Tech News Weekly 403 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

Mikah Sargent [00:00:00]:
I'm Mikah Sargent from Tech News Weekly and this week I am joined by Abrar Al-Heeti on the show. We kick things off by talking about the rumored update for Apple and its AI search functionality. Then an update on where things stand with OpenAI and what it aims to do to help users in mental distress. Afterwards, Dan Moren of Six Colors joins us to give us a preview of Apple's upcoming iPhone event. And Leah Nylan, antitrust reporter at Bloomberg, gives us the lowdown on Google and the it doesn't have to sell the Chrome browser. All of that coming up on Tech News Weekly.

Mikah Sargent [00:00:47]:
This is Tech News Weekly episode 403 with Abrar Al-Heeti and me, Mikah Sargent. Recorded Thursday, September 4, 2025: Google Dodges Chrome Sale. Hello and welcome to Tech News Weekly, the show where every week we talk to and about the people making and breaking that tech news. I am your host Mikah Sargent and we are joined this week by the wonderful Abrar Alheiti. Welcome back, Abrar.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:01:14]:
Thank you so much. So good to be back. We're getting really into busy tech season and I'm excited we can kick this off together.

Mikah Sargent [00:01:20]:
Yeah, absolutely. It is, it is that season of many an event and I know you are gearing up to be there in person. Leo Laporte and I will be doing live coverage of the event. To those of you who are members of the club, you'll be able to watch along in discord with us as we commentate upon the event and maybe if they show the audience, which they haven't lately, we can go, oh, there's a bra. I can see a bra. Yeah. Who knows if that'll happen? It's usually just the playback of the video, but you know, one can hope. Anyway, for people tuning in for the first stop or who need a little reminder, the way we kick off the show is by sharing our stories of the week.

Mikah Sargent [00:02:07]:
The stories we think are interesting, fascinating, and want to share with all of you. Without further ado, Abrar, would you like to take it away?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:02:14]:
I would love to. So I wanted to talk about this report about how Apple is planning to launch its own AI powered web search tool. This is an article from Mark Gurman at Bloomberg. Essentially this is something that would be integrated into Siri and then eventually potentially added to Safari and Spotlight. So, you know, this would. The goal is to give companies like, you know, OpenAI and Perplexity a run for their money. You're able to do these searches within Siri and Apple's ecosystem. And if you're like me, you might be thinking, okay, that's a, that's a pretty lofty goal for a company that still hasn't even given us the supercharged Siri that it promised us last year.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:02:51]:
Right. So Apple's been talking about having this more advanced version of its voice assistant, and we're still waiting. Right. But this would reportedly be part of that overhaul and the goal is to launch it in spring of 2026, which is when we're supposed to get those more advanced Siri capabilities anyway. So you, you know, along with being able to have this more seamless voice search and it being able to scan what's on your screen and go through your personal data a bit more smoothly, this would also be this capability where you're able to do searches. It uses AI to even kind of give you this, this summary. Kind of like when you do a Google search and you get an AI overview with a, you know, summarized breakdown, it would be able to do that too. So y.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:03:38]:
The other piece of this too is that Google could help provide that underlying technology, which is a really interesting point here because it kind of symbolizes this desperate need for Apple to level up its AI offerings and to do it quickly. And how do you do it quickly? You go to somebody who already has these, developed these more advanced models. So I think that's just a really interesting step. It's not shocking. I mean, Apple and Google already have a deal to integrate Google search and in Apple's products. So it's not, it's not too earth shattering, but it is really interesting to see how much they really want to push this AI effort forward. So it could pull text, photos, videos, all that, and you'd have this cohesive set of AI search results. But I wanted to ask you, Mikah, the first question is, do you even use Siri right now? And then the second question is, would you use this tool? Do you think this is something that would be beneficial to you?

Mikah Sargent [00:04:39]:
So I think my problem is this. Right now, when I am doing a, when I'm using any of the AI stuff, I'm never using it as a search engine. When I go to, you know, chatgpt or to Gemini or to any of these tools. And by the way, if people have not tried Gemini in a while, you should give Gemini a shot because Google's doing a really good job. I have been. And there have been times where Instead of using OpenAI's ChatGPT, I run over to Gemini because it's just I think it's, it's a pretty solid product, so I'm not surprised to see Apple kind of looking that way. Yeah, but anytime it comes to search stuff I don't want to use, I don't want AI involved. So on the Google stuff, I'll turn that off again with OpenAI, I'm not searching the web.

Mikah Sargent [00:05:33]:
In fact, when I have used Gemini and the little thing pops up and it says searching Google for results or I can't remember exactly what it says, I either visit or what am I trying to say audibly or in my head go, ugh. Because I don't, I don't trust that aspect of the AI. I mean, you should, you should be very untrusting of the entirety and follow it up with facts and everything. But there's something about the inaccuracies I've experienced early on that keep me from feeling like it's a good idea. Because if I go and I say, hey, you know who, how old is Taylor Swift? As Abrar Eliti would never need to do because Abrar always knows how old Taylor Swift is and then it spits out the wrong answer because it used the AI search functionality that has inaccuracies, then that's so that's horrible because then it reminds me of those false facts that we've all been taught as kids that we then have to learn later. Oh, actually when they said this, it's not true, it's just something that people think is true. I don't want something to get locked into my head that I have just taken as fact because I'm using this system. And on top of that, I have already seen how the sort of semi integration and tacking on of AI functionality to Siri in its current rendition has already harmed the product.

Mikah Sargent [00:07:09]:
There are times when I ask it to set a timer and because I've set it in just a slightly different way, it thinks that I need the AI stuff to figure it out instead of just the base functionality. And so then it kicks it over to that and then it doesn't even set a timer because it can't do that because it's again, just an extension of the basic Siri functionality. So will I use this? I don't think so. I will do what I can to not use it is what I'll say. Other than using it to test it so that I can tell people about how it works and what you need to do. Obviously that's part of the job, but in terms of for my own use, no, I Don't want AI in my search results. I just don't. I don't.

Mikah Sargent [00:07:58]:
It almost feels like for me, there are no amount of protections one could put in place that I would be convinced that it's going to be successful each and every time. And so that's why I avoid it. But what about you? I mean, because I'm not saying mine is the right way to do things. I genuinely think that part of it is, you know, I have been hurt by the system and therefore I have, like, trust issues. Perhaps you've had great results using one or the other. Maybe you don't use it either. I'm curious to hear.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:08:27]:
I think you and I are on a similar page here because I'm also very hesitant. Just because if I do research and there's an AI is involved in servicing those results, then I feel like I have to go the extra step. And you should always do the extra step whenever you search anything with or without AI. I get that. But because I, you know, very clearly has a tendency to hallucinate and surface errors, there's just another level of due diligence that you have to, you know, go through to make sure that what you're getting is accurate. So I think I've gone through this journey where in my experience reviewing phones and especially Android phones, as I've used Gemini a little bit more, my hesitancy has. Has dissolved a little bit. I've been like, okay, it's serving up pretty robust responses for a lot of things, very in depth.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:09:14]:
But there's still a little bit of cynicism that underlies everything where I'm like, okay, well, obviously this isn't, you know, pure fact always. I always have to make sure to double check that so it's convenient to have that capability. And because I've really grown quite surprising fond of how capable Gemini is on Android phones, I think I am looking forward to iPhones getting something that makes Siri a little bit more useful as well. And so I think I'll probably approach it with that same kind of, you know, carefulness where it's like, this is great that it exists. I'm going to try not to use it if I don't have to, but if I do and I want something beyond what a classic search can give me, then it'll be nice to kind of have that on there. So I think, I think you and I are definitely on the same page there. And I think the other piece of it is, you know, the timing of a story like this. You know, this feature wouldn't roll out until March potentially.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:10:07]:
Right. But I think it will help people feel a little bit better about buying a new iPhone because you know, we know a lot of people who bought an iPhone 16 for example, you know, were surprised that maybe didn't have all the AI capabilities that they were promised during wdc. So it's possible this could be a good move for Apple not only to advance its AI and and its offerings but also to make consumers feel a little bit better that okay, if I'm buying an iPhone I need to have something that is not only what I was promised but also lives up to what Google is doing, what Samsung is doing. So I think that, that it's a really critical time for Apple to figure it out and if it is through a Google partnership then so be it. You know, whatever it takes.

Mikah Sargent [00:10:50]:
Yeah, I think for me the, the part that I'm most excited about again it's not the search of world knowledge and the built in search engine essentially but instead is that search of my personal data because in that case I've got a built in. I'm not looking for information that is not already in my brain in most cases in that way where at least I can go right. That is the name of my friend. And yes this is, you know, you can check it against your own database versus the other where you're looking for new. If you're doing a web search it is likely because you were trying to find an answer you do not have. Whereas in a more aware device that can just sort of look across my apps and see the calendar events that I have and compare that with an email that I got about when my, my rental car is going to be available. That kind of a thing. That's the stuff that I want to see.

Mikah Sargent [00:11:52]:
The stuff that was originally promised that was advertised as the. That's. That's where I think it's exciting. That's what we saw with the. And I now I'm forgetting Magic Q.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:12:05]:
Magic Q exactly. That's what they're.

Mikah Sargent [00:12:07]:
Magic Q Super cool. It is an a really beautiful iteration on what we have from Apple right now with its sort of data detectors where if I type in my address is it will populate an option to put in my address based on the information that it has but goes three, four steps more than that and is more powerful in that way. That's the kind of stuff that I want because it is time saving and again it's more trustworthy in the sense that I am not. I can check it against Myself versus checking it against, you know, going and doing a Google search or a search of the on the web instead, which is what I could just do in the first place and then save a step.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:12:56]:
Exactly. You know, I think you're absolutely right. That was what I was thinking of as you were speaking as well, because it is, you know, that finding that thing on your phone, finding that image, finding that address, that's really the thing that's going to really be a game changer. And apparently, you know, according to this report, Apple plans to keep its own technology for searching user data, and that can help preserve that idea of privacy. Because if you're thinking, okay, now a third party is involved in searching through my phone, that might be a little unsettling for people. But, yeah, I would love to see an Apple equivalent of something like Google's Magic Q. And really, the point of AI, isn't it supposed to make our lives easier? Like, why just throw in, you know, features that don't seem to do that when you can find real practical ways? And I think this could be a great example of that.

Mikah Sargent [00:13:37]:
Absolutely. All right, well, Apple's event is just around the corner. Apple tends to, when it announces a new phone, it tends to have a few software features, or I should say, it's typically like a couple of software features that are available exclusively to the new phone. So it'll be interesting to see if there will be anything like that at Apple's event or if it's strictly going to be hardware stuff, given that the last lineup for the iPhone was created to offer all of this AI functionality. How Apple will sell its newer version of its phone will be an interesting thing. A bra will be there. Boots on the ground, in person.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:14:25]:
Pray for me.

Mikah Sargent [00:14:26]:
Yes, we will indeed. We'll be looking forward to seeing your reporting on that. All right, we're going to take a quick break before we come back with my story of the week. A bit of an update on a story from last week, as well as kind of an. You know what? I'll wait. I'll wait. You'll see. But first, let me tell you about Acronis, who's bringing you this episode of Tech News Weekly.

Mikah Sargent [00:14:50]:
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Mikah Sargent [00:15:38]:
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Mikah Sargent [00:16:45]:
If managing cybersecurity gives you a headache, well, it's time to check out Acronis. Know what's going on in the cybersecurity world by visiting go.acronis.com/twit and take the headache out of cybersecurity. That's go.acronis.com/twit and we thank Acronis for sponsoring this week's episode of Tech News Weekly. All right, we are back from the break, joined this week by Abrar Alheti, and it is time for my story of the week again, an update on the stuff we talked about last week. So before we get into that, I do want to provide a little content warning because the following story does discuss the sensitive topic of suicide self harm. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide or self harm, Please contact the 988 Suicide in Crisis Lifeline, call or text 988 or chat online at chat. If you're located outside the United States, please visit findahelpline.com to find a helpline in your country. So we talked last week about a child who was using ChatGPT and after using it for a time ended up committing suicide.

Mikah Sargent [00:18:04]:
And, and when I talked with Emily Forlini about this, we discussed kind of some of the stuff that OpenAI and other companies needed to do to mitigate this issue and to also kind of brainstorm some of the possible solutions. Well, former host of the show Megan Maroney wrote a piece about what is going on with OpenAI and its upcoming safeguards for Axios. And so I wanted to talk a little bit about that because OpenAI is rolling out new safety features for ChatGPT by year's end. Responding to mounting concerns after several tragic incidents involving teenagers and vulnerable users, the company announced Tuesday that it will implement enhanced guardrails for users in emotional distress, introduce parental controls within the next month, and leverage its new reasoning models to better handle sensitive conversations. This initiative comes as OpenAI faces lawsuits from families who blame the AI chatbot for contributing to their loved ones deaths, including as we talked about last week, the 16 year old California teenager who died by suicide last spring. Now this is not though just that single incident. As I mentioned, this push for enhanced safety features comes in light of of several disturbing incidents. Last week alone saw two major developments.

Mikah Sargent [00:19:34]:
The parents of that 16 year old who filed a lawsuit against OpenAI who said, you know, that the company has responsibility in their son's death by suicide. The Wall Street Journal also reported on a 56 year old man who killed his mother and himself after they alleged chatgpt reinforced his paranoid delusion. We know of course, that this is something that trained mental health professionals are specifically taught to avoid. And that was one of the things that Ferlane and I talked about, which is when that is a concern, that is something that a trained professional can see and do something about. And in the case of being concerned about someone being a risk to themselves or to others, actually is required to report it. There was an op ed in the New York Times last month where a mother described how her 29 year old daughter asked ChatGPT to help write her suicide note. Now the AI didn't encourage the act, but it did fail to report that the user was in danger. Again, a therapist would be mandated by law to do so.

Mikah Sargent [00:20:53]:
So what's OpenAI doing? Well, the company is framing it as a quote, focused effort to launch improvements within the next 120 days, though the company acknowledges the work has been ongoing and will continue beyond this timeframe. In fact, when we talked about this last week, OpenAI said we had some protections in place and they failed in this case. Why and how? Let's talk about it. The initiative centers on four key areas. First, expanding interventions to more people in crisis, making it easier to reach emergency services services and expert help, enabling connections to trusted contacts and strengthening protections for teens. OpenAI has this to say in the post. We've seen people turn to it in the most difficult of moments. That's why we continue to improve how our models recognize and respond to signs of mental and emotional distress, guided by expert input.

Mikah Sargent [00:21:44]:
So it starts with a kind of technical approach, right? How reasoning models are being used for these sensitive moments. OpenAI wants to route sensitive conversations to its newer reasoning models. They say we're beginning to route some sensitive conversations, such as when signs of acute distress are detected, to reasoning models like GPT5 thinking. The reasoning models GPT5 thinking and O3 are designed to spend more time processing context before responding, essentially kind of looking at what is said or asked and then generating multiple responses and then using using a little bit more reasoning to look at how it could possibly respond and choosing the best way or in some cases sort of combining to produce the best result. OpenAI says these models more consistently follow and apply safety guidelines and are more resistant to adversarial prompts. And that is because of a training method called deliberative alignment. But I go back to something that one of our listeners said in the chat earlier, Wadfan, who said why tolerate error at all? And I do find it concerning that it says these models more consistently follow and apply safety guidelines and are more resistant to adversarial prompts, which means that there will still be cases where these things slip through and that is concerning a little bit more. And then we'll kind of break this into a little conversation when it comes to the parental controls in the next within the next month, OpenAI says parents will gain new tools to monitor their teens usage.

Mikah Sargent [00:23:31]:
The features include linking parent and teen accounts through email invitation, controlling how ChatGPT responds with agents appropriate behavior rules. This will be enabled by default managing which features to disable, including memory and chat history, and receiving notifications when the system detects their teen is in acute distress. But as Megan Maroney, former host of the show, notes, there's a significant reality check here. Quote convincing those ages 13 to 18 to link their accounts to their parents could be an even tougher seller given that it's already there in its current state. So tacking this on at this point does have its own concerns. OpenAI is bringing medical expertise to guide these challenges According to the company, it's assembled an expert council on well being and AI as well as using the Global Physician Network, more than 90 physicians across 30 countries that have already contributed to research on mental health contexts. The network encompasses 250 physicians who have practiced in 60 countries, expanding the network to include specialists in eating disorders, substance use and adolescent health, acknowledging the diverse mental health challenges users might face. So Abrar, imagine that you've seen a little bit about these stories that have come through and I also think about your.

Mikah Sargent [00:24:55]:
When you've talked about how you know you. I think originally when I had you on the show, it may have even been a TikTok story. I know that you are a user of the platform and TikTok Instagram, a lot of the social media networks have come under fire for their role in perpetuating mental health disorders and perpetuating eating disorders, that kind of a thing. And we've had to see those companies work to implement these tools after the fact. A lot of this, given the way our world works and particularly in big tech, seems to be a very much a well, we'll figure it out as it goes situation. And that's what it seems like it is here.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:25:40]:
Yeah, it seems like there's no really time or thought put into hey, let's look at ways that this could go south. And said it's kind of just waiting and seeing what happens. And there's actually a quote in here in this article that, that I think really illustrates this that kind of talks about how, you know, whenever something rolls out online that's designed for adults, younger audiences will always find a way to access that and then it will illustrate just how badly those things can go. Right. And that's when you see a lot of negative uses of these technologies. But then a lot of times that blame is pinned to parents. Right? It's your teens are using these platforms. Why don't you.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:26:21]:
Let's just make ways for you to monitor what your teens are doing so that you now have the respons to make sure that they're okay. And the Internet just doesn't work that way. It's not that simple. Where it's like a parent will hover and make sure that everything is going smoothly and everything's okay. I mean there are very dark rabbit holes you can go down on these platforms. And this is a prime, very, very sad, tragic example of that. And then what kind of sets, I think in my opinion, what sets something like ChatGPT apart from a platform like TikTok or Instagram is ChatGPT, I guess any social media platform also is, is designed to reinforce what you believe because you go down these rabbit holes and you're in. But, but ChatGPT is having this back and forth conversation with you, right? So if you're, if you're, you know, if you're sharing some, some thoughts or some emotions, it is going to most likely support you in those, in those thoughts and emotions instead of saying, oh, okay, maybe let's pull back a little bit or, it's not a human, right? It's not a therapist.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:27:17]:
It's, it's designed to make you feel like, ah, this is something I want to talk to. It makes me feel better. It's not contradicting anything that I'm saying or doing. And so, so here's a perfect illustration of how bad that could be, how negative that result can be.

Mikah Sargent [00:27:33]:
Absolutely. And yeah, as you point out, you know, we also talked a little bit, a little bit about it last week. There's this whole aspect of the sycophancy, right, that, that seems to be a little bit of a buzzword in the AI space right now. And too often we're seeing it as just a complaint of a tool not being as useful because of its sycophancy. But this bears out what it looks like when that sycophancy can be so harmful. And I spoke last week too about people keeping an open mind and I think an open heart when it comes to stuff like this, because I do think that we can fall into a trap of going, I don't see how anyone could ever fall for something like this. If I was using this system, there's no way that, if it told me to do this, that or the other, or did not discourage me from doing this, that or the other, that I would fall for it. Yeah, that may very well be the case for you, or at least as far as you see it.

Mikah Sargent [00:28:42]:
But the fact is this is happening and the fact is there are legitimate and reasonable concerns that these tools are playing some role in the choices that, or the actions, I guess, that people are taking. And at the very least, this is where you go, right? A company feels like they need, we've seen it so much of a rush to be the first with AI this and AI that. The company's apple in one way, rolling out stuff that's not fully finished and just saying, look, we've got AI too. So you see every company trying to work as quickly as they can to just be out there. There's no company that's going to make the choice to go, you know what, for the next six months, we're going to turn off access to our platform while we get this under control. No, even OpenAI is saying over the next 120 days plus more, because as it says, you know, some of it might take longer. This is what we're going to be doing to get this figured out. In the meantime, everything's still there and still available.

Mikah Sargent [00:30:03]:
And that is not surprising, but it is frustrating.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:30:10]:
Yes, without a doubt. I think I kind of had that similar reaction when I read that they were going to point it to the more capable, quote, unquote models. Okay, what are we accomplishing there? I don't know. Oh, I feel so much better. A different AI model is going to. I don't know. Again, I'm a skeptic, but I don't know if that's really going to be the life savings tool that. That OpenAI wants us to believe that it is.

Mikah Sargent [00:30:38]:
Absolutely. Again, as is often the case when it comes to these kinds of stories where we're reporting on the start of a project, we'll have to wait and see exactly what comes out when it comes out. And one hopes that OpenAI is moving just as fast as they can to put these protections in place. I want to thank you so much for taking the time to join us today on the show. If folks would like to follow you online and check out all the great work you're doing, where should they go to do so?

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:31:10]:
Well, you can check out cnet.com, got some stories and videos on there. I'm also on Xiti3 and on Instagram and TikTok at arhiti, no spaces, no hyphens, just to make our lives a little bit easier.

Mikah Sargent [00:31:24]:
Wonderful. Thank you so much and we'll see you again soon.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:31:26]:
Thank you for having me.

Mikah Sargent [00:31:28]:
All right, folks, we're going to take a quick break before we come back with a preview of the Apple event on September 9th. I want to tell you, though, about Zscaler bringing you this episode of Tech News Weekly. Zscaler is the leader in cloud security. Hackers are using AI to breach your organization. By this point, you know that's happening because AI powers innovation and drives efficiency.

Abrar Al-Heeti [00:31:52]:
Sure.

Mikah Sargent [00:31:52]:
But unfortunately, it also helps bad actors deliver more relentless and effective attacks. Phishing attacks over encrypted channels increased by 34.1%. Fueled by the growing use of generative AI tools and phishing as a service kits. Organizations in all industries from small to large are leveraging AI to increase employee productivity with public AI for engineers with coding assistants, marketers with writing tools, tools and finance Creating spreadsheet formulas Automate workflows for operational efficiency across individuals and teams. Embed AI into applications and services that are customer and partner facing and ultimately move faster in the market and gain competitive advantage. Companies need to rethink how they're protecting their private and public use of AI and how they defend against AI powered attacks. Stephen Harrison, the CSO of MGM Resorts International says, with Zscaler we hit zero trust segmentation across our workforce in record time and the day to day maintenance of the solution with data loss protection with insights into our applications. These were really quick and easy wins from our perspective.

Mikah Sargent [00:33:02]:
Traditional firewalls, VPNs and public facing IPs expose your attack surface and are no match in the AI era. It's time for a modern approach with Zscaler's comprehensive zero trust architecture and AI that ensures safe public AI productivity, protects the integrity of private AI and stops AI powered attacks. Thrive in the AI era with Zscaler Zero Trust plus AI to stay ahead of the competition and remain resilient even as threats and risks evolve. Learn more at zscaler.com/security that's zscaler.com/security. And of course we thank Zscaler for sponsoring this week's episode of Tech News Weekly. And we are back from the break, which means it's time for Dan Moren, six Colors East Coast Bureau Chief to join us here on the show. Welcome back to the show, Dan.

Dan Moren [00:33:53]:
Hi Mikah. Thanks for keeping my seat warm for me. Always nice to drop in.

Mikah Sargent [00:33:58]:
Absolutely. So we know of course that as Apple is set to take the virtual stage on Tuesday for the Apple event, I imagine it's already taken the stage by now given that everything's pre recorded. But on September 9th to announce the new set of iPhones and probably Apple watches as well. And given your knowledge of Apple, I want to bring you on the show to kind of give us a preview of what we should expect at the event. If we could start with the iPhone.

Dan Moren [00:34:34]:
The iPhone. Yeah, it's that time of year. It's the time of year where new iPhones descend upon us as though raining from Apple Park. Now. So the iPhone 17 line is is expected to show up here. Now in the past few years we've seen a couple different configurations of models from Apple, right. We've seen base level iPhones, we've seen smaller iPhones, we've seen big, bigger iPhones. This year we're going to mix it up a little bit more.

Dan Moren [00:34:58]:
We're expecting so four models of iPhone the iPhone 17 which will be sort of the standard iPhone, much in the vein of the iPhone 16, 15, etc. We're expecting an iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max which again should look pretty similar to this year's 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max. And then for a little bit something different. We're expecting something that we don't really know the name of, but has been widely called the iPhone 17 Air, which will be a thinner model rather than going bigger or larger. They've changed a different dimension and is expected to be something of a more. I don't know what to call it exactly. Luxury phone potentially like it's unclear. We don't know a lot of the details but the idea is that it's supposed to be sort of thinner and lighter.

Dan Moren [00:35:43]:
The thinnest iPhone ever made, obviously. Yeah, I know. We're so excited it thin is in again, what the actual details of all these models are. Well, you know, as usual we can kind of speculate on sort of the, you know, broad features that we would know newer chips probably better. Cameras. There are some rumors that they'll upgrade the front facing camera across the line to a 24 megapixel. We also expecting some improvements, perhaps less exciting in terms of their announcement, but also also more potentially more exciting in terms of their impact. Something a redesigned thermal system in the 17 Pro which could help improve things like more constant frame rates while gaming and even just keeping the phone cooler when it's doing intensive tasks.

Dan Moren [00:36:32]:
So that's something potentially look forward to. We're also expecting that some of the features from the Pro line will finally start making their way down into the base model including including potentially the always on and promotion features of the displays which have been previously limited to the pro models, but those could now appear in the iPhone 17 as well. And then some other updates in a few other places, including we saw earlier this year in the iPhone 16e, Apple roll out its first modem cellular modem chip, the C1.

Mikah Sargent [00:37:03]:
Right.

Dan Moren [00:37:05]:
Unclear whether that will debut view across the line but the iPhone 17 Air is expected to get an Apple designed 5G modem. Whether that's the C1 that we've already seen or a improved C2, anybody's guess at this point. As well as some improvements to things like WI fi and bluetooth connectivity. Sort of the usual bumps across the board. There's also expected to be potentially some design changes specifically with the Pro which will now feature. Rather than just that. I'll hold up mine here. Rather than Just the square camera button bump will instead feature a rectangular bar that goes across the width of the phone, which for people like me who are annoyed with how wobbly the phone is when you put it down, sure, that's nice.

Dan Moren [00:37:49]:
A nice improvement. And that's coupled with potentially some changes in construction. Titanium has been the order of the day for the most recent ones in the Profone line. It's thought that these might change to aluminum both in their frame and in their exterior, which could help make them somewhat lighter potentially. Again, we'll. We'll have to wait and see.

Mikah Sargent [00:38:10]:
Will it be premium if it's aluminum?

Dan Moren [00:38:13]:
Aluminum? How pedestrian?

Mikah Sargent [00:38:15]:
Aluminum Pro, maybe. When it comes to the iPhone event, right. We of course, during wwdc, get an early look at what the software will be for Apple's suite of hardware. And then when the iPhone ships in late September, October, we are typically provided with, at that point, the new version of iOS, iPadOS, et cetera. It's been the case in the past that Apple reserves some software features or, you know, little bits and bops for the new iPhone, as was the case with the Dynamic island. Right. And with camera control. But sometimes it's just been solely a software feature.

Mikah Sargent [00:39:12]:
Do we have any rumors about anything we'll see that builds on I.O.S. what, 26, right. That we have not yet seen?

Dan Moren [00:39:24]:
There's not a lot out there this time in terms of rumors. If there is something coming, Apple's kept it pretty well under wraps. But it wouldn't surprise me, given that, yeah, you often want these devices to have some sort of attractive software feature to draw people in and especially to differentiate it from the previous year's models. So what that might be in this case? Well, we, you know, can speculate that if they're improving things like the cameras, there might be some options in there. For example, one of the things that is sort of rumored is that these Pro phones might be the first ones able to record an 8K video. That could be something that, that Apple touts during the the event. But beyond that, it's really unclear. Almost everything that was announced back at WWC and iOS 26 has been in this year's betas, which is a bit of a change from the past couple years where they've sometimes let those things slip later and later in the year year.

Dan Moren [00:40:20]:
So it's entirely possible that, you know, some of these improvements will cut. They'll see additional things in like 0.1 or 18 point or sorry, 26.1 and 26.2 etc that might add new features. Either specifically for these models or across the line that Apple's just been playing really close to the vest until they're ready to ship them. But yeah, as of yet we don't really have any great indication of what those features might be now.

Mikah Sargent [00:40:45]:
IPhone is but one aspect it seems typically for this event, it is typically paired with the Apple Watch. And you know, some of the models have. I've seen some rumors flying by for what could be new. There have been not complaints but observations that there's only so much one can do when it comes to the Apple Watch. Should we expect anything new, shocking, surprising in that space this year or are we kind of sticking with what we've got?

Dan Moren [00:41:20]:
Yeah, shocking. Probably not shocking, but I think there is an expectation that we will see the Apple Watch line across the board updated. So that would mean a new Series Watch, in this case Series 11, presumably an Ultra 3, and a new version of the Apple Watch SE as to what those various things will, you know, have going for them. The Ultra is rumored to get a larger display that might also get sort of the, the benefits of the Series 10's screen which had some improved quality including being a wide angle oled. Etc. There's also a rumor out there that satellite connectivity might come to the Apple Watch, the first time we've seen that and the iPhone models in the past couple years with the ability to do emergency sos followed by texting and that kind of thing, it's possible that will make it to the Ultra Line this year. Faster charging and improved 5G connections are also thrown out there. And of course the big sort of wild card for a lot of these things is obviously the Apple Watch is a big health focused device.

Dan Moren [00:42:30]:
Whether there will be any new health focus features is unclear. There's been a lot of talk over the last several years of Apple working on a blood pressure monitoring system of some kind. It seems as though that's hit a lot of challenges. I don't know that I would expect to see that this year, even if it's something they're working pretty hard on. So it's unclear what they may have to offer in that way, especially since they've only recently been able to restore the blood oxygen features that were missing from some of the previous watches. And then as far as as the SE3 goes, you know, it'll probably see a processor bump. One of the more interesting questions there is if Apple is really trying to keep the price of that down and have it be more of an intro level Apple Watch, will it get rid of the metal casing and replace it with plastic instead. Don't know, but it's one thing that Apple could do, especially to offset some concerns about pricing.

Mikah Sargent [00:43:24]:
Anything else that we don't, you know, maybe is less well known or is very much kind of a kind of a pie in the sky sort of moment that is worth talking about.

Dan Moren [00:43:40]:
I don't have a pie in the sky. There's a couple other things I would expect to see though. Let's go with one of the big ones, AirPods Pro 3. It's been a few years since the last version, the AirPods Pro, came out. Those are big sellers for Apple. They've ripped, driven, really driven a lot of sales in their wearables category. And so we're at a point where it feels like they could update those what that again, what that might involve may be better audio quality or improved noise cancellation. We also have heard long standing rumors about health sensors being added to the AirPods, which might be temperature sensors, for example, to provide, you know, information during workouts.

Dan Moren [00:44:17]:
It might be something else related to having having cameras. They've talked about having cameras in there that might be able to gather some information that be there end up used for health. But in general, if nothing else, I think it's just an opportunity for them to refresh that product and really gin up some more sales going into the holiday quarter. And then the other small thing, very small thing that has been rumored more recently is a new version of the Air tags which might improve the precision of the finding and adding increases in ranges as well as perhaps improving the speaker on there to combat some of those, you know, unfortunate stories about people using airtags to track other people. So it has been many, many years. They've never updated the airtag since the initial launch, so it's not out of the question at all that they might bring a new version of that, but I wouldn't expect it to get a ton of time in an event.

Mikah Sargent [00:45:10]:
All right, well Dan, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to join us today. Of course we can expect lots from sixcolors.com as as the event takes place and we'll be looking forward to that. If people would like to keep up with what you're doing online outside of going to sixcolors. Com, is there anywhere else they should look?

Dan Moren [00:45:33]:
Yeah, you can find everything I do over@dmorin.com that's got links to my writing, links to my podcast, and links to all my various social media presences, which are usually some form of de Morin on pretty much every site.

Mikah Sargent [00:45:46]:
All right, well, thank you again very much and we'll see you again soon.

Dan Moren [00:45:50]:
Thanks, Maika. Take it easy.

Mikah Sargent [00:45:53]:
All righty, folks, we're going to take a quick break before we come back with our final interview here on the show, all about Google and Chrome and antitrust. But first, let me tell you about ZocDoc bringing you this episode of Tech News Weekly. Do you remember that doctor's appointment you were supposed to make a while ago? That one you meant to book and completely forgot about until now? You know, that dentist appointment for your biannual cleaning? Or the overdue annual checkup that's been three years in the making? Dermatologist visit for the mole you kept meaning to get looked at? Or perhaps that rash that you diagnosed with Google but still haven't had checked out? Wow, really coming for my brand there. Why not book it today? Because ZocDoc makes it easy to find the right doctor right now. And it's all online. You might even be able to book an appointment before the end of this ad. Read ZocDoc is a free app and website where you can search and compare high quality in network doctors and click to instantly book an appointment. I was able to find my doctor and my dentist here in Portland right after we moved here thanks to Zocdoc.

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Mikah Sargent [00:47:51]:
That's Z-O-C-D-O-C.com/tnw and we thank ZocDoc for sponsoring this week's episode of Tech News Weekly. Alrighty, we are back from the break and I am super excited to be joined by the wonderful Leah Nylan of Bloomberg, who is here to tell us about where things stand in the antitrust case. Welcome back to the show, Leah.

Leah Nylen [00:48:21]:
Thanks for having me.

Mikah Sargent [00:48:23]:
Yes, always a pleasure to have you on. I think it's fantastic getting to talk to you and kind of understand where things are. So I was hoping that we could kind of kick things off. You know, I feel like at this point you are our source of truth when it comes to the Google antitrust case for Tech News Weekly. So could you start by kind of bringing our viewers up to speed? What's led us to this point and what the government was original seeking in terms of remedies against Google?

Leah Nylen [00:48:50]:
Yes. So this is the Google antitrust search case. There are two of them, but this one relates to Google's alleged monopoly. Well, it's not alleged they have an illegal monopoly over search, according to the court. And the Justice Department had asked the court to remedy that by requiring them to sell off the Chrome web browser and also to stop having these contracts in which they pay people like Apple and various other cell phone providers providers to make Google search the default on phones and in browsers. And the decision in that case at long last came out on Tuesday of this week, and the markets loved it. But a lot of antitrust folks were pretty unhappy because the judge ruled against the Chrome breakup. He said that Google can keep paying companies to be the default, it just can't be the exclusive default.

Leah Nylen [00:49:46]:
And he said that they will have to share a little bit of data with their rivals, but he significantly cabined the amount of data that they're going to have to share with other people.

Mikah Sargent [00:49:55]:
Now. Thank you first of all, for that update. The judge ultimately now rejected what some would consider the most severe remedy that the government wanted. Talking about forcing Google to sell Chrome. It was certainly the most juicy, in my opinion. What was Judge Mehta's reasoning for stopping short of that breakup, and how significant is this decision for the broader antitrust landscape?

Leah Nylen [00:50:22]:
Yeah, so he said that the Justice Department had just not persuaded him that it was something that was necessary. Most of the case had, in fact, focused on Google's contracts with other browser manufacturers. So the ones that it has with Mozilla's Firefox, the one that it has with Apple, Apple for Safari, and those were primarily the ones that the case was about. And he felt that those should therefore be like the contracts that he makes the remedy about. He said the Justice Department did not allege that the use of Google search in Chrome was legal. So he found no need to sort of require them to sell it off, even though at the trial there were so many people who had offered to buy it. And in fact, Perplexity sort of re upped that bid just a couple weeks ago.

Mikah Sargent [00:51:12]:
Now this, I think, is kind of one of the most fascinating aspects of this case because it's almost we're watching how things can change so quickly and sort of shape a case in real time. You mentioned in your piece that AI fundamentally changed everything. How did the emergence of generative AI influence the thinking? And what does this mean for how courts might view tech monopolies going forward? This seems to be. It's going to be an impact across the entire landscape, right?

Leah Nylen [00:51:45]:
Yeah. So one of the things the judge highlighted a lot in his opinion was how he feels that generative AI really has changed the landscape. So he noted that when we had the original trial, which was back in the fall, fall of 2023, generative AI only came up a couple times. At that point in time, ChatGPT existed, but it was still very new. Google had introduced its Gemini product, but it was also still very new. But then by the time we had the Remedy trial, which was earlier in the spring, the Remedy trial ended up being almost entirely about AI. So there were executives from OpenAI, there were executives from Perplexity, there were executives from Apple talking about how they have started incorporating all these different AI tools into the iPhone. So the judge said that he found that like the entire case had now become about AI.

Leah Nylen [00:52:37]:
And in his view, then he doesn't need to do as much to change the market because AI is probably going to do it for him. I've talked to a bunch of antitrust experts who are a little bit wary of that argument, though, because it seems to suggest that now the tech companies are going to be able to come into court and say, yeah, we may have broken the law before, but look, there's this new thing and you don't have to worry about it now. I mean, we've seen this a lot in the Facebook case that went to trial earlier this year, where Facebook essentially came into court and said, yes, we did buy up Instagram and WhatsApp back in the day, but you don't really need to concentrate on that and anymore because TikTok is here. So it seems like a lot of these tech companies are really picking up on this argument that the. Because technology is changing so fast, even if we did something bad in the past, you don't have to worry.

Mikah Sargent [00:53:30]:
Now. Google did avoid this Breakup, Right. You've got, you know, I think companies going, well now our billion dollar offers for this just don't mean anything. And they're probably secretly going fuke. That would be a lot of money to go cough up. But they do have to make some concessions, particularly around data sharing with competitors. So yeah, you talked about this. A little bit of data sharing.

Mikah Sargent [00:53:53]:
What does that mean for Google to share data and who actually benefits from this?

Leah Nylen [00:53:58]:
So this is the one part of the remedy that he ordered and we're not going to know exactly about it for a little while. So he did create what he's calling the technical committee and it's going to be three people who are going to be picked by the Justice Department and Google to help him sort of come up with a lot of the rules about what data Google is going to share and how to protect it to make sure that one, bad actors cannot get a hold of it and two, that any user information is not revealed and that users like searches are still remain private. So, so he did say that they are going to have to share some data, that they're only going to have to do it once. So all of these companies that can get the data are only really going to get a one time sort of sneak peek of Google's index. And so it's not really clear how much only getting to see Google's index once is how useful that is really going to be to some companies. Some of the companies who are really excited about this potential remedy, like DuckDuckGo have already come out and said that this is a nothing burger. Some other companies though that are AI companies, this is allowing them to not have to go around and scrape the entire web because they're going to get a copy of Google's index, they may be able to build new models off of that without having to do all their own scraping. Some AI companies are probably going to be a little bit more excited about getting access to this data than some of the more search engine focused companies.

Mikah Sargent [00:55:28]:
That is really, that's fascinating because yes, if you only kind of take from the headlines or if you, you're hearing a little bit about this, you're going to probably miss that aspect, that this is a one time deal as opposed to being a kind of regular data sharing practice. That's, that's really interesting. Another notable aspect here is Google is still going to be allowed to pay companies like Apple for default search placement. We know that that has been like upwards of $20 billion a year. Why did the judge decide to preserve those payment arrangements instead of banning them outright, given how much. It seemed to be an early focus from the case and kind of from the people watching from outside.

Leah Nylen [00:56:13]:
This is the part of the opinion that's actually a little bit schizophrenic because the judge all along has said that he's really, really worried about the fact that Google is spending so much money on these deals. You know, $20 billion is a lot of money. It's like the value, I think somebody said it's the value of data. Disney, Paramount, and one other major company combined. So that's how much money like Google is paying Apple every year. And another company is really not going to be able to match that. So he had expressed this concern over and over again, but then when it came down to it, he said he was really, really worried about the impact that not allowing these payments at all was going to have on the companies that are already getting this. So, for example, Mozilla had made a really big case at the remedy that, that if they were to cut off the money that Google pays them, it's somewhere around 400 to $500 million a year.

Leah Nylen [00:57:07]:
That's their biggest source of revenue. And so if a judge were suddenly to cut it off, that's pretty damaging for this nonprofit. And that seemed to have a lot of sway with the judge. I was a little bit more surprised that he cared that much about Apple. I mean, Apple did offer an executive who said it kept him up at night the thought that they might not be getting this $20 billion in free money. But it's not like Apple isn't one of the biggest companies on the planet. It probably would have been a fine even if it wasn't getting $20 billion in free cash.

Mikah Sargent [00:57:39]:
Now, you do describe, and I think we talked about this throughout, nothing burger, slap on the wrist. How are Google's competitors responding to these remedies? And do they think that this is going to restore competition at. At all or in some ways or. You talked about how the AI companies seem to be kind of pleased about it, but is it enough according to its competition?

Leah Nylen [00:58:03]:
That's a really good question. I mean, as I said, some of the people who were very involved in the trial in terms of, like, providing evidence to the government and helping them shape their theories, were very disappointed in this remedy because the judge didn't take very many of the government's proposals and therefore, you know, some of the ideas from these companies. But as I said, some of the AI companies are actually pretty interested in this idea that they might get this snapshot of Google's database and can therefore use it for training their own models. So I sort of expect that we're going to see a lot more from the AI companies going forward than we have from some of the older companies like the Mozilla's and the duckduckgos of the world.

Mikah Sargent [00:58:46]:
Lastly, looking ahead, we know that Google, as you mentioned, is facing another major antitrust case focused on its advertising technology business. Do you think, do you think this ruling will influence that separate case? And what does the decision signal about the government's kind of overall strategy for reining in big tech? Because it often changes with administrations.

Leah Nylen [00:59:05]:
Yeah. So that case on Friday, we are expecting sort of the final proposal from the government about what it wants from Google. It has already said that it wants to break Google's sort of advertising business up. It wants them to have to sell some of the tools that it controls that help people buy ads. And then later this month down in Virginia, there's going to be a two to three week remedy trial on that. This judge has been moving the case forward a lot faster. So we probably will have some kind of decision on that remedy maybe by the end of the year. And it is very interesting because now she has this decision from Judge Mehta and all of this stuff about how he was so concerned about the breakup.

Leah Nylen [00:59:51]:
She also has a decision that came in the Epic case in California, which was Epic Games had sued Google over its app store. So she has these two other decisions about what Google is going to have to do to change its business in response to that. And she can sort of tailor her own decision in light of these other things that have already happened. This judge, however, she's already sort of indicated that she is pretty open to the idea of a breakup here though, because. Because she has found that Google has illegally monopolized two markets and the government has proposed that in response Google would have to sell off its tools in those two markets. And she did sort of indicate that she is open to that. So Google going in is going to have to, I think, make more of a case to sort of dissuade her from the potential breakup here.

Mikah Sargent [01:00:42]:
That makes sense, I think. You, of course, have had a busy week or you probably could have a busy next several years as things continue to go through. I'm sure we'll see all sorts of changes and updates and new rulings and it's hard to wade through all of it. So I appreciate you for doing that. If people would like to keep up with the work that you're doing. Where should they go to do so?

Leah Nylen [01:01:06]:
Yeah, you can follow me on bloomberg.com we have a feature that allows you to get an email every time I write a story and you can find me on blueskyeaniland.

Mikah Sargent [01:01:16]:
Beautiful. Thank you so much. We appreciate it it.

Leah Nylen [01:01:18]:
Thank you.

Mikah Sargent [01:01:20]:
All right folks, that brings us to the end of this episode of Tech News Weekly. If you can believe it, our show publishes every Thursday at twit.tv/tnw. That is where you go to subscribe to the show in audio and video formats. Of course. If you'd like to get all of our shows ad free, check out Club Twit at twit.tv/clubtwit. When you join the club you will gain access to some awesome benefits. Every single one of our shows ad free, just the content. You also gain access to the Twit platform, plus feeds that have extra stuff you won't find anywhere else.

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Mikah Sargent [01:02:26]:
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