Software & AI

Can replace several apps and hides fun quizzes, games and reminders that many people never use.

An early streaming service that he thinks failed largely because its name implied a PlayStation was required.

Likes the idea of an AI search co-pilot but finds it biased, error-prone and prone to arguing with users.

Generates music effortlessly, which he found impressive but a bit embarrassing and sad compared with his own attempt.

Automatic background removal that beats the manual selection tool he normally uses by a wide margin.

Impressed by how much smarter GPT-4 is than ChatGPT, particularly its exam results and problem solving.

Used to show a neural network in action, where it drew faster and neater than Arun.

Likes the idea and finds it a refreshingly honest way to keep up with close friends, but thinks it has one copyable feature and no workable…

A too-good-to-be-true $9.95 a month movie-a-day deal whose business model was fragile and led to bankruptcy; 9 out of 10 fail.

The launch version was glitchy, sent people to places that don't exist and stranded motorists in the Australian Outback.

A clever idea that solved a real problem, but it never secured rights to the channels and was sued into bankruptcy.

Its Circles feature was a hassle, and it launched late to a market where Facebook was simpler, making it a 4 out of 10 fail.

Weak on some basics and has no smart speaker, but the standout for complex routines.

Started strongly and handled smart home tasks, but fell behind on phone device control and sometimes didn't show commands on screen.

He tried it for meditation but struggled with the short sessions, and later realised he did not need the app.

Rated a 2 out of 10 fail: an app that has you throw your phone in the air, quickly banned by Apple.

Impressed by the lock screen overhaul and smarter features, though he thinks much of it is catching up with Android and sharing could go wr…

Quietly getting smarter, with live translation and editable text from photos that he finds pretty cool.

Handy read-later app that saves ad-free offline versions of articles from any app and can read them aloud.

Gives non-Apple devices an AirDrop-style way to send files wirelessly between Android, Mac and Windows.

He was impressed that this AI story writer worked and added sensible detail to his short prompt.

MIT's radio-wave AI system tracks people through walls and he finds it incredible.

Android app for finding AirTags that he sees as largely useless because it needs manual scanning and does not run in the background.

He explains it as an example of NFTs giving owners a sense of belonging, though he later calls the apes ugly and the market a bubble.