What’s really happening with Apple Intelligence? (CultCast #704)

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[Music] good evening and welcome to the cult the best 30 plus minute Apple conversation
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you're going to hear all week long i'll be your host today D griffin Jones joining me today he had some kind of
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dart match competition final last night i'm not entirely sure what but I would
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genuinely like to know how he did our managing editor Lewis Wallace thanks for asking we lost 75 oh so frustrating oh
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no anyway also joining us oh no
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when he was a little boy he thought the job title was editor in cheese thinking
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he would spend his days munching on some smoked GA or Wleydale but instead he is
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stuck as editor-inchief of some Apple blog leander Cany is surprisingly still here welcome yeah yeah surprisingly
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right you know what though he made that dream a reality just for the job you want i'd love a I'd love a cheese blog
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that's a great idea he yearns for the vision pro to come to Spain so that he can get some modicum of work done while
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running his daily half marathons graham Bower is joining us welcome hello good
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to be here again also joining us he recently got a truly excellent dog it's
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Charlie Serell welcome and how's Dylan he's he's very well he's under the under the desk oh that's good that's good my
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my dog also likes to lay like right scarily under my desk and like right by the wheels of my chair just rest
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i had a cat that used to sleep on the warm tires uh of my car when I parked it
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up outside it would go and oh my sleep on top of the warm back tire
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i thought briefly when I had a cat that uh not having a laptop well you know I would be immune from the whole cat
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problem but no uh my cat liked to sit uh right on top of like the the the heat
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vent that comes out of the back of my Mac Mini like on top of all the cables so that wasn't frightening in any way
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whatsoever it's been another week how How are we uh doing regarding the various betas have
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any of us cracked and installed more betas
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are you crazy i am yes i Yeah me too i install them on every device oh my watch
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phone iPad computer in fact the only one that doesn't really work is the Mac OS Tahoe that's the only one I've had
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problems with really everything else has been actually pretty smooth and I'm really loving the new iPad OS oh my
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goodness it's absolutely great which iPad are you running it on oh some ancient 2018 iPad Pro i think like the
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second generation that's the one we've all got oh is it okay yeah as far as I know every podcaster every tech blogger
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in the world owns a 2018 iPad Pro it's I think that that's the first flat one right
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yeah it's pretty thin and flat yeah it's a great great great iPad and it runs it really well it it it's really smooth no
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problems at all really i installed it on my uh iPad i think 2019 2020 iPad Pro
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and it's really sluggish now i mean the transitions are all kind of jerky the
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frame rate's much slower and sometimes I have to wait for hours for the mail app to update the inbox which is entirely my
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fault because I shouldn't have installed a developer beta on it but I I I don't my my iPad is not mission critical it's
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not like my Mac or my iPhone so I I figured what the hell I wanted to have a look at liquid glass so I went ahead but
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yeah for me it's it's it's a massive performance degradation
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heed our warning to our listeners do don't do Um mine started going slower when I uh
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installed the the final version last year what we on at the moment now now now we're on 26 i've already forgotten
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the what the last one was 18 wasn't it we'll call it 25 yeah I say yeah on iOS 25 uh when I iPad
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OS 25 yeah mine's been going slowly ever since I I put that on not slowly slowly but not as good as it was it was the
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first time it's ever felt like you know not not super c just had this thought today this is this is the second time
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that Mac OS has dodged the number 16 it you know they pre started like 10.1 10.2
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all the way up to 10.15 and then they would just went to 11 and they went from 11 all the way to 15 and then they just
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jumped to 26 i like um and I really like the redesign on the iPhone too like it's actually been pretty steady on my iPhone
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which is a iPhone 16 Pro but the redesign of the apps I think it's really clever you know they they're actually a
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lot more functional i really like the the new music app i like the new uh camera app um I you know it's uh it's
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simplified it a lot I think and and um even though there's a little bit of a learning curve like where where did this and that and the other go um it makes it
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a lot more you know it's pretty rational i think they did a good job have you been doing like any advanced like
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windowing on your iPad you know how do you how do you like because I know that a lot of people are upset that they got rid of slide over because like the the
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new windowing system doesn't quite replicate that but you know are do you feel like it's it's simplified or that
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it's it's too much oh yeah it's way better no no no it's way way way better it totally makes sense it's like you can
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go from single view single you know app window very very simple classic iPad experience hit the thing on the In fact
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you can actually tap the the the top menu bar just like on a Mac you know how the window shrinks down so you don't
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even have to hit the target you can just tap at the top yeah and it'll shrink the windows down instantly you got you enter into the multitasking the multitasking
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multi-wind you know environment it's it's it's it's super easy it's a no-brainer it's like very very familiar
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easy to resize windows move stuff around it's like it's great it's really really good it's like what they should have
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done years ago all those cludges and it's clever you know it's like it's a it's two devices it's simple you know
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when you're watching TV it's very simple very straightforward if you want to get some work done go to the multi you know the multi-wind environment and Bob's
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your uncle i think it's good i think they they they did it because people wanted it and there it is but what I
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found is I'm about ready to turn it off i just don't like on a little iPad i I
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don't want lots of lots of windows all at once i I I find it I think iPad was
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perfect before and I'm glad they've added this because then the people that want it now have it but I I think I'm
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going to turn it off h I mean it's not that small you've got the 13 inch i mean it's the same size
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size size as a as a MacBook Air more or less yeah but on on a on a MacBook Air I I think I would have most apps full
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screen as well because it's such a small screen and and when when when you look at three or four apps on an iPad all
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kind of on top of each other with these huge tap area controls
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the the actual area for content is is tiny and I so I'm curious it's it's I I
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think a lot of people are looking at it and thinking well great that's what I wanted they've done it and they have but I'm really curious to see a few months
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from now the extent to which people are actually integrating that into the workflows in the way in which they do on
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a Mac i mean maybe they will but I I I don't use I've never used my iPad like a
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Mac for me I use it for word processing for reading emails browsing the web and drawing and and uh you know Apple Pencil
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graphics things and that's it and so all the complicated multi-wind things that I
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do on my Mac I would never attempt on an iPad um I can only hope actually that
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they're going to do a gigantic iPad now and that's what this multi-wind thing is about i would love to have like a you
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know a 21in iPad Pro and uh I think then maybe this this kind of windowing system
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would come into its own i I've heard some people talking about like the Apple made a big fuss about how oh you can
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podcast from an iPad now in that you can have both a uh one app can use your
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audio for like a video call or whatever and you can create your local recording and I know that uh Jason Stell and Dan
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Morren practiced that they they went into the deep end and recorded an episode of their podcast using that system but I was thinking about well
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does this mean that if I were to have an iPad I could record the cult using that way cuz that's how I always think about
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it like would it would it work for me and I still don't think so because although they allow for local recordings
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there's still they still kept the limitation where only one app can have control of your audio or video at a time
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so for doing this we have our live stream we also create our local recordings but then we also have a
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different service that we use for our backup audio recordings and this wouldn't still wouldn't let you do that
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it's It's still limited to one at a time isn't the recording function uh just part of FaceTime at the moment or is it
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uh I think I don't know exactly how it works because I I honestly don't have an iPad myself but there's I think there's
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a system it might be from control center because that's where you can also pick your audio input as well i mean that
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that's another nice thing you can now pick your audio input so you can you know choose oh yeah record this microphone use this camera etc but it
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they didn't quite go all the way there yet you've been able to um choose audio inputs uh for a while logic Logic Pro's
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done it um before that it would just default to the last thing you plugged in so it would be really annoying if you
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had a uh an audio interface plugged in and you also had a dock that happened to have a Yeah a headphone jack on it the I
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think you can also pick the preference per app which is new
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that's really good that well that means that you can uh do some interesting stuff with routing things around like
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you were saying you know with I don't know if it will work for you but yeah you with using all the different uh the the chat apps and things like this
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there's a few things in there that I I don't like about the new interface one of them is that you can't do the um uh
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four or five finger swipe to switch between apps anymore i was talking to Graeme about this earlier and he says it
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there's not a way of doing it and I I disagree so you could have that and it what it could be is like uh it can
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invoke command tab because command tab still works uh and then there was
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another thing oh yeah yeah the slide over like you mentioned i have a um an app for collecting YouTube videos that I
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want to watch later and I'd usually just slide that out and drag the video into it and now I can't do it i have to go off and find it and I didn't realize how
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how useful Slide ever was until I couldn't use it anymore i just imagine the engineers at Apple
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having moved heaven and earth to create a Mac-like multi-windowing experience for the iPad and now hearing all these
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users wanting all the stuff from the all there's a lot of eye rolling going on in
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Certino right now I reckon well it's their own fault for you know changing it every few years they got it right in the
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first place then they wouldn't have had to put all these extras in you just want imagine like a solution for slide over
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like really the good thing about it is that you have one window that's floating on top of another window you know no
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matter what even if the other window is the active window so they could and they already have the system for like um what
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do you call it like uh a picturein picture videos in YouTube videos and that kind of does the same thing but
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like only with a live video feed maybe they could do something like that with app windows like a a menu that you pick
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from the window menu that says you know float on top and then that would kind of give you the same functionality back
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right yeah or if you could uh if if I could drag a link down to an app in the dock and just drop it on the app like
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you can on the Mac then that would be fine as well that's true for my for my particular like for this particular use
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well let's get into our news stories but before we do that we would like to thank our our sponsor of this episode Factor
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let's send it over to Lewis to talk about his favorite topic Siri
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lewis when's the next Siri coming uh yeah you know sometime next year in
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the coming year whatever that means is what what Federigi said it sounds like
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excuse me so uh yeah uh Apple quote set an internal release target of spring
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2026 for its delayed upgrade of Siri that's according to Bloomberg citing you
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won't believe it unnamed sources at the company hard to believe uh series AI powered upgrade supposedly arrive in iOS
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26.4 which should launch in March if Apple
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follows its usual schedule for OS updates let's see uh now this is I think this I don't know if this was actually
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from Bloomberg or if this is speculation our part but the company might be ready to demo this you know smarter Siri when
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the iPhone 17 series launches this fall i guess they could just show those ads that they pulled that were faked up um
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but uh you know Apple's being a little bit cautious after heavily hyping that uh Siri AI upgrade last year and then
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you know having a very public inability to deliver uh Apple software chief Craig
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Federigi has given multiple interviews recently explaining why Apple announced the AI enhanced version of Siri at
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WWDC24 a year ago then couldn't hit the release date supposedly they were overly
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optimistic about how much they could accomplish with the first version of this AI Siri architecture apple
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engineers had an early version of it functioning last June thought they could improve it to the point where it would be ready for customers in a few months
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and then later on we heard reports what they were saying like oh it works like at least twothirds of the time
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how what a what a great and useful helper that would be um
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and anyway at least they had the brains to realize that they had to move to version two of this uh AI kind of
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architecture because the first one was never going to be good enough uh now
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they've got you know what nine months looks like they got nine months to polish it off or is that polish it up
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get it polished can I just say I loved Craig Federigi's
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like RTU smile in those interviews when when people were asking him about the
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delay to Siri and he just had this fixed smile on his face the whole time and I
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was actually scared like if he was my boss and I was watching him in that interview I would I would be scared like
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my boss is going to be in a bad mood all day mhm you know what though he he handled them quite well and uh he stayed
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on message without repeating himself verbatim as certain other executives at Apple do uh I think the guy's got the
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most charisma of any of them he's just uh he he he owned up to it and uh you know made me believe that they could
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pull it off at all he he he didn't make eye contact though or or or it was like he would realize he would look look up
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to the left as he was talking about this stuff and then he would just briefly and I think it was at the Wall Street
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Journal interview and he would just very briefly make eye contact and then look away again and it was it was a real tell
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the guy can't play he shouldn't play poker he was uh going to his safe space
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and just I know we can do it i know we can do it
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so what do you think do Do you think we're going to see it in September and or how do we think Apple would reannounce Siri again do you think we're
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ever going to see it no um do you think they can actually make Siri good they've been trying for years and years and and
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it's just remained awful every time they say they've improved Apple does these things in lurches don't they so it
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doesn't surprise me that this is taking the ages the only thing that's not Appleike is that they did ads for it and
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talked about it before it was ready but it's so often that Apple comes late to market with things and then blows
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everyone away with the best solution so you know I think their only mistake here was to to ever talk about it i I think
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they maybe just felt all this pressure of all the hype and analyst expectation
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last year around AI that they they just felt they had to make a a big push into AI in WWDC and that was a mistake they
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should have just stuck to the Apple line of not talking about unannounced products and and kept them until it was
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ready i mean so often things that we we we grumble about like years ago when when Samsung was making big phones and
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Apple still had that tiny iPhone 5 and everyone wanted like big phones and
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Apple was like 2 years late to the whole big phone thing but then they they they
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shipped it and that was that and it you know no one thought about it again and I I kind of think the same thing will happen with Siri but I I do think it's
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non-trivial because the difference if you ask chat GPT something chat GPT just
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gives you its opinion and it might be right it might be wrong it's often very useful but but that's that the
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difference is that Siri is connected to everything on your phone and if it does something wrong you're going to be the
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one that pays the price so Apple actually has to be much more careful with Siri than these these chat bots
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because it it's hooked into everything in your life you care about so they have to be super conservative i mean it would
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be fun to just ship a beta of Siri that gets things right twothirds of the time
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and the likes of us in the media would have a heyday of look at all these crazy things that Siri did but if it's like
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look Siri deleted all my contacts hilarious look Siri emailed the last 100
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private photos to my parents it's like you know it's not it's not uh it's not
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the same thing at all that Apple has actually got a much bigger challenge here and I I think that's there's a
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false equivalence that I see in the media where it's like well chat GPT can do this and it's like sure but chat GPT
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isn't hardwired into everything on your phone well let's move on and talk about uh other app intelligence features that
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they announced at WWDC we didn't have time to go over these last week but we
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do have a few uh interesting tidbits but they really what they announced is the
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ondevice foundation model uh is now being uh given a great API that any
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developer can use so they talked about this a little bit in the platform state
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of the union the API is incredibly simple to use is like they said that basically with three lines of code you
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can prompt the model and get a response and uh the great thing is that the ondevice model can be prompted directly
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you can write whatever you want there a lot of people are thinking well maybe they'll lock it off so that you know you
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only have a few end points to like get a summarization feature or a translation feature or this or that but no it's
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really open-ended um much more so than people were expecting so in theory while
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Apple refuses to build a you know LLM chatbot thing nothing's stopping like
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any third party developer in fact I think there are already a few like uh examples of this on GitHub that are
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basically just like a thin wrapper around the APIs that Apple gave you where it's like "All right type anything into this checkbox and then into this
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text box and then we'll we'll give you the chatbot answer that Apple Foundation will give you just like chatgpt." And
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you also don't even have to be a developer to do this because there's also a Siri shortcut that you can build
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for this exact thing um so I built one that's basically just called ask Apple
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intelligence in the in the Siri shortcut version that you can build as a user you can actually
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pick between using the ondevice model or private cloud compute or chatgpt so you
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can get the full power of like the the the cloud model that um developers don't
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have access to you know because it's a more personal thing that you're just running on your own um so I built a
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little shortcut where you can type in a question get a response and then it can save it to a note or you know you copy
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it to a clipboard so that it's not lost forever and you can keep track of these things and the neat thing is the um the
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answers that it gets in like the few questions that I throw at it to play with play with it the answers aren't
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terribly remarkable if you've if you used chat GPT before but I think the
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fact that the answers are you know kind of generic is remarkable in itself because again
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this is this is running on device or this is something that you can use as a user entirely for free from inside a
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shortcut if you're into AI that that that could be a really big thing for you i think this is really exciting for
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developers as well i work on a a fitness app that I've been developing for years and I'm working on a new version of it
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at the moment and for example one of the issues that I have is when someone saves a workout and I I do like strength
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training workouts so you know someone's had a chest day and they've done bench press and they've they've done a whole
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bunch of chest exercises and then when you finish the workout you kind of want a name for the workout or and a summary
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to say what they did and it's quite hard to come up with a short pity summary but now I can pass that on to uh Apple's on
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on device model and it can summarize the workout with a with a a title and you
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know a one-s sentence summary of what that workout was and that's free you know before this you would have to pay a
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chat GBT or someone if you wanted that that kind of summarization in your in your app and it's amazing the way that
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Apple have done this it works with Swift so that it can see all the data structures in your app and and interact
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with them and so I I think the stuff that developers are going to do with this is really cool and exciting and
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this is this is I don't know that anyone else is exactly doing this so this is this is an area of uh of AI that Apple's
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really kind of taken the lead that's another great thing about their APIs because they always return like properly
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formed JSON if you want it or any or it can return an answer that's already
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formatted to work within the code of your app like in in Swift data i'm I'm
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I'm a pretty amateurish developer but and you don't have to like parse or reformat its response it's it's quick
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it's instant and and the other thing is because it's on device you don't have to worry about monetizing your app which
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means free and open- source apps can you can add AI features because they don't have to worry about you know raising
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thousands of dollars to pay like an API fee to anthropic or open AI i saw a lot
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of developers on socials getting really excited about this saying it's going to open up a ton of possibilities
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is a pretty amazing resource for them for I think this is playing to Apple's exact strength because yes they don't
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have a good Siri I mean smarter Siri is what I think honestly
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people wanted the most out of Apple's entrance into AI that it's really kind of like the only thing that people
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really wanted but uh this is this opening up their foundation model to
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developers is maybe the most impactful thing because it's playing Apple's strength as the owner of the platform
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form they can provide you the tools that like everybody every app developer can use and you know developers can access
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these powerful features that strengthen the iPhone as a platform over Android because I don't know what the situation
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is on the Android side of things but you know I I haven't I haven't seen thousands of people get this excited
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over whatever you know Google announced APIs at Google IO the week before
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i think that will be the issue because it's dependent on Apple and Apple devices than for big developers that do
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crossplatform apps then they don't want a different experience for their Android users versus their iPhone users so
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they're less likely to use this i think where where this is going to be huge is with the indie developers who absolutely
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love Apple technology and and want to kind of build great Apple apps and so
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that that's what I'm excited to see like like those indie devs and who are just
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have always championed Apple apps and and this gives them something exciting and new to play with and I I think that
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they're going to do really imaginative things with it i think it's similar to what Apple's always done with their
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various kits and things like this where they you know they make it easy that they have a bunch of tools and they make
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it easy for the developers to just drop them into their apps you know that core audio these kinds of things right yeah
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and it gets to to the to the root of like what a actually is and that it's just a new software technology just like
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object-oriented programming just like you know Unix just like the the Unix
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file system like this is just a new tool that developers can use and it's bringing that to everybody and you know
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where whereas a lot of AI is in is just you know tied up in VC funded capitalism
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and every company that thinks they're going to change the world and you know invent the next humanity which is kind
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of ridiculous but this this is playing to Apple's strengths can you give us an example of what you what you used it for
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like what kind of questions you asked this thing yeah I and what kind of results it gave you i had asked it a question what's a simple pasta sauce I
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can go I can make to go with fried chicken spinach and broccoli and you
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know gave you a bunch of basic instructions there which again isn't terribly remarkable like chatb can do
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that but it generated this instantly on my device and I also uh Huh didn't
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contribute to OpenAI were the recipes any good yeah yeah did it tell you to put glue on your pizza it did not right
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yeah i also asked it what's the best Apple keyboard ever made and
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it gave two response i ran this both on the ondevice model and the private cloud compute model and the ondevice model
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hallucinated a few model numbers really yeah it did how could it do that maybe
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it's a future one oh wow this is It invented like an iPad keyboard that
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didn't exist but again as a user maybe maybe it's insider knowledge maybe it's
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going to exist maybe right that's a that's the only I mean h how could they have how oh my god that would be great
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great if their model had ingested confidential information by mistake imagine that that this is why LLMs are
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useless for this kind of general queries because you never like you don't know if they're telling the truth and even if
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they are I don't know well you don't trust it you can't really you have to go and verify it anyway it's I think it's
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far more useful the stuff you're saying like in shortcuts if if it could you could say okay take my like just write
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in plain language take my emails uh any that come from here I don't know
28:49
make a text file from them save it here I don't know I'm that was a very boring one but you it's something that would kind of be a bit tricky to do yourself
28:55
and you can just kind of have it because it's like we said before it's got access to everything on your phone or your
29:00
computer so you really uh should be you know it knows that that stuff is there
29:08
and true so it should be able to process that using using the you know the the machine learning stuff behind the ALMs
29:16
uh and that's useful the the chat I don't know why everyone's obsessed with the chat bots i mean it seems that
29:22
that's that's the selling point that's the hype that's what the AI bros are you know into because it makes it look like it's some magic machine instead of you
29:29
know just a fancy autocomplete i think I think it's because chat GPT slips in a compliment every time you ask a question
29:36
it I I really think that's it because it may always I come away from chat GBT feeling good because like it says "Oh
29:43
way to go smart question you really It always kind of compliments you it slips those compliments in and it's insidious
29:49
it's insidiously you know that they they've obviously briefed it to do that right it always says smart god dang it
29:58
yeah it's not just you Louis sam Olman said "The users are stupid
30:04
compliment them and they'll keep coming back." I think the EU will mandate that it has
30:10
to tell you how many liters of water that you've used in your in your in your query yeah well the ondevice model
30:16
hallucinated a little bit but then I asked the um more powerful private cloud
30:22
yeah private cloud compute one and then then I got it exactly right and I even cross referenced all the uh like model
30:27
numbers and those were correct but like which one did it say was best oh it said
30:32
the Apple extended keyboard the one that I am using right now so it also gets points for for having a correct answer
30:38
but it probably just ingested my cult of Mac review every Apple keyboard and
30:43
hallucinated it back to me i was going to say they they stole that from Cult of Mac and we're getting put out of business while they you know thanks to
30:51
these this wholesale theft of um of our work on that sour note let's move on to
30:57
Vision OS um ironically enough although Apple made
31:05
eight minutes of time for Vision OS in the keynote last week we did not put any time towards Vision OS in our podcast
31:10
episode last week so uh new features there we have spatial widgets which are a lot like iOS widgets except you can
31:18
pin them to like physical walls in your room around your house that actually looks cool it is really cool and this
31:24
has a very specific use case for me since I moved into my house i don't know
31:29
like the design of the house is a little bit different and I just haven't been as compelled to like hang up as many things on the walls as I have before so I mean
31:36
on one hand I I just actually have more free wall space to pin widgets around like I have a big weather widget right
31:41
by the front door a a music widget that I put sitting on my TV because it's like well when I'm wearing the Vision Pro I'm
31:47
not watching the TV so I'll just sit that there but I also don't really know where I want to hang this like big clock
31:55
that I have but you know I can try out different positions in Vision OS because I have the clock widget so I've been
32:01
I've been moving that around to you know gauge that they're really cool and they're persistent like even after you
32:07
reboot the Vision Pro and put it back on they'll still be there you know they're they're perfectly anchored just like everything else so those are pretty neat
32:15
they have the new spatial personas so it once again asks you to like you know
32:20
take the Vision Pro off and point it at you and scan your face and I have to say
32:26
I think these new spatial personas have crawled their way back out on the other
32:32
side of the uncanny valley because my new facial persona no longer looks like a sickly Irish boy it looks it looks
32:40
like me but that's you [Music]
32:46
so you're saying you're saying it's less realistic now i'll I'll take that remark
32:51
i'm I'm kidding you're looking particularly fine today they look really good did it get your hair what about
32:58
that it did it did get my hair and it got And you have much more like options for like customizing your glasses and
33:04
all that than before they look really good it's It's a shame I I mean Lander you still have your Vision Pro but I
33:10
think it's been like collecting dust i don't have anybody to have a spatial video call with but I'm looking forward
33:16
to the possibility oh wire me 3,500 bucks and I'll get one and
33:21
we can have a spatial call lander have you when is the last time you've touched your vision pro oh dear
33:28
here you go well I I I don't think this is where a topic we want to get into really in public it's uh it's been a
33:36
while i got to admit I although um I put it on I strapped on to download um the first beta I think and then um it was
33:44
taking too long so I put it to one side and then I haven't touched it since it I I I have I've got it I I actually put it
33:51
I put I it was in a box you know kind of on a shelf and so I put it into a more prominent position now so that I could
33:59
to encourage myself to use it a little more on a lower shelf exactly well a
34:04
slightly higher shelf slightly higher shelf so I can I can bring it in i mean I I I'd love to I was going to break it out it's just it's so isolating you know
34:11
and like you know I go home and there's a house full of people and when I first got it I used to walk
34:17
around with it with it on and no one ever even blinked an eyelid an eye at me you know like that no one paid any attention at all but because I'd like to
34:25
I really had a great time i watched that Mad Max you know Fury Road on it oh my god it was astonishing it was one of the
34:30
best experiences I've ever had um of watching a movie it it um it it's it's
34:35
just phenomenal so I was really curious to check out you know the YouTube even though I hate Bono I I wanted to check out the YouTube one and uh Oh oh the
34:42
Metallica i watched the Metallica thing yeah yeah yeah that was great actually that was really really enjoyable yeah the Metallica so there's a lot of great
34:50
experiences in it but they're too isolating you know you can't really if I could it you know I just can't sort of
34:55
bring myself to to to sit there and watch a movie on my own while the family's around you know well that was
35:01
one of the new new features wasn't it that you could have shared experiences if you have more than Yeah one if two
35:07
people does anybody have more than one that's even more dystopian i mean that's just really disturbing it's like
35:12
somebody had a bloody black mirror sitting there on the couch with your
35:18
partner and they've got a oneonone two it's just too weird at least you could you could program it to dial out the dog
35:23
and never have to see it again yeah right well there there's a there's a use case yeah i'd take that in a minute
35:28
there's also the look to scroll gesture and I played around with this it doesn't quite it doesn't completely replace the
35:35
the whole you know tap your fingers and flick your wrist to to scroll but it is really nice in Safari where you know
35:41
you're reading an article and it just like you know slowly scrolls for you it's really nice i don't understand why
35:48
it's an opt-in API that developers have to manually add i don't get why it can't
35:53
just scroll for me everywhere because again you know when I'm using the vision pro I'm mostly using it for work so I'll
36:00
have Slack open here Safari open here and you know Mona which is my Masttodon client of choice open in another window
36:07
to my left and I I can't scroll through that like just by looking with my eyes and that's you know an app that I you
36:14
know involves obviously the most scrolling because you're scrolling through a timeline of posts and it's an
36:20
iPad app running in compatibility mode so it's it's never going to have that eye scrolling thing on it which is kind
36:28
of frustrating but it is really nice when it's there your iPhone no longer asks you to enter in your passcode every
36:35
time you look at it while you're wearing the Vision Pro because it can automatically unlock that's really nice
36:40
they they redesigned control center again but it's a little easier and less clunky to use uh but the other negative
36:47
thing is that's pretty much all that's new in Vision OS there there's no new Vision OS native apps all of Apple's
36:55
apps that were running an iPad compatibility mode last year are still that way this year there's no 3D maps or
37:02
anything which is disappointing yeah I if they if they finally introduce
37:07
the feature I've been talking about for ages which is the 3D maps Godzilla mode where they use fly over and you can
37:13
stomp around a city uh you know I would buy I would buy a Vision Pro if I could
37:19
have a Godzilla mode and stomp around a city in 3D which city would you stomp on first i would start with San Francisco
37:26
cuz I want to get Lewis and Leande we've got four to five bunkers
37:34
oh yeah i forgot you're a prepper
37:39
speaking of uh destroying things Charlie why don't you tell us about the iPad
37:44
repairability yeah uh Apple's finally added the uh iPad to its self-service
37:50
repair program which is its uh so over the last few years Apple's been putting together um spare parts u repair
37:58
documentation and how-tos you know how to fix a bit bit like uh so I write this
38:03
the article we're talking about here is one I wrote for iFix it so you know if you're familiar with iix it guides like
38:08
step-by-step guides to fixing all kinds of things so this is this is Apple's
38:14
version and theirs is slightly different uh as we'll get to actually I fix it I
38:19
only look at those repair guys now just to see how many step because there's so many steps I'm like okay forget it I'm not going to be doing that
38:26
some some yeah the often you get like steps for like each screw if there's different kinds of screws so you know it
38:32
can look like you've got a lot more uh steps than are there but yeah usually just look at the top and see how many
38:38
hours it takes use it as a tool to justify paying for Apple's repair prices yeah Apple's
38:44
repair prices oh I love to fix things though i like I get so much satisfaction out of fixing something yeah it's You
38:50
don't like that Louis hell no i can't I can't think of anything I would less want to do than cut open an iPad
38:57
well that's the thing the iPad so um the they've done this for the iPhone and the
39:04
uh the Mac and I I think well I don't know what else has gone in there but the
39:10
iPad is their last computer that they've they've you know so now all of their computers are on their uh self-service
39:15
repair program and that's probably because it's the hardest thing to repair it's just an absolute nightmare have you
39:22
ever anyone opened up an iPad oh god no well not intentionally yeah we haven't
39:27
lived uh-huh yeah it's so it's it's not too bad to get into the the phone i mean
39:34
it's it's a hassle you need to get like a suction cup thing and you know you got to get the screen off uh newer models of
39:40
the phone you can go in the back to do I think to uh from the iPhone 15 in the
39:45
past they they've alternated whether you had to open up the screen or the back plate but yeah iPhone I think 14 Pro
39:51
onwards and iPhone 15 regular model onwards you can up open up either the
39:56
front or the back which is incredibly helpful makes both screen repairs and battery repairs like instant yeah now I
40:03
don't I don't think a lot of this is for uh for customers it's a it's good for us but I think these the redesigns and also
40:10
a lot of this uh documentation is for their internal uh repairs because if if
40:17
you think there how many uh screen replacements they're doing in store and how many batteries they're changing on
40:23
iPhones um you that it take if it takes like half a day to do one of those things
40:29
it's a major hassle so they've if you can just nip in the back and swap the battery out on an iPhone it's a lot
40:34
quicker for them as well but if you is that
40:42
so the uh Apple kind of admitted that the the iPad was a really terrible
40:47
repair to repair without actually saying anything so they they announced this on May 29th and had uh which I think was a
40:54
a Wednesday uh had a big uh press release and all of the usual
40:59
outlets wrote about how good it was that the iPad was there and you can repair it now uh and they said the link that they
41:05
put to the actual resources didn't go live until the next day so none of the people writing up that story would uh be
41:11
able to check and look at the the repairs and see how ridiculously difficult they are uh you know if you if
41:18
you're replacing a broken screen then you know your screen's already broken but if you're doing anything else it's
41:24
really likely you're going to crack that screen at some point you really if you want to change the battery you should
41:29
probably have a spare screen on hand just in case and Apple's um has all of this uh crazy equipment that you can you
41:35
can use whereas you know the iFix it guide there is uh there's an anti- clamp
41:42
or something like that i can't remember it's like a suction thing with a spring in it so it actually uh the spring opens
41:47
it so uh you uh put the suction cup on the screen and it pulls the screen up
41:53
for you and then you can act you can concentrate on heating the glue around the edges with a haird dryer or whatever you've got uh Apple has this massive um
42:01
jig that you put your iPad into different ones for different sizes and then that goes into another device and
42:06
then that goes into another device and each one of these you know one of these things costs I don't know uh like 14
42:14
$1,450 that's the heated display pocket that just heats the heats the glue up so this
42:22
is not stuff you you can buy it you can buy it if you want but anyway uh yeah
42:28
the iPad's terrible to repair but at least Apple has shows you how to do it the proper way of doing it do you think
42:34
is it are they repairable generally by you know home uh if you're a bit handy
42:39
could you could you probably do it with a haird dryer and and some Yeah I mean you can do it with a haird dryer i did when I opened up when I changed the
42:46
screen on the phone last time I just made a hot water bottle and sat it on that that would work as well uh yeah it
42:52
just eats yeah i mean you don't leave it on there for too long and if you're changing the screen you don't care if you're breaking the old one uh but yeah
42:58
that works the hot water bottle does a trick i I fix it has a a kind of a thing
43:03
that you stick in the microwave it's it's effectively a hot water it's like a long it's like a sausage of some with some kind of gel in it a neoprene well
43:10
every everyone's got those those Yeah those freezer packets right the hot cold the icy hot whatever they are yeah that
43:15
kind of thing things yeah if you if you heat one of those up in the microwave um you could probably use that right
43:22
yeah you why don't you hit one up and tell us what happens i'll give it a try i'll give it a shot although I just tried to repair my Garmin bike computer
43:29
and and like you said it was like a battery replacement i end up I ended up breaking the screen too so this has
43:35
turned into a nightmare that's the trouble i mean when some stuff is designed to be able to get into it you
43:40
know and it's easy to it's all screwed up and you know you don't have a battery hatch on like we used to have but yeah
43:48
you just have to undo a few screws and then you're in and you can do the stuff you need to do and it's getting better
43:53
and better i mean a lot of companies even um Lenovo Lenovo's ThinkPads are
44:00
now way more repairable they're really good you can change most things in them you can even change the ports like the USB port if it breaks you can stick a
44:06
new one in but yeah well there was a there was a deate a debate about this last year because I think um who was it
44:13
john Turnis gave an interview when they were talking about repairability versus durability and you know that for all the
44:19
complaining that iFixit and and other sort of right to repair activists make about repairability consumers really
44:27
want durability and um they're designed for durability uh rather than repairability so I you
44:34
know you can do both i mean the think if you if you've ever picked up a ThinkPad that thing makes a you know a MacBook
44:41
well I mean well I was going to say makes the MacBook like something weak but it doesn't at all but the the the think Yeah lenovo's ThinkPad is I don't
44:48
want to pick up a ThinkPad no but what I'm saying right
44:54
and Fondellet's little red nipple well I used to I used to have one they
44:59
are actually nice when when IBM used to make them but you know that was definitely But the thing is they're rock solid and they're also repairable and
45:05
they look I mean they have their different aesthetic which I quite like that kind of boxy squared off thing or
45:10
even just MacBooks like they have they have a lid on the bottom that unscrews they just don't do that on the iPad because they they want it to be like a
45:17
single continuous piece of aluminum that wraps all the way around the back and up to the edges but do you think Apple
45:23
could you know do that on the iPad like have a back plate that separates and that would make a huge difference well
45:30
they definitely could make it as thin it is right now with that exactly that because the because the glue and all of
45:35
the internal parts are kind of structural components so that's that's how they that's how it stays stiff when
45:41
it's so thin and um Graeme's wished for 21 inch iPad would be just a nightmare
45:48
it's gonna be awesome i know John Tennis is working on it right now i I think he has a point
45:55
simply because if if you look at Apple's products people hang on to them much longer and then when they do trade them
46:00
in Apple has a a great story on recyclability as well so I think I think there is a case to be made there yeah
46:07
yeah recycling recycling is still uses way more um resources than reusing especially if you figure in the new
46:12
thing you're going to be buying which you know and even Apple's own um environmental reports say that with most
46:19
of their products the MacBooks and things and phones too the something like 70% or higher of the energy used in its
46:26
lifetime comes from uh um is it shipping and manufacturing and shipping but the
46:31
shipping is huge uh the amount it's way more than you would use than you actually way more carbon comes from
46:37
getting it to you than you will use in the entire lifetime of the or rather if you if you look at you could you could paraphrase what John Tennis is saying
46:43
there as what a doctor would say in terms of prevention is better than cure that in in in that sense if you have if
46:50
you make a device that's so robust it doesn't need to be repaired that's better than making a shitty device that
46:56
well you can repair it easily but it's going to need a lot of repairs yeah yeah but I mean everything's going to need
47:01
repair cuz the thing is you don't you can't design it to not have a breaking screen you know the the screen's going to break and then and the other thing is
47:07
these are all portable devices so you got wear products wear um parts like um the battery the battery is going to die
47:13
and if you can't get in and change the battery then you're throwing that thing away it doesn't matter how durable the
47:18
rest of it is that's the main reason is people is people who will get well I had an old I had an old bike computer that
47:24
was irreparable and the battery went and it was you know I was I was faced with
47:30
not being able to use it anymore so I just found an external battery and plugged it into that it's totally clunky and I I had to duct tape it to it but I
47:37
was actually quite pleased with that i thought that was quite I love it that's great a nice hack yeah but yeah you're I
47:43
mean that is a good point batteries are um uh you know uh what's the word consumable consumable yeah and you know
47:50
keyboards wear out and Apple's good at designing their keyboards for durability as we know but
47:56
I mean we were all talking earlier we've all got the you know the iPad uh from
48:02
2018 i mean you know I mean like Graeme said the these things last a long time i
48:08
mean yeah that one's that one's really good but the um How's your battery on yours
48:13
well I thought it was I thought it was terrible um and but then I did a a
48:19
battery test on it and it said it had 86% or something like that high8s
48:24
um Wow health so uh yeah so I was actually quite surprised by that i
48:30
thought it's it's okay it's fine you know i mean I plug it in every couple of days actually the the the OS iPad OS 26
48:37
beta is eating the battery like crazy so I've been plugging in every day but usually it's like every you know two
48:42
three four days yeah I'm surprised mine's still going quite well and I use it a lot but I do plug it in when I'm
48:47
doing things like watching movies instead of burning the battery down well speaking of expensive things that will
48:53
break Leander why don't you tell us about the folding iPhone right yeah so uh Mingchi Quo our
49:00
favorite Apple analyst um has some new information about the upcoming uh
49:05
folding iPhone which I think is on due for next year right what did he say uh
49:11
second half of 26 so um it's probably going to be coming uh next next fall uh
49:17
but he kind of threw some cold water on this you know like he Apple apparently has put in some really really low order
49:23
numbers for for the uh for the device i mean it's it's shockingly low given the number of iPhones they sell every year
49:30
it's only a few million um and this is for the whole production run so it's not just for the a few million in 2026 is
49:37
going to be 2728 uh for the whole 2 or three year life cycle of the device and what does he say
49:43
did he actually put a number on it 15 to 20 million over 3 years which is I don't
49:49
know what is that 1% of the total number of iPhones that's going to be sold over that time so he's pretty Apple you know
49:55
he he the conclusion is that Apple itself sees this as a niche niche device
50:00
like they don't think they're going to sell very many of these uh they don't want to put in a big investment uh right now um I don't know you know like my my
50:09
neighbor has a Samsung Galaxy folding phone and I was really impressed with it um when he folded it out anyway you know
50:16
like he was showing me some security video from his from his uh his his uh his his home security system and it was
50:22
pretty impressive to see the screen fold out you couldn't really see the crease it worked beautifully but then he folded
50:28
it up and it's like a you know it's like it's like the the worst dad wallet you've ever seen it's like a big fat
50:34
Yeah you no way you're putting that in your back pocket really so I you know whether Apple can overcome this some of
50:40
the new ones actually in China they um some of the new uh folding phones are really really thin aren't they they're
50:45
super super thin i mean they make um they're going to make the uh upcoming iPhone Air look kind of chunky by
50:52
comparison so you know if Apple's got access to that same technology maybe that maybe they've they've solved that problem maybe it won't be so thin after
50:59
all yeah Huawei has one that folds twice and they basically have it as thin as
51:04
the USBC port around it like the display is just like razor thin above it and there's like a thin little metal frame
51:09
below it but it's basically as thin as a USBC port but it folds out twice like three times so it's it's three times as
51:15
thick folded up but even then it's only like barely thicker than like a regular you know Pro Max iPhone but um 15 to 20
51:24
million foldable iPhones isn't that many iPhones he also said in his report that that would actually be a significant
51:30
portion of the folding phone market which as a whole is just much smaller because you know the Galaxy ZFold 6 is
51:38
$1,900 the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is $1,800 and of course Apple's not going to be
51:44
less expensive than those so I mean pro probably 2,000 maybe pessimistically
51:49
$2,500 jesus for a crazy I find this story
51:55
really far-fetched like uh Apple's already got the Vision Pro on its hands in terms of a you know low demand high
52:03
investment type product and it's doing that for strategic reasons it sees
52:08
virtual reality augmented reality spatial computing as the future and so it has a reason to do that but this it's
52:16
like why would you do this i I feel like it it it sort of if you put this in at the top tier above all your premium
52:23
iPhones it devalues them i think then it's kind of you no longer if you buy an iPhone Pro you no longer have the best
52:29
one so to me it creates a negative vibe in in the lineup and to create something
52:35
which hardly anyone is going to buy there's limited utility to and a massive overhead to maintain the software for
52:42
because everything you know for Apple and third party developers you have to then think about this this folding
52:49
dynamic and isn't this going to be the first though in a in a there's probably going to be a family of devices like
52:54
your 21in iPad I mean I'll bet that folds too well if there is a if they see
53:00
it as a strategic product like the vision pro then I could see it um but
53:05
I'm just I I do see a future for sure for spatial computing folding computing
53:12
i I don't know when when when this first folding phones came out I remember analysts saying "Oh my gosh oh my gosh
53:18
Apple's Apple's screwed up because they don't have a folding iPhone." And all these years later it doesn't matter you
53:25
know Apple has not suffered one jot for not having a folding iPhone for staying
53:31
out all this time and why a bit like netbooks yeah why would they enter now and unless they had something which
53:38
either was strategically important for the future which I don't see from this certainly from what Mingchi Quo is
53:44
saying it doesn't sound like it's a future platform in the same way that uh spatial computing is or something that
53:50
that's going to make a a significant impact on their revenue which it won't so I I I I can't think what the
53:56
motivation would be to to stumble into this dodgy product category at this late stage i mean the perspective that I
54:02
would apply is like you know if I put myself in the shoes of Apple I would say
54:07
to myself well $2,000 is a lot of money on a phone but it's not a lot of money
54:13
on an buying a phone and an iPad if you buy an iPhone whatever number Pro and
54:20
the iPad M4 Pro you're already at about $2,000 so you can get both of those in
54:26
one single device you know iPhone on the front screen then you unfold it and then you're just an iPad OS you have a big
54:32
screen where you can use the fancy new multitasking whatever and you can plug
54:37
it into a computer and you know use iPad OS on an external screen with a keyboard
54:43
and mouse boom you've replaced your computer too it's three devices for only $2,000 are Are you getting it yet
54:52
right and we folded it this way you could use it like a MacBook you know and type on the the lower glass screen you
54:59
know I've got a conspiracy theory about that now you know how the phone app has just come to the iPad maybe this won't
55:06
be a folding iPhone maybe it'll be a folding iPad then it avoids all of um Graeme's problems with branding i mean
55:12
the the thing is not a lot of people understand this but like iOS and iPad OS are one and the same they are still the
55:18
exact same operating system just called different things is just when you put it on a bigger screen it becomes iPad OS
55:24
and enables all those extra features but it is like the exact same you know IPSW
55:30
file like the operating systems are identical so you know it pretty much is on iPad if it's if it's just on a bigger
55:37
screen like that so I don't know is anybody actually interested in this because I I've said this before i'm kind
55:44
of interested in getting one because I don't want to buy an iPad i I only want to have the one device am I
55:51
alone here right now it makes no sense to me but I could imagine like sometimes when Apple announces something and you
55:57
hear about it before and it's like that doesn't make any sense and then you see how they present it and it's like oh I
56:03
kind of get it now so I I I could imagine that when Apple actually announces it they they put some spin on
56:09
it that captures my imagination that I'm just not getting yet leander how about you well you like Graeme I'm I have a
56:16
lot of faith in Apple's industrial design team and I I'm pretty sure they've been playing around with these prototypes and they've come up with some use case that you know uh we haven't
56:23
thought of yet like Steve Jobs said you know that the last thing you want to do is ask your customers what they want they have no clue you have to show it to
56:29
them and you know they have a very very long and uh and storied history and and and uh you know that that proven ability
56:35
to do that you know they play around with these things in the in in the in the lab and come up with use cases and
56:41
and I I don't think they put things they never put things out just because the competitors have got stuff out they
56:47
always have some you know some deeper seeded reason even sometimes if it's strategic you know like the like the
56:52
vision pro um and it's not like necessarily consumer product but I I think they'll I think they'll if they do
56:58
come out with it I think they'll have a good it'll it'll have a good it'll have some good reasons to exist
57:05
lewis any final thoughts i mean you know it sounds interesting I suppose but I'm thinking about all the ways I use my
57:11
phone and Mag Safe and all these things and I don't know i like the phone form factor it's pretty nice it's pretty
57:18
useful well that's going nowhere that's going nowhere is it i mean that you know this would be this would be
57:23
sort of an add-on wouldn't it in addition to Yeah Apple's not doing enough they they
57:29
need to do a little more yeah graham I believe you have some news about the Apple Core podcast i do indeed yes as it
57:36
happens uh the the podcast that Charlie and I do Apple Core it's a a podcast
57:41
about the history of Apple and uh in each episode we travel back in time to take a look at a different Apple product
57:48
and consider what it tells us about where the company may be heading next and we had a very special guest on the
57:55
episode that we we just published today which was your Who was that who could it be i don't know some weird blogger with
58:02
tall hair so so yeah our episode just published today on the Apple Core podcast you can
58:09
get it via applecorpod.com uh featuring the the stunningly handsome
58:15
and not at all Irish sickly gentleman that I referred to earlier D griffin
58:21
Jones and we're we're talking about uh iOS 7 and uh I thought it would be an
58:27
interesting topic to go back and review you know we're in in the process of another big redesign uh with liquid
58:34
glass that that's kind of revolutionizing the visual language of all Apple's platforms and so you know I
58:40
wanted to go back and look at the last time that Apple did that and there's a lot of drama in the story you know as we
58:46
unpack in the episode this was a time when Steve Jobs had passed away two
58:52
years prior and there was a bit of a boardroom battle between Scott Fortol and Johnny IV really over the the heart
58:59
and soul of the the company and Scott Foresttol championing the skuomorphism
59:05
uh that he and and and Steve Jobs had favored in in iOS and in Mac OS for so
59:10
many years and when he left the company Johnny IV wasted no time in scrapping
59:17
all of that and that's the story that we tell that's the story we look at charlie and Griffin
59:23
offer loads of very interesting insights in this episode and so I I I really hope if you have time to add one more podcast
59:30
to your your listening agenda then I I hope you'll you'll you'll grab the latest episode of of Apple Core uh
59:36
wherever you get your podcasts i'd go one further but I'd say whatever podcast you listen to least knock it off
59:42
your list and add ours instead exactly that i mean it's not a weekly podcast
59:47
it's not an incredible burden you know you target like what around once a month so you know you can you can get an hour
59:53
once a month and learn something fun and new every every time this this is like just such a passion project for us and
59:59
uh each episode is is an hour we keep it like crisp and sharp i spend I spend
1:00:04
literally 18 hours editing each episode to just kind of take out the flack and
1:00:10
take out every time we say um or uh or kind of or you know I even edit all of
1:00:15
that out to just give the optimal listening experience and uh there's also if you go back in our back catalog
1:00:22
you'll find we've got an interview with Leander as well where he tells us all about the many books about Apple that he's written over the years so that
1:00:28
that's another episode yeah you should definitely check that out leander reveals
1:00:33
and and all of that leander tells all in that episode so it's well worth a listen
1:00:38
and and and the only R-rated episode of the of Appleore oh is it of of course
1:00:46
okay sorry sorry about that speaking of what's coming next let's
1:00:52
talk about iOS 26 the hidden features that Apple didn't talk about last week these betas are out a lot of people are
1:00:58
discovering things there's a lot to find here so I figured we'll just sort of go through this roundroin style uh but I'll
1:01:07
kick us off the passwords app has uh a one really great new feature uh this
1:01:13
time around password history i don't know if this has ever happened to you but you go to you go to like create an
1:01:19
account online it suggests a password sure you autofill that then it says you know oh you know fill in one of these
1:01:24
security questions you type in your answer to the security question and then passwords think that thinks that that's
1:01:30
your new password and it overwrites the old one well now you can go back and uh figure out what your password actually
1:01:35
was really handy that's exactly what that's for i never want to save password because I just really worry that it's
1:01:41
going to save the wrong thing and then I'll lose the password and get locked out for sure mhm mhm this is the only
1:01:47
one I was really excited about was the dirty lens warning it'll warn you if your lens's all greasy which mine always is um uh so that that one seems like
1:01:55
really handy i'd love to I'd like to see that in option yeah I haven't seen that yet but cameras are getting bigger people unintentionally rub their fingers
1:02:01
all over the camera all the time so it's weird that uh so this is like a warning
1:02:06
that comes up but it's only on the iPhone 15 and later i don't know what's
1:02:11
special about this like what do the other phones not get smudgy when did they bring in the macro mode for this
1:02:17
the super close-up macro mode maybe something to do with that can't remember maybe i don't know or maybe it's an AI
1:02:24
thing mhm jeez i think I Okay I've got one that I
1:02:29
I like uh the default snooze length can now be changed from 9 minutes anywhere between one one and 15 minutes it's
1:02:36
always been nine ever since the first iPhone and why why nine exact that's it
1:02:41
why also why can't it be more than 15 i feel like that's Tim Cook judging us is
1:02:48
you can't have more than a 15minute snooze get up i mean personally I think like a a
1:02:54
22minut snooze is the perfect length that gets you two minutes to like drift to sleep again and then they say like 20
1:02:59
minutes is the ideal nap time so I always I always set like a you know a first alarm and then another one like 22
1:03:05
minutes later that's funny i set a 22-minute timer if I for a siesta if I just want to Oh wow if I've got if I got
1:03:10
other stuff to do for the same reason mhm and another trick is to drink an espresso just at the beginning and and
1:03:16
the caffeine's kicking in just as you wake up oh okay that is a pro tip that a pro
1:03:23
napping tip yeah we're professional nappers here in Spain i I am I am
1:03:29
stunned that you jumped right over the the notes app finally letting you export notes in markdown format i thought like
1:03:36
of all the things like that's something you would be excited about yeah I thought that Lewis I thought that too
1:03:41
charlie is going to nab the markdown story it's a total bait yeah I mean it's neat i think that's neat because with
1:03:48
one hand they uh they screw over John Gruber by taking away the the talk show live and on and the other hand they give
1:03:54
it back to him by putting Markdown in the notes app or it's only Markdown export though right it's not actually in
1:03:59
the app so still it's handy but John said it shouldn't be in the app he agreed it should only be an export yeah
1:04:05
what does he know he literally wrote the book that's why
1:04:12
Yeah what does he know uh this is a great um little feature for forever in
1:04:18
the messages app you could only copy the entire body of a text message like the
1:04:24
entire thing all at once which is really annoying if all you need is to like select a piece to copy or translate or
1:04:30
look something up but now when you long press on a message there's a new menu option there select which you can then
1:04:36
use to to select a specific portion which is it's one of those little features that you'll you'll notice over
1:04:42
time i will use that all the time yeah when when I'm copying my receipts
1:04:48
yeah yeah i've got another one that's not on this list uh it's in the files app i just saw cuz the files apps
1:04:54
mentioned in this it has little triangles to see subfolders in the list view the files app on the on the iPad
1:05:00
you can also um rename using the same like bulk rename files using the same uh
1:05:07
you know features as when you do it in the finder on the Mac really so you get the same options and you can Yeah that's
1:05:13
really cool i I use that feature all the time the the bulk rename mhm it's it's there and you can also choose um open in
1:05:20
so you can choose which app to open something in which you could sort of do before but you can also always open in as well now or set a default app for
1:05:26
that uh that that file type instead of just it just kind of guessing the one you want and always being wrong that's
1:05:33
great because if you ever you if you installed on any device the uh Delta emulator made by friend of the show
1:05:40
Rally Tested it I mean an excellent app everybody uses it but I mean going back to Markdown one of the emulators that
1:05:47
Delta supports apparently uses a MD file extension which is also shared you know
1:05:52
as like markdown plain text file so if you have an MD text file that you want to open you can't open it from the files
1:05:59
app because it'll try to open it in delta and say oh that doesn't work and then you you have no other recourse but
1:06:04
now with the open in you you can uh do that as well this is something that I'm
1:06:09
very excited about you can access Apple Music Replay directly from the music app
1:06:16
you don't have to go to a separate website that you has like some bizarre URL and authenticate and go through this
1:06:22
whole song and dance it's just there in the music app you scroll down to the bottom of the home view
1:06:27
i've got a theory about this as well i think that they just haven't updated the software they no one has worked on the
1:06:33
music app for years and finally they've got around to it and and so they put this in that's why it's only been available on the web for you the music
1:06:41
app is still missing a bunch of features on the Mac but you know it's got that one on the iPhone and that's nice i
1:06:47
still haven't fixed my home homepod is tied to my account so my Apple replay is horrible it's all my wife and kids'
1:06:54
awful awful music choices so it doesn't reflect my taste whatsoever i've still got to fix that after five years but the
1:07:01
next one is exciting when Air Play when you play to an external speaker now you can control the volume right in from the
1:07:06
picker there that's a really good one that's I I've already used that that's super handy that's a great idea to put
1:07:12
the controls in one place uh here's another one and if you're running low on space when you have a software update uh
1:07:17
iOS 26 can temporarily remove Apple intelligence features to free up space on your phone i think this would be
1:07:24
better if it was permanently removed yeah unfortunately it puts them back yeah right you know it won't prevent you
1:07:31
there and which is good because I think the the iOS 26 update is like 15 gigabytes at least in the first
1:07:36
developer beta it is it is chunky you might you might struggle if you still have a 64 GB iPhone
1:07:43
there's the new Safari tab bar design but uh just like before it's still optional you can go back to the you know
1:07:50
full-size tab bar on the bottom as it has been in iOS 18 or you can go back to
1:07:56
the the the separated top address bar and bottom toolbar like iOS 14 and before so that's good giving people
1:08:02
choice there i How do we feel about the the tab the the minimal Safari design on
1:08:08
the phone you you just have the back the back button then the little address bar then a a more button yeah a bit a bit
1:08:13
confusing like the the thing that really confused me was seeing all the tabs um like how do I get my tabs how can I
1:08:20
see the different tabs I got open well you're supposed to you're supposed to swipe up on the address bar yeah it took me a while to figure that out but that
1:08:27
was that was the only thing so far that that threw me i think one of the issues is that the web developers are supposed to kind of add extra margin so that
1:08:34
Apple's controls can appear on a blank bit of space behind them not in this new design that's how it was when they first
1:08:40
tried something like this in iOS 15 okay but now what it does is is it just automatically extends the bottom of the
1:08:46
page kind of like how it does when you like you know scroll past farther than how you can actually scroll it does that
1:08:52
automatically to leave room for the tab bar what I would say as a graphic designer is I hate that because it you
1:08:58
know when I'm designing a p a web page I design what I decide where the page ends
1:09:04
apple doesn't get to decide that it's like on the one hand Apple is saying with liquid glass we've redesigned this
1:09:10
to really bring your content to the four and it's like on the other hand it's like but we're going to around with it that to make it fit in with our designs
1:09:18
you know and I feel like you can't have it both ways they they have with the liquid glass uh controls floating on top
1:09:25
uh they need the content to sort of fill awkward areas you can see this really clearly on the iPad photos app you know
1:09:33
if you're in the library view and you've got a grid of photos and those photos leave a white space on the left hand
1:09:39
side for the floating uh sidebar to sit in front of because of course if the
1:09:45
photos went behind that then you you wouldn't be able to access them and they
1:09:50
have this thing in Swift UI where you can basically reflect the content and blur it to go behind the sidebar you
1:09:57
obviously don't want to do that with your photo library because people think well what are those photos why can't I tap on those photos is they're just fake
1:10:04
photos and so this is to me it's a problem with liquid glass in general and
1:10:10
with the Safari implementation in particular that if you have to extend content in a fake way or get developers
1:10:17
web developers to add a bit of extra margin then you you it's the tail
1:10:23
wagging the dog the content has to be adapted to work with their UI and it's I'm sorry Apple your UI has to work with
1:10:31
the content and you simply cannot say "Oh we've come up with this amazing UI that reflect that respects content."
1:10:37
When in fact it's it's the exact opposite that's my end of rant
1:10:42
and I should say caveat with this is a beta so maybe Apple will fix these things have you filed any feedbacks and
1:10:49
follow-up question have those feedbacks received any reply whatsoever well that feedback with Apple that's the round filing cabinet isn't it i mean exactly
1:10:56
don't bother one one interesting thing about liquid glass is that that that the um the sentiment I see on socials now is
1:11:02
completely flipped it's gone from you know hatred and and criticism to love like you know my Twitter feed is now
1:11:09
full of all this oh wow look at this look at this wonderful effect that you can get in liquid glass look how liquid glass does this you know liquid glass
1:11:15
liquid glass it's it's very very complimentary now so people have really come to like it i think I do do think it
1:11:20
has potential i think you you know and I I like the look of lots of the elements i I think there's a way to go to fix it
1:11:26
but I I think they might be on the right track here i think if anything like the the worst part about it is that it isn't
1:11:31
everywhere because you know there are a lot of screens that don't have anything to reflect or make look cool or glassy
1:11:36
and it's going to make every third party app that hasn't been updated to it stick out like a sore thumb like I'm still
1:11:42
running you know Mona Net Newswire Apollo like none of those apps have been updated i mean Apollo is never going to
1:11:47
be updated ever again rip but like any any old app that you have is still going
1:11:53
to have like that you know gray blurry tab bar and title bar and I'm I'm just
1:11:58
curious what the third party story is going to be like is there going to be Facebook updated for liquid glass or Snapchat no or Instagram well because
1:12:05
they they they have their own identity they don't want to have an Apple identity but you know one of the things I thought was very telling in the state
1:12:12
of the union uh last week was when they introduced iOS 7 every developer had to
1:12:19
scrabble to kind of update their app to work with iOS 7 and it was complicated because you know lots of again it was
1:12:26
this padding and margin issue if you had like a list view and it went behind the the tab bar you needed to you needed to
1:12:32
add extra margin at the bottom or or you wouldn't be able to reach the bottom elements of the list so there was all
1:12:38
this stuff that you had to fix this time around they've done it a bit differently that you they're allowing developers to
1:12:44
compile with Xcode 26 and still target the old UI so you don't have to use
1:12:51
liquid glass and I think that's telling because they know it's it's problematic
1:12:57
i mean it's a huge amount of work for developers and they they position this this option as being because you know we
1:13:03
recognize it's a lot of work i'm not sure if it is just that i think it's also that they know that it's a little
1:13:08
bit rough and so they they can't like they did with iOS 7 they can't force people when they compile in in in Xcode
1:13:16
26 to to to put up with liquid glass so they've given them that escape hatch but they said that's only going to be for a
1:13:22
year and next year they're going to force liquid glass on everyone we'll see if that's true or not i'm just curious
1:13:28
like what the broad reaction is going to be like once once iOS 26 is actually released you know what are the big
1:13:34
corporate developers going to do and how are the general people going to react to that like are people going to be angry at Facebook for not looking new or or
1:13:41
you know fitting in with the rest of the software or you know does Liquid Glass not go far enough such that like you
1:13:47
know people won't really care or notice like oh Facebook does look a little different than the other apps i haven't thought about that you know I'm curious
1:13:56
but I think that about wraps it up that's all the cult we have for you all this week the fun continues lewis is on
1:14:03
Twitter at Lewis Wallace leander Canny is at LCNY and you can get his daily
1:14:08
anecdotes or as some would say proof of life and the cult of Mac today newsletter which you can find at
1:14:14
newsletters.cultac.com thanks again to our very special guests this week for the third week in a row
1:14:20
gran Bower is on blue sky at grant Bower charlie Surell is on Masttodon at Mr charlie and you can hear them together
1:14:27
on the Apple Core podcast the new episode all about the history of Skomorphism and iOS 7 is out today find
1:14:34
it in your podcast app of choice i am on Masttodon and Blue Sky Jones and you can join the weeklong discussion with me and
1:14:41
all the other govs in the cult club discord by going to support.thecult.com
1:14:47
be sure to get your ticket inside at support.thecult.com [Music] keep reading Cults of Mac for our
1:14:54
continuing coverage of this year's beta software as that develops this has been the Cultcast the best 30 plus minute
1:15:00
Apple conversation you're going to hear all week long new episodes of the Cultcast come out every Thursday night i want to thank everyone for listening for
1:15:06
watching and we will see you all next time have a great weekend say goodbye everybody oh hey bye everybody
1:15:15
[Music] heat heat
1:15:25
[Music]
1:15:45
[Music]

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