Short answer: David Petrou says Apple's unified memory puts it in a strong position for on-device AI, but Android allows agents to do things like compare Uber and Lyft off screen. Jordan Metzner asks whether the wider screen becomes a new interface.
Watch this answer from Episode 51 (starts at 16:45) · Episode 51 notes and transcript
From Episode 51: It Ships While You Sleep. The AI Agent OS a Former Google Engineer Built After Leaving Google., starting at 16:45.
Sam Nadler [16:44]: David, thanks so much. I'm gonna queue us up for two news articles. Would love your thoughts. Both of you come, with your experience at Google with Google Glass and Jordan. Jordan had a big hardware project earlier in his past. Would love both your thoughts on the Apple foldable phone. So apparently, the first foldable iPhone is going to be released q three this year. Is this gonna be a huge hit? Is it gonna be a bust? David, if you don't mind, any high level thoughts?
David Petrou [17:20]: Yeah. I mean, so first of all, I'm like, I'm a pixel guy. I shall just show you something funny here. I have like, we might have to edit this, but I have, like, a whole rack of Pixel phones for various hacking. And so, I mean, I do have a couple iPhones laying around here, but I haven't even gotten into the foldable Pixel yet. High level, here's my thought because, and I'm sure Jordan can talk more about the foldable aspect. I think that Apple is in an incredibly strong position with regards to, bringing AI to as many consumers as possible given that they have this unified memory architecture. So we're seeing a lot of people experiment with Mac minis and getting large language models running on them, and we're gonna see more and more of that push to the edge, is great for privacy. It's great for latency. There is a problem though. It is now possible to do much more radical, innovative user experiences on an Android device because you can unlock it. You can have access to all the sensors. You can do disintermediation of the applications by, remixing different parts of different apps. Say you want to get a car ride somewhere. You just want the lowest price.
David Petrou [18:56]: Why couldn't the OS run the Lyft app and the Uber app and, like, render off screen, do screen understanding, and then present you, like, the choices, and then you select. That's something that is possible on Android. It's not gonna be possible anytime soon on Apple. So I guess my point here is that we're in interesting times because hardware wise, Apple, with this acceleration and all of all the unified memory and so forth, is in a fantastic position. But from a closed ecosystem perspective, I can see things shifting toward Android in the near future.
Jordan Metzner [19:34]: That's a interesting perspective. I think you're right. Like, controlling the OS at an agentic level sounds like a new opportunity that hasn't kind of been presented on either OS yet. I think what's interesting about Apple foldable phone is it's a new interface screen size, kind of like a double wide screen size. And I know Samsung obviously has, like, kind of the foldable there as well.
David Petrou [19:57]: Yeah. Pixel does as well.
Jordan Metzner [19:59]: Yeah. And Pixel as well. But, does that become kind of a new computing interface? Because, like, kind of, a phone historically was too small, tablet became kind of more powerful, and so does this come become, like, an interface that becomes significantly more popular.
David Petrou [20:13]: But the question is, why, though? So if you think about I mean, I'm seeing a lot of developers who are now comfortable on laptops because agentic coding gives them the ability to just use natural language. And so if we think about a deeper embedding of AI across the stack, I'm not so sure that we need the extra real estate. I mean, maybe once in a while when you're on a plane and you wanna watch a movie.
Jordan Metzner [20:41]: Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I think, it is hard to, like, view a web browser and view your terminal. And I don't know, again, or whether we'll move, continue to manage development in this type of state.
David Petrou [20:52]: Maybe that maybe the laptop disappearing will just have foldable phones.
Jordan Metzner [20:56]: Well, I mean, obviously, we've seen the proliferation of voice as like a commanding center of a way to control your device. So, yeah, maybe we'll see the keyboard disappear as well. So I don't know.
