MobileViews.com Podcast

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MobileViews Editor Todd Ogasawara discusses mobile technology hardware and software

  1. 2h ago

    MobileViews 622: Guest Host Mike Temporale. Practical Realities of AI at work

    In MobileViews Podcast 622, I caught up with my good friend Mike Temporale for his first appearance on the show in nearly ten years! We started off with a brief trip down memory lane reflecting on his visit to Hawaii and our past discussions, before discussing how we're both integrating AI into our daily workflows. I shared some of my recent experiments using Google Gemini to auto-generate illustrated frames for my blog and using Adobe Podcast Studio alongside Gemini to automatically build YouTube chapter timestamps from transcript files. Mike had a great real-world story from his summer at his cottage, showing how AI helped his family quickly render design ideas for a cottage awning, calculate costs, and locate local contractors in minutes. We also spent time talking through the practical realities and failures of current AI tools, including Mike's experience using Microsoft Copilot for employee performance reviews and how it struggles to trace back to its original email sources. From there, our conversation turned to the evolving mobile hardware landscape. We compared our current daily devices—including Mike's experience with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Plus and Galaxy Tab S11 Ultra—and weighed in on the upcoming hardware trends, from memory constraints forcing developers back toward code efficiency to what we hope to see from Apple's eventual entrance into the foldable market. It was a great, wide-ranging discussion covering everything from 6502 assembly language programming on the Apple II to modern Gemini Spark agents automating my daily tech news briefs.  We wrapped up with a promise not to wait another decade before the next chat, with plans to reconnect around Canadian Thanksgiving in October. Check out the full episode video and transcript to hear all the details!

  2. Aug 3

    MobileViews 621: Google Spark, more Dreambeans, & vibe coding with Jason Dunn

    For MobileViews 621 I'm joined by longtime friend Jason Dunn filling in as guest co-host. We kicked off by discussing the "moatless" nature of modern AI tools, where hopping between Gemini, Claude, and ChatGPT is easier than ever, though our deep ecosystem preferences often dictate our ultimate choices. This led into a deep dive on note-taking app migrations. Jason shared his recent departure from Evernote after a shocking 171% price hike under its new holding company, Bending Spoons. Using an AI-assisted plugin, he successfully migrated 16 years of data to a local Obsidian vault. I shared my own frustrations with Microsoft OneNote, where basic tasks like syncing handwriting on my Boox e-ink tablet are quietly draining my limited monthly Copilot AI credits, pushing me to explore Obsidian as well. I noted my initial experience using Google Spark, an autonomous personal AI agent that recently rolled out to Google AI Pro subscribers. This capability was once restricted to the much more expensive Google AI Ultra tier. In my test, I instructed Spark to review the extensive archive of past MobileViews Podcast show notes alongside current technology news platforms. Utilizing the recurring themes from our previous episodes, the agent generates a compiled tech news digest daily at 6:00 PM US Eastern Time, aligning with the conclusion of the standard workday. A major topic was Jason’s journey into "vibe coding". While initially hesitant, he used AI to build a custom Tampermonkey script that saved his team over 150,000 manual clicks by streamlining a web form. He later used AI to develop a Mac OS tool called "File Time Travel" to fix frustrating video timestamp metadata issues in Google Photos—a highly specific problem that software developers have not addressed. We discussed how AI flips the traditional learning curve on its head, empowering non-developers to create deeply personal, single-purpose software solutions. We wrapped up by exploring the power of voice-as-input for AI. Jason has been using Whisper Flow, an LLM-powered speech-to-text tool that finally fulfills the broken promises of old software like Dragon Dictate by actually understanding conversational context and complex names. This allows for "ramble coding"—speaking massive, context-rich prompts directly into the AI to generate much better code and outputs. Of course, the AI revolution isn't without its hilariously frustrating bumps; we swapped stories about AI hallucinations, from Microsoft Copilot completely fabricating Yellowstone episode descriptions.

  3. Jul 27

    MobileViews 620: Jon's walk-n-talk vidcast. Migrate away from Day One. A DIY self-interview CRM w/Obsidian

    In MobileViews 620, Jon Westfall recorded a special solo "vidcast,"(since I was not available for recording a podcast this week) recording a walk-and-talk along an historic railroad trail in Cleveland, Mississippi. Filming entirely on his Insta360 Luna Ultra with a neck mount and the creator pack microphone, Jon used the scenic Sunday walk to share his recent deep dive into data sovereignty and the process of building his own local alternatives to popular subscription apps. The core of Jon’s summer project was migrating away from the Day One journaling app to avoid its $25 yearly fee and proprietary cloud storage. Using ChatGPT and Codex, he generated scripts to convert his Day One JSON export into future-proof Markdown files managed within an Obsidian vault. He then successfully replicated Day One's best features, using Apple Shortcuts and Python to ingest text snippets, process daily photos, perform offline audio transcriptions, and even selectively transcode video files larger than 25MB down to mobile-friendly sizes. Expanding his DIY software suite, Jon also automated his personal relationship management and location tracking. He built a script that "interviews" him weekly to automatically update his self-hosted Monica CRM and Obsidian vault with details about his interactions with family and friends. Furthermore, to reclaim his travel history after Google restricted the web version of Google Maps Timeline, Jon coded a tool to parse his device's local JSON location data into detailed, daily Markdown travel logs. With his self-hosted documentation ecosystem fully functional, Jon is taking it on the road for late-summer travel and will return to the podcast in mid-August.

  4. Jul 20

    Blog MobileViews 619: iPadOS 27 Public Beta 1; ChatGPT college course design & prep

    Jon Westfall and I started off MobileViews 619 with quick tech troubleshooting before I shared my early experiences with the iPad OS 27 public beta 1 on my M3 iPad Air. While the new AI-powered Siri is currently non-functional for me (and, yes, I am off of the waitlist), I have been taking advantage of the new Apple Shortcuts triggers for keyboard connection. Using a plain English prompt, I built a shortcut that automatically toggles Stage Manager windowing on or off depending on whether my Bluetooth keyboard is connected. We also noted a subtle but important branding shift: Google has officially renamed NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook, though the web destination remains the same for now. The core of our conversation focused on the profound impact AI is having on higher education and course design. Jon noted that as AI companies merge their tools—such as integrating Codex directly into the ChatGPT Mac app—automation is becoming much more holistic. He detailed his new workflow for building his clinical psychology and statistics courses, using AI to spot curriculum blind spots, draft syllabi, and suggest relevant journal articles. Most impressively, he now uses Codex to automate the tedious administrative "grunt work" of building modules and formatting links directly inside the Canvas learning management system, freeing him up to focus on transitioning his classes toward project-based learning rather than traditional exams. We wrapped up the episode with a discussion on the psychological trap of having a dedicated "tech budget". We agreed that it is too easy to buy devices just because the funds are available, leading to cognitive dissonance when you feel forced to use hardware you don't actually need. Instead of buying minor upgrades, Jon is actively saving his budget for the rumored foldable iPhone that might be announced later this year.

  5. Jul 13

    MobileViews 618: Surviving Bot Traffic, Ditching OneNote for Obsidian, and Microsoft 365 E7Licensing

    In MobileViews 618, recorded on July 12, 2026, guest co-host Don Sorcinelli joined me to cover a wide range of tech updates. I kicked off the show with a shoutout to my web host, DreamHost, who helped me manage an exponential spike in website traffic by filtering out various bots that were crashing my virtual private server. We then looked ahead to the upcoming Google Pixel event on August 12th, where we expect to see the Pixel 11 and potentially a new Pixel Watch. We also discussed the rollout of Android 17, noting its gradual improvements to desktop mode compared to the initial version rolled out in Android 16. I shared my frustrations with Microsoft Copilot, which is rapidly burning through my AI credits just for using basic OneNote features like syncing handwritten notes. This has pushed me to experiment with Obsidian and the Excalidraw plugin as a potential offline alternative for my e-ink tablet. We also touched on Windows, discussing the new Cloud Rebuild feature in the Windows 11 preview. Don shared his success in reviving an older 2019 Samsung Galaxy Book with a simple Windows 11 reset, a timely win given that skyrocketing RAM and SSD prices continue to make budget-friendly options like the MacBook Neo incredibly appealing. Finally, Don provided a deep dive into the complex world of Microsoft Enterprise Licensing. He explained how Microsoft is rolling features from its struggling Intune suite into its standard E3 and E5 licenses while simultaneously pushing price increases. Most notably, they have introduced a new E7 license—which Don jokingly called the "mother of all licenses"—that includes high-end Copilot agent features for a staggering $99 per user per month. We closed out with a look at how these price hikes, including those for non-profit organizations, are forcing IT departments to carefully rethink how they assign user licenses across their organizations.

  6. Jul 6

    MobileViews 617: Google Meet Take Notes for Me; Hidden AI resource usage

    Google just added the "Take Notes for Me" feature to the consumer version of Google Meet if you have a Google AI Pro or AI Ultra subscription. This was previously only available to Google Workspace group subscriptions. I opted to turn on the feature for this and future podcasts. You can find this Google Meet generated summary on MobileViews.com.

  7. Jun 29

    MobieViews 616: Microslop 365 Copilot app; Insta360 Luna Ultra; Kodak Zink Slim Printer

    With episode 616, recorded on June 28, 2026, we marked the halfway point of the year with a deep dive into a term that I previously dismissed but am now on-board with:  "Microslop"—a term for the frustrating decline and fragmentation of Microsoft's ecosystem. The Microsoft 365 Copilot app, which recently stripped out its scanning function, turned a previously simple task into a multi-step ordeal. It is particularly ironic that Copilot continues to hallucinate, even suggesting I use the retired Office Lens app for scanning, seemingly unaware of its own company's product retirements. Consequently, I’ve pivoted to Genius Scan, a fast and purposeful alternative that offers a far better experience for digitizing my daily doodle project sketches. Jon, meanwhile, has been putting two impressive new hardware gadgets through their paces. He’s been testing the Insta360 Luna Ultra, a gimbal camera featuring a clever detachable screen that doubles as a remote control, allowing him to film himself while managing tracking and settings from a distance. He also showcased the Kodak Zink Slim Printer, a pocket-sized device that creates color adhesive stickers using zero-ink, heat-sensitive paper—perfect for adding instant color photos to a physical journal. While these gadgets provide plenty of utility, the broader tech landscape is facing a sobering shift: AI-driven demand for components is causing shortages in RAM and SSDs, leading to significant price hikes for devices like the MacBook Neo, which is expected to jump in price from $599 to $699.

  8. Jun 22

    MobileViews Podcast 615: AI etiquette, Gen Z tech rejection, AI scarcity

    I opened with a "mini-rant" about the frustrations of the USB-C ecosystem and aparent power requirement issues with a new Acer USB-C external LCD display. We also observed possible tangible effects of "AI scarcity," noting that Google Meet recordings and Alexa Plus responses are taking significantly longer to process, likely due to the processing demands of modern AI models. This scarcity sparked a conversation on new social norms in the AI age, specifically regarding the etiquette of AI agents (like Read.ai) attending meetings and the "cat-and-mouse game" of recording lights on smart glasses. Jon shared a major shift in his productivity workflow by moving to Obsidian, a "Swiss Army knife" of note-taking. By using Codex to convert 20 years of WordPress entries and Day One journals into Markdown files, he has created a future-proof, portable "vault" that avoids proprietary databases. We also discussed the release of Android 17, which introduced an interesting "Screen Reactions" overlay feature but also caused frustration by resetting permissions for tablet casting and photo galleries. To wrap up, Jon provided a field report on his DJI Neo 2 drone, which successfully tracked him during a 20mph e-bike ride. Despite suffering its first high-speed crash into a tree, the lightweight drone proved remarkably durable, surviving the impact with no visible damage. We also touched on a few tech trends, including Gen Z's growing rejection of Silicon Valley's vision in favor of "dumb" tech like flip phones and repaired iPods

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Ratings & Reviews

4.8
out of 5
4 Ratings

About

MobileViews Editor Todd Ogasawara discusses mobile technology hardware and software

Information

  • Creator
    Unknown
  • Years Active
    2008 - 2026
  • Episodes
    20
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    Copyright © 2011-2013 Todd Ogasawara. All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    MobileViews.com Podcast