'm not a fan of mustard. No, it grunted on me as an older as I get older. I kind of like it now.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

So all right, shout out to mustard out there, all the different kinds of mustards. We love you all. Hey, listen, I I I want you to leave the world with a little bit of of inspiration and and a last uh uh yeah, uh, a last um yeah, just it's the last thought to give the world.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

So just give it like just yeah, what would what do you want to tell them? So I just want to say that um well I kind of want to give a shout to myself. So I just want hey, hey, I know we do work for good for work for you. If you want, hey, if you want, if you want what Andrew gets, hey, give me you can email me personally at holden at redfreetmedia.com. So feel free to reach out. Feel free to visit uh tech pod my website. Visit TechPod, that's tech pod.us. And I just want to say that it's been a great it's been great working for you, I believe, for almost five years. And I'm really looking forward to what's coming up next. I know we have a lot more stuff coming, planned, and it's gonna be awesome.

SPEAKER_01 41:49

I'm super excited, man. Well, thank you for sitting down with me and coming coming from Austin. It was it was, you know, it's it's really cool to be able to bring so many different people together, and uh, I'm super grateful for for you, Chris, and and the team, and I'm excited to see what we can create for the the future. And uh, guys, thank you everyone for for tuning in for uh this episode of the RP Podcast. Until next time. Peace.