Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (orchestral music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► Hello and welcome to Connected episode 496.

00:00:11 ◼   ► It's made possible this week by our sponsors,

00:00:15 ◼   ► NetSuite and Squarespace.

00:00:17 ◼   ► My name is Steven Hackett,

00:00:18 ◼   ► and I have the pleasure of being joined by Mr. Mike Hurley.

00:00:21 ◼   ► Well, hello there.

00:00:22 ◼   ► Hello.

00:00:24 ◼   ► And I have the pleasure of being joined

00:00:25 ◼   ► by Federico Vittucci.

00:00:26 ◼   ► Ciao Federico. Buonasera.

00:00:28 ◼   ► Hi, ciao.

00:00:28 ◼   ► Buonasera Federico.

00:00:30 ◼   ► Ciao, ciao, ciao.

00:00:31 ◼   ► We're back.

00:00:34 ◼   ► We're back, but you know what's not back?

00:00:36 ◼   ► iPads. iPads.

00:00:36 ◼   ► They're not back.

00:00:37 ◼   ► No, no. Not happening.

00:00:39 ◼   ► They got canceled, they're not happening.

00:00:41 ◼   ► Yeah, the iPad got canceled, actually.

00:00:43 ◼   ► You wouldn't believe what the iPad did, you know?

00:00:47 ◼   ► Yeah, true being dead moment for the platform.

00:00:49 ◼   ► Yep, we can't.

00:00:50 ◼   ► There's more, another rumor from Mark Gurman,

00:00:53 ◼   ► or updated reporting,

00:00:55 ◼   ► that we're now looking at probably May.

00:00:58 ◼   ► Late April, early May,

00:01:00 ◼   ► so we can get off iPad Watch for a while.

00:01:02 ◼   ► Did you boys, are you boys still waiting for the newsroom?

00:01:05 ◼   ► I'll stop now.

00:01:06 ◼   ► I'm assuming it's not happening.

00:01:07 ◼   ► So you're saying that new iPads may come out.

00:01:10 ◼   ► Hey, there he goes.

00:01:13 ◼   ► There it is.

00:01:14 ◼   ► Automation.

00:01:15 ◼   ► Y'all doing that again, Federico?

00:01:19 ◼   ► No, not this year.

00:01:19 ◼   ► No, they're not skipping it this year.

00:01:21 ◼   ► I listened to an app story, it's just like,

00:01:23 ◼   ► I think it's a silent protest,

00:01:24 ◼   ► or actually not a silent protest,

00:01:26 ◼   ► about the state of shortcuts.

00:01:28 ◼   ► Okay.

00:01:28 ◼   ► Is what I kind of got from app stories.

00:01:30 ◼   ► Yep, pretty much.

00:01:31 ◼   ► Pretty much.

00:01:32 ◼   ► I'm a little behind.

00:01:34 ◼   ► Automation.

00:01:35 ◼   ► Automation.

00:01:37 ◼   ► And then it was auto-genation,

00:01:39 ◼   ► 'cause it just kept going.

00:01:40 ◼   ► Yeah, no iPads.

00:01:41 ◼   ► Seems like maybe there's some sort of software and hardware,

00:01:46 ◼   ► like both ganging up on Apple to make this difficult.

00:01:49 ◼   ► I wonder what they've got to do software-wise,

00:01:52 ◼   ► unless there's like,

00:01:53 ◼   ► first it's like, well, what feature would it require?

00:01:55 ◼   ► I thought, well, maybe like keyboard or trackpad stuff.

00:01:57 ◼   ► But then I realized it could be like firmware level stuff

00:02:00 ◼   ► to manage the OLED,

00:02:01 ◼   ► 'cause you've got to handle that differently

00:02:03 ◼   ► than the LCD, maybe.

00:02:04 ◼   ► Yeah, 'cause if you remember,

00:02:06 ◼   ► when the iPhone 10 came out,

00:02:08 ◼   ► there were like these stories. Remember.

00:02:10 ◼   ► Remember about how, I think,

00:02:14 ◼   ► they were moving the user interface elements

00:02:17 ◼   ► to stop burning.

00:02:18 ◼   ► Oh yeah, yeah.

00:02:21 ◼   ► So maybe there's stuff like that,

00:02:22 ◼   ► which is just, you know,

00:02:23 ◼   ► these are the kinds of things that you would have to do

00:02:27 ◼   ► to get the operating system ready to handle an OLED screen.

00:02:30 ◼   ► It could be stuff like that,

00:02:31 ◼   ► or it could just be, as you say,

00:02:32 ◼   ► like there's, we know that new accessories

00:02:35 ◼   ► are very likely too.

00:02:37 ◼   ► Maybe they just haven't finished getting all of that ready.

00:02:40 ◼   ► Hmm, maybe.

00:02:42 ◼   ► But also there was just issues

00:02:44 ◼   ► with getting the OLED panels to a consistent quality level.

00:02:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:49 ◼   ► The iPhone 10 is further in the past

00:02:51 ◼   ► than I always think it is.

00:02:53 ◼   ► I still think of it as like the new phone,

00:02:55 ◼   ► and that thing came out in 2016?

00:02:58 ◼   ► 17. 17?

00:03:00 ◼   ► Yeah. 2017.

00:03:01 ◼   ► Now we're coming up on 10 years since the iPhone 10.

00:03:05 ◼   ► Like it's not super close, but it's not very far away.

00:03:07 ◼   ► Well, it's seven years, so yeah, getting there.

00:03:10 ◼   ► The iPhone 10 is only three years younger than our company.

00:03:14 ◼   ► Think about that.

00:03:15 ◼   ► Okay.

00:03:16 ◼   ► I can't really work that out.

00:03:19 ◼   ► It's a very important metric. Okay, yeah, I see.

00:03:20 ◼   ► I see, I see.

00:03:21 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:03:22 ◼   ► Relay is further away from the iPhone 10

00:03:24 ◼   ► now than it was when we started.

00:03:26 ◼   ► Yeah, or think about it this way.

00:03:28 ◼   ► The iPhone 10 is as old as the Nintendo Switch.

00:03:31 ◼   ► Ew, gross.

00:03:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:03:34 ◼   ► Bad news for the Nintendo Switch.

00:03:36 ◼   ► Well, or bad news for Apple

00:03:38 ◼   ► because Nintendo didn't need to do anything until now,

00:03:40 ◼   ► and they have sold a bajillion of them

00:03:43 ◼   ► and made all the money they could possibly want to make.

00:03:46 ◼   ► So on last week's episode,

00:03:47 ◼   ► I was talking about mirroring with the Vision Pro,

00:03:50 ◼   ► and I was saying that I couldn't get it

00:03:52 ◼   ► to work on my iPad mini.

00:03:54 ◼   ► I think, Steven, you said that they used it in store,

00:03:57 ◼   ► and you were right.

00:03:58 ◼   ► That is what they used in store.

00:03:59 ◼   ► They used the iPad mini.

00:04:01 ◼   ► So the iPad mini does work.

00:04:02 ◼   ► It just wasn't working for me.

00:04:04 ◼   ► And our friend Casey Liss sent in a screenshot

00:04:07 ◼   ► on Masterland.

00:04:08 ◼   ► Basically, there are some settings

00:04:09 ◼   ► that I might want to enable

00:04:13 ◼   ► for why it might not be working, but yeah.

00:04:15 ◼   ► So mirroring from a Vision Pro to an iPad mini does work.

00:04:20 ◼   ► It just wasn't working for me.

00:04:21 ◼   ► Okay, there you go.

00:04:23 ◼   ► You have to make it an AirPlay target, I guess.

00:04:27 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:04:28 ◼   ► I mean, I feel like I haven't not made it that.

00:04:31 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:04:32 ◼   ► It's surprising to me that that doesn't just work

00:04:36 ◼   ► 'cause I haven't done anything to anything else,

00:04:37 ◼   ► but it's possible that something

00:04:39 ◼   ► has been set incorrectly on the device.

00:04:41 ◼   ► You gotta throw it in the river and start over.

00:04:44 ◼   ► Oh, I mean, maybe.

00:04:47 ◼   ► Federico, you are in the EU.

00:04:51 ◼   ► Yes.

00:04:52 ◼   ► What about Alt Store?

00:04:54 ◼   ► So there's a story on the verge today.

00:04:56 ◼   ► They got an exclusive hands-on

00:04:58 ◼   ► with the third-party app marketplace version of Alt Store,

00:05:03 ◼   ► which is the popular sort of sideloading, quote-unquote,

00:05:07 ◼   ► store that has long been available on iOS and iPadOS

00:05:11 ◼   ► through the sort of non-jailbreak method.

00:05:14 ◼   ► And they're launching in the EU

00:05:16 ◼   ► a native app marketplace for the iPhone.

00:05:19 ◼   ► And the story has a lot of details

00:05:22 ◼   ► about the installation process, what it looks like,

00:05:24 ◼   ► all the permission prompts that you're gonna get,

00:05:27 ◼   ► and sort of some of the apps that,

00:05:29 ◼   ► well, actually two of the apps

00:05:30 ◼   ► that are being notarized by Apple right now in Alt Store.

00:05:34 ◼   ► Delta, which is the Nintendo emulator

00:05:36 ◼   ► that the Alt Store folks have been developing

00:05:38 ◼   ► for quite some time, and Clip,

00:05:40 ◼   ► which is a clipboard manager

00:05:42 ◼   ► that can monitor your clipboard in the background

00:05:45 ◼   ► using a bunch of native APIs,

00:05:46 ◼   ► but in a way that wouldn't get approved on the App Store,

00:05:50 ◼   ► but can be released in theory on a third-party marketplace.

00:05:54 ◼   ► But so go check out that story

00:05:56 ◼   ► if you wanna see the screenshots,

00:05:57 ◼   ► what it looks like in practice.

00:05:59 ◼   ► And I think there's some interesting details

00:06:01 ◼   ► that Alt Store is working on right now.

00:06:03 ◼   ► For example, Clip, sort of as a way to work around

00:06:08 ◼   ► the core technology fee, for example,

00:06:11 ◼   ► they're gonna integrate with Patreon.

00:06:13 ◼   ► So you need to be a Patreon subscriber

00:06:16 ◼   ► to Alt Store if you wanna get some of these apps,

00:06:19 ◼   ► and supposedly that subscription will also cover

00:06:21 ◼   ► for the cost of the CTF.

00:06:23 ◼   ► So a bunch of interesting ideas.

00:06:25 ◼   ► - One of the ways that Patreon helps here

00:06:27 ◼   ► is you can cap it, right?

00:06:30 ◼   ► So you can cap it to a million patrons

00:06:33 ◼   ► or whatever it would be,

00:06:35 ◼   ► and that way you don't hit that level, if that's the case.

00:06:40 ◼   ► Or, but also, you can use this model

00:06:45 ◼   ► as a way to make sure you have enough money

00:06:47 ◼   ► and you can charge people once a year, da, da, da, da.

00:06:48 ◼   ► But yes, there are other ways that people can make money

00:06:52 ◼   ► on the App Store, and this is, well,

00:06:55 ◼   ► through apps and Patreon is a very valid way, right,

00:06:57 ◼   ► of doing that.

00:06:58 ◼   ► So it's cool that they're integrating that.

00:07:01 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:07:01 ◼   ► So I linked to the story, but also in a footnote,

00:07:05 ◼   ► I mentioned sort of the weird experience

00:07:07 ◼   ► that I'm having right now.

00:07:08 ◼   ► So I live in the EU, obviously.

00:07:11 ◼   ► I have an Italian iPhone, I have an Italian iCal account,

00:07:14 ◼   ► but as you guys know, I have a US App Store account

00:07:19 ◼   ► that I set up in 2007, 2008 or something,

00:07:23 ◼   ► and I've been using forever,

00:07:24 ◼   ► and that was back in the day it was possible.

00:07:27 ◼   ► If you didn't have a debit card or a credit card in the US,

00:07:30 ◼   ► you could just create a US App Store account for free.

00:07:32 ◼   ► There was a method that allowed you to do that on iTunes

00:07:35 ◼   ► without having to provide any other details.

00:07:38 ◼   ► And I've been hanging on to that App Store account forever.

00:07:42 ◼   ► Now, I cannot access any of the DMA EU features at all.

00:07:47 ◼   ► That was the case with 17.4.

00:07:52 ◼   ► I put the beta of iOS 17.5 on my phone last night,

00:07:56 ◼   ► and I still don't have access to any of the EU stuff.

00:08:00 ◼   ► I was never shown the browser selection screen,

00:08:04 ◼   ► and Riley Testa, one of the founders of AltStore,

00:08:07 ◼   ► tried to send me a beta of AltStore

00:08:10 ◼   ► that I could install on my phone,

00:08:12 ◼   ► and after I manually synced using Finder,

00:08:16 ◼   ► the AltStore app to my phone,

00:08:19 ◼   ► when I tried to open it on my iPhone,

00:08:22 ◼   ► iOS says that this device is not eligible

00:08:25 ◼   ► to install this app.

00:08:26 ◼   ► So I think I must be living in some kind of weird edge case

00:08:31 ◼   ► where what I'm doing is not accounted for at the moment.

00:08:36 ◼   ► I live in the EU, but I have a US App Store account,

00:08:41 ◼   ► and even if I change my region setting to Italy,

00:08:43 ◼   ► it doesn't matter.

00:08:45 ◼   ► As long as I have that US account,

00:08:47 ◼   ► it won't let me access any of the DMA features.

00:08:51 ◼   ► And I suppose that this is because Apple only designed

00:08:56 ◼   ► a way for the other way around,

00:08:58 ◼   ► which is if you are an EU customer and you travel abroad,

00:09:01 ◼   ► you have, I believe, a 30-day grace period

00:09:04 ◼   ► to keep receiving updates and keep installing apps

00:09:09 ◼   ► from third-party marketplaces.

00:09:10 ◼   ► But what about my situation where technically

00:09:15 ◼   ► I have a US App Store account, but I live in the EU,

00:09:20 ◼   ► and it seems like there's no solution right now,

00:09:23 ◼   ► and this is what it is.

00:09:26 ◼   ► I cannot get access to any of those features

00:09:30 ◼   ► as long as I believe, as long as I keep

00:09:32 ◼   ► that US App Store account in my settings.

00:09:35 ◼   ► So kind of a weird situation to be in,

00:09:39 ◼   ► because you could imagine that an American citizen

00:09:42 ◼   ► may want to hold onto their Apple ID

00:09:48 ◼   ► if they move from the US to Europe,

00:09:51 ◼   ► and in theory, they become,

00:09:53 ◼   ► like what if you buy a house in Europe

00:09:55 ◼   ► and you become legally a European citizen,

00:09:57 ◼   ► but because you have the US App Store account,

00:09:59 ◼   ► you cannot get access to any of those features?

00:10:01 ◼   ► It seems like the sort of problem

00:10:03 ◼   ► that Apple will have to fix eventually,

00:10:05 ◼   ► but there's no fix right now.

00:10:07 ◼   ► - I mean, for you to just test this stuff,

00:10:10 ◼   ► could you, do you have like a second iPhone?

00:10:12 ◼   ► - I do, I do, I should try.

00:10:15 ◼   ► - So you could just do it, right?

00:10:16 ◼   ► You could just, I'm sure you have a,

00:10:19 ◼   ► I mean, you just have to sign in with your iCloud account,

00:10:22 ◼   ► which is European, right?

00:10:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:10:25 ◼   ► - So you could try it that way, but I mean,

00:10:28 ◼   ► honestly, it would surprise me if there was ever a solution

00:10:31 ◼   ► for this specific problem,

00:10:33 ◼   ► 'cause I think Apple would just say to you,

00:10:35 ◼   ► if you live in Europe, if you want it,

00:10:37 ◼   ► change your Apple ID.

00:10:39 ◼   ► I don't think that that is a,

00:10:42 ◼   ► I'm not saying that that is a good way of dealing with it,

00:10:46 ◼   ► especially for you, but I don't,

00:10:49 ◼   ► I think looking at the way

00:10:50 ◼   ► that they have approached this so far,

00:10:52 ◼   ► I don't think that they're going to care for edge cases,

00:10:56 ◼   ► that they would change, that they would fix them

00:10:58 ◼   ► unless they were legally told they would have to,

00:11:00 ◼   ► and I would also expect that the European Union

00:11:03 ◼   ► aren't gonna fight this specific point,

00:11:05 ◼   ► because it's pretty esoteric, right,

00:11:08 ◼   ► for the majority of instances,

00:11:10 ◼   ► unless there is some other edge case,

00:11:12 ◼   ► like the one that you mentioned about

00:11:14 ◼   ► it restricting the movement of Europeans or something,

00:11:18 ◼   ► I could imagine might be an issue,

00:11:20 ◼   ► but be interesting to see how it unfolds,

00:11:23 ◼   ► especially if more than just app stuff

00:11:27 ◼   ► gets wrapped into this eventually.

00:11:29 ◼   ► Imagine a scenario where there's some kind of

00:11:32 ◼   ► messaging changes that need to happen,

00:11:34 ◼   ► like would that remain the same,

00:11:38 ◼   ► that you would lose access to those features

00:11:40 ◼   ► if you were to travel,

00:11:42 ◼   ► and now you can't do X, Y, and Z on your iPhone

00:11:44 ◼   ► because you're in some kind of weird limbo?

00:11:47 ◼   ► - No, I just think it's kind of weird

00:11:48 ◼   ► that it is tied to the App Store account

00:11:53 ◼   ► rather than the main Apple ID.

00:11:55 ◼   ► I think that's a bit of an odd decision.

00:11:57 ◼   ► - How do you get the stores?

00:12:01 ◼   ► Do you get them from the App Store?

00:12:04 ◼   ► - What do you mean?

00:12:05 ◼   ► - So if you want to download Altstore,

00:12:07 ◼   ► where does it come from?

00:12:09 ◼   ► - In this case, I was sent a .ipa file that I had to--

00:12:13 ◼   ► - I'm expecting that Riley won't do that for everyone, though.

00:12:16 ◼   ► - No, no. - It's hand-delivered.

00:12:18 ◼   ► - I think you will go to a website,

00:12:19 ◼   ► and the website will say,

00:12:20 ◼   ► "Hey, this website wants to install

00:12:22 ◼   ► "a third-party marketplace for you."

00:12:24 ◼   ► - Right.

00:12:25 ◼   ► - That's so weird.

00:12:26 ◼   ► All of this is so new still?

00:12:29 ◼   ► It's like that sentence one year ago

00:12:32 ◼   ► would have sounded bananas, but here we are.

00:12:35 ◼   ► - You know what?

00:12:37 ◼   ► I'm actually gonna try this now.

00:12:38 ◼   ► I think now-- - You should try it.

00:12:40 ◼   ► - Now you've put the doubt in my mind.

00:12:42 ◼   ► - I am convinced it will work when you do that,

00:12:45 ◼   ► 'cause you tick all of the other boxes.

00:12:48 ◼   ► - Okay, so I'm gonna do it.

00:12:49 ◼   ► I'm gonna listen to my offline music, but whatever.

00:12:52 ◼   ► I'm gonna do it during the show.

00:12:55 ◼   ► - You might need a reboot or something.

00:12:57 ◼   ► And the reason I feel confident about this,

00:12:59 ◼   ► I'm saying right now,

00:13:00 ◼   ► because it's kind of similar to what I'm doing

00:13:02 ◼   ► with Vision Pro.

00:13:03 ◼   ► I can change in and out.

00:13:04 ◼   ► Today I checked.

00:13:06 ◼   ► Periodically I checked to see if the App Store

00:13:09 ◼   ► is up and running in the UK yet,

00:13:11 ◼   ► 'cause that would be an indication

00:13:13 ◼   ► that they're getting ready to ship it,

00:13:14 ◼   ► but it's still not.

00:13:15 ◼   ► I try it every couple of weeks or whatever,

00:13:18 ◼   ► because I would also desperately like to change over,

00:13:20 ◼   ► 'cause I'm having to do this weird dance right now,

00:13:22 ◼   ► because I have subscriptions that are renewing,

00:13:25 ◼   ► and I have to keep topping up the gift cards,

00:13:27 ◼   ► and it's a whole thing that I'm finding,

00:13:28 ◼   ► that I would like to get away from that life.

00:13:31 ◼   ► But I had to keep buying things in two places,

00:13:34 ◼   ► stuff like that, which is kind of frustrating.

00:13:37 ◼   ► - And I guess you can't use some of the cool features,

00:13:40 ◼   ► like you get a link to an app on your phone.

00:13:45 ◼   ► It's like, "Oh, download it,

00:13:46 ◼   ► "and it'll be on your Vision Pro next time you put it on.

00:13:48 ◼   ► "I guess that doesn't work for you."

00:13:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, I can't do that.

00:13:49 ◼   ► No, I can't do that.

00:13:50 ◼   ► I have to open it in Safari

00:13:52 ◼   ► and then check my shared Safari tabs, whatever.

00:13:56 ◼   ► - Oh, no.

00:13:56 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:13:57 ◼   ► - And also, we had to talk about this later on,

00:14:00 ◼   ► but we were doing a SharePlay thing earlier,

00:14:01 ◼   ► and Jason was like, "Let's watch for mankind."

00:14:03 ◼   ► And I'm like, "I can't."

00:14:05 ◼   ► 'Cause I don't wanna sign up for TV+

00:14:08 ◼   ► as well as music and Apple Arcade.

00:14:09 ◼   ► I don't want another one.

00:14:11 ◼   ► So we couldn't watch it,

00:14:13 ◼   ► because he wanted me to sign up for another subscription.

00:14:16 ◼   ► - Okay, so I have some real-time follow-up.

00:14:18 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:14:19 ◼   ► - I logged in with my Italian App Store account.

00:14:23 ◼   ► I force quit Safari, reopened Safari,

00:14:26 ◼   ► and now I see, "About your default browser."

00:14:29 ◼   ► - There you go.

00:14:30 ◼   ► - I'm seeing the screen.

00:14:31 ◼   ► Opera, gross, is the first choice.

00:14:34 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:14:37 ◼   ► - What are you gonna choose?

00:14:38 ◼   ► - Ooh, Brave.

00:14:40 ◼   ► - So brave.

00:14:42 ◼   ► - No, thank you.

00:14:43 ◼   ► Safari.

00:14:45 ◼   ► - Safari.

00:14:45 ◼   ► - Welcome to the App Store. - Wow, what an ice-chop.

00:14:47 ◼   ► - Whatever.

00:14:48 ◼   ► - This is the problem.

00:14:50 ◼   ► - Opening this app.

00:14:51 ◼   ► This is so weird.

00:14:52 ◼   ► Opening this app, we'll set it as the default browser.

00:14:54 ◼   ► You can always change this later in Settings.

00:14:56 ◼   ► Open.

00:14:57 ◼   ► Okay, so I'm going to set that for Safari.

00:14:58 ◼   ► - He says that for Safari, too, that's funny.

00:15:00 ◼   ► - So what happens if I tap on that weird alt store?

00:15:04 ◼   ► Oh, I got to reinstall it.

00:15:05 ◼   ► So I'll do it, and I'll let you know in a few minutes.

00:15:08 ◼   ► - Okay, excellent.

00:15:09 ◼   ► This is great.

00:15:09 ◼   ► I love this.

00:15:10 ◼   ► This is some real-time follow-up.

00:15:11 ◼   ► - It is, it's good.

00:15:12 ◼   ► I want to talk briefly about a new Apple AI thing.

00:15:17 ◼   ► This has kind of become something

00:15:18 ◼   ► that we are following along on the show.

00:15:21 ◼   ► Apple released information about a Realm reference resolution

00:15:26 ◼   ► as language modeling.

00:15:30 ◼   ► Now, there's an article on VentureBeat about this.

00:15:32 ◼   ► We also have that linked to the PDF in the show notes

00:15:34 ◼   ► if you want to read that.

00:15:36 ◼   ► I will say a better-looking PDF than previous ones,

00:15:39 ◼   ► don't you think?

00:15:40 ◼   ► - Let me take a look.

00:15:41 ◼   ► I haven't looked at the PDF yet.

00:15:42 ◼   ► I just read the VentureBeat article.

00:15:44 ◼   ► It looks like, yeah, there's some better formatting

00:15:46 ◼   ► in this one.

00:15:47 ◼   ► Like, they have images that actually fit

00:15:49 ◼   ► within the columns this time,

00:15:50 ◼   ► rather than just being like random all over the place.

00:15:52 ◼   ► - The large language model is listening to connected

00:15:55 ◼   ► and implementing changes.

00:15:57 ◼   ► In a nutshell, what this model aims to do

00:16:01 ◼   ► is to understand context and reference

00:16:06 ◼   ► based on what a user is seeing on their screen.

00:16:09 ◼   ► So it can view what's on your computer, iPad, iPhone,

00:16:14 ◼   ► whatever, I guess.

00:16:18 ◼   ► And then that lets the user ask it questions

00:16:22 ◼   ► based on what the user is seeing.

00:16:25 ◼   ► Some of the examples in the PDF

00:16:27 ◼   ► are pretty straightforward.

00:16:29 ◼   ► Like, I'm looking at a website and I say,

00:16:30 ◼   ► "Hey, call this restaurant,"

00:16:32 ◼   ► and it finds the phone number in the footer

00:16:35 ◼   ► of the restaurant website,

00:16:36 ◼   ► and it could make that phone call for you.

00:16:39 ◼   ► That, I think, is pretty clever.

00:16:41 ◼   ► Like, assistants should know what's going on on your device.

00:16:45 ◼   ► I think there's also a huge accessibility story here

00:16:48 ◼   ► where, and Apple already has a lot of great stuff

00:16:51 ◼   ► in VoiceOver and their controls by voice,

00:16:53 ◼   ► but layering this on top of it

00:16:55 ◼   ► could be really interesting as well.

00:16:56 ◼   ► - Well, how amazing would it be

00:16:58 ◼   ► to be able to provide VoiceOver

00:17:00 ◼   ► and with developers not actually needing

00:17:03 ◼   ► to do anything anymore?

00:17:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, 'cause especially out on the web,

00:17:06 ◼   ► a lot of websites don't have proper markup

00:17:08 ◼   ► for that sort of thing.

00:17:09 ◼   ► So that could be, it could be really interesting.

00:17:12 ◼   ► But there's a quote in here

00:17:14 ◼   ► that just kind of blew me away.

00:17:16 ◼   ► So this is a quote from the PDF.

00:17:19 ◼   ► "We demonstrate large improvements

00:17:20 ◼   ► "over an existing system with similar functionality

00:17:24 ◼   ► "across different types of references,

00:17:26 ◼   ► "with our smallest model obtaining absolute gains

00:17:30 ◼   ► "of over 5% for onscreen references."

00:17:34 ◼   ► Here's the sentence.

00:17:36 ◼   ► "Our larger models substantially outperform GPT-4."

00:17:41 ◼   ► - Substantially?

00:17:42 ◼   ► - Substantially. - How large

00:17:43 ◼   ► is that model, though?

00:17:45 ◼   ► - Well, we don't know the relative size of the models.

00:17:49 ◼   ► And reading in context, it seems like they're talking about

00:17:53 ◼   ► what GPT-4 can do in this arena,

00:17:58 ◼   ► I almost said realm, but that's the name of the model.

00:17:59 ◼   ► That would've been confusing.

00:18:01 ◼   ► In the realm, realm of--

00:18:06 ◼   ► - Yes, that one.

00:18:08 ◼   ► - Of using what's on display for context and reference.

00:18:13 ◼   ► So that sentence, that's probably very finely cut.

00:18:16 ◼   ► But if Apple thinks they're playing at the level of open AI

00:18:19 ◼   ► in some of these areas, that's super interesting.

00:18:23 ◼   ► And I think this model,

00:18:24 ◼   ► out of all the things we've talked about,

00:18:26 ◼   ► like editing images, the language and text tools,

00:18:31 ◼   ► this is the one that so far I'm most excited about,

00:18:35 ◼   ► that an assistant or a model could have the context

00:18:40 ◼   ► of what I'm working on

00:18:41 ◼   ► without me having to copy a bunch of stuff

00:18:45 ◼   ► and dump it into a website and like, hey, figure this out.

00:18:48 ◼   ► Like it knows what I'm looking at.

00:18:50 ◼   ► And with permission,

00:18:51 ◼   ► I guarantee there'll be strict permissions around this,

00:18:54 ◼   ► that the system could do things.

00:18:57 ◼   ► And Federico, you pointed out that

00:18:59 ◼   ► Apple's already been playing with this a little bit, right?

00:19:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, for the past few years.

00:19:05 ◼   ► So first, I don't remember, was it iOS 11 or something?

00:19:09 ◼   ► Like, by really going way back.

00:19:12 ◼   ► They rolled out the very rudimentary integration with Siri.

00:19:17 ◼   ► How you used to be able, like the first version

00:19:21 ◼   ► was only integrated, I believe, with reminders.

00:19:23 ◼   ► So you could say, hey, assistant, remind me about this.

00:19:27 ◼   ► And this was whatever was on screen.

00:19:30 ◼   ► And they were using, I believe,

00:19:31 ◼   ► a combination of the NSUserActivity API

00:19:35 ◼   ► to capture what you were looking at.

00:19:37 ◼   ► And that allowed Siri to,

00:19:39 ◼   ► and of course, Siri just activated on my watch,

00:19:41 ◼   ► that allowed Siri to save a reminder

00:19:44 ◼   ► for what you were looking at.

00:19:45 ◼   ► So for example, a webpage with a little icon

00:19:48 ◼   ► that was a deep link to the page that you were looking at.

00:19:51 ◼   ► That worked with any compatible apps.

00:19:53 ◼   ► So Apple Maps, for example, allowed you to save locations.

00:19:58 ◼   ► Apps that had sort of deep linking support,

00:20:02 ◼   ► they all integrated with it.

00:20:03 ◼   ► And then a few years ago,

00:20:05 ◼   ► they rolled out in shortcuts,

00:20:07 ◼   ► and Siri at the same time, of course,

00:20:09 ◼   ► the get what's on screen action.

00:20:12 ◼   ► This is an integration that you can use right now

00:20:14 ◼   ► in shortcuts.

00:20:15 ◼   ► It never worked quite reliably.

00:20:20 ◼   ► Like sometimes it just doesn't get what's on screen.

00:20:23 ◼   ► Mostly I tried using it with Safari on iOS and iPadOS,

00:20:28 ◼   ► because in the iPhone version of Safari,

00:20:32 ◼   ► you can do what you can do on the Mac,

00:20:34 ◼   ► where you can just say,

00:20:35 ◼   ► hey, get the current webpage in Safari.

00:20:37 ◼   ► And instead, if you use the get what's on screen action,

00:20:41 ◼   ► you can get the link of the page

00:20:43 ◼   ► by having the intelligence, whatever,

00:20:46 ◼   ► determine what's on screen.

00:20:48 ◼   ► So this is a very primitive implementation

00:20:51 ◼   ► of something that sounds much, much fancier in this paper,

00:20:55 ◼   ► and that I really hope Apple gets right,

00:20:58 ◼   ► because it could be obviously

00:20:59 ◼   ► one of the key differentiators here compared to ChatGPT.

00:21:04 ◼   ► Just process whatever is on screen,

00:21:06 ◼   ► which is in fact pretty much what the X Workflow folks

00:21:11 ◼   ► and shortcuts folks are working on pretty much

00:21:14 ◼   ► at the moment with their startup.

00:21:16 ◼   ► - The reason I was wondering about like the size

00:21:21 ◼   ► of this model compared to the small model,

00:21:24 ◼   ► compared to ChatGPT or whatever is this is the type of thing

00:21:28 ◼   ► that I would want to be running locally

00:21:30 ◼   ► if I was gonna be using this efficiently,

00:21:34 ◼   ► and also with what I would want to be privacy.

00:21:38 ◼   ► Like I wouldn't want those queries

00:21:41 ◼   ► to be going off to the cloud.

00:21:44 ◼   ► - I wonder if that's what is behind Apple's language

00:21:46 ◼   ► of our smallest model is over 5% gains,

00:21:51 ◼   ► the larger model substantially outperform.

00:21:55 ◼   ► Maybe there will be like a two-step function of this

00:21:59 ◼   ► where you can say, I always want this type of work

00:22:02 ◼   ► on a device, but there's a toggle somewhere of like,

00:22:04 ◼   ► if I want more power, go to the cloud.

00:22:07 ◼   ► I agree with you, something like this,

00:22:08 ◼   ► I want on device, I think, but maybe there's gonna be

00:22:13 ◼   ► some sort of sliding scale of what you can do.

00:22:18 ◼   ► Or maybe it'll be something like

00:22:20 ◼   ► the whisper transcription tools,

00:22:22 ◼   ► like a Mac whisper and a couple other apps

00:22:24 ◼   ► have kind of been built to wrap around that.

00:22:27 ◼   ► And a Mac whisper, you can set what model you're using

00:22:31 ◼   ► and the trade-off is space on disc,

00:22:34 ◼   ► it like downloads the model and the big one is enormous.

00:22:37 ◼   ► And so maybe that's a way Apple could do this

00:22:40 ◼   ► of like, it's all on a device and you kind of pick

00:22:43 ◼   ► how powerful you want it to be based on the space

00:22:48 ◼   ► or the level of performance your device has.

00:22:51 ◼   ► I don't know, that's a big question for me.

00:22:53 ◼   ► - But also the big models can always get smaller, right?

00:22:58 ◼   ► Like the efficiencies and the accuracy of larger models

00:23:03 ◼   ► changes over time, right?

00:23:05 ◼   ► And smaller models get more accurate

00:23:07 ◼   ► because they get smarter at being able to understand

00:23:10 ◼   ► the same thing with a less amount of input.

00:23:12 ◼   ► So like, you know, this can be like an ongoing,

00:23:17 ◼   ► or will be, I'm sure, an ongoing project

00:23:19 ◼   ► where they wanna try and make the small model

00:23:21 ◼   ► as good as the large model.

00:23:22 ◼   ► And it really is just a case of time, it feels like,

00:23:25 ◼   ► for a little bit of stuff now, so yeah.

00:23:30 ◼   ► - I continue to remain, I'm trying to find the word,

00:23:35 ◼   ► like I'm pleased about the fact that they're continuing

00:23:40 ◼   ► to publish work, which suggests that they're working

00:23:44 ◼   ► very hard at this stuff, which I think Apple really,

00:23:47 ◼   ► really should be working very hard at this stuff.

00:23:49 ◼   ► And so I'm pleased to see it.

00:23:51 ◼   ► You love to see it, as they say.

00:23:53 ◼   ► - You love to see it.

00:23:57 ◼   ► We've got new betas, iOS 17.5, iPadOS 17.5.

00:24:02 ◼   ► What's going on here?

00:24:05 ◼   ► I haven't played with these yet.

00:24:07 ◼   ► - Sorry, there's a bit of everything.

00:24:08 ◼   ► Like there's new betas for everything.

00:24:10 ◼   ► You know, there's also the watch, there's also the VisionOS,

00:24:13 ◼   ► everything's like incremented by one.

00:24:16 ◼   ► I think it seems like the biggest thing in iOS 17.5

00:24:21 ◼   ► is sideloading, so the ability to install apps from the web,

00:24:26 ◼   ► which is not currently in .4.

00:24:29 ◼   ► 9to5Mac also found code that this version could enable

00:24:35 ◼   ► the work that Apple and Google have been doing

00:24:37 ◼   ► about tracking devices.

00:24:39 ◼   ► So Apple and Google have worked together

00:24:42 ◼   ► to try and help create an overall picture

00:24:45 ◼   ► of all of the types of devices that people could use,

00:24:48 ◼   ► like an AirTag or a tile or a tracker,

00:24:51 ◼   ► like those all competing things, to help people who,

00:24:56 ◼   ► they're effectively being used on a stalking device.

00:24:59 ◼   ► And so this code in iOS would seem to be able to,

00:25:04 ◼   ► can indicate if there is a device that is tracking you,

00:25:07 ◼   ► even if it's not in the Firemind network,

00:25:10 ◼   ► it can't help you get rid of it,

00:25:13 ◼   ► but they can indicate to you this is this type of device,

00:25:17 ◼   ► this is where you can go to disable this.

00:25:21 ◼   ► Like this is how this device can be disabled.

00:25:23 ◼   ► Like it can point you in the right direction.

00:25:26 ◼   ► And it's doing that through I'm sure a lot of complicated

00:25:28 ◼   ► stuff around Bluetooth and how Bluetooth is tracking.

00:25:30 ◼   ► And really Google and Apple are able to work together

00:25:33 ◼   ► to share this information.

00:25:35 ◼   ► I expect it will be some kind of like ongoing list

00:25:37 ◼   ► that they're adding to, where they can try

00:25:40 ◼   ► and detect these types of devices, so that's cool.

00:25:43 ◼   ► And iPadOS 17.5, 9to5 also found code

00:25:48 ◼   ► that indicates the next Apple Pencil will include

00:25:51 ◼   ► a quote squeeze gesture, I'll read from the article.

00:25:54 ◼   ► The gesture can be used for quick interaction,

00:25:56 ◼   ► such as adding shapes, signatures, stickers,

00:25:58 ◼   ► or a text field.

00:25:59 ◼   ► Presumably the gesture will be triggered

00:26:02 ◼   ► by pressing the Apple Pencil surface.

00:26:05 ◼   ► - Squeeze to draw.

00:26:07 ◼   ► - Squeeze to, that's not what I want, I want buttons.

00:26:09 ◼   ► I want like an actual button. - Squeeze to erase.

00:26:11 ◼   ► - Like tapping, squeezing, just put a button on it.

00:26:15 ◼   ► And maybe it will be like in essence a button,

00:26:18 ◼   ► but you squeeze the button like it's solid state

00:26:20 ◼   ► or something.

00:26:21 ◼   ► - I think it makes sense, like you squeeze your AirPods

00:26:24 ◼   ► already, they don't call it squeeze, right, on the AirPods.

00:26:27 ◼   ► What did they call it?

00:26:28 ◼   ► - I don't know what they call it.

00:26:29 ◼   ► - Press. - Press, hold, squeeze,

00:26:31 ◼   ► press, I don't know.

00:26:32 ◼   ► - AirPods, bro. - Embrace, hold, squeeze.

00:26:34 ◼   ► - I think embrace is the verb.

00:26:36 ◼   ► - Squeeze, you're not embracing your AirPods.

00:26:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's like a tiny embrace.

00:26:40 ◼   ► - It's, they don't say squeeze.

00:26:45 ◼   ► - Well, hang on, we have that PDF.

00:26:50 ◼   ► - Press, they just say press.

00:26:52 ◼   ► - Press, okay, I was gonna look it up in the style guide.

00:26:55 ◼   ► - Press, the touch control.

00:26:56 ◼   ► - Press doesn't feel right, 'cause you don't press it, do you?

00:26:59 ◼   ► Like you press with a finger. - Squeeze it.

00:27:02 ◼   ► You pinch it or something.

00:27:04 ◼   ► - Squeeze it, pinch it, push it.

00:27:06 ◼   ► - Maybe you're only pressing on one side

00:27:08 ◼   ► and the other finger needs to be there

00:27:09 ◼   ► so it doesn't pop out of your ear, so.

00:27:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, but that's a squeeze.

00:27:13 ◼   ► - It feels like squeezing. - That's a squeeze,

00:27:13 ◼   ► that's not a press.

00:27:15 ◼   ► - Well, so there's gonna be a new Apple Pencil

00:27:19 ◼   ► with the new iPads and you're gonna squeeze them.

00:27:23 ◼   ► So that's cool, I mean, it sounds like they're gonna have

00:27:26 ◼   ► this new gesture and you're gonna be able to configure it

00:27:28 ◼   ► to whatever you want, that's, you know,

00:27:30 ◼   ► knowing Apple, there's gonna be an option in settings

00:27:32 ◼   ► and whatever they're gonna call this,

00:27:34 ◼   ► like press the pencil, whatever, or pinch the pencil,

00:27:37 ◼   ► you will be able to assign like a shortcut to it.

00:27:41 ◼   ► That would be my guess.

00:27:43 ◼   ► - Press, yes, but I found out on the web,

00:27:45 ◼   ► on like, I've been scouring the apple.com AirPods page

00:27:49 ◼   ► and here it says, "I'm pressed twice to end a call."

00:27:52 ◼   ► So it's pressing. - Press, press, press.

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00:29:21 ◼   ► Our thanks to NetSuite for their support of the show

00:29:24 ◼   ► and Relay FM.

00:29:25 ◼   ► - All right, it is time for our favorite result

00:29:31 ◼   ► of the DMA, the Teach Italian segment.

00:29:34 ◼   ► - Buongiorno, professor.

00:29:37 ◼   ► Today, we are going to learn the verb to be.

00:29:42 ◼   ► We're going to learn how to conjugate the verb to be

00:29:48 ◼   ► with the different types of persons that we need to try

00:29:53 ◼   ► with Italian language.

00:29:56 ◼   ► So last week we did the pronouns

00:29:57 ◼   ► and today we're going to combine those pronouns

00:30:01 ◼   ► with the verb to be.

00:30:02 ◼   ► So you can say I am, you are and so forth.

00:30:05 ◼   ► So I'm going to do, I'm going to read the Italian versions

00:30:09 ◼   ► first, but first disclaimer.

00:30:13 ◼   ► You should know that unlike the English language

00:30:15 ◼   ► where you have the sort of the main form of a verb,

00:30:20 ◼   ► well now I guess there are irregular verbs in English too.

00:30:24 ◼   ► So disregard what I was about to say.

00:30:27 ◼   ► The verb to be also is an irregular verb in Italian,

00:30:31 ◼   ► which is to say it changes form depending

00:30:35 ◼   ► on the tense and the pronoun.

00:30:38 ◼   ► So I am is io sono.

00:30:41 ◼   ► You are is to say.

00:30:45 ◼   ► He, she, they, you know, the third person is lui o lei,

00:30:51 ◼   ► e or if we're using the singular they, loro sono.

00:30:58 ◼   ► - I'm lost.

00:31:01 ◼   ► - I don't even really know what we're doing anymore.

00:31:03 ◼   ► - What's to be, like what do you mean?

00:31:06 ◼   ► - So he to be, she to be, they to be.

00:31:10 ◼   ► I am, you are, he is, we are, you are, they are.

00:31:14 ◼   ► - Airbnb. - Very simple.

00:31:15 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, all right.

00:31:17 ◼   ► To be conceptually.

00:31:21 ◼   ► - To be, the verb to be, you know, like I am Mike.

00:31:25 ◼   ► Like what if you need to say I am Mike?

00:31:27 ◼   ► How would you say, you would say io sono Mike.

00:31:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, so again, like in Romanian,

00:31:32 ◼   ► it would be it's son't.

00:31:34 ◼   ► - Yes. - So there you go.

00:31:35 ◼   ► - Yes, that is pretty much like Latin actually.

00:31:39 ◼   ► - It's all Latin, it's a Latin language.

00:31:41 ◼   ► - Wow, so let's try with the first three, right?

00:31:46 ◼   ► With the first three pronouns and we start with I am

00:31:51 ◼   ► or in Italian, io, which we learned last week sono.

00:31:57 ◼   ► - Io sono. - Yes.

00:32:00 ◼   ► - Io sono. - Okay.

00:32:03 ◼   ► - Tu sei. - Tu sei.

00:32:06 ◼   ► - Tu sei. - Good, so here,

00:32:10 ◼   ► you will learn when we do the numbers

00:32:13 ◼   ► that in the Italian language,

00:32:15 ◼   ► the same word can have different meanings.

00:32:18 ◼   ► In this case, sei, it could either mean like you are,

00:32:23 ◼   ► but the word sei is also the word for the number six.

00:32:32 ◼   ► - It's the same word, but this is what we do sometimes

00:32:37 ◼   ► in the Italian language.

00:32:38 ◼   ► The same word, depending on context,

00:32:41 ◼   ► can have different meanings.

00:32:42 ◼   ► So if you say you are, you're not saying you six,

00:32:46 ◼   ► you're saying you are, like if you say.

00:32:48 ◼   ► - How would you say you six are?

00:32:50 ◼   ► - That doesn't mean anything.

00:32:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was like you six are going to the store, right?

00:32:55 ◼   ► So you've said like, there's like seven people,

00:32:58 ◼   ► you're pointing at six, I'm like you six, get out of here.

00:33:01 ◼   ► - Well, you wouldn't say two, you would say voi,

00:33:05 ◼   ► which is the plural version.

00:33:08 ◼   ► - Like the plural of you.

00:33:09 ◼   ► - And there's a plural version of that.

00:33:12 ◼   ► It's not sei, it's siete, which we'll get to in a minute.

00:33:15 ◼   ► - Because it's six, but you're like the word six,

00:33:18 ◼   ► but because you're addressing an individual,

00:33:21 ◼   ► it's not gonna conflict, okay.

00:33:23 ◼   ► - Exactly, you're addressing a singular individual.

00:33:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, so in the Italian language, some words spell

00:33:31 ◼   ► the same way, pronounce the same way,

00:33:33 ◼   ► they have different meanings.

00:33:34 ◼   ► Sometimes the same word can be written down exactly the same,

00:33:39 ◼   ► but we have phonetic accents that change

00:33:43 ◼   ► the sound of the word.

00:33:44 ◼   ► So this is not part of today's lesson,

00:33:46 ◼   ► but for example, the word pesca,

00:33:50 ◼   ► when I say it like this, pesca, it means.

00:33:54 ◼   ► - Is that fish?

00:33:55 ◼   ► - No, it's peach, the fruit.

00:33:57 ◼   ► So pesca, with the open, like pesca, like that,

00:34:03 ◼   ► it means the peach.

00:34:04 ◼   ► If I say pesca, right, you hear the sound,

00:34:08 ◼   ► it's like a tighter sound, that means fishing.

00:34:11 ◼   ► Yes, it's written down the same way.

00:34:16 ◼   ► - So I was close though, right?

00:34:18 ◼   ► - You were close, you must have heard that.

00:34:19 ◼   ► - What is fish, how do you say fish?

00:34:21 ◼   ► - Pesce.

00:34:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I was in the right ballpark.

00:34:25 ◼   ► - Teach, peach to fish.

00:34:28 ◼   ► - Yep, but back to the pronouns,

00:34:30 ◼   ► so, eosono, to say, now we do the third person.

00:34:36 ◼   ► So when we do the gendered person,

00:34:39 ◼   ► lui or lei, as we learned last week, e,

00:34:43 ◼   ► and this is the accented e letter, e.

00:34:48 ◼   ► - Yep. - E.

00:34:49 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, so like. - Lui, e.

00:34:53 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:34:54 ◼   ► - Is it like lui, e sono?

00:34:57 ◼   ► - No, no, no, so if you're saying lui or lei,

00:34:59 ◼   ► so that would be he and she, you say e, lui, e, or lei, e.

00:35:04 ◼   ► - Okay, that's it, all right, lei, e.

00:35:09 ◼   ► - Or if you're using the singular they,

00:35:11 ◼   ► so as we learned, it's loro, you would say loro sono.

00:35:15 ◼   ► - Loro sono. - Loro sono.

00:35:18 ◼   ► - Now we do the first person plural.

00:35:20 ◼   ► We, as we learned, it's noi, and the verb is siamo.

00:35:25 ◼   ► Noi siamo.

00:35:28 ◼   ► - Noi siamo. - Noi siamo.

00:35:31 ◼   ► - Not siamo, siamo.

00:35:33 ◼   ► - My favorite thing about this segment

00:35:35 ◼   ► is how Steven gets quieter and quieter.

00:35:37 ◼   ► - Yeah. - The further we go,

00:35:39 ◼   ► I imagine he's just walking away from his computer,

00:35:41 ◼   ► like he's just like on the other side of the room.

00:35:44 ◼   ► - Something that you will learn

00:35:46 ◼   ► as you guys start formulating sentences is that.

00:35:49 ◼   ► - Obviously we will, yeah,

00:35:51 ◼   ► we're definitely gonna get to that level.

00:35:52 ◼   ► - I think you will, I think you will.

00:35:54 ◼   ► You will try a very short sentence today.

00:35:56 ◼   ► Verbs, they always end in kinda in the same way.

00:36:03 ◼   ► So for example, when you say a verb and the pronoun is we,

00:36:07 ◼   ► in this case, we said noi siamo.

00:36:10 ◼   ► But if I were to say we eat, right,

00:36:12 ◼   ► like we eat pasta, for example,

00:36:15 ◼   ► I would say noi manjamo.

00:36:17 ◼   ► So you hear how it always ends with the same sound?

00:36:21 ◼   ► Siamo, manjamo, it always ends like that.

00:36:24 ◼   ► - Tomato.

00:36:25 ◼   ► - I love how similar, so to eat in Romanian is manunca.

00:36:31 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:36:32 ◼   ► - I love this, I'm really enjoying,

00:36:34 ◼   ► as I'm learning Romanian.

00:36:35 ◼   ► - The similarities.

00:36:36 ◼   ► - Understanding the similarities

00:36:37 ◼   ► between Romanian and Italian.

00:36:39 ◼   ► 'Cause whenever we have been to Italy,

00:36:41 ◼   ► Adina can kind of just get by, like she can work out,

00:36:44 ◼   ► she can't speak it, but she can understand

00:36:45 ◼   ► what people are saying to her.

00:36:46 ◼   ► - I believe one of the words she knew was manjare,

00:36:50 ◼   ► which is to eat, of course, she knew that word.

00:36:53 ◼   ► - It's an easy one, 'cause I recognize it too.

00:36:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, so you are, it's voi siete.

00:37:00 ◼   ► - Voi siete.

00:37:03 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:37:03 ◼   ► Steven is just gone.

00:37:07 ◼   ► - Say it again.

00:37:08 ◼   ► - He just left.

00:37:08 ◼   ► - Voi siete.

00:37:10 ◼   ► - Voi siete.

00:37:12 ◼   ► - Yep, and finally again, third person plural,

00:37:15 ◼   ► loro sono.

00:37:17 ◼   ► - Loro sono.

00:37:18 ◼   ► - Loro sono.

00:37:19 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:37:20 ◼   ► - So that's the same--

00:37:21 ◼   ► - Mike, you actually made a pretty good sound

00:37:23 ◼   ► for the letter R, yeah.

00:37:25 ◼   ► - Oh, good, they're all completely accidental.

00:37:28 ◼   ► So this is because, again, like we were talking

00:37:31 ◼   ► about earlier, and I guess this is contextual, right?

00:37:35 ◼   ► It's the same as in English, because we did,

00:37:37 ◼   ► it's the two theys, but it's the same word.

00:37:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, the two theys are the same, yes.

00:37:43 ◼   ► So very simple sentence.

00:37:45 ◼   ► I want you to say, "I am Mike" or "I am Steven."

00:37:47 ◼   ► So how would you say it?

00:37:49 ◼   ► Would it be "Yo sono Mike"?

00:37:52 ◼   ► -Yep. -"La sono Esteban"

00:37:54 ◼   ► I don't know what you did!

00:37:57 ◼   ► Well, if you were to go for an Italian version of your name,

00:38:03 ◼   ► you would say, "Yo sono Stefano."

00:38:04 ◼   ► Stefano, oh!

00:38:07 ◼   ► Not Stefano.

00:38:07 ◼   ► -Stefano. -Stefano.

00:38:11 ◼   ► Is there an Italian Michael?

00:38:13 ◼   ► -Michele. -Michele.

00:38:15 ◼   ► -Oh, "Yo sono Michele." -Yes.

00:38:18 ◼   ► Yes, baby, I love it.

00:38:21 ◼   ► And that's it for today.

00:38:22 ◼   ► -Thank you. -That's fantastic.

00:38:24 ◼   ► So wait, just one last thing.

00:38:25 ◼   ► You're like, it would be "Tu se Federico," right?

00:38:28 ◼   ► Yes, yes.

00:38:30 ◼   ► -I'm learning. -Yeah.

00:38:32 ◼   ► We've had a fun 24 hours out of nowhere,

00:38:38 ◼   ► like literally out of nowhere, like a Trojan horse.

00:38:41 ◼   ► Apple enabled spatial personas.

00:38:44 ◼   ► Now, this is something that we've seen a little bit of at WWDC.

00:38:50 ◼   ► Apple published some imagery of what a spatial persona would look like

00:38:55 ◼   ► in a FaceTime call.

00:38:56 ◼   ► So currently, we know what personas are, people have seen them by now.

00:39:00 ◼   ► It is the 3D representation of your face

00:39:04 ◼   ► that when you wear a Vision Pro, people will see as a FaceTime call.

00:39:10 ◼   ► And they've been in boxes previously when you're on a call,

00:39:15 ◼   ► but this is breaking the persona out of the box.

00:39:18 ◼   ► They are now, you see a head, part of shoulders,

00:39:21 ◼   ► and people's hands.

00:39:23 ◼   ► They are positioned in a space with you.

00:39:25 ◼   ► And it feels like, you know, you can have calls with people

00:39:30 ◼   ► when you're FaceTiming, it moves them from opposite you to next to you.

00:39:34 ◼   ► So you're looking at the, like if you're doing, sorry,

00:39:36 ◼   ► like SharePlay and FaceTime, so you can look at, say,

00:39:38 ◼   ► a TV screen together or something.

00:39:40 ◼   ► It's very different, but Apple enabled this in, just all of a sudden.

00:39:45 ◼   ► It's been in 1.1 and it maybe took a reboot of a Vision Pro,

00:39:49 ◼   ► but now when you're on a FaceTime call,

00:39:51 ◼   ► there's a new button that you can press and it turns on spatial personas.

00:39:55 ◼   ► We have done some individual calls.

00:39:57 ◼   ► Me and Steven were part of a five-person call today as well.

00:40:01 ◼   ► And you can do things from just having a conversation with people

00:40:05 ◼   ► to playing games.

00:40:06 ◼   ► We've all played Battleship, which is part of the Game Room game,

00:40:11 ◼   ► which is an Apple Arcade, which is a really great experience.

00:40:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:40:15 ◼   ► Well, Steven, what do you think about all this?

00:40:17 ◼   ► I think it's fascinating.

00:40:19 ◼   ► It really changes the sense of presence

00:40:24 ◼   ► when someone goes from floating in a gray box

00:40:27 ◼   ► to being more three-dimensional.

00:40:31 ◼   ► And Apple's doing some stuff to really make that fun.

00:40:34 ◼   ► Like if someone stands up and you're sitting down, they're taller than you.

00:40:38 ◼   ► If someone turns, you see kind of like,

00:40:43 ◼   ► you don't see the back of their head, right?

00:40:45 ◼   ► The persona doesn't capture that, but you kind of see them turn.

00:40:47 ◼   ► It just, it feels.

00:40:51 ◼   ► It feels much more real in a way that I honestly did not expect.

00:40:54 ◼   ► That's not to say it's goofy and like weird things happen,

00:40:57 ◼   ► like the top image in my blog post is Jason coming through my home view

00:41:01 ◼   ► of my Vision Pro while on the moon.

00:41:03 ◼   ► It's like a very funny image.

00:41:05 ◼   ► But the sense of presence is really cool, and they adjust

00:41:10 ◼   ► how it works depending on on what you're doing.

00:41:13 ◼   ► So if I just call somebody and we're in our spatial personas,

00:41:18 ◼   ► that person is across from me.

00:41:20 ◼   ► We're like looking at each other.

00:41:22 ◼   ► But then if we go into a SharePlay experience, say we're going to watch

00:41:27 ◼   ► something on Apple TV Plus or have like a free form board or something like that,

00:41:32 ◼   ► then suddenly we're sitting side by side as like we're looking at the document

00:41:38 ◼   ► together, like from the same perspective, we're watching a movie,

00:41:43 ◼   ► we're in a theater side by side.

00:41:45 ◼   ► It's really compelling in a way that honestly,

00:41:47 ◼   ► I did not expect and caught me a little off guard.

00:41:50 ◼   ► And of course, they're doing a great job of spatial audio as well.

00:41:55 ◼   ► So as as like they are moving people around, which they do,

00:41:58 ◼   ► depending on what you're doing, right?

00:42:00 ◼   ► Like if you're if you're just talking to people, they kind of arrange you

00:42:03 ◼   ► in a circle, like the first person is facing you.

00:42:07 ◼   ► And then as more people join, it kind of like shifts shifts them around

00:42:10 ◼   ► to you're in a circle as a maximum of five people that can be on a call.

00:42:13 ◼   ► But as people are moving, whether you're talking to them head on

00:42:16 ◼   ► or they're moving to be next to you in a plane

00:42:19 ◼   ► because you're looking at a screen together with SharePlay,

00:42:21 ◼   ► it changes where they are.

00:42:23 ◼   ► So you know where to look because you can hear them.

00:42:26 ◼   ► They're right next to you.

00:42:28 ◼   ► So this combination of SharePlay and spatial audio like.

00:42:33 ◼   ► There is a really good question of which came first with these.

00:42:38 ◼   ► Was this stuff made for Vision Pro or have they just taken these technologies

00:42:42 ◼   ► and made them work really well with Vision Pro?

00:42:44 ◼   ► It's hard to tell sometimes of Apple.

00:42:47 ◼   ► But this is one of those scenarios where it feels like a lot of their component

00:42:50 ◼   ► parts have come together to create something which is like

00:42:55 ◼   ► I was in this call today with the guys and there were five of us.

00:42:58 ◼   ► And like it felt like to me, this is the reason to buy a Vision Pro,

00:43:02 ◼   ► because I felt today that I was just hanging out in my buds for a bit.

00:43:06 ◼   ► And like, yeah, it was very compelling, very, very, very compelling.

00:43:11 ◼   ► More than any other type of VR experience I've had like this,

00:43:16 ◼   ► where you're trying to like spend time in a shared space.

00:43:19 ◼   ► It was really, really, really, really good.

00:43:21 ◼   ► I was very impressed by it.

00:43:23 ◼   ► I thought it was going to be a gimmicky thing for like a couple of minutes.

00:43:27 ◼   ► But the more we spent like it, Mike and I,

00:43:31 ◼   ► we played the session of Battleship with Game Room.

00:43:34 ◼   ► And it did feel like I was just hanging out with Mike for 15 minutes.

00:43:38 ◼   ► And we played a game and like the sense of presence and like the sort

00:43:43 ◼   ► of the virtual physicality of it in a way like how, for example,

00:43:48 ◼   ► I had to like look over the board of the game.

00:43:53 ◼   ► If I wanted to see Mike's face, like,

00:43:55 ◼   ► which is something that I would do in real life,

00:43:56 ◼   ► if that object was physically in front of me, I would have to do that.

00:44:00 ◼   ► And I had to do that for something that didn't exist in the physical space at all.

00:44:04 ◼   ► But it kind of did in the Vision Pro space that felt like,

00:44:10 ◼   ► it felt credible. It felt like something that, you know,

00:44:15 ◼   ► what if I want to just hang out with Mike and talk about, you know,

00:44:19 ◼   ► talking about podcasts or whatever and get some work done for like half an hour.

00:44:23 ◼   ► It would be so much better than to do the same in a Zoom window, you know,

00:44:28 ◼   ► where we're looking at our faces in the webcam. And like, I don't know,

00:44:33 ◼   ► it just felt less isolating. And it felt very nice.

00:44:39 ◼   ► Yeah, it was really great.

00:44:40 ◼   ► Yeah. I also tried to put my finger in Mike's mouth.

00:44:44 ◼   ► Yes. That's the first thing you tried to do.

00:44:46 ◼   ► I kind of put my finger in your mouth and I said, you can try.

00:44:49 ◼   ► And as soon as he did it, my head disappeared. So I think Apple has quite rightly,

00:44:53 ◼   ► like you can touch hands, but you can't touch somebody's face.

00:44:59 ◼   ► Yeah. Yeah. Now they kind of disappear. They're like a, like a,

00:45:03 ◼   ► like a ghost or something. And also when you forget,

00:45:05 ◼   ► I wanted to like kiss Mike on the forehead. But like,

00:45:09 ◼   ► but when I get close, your face disappears. So,

00:45:16 ◼   ► unfortunately it cannot be done. But yeah, like the,

00:45:20 ◼   ► the fact that the personas are rearranged in the workspace,

00:45:25 ◼   ► depending on the SharePlay experience,

00:45:27 ◼   ► I think that is also very fascinating. So you could,

00:45:30 ◼   ► you could imagine how different types of 3D objects in the, in the,

00:45:34 ◼   ► what's it called? Like the, the, the full space,

00:45:38 ◼   ► like what's it called when you're using a 3D thing in VisionOS?

00:45:42 ◼   ► Anyway, like how he rearranges the environment. No,

00:45:47 ◼   ► like there's a proper terminology for like the,

00:45:49 ◼   ► like the space when you're using a 3D experience, but whatever you get what I

00:45:55 ◼   ► mean. Like, so how he rearranges effectively,

00:45:57 ◼   ► like the heads of the personas, depending on the 3D object.

00:46:01 ◼   ► I thought that was very cool.

00:46:02 ◼   ► Yeah. It's all,

00:46:05 ◼   ► it's all really well thought out and it's something that that Apple talked about

00:46:09 ◼   ► in June and included the needed a little more time to get it

00:46:14 ◼   ► ready. But no, Federico it's interesting.

00:46:16 ◼   ► Like it's interesting to hear y'all have the same reaction I did,

00:46:20 ◼   ► that it really is impactful. In fact, after our, our big group call today,

00:46:24 ◼   ► I ran inside to get a bottle of water and like say,

00:46:26 ◼   ► had to marry before we sat down to record. I told her, I was like,

00:46:30 ◼   ► this sounds ridiculous, but like if the prices came down and like,

00:46:33 ◼   ► my work changed where I was on the road a lot, like I, like I was before COVID,

00:46:39 ◼   ► like this would be a great way to like communicate,

00:46:42 ◼   ► like if I wasn't home a bunch, right.

00:46:45 ◼   ► And it's not the only reason to get a vision pro,

00:46:48 ◼   ► but this is now the top of my list, my relatively short list of like reasons to,

00:46:53 ◼   ► to consider one of these things, because the, the sense of,

00:46:59 ◼   ► this is a presence really is something that is hard, that is hard to convey.

00:47:05 ◼   ► Like when Mike stood up, I was sitting on the couch in my office and,

00:47:08 ◼   ► and you stood up and you were taller than me. Like it,

00:47:13 ◼   ► it felt like you were looking down on me. Like there's a,

00:47:15 ◼   ► there's a screenshot in my blog post. Like we all put our hands in the middle.

00:47:18 ◼   ► It's like, we're playing the hokey pokey.

00:47:19 ◼   ► Like it's really weird how your brain sort of latches onto this

00:47:24 ◼   ► now. Is it lifelike? No, like,

00:47:28 ◼   ► enough, but it's enough. It's enough.

00:47:32 ◼   ► Would I like to have arms at some point? Is that just hands? Yeah.

00:47:36 ◼   ► Would I like my hands to look like my actual hands? Yeah. But for where we are,

00:47:40 ◼   ► you know, three months into this thing, it's, it's compelling. Yeah.

00:47:44 ◼   ► I mean, couple of years down the road,

00:47:47 ◼   ► they're probably going to do a full body scan, right?

00:47:49 ◼   ► And you're going to have like a proper realistic 3D.

00:47:52 ◼   ► You might not need a full body scan though.

00:47:55 ◼   ► Nobody imagine if you were actually sitting next to me.

00:47:58 ◼   ► No, but like they could, they could create. Oh, I mean, yes. Right. Like,

00:48:03 ◼   ► like, like they should have, Mike,

00:48:07 ◼   ► have you played Dragon's Dogma at all? I haven't. I haven't.

00:48:10 ◼   ► So they have this incredible character creator that I think is the best

00:48:15 ◼   ► character creator I've ever seen in a video game.

00:48:17 ◼   ► And like I could imagine something like that in VisionOS,

00:48:19 ◼   ► like where you're scanning your face and your hands,

00:48:23 ◼   ► but then if you want to create your body and like pick a different outfit or

00:48:26 ◼   ► whatever, you would have like a little video game creation,

00:48:29 ◼   ► character creation screen or something,

00:48:31 ◼   ► which is sort of like what they have with the Memoji in a way. But imagine that,

00:48:35 ◼   ► but for a realistic avatar, that would be cool.

00:48:37 ◼   ► It would be really cool.

00:48:39 ◼   ► Yeah. I'm like, I'm fascinated by this. Um,

00:48:45 ◼   ► I,

00:48:46 ◼   ► clearly this is what they wanted to ship, right?

00:48:50 ◼   ► Like this is so much better than just talking to the personas as they were when

00:48:56 ◼   ► it shipped. It's like, to me,

00:48:58 ◼   ► like this is obvious that this is what they wanted this to be when it,

00:49:02 ◼   ► from the beginning. Uh, but it's,

00:49:05 ◼   ► now that it's here, like I, I'm very much struck by like, Oh man,

00:49:09 ◼   ► I would love to be able to do this as a regular thing with my friends

00:49:15 ◼   ► and we can just hang out. And you know,

00:49:17 ◼   ► like it's funny that you said that about, uh,

00:49:19 ◼   ► we're talking to Mary Steven because I know that obviously she has been, uh,

00:49:23 ◼   ► quite against the idea, right. Just in general,

00:49:26 ◼   ► like she doesn't like the vision pro you had said before that she thought it was

00:49:30 ◼   ► kind of strange, but this is how you start to get people,

00:49:34 ◼   ► right? It's stuff like this where now you're like, Oh no,

00:49:38 ◼   ► like you,

00:49:40 ◼   ► I think you would dig this and then maybe she would try it when you'd be on the

00:49:42 ◼   ► road and be like, okay, I still think this thing is kind of silly,

00:49:45 ◼   ► but this is a really cool use case. And like these,

00:49:48 ◼   ► these are the things that you kind of like start stacking these up over time and

00:49:52 ◼   ► they become reasons for people to adopt this technology.

00:49:56 ◼   ► And that's how it kind of like proliferates, right? It's,

00:49:59 ◼   ► it's kind of interesting that even you would suggest that to her.

00:50:02 ◼   ► Yeah. Not something I would have done before, before this.

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00:52:39 ◼   ► So Federico's out here. He's out here, you know, he's doing his thing.

00:52:46 ◼   ► He's living his life. He's hacking and slashing now with the Vision Pro.

00:52:51 ◼   ► How are you enjoying your Etsy purchases Federico?

00:52:55 ◼   ► I am loving them.

00:52:57 ◼   ► I have one final delivery on the way from

00:53:02 ◼   ► John.

00:53:02 ◼   ► I heard about this. John told me about this earlier. I don't know what it is,

00:53:05 ◼   ► but he's like, I'm posting again for Federico.

00:53:08 ◼   ► It's an alternative to the air cover.

00:53:11 ◼   ► It's a similar product. We'll see.

00:53:14 ◼   ► We'll see if it's more comfortable or not.

00:53:16 ◼   ► But yeah,

00:53:17 ◼   ► so I posted last week on Mac stories about how I'm using the Vision Pro without a

00:53:22 ◼   ► light seal and with the two sort of like

00:53:27 ◼   ► solo knit bands.

00:53:29 ◼   ► That's the setup that I'm using right now. I'm basically,

00:53:33 ◼   ► don't have a light seal. I'm using this accessory called the air cover,

00:53:37 ◼   ► which makes the Vision Pro sort of like rest on my

00:53:42 ◼   ► forehead so that I can use it without the light seal,

00:53:47 ◼   ► the blocks, you know, the light from, from all sides.

00:53:50 ◼   ► And it's like,

00:53:51 ◼   ► It reminds me of how the PSVR would sit,

00:53:56 ◼   ► right? Like kind of like on your forehead and then almost like suspend

00:54:01 ◼   ► the thing in front of you.

00:54:03 ◼   ► Yeah. It's, it's basically suspended in front of my eyes.

00:54:07 ◼   ► Of course it's using the two bands,

00:54:12 ◼   ► which I've been doing for the past month. I'm using this adapter.

00:54:14 ◼   ► I've tried a lot of adapters, like literally every single one on Etsy.

00:54:19 ◼   ► And the best one, if anybody's interested in this sort of product,

00:54:22 ◼   ► the best one is the Solo Top that you can get from Etsy.

00:54:25 ◼   ► A really good high quality print on this one

00:54:29 ◼   ► feels much better than other 3D printed objects that I've tried.

00:54:33 ◼   ► And it fits in perfectly with the Vision Pro audio straps.

00:54:39 ◼   ► And there's even like a version for the developer strap,

00:54:43 ◼   ► if you want to get that.

00:54:44 ◼   ► So the two bands, you know, the one in the back of the head and the one on top of the head,

00:54:50 ◼   ► it's so comfortable as a system.

00:54:53 ◼   ► I believe that Jon, One True Jon is also now a believer.

00:54:57 ◼   ► And yeah, it's very, very comfortable.

00:55:00 ◼   ► And it's sort of a confirmed

00:55:04 ◼   ► how much I love this band design from Apple,

00:55:07 ◼   ► like how easy it is to put it on, how accessible really it is to adjust,

00:55:12 ◼   ► you know, just by turning the dial.

00:55:14 ◼   ► Like it doesn't require all the fiddling of, for example,

00:55:19 ◼   ► the dual loop strap.

00:55:22 ◼   ► It's very easy to put on and adjust.

00:55:25 ◼   ► And having one at the top of the head looks kind of ridiculous.

00:55:29 ◼   ► But boy, is it comfortable. It's really, really comfortable.

00:55:32 ◼   ► And I basically don't feel the Vision Pro on my face,

00:55:35 ◼   ► like my cheekbones or my nose anymore with this system.

00:55:38 ◼   ► And the other realization that I had over the past month was that

00:55:43 ◼   ► the Vision Pro made me realize that I'm not really a VR guy,

00:55:46 ◼   ► but I am so on board with AR and sort of the mixed reality approach.

00:55:52 ◼   ► Like I never spend time in environment.

00:55:54 ◼   ► I always like to keep an eye on what is going on around me,

00:55:59 ◼   ► whether it's like my dogs or if Silvia is at home or...

00:56:03 ◼   ► I use the Vision Pro at night a lot,

00:56:06 ◼   ► and I just like to see that, you know, Silvia is sleeping

00:56:10 ◼   ► and that the dogs are sleeping and that nothing is going on.

00:56:12 ◼   ► I just like to be aware all the time, which I understand why for a lot of people,

00:56:16 ◼   ► this is like the opposite of why they got a Vision Pro,

00:56:21 ◼   ► because they want to be immersed.

00:56:22 ◼   ► They want to sort of shut out the outside world.

00:56:25 ◼   ► And I understand that.

00:56:27 ◼   ► But for me, I just want to use this AR product from Apple.

00:56:31 ◼   ► You know, I just I'm in pass-through mode all the time.

00:56:34 ◼   ► And for that reason, I think it made more sense for me to get this accessory,

00:56:39 ◼   ► the Air Cover, and basically use the Vision Pro as an AR/MR accessory.

00:56:47 ◼   ► What is it like if you do use an environment, though?

00:56:50 ◼   ► Like, obviously they work.

00:56:52 ◼   ► Well, you see the environment, but then you see also like...

00:56:54 ◼   ► Because you have real peripheral vision, right?

00:56:57 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:56:59 ◼   ► The environment, you can actually look at the...

00:57:02 ◼   ► It wraps around you, but there are basically on the left and right,

00:57:06 ◼   ► two holes in your peripheral vision.

00:57:09 ◼   ► And so it kind of...

00:57:11 ◼   ► I mean, you can...

00:57:12 ◼   ► So this is something that I've done.

00:57:13 ◼   ► You can set up the environment in front of you

00:57:16 ◼   ► and it kind of serves as a nice wallpaper of sorts.

00:57:20 ◼   ► Like, I don't want to see my kitchen or I don't want to see my living room.

00:57:24 ◼   ► I'm just going to dial in the environment.

00:57:26 ◼   ► But it's not going to create that illusion of...

00:57:30 ◼   ► I mean, I'm on the moon.

00:57:31 ◼   ► I'm by a lake or something.

00:57:34 ◼   ► It just creates a nicer backdrop.

00:57:37 ◼   ► That's what it does.

00:57:38 ◼   ► When you're looking at the pass-through and you have peripheral vision,

00:57:48 ◼   ► do they match up?

00:57:50 ◼   ► No, very good question.

00:57:54 ◼   ► They mostly match up,

00:57:56 ◼   ► but the one way to realize that they don't match up actually is to hold,

00:58:02 ◼   ► like, for example, a finger really close to your face.

00:58:05 ◼   ► And in your peripheral vision, you see that the finger is at a certain distance.

00:58:10 ◼   ► In the Vision Pro pass-through, you see that it's more zoomed in or something.

00:58:16 ◼   ► Like, you get different proportions, like a different distance.

00:58:20 ◼   ► If I hold my index finger right next to my left eye, for example,

00:58:25 ◼   ► and I look at it with actual peripheral vision, I see that it's at a certain distance.

00:58:31 ◼   ► If I look at it from the pass-through, it's at a different distance.

00:58:35 ◼   ► But this is not something that...

00:58:37 ◼   ► Like, you only notice this if you're looking at objects that are both within the peripheral vision field

00:58:45 ◼   ► and in the pass-through field.

00:58:47 ◼   ► So, like, the same thing, you can see it in two different ways at the same time,

00:58:52 ◼   ► but otherwise it's not a problem.

00:58:54 ◼   ► Because, like, if I'm staring at my desk or something, I'm only looking at my desk from the pass-through.

00:58:58 ◼   ► Okay.

00:59:00 ◼   ► I see.

00:59:01 ◼   ► So, the...

00:59:04 ◼   ► What do you call it? The dual solo loop bands.

00:59:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:59:10 ◼   ► What...

00:59:11 ◼   ► I'm struggling to understand the benefit of that over the dual loop.

00:59:15 ◼   ► Like...

00:59:15 ◼   ► Okay.

00:59:16 ◼   ► Take adjustment out of the equation, right?

00:59:19 ◼   ► Well...

00:59:19 ◼   ► I never adjust it.

00:59:21 ◼   ► Oh, interesting.

00:59:22 ◼   ► So, I never adjust the dual loop because I just take it off and put it on again.

00:59:27 ◼   ► Outside of adjustment, does it provide you other benefits?

00:59:31 ◼   ► Well, I think it's more comfortable because it's larger,

00:59:34 ◼   ► and so it's got, like, a wider surface area that, like, sits on your head.

00:59:38 ◼   ► Okay.

00:59:39 ◼   ► I just...

00:59:40 ◼   ► The fact that it's wider makes it more comfortable,

00:59:44 ◼   ► and I could never get... I could never do what you just said, like, never adjust the dual loop.

00:59:51 ◼   ► You couldn't find it, right.

00:59:52 ◼   ► I couldn't fit it right, and I just...

00:59:54 ◼   ► I love so much how you can just turn a dial to adjust the band.

01:00:00 ◼   ► It is cool that you don't...

01:00:01 ◼   ► Because when you do adjust the dual loop,

01:00:04 ◼   ► the problem is it's very hard to actually make that adjustment.

01:00:10 ◼   ► It's hard to do it because you've kind of got to pull,

01:00:13 ◼   ► and then you've got to, like, wrap the velcro back around again.

01:00:16 ◼   ► It's like a velcro system where the loop band, you just keep tightening it until it's tight, right?

01:00:22 ◼   ► But you're not looking at it.

01:00:24 ◼   ► And you're not looking at it, so you need to go for it, like, by feeling it,

01:00:29 ◼   ► and I thought that was very uncomfortable.

01:00:31 ◼   ► I don't understand, though, why they have not and did not ship my kind of, like, grail band,

01:00:38 ◼   ► which was the one that we used at WWDC.

01:00:40 ◼   ► Me neither. I don't get it.

01:00:42 ◼   ► Which is the solo loop on the back.

01:00:44 ◼   ► No, you can't. I tried.

01:00:46 ◼   ► The dual loop is one piece.

01:00:51 ◼   ► Yeah, you would have to destroy or really seriously modify the dual loop

01:00:56 ◼   ► by cutting it and sort of re-knitting it yourself.

01:01:00 ◼   ► Yeah, because it was one fixture, right?

01:01:04 ◼   ► That went into the side of the Vision Pro, and it had the two pieces.

01:01:09 ◼   ► I just don't understand.

01:01:12 ◼   ► Because as you pointed out in your article, Federico, it's still in the imagery on the website.

01:01:18 ◼   ► Like, it's in the original marketing video.

01:01:20 ◼   ► Yeah, in the original marketing.

01:01:21 ◼   ► Well, they replaced the images, I think, actually, and the frames in the videos.

01:01:25 ◼   ► I think they did this, like, a couple of weeks ago.

01:01:27 ◼   ► Yeah, they did that.

01:01:29 ◼   ► Federico, if someone wanted to go down this road,

01:01:32 ◼   ► like, say they just bought this thing on Etsy, and his name was Steven,

01:01:37 ◼   ► what should the sizing be in relation to the solo knit band

01:01:43 ◼   ► that goes around the back of your head versus the top of your head?

01:01:46 ◼   ► Like, I think mine is a medium. Should I get another medium?

01:01:49 ◼   ► No, you should get one size smaller for the top of your head.

01:01:54 ◼   ► So I have medium in the back and S size on the top.

01:01:57 ◼   ► Okay.

01:01:58 ◼   ► That's how, typically, I guess, how human heads tend to be shaped.

01:02:04 ◼   ► Yeah, unless you have, like, a tall head.

01:02:07 ◼   ► And then maybe...

01:02:08 ◼   ► Unless you have a tall head, I don't think you have a tall head.

01:02:11 ◼   ► I think it's pretty...

01:02:13 ◼   ► But for your type of haircut, also, I think you should get, like, one size smaller for the top.

01:02:20 ◼   ► I tried with the same size, I tried with the M, and it was too loose.

01:02:24 ◼   ► And, yeah, you want that top band to sort of balance the Vision Pro on your head,

01:02:31 ◼   ► so that you don't feel the pressure, like, on your face anymore.

01:02:35 ◼   ► Okay.

01:02:35 ◼   ► Are you able to just buy the bands about, like, needing to go through a whole thing?

01:02:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:02:39 ◼   ► You can do it with the license.

01:02:40 ◼   ► Yeah, and they're very expensive.

01:02:41 ◼   ► It's a hundred bucks.

01:02:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:02:43 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:02:44 ◼   ► I'm doing it right now.

01:02:45 ◼   ► Yeah. So, yeah, the Solo Top and another band is, like, highly recommended.

01:02:51 ◼   ► And then the Air Cover accessory, which I believe was restocked this week,

01:02:57 ◼   ► but they frequently run out of stock.

01:03:00 ◼   ► That's optional, like, it really depends if you want to use the Vision Pro as a VR headset.

01:03:06 ◼   ► Like, then keep using the light seal, add a secondary band, and you're going to love it.

01:03:11 ◼   ► But if you want to go the extra mile and are interested in the idea of removing the light seal,

01:03:18 ◼   ► I would highly recommend that you do get one of these accessories.

01:03:22 ◼   ► One is the Air Cover, which is the one that I'm using.

01:03:26 ◼   ► There's another one, which I'm waiting for it to arrive.

01:03:29 ◼   ► I believe it's called the Vision Pro Open Face System or something like that.

01:03:34 ◼   ► It's on Etsy.

01:03:35 ◼   ► The names.

01:03:35 ◼   ► The names.

01:03:35 ◼   ► Yeah, that one is on Etsy, and so it's probably easier to buy.

01:03:39 ◼   ► The Infinity One, the makers of the Air Cover, I believe it's a Spain-based company,

01:03:44 ◼   ► so you got to account for shipping and all of that.

01:03:46 ◼   ► And they frequently run out of stock.

01:03:49 ◼   ► On Etsy, you will find the Open...

01:03:52 ◼   ► I believe it's the Open Face System, but it's a similar product, but I have not tested it yet.

01:03:58 ◼   ► Open Face System.

01:03:59 ◼   ► Can we just consider that phrase for a second?

01:04:02 ◼   ► I know.

01:04:03 ◼   ► Open Face System.

01:04:04 ◼   ► It's like open AI.

01:04:06 ◼   ► Let me confirm.

01:04:07 ◼   ► I have a screenshot from John.

01:04:09 ◼   ► Yeah, it's the Open Face System.

01:04:11 ◼   ► Open Face System.

01:04:13 ◼   ► Open Face System.

01:04:14 ◼   ► Yep.

01:04:15 ◼   ► I do love, I really do love the way that people spring up these little businesses.

01:04:25 ◼   ► I find it so inspiring.

01:04:28 ◼   ► There is such a tiny market, you know?

01:04:30 ◼   ► And they're just really going for it.

01:04:34 ◼   ► Like I'm looking at this page now.

01:04:36 ◼   ► They have also the Bobo VR Me Plus ink front pad and Bobo VR adapters, in case you want that.

01:04:43 ◼   ► Yeah, the Bobo VR adapters are pretty popular with some Quest users, I think.

01:04:48 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a Bobo VR strap, but they've created an adapter for the Vision Pro

01:04:54 ◼   ► that works with the Bobo VR strap.

01:04:56 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:04:56 ◼   ► Bobo VR.

01:04:58 ◼   ► Man, these people are incredible.

01:04:59 ◼   ► I tried, so to give you some context, like, so I literally tried all of the,

01:05:04 ◼   ► so Stephen, you just posted that in Discord.

01:05:08 ◼   ► The comfy top.

01:05:09 ◼   ► Yeah, I was going to see if you use this.

01:05:10 ◼   ► I have the comfy top.

01:05:11 ◼   ► I have the comfy top.

01:05:12 ◼   ► It's all right, but I'm not a fan because it requires using the light seal.

01:05:18 ◼   ► And so for context, this is a thing that lets you put a second band,

01:05:23 ◼   ► like a second solo knit band on the top of your head, but vertically.

01:05:27 ◼   ► Yeah, front to back as opposed to side to side.

01:05:31 ◼   ► It's kind of weird.

01:05:32 ◼   ► And I didn't love how you need to put the plastic clip,

01:05:35 ◼   ► sort of like fit it in between the light seal and the cushion.

01:05:39 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't like that.

01:05:40 ◼   ► Kind of awkward.

01:05:41 ◼   ► I tried that.

01:05:42 ◼   ► I tried all of the other adapters and I settled on the solo top.

01:05:47 ◼   ► I also tried this other adapter by a company called VR Panda.

01:05:52 ◼   ► It's real name of real company.

01:05:53 ◼   ► They make sort of like this.

01:05:57 ◼   ► I don't even know how to describe it.

01:05:59 ◼   ► I believe it's called the Halo strap.

01:06:01 ◼   ► Yeah, it's called the half circle Halo strap for the Vision Pro.

01:06:06 ◼   ► So it's like this.

01:06:07 ◼   ► No, I didn't try.

01:06:08 ◼   ► I'm sorry.

01:06:09 ◼   ► I didn't try the Halo strap.

01:06:11 ◼   ► I tried something that goes like in the back of your head and it's like a giant cushion

01:06:15 ◼   ► that you put basically above your neck.

01:06:17 ◼   ► Let me see if I can find the link.

01:06:22 ◼   ► It was all right, but also not a huge fan.

01:06:24 ◼   ► And the system that I wrote about that I settled on,

01:06:28 ◼   ► I've been using this for basically the past month and I haven't changed it at all.

01:06:31 ◼   ► And that's what I recommend.

01:06:34 ◼   ► The comfort module.

01:06:37 ◼   ► That's what I tried from VR Panda.

01:06:39 ◼   ► And you can get it in orange, which is nice.

01:06:41 ◼   ► And I'm going to put a link in Discord.

01:06:45 ◼   ► And it will be in the show notes.

01:06:49 ◼   ► Federico, you just need to get 3D printer, man.

01:06:52 ◼   ► Like you should get a 3D printer, I think.

01:06:55 ◼   ► Uh, yeah.

01:06:56 ◼   ► Because surely most of these things you can just buy the printer file.

01:07:00 ◼   ► And then you can have to deal with the whole like place to place to place to place.

01:07:04 ◼   ► And you can put it in your garage or whatever garage.

01:07:06 ◼   ► Yeah, I should do it.

01:07:07 ◼   ► Garage.

01:07:07 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:07:09 ◼   ► Yeah, I should probably do it.

01:07:11 ◼   ► At some point I will consider it because you can't buy the files.

01:07:13 ◼   ► Yeah, because all these mods that you do, like, because clearly you're in this world now, right?

01:07:17 ◼   ► Like you are, I mean, you, you, you are, you've been mod curious.

01:07:20 ◼   ► Now you're like full on mod.

01:07:23 ◼   ► That's you.

01:07:23 ◼   ► You're a full on mod.

01:07:25 ◼   ► You're, you're always modded.

01:07:26 ◼   ► Mod left, right and center.

01:07:27 ◼   ► And so I figured, you know, speak to Steven.

01:07:31 ◼   ► He knows about VR, VR 3D printing and you should, I think you should do it.

01:07:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:07:36 ◼   ► And like the final thing I wanted to say is that doing this, um, like I said, I wrote about it,

01:07:43 ◼   ► but I have been using it for a few weeks and, and it's, I'm looking at my vision program.

01:07:47 ◼   ► Now it's still what I'm using.

01:07:48 ◼   ► It makes me use the vision pro a lot more and it makes me enjoy the vision pro a lot more.

01:07:53 ◼   ► Uh, because I figured that, you know, before, before the vision pro announcement, when it

01:07:59 ◼   ► became clear that Apple was going to do a VR headset, uh, but if you go back to a few years

01:08:04 ◼   ► ago, we were all really excited about the idea of Apple doing glasses, like actual glasses.

01:08:09 ◼   ► And then, uh, we understood that that product is still pretty much a ways out, but these

01:08:15 ◼   ► accessories, they let me use the vision pro as basically giant, heavy, really thick glasses,

01:08:24 ◼   ► um, without the light seal.

01:08:26 ◼   ► And that's what I wanted.

01:08:28 ◼   ► Like I, I want to have something that is in AR mode all the time in pass-through mode all

01:08:33 ◼   ► the time.

01:08:34 ◼   ► And that's the product I wanted.

01:08:35 ◼   ► I think the environments and the immersive video, like, like all that stuff is fun, but

01:08:41 ◼   ► mostly I just want to use this thing as a computer.

01:08:44 ◼   ► And if I want to use it as a computer every afternoon, when I'm working, I want to be

01:08:48 ◼   ► in pass-through mode and I don't want to be isolated and using it like this.

01:08:52 ◼   ► It makes me enjoy like the purchase a lot more.

01:08:57 ◼   ► And ultimately, you know, you gotta be happy with something that you buy, especially something

01:09:00 ◼   ► that is so expensive.

01:09:01 ◼   ► And so I think I've found a way to be, to be happier than I was with the light seal.

01:09:07 ◼   ► I love it.

01:09:08 ◼   ► I love that you're tinkering with it.

01:09:09 ◼   ► I ordered some stuff.

01:09:11 ◼   ► I'm going to try the dual solo knit band.

01:09:14 ◼   ► Nice.

01:09:14 ◼   ► Nice.

01:09:15 ◼   ► The clips you need, there's a different version.

01:09:19 ◼   ► I think you mentioned this for the, if you're using a developer strap or not.

01:09:23 ◼   ► It's this, yeah, that's the Solo Top Dev, which I have because I do have a developer

01:09:29 ◼   ► strap hoping that eventually it'll get more functionalities than what it basically right

01:09:35 ◼   ► now it does nothing.

01:09:37 ◼   ► So, but if Apple ever allows for, allows for like Thunderbolt devices or ethernet, I'm

01:09:42 ◼   ► going to go back to using the developer strap every day.

01:09:45 ◼   ► Right now I'm just back to the regular straps.

01:09:48 ◼   ► Same.

01:09:49 ◼   ► I had it on for a little while doing some stuff in Widget Smith and it was like, if

01:09:53 ◼   ► you're not using it, it just gets in the way.

01:09:55 ◼   ► And I even tried like, what if I had like a little piece of Velcro and like, so it wasn't

01:10:00 ◼   ► flapping around and I just ended up swapping it, swapping it back.

01:10:04 ◼   ► But I suspect that thing may learn some new tricks at some point.

01:10:07 ◼   ► It's like having a weird tech ponytail, but like on the side of your head.

01:10:12 ◼   ► That's a side pony.

01:10:14 ◼   ► Side pony.

01:10:16 ◼   ► I got my side pony dongle.

01:10:17 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:10:19 ◼   ► It's kind of weird when it's just flapping around like that and you're not using it.

01:10:23 ◼   ► And even when you are using it, what it does is like, it's maybe faster when you're taking

01:10:28 ◼   ► screenshots with Reality Composer, but like, Wi-Fi also works.

01:10:32 ◼   ► So whatever.

01:10:32 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:10:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:10:34 ◼   ► And it, you know, it, you're drumming through some hoops, but it does, it does work.

01:10:38 ◼   ► Well, I think that does it for this week.

01:10:43 ◼   ► If you want to read more about some of the stuff we talked about, check out the notes.

01:10:47 ◼   ► They're in your podcast player.

01:10:49 ◼   ► They're also on the web at relay.fm/connected/496.

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01:11:42 ◼   ► You can find Federico.

01:11:44 ◼   ► He's the editor in chief of maxstories.net.

01:11:47 ◼   ► You can find him on social media as Vitici on threads and Vitici that's V I T I C C I

01:11:55 ◼   ► at maxstories.net on Mastodon.

01:11:58 ◼   ► Mike works on a whole bunch of stuff across the network.

01:12:02 ◼   ► He also does amazing work over at Cortex brand.

01:12:05 ◼   ► You can find him on threads as Imike and on Mastodon as Imike at mike.social.

01:12:09 ◼   ► You can find me on Mac power users each and every Sunday afternoon here on relay.

01:12:15 ◼   ► You can find my writing at 512 pixels.net and you can follow me.

01:12:19 ◼   ► ISMH 86 on threads and ISMH at eWorld.social on Mastodon.

01:12:25 ◼   ► I'd like to thank our sponsors this week, NetSuite and Squarespace for making the episode

01:12:29 ◼   ► possible.

01:12:30 ◼   ► Thanks to our members and until next time, say goodbye.

01:12:32 ◼   ► Arrivederci.

01:12:34 ◼   ► Cheerio.

01:12:35 ◼   ► Bye y'all.

01:12:36 ◼   ► Please look outside the window and see what you see.