Flying Cars, Smart Homes, and Cracks in the AI Boom

Travis Hoium (0:02)

Flying cars are finally here, and Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing starts now.

Welcome to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. I'm Travis Hoium, joined today by Lou Whiteman and Jason Moser. And guys, we got a couple of big product announcements with Apple releasing the HomeVue. And we have a new Roadster, or at least Will in 2028 from Tesla that can fly.

I want your guys' thoughts on this, the context that I want this in is our history with technology. I think we'll age ourselves a little bit here. But I remember the days when there was an encyclopedia sitting on our shelf in the living room. We actually, I think, built a whole thing around that encyclopedia. And it cost a lot of money. Suddenly, there was a computer in the late 80s. It was connected to the Internet sometime in the early 90s. I remember Prodigy coming along. So suddenly that information became more available. It was a no-brainer, right? Like you spent, I spent time in the computer lab as a kid. Then suddenly those devices were connected. The rotary phone that was on the wall could suddenly go in your car. And then it could go in your pocket. What a no-brainer technology advancement. Now today we get to a point where an iPad has a speaker on it, but still has to be connected to the wall. So Lou, when you look at the home view, is this just making new products for the sake of making new products? Are we answering something? Because that's what I struggle with in this current age of, you know, AI is going to make everything easier, but is this going to be the solution?

Lou Whiteman (1:35)

Yeah, you're bringing me back because my parents fell for that scam. My parents bought cabinetry from the World Book Company. You could buy a cabinet to house your World Books when you buy them. Yeah, wow, gosh. But anyway, on to Apple.

Travis Hoium (1:49)

By the way, one of those was a Berkshire company. Was it Britannica?

Lou Whiteman (1:54)

Yeah, I think so. One of them definitely was. But on HomeView, look, this is Apple 101 A pricier, hopefully more refined, works a little better version of what is out there. Apple loves to do this, and I think it makes total sense for them to do it. I think they should be here. But we are in the age of incrementalism. We are not in the age of wow.

This is another example of just something that is going to add to the system, kind of reinforce the advantages they already have, but not redefine anything. I think the long-term plan is that they want to have as big of a foundation as they can. So when they start trying to charge $19 a month for Siri, Siri is really useful and helpful in a lot of different things.

Will it get there? Not on its own, but they're doing it with partners. They're not really expending a lot of capital. It does kind of complement what they're doing. So it's kind of somewhere between why bother and why not.

Travis Hoium (2:54)

Jason, does that resonate with you? Is this not only HomeView, but also the home products that they announced this week?

They are kind of trying to build this ecosystem. I think we thought they were going to build a decade ago when they introduced the Home app that still is, if you have an iPhone, it's still on your iPhone, this Home app and never quite worked the way that they envisioned it. But now it seems like they do have products. The problem is the ecosystem already exists for other stuff. The ADTs, the simply safes of the world, smart speakers, smart lights, all that kind of stuff. It's not like they're going into white space like they were in 2007 when they introduced the iPhone.

Jason Moser (3:29)

Yeah, you're right. Apple has always been, it's not about being first, it's about being best. This made me immediately think because what you just said, they're late to the game. I don't know if you saw this week also block rolled out this restaurant device and I thought, that's really clever. I'm kind of wondering why you didn't do that five years ago because now there's this company called TOST that really has already won a lot of market share, so can Block overcome that even? I don't know. That probably is part of the problem in being a little bit later the game here. But I think, so how long have we been having this conversation about if they can ever get Siri right, if they can make Siri good? It's like if Starbucks can ever figure out food. Yeah, they've got it on the menu. You're not really going there for the food. It's just kind of an ancillary sort of an add-on.