 Coming up on DTNS, Tim Stevens tells us what to expect from electrical vehicles in 2021. Google employees try to unionize and can CES work as a virtual event. This is the Daily Tech News for Monday, January 4th, 2021. In Los Angeles, I'm Tom Merritt. And from Studio Redwood Adjacent, I'm Sarah Lane. And living slightly in the past is Roger Chang, the show's producer. Well, joining us as you just heard, Editor-in-Chief, CNET Roadshow, Tim Stevens. Welcome back. I love kicking off the new year with you on Daily Tech News show every year. I love it too. Thanks so much for having me. This is a great tradition. It's been great. What do we say? Seven years now? So congratulations on all the amazing stuff you've done over that time. It's really been great to watch. Oh, thank you, Matt. It's always good to have you. We should have you on the rest of the year. We shouldn't limit it. But I know everybody gets busy. You've got my number, man. Yeah, I know. I know. But yeah, let's let people know if you want to hear more of us chatting about what we were doing over the holidays, some of the tech stuff we might have gotten, get that wider conversation, a good day internet, patreon.com, slash DTNS. Let's start the new year with a few tech things you should know. UK Judge Vanessa Beretzer of Westminster Magistrates Court ruled that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange cannot be extradited to the United States to face trial on charges of violating the Espionage Act. The judge ruled that extradition would be unjust and oppressive, citing that Assange's mental health would put him at extreme risk of suicide if extradited to the U.S. The judge rejected Assange's defense that the charges were an attack on press freedom, saying that the U.S. brought the case in good faith. In 2019, Assange was charged with 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act, resulting from the publication of documents provided by former U.S. Army Intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning. Tech crunches sources say the Indian social network Share Chat is in advance talks on a new funding rather than it would include new investors Google and Snap, as well as an additional investment from Twitter, who already invested in them before. This series e-round would reportedly be more than $200 million, Google investing a bunch. Executives at Share Chat have said it's growing exponentially with its short video app, Moj, M.O.J., having 80 million monthly active users as of September 2019. While Quibi shut down its streaming service last year, it had a short life, but, you know, R.I.P. Quibi, its content may live on. The Wall Street Journal sources say that the company is nearing a deal with Roku for its content catalog. Quibi's content would reportedly be added to Roku's free ad-supported Roku channel streaming service. Whoever had the bet that there'd be a Quibi story to lead off 2021, you just cashed it big. Yeah, good thing. Research note by analyst Ming-Chi Quo, obtained by MacRumor, says Apple may debut its yet unreleased air tags item trackers. Quo's like, no, at this time, it's really going to happen. Previously, rumored augmented reality device is going to be coming this year. A few other things in 2021. Quo also noted new AirPods, more Apple Silicon Macs, which I think we all expect, and Apple's first devices with many LED displays are among the new products Quo expects. Well, as far as products that probably are real, Samsung sent out invites to its latest Galaxy Unpacked event on January 14th at 10 a.m. Eastern time. Taglined, Welcome to the Everyday Epic. The teaser video appears to show a smartphone camera module. Good thing there wasn't a common there. Or it would be like a tease at Epic Games. Welcome to the Everyday. You're right, Epic. Good to see you. All right, let's get to talking about that big story of January 4th, 2021 unionization in tech. Around 227 alphabet workers have announced they are joining together in an effort with the communication workers of America to form a union at Google for both full-time employees as well as contractors. The organization's efforts will be chaired by Google software engineers Pearl Kool and Chewie Shaw with union representatives, of course, to eventually be elected by the members. And a New York Times op-ed announcing the union, Kool and Shaw cited Google's contract with the Pentagon to use AI and Project Maven, the firing of AI researcher Tim Nick Gebru and forced arbitration for claims of sexual harassment as alphabet management, ignoring the concerns of the workers. Those are their examples. They also emphasized the need to bring benefits to contract workers and the payout packages that executives got when they were accused of sexual harassment. Previous tech industry unionization efforts include Kickstarter and Glitch, Google contractors with HCL technology in Pittsburgh are also unionized, tech company cafeteria workers in the Bay Area are unionized. So this has been a growing movement, but this is by far the biggest effort yet. The U.S. National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint against Google in December regarding interfering with employees' rights to organize, which could loosen things up a little bit, but that was maybe a signal that this was coming. The next step for the alphabet union effort is to get recognition from alphabet. You go to the company and say, Hey, will you recognize our union efforts? Now, the company can voluntarily do that or force it to have an election, which is what Kickstarter did. And that Kickstarter union took about 10 months to get recognized because of that. However, the alphabet union is not seeking federal ratification through the NLRB. That means they're not going for collective bargaining rights, which is maybe a little less adversarial. We'll see how Google reacts to that. If successful, the alphabet union would become part of CWA local 1400, alphabet told several press outlets, quote, we'll continue engaging directly with all our employees, which I interpreted to mean we're still figuring out how to respond to this. Big, big deal here. Yeah. Yeah, it's a big deal. I mean, when you, you mentioned Kickstarter and the fact that there was some success there as far as unionization, alphabet is not that kind of company. Alphabet is a big ass company. And the fact that a very small amount of alphabet workers, at least on, you know, on record are saying we want to do this is one thing. But, uh, I don't know, I, I feel like sure the company will figure out what's best for the company, but based on what it's gone through over the last year, uh, and, you know, years prior, as far as being, you know, too big to fail type of a thing, the idea that the company would push back on employees who have in many cases, pretty good reasons to say, here's some discrimination stuff that we've faced. Here's where the company has not listened to employees that we've, uh, made note of. And here's why we think this is a good idea for the benefit of the people who are keeping this company going has a lot of merits. Yeah, for sure. I totally agree, Sarah. I don't think that Google really has any leg to stand on when it comes to pushing back on this. There's been so much negative PR, uh, around all the moves that you mentioned, Tom, uh, just seemingly very short-sighted initiatives at Google and changes in policies that have been really negatively reacted internally and externally. Uh, and, you know, I've been a manager for a long time now at a lot of different companies, some of which are unionized and what you're not. And, and this is always kind of the, the final symptom of a company that's, that's not listening to or not able to react to their employees. And ultimately, you know, this step, it's, to me, it's kind of sad not that employees are taking power. I think that's a good thing, but it's sad that, that they had to take this step to do so. Um, because this, you know, this may help bring more people to the table when they're having discussions about these sorts of issues. Um, but ultimately it's going to formalize things and potentially slow things down quite a bit more. Um, so I do hope that there is a positive resolution out of this. I do hope that if nothing else, uh, Google officers are standing up a little bit more straight in these negotiation meetings going forward. Um, but ultimately it is kind of sad that, that, that Google wasn't able to open those lines of communication in a, in a better, more, more friendly way that they had to kind of take this step. Uh, that's, that's a bit unfortunate. Yeah, this is precedent setting too. Uh, how this plays out will, will sort of set the tone for a lot of other companies, uh, that have been talking about the employees of those companies anyway, talking about whether they should unionize the need to unionize Kickstarter was, was the first to go and sort of I think got people talking about whether they could or should. Uh, this is going to say how difficult will it be? Uh, this, this will show you what you could expect. And, and from both the employee side as well as the, the company side, uh, Facebook, Amazon, uh, you know, there's a lot of unionization talk around Amazon are going to look at this and say, okay, how do they react? Uh, and, and when they react, what effect does it have? And what can we learn from that, uh, in the future? I hope that the learnings internally aren't just about how do we handle our employees wanting to unionize, but there's also some learnings about how do we teach our employees to be better managers? You know, we're looking at Google, which is still a very young company that's grown, you know, exponentially, hugely over the past couple of years. And so you have a lot of people who are fairly inexperienced managing, you know, a lot of people doing a lot of things. Uh, and ultimately, I think that, that's probably where you need to look to find a lot of the issues that, that, that these employees are trying to fix and feeling forced to go into the union, because ultimately they weren't able to get the communication open. They weren't able to get what they needed that their managers ultimately were letting them down. And that's a very unfortunate thing. So, you know, definitely, I think Google is going to have some very important steps and decisions to make as they recognize the unionization of their employees. But I hope that other companies don't just look at how Google reacts to the formation of the union, but they also look back six months, 12 months and, you know, 24 months at all the missteps that were made along the way, so that they can train their employees a little bit better about how to make sure that everyone is feeling like they have a seat at the table. Well, let's talk about Windows. How do we all feel about Windows? A job, I'm a union. I don't do Windows. Well, you might after this story, a job listing for a software engineering role at Microsoft's Windows core user experience team referred to a quote, sweeping visual rejuvenation of Windows experiences to signal to our customers that Windows is back. The reference to sweeping visual rejuvenation was later removed, but it was there initially. The posting seems to confirm what Windows central sources said back in October about a planned UI overhaul code named Sun Valley, which would update the start menu, the Action Center, the File Explorer and built in apps to make the UI more consistent, as well as provide better tablet optimizations. Sun Valley is reportedly scheduled to ship as part of Windows 10 cobalt in Q4 of this year, 2021. The rejuvenation reportedly isn't a completely refreshed UI, rather a more consistent application of Microsoft existing fluent design. Yeah, I mean, we could get caught up into why they decided sweeping visual rejuvenation shouldn't be in that job description. I'm sure that sounds like plastic surgery. I don't know. It's just yeah, it may be some expectations setting involved in there or whatever. But I think no matter what, all this stuff, the leaks back in October and this job posting point to the fact that since Panos Panai took over in October last year, Windows is focused on tightening things up and kind of finally getting out of that Windows 8 awkward phase that it had where it was kind of trying to be a tablet OS, but also a desktop OS at the same time. And I think all Windows users would like that, would like them to finally get that that nice and streamlined. So I'm I'm positive about this. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, I'm as well. I'm a Windows user using Windows right now. And I think the past has a really great eye for design in general. So I think that'll help. But really, all that I want is a better integration. As you mentioned, Tom, it's always been this kind of they made a really big push to try to make Windows tablet friendly. And then they realized that ultimately they're really there weren't that many consumers using Windows on a tablet anyway. So they rolled a lot of that back. And now you've got the sort of thing where you do you try to change your audio settings, for example, you kind of get this really simple tabletified version. But if you actually want to do anything seriously, you have to hop over to the control panel, which looks suddenly like old Windows. If all I get out of this is a single unified control panel that is easy to use that doesn't have to be jumping around five different places to enable my network adapter. I'll be very happy. I really don't care what it looks like. Yeah, I think sweeping visual rejuvenation is probably overstating. We're gonna make all the settings panel look the same, which I don't know, maybe why they decided to, you know, and maybe it does mean that to a UX designer, right? Like, oh, yeah, that's a sweeping rejuvenation. Whereas to us, it's like, no, that's just something we wish you would have done a long time ago. You made some circle squares. It's cool though. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah, this was a job posting. So they got to kind of make it sound interesting. You know, they were trying to attract talents here. So it's not just us. They're speaking to UX people, right? They're speaking in UX ease. Well, a new year might mean some new form factors for technology. Tom's guide passing along a report from Taiwanese United Daily News that Apple reportedly commissioned two prototype shells from Foxconn for foldable displays. Now, this is a very low reliability source. Also, even if it's true, it just means that Apple commissioned some prototypes doesn't mean they're even going to do this. But one would be a booklike design like the Surface Duo and the other a more standard smartphone design that would fold in half, kind of like the Motorola Razr or the Samsung foldable phone. A December 31st, Apple patent filing also shows a device that folds both in and out, kind of a combination of the Galaxy Z Flip and the Huawei Mate X. So yeah, there could be something in the works. I'm sure it'll be a long time if and when we ever see it. But that's interesting to note. And Google doesn't want to be left out. They've got an FCC filing showing they plan to expand the devices that use radar based solely technology. Unlike a patent, an FCC filing means we're trying to get this product approved. It's a real product. The filing details a new interactive device with a screen that supports a 60 gigahertz frequency used by solely along with ZigBee smart home protocols. It's not clear if this will be another Google Home product or a Nest Secure successor or an entirely new product line. Sully first debuted on the Pixel 4 and was added to the new Nest thermostat back in October and back in September. Google's Rick Osterloh told the Verge that despite solely not being included in the Pixel 5, it would be quote used in the future. So apparently the future is now. Well, I mean, earlier in the show, we talked about Ming Qi Quo's ideas of what Apple is going to come up with this year. I think Apple is really focused on those M1 and M1 successor chips for a variety of products. There may be some AR stuff that we're seeing. A foldable device probably not happening anytime soon, but I'm sure the company is working on it like other companies are. Tim, I know normally around this time of year, we'd all be packing up for CES to look at some foldable devices that may or may not be vaporware. Is there anything that stands out to you as as as really becoming a frontrunner going forward? As far as foldable devices go. Yeah, it still seems like really Daisy and I still, even though we're on Gen 2 or even Gen 3 and some of these products, it still feels like we are kind of in the beta testing phase to see how what the longevity of these is like, how people are going to use them. I think it's fascinating technology that everybody wants because it just seems so futuristic. But I mean, reading the story before we came on, I remember back when I used to run Engadget a hundred years ago, all of the supposed leaked pictures of folding iPhones and things like that that we used to laugh at because they were so preposterous at the time. You know, we knew it was coming at some point. And I still, you know, it seems inevitable, but it still feels like we're at least a year or two away from an actual folding iPhone. So I think it's great. But I still think it's right now toys for very early adopters. And I'm really looking forward to that first truly mainstream foldable device because I want to own one. Yeah, I think, you know, Apple traditionally has been the one that comes to the category when it's ready, not when it's early. And so if this bore out and in a couple of years, we did get a foldable iPhone, it'd be a huge deal and everybody would talk about, oh, this is a real category now. That said, I'm a little more bullish on foldable than I was. I feel like we're finally, with the Galaxy Z Flip particularly, we're getting form factors that people look at and want, whether they can afford them or not, it's a whole different situation right now, right? But I see them in TV shows and movies now. And I feel like people are like, oh, that's kind of cool. Maybe maybe I would like that if the price came down. Yeah, as far as Google and Soli goes, yeah, I think Google I think Google is not going to abandon motion detection. It's just trying to find a home for it. So we'll see what they come up with. Yeah, I hope so. Soli technology has huge potential, you know, and I think actually it would work really well on a smart home device because if you think about the interfaces on these things with small displays or even no displays, kind of hard to go between a thermostat and smart lights, that kind of thing, the ability to control these with gestures and more advanced gestures could actually be really interesting. So I hope they can figure it out. Hey, folks, joining the conversation about all this stuff, what's your favorite form factor? Tell us in the Discord, which you can join by linking to a Patreon account at patreon.com slash DTMS. Well, we hear the term EV all the time, especially when it relates to cars, electric vehicles becoming more and more mainstream. And with Tim Stevens on the show with us today, we just couldn't not mind his brain about what kind of EV trends we may see in 2021 or beyond. So Tim, what is coming down the road? Oh, lots of good stuff. It seems like every year, next year is going to be the big year for EVs. But I really feel like 2021 is going to be the year where we see a lot of really interesting products coming to market that people can really feel good about purchasing. We just talked about how foldable displays are approaching mainstream, but you still have some compromises there when it comes to cost and durability. We're kind of getting past that point with EV now where EVs are approaching the same price as a normal car. They have range in excess of 200 miles, which is the point where you can kind of stop having range anxiety in cars that look good and are fun to drive. I'm really bullish this year about Ford's Mach E. That was the product that made a lot of people angry last year because they called it the Mustang. A lot of people are saying, well, it's a crossover SUV. It can't be a Mustang. But I hope that everyone's moved past that because this looks like a really good entry into the EV market. Prices starting in the $30 to $40,000 range, ranges of EV battery life, upwards approaching 300 miles, still falling short of what Tesla offers. But in a car that you can go and theoretically buy at any Ford dealership, get serviced at any Ford dealership. And ultimately, that just looks, in my opinion, like a really nice crossover SUV. So products like that coming to market make me really bullish about EVs in 2021. Yeah, a lot of these, especially the Mach-E or the Volvo, are high-end vehicles where I think a lot of folks are out there saying, OK, that's great. I'm glad we have a lot of these now. We're not just looking at one or two. But when are we going to get a boring sedan EV that I could afford? Yeah, we're still waiting on that because the cost of a battery pack is still substantial to the point where we're adding between $5,000 and $10,000 over the cost of just a standard economy sedan or economy hatchback. So there are cars on the market now like the Chevrolet Bolt or the Tesla Model 3, of course, that offer the same kind of practicality of a normal hatchback, but ultimately, they're still costing again between $5,000 and $10,000 more. And ultimately, I think we're still a ways away from being able to change that. Tesla is promising they've got new battery cells coming called a 4860 cell, which will allow them to add more energy density and kind of take some of the surrounding materials out of the individual batteries. And there are thousands of small batteries inside of your average Tesla. They can drive the cost down of those individual cells. They can theoretically make those cars more affordable. And so hopefully narrow that gap of cost between, let's say, a Model 3 and something like a Toyota Corolla. But those are unfortunately still years away. So I think we're still going to see a lot of the momentum in the high $30,000 to $60,000 range. But remember, the average cost of a new car in the US is around $36,000, $37,000. So that's actually kind of hitting that sweet spot with a car like the Chevrolet Bolt or something like the Volkswagen ID 4, where some of the new Honda's are coming this market as well. So we're not actually that far off. But yeah, there's still definitely a strong need for cheaper EVs. Those we may have to wait for another year. You know, as a person who drives a Volvo XC60, the idea of getting a recharge, even the 40, which is a lovely car also. I mean, I am I am a big fan. However, we're still kind of in that point where sure, charging stations are becoming more common, especially, you know, if you're living in California and you're on the five, it used to be like there was one place where you could do it and other many. But it kind of has to become this ubiquitous thing that's like gas, because as a renter, I don't own my home. I can't plug in my car. Where am I going to plug in my car? Lots of people have that issue like that sounds great. But unless you have a certain setup at home, you can't really do this. So you have to have the equivalent of gas stations around so that you feel like you can be mobile and never have to worry about running out of steam. Yeah, absolutely. Half of the equation of range anxiety is how far can I go in my car on a charge. But the other half is of course, where can I charge this thing for people who own their own home? The solution is pretty easy. Come home and plug it in at night and then you're probably pretty good. Or if you happen to work somewhere that has a charger at work, which is becoming increasingly common, if you can charge it up while you're in the office during the day, then that may solve the issue as well. But that's definitely something that we need to see more charging stations if only to give people that peace of mind. We've seen studies in Japan, for example, in the early, early days of EVs where Nissan gave out leaves or excuse me, Mitsubishi they gave out iMess, which was one of the early EVs, which had a very short range in the order of 50 to 60 miles, and people just weren't using them because they didn't feel comfortable. Mitsubishi put in a lot of chargers and suddenly people were suddenly using their cars a lot more, but they actually weren't using those chargers. They were just kind of like a safety blanket that people felt that they needed. So there's going to be a lot of changing of thinking of how you attack your car, that I don't necessarily need to charge it up, that I have a gas station in my garage effectively if you happen to own your own home. But there's a lot of infrastructure that's still needed and a lot of, a lot of frankly marketing that's needed and that's really important. So I think that's what I'm going to be doing. I'm going to be promoting an EV, not just kind of the penalties or the environmental implications. Well folks, CES set to kick off January 11 that's an open question how the CTA is going to pull off the biggest product show of the year as a virtual event, certainly the biggest product show in the US anyway. The show will feature a lot of familiar companies, AMD CEO, Dr. Lisa Sue will deliver a keynote as will Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg, LG already out there and they've got a lot of great TVs, OLEDs that curve for gaming but that can stay flat for regular TV watching. A thousand millimeter radius and variable refresh rate from 40 to 120 Hertz. They've got a bunch of transparent OLED cases. We've been to our fair share of CES. Can a virtual CES have the same impact as a product show? Tim, what do you think? I think that for the vast majority of people reading media, every CES is virtual. I mean, we're kind of watching along with us. We're hopefully doing a good job of bringing people to the show as best we can, but ultimately people are watching this stuff on YouTube or wherever, getting their tech news and kind of following along virtually. So for the consumers that theoretically it doesn't have to change that much. But obviously if we're talking, like you said about some new massive OLED that curves, it's a little bit hard to sample that if you're not going somewhere to see it. So, you know, I can't say too much but certainly I'm aware so I think we'll still see some of the interesting coverage that we typically see out of CES. It just won't be quite as grandiose as we've seen in the past. But frankly, I think the news is still going to be very exciting. And if anything, you know, being able to cover this stuff from home, I think we'll give we people in the media an opportunity to kind of cover this in a little bit more healthy way, not be staying up till 1 or 2 a.m. going to various conferences that people schedule very late or having meetings with people over dinner or maybe going out on a date. But if anything, I think this will be an easier CES for us to cover, which means I think probably better coverage for the readers in the long run. I hope anyway. But what about all the parties you get invited to that you just get smoothed with people you would never rub shoulders with? I think I've been to maybe one CES party in the many, many moons that haven't been going to CES. That's something that's never really appealed to me that much. I do get people finding out stuff, though, even if it's not you or me, that is where somebody later says, well, I was talking at a party to this executive who said, blah, blah, blah, blah. So you're not going to have that kind of stuff happening. You're not going to have the, I got my hands on it at the CES show floor and here's what I noticed. But as you mentioned, if some of these products are being shipped out to people, they're going to get more time with them. They're going to not have somebody looking over their shoulder, kind of directing them this way or that. So it's going to be a different kind of coverage because yes, I've covered CES virtually before in my life, but I was always relying on the reporting from the people who were there. This time, nobody is going to be there. And I think that is a fundamental difference. I don't think I've seen a curved OLED sport gaming that is also flat for regular TV watching. I'm like, that sounds awesome. I got to see this. And when you're there, even though in the past, you know, for the last few years, DTNS is, you know, we're kind of in our little media box in the back and, you know, we're able to scour the floor when we have time, but it's, you know, it's a slog. Like, pretty cool. And now I have some firsthand knowledge of it to not have any firsthand knowledge of it and rely solely on the, you know, lucky reviewers who get some of the stuff. Hey, if there are reviewers that you like and trust, great. But there is a slight thing that's lost by not being there yourself. I think the big thing that we're going to miss will be actually the, the kind of incillary events, the digital experience, that kind of stuff have the right combination of factors to go mainstream. You might remember the happy fork from a couple of years ago, the haptic feedback fork that vibrates and they're eating too much. You know, we get pitches for stuff like that all the time and the vast majority of the time we kind of ignore it because it sounds silly, but at CES you always had this crazy mix of mainstream media along with really specialist tech media. And so everybody there covering stuff, you know, there's somebody from a major broadcast to see something like that and goes, oh, this is cool. They put it on Good Morning America or whatever. They're going to have a harder time reaching that same level of media because there won't be one place that they can put a product and get exposure to, you know, the breadth of that media. Now they're going to have to go back to the old school ways of cold emailing people are calling or sending pressure releases out. So I think that we'll probably see a little bit less of the kind of cool, catchy, weird CES stuff that we've typically seen in the past and that is a little bit sad. Yeah. I mean, even though they're going to do share stoppers and digital experience and all of those, there's serendipity that I think you have when you're walking around and thinking of the finger food we won't have. I know we'll have to we'll have to buy some tortinos or something. Think of ourselves. Let's check out the mailbag, Sarah. Let's do it. Tim, I'm glad you're on the show today because Matt a.k.a. Waffle Offagus wrote in about some Apple car news we were talking about at the end of 2020 writers have reported hey, Apple car news sounds like they're working on something but somewhat hard to say what it is. Mike Matt rather says my mind instantly went to one thing the Toyota Supra as gearheads know Toyota brought back the Supra for the 2020 model year but they had help it was created in collaboration with BMW and if you ask most gearheads it's more BMW than Toyota but the really interesting thing is isn't even manufactured by BMW or Toyota but Magna Stur who makes a whole host of cars for other manufacturers in Germany including the Supra the BMW Z4 the Jaguar I place an E-Pace so they have a history of manufacturing EVs also others Magna Stur also offers R&D capabilities and makes specific parts as well so it's totally possible for Apple to design a car and then very quickly ramp up production by partnering with somebody like Stur as opposed to the production hell that Tesla went through according to the Wikipedia entry for Stur as of 2018 they were capable of producing over 200,000 cars per year that Apple farms out actual manufacturing I'd figure it'd be worth noting that major car companies are doing the same thing and therefore it would be possible for Apple to build a car also Matt says in conclusion all that said I still don't think they'll do it yeah that's definitely great analysis and he's absolutely spot on Magna is a company that not only makes cars for other manufacturers but makes really high and really high quality cars for other manufacturers and if Apple were incredibly particular about what they wanted the car to look like what they wanted the car to feel like Magna could absolutely deliver what they wanted and for a cost that really wouldn't be that much more expensive than going and opening a factory and doing it themselves without them having to worry about and all that overhead which obviously Apple doesn't want to do in fact I've heard rumors in the past and really put much weight behind them that Apple was actually looking and considering buying Magna which would give them an ability to do that really easily but for sure if Apple wants to produce a Magna that would be for sure the way to do it without a doubt but I'm still just not confident that Apple really wants to be building cars I still think that they're kind of waffling between do we want to make a car or do we want to make an overall infotainment experience much like Google is doing now with Android Automotive that's what's powering all Polestar's cars that's what's powering the new XC40 recharge from Volvo and it's really great it gives you the full Google experience within your car if Apple could bring that to a car it would be really interesting to see what they do in the water maybe like they did with Sony before the iPod do we want to make a music player getting the feel for things and then ultimately releasing their own iPod and then ultimately the iPhone maybe that's how they kind of wade into the the transportation market because there's the other side of it is dealerships and sales of cars as well that even if they use Magna they would have to develop all of that themselves if they wanted to make it a car that they were doing not in partnership that's good stuff to think about and yeah like Sony or the Motorola rocker yeah that's right well thanks everybody who sent us feedback over the holiday break here on DTNS although we had a lot of shows hope you all were able to follow along during our time off feedback at dealertechnewshow.com is where you can send questions comments or anything that we talk about in the future we'd also like to shout out patrons from other countries from all over the world including Chris Benito Jon and Bicky Johnston and Gadget Versuoso also thanks to Tim Stevens Happy New Year Tim so glad to have you back and where can people keep up with all of your work Happy New Year Sara thanks so much for having me you can find my stuff at theroadshow.com I'm Tim on a store Stevens on Twitter or just Tim Stevens on Instagram Excellent folks we have new merch for you this year I'm able to show it off on the video Is it t-shirts and hoodies with the DTNS 7-year anniversary logo on it? You have to be at the right level to get them, so double-check that. And if you are at a level to get them, it's either a sticker at one level or a hoodie or a mug or something like that. You can get a new one every three months as long as you stay a patron. So go check it out, patreon.com slash DTNS. We are live, y'all, Monday through Friday at 4.30 p.m. Eastern. That's 2130 UTC. And you can find out more at dailytechnewshow.com slash live. Happy New Year. We are happy to be back, and we'll be back tomorrow with Chris Ashley. Talk to you then. This show is part of the Frog Pants Network. Get more at frogpants.com. I hope you have enjoyed this, bro.