Connected

00:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:00:02 ◼   ► From Relay FM, this is Connected, episode 506.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Today's show is brought to you by Ecamm,

00:00:14 ◼   ► Adblock Pro and ExpressVPN.

00:00:17 ◼   ► I am your Ricky Benchman, Mike Hurley,

00:00:20 ◼   ► and I am introducing to you.

00:00:23 ◼   ► Wow. (laughs)

00:00:23 ◼   ► For drinko.

00:00:24 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:00:25 ◼   ► Oh my God.

00:00:26 ◼   ► And I am introduced to me.

00:00:30 ◼   ► Hi, Federico.

00:00:31 ◼   ► Hi.

00:00:35 ◼   ► I got too excited about Benchman.

00:00:36 ◼   ► That English language took a turn, for sure.

00:00:39 ◼   ► Yeah, man.

00:00:40 ◼   ► Yeah, man.

00:00:41 ◼   ► We're also joined by Mr. Steven Hackett.

00:00:43 ◼   ► Hello, Steven.

00:00:44 ◼   ► Hello, Federico.

00:00:46 ◼   ► Hello, Mike.

00:00:48 ◼   ► Hello. Yes.

00:00:48 ◼   ► Hello.

00:00:49 ◼   ► It's Friday, which is weird.

00:00:50 ◼   ► Friday, Friday, gotta get down on Friday.

00:00:54 ◼   ► Ricky's, Ricky's, gotta score on Friday.

00:00:58 ◼   ► That's the energy.

00:00:59 ◼   ► That's the energy today.

00:01:00 ◼   ► I love it.

00:01:02 ◼   ► Can we remind people about this introduction, Mike?

00:01:05 ◼   ► What happened in those first few seconds?

00:01:09 ◼   ► Well, I am now being officially referred to

00:01:11 ◼   ► as Ricky Benchman because I currently hold

00:01:14 ◼   ► both the keynote and annual chairmanships.

00:01:16 ◼   ► So my combined title is now Benchman

00:01:19 ◼   ► because if you have two chairs and you put them together,

00:01:21 ◼   ► they become a bench.

00:01:23 ◼   ► So I am the Benchman.

00:01:24 ◼   ► And I got too excited about that.

00:01:26 ◼   ► I am the Benchman.

00:01:27 ◼   ► I have to say the word introducing.

00:01:28 ◼   ► Okay.

00:01:31 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:32 ◼   ► Benchman.

00:01:33 ◼   ► Benchman.

00:01:34 ◼   ► Benchman.

00:01:35 ◼   ► Sounds like Hinchman.

00:01:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:38 ◼   ► There's also a website for this madness.

00:01:42 ◼   ► ConnectedIntro.com.

00:01:47 ◼   ► That is the new website where people can go to.

00:01:49 ◼   ► And it's actually quite helpful.

00:01:51 ◼   ► Okay.

00:01:52 ◼   ► Okay.

00:01:53 ◼   ► Federico, you're not doing a good job of the history.

00:01:55 ◼   ► You're not doing a good...

00:01:56 ◼   ► This site has been around for a long time.

00:01:58 ◼   ► I never used it.

00:01:59 ◼   ► I know, I put these in the show notes each week.

00:02:01 ◼   ► But it has been updated with our titles.

00:02:05 ◼   ► It's more useful now.

00:02:07 ◼   ► Wow.

00:02:08 ◼   ► Yeah, there it is.

00:02:10 ◼   ► James Thompson.

00:02:11 ◼   ► There's a bunch of people on this list

00:02:12 ◼   ► in the Connected Interest scoreboard.

00:02:14 ◼   ► Currently, as of June 12th, 2024,

00:02:18 ◼   ► Federico has introduced the show 43 times.

00:02:21 ◼   ► Mike has introduced it 216.

00:02:23 ◼   ► And I've introduced it 244 times.

00:02:26 ◼   ► So think about that, boys.

00:02:31 ◼   ► What is, what am I thinking about?

00:02:34 ◼   ► Just how you're living in my shadow, once again.

00:02:38 ◼   ► I met somebody at WBCC,

00:02:42 ◼   ► and the first thing they said to me,

00:02:43 ◼   ► they introduced themselves, and they said,

00:02:46 ◼   ► "You're taller than I expected."

00:02:48 ◼   ► Huh, they must respect you.

00:02:50 ◼   ► And I said, "Well, you know, I'm taller than Mike,

00:02:52 ◼   ► so that's all that matters."

00:02:53 ◼   ► You're actually not, though.

00:02:54 ◼   ► But you weren't there to defend yourself.

00:02:57 ◼   ► Well, I'm defending myself in front of everyone.

00:02:59 ◼   ► Hmm.

00:03:01 ◼   ► If only there was some way to know.

00:03:03 ◼   ► There is a way to know, I'm taller.

00:03:06 ◼   ► Okay.

00:03:06 ◼   ► Federico, can you tell our listeners what you discovered?

00:03:09 ◼   ► I discovered that the weird fish, a deep part,

00:03:14 ◼   ► like a very important part,

00:03:15 ◼   ► and a very deep, connected lore and piece of trivia,

00:03:20 ◼   ► found its way in the official hero image,

00:03:24 ◼   ► as well as in multiple slides of a WWDC session

00:03:28 ◼   ► about the new translate API,

00:03:31 ◼   ► which is actually a pretty cool technology this year.

00:03:33 ◼   ► But the thing is, weird fish, obviously the microbe emoji

00:03:37 ◼   ► that many years ago I mistook for, well, a weird fish,

00:03:42 ◼   ► is one of the characters, one of the fictional characters,

00:03:47 ◼   ► in this demo app that Apple put together for this session.

00:03:52 ◼   ► And weird fish is typing in these screenshots,

00:03:55 ◼   ► I believe it's Japanese, and the translate API

00:03:59 ◼   ► is translating the text back to English.

00:04:01 ◼   ► So there's not, but there's not only,

00:04:03 ◼   ► it's not just the weird fish reference and acknowledgement,

00:04:07 ◼   ► it's also the text.

00:04:09 ◼   ► In the translated text, weird fish wrote,

00:04:13 ◼   ► "The hike was great, but it was so difficult

00:04:16 ◼   ► that I had to pause the podcast,

00:04:18 ◼   ► and I was an experienced hiker,

00:04:20 ◼   ► and hiked all over Rome, London, and Memphis."

00:04:24 ◼   ► So obviously, the person, the Apple engineer,

00:04:27 ◼   ► put together this session is quite the connected superfan

00:04:32 ◼   ► to have this kind of reference and mention of our series.

00:04:38 ◼   ► So thank you, I couldn't believe it when I saw it,

00:04:41 ◼   ► and the fact that it's like actually shown multiple times

00:04:45 ◼   ► throughout the video is pretty amazing.

00:04:49 ◼   ► And it's a pretty incredible sort of nerd badge of honor,

00:04:54 ◼   ► if you ask me, to have this sort of thing

00:04:56 ◼   ► in a WWDC session, so thank you.

00:04:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, whoever this person is that made this,

00:05:02 ◼   ► this is amazing, and we really appreciate you.

00:05:05 ◼   ► And thank you for immortalizing us once again, you know?

00:05:08 ◼   ► - Once again, yes, that's right.

00:05:11 ◼   ► So weird fish, there you go.

00:05:15 ◼   ► - Do you know the episode where you came up with weird fish

00:05:18 ◼   ► wasn't actually called weird fish?

00:05:21 ◼   ► - No, it was, what was it called?

00:05:22 ◼   ► - The episode was called "Nanohippo."

00:05:25 ◼   ► - Nanohippo?

00:05:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, episode 212 from October 3rd, 2018,

00:05:30 ◼   ► was one of, this was before the game was called "The Jeremy's"

00:05:33 ◼   ► and it was every new emoji in iOS 12.1.

00:05:37 ◼   ► - Whoa.

00:05:38 ◼   ► - And that was where the microbe emoji was included there,

00:05:41 ◼   ► AKA the weird fish emoji.

00:05:44 ◼   ► But what I found particularly interesting about this

00:05:47 ◼   ► is I Googled connected relay FM weird fish,

00:05:50 ◼   ► and this was the first result,

00:05:52 ◼   ► and I don't know how Google knows that.

00:05:55 ◼   ► That was interesting to me.

00:05:58 ◼   ► Because it's not, weird fish is not referenced

00:06:03 ◼   ► in the show notes or the links at all,

00:06:06 ◼   ► but yet it knew that this one was the one to go for.

00:06:09 ◼   ► - Google's a listener.

00:06:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's what we thought.

00:06:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, thanks to Google too, I guess.

00:06:13 ◼   ► - Thanks, shout out to Google.

00:06:15 ◼   ► - Shout out to Google for the feedback for this, yes.

00:06:19 ◼   ► - So a friend of ours who remained nameless,

00:06:22 ◼   ► who clearly doesn't listen to our show,

00:06:24 ◼   ► first time I'd seen this person since 2019

00:06:28 ◼   ► and they wanted to see my additional tattoos,

00:06:30 ◼   ► like they're like, "Oh, you've got a COVID tattoo."

00:06:33 ◼   ► - Interesting.

00:06:34 ◼   ► - I just was like, "Eh."

00:06:35 ◼   ► I just kind of moved on, but clearly not a listener.

00:06:39 ◼   ► - They're not a listener, but one blast.

00:06:42 ◼   ► - I don't wanna do that because they have fans.

00:06:44 ◼   ► - So?

00:06:47 ◼   ► - It was Syracuse.

00:06:47 ◼   ► - Oh, John, come on.

00:06:51 ◼   ► See, this is why he's not the true John.

00:06:54 ◼   ► He is a lesser John.

00:06:55 ◼   ► These are the reasons.

00:06:56 ◼   ► This is one of the reasons.

00:06:58 ◼   ► - But I sat next to him at dinner.

00:06:59 ◼   ► It was great to see everybody.

00:07:00 ◼   ► - Disappointing, disappointing.

00:07:02 ◼   ► - Disappointed.

00:07:03 ◼   ► You know that meme?

00:07:07 ◼   ► The disappointed meme?

00:07:08 ◼   ► - No.

00:07:09 ◼   ► - So we're at the end of WWDC week.

00:07:12 ◼   ► How did we watch the keynote?

00:07:15 ◼   ► Steven, did you watch it with new eyes as a developer now?

00:07:19 ◼   ► How was that experience for you watching the keynote

00:07:21 ◼   ► and waiting for the segment

00:07:23 ◼   ► that was gonna make your life more difficult or not?

00:07:26 ◼   ► - It was interesting.

00:07:27 ◼   ► I definitely noticed as I was taking it in,

00:07:31 ◼   ► oh gosh, there are things that I pay attention to now

00:07:34 ◼   ► that maybe I didn't pay such close attention to,

00:07:36 ◼   ► like when they were talking about home screen customization,

00:07:39 ◼   ► I was laser focused on what was happening

00:07:42 ◼   ► and looking through the state of the union

00:07:45 ◼   ► and some other stuff later,

00:07:46 ◼   ► that's where I've been focusing

00:07:48 ◼   ► is some of the customization stuff,

00:07:50 ◼   ► some of the other things

00:07:51 ◼   ► that may impact the underscore family of apps.

00:07:55 ◼   ► So yeah, I definitely,

00:07:56 ◼   ► I didn't think about that much going into it,

00:07:58 ◼   ► but definitely noticed it was happening to me.

00:08:01 ◼   ► - What is your feeling about the stuff that was announced,

00:08:05 ◼   ► like the widget stuff and the theming stuff?

00:08:08 ◼   ► Like how does it make you feel

00:08:11 ◼   ► as part of the widget Smith organization?

00:08:15 ◼   ► - It's super exciting.

00:08:16 ◼   ► Anytime Apple gives people the ability

00:08:19 ◼   ► to customize their devices, it's a good thing.

00:08:22 ◼   ► And like there's a bunch of people on masses

00:08:23 ◼   ► and I'm like, oh, all these,

00:08:25 ◼   ► oh, these all look terrible.

00:08:26 ◼   ► Like it's fine.

00:08:27 ◼   ► - No, they do all look terrible.

00:08:28 ◼   ► I'm one of those people.

00:08:29 ◼   ► Every single example of tinting that I've seen looks bad.

00:08:34 ◼   ► Like they can fit that I believe genuinely,

00:08:36 ◼   ► they will tweak it over the course of the period

00:08:39 ◼   ► and it might look better.

00:08:40 ◼   ► But right now I have yet to see an option

00:08:43 ◼   ► that I think looks good.

00:08:44 ◼   ► With that, unless you sent me one,

00:08:48 ◼   ► if you put the app icons in folders, they can look good.

00:08:51 ◼   ► But I think the tinting, I just, I'm not convinced on it.

00:08:56 ◼   ► And it makes me wonder why,

00:08:57 ◼   ► because Google did a better job.

00:08:59 ◼   ► And I don't know if either of you know this,

00:09:01 ◼   ► does Apple not do like a image analysis

00:09:04 ◼   ► and recommend a tint?

00:09:06 ◼   ► Or is it you just always choose the color?

00:09:07 ◼   ► - No, they do analyze the wallpaper, I think by default.

00:09:11 ◼   ► - It can.

00:09:12 ◼   ► So it will suggest something you can pick

00:09:15 ◼   ► from the color picker or there's an eyedropper

00:09:19 ◼   ► and you can pick a color directly from your wallpaper.

00:09:22 ◼   ► So there are a couple of options there.

00:09:24 ◼   ► And yeah, I agree with you.

00:09:25 ◼   ► Like some of them, like it's a little rough.

00:09:27 ◼   ► I think it will get better.

00:09:29 ◼   ► But overall giving people more options to customize is good.

00:09:33 ◼   ► And there's lots of opportunities for developers.

00:09:35 ◼   ► Like being able to put a control widget

00:09:37 ◼   ► on the lock screen is awesome.

00:09:39 ◼   ► That, I mean, it's great for apps like Widgetsmith.

00:09:42 ◼   ► It's also great for apps like Obscura by our friend Ben.

00:09:45 ◼   ► Their camera application, super cool stuff.

00:09:48 ◼   ► They tie to the action button, they're in control center.

00:09:51 ◼   ► Lots of great stuff.

00:09:52 ◼   ► So yeah, I am pumped about customization and control widgets.

00:09:55 ◼   ► - The thing is like, look,

00:09:58 ◼   ► if you want to make your lock screen look a certain way,

00:10:02 ◼   ► even if other people let me think it's ugly,

00:10:04 ◼   ► that's like totally fine.

00:10:05 ◼   ► Like I'm not saying that like people,

00:10:07 ◼   ► look, I know how my home screen looks.

00:10:09 ◼   ► I know people don't like it, but I love it.

00:10:12 ◼   ► And so like, if you want all your icons

00:10:14 ◼   ► to be like Pearson blue, like go for it.

00:10:16 ◼   ► I just hoped Apple were going to do better.

00:10:19 ◼   ► Like I want to be able to not have to tint

00:10:22 ◼   ► all of the icons, right?

00:10:23 ◼   ► And like, so I think things might improve,

00:10:25 ◼   ► especially the way that Apple has done dark mode icons

00:10:28 ◼   ► is a little aggressive.

00:10:29 ◼   ► Like they've just gone, like everything that's white

00:10:31 ◼   ► is black, which is like pure black.

00:10:33 ◼   ► It's like, okay, we can kind of like,

00:10:36 ◼   ► we can maybe dial that back a bit, you know?

00:10:39 ◼   ► But hey, we'll see.

00:10:41 ◼   ► They're still early.

00:10:42 ◼   ► We all remember iOS 7, you know?

00:10:45 ◼   ► So they changed things over the beta period.

00:10:48 ◼   ► - What about you, Mike?

00:10:49 ◼   ► How was your WBC?

00:10:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, it was fine.

00:10:53 ◼   ► We didn't record, upgrade on Monday

00:10:56 ◼   ► because the scheduling just didn't work out

00:10:58 ◼   ► with Jason in California and me here.

00:11:01 ◼   ► So I watched it at home, which was fine.

00:11:03 ◼   ► You know, I like watching them at home

00:11:06 ◼   ► or other than just being at the studio.

00:11:08 ◼   ► And I would say the week has, it's been like a weird week,

00:11:13 ◼   ► but not like a bad week, if that makes sense.

00:11:15 ◼   ► Like some, you know, in the past

00:11:17 ◼   ► when I've missed these things, it's been really rough.

00:11:20 ◼   ► Maybe my experience in 2022 means that any WWDC I miss

00:11:25 ◼   ► will never feel as bad as that one.

00:11:27 ◼   ► So like maybe I'm scoring on like a different scale here,

00:11:30 ◼   ► you know, like being in the city where it's happening

00:11:34 ◼   ► and not being able to leave your room

00:11:35 ◼   ► is like a very different experience than being at home.

00:11:38 ◼   ► - You did hit rock bottom with that, I think.

00:11:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think it's also helped by the fact

00:11:45 ◼   ► that like this time of year, I am reminded of that.

00:11:48 ◼   ► Like I get my photo widgets pop up

00:11:50 ◼   ► and I see what was going on.

00:11:53 ◼   ► - Gosh.

00:11:53 ◼   ► - No, but when I look back at it now,

00:11:56 ◼   ► there's two feelings of like one,

00:11:58 ◼   ► oh boy, everything's better.

00:11:59 ◼   ► And two, I think it's funny now.

00:12:02 ◼   ► I think the whole thing is actually a funny story

00:12:05 ◼   ► and like is a good story to have.

00:12:08 ◼   ► Like I have a good story, I think.

00:12:10 ◼   ► - It's an excellent story.

00:12:12 ◼   ► - It's a great story.

00:12:13 ◼   ► And like, even now, like I get to,

00:12:16 ◼   ► sometimes when I meet people at Apple PR

00:12:18 ◼   ► and like we're talking and I reference it,

00:12:20 ◼   ► some people are like, wow, some people are like,

00:12:22 ◼   ► oh, I know you.

00:12:23 ◼   ► So, it's an interesting thing that happened to me.

00:12:27 ◼   ► So I guess now, no matter whatever happens at WWDC,

00:12:30 ◼   ► it's never gonna be as bad as that one.

00:12:31 ◼   ► - Well, no, I mean, you could still die at WWDC.

00:12:35 ◼   ► - Geez.

00:12:36 ◼   ► - But then I don't care about it.

00:12:36 ◼   ► - I mean, I'm just saying.

00:12:37 ◼   ► - But that's not a problem to me.

00:12:39 ◼   ► I can't look back on my death and be like,

00:12:41 ◼   ► oh no, that was a shame 'cause it's already done.

00:12:44 ◼   ► That's bad for, that makes your WWDC worse.

00:12:47 ◼   ► - If you die at WWDC, do you die in real life?

00:12:50 ◼   ► - Definitely, definitely.

00:12:52 ◼   ► 'Cause I got COVID in real life.

00:12:54 ◼   ► So I carried that for months.

00:12:57 ◼   ► So I know that if something happens at WWDC,

00:13:00 ◼   ► it will continue.

00:13:01 ◼   ► But I didn't get it at WWDC, but I had it,

00:13:05 ◼   ► I tested positive during WWDC.

00:13:07 ◼   ► But yeah, so really as well this week, it looked fun,

00:13:13 ◼   ► but I think it helped for me that a bunch of people

00:13:17 ◼   ► weren't there, right?

00:13:19 ◼   ► Just like Federico wasn't there too.

00:13:20 ◼   ► So if I was at home and then you two were together,

00:13:24 ◼   ► it would have made me feel sadder,

00:13:26 ◼   ► 'cause then I'd feel left out.

00:13:28 ◼   ► Steven, you were left out.

00:13:30 ◼   ► You should have come and stayed with us or something.

00:13:32 ◼   ► - I know, no press invite for me, which was a bummer.

00:13:35 ◼   ► I got 'em since 2019, but not this time.

00:13:38 ◼   ► The sun did not shine in favor upon me.

00:13:40 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:13:42 ◼   ► - That's a beautiful way to say that you're upset.

00:13:45 ◼   ► - That's not how I felt at first,

00:13:47 ◼   ► but I've come around to it.

00:13:48 ◼   ► - No.

00:13:49 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:13:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I think there was different word choices, I think.

00:13:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, I believe it was a slightly different tone,

00:13:58 ◼   ► but then you became a poet. - It was disappointing.

00:13:59 ◼   ► - You became a poet, it seems.

00:14:00 ◼   ► - If anything, I am serene now,

00:14:01 ◼   ► as the sun did not shine upon my eyes.

00:14:04 ◼   ► - Look, you spent a couple of days in California,

00:14:05 ◼   ► everything feels better.

00:14:06 ◼   ► - That's true, avocados, you know?

00:14:08 ◼   ► - Did y'all hear what happened to Dan Morin?

00:14:10 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:14:11 ◼   ► - Okay, so if listeners aren't familiar with this,

00:14:14 ◼   ► you haven't heard him,

00:14:15 ◼   ► that maybe I think you talked about

00:14:16 ◼   ► on the Six Colors podcast,

00:14:17 ◼   ► he was taking a photo during the keynote

00:14:19 ◼   ► and dropped his phone on his MacBook Air

00:14:21 ◼   ► and destroyed the screen of his laptop.

00:14:24 ◼   ► And I was in my hotel room in Cupertino,

00:14:26 ◼   ► all my friends were out keynoting together,

00:14:29 ◼   ► and I got a lot of text messages,

00:14:31 ◼   ► like a bunch of group threads, a bunch of Slack stuff,

00:14:34 ◼   ► like you won't believe what happened to Dan.

00:14:36 ◼   ► So rest in peace, Dan's laptop.

00:14:38 ◼   ► - But this feels like a very Dan Morin thing

00:14:41 ◼   ► to have happened.

00:14:41 ◼   ► - It kind of does.

00:14:43 ◼   ► - It does, it really does.

00:14:44 ◼   ► - This really feels like something that would happen.

00:14:46 ◼   ► Like if somebody told me this story

00:14:48 ◼   ► and was like, who did that happen to?

00:14:51 ◼   ► Dan would be very high up on that list from me.

00:14:53 ◼   ► - Are we sure this was not staged?

00:14:56 ◼   ► Are we absolutely sure?

00:14:59 ◼   ► - Is he doing it for the likes?

00:15:00 ◼   ► What's happening here?

00:15:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, he's talked about it on the podcast

00:15:04 ◼   ► and people are talking about Dan,

00:15:06 ◼   ► are we sure it's not staged?

00:15:08 ◼   ► - He's like, Mike got so much mileage

00:15:10 ◼   ► out of getting COVID that year,

00:15:11 ◼   ► maybe I should destroy my laptop.

00:15:13 ◼   ► You know?

00:15:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, why not?

00:15:17 ◼   ► - Maybe.

00:15:18 ◼   ► We need to look into this.

00:15:20 ◼   ► We need to look into this.

00:15:22 ◼   ► - Jason in the Discord says,

00:15:23 ◼   ► Casey would be the top of that list.

00:15:25 ◼   ► - Yes, Casey would be number one.

00:15:29 ◼   ► Yes, if somebody told me that Casey would be number one,

00:15:31 ◼   ► Dan would probably be number two,

00:15:33 ◼   ► but yeah, I would immediately think that Casey did that.

00:15:35 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:15:36 ◼   ► I saw Casey too, it was great.

00:15:39 ◼   ► We had a company dinner, it was very nice.

00:15:42 ◼   ► Without y'all, which was sad.

00:15:44 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:15:45 ◼   ► - What betas are we running, if any?

00:15:46 ◼   ► - All of them?

00:15:48 ◼   ► - I'm running an iPad OS on my iPad mini

00:15:53 ◼   ► because it's not being used, so I figured why not.

00:15:55 ◼   ► And I put Vision OS 2 on my Vision Pro.

00:15:59 ◼   ► - Same.

00:16:00 ◼   ► - It feels like in theory it would be the riskiest,

00:16:03 ◼   ► but I think it's actually probably the most stable

00:16:05 ◼   ► would be my assumption because they didn't do

00:16:07 ◼   ► lots of changes and I'm loving it.

00:16:09 ◼   ► Vision OS 2 is fantastic because there's,

00:16:13 ◼   ► I love the new gestures, they're really great

00:16:16 ◼   ► for accessing the home screen and control center and stuff.

00:16:18 ◼   ► - You could say they're hand-tastic.

00:16:21 ◼   ► - I could, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that,

00:16:24 ◼   ► but I could have said that.

00:16:26 ◼   ► I like the new environment, the beach environment

00:16:28 ◼   ► is really good, Bora Bora, and they've added

00:16:33 ◼   ► profiles to Safari, which means I can use Safari.

00:16:37 ◼   ► Which is always good to be able to effectively

00:16:39 ◼   ► use your web browser.

00:16:40 ◼   ► Only took a year, only took a year from when

00:16:43 ◼   ► Safari profiles were announced, but now I can finally

00:16:46 ◼   ► use my web browser effectively.

00:16:47 ◼   ► But yeah, I think overall it's actually very solid.

00:16:51 ◼   ► I mean, I've said this on other shows, but it's not

00:16:54 ◼   ► what you'd think of as a Vision OS 2, but it is a lot

00:16:58 ◼   ► of really good quality of life improvements for Vision OS,

00:17:01 ◼   ► so it's nice, it's very nice.

00:17:05 ◼   ► Yeah, I have, I guess all the betas except for TV OS

00:17:09 ◼   ► and Mac OS.

00:17:11 ◼   ► I put Watch OS 11 on my watch, iOS on my phone,

00:17:16 ◼   ► iPad OS on my iPad Pro, and yeah, and Vision OS 2

00:17:21 ◼   ► on my Vision Pro.

00:17:24 ◼   ► - What's been your experience so far with iOS and iPad OS?

00:17:27 ◼   ► - Pretty stable overall, with just a couple of things

00:17:33 ◼   ► that I wanna point out on the iPhone.

00:17:35 ◼   ► Spotlight doesn't work quite well, like sometimes

00:17:40 ◼   ► it just doesn't find apps or it gets stuck.

00:17:43 ◼   ► - It's missing its intelligence.

00:17:44 ◼   ► - It's missing the intelligence.

00:17:45 ◼   ► - It's spotlight a lobotomy, you got a light

00:17:48 ◼   ► for a few months, why don't you put the phone back in.

00:17:49 ◼   ► - Spotlight doesn't know what to do at the moment.

00:17:52 ◼   ► Literally, I'm gonna talk about this on App Stories,

00:17:57 ◼   ► literally every single one, like all of them,

00:18:01 ◼   ► of my things, shortcuts and automations, all of them broke.

00:18:05 ◼   ► - Oh no.

00:18:06 ◼   ► - So that was like my reaction, oh no.

00:18:10 ◼   ► And then I realized, well, the way I designed

00:18:12 ◼   ► these shortcuts, I can actually just swap the things actions

00:18:15 ◼   ► with the reminders actions and I'm gonna have

00:18:17 ◼   ► a functional task manager again.

00:18:20 ◼   ► So that's what I did.

00:18:21 ◼   ► - Do you know why this happened?

00:18:22 ◼   ► Have they like changed something in shortcuts?

00:18:25 ◼   ► Like significantly?

00:18:25 ◼   ► - I think it's, I don't know, I don't know.

00:18:29 ◼   ► These things, actions, it's not the first time

00:18:31 ◼   ► they break in shortcuts, it also happened

00:18:34 ◼   ► a couple of months ago in 17 point something,

00:18:38 ◼   ► so I don't know, but yeah, I wanted to test reminders anyway

00:18:42 ◼   ► because of my review and the calendar integration,

00:18:44 ◼   ► plus the fact that all of my shortcuts broke,

00:18:47 ◼   ► pretty good excuse to do so.

00:18:49 ◼   ► And on the iPad, which I'm using right now,

00:18:54 ◼   ► at the moment, the external monitor support

00:18:58 ◼   ► is using all the wrong size classes

00:19:02 ◼   ► for sidebar based apps.

00:19:06 ◼   ► So for example, right now, Files,

00:19:09 ◼   ► which has implemented the new top bar design in iPadOS 18,

00:19:14 ◼   ► and it actually implemented that design better than,

00:19:19 ◼   ► for example, the Books app.

00:19:21 ◼   ► In the new Files, you have the top bar at the top,

00:19:25 ◼   ► but if you don't wanna use it, you can press a button

00:19:28 ◼   ► and you switch back to a sidebar, like in iPadOS 17.

00:19:32 ◼   ► And that works well on the iPad display.

00:19:35 ◼   ► On an external monitor, basically,

00:19:38 ◼   ► iPadOS is always convinced that the window is too small,

00:19:41 ◼   ► and so it doesn't show me the sidebar

00:19:44 ◼   ► and the contents of the window at the same time anymore.

00:19:48 ◼   ► When you show the sidebar, it becomes like a model thing.

00:19:53 ◼   ► And yeah, so the size classes are all--

00:19:57 ◼   ► - I don't even understand how that could happen.

00:19:59 ◼   ► - I have no idea. - That's such a weird

00:20:02 ◼   ► thing to happen.

00:20:03 ◼   ► - So yeah, external monitor support on the iPad

00:20:06 ◼   ► is kinda glitchy right now, but overall,

00:20:09 ◼   ► pretty okay, I would say.

00:20:12 ◼   ► And these betas, Apple, I think, has done a pretty good job

00:20:17 ◼   ► over the years, making beta one relatively functional

00:20:23 ◼   ► overall, like it used to be much worse.

00:20:26 ◼   ► It used to be so bad.

00:20:28 ◼   ► - It used to be very, very bad.

00:20:29 ◼   ► - So bad, like some of them, obviously,

00:20:33 ◼   ► obviously the classic was iOS 7, right?

00:20:35 ◼   ► Like for many reasons, that one will always be the worst one.

00:20:39 ◼   ► The best thing is, I think Steven put it on his iPhone,

00:20:41 ◼   ► we were at WWDC, and I remember him losing like 1%

00:20:44 ◼   ► of battery life a minute on his phone.

00:20:46 ◼   ► It was incredible, when it was just doing nothing.

00:20:49 ◼   ► - iOS 7, baby.

00:20:50 ◼   ► - That was the best, that was the best one,

00:20:52 ◼   ► there'll never be a better one, for the wrong reasons.

00:20:56 ◼   ► But like, you know, I think now they know people

00:20:59 ◼   ► are gonna use it, and they think it's beneficial

00:21:01 ◼   ► for everyone if they can kinda just get it to a point

00:21:04 ◼   ► where it's runnable, and I think that's why we see

00:21:09 ◼   ► fewer features in beta one, right?

00:21:12 ◼   ► That like, not everything is in beta one,

00:21:15 ◼   ► and that tends to be the way that they do things, right?

00:21:17 ◼   ► Because they're giving some stuff a little bit more time

00:21:21 ◼   ► in the open before they put it in.

00:21:22 ◼   ► Maybe.

00:21:25 ◼   ► - So for me, beta wise, I have iOS and watchOS

00:21:30 ◼   ► on my underscore devices.

00:21:34 ◼   ► - What are they, what devices are they?

00:21:37 ◼   ► - Well, funny you asked that.

00:21:39 ◼   ► I got a slap underscores credit card

00:21:41 ◼   ► right on the Apple Store table this week, so.

00:21:44 ◼   ► - Ooh.

00:21:45 ◼   ► - Because the only watch I had floating around

00:21:47 ◼   ► was a Series 5, and that got kicked out this year

00:21:51 ◼   ► from system requirements.

00:21:54 ◼   ► 'Cause my other watches have gone to family members

00:21:55 ◼   ► or sold or whatever.

00:21:57 ◼   ► And so I've got a Series 9 Apple Watch,

00:22:00 ◼   ► and my beta phone was an iPhone 12,

00:22:05 ◼   ► and so also have an iPhone 15 Pro as my beta device.

00:22:08 ◼   ► - So you bought an Apple Watch Series 9

00:22:10 ◼   ► and an iPhone 15 Pro this week.

00:22:12 ◼   ► - With David's money, yeah, it was awesome.

00:22:14 ◼   ► - With widget bucks.

00:22:15 ◼   ► - Widget bucks?

00:22:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, widget bucks.

00:22:18 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:22:19 ◼   ► - That's pretty great, that's pretty great.

00:22:21 ◼   ► So my plan this afternoon is to install VisionOS 2.

00:22:24 ◼   ► Mike, everything you said is what I've heard from everybody.

00:22:27 ◼   ► Like, the features are great, it's really stable,

00:22:30 ◼   ► and so I will do that.

00:22:32 ◼   ► And I want to at some point get on a call with somebody,

00:22:34 ◼   ► 'cause apparently these spatial personas can interact more,

00:22:37 ◼   ► like fist bump and high five more easily.

00:22:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, me and Jason had a call the other day,

00:22:43 ◼   ► and the hands are more, like, there's more going on in hands.

00:22:49 ◼   ► Like, it looks more realistic, people's hands and arms.

00:22:52 ◼   ► Just as an update that I'm sure you all want to know,

00:22:54 ◼   ► my mouth still does not move.

00:22:56 ◼   ► - Oh no.

00:22:57 ◼   ► - But you can customize glasses now, so yay!

00:23:01 ◼   ► You know, we're getting there piece by piece.

00:23:03 ◼   ► So I wear glasses now in my persona.

00:23:05 ◼   ► - Do they have temples,

00:23:06 ◼   ► or are they still like the Matrix glasses?

00:23:08 ◼   ► - I think they have, I think they have temples.

00:23:12 ◼   ► I think so.

00:23:12 ◼   ► - 'Cause they used to not, didn't they?

00:23:14 ◼   ► They originally didn't?

00:23:16 ◼   ► - I think some of them, I don't know.

00:23:17 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure that they have--

00:23:18 ◼   ► - Did I tell you all this?

00:23:20 ◼   ► - I don't know.

00:23:21 ◼   ► - Okay, I'm gonna be, that's not important.

00:23:24 ◼   ► I was in a meeting with somebody,

00:23:25 ◼   ► and they pulled some reading glasses out,

00:23:27 ◼   ► and they were Matrix glasses.

00:23:30 ◼   ► Just like clipped on the nose, no temples.

00:23:32 ◼   ► - Oh wow.

00:23:33 ◼   ► - No arms.

00:23:33 ◼   ► - Wait, hang on a second.

00:23:34 ◼   ► So you were meeting with someone,

00:23:36 ◼   ► who you should tell us who that is.

00:23:38 ◼   ► You gotta keep that trend going today.

00:23:39 ◼   ► - You won't know them.

00:23:41 ◼   ► - They put glasses, just like,

00:23:44 ◼   ► and they were just resting on their nose?

00:23:46 ◼   ► - Yes, they were like the glasses that Morpheus wears,

00:23:49 ◼   ► where they just like clip on the nose.

00:23:51 ◼   ► No--

00:23:52 ◼   ► - That is incredible. - Do you think it's possible

00:23:53 ◼   ► that this person would just,

00:23:55 ◼   ► they forgot their real glasses,

00:23:56 ◼   ► and they were just putting their clip-ons on?

00:23:58 ◼   ► - I don't know.

00:23:59 ◼   ► I'm gonna keep an eye out next time I see them

00:24:00 ◼   ► with reading glasses on.

00:24:02 ◼   ► - Interesting.

00:24:03 ◼   ► - Why would you have these if you didn't want them?

00:24:05 ◼   ► - I mean, maybe they were from the 1830s or something.

00:24:08 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:24:10 ◼   ► - It was Casey, no it wasn't.

00:24:13 ◼   ► No one on the internet.

00:24:14 ◼   ► - He was John Church himself.

00:24:16 ◼   ► - They still can't deal with beards and mustaches,

00:24:19 ◼   ► but they have made some improvements to the personas again.

00:24:23 ◼   ► - So yeah, I'll do Vision OS 2 here soon.

00:24:26 ◼   ► I have not played with iPad OS,

00:24:28 ◼   ► but I'll probably do that just some point

00:24:30 ◼   ► later in the summer.

00:24:32 ◼   ► - What about Sequoia?

00:24:33 ◼   ► Sequoia, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:24:35 ◼   ► - Sequoia.

00:24:36 ◼   ► - Why have they done this again?

00:24:37 ◼   ► Why do they just keep picking things

00:24:39 ◼   ► that are impossible to spell?

00:24:41 ◼   ► - See, I know how it's spelled already.

00:24:43 ◼   ► - Why does everybody think it's difficult?

00:24:45 ◼   ► - It's so easy, Sequoia.

00:24:47 ◼   ► - Sequoia.

00:24:48 ◼   ► - It's Sequoia.

00:24:49 ◼   ► - To spell, not to say.

00:24:52 ◼   ► - To spell.

00:24:53 ◼   ► - You can just like, no problem,

00:24:56 ◼   ► remember the order of the U's, the O's and the A's.

00:24:59 ◼   ► - Absolutely.

00:25:00 ◼   ► - Well, then look, I'm the one who's wrong, all right?

00:25:03 ◼   ► But I can't, I can't do it.

00:25:05 ◼   ► I don't know what order they go in.

00:25:07 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:25:08 ◼   ► - There's every vowel in this word though, which is funny.

00:25:12 ◼   ► - I know it 'cause it's a toy to SUV.

00:25:14 ◼   ► So I know it from that context.

00:25:16 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:25:18 ◼   ► - Federico, why do you know?

00:25:19 ◼   ► Just like, no, is it like an Italian word?

00:25:21 ◼   ► - The Italian word is literally the same

00:25:24 ◼   ► with obviously different pronunciation, Sequoia.

00:25:27 ◼   ► It's more open.

00:25:28 ◼   ► - Do you have Sequoia trees in Italy?

00:25:30 ◼   ► - No, but no, we don't.

00:25:33 ◼   ► But it's pretty easy.

00:25:34 ◼   ► The O always goes after the U.

00:25:39 ◼   ► So you know it's how to spell, quo, right?

00:25:42 ◼   ► And then I A at the end.

00:25:45 ◼   ► And it becomes really easy once you know that, Sequoia.

00:25:47 ◼   ► - Sequoia.

00:25:49 ◼   ► - So what you're saying is once you've definitely learned

00:25:51 ◼   ► the order of the letters, it's easy to remember?

00:25:53 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:25:55 ◼   ► - See, that's my problem, I suppose.

00:25:57 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:25:58 ◼   ► - Once you know it, you have it in your brain.

00:26:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, once you know it.

00:26:02 ◼   ► - Well, yeah, that's where I'm falling down, I guess.

00:26:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, Mike's looking at all those letters

00:26:06 ◼   ► and like, they're not where you think.

00:26:08 ◼   ► - No!

00:26:09 ◼   ► - No.

00:26:10 ◼   ► - Yeah!

00:26:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, yes, thank you.

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00:28:35 ◼   ► and Relay FM.

00:28:36 ◼   ► The Ricky's is a game connected hosts play

00:28:40 ◼   ► before Apple Keynotes and the beginning of a new year

00:28:43 ◼   ► trying to predict future events.

00:28:45 ◼   ► It is made up of three rounds.

00:28:48 ◼   ► Each host makes two regular picks followed by a risky pick.

00:28:52 ◼   ► There are two types of Ricky's.

00:28:53 ◼   ► Today we are playing keynote Ricky's.

00:28:55 ◼   ► The keynote Ricky's winner is named the keynote chairman.

00:28:58 ◼   ► The position is held until the next keynote.

00:29:01 ◼   ► Hosts should be introduced at the top of each episode

00:29:04 ◼   ► according to their current titles.

00:29:06 ◼   ► We did that today.

00:29:08 ◼   ► - We did do that today.

00:29:09 ◼   ► - It felt good. - This is change.

00:29:11 ◼   ► This is actual legislation, you know?

00:29:13 ◼   ► - It is. - We debate it

00:29:13 ◼   ► and then it goes into a media effect.

00:29:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, who needs Congress when you have the three of us?

00:29:18 ◼   ► In the event that a host has both positions,

00:29:21 ◼   ► they shall be introduced as the Ricky Benchman.

00:29:24 ◼   ► Also happened today.

00:29:26 ◼   ► - See, effective legislation.

00:29:28 ◼   ► Really, that's the thing you can take away

00:29:30 ◼   ► from this show is that we're good at legislating.

00:29:32 ◼   ► - That we should rule the entire world.

00:29:35 ◼   ► After the Ricky's, the hosts then play a game

00:29:37 ◼   ► called the Flexies.

00:29:37 ◼   ► These two games are separate but related.

00:29:40 ◼   ► Please stand for the reading of the rules.

00:29:44 ◼   ► Correct regular picks are awarded one point.

00:29:54 ◼   ► The language used for regular picks must be finalized

00:29:57 ◼   ► and agreed upon during recording

00:29:59 ◼   ► and no partial points may be awarded.

00:30:01 ◼   ► Correct risky picks are worth two points

00:30:03 ◼   ► but wrong ones will cause a point to be deducted

00:30:06 ◼   ► from that host total.

00:30:08 ◼   ► Picks must have been approved as risky

00:30:09 ◼   ► by the two other hosts before the start of the game.

00:30:13 ◼   ► Picks made for keynote Ricky's cannot be reused

00:30:15 ◼   ► by the host who made them for the next keynote.

00:30:18 ◼   ► The annual Ricky's have their own set of rules

00:30:21 ◼   ► but they don't matter today.

00:30:23 ◼   ► For keynote Ricky's, the scoring window starts

00:30:25 ◼   ► when the live stream begins and closes

00:30:27 ◼   ► when the picks are scored.

00:30:28 ◼   ► That is basically right now.

00:30:31 ◼   ► Any information used in scoring must be publicly verifiable

00:30:35 ◼   ► at the time of recording.

00:30:37 ◼   ► All hosts are allowed to reuse picks

00:30:39 ◼   ► previously made by others.

00:30:41 ◼   ► Scoring is completed during recording

00:30:43 ◼   ► and cannot be modified once an episode is complete.

00:30:46 ◼   ► In the event of a tie, dice by PCalc must be used

00:30:49 ◼   ► in relay FM mode to pick a winner.

00:30:52 ◼   ► In the case of a three-way tie,

00:30:54 ◼   ► hosts all make their calls at the same time

00:30:57 ◼   ► with flipping continuing until a winner is named.

00:31:00 ◼   ► Now, speaking of flipping coins,

00:31:03 ◼   ► Jason Snell has a lifetime ban on flipping any coins

00:31:08 ◼   ► in relation to the Ricky's.

00:31:10 ◼   ► Coin flips by Jason on other podcasts are allowed

00:31:13 ◼   ► but are frowned upon and subject to public shaming.

00:31:17 ◼   ► The order of picks is set by previous performance.

00:31:20 ◼   ► The winner of the previous associated game goes first,

00:31:22 ◼   ► the previous loser goes last.

00:31:24 ◼   ► Winners will be recognized during the closing ceremonies.

00:31:29 ◼   ► As a reminder, Mike currently holds both titles,

00:31:32 ◼   ► annual and keynote.

00:31:34 ◼   ► Past results can be seen at rickys.co and rickys.net.

00:31:37 ◼   ► These sites also have pages about managing

00:31:39 ◼   ► your own scorekeeping at home.

00:31:41 ◼   ► You may be seated.

00:31:43 ◼   ► - Somebody wrote in, I can get the name in a moment,

00:31:49 ◼   ► and they were saying, considering last time we spoke

00:31:52 ◼   ► about some of the lore behind the Ricky's,

00:31:55 ◼   ► and we've done a little bit of it on this one

00:31:57 ◼   ► with the weird fish, they wanted to know, this is Ben,

00:32:02 ◼   ► why is Jason banned from flipping coins?

00:32:05 ◼   ► - Ah, that's a good story.

00:32:07 ◼   ► - So this was the 2019, 2018?

00:32:11 ◼   ► - 2018, I think, yeah. - I think.

00:32:15 ◼   ► - 18 or 19, yeah.

00:32:17 ◼   ► - We were doing a live show as we do.

00:32:20 ◼   ► I think we were in the Hammer Theater in San Jose,

00:32:23 ◼   ► and we knew the day of that we were gonna be going

00:32:28 ◼   ► to a three-way tie for the game.

00:32:31 ◼   ► I think it might have been 2019, the chance to say it,

00:32:34 ◼   ► but nevertheless.

00:32:36 ◼   ► And we kinda came to realize that we were gonna tie,

00:32:40 ◼   ► and we wanted to resolve it for there to be a winner.

00:32:43 ◼   ► This is when the game was still relatively early,

00:32:45 ◼   ► so we decided, there were a couple of ways

00:32:47 ◼   ► that we thought we could do it,

00:32:48 ◼   ► and the way that I thought would be the most stupid

00:32:50 ◼   ► was a coin flip knockout competition,

00:32:54 ◼   ► which is actually different to how we do this now,

00:32:56 ◼   ► but that was the way we wanted to do it then.

00:32:59 ◼   ► So we wanted somebody to help us who was independent

00:33:02 ◼   ► to flip the coin, and so during rehearsals,

00:33:07 ◼   ► we asked Jason if he would do it,

00:33:10 ◼   ► which is when we learned Jason cannot, cannot flip a coin,

00:33:15 ◼   ► like can't do it.

00:33:18 ◼   ► There is footage of this in the Podcastathon last year

00:33:21 ◼   ► because we asked Jason to flip coins

00:33:23 ◼   ► so people could see it.

00:33:24 ◼   ► Jason doesn't really flip a coin

00:33:26 ◼   ► as much as he throws a coin into the air.

00:33:30 ◼   ► Yeah, and so we ended up--

00:33:32 ◼   ► - And he doesn't catch it.

00:33:33 ◼   ► - He doesn't catch it.

00:33:34 ◼   ► He tries, but usually fails.

00:33:36 ◼   ► And so what Jason did do was I believe he came onto stage

00:33:41 ◼   ► and asked Siri to flip coins,

00:33:43 ◼   ► which is then how we started doing that for a while

00:33:45 ◼   ► until James Thompson built the coin flipping.

00:33:48 ◼   ► And I will be putting into the show notes,

00:33:50 ◼   ► Steven just made these, a couple of gifs of Jason

00:33:53 ◼   ► in the Podcastathon last year

00:33:55 ◼   ► when we asked him to flip coins.

00:33:56 ◼   ► So if you wanna see why Jason has been banned

00:33:59 ◼   ► for flipping coins and related to podcast games,

00:34:01 ◼   ► then you can go to the show notes and find out why.

00:34:04 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Yeah.

00:34:05 ◼   ► Okay, round one, Mike, you're up.

00:34:08 ◼   ► - More flexibility for app icon placement

00:34:11 ◼   ► on the iPhone home screen.

00:34:13 ◼   ► - Mm. - Ding.

00:34:15 ◼   ► - No, we're not doing that anymore.

00:34:16 ◼   ► - Oh, sorry.

00:34:17 ◼   ► Just make a ding sound.

00:34:18 ◼   ► You can just ding us, you know?

00:34:20 ◼   ► Ding us off. - Yeah.

00:34:21 ◼   ► Okay. - So this happened.

00:34:25 ◼   ► Federico, have you done anything fun with your home screens?

00:34:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, so I was playing around with it

00:34:34 ◼   ► and the only thing I could think of was like,

00:34:38 ◼   ► maybe I'm gonna leave an empty spot

00:34:41 ◼   ► in the upper right corner of my home screen

00:34:45 ◼   ► because like I mostly use my iPhone left-handed,

00:34:48 ◼   ► I discovered, and so the upper right

00:34:51 ◼   ► is where my thumb cannot reach.

00:34:53 ◼   ► So I thought, well, that area,

00:34:56 ◼   ► I usually don't reach with my thumb,

00:34:58 ◼   ► might as well try and put it empty,

00:35:00 ◼   ► but I gotta say, I don't think this feature is for me

00:35:05 ◼   ► because like now I'm looking at that empty spot

00:35:08 ◼   ► and I'm thinking, well, that could just be filled

00:35:10 ◼   ► with the widget or with icons.

00:35:13 ◼   ► I don't know, I think I just got so used

00:35:15 ◼   ► to an information-dense home screen

00:35:18 ◼   ► and also like I am not the type of person

00:35:22 ◼   ► who goes for like the home screen aesthetic,

00:35:24 ◼   ► I'm more utilitarian and so I don't think,

00:35:29 ◼   ► like I'm happy that they have done this.

00:35:32 ◼   ► They should have done it years ago.

00:35:33 ◼   ► I'm glad this feature now exists on the iPad as well.

00:35:37 ◼   ► Maybe it'll be more useful on the iPad, we'll see,

00:35:40 ◼   ► but it's not for me.

00:35:42 ◼   ► - I think it's gonna be more interesting

00:35:45 ◼   ► on the iPad in some ways to have empty spots.

00:35:48 ◼   ► 'Cause I'm kinda like you, Federico,

00:35:52 ◼   ► like I want the density and I use a pretty plain

00:35:56 ◼   ► iPhone wallpaper on the home screen.

00:35:59 ◼   ► Like my lock screen's a photo of my wife,

00:36:01 ◼   ► but the home screen's like a kind of a gray background

00:36:04 ◼   ► and so it's not like I'm framing them around a picture.

00:36:07 ◼   ► I know a lot of people do that

00:36:09 ◼   ► and so for a lot of people it will be very good,

00:36:11 ◼   ► but I'm kinda like you, like on the iPhone

00:36:13 ◼   ► I've been playing with it and it's like yeah,

00:36:15 ◼   ► I already had widgets at the top of the screen

00:36:18 ◼   ► to move the icons down and I like having that data there.

00:36:21 ◼   ► So we'll see.

00:36:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think it might take time.

00:36:24 ◼   ► Like I remember when they had widgets at first,

00:36:28 ◼   ► like when they brought the new widget style in,

00:36:30 ◼   ► I was very much like, but I like all my app icons.

00:36:33 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:36:34 ◼   ► - And over time I realized that no,

00:36:37 ◼   ► some widgets are better than,

00:36:38 ◼   ► so my thing is like I'm gonna give it time,

00:36:41 ◼   ► but I am in the same boat as you Federico

00:36:43 ◼   ► where it's like why would I have empty space?

00:36:46 ◼   ► Because we've been used to this for like 15 years

00:36:49 ◼   ► or whatever it's been now, not having empty spaces.

00:36:53 ◼   ► So, but you know, this is I think a fantastic feature

00:36:57 ◼   ► for the people that will use it.

00:37:00 ◼   ► Like and it should have been this way for a long time.

00:37:02 ◼   ► So I'm pleased that it's there,

00:37:03 ◼   ► even if I'm not completely sure how I'm gonna use it yet.

00:37:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, and speaking of widgets,

00:37:09 ◼   ► I just wanted to point out,

00:37:10 ◼   ► I believe this used to be a prediction of mine last year

00:37:15 ◼   ► or two years ago, but in iOS 18, it finally came true.

00:37:19 ◼   ► Legacy widgets have been discontinued.

00:37:22 ◼   ► - Oh.

00:37:22 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:37:23 ◼   ► - Like the Pcalc widget for example,

00:37:26 ◼   ► some people still had, I believe the HomeRun widgets,

00:37:30 ◼   ► I think.

00:37:30 ◼   ► Anyway, those widgets in the today page are no more.

00:37:35 ◼   ► - Does that page still exist?

00:37:37 ◼   ► - It does exist, but it's only for native modern widgets.

00:37:41 ◼   ► - I feel like we should get rid of that.

00:37:44 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:37:45 ◼   ► What's the point of that page anymore?

00:37:48 ◼   ► - I like having widgets just like nearby, you know?

00:37:53 ◼   ► - But you could just swipe over, write and get widgets.

00:37:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm kind of ambivalent.

00:38:00 ◼   ► - Widgets can go anywhere, so why do they need to be there?

00:38:01 ◼   ► - Kind of ambivalent about it,

00:38:04 ◼   ► because I don't know, it is nice to have it.

00:38:08 ◼   ► I don't know, there's something about going

00:38:11 ◼   ► to the right side.

00:38:13 ◼   ► I'm not the type of person who has many home screens,

00:38:17 ◼   ► and I don't know, I kind of prefer having widgets.

00:38:20 ◼   ► Like I try to have one home screen going all the time,

00:38:25 ◼   ► just one page, and I kind of like the idea

00:38:28 ◼   ► of widgets on the left, app library on the right.

00:38:32 ◼   ► If you have a single page like I do.

00:38:34 ◼   ► But yeah, I get your point, Mike.

00:38:38 ◼   ► - Here's my prediction.

00:38:39 ◼   ► This is a long-term prediction, which obviously unscored.

00:38:42 ◼   ► The introduction of Control Center,

00:38:44 ◼   ► and the changes to Control Center,

00:38:47 ◼   ► is gonna kill off that page.

00:38:49 ◼   ► I reckon next year that page is gone,

00:38:51 ◼   ► because people will migrate a lot of their quick actions

00:38:55 ◼   ► that they think that go on that page

00:38:57 ◼   ► to Control Center actions.

00:38:59 ◼   ► - Maybe. - It's possible.

00:39:01 ◼   ► - So you're swiping left on the Today View,

00:39:03 ◼   ► is what you're doing.

00:39:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, here's the fun thing though.

00:39:06 ◼   ► I don't know. - Isn't that what you do?

00:39:07 ◼   ► You swipe left if you don't want.

00:39:08 ◼   ► - I don't know whether left or right is the good one.

00:39:10 ◼   ► - Swipe left meaning?

00:39:13 ◼   ► Swipe left. - We're very old.

00:39:15 ◼   ► None of us needed Tinder in our lives.

00:39:19 ◼   ► - Swipe left means to reject.

00:39:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah. - Okay.

00:39:22 ◼   ► So I am swiping left on it then,

00:39:25 ◼   ► 'cause I don't want it anymore.

00:39:27 ◼   ► - Glad we cleared that up.

00:39:28 ◼   ► - Wow, that was bad, rough.

00:39:30 ◼   ► - Okay. - Yeah, can we move on?

00:39:33 ◼   ► - Let's move on, Federico.

00:39:35 ◼   ► - Round one, I said there are some design

00:39:38 ◼   ► and navigation updates to the Settings app

00:39:40 ◼   ► across multiple platforms.

00:39:42 ◼   ► - Ding.

00:39:43 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:39:45 ◼   ► So we did not get a major Settings revamp on macOS,

00:39:50 ◼   ► I think, but there are changes on iOS and iPadOS for sure.

00:39:55 ◼   ► The main thing they've done is, as we predicted,

00:39:59 ◼   ► they copied VisionOS, and so now all of your apps settings

00:40:03 ◼   ► are into an apps subpage of settings,

00:40:07 ◼   ► which has made the main Settings page shorter,

00:40:10 ◼   ► and if you wanna change something for an app,

00:40:14 ◼   ► you know that you gotta go into the apps section.

00:40:16 ◼   ► There are also some new headings for sections.

00:40:23 ◼   ► The iCloud Settings page has been redesigned

00:40:26 ◼   ► with some new colors, some new icons.

00:40:30 ◼   ► Obviously passwords has been moved out of Settings

00:40:34 ◼   ► and into a standalone app,

00:40:35 ◼   ► so there's a bunch of things like that.

00:40:36 ◼   ► - Apple account, right?

00:40:37 ◼   ► So they changed stuff. - Apple account.

00:40:38 ◼   ► - So Apple ID is now Apple account.

00:40:40 ◼   ► - Now it's your Apple account, which is a good name.

00:40:42 ◼   ► - I think that's just a good branding change.

00:40:45 ◼   ► - I like it. - It's a good name.

00:40:47 ◼   ► - Apple ID, now when you say it, it's like,

00:40:49 ◼   ► what does that even mean?

00:40:51 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:40:51 ◼   ► What are we getting at here?

00:40:53 ◼   ► Yeah, Apple account is better.

00:40:54 ◼   ► - Apple account, much better.

00:40:56 ◼   ► So yeah, it's not like a drastic redesign.

00:40:59 ◼   ► It's more of a reorganization of sorts.

00:41:02 ◼   ► And I think it's, at least from what I've seen on iOS

00:41:06 ◼   ► and iPadOS, they've done a pretty good job, I think.

00:41:09 ◼   ► - It doesn't seem like they've actually really done

00:41:11 ◼   ► what everybody wanted,

00:41:12 ◼   ► which was a big change on the Mac though, which is a shame.

00:41:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:41:16 ◼   ► - That's a shame.

00:41:17 ◼   ► - Okay, my round one pick was,

00:41:22 ◼   ► there is no new hardware announced or released.

00:41:26 ◼   ► - Ding. - Ding.

00:41:28 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:41:28 ◼   ► - This one seemed a bit tentative for you

00:41:30 ◼   ► for a little bit, right?

00:41:31 ◼   ► 'Cause it took the store down.

00:41:32 ◼   ► I was like, whoa, here we go, here we go.

00:41:36 ◼   ► Thought you were gonna get some phone case or something,

00:41:38 ◼   ► but no, you made it out.

00:41:40 ◼   ► - I did, I was nervous when the store went down.

00:41:43 ◼   ► Like, I was like, oh, what are you doing, Apple?

00:41:46 ◼   ► Don't do it to me.

00:41:47 ◼   ► But escaped without any hardware.

00:41:51 ◼   ► Software only show for almost, what was the final time, Mike?

00:41:55 ◼   ► A little over two hours or right at two hours?

00:41:57 ◼   ► - It was like, it was about an hour and 45,

00:42:00 ◼   ► something like that.

00:42:01 ◼   ► - Okay, okay.

00:42:02 ◼   ► So yeah, no new hardware.

00:42:06 ◼   ► So at the end of round one, we are tied.

00:42:10 ◼   ► - Question for you both, like talking about the runtime.

00:42:14 ◼   ► Maybe densest feeling WWDC?

00:42:17 ◼   ► - Probably, yeah.

00:42:21 ◼   ► - 'Cause like really this was over two WWDCs.

00:42:24 ◼   ► Like I imagine a world where if they just did everything

00:42:28 ◼   ► that was in the first half, it would have been fine, right?

00:42:31 ◼   ► We would have come away and been like,

00:42:32 ◼   ► there's some good stuff here, I suppose.

00:42:34 ◼   ► Like you thinking back to like,

00:42:36 ◼   ► was it '13 where they introduced Swift

00:42:39 ◼   ► and basically had nothing else?

00:42:40 ◼   ► Do you remember that year?

00:42:41 ◼   ► - 2014. - 2014.

00:42:43 ◼   ► - We watched it at Twitter's office.

00:42:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, 24 hours. - It was at iOS 8.

00:42:48 ◼   ► - If I'm not mistaken. - Think about that now.

00:42:49 ◼   ► That was a time.

00:42:50 ◼   ► And I remember it was just like,

00:42:52 ◼   ► there just wasn't really much to talk about,

00:42:55 ◼   ► if I'm remembering it correctly.

00:42:57 ◼   ► But it definitely wasn't that, right?

00:42:59 ◼   ► Like they really had their stuff together.

00:43:04 ◼   ► - They, yeah, yeah.

00:43:07 ◼   ► They were hinting the whole first half, right?

00:43:09 ◼   ► They kept mentioning like the machine learning intelligence

00:43:11 ◼   ► and I felt like, okay, we know what's coming.

00:43:14 ◼   ► But yeah, really it was the platforms, WWDC,

00:43:17 ◼   ► that we've come to know over the last 10 or 15 years.

00:43:21 ◼   ► And then all the intelligent stuff,

00:43:23 ◼   ► it kind of dropping back into the platforms as they went.

00:43:26 ◼   ► I still think and kind of hope for a day

00:43:29 ◼   ► where the keynote is arranged around features

00:43:32 ◼   ► and not platforms, but that's a pretty inside baseball.

00:43:37 ◼   ► And I think they like highlighting

00:43:38 ◼   ► that they're moving all their platforms forward

00:43:40 ◼   ► even if it's uneven.

00:43:41 ◼   ► So it's probably how it's gonna be.

00:43:45 ◼   ► - That's an interesting thought.

00:43:48 ◼   ► I wanna think about that a little bit.

00:43:50 ◼   ► Like what would that look like

00:43:52 ◼   ► and what would the ramifications of that be?

00:43:54 ◼   ► Like in a different year, like if it's very normal,

00:43:59 ◼   ► there would be like things coming to the iPhone

00:44:01 ◼   ► that aren't on the iPads.

00:44:03 ◼   ► Like what do you do in that scenario, do you think?

00:44:06 ◼   ► If you're doing a features one.

00:44:08 ◼   ► - Sure, I mean, that could have happened this year.

00:44:10 ◼   ► We didn't really talk about it,

00:44:12 ◼   ► but the home screen stuff is on both the iPhone and iPad

00:44:15 ◼   ► at the same time.

00:44:16 ◼   ► And that's a first with widgets on the home screen.

00:44:19 ◼   ► Like then they were like stuck in the weird sidebar

00:44:21 ◼   ► on the iPad, like that was a weird year.

00:44:23 ◼   ► They weren't on the lock screen.

00:44:26 ◼   ► This year they're in step, but to your point,

00:44:29 ◼   ► more often than not, they're out of step.

00:44:31 ◼   ► And so, yeah, I guess that does throw a wrench

00:44:33 ◼   ► in a feature based keynote.

00:44:36 ◼   ► - Feels like that could have, like that to me

00:44:40 ◼   ► could have been like a very easy,

00:44:41 ◼   ► somebody made that as their first round pick, you know?

00:44:44 ◼   ► Because like we would just naturally assume

00:44:46 ◼   ► that the iPad would not get it.

00:44:48 ◼   ► And, but luckily nobody made that pick this time around.

00:44:52 ◼   ► - Okay, so round two, Mike you're up again.

00:44:57 ◼   ► - Notification summaries are powered by a new AI system.

00:45:02 ◼   ► - Ding?

00:45:05 ◼   ► I mean, yes.

00:45:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, why?

00:45:07 ◼   ► - Why question my ding? - No, sorry, sorry, sorry.

00:45:09 ◼   ► No, I shouldn't have questioned, it's fine.

00:45:11 ◼   ► I shouldn't have questioned the ding.

00:45:13 ◼   ► You have the point.

00:45:14 ◼   ► - Never question the ding, okay?

00:45:16 ◼   ► - I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

00:45:18 ◼   ► But I don't, I was kind of surprised at how fast this went.

00:45:23 ◼   ► Like, I don't know if I have my hands around

00:45:25 ◼   ► what this actually looks like yet.

00:45:27 ◼   ► - Oh, this is like my favorite thing.

00:45:29 ◼   ► Like there's a couple of things going on here.

00:45:33 ◼   ► And Federico, you can correct me if I'm wrong

00:45:34 ◼   ► about any of it.

00:45:35 ◼   ► So point one is like, if you have loads of notifications,

00:45:39 ◼   ► Apple intelligence is going to bring forward

00:45:43 ◼   ► to the top of the list, the things that it believes

00:45:46 ◼   ► are the most important for you to look at.

00:45:48 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:45:49 ◼   ► - If there is a group chat, which is popping off,

00:45:53 ◼   ► and my hope would be that it would also do this

00:45:55 ◼   ► for stuff for like third party apps too,

00:45:58 ◼   ► but I don't know about that yet.

00:46:00 ◼   ► It will actually look at the contents of the message

00:46:02 ◼   ► and summarize what's going on in those messages.

00:46:05 ◼   ► So like, you know, Bob and Mary and Jim are talking

00:46:10 ◼   ► about this update to the latest house rules or whatever.

00:46:15 ◼   ► You know, like it's going to look at the content

00:46:17 ◼   ► and like sum it up for you.

00:46:18 ◼   ► And then also there is a new focus mode,

00:46:21 ◼   ► which is called something that I will-

00:46:26 ◼   ► - Reduce interruptions.

00:46:27 ◼   ► - Thank you Federico, reduce interruptions.

00:46:30 ◼   ► And that one, you just turn that on.

00:46:32 ◼   ► And if the system believes there is something you need to see

00:46:35 ◼   ► it will tell you.

00:46:37 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:46:37 ◼   ► - So I think this is all really good.

00:46:41 ◼   ► Clearly notifications are a problem.

00:46:43 ◼   ► They're always going to be a problem.

00:46:44 ◼   ► Maybe we should just have the AI manager for us.

00:46:46 ◼   ► - Hmm.

00:46:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:46:50 ◼   ► - I do think it's interesting

00:46:53 ◼   ► 'cause it's like the summarization tools,

00:46:55 ◼   ► like in mail or other places,

00:46:56 ◼   ► but kind of across different things.

00:47:00 ◼   ► I don't know, something about that is interesting.

00:47:02 ◼   ► - There's a lot of summarization

00:47:04 ◼   ► and that is like overall my favorite

00:47:06 ◼   ► of all of the AI features.

00:47:09 ◼   ► It's just anywhere they're summarizing anything.

00:47:11 ◼   ► Like the email thing where they summarize

00:47:13 ◼   ► what's in the email in that little preview line.

00:47:16 ◼   ► - Super smart.

00:47:17 ◼   ► - If you get a long email and they give you a TLDR,

00:47:19 ◼   ► all of that stuff is fantastic.

00:47:21 ◼   ► Like summarize or like the stuff that's in Safari,

00:47:23 ◼   ► which isn't Apple intelligence,

00:47:25 ◼   ► it's just available in Safari.

00:47:27 ◼   ► But it feels like that kind of thing

00:47:30 ◼   ► where you can go to a webpage and reader

00:47:32 ◼   ► and the first thing it will show you

00:47:33 ◼   ► before it shows you the reader view

00:47:35 ◼   ► is here's what's on this webpage.

00:47:38 ◼   ► So I think all of that stuff is great to be honest.

00:47:42 ◼   ► - You guys know me, I don't like to read.

00:47:44 ◼   ► Do the reading for me computer.

00:47:45 ◼   ► You know, I don't wanna read this.

00:47:48 ◼   ► - Computers love reading.

00:47:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have mixed feelings

00:47:51 ◼   ► about the summarization in the browser,

00:47:53 ◼   ► but we'll talk about that in a bit, I guess.

00:47:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, look, the feature and how the feature is possible,

00:48:01 ◼   ► different things, right?

00:48:02 ◼   ► - Can you separate the art from the artist?

00:48:07 ◼   ► - No, no, but that's not actually what I'm saying.

00:48:10 ◼   ► When I'm saying like there is a feature, right?

00:48:11 ◼   ► And that, but like if they would have gotten to that feature

00:48:15 ◼   ► by not scraping the open web,

00:48:17 ◼   ► then you would be okay with it, right?

00:48:19 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, oh yeah.

00:48:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, so that's what I'm saying.

00:48:21 ◼   ► What it's doing is one thing,

00:48:22 ◼   ► how it got there is another thing, important,

00:48:25 ◼   ► but I believe there is a distinction between the two.

00:48:28 ◼   ► - So round two, my pick was there is a new system

00:48:33 ◼   ► for changing the colors of icons on the home screen.

00:48:37 ◼   ► - Ding! - Ding, yes.

00:48:39 ◼   ► - Oh, that was a emphatic ding.

00:48:40 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:48:43 ◼   ► - Well, no, look, look, look, okay.

00:48:46 ◼   ► I think, I also think this is not for me.

00:48:51 ◼   ► I think some people will manage to make it look nice.

00:48:55 ◼   ► I don't think my personal taste, okay,

00:48:58 ◼   ► just my personal opinion, my personal taste,

00:49:01 ◼   ► I don't even think Apple's own marketing images look good.

00:49:05 ◼   ► Like I just think even the good ones

00:49:10 ◼   ► are horrible.

00:49:12 ◼   ► - Like the one they showed in the keynote

00:49:14 ◼   ► with the dog and it's yellow, it's like that just, to me-

00:49:17 ◼   ► - And they were so proud of it.

00:49:19 ◼   ► I thought I was losing my mind.

00:49:20 ◼   ► Like I thought I was like,

00:49:23 ◼   ► I should have looked around for cameras pointing at me

00:49:25 ◼   ► or something like, okay, I mean, I'm the joke.

00:49:27 ◼   ► Like, okay, I get it.

00:49:29 ◼   ► Now we're all like convinced that this is looking nice.

00:49:33 ◼   ► Sure, no, I don't think it looks nice.

00:49:36 ◼   ► I think it's also like, you know me, I love customization,

00:49:41 ◼   ► putting the power in the hands of consumers.

00:49:44 ◼   ► Like I'm all in favor of it.

00:49:47 ◼   ► But I think there could, should maybe have been

00:49:52 ◼   ► a better developer story other than,

00:49:56 ◼   ► hey, when you sign the updated developer agreement,

00:49:59 ◼   ► you're also agreeing that users will be able

00:50:02 ◼   ► to change the colors of your icons.

00:50:04 ◼   ► And I think maybe there could have been an API

00:50:07 ◼   ► or something better to say,

00:50:09 ◼   ► hey developers, people will be able to do this.

00:50:13 ◼   ► Here's a few ways for you to properly optimize your icons

00:50:16 ◼   ► or maybe there could have been a way to say,

00:50:21 ◼   ► maybe the icon could be of a certain color,

00:50:24 ◼   ► but like multiple shades of the same color.

00:50:27 ◼   ► Like I just think that applying a blue filter

00:50:31 ◼   ► or a red filter on top of icons and just call it a day,

00:50:35 ◼   ► while easy, right, as a concept and as an implementation,

00:50:40 ◼   ► I also think it leads to some very,

00:50:43 ◼   ► very questionable visual results.

00:50:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that they came to the conclusion

00:50:50 ◼   ► that I think we were talking about maybe last week

00:50:52 ◼   ► of big brands aren't gonna let,

00:50:54 ◼   ► they're not gonna allow this if they're given the choice.

00:50:57 ◼   ► Right, that if it's like a thing where you have to provide us

00:51:00 ◼   ► with a certain icon so people can do this,

00:51:02 ◼   ► they're not gonna do it.

00:51:04 ◼   ► So this is like the only way they could do it,

00:51:06 ◼   ► it's just they apply it broadly

00:51:08 ◼   ► and you have no choice in the matter.

00:51:09 ◼   ► But I believe like you that the actual implementation

00:51:13 ◼   ► that Apple has gone with leads to not good results.

00:51:16 ◼   ► And I think it would be better

00:51:18 ◼   ► if people could actually choose different colors.

00:51:23 ◼   ► - Yes, yes, yes.

00:51:26 ◼   ► - And I don't know if they're gonna do this,

00:51:28 ◼   ► but I hope that they do.

00:51:29 ◼   ► - And like, I don't even think Apple,

00:51:32 ◼   ► sometimes this happens with Apple

00:51:34 ◼   ► when they listen to feedback.

00:51:36 ◼   ► And I think they misunderstood

00:51:39 ◼   ► what a lot of people were asking for.

00:51:43 ◼   ► In fact, Matt Bertler was posting about this

00:51:48 ◼   ► on Masterdome a few days ago, I think.

00:51:50 ◼   ► If you look at any, literally any,

00:51:55 ◼   ► of the most popular aesthetic home screen icon packs

00:52:00 ◼   ► or tutorials on places like Etsy,

00:52:03 ◼   ► Gumroad, YouTube, or TikTok,

00:52:05 ◼   ► and if you sample, say, the top 20

00:52:08 ◼   ► of those aesthetic home screens,

00:52:09 ◼   ► none of them are based on this style.

00:52:13 ◼   ► All of them are based on maybe all pastel color icons

00:52:18 ◼   ► or maybe beige icons or maybe pure black icons

00:52:22 ◼   ► and white color glyphs.

00:52:24 ◼   ► They're not going for this style.

00:52:28 ◼   ► And I think if you wanted to make those people happy

00:52:31 ◼   ► rather than doing this,

00:52:33 ◼   ► you would have done something different,

00:52:34 ◼   ► which is let me customize the icon

00:52:38 ◼   ► by choosing from a photo or by choosing from a file

00:52:41 ◼   ► right there from the home screen

00:52:42 ◼   ► instead of having to make a shortcut for it.

00:52:45 ◼   ► And so I think this is a case of Apple

00:52:47 ◼   ► misunderstanding what the market wanted

00:52:49 ◼   ► and making a feature that, in theory,

00:52:52 ◼   ► like power to the people.

00:52:53 ◼   ► I mean, sure, like the principle

00:52:56 ◼   ► is based on a strong foundation

00:52:58 ◼   ► of users should be able to do what they want,

00:53:01 ◼   ► but the implementation, let's face it, it's a little ugly.

00:53:06 ◼   ► - I wonder if it would be better if you could choose,

00:53:09 ◼   ► 'cause every time you do this, they turn the icons black.

00:53:11 ◼   ► I don't know why, but that's what they do.

00:53:13 ◼   ► Like it's black and then the color you've chosen.

00:53:16 ◼   ► Maybe it would be better if you could just choose two colors.

00:53:20 ◼   ► - Maybe, maybe, yes.

00:53:22 ◼   ► - Like maybe that would produce-

00:53:24 ◼   ► - Maybe the, like my actual problem

00:53:27 ◼   ► is the black color of the icons.

00:53:30 ◼   ► I just think, like even if you look at that example,

00:53:34 ◼   ► they just paste it into Discord, the second one,

00:53:37 ◼   ► with the photo of the person walking on the sand dunes

00:53:40 ◼   ► and the icons around the photo,

00:53:42 ◼   ► like the contrast between those black icons

00:53:44 ◼   ► and the rest of the picture is so ugly to me.

00:53:48 ◼   ► I can't believe this is a marketing material from Apple.

00:53:51 ◼   ► - Those are from the, which I'll put in the show notes,

00:53:54 ◼   ► the iOS 18 preview page.

00:53:56 ◼   ► Like they're the two examples that they've picked.

00:54:00 ◼   ► - Okay, all right, so yeah, you can change.

00:54:02 ◼   ► Anyway, once again, I get the point, yeah.

00:54:07 ◼   ► Steven.

00:54:07 ◼   ► - Apple mentions that it has created its own LLM.

00:54:13 ◼   ► - Ding.

00:54:14 ◼   ► - Ding.

00:54:15 ◼   ► - Ding. - Yeah.

00:54:16 ◼   ► - Ding?

00:54:17 ◼   ► - No, no.

00:54:19 ◼   ► - Ding?

00:54:20 ◼   ► - Ding.

00:54:21 ◼   ► In this economy, yes, so Apple has its own

00:54:27 ◼   ► large language models.

00:54:28 ◼   ► Apple's collectively calling these models

00:54:30 ◼   ► the foundation models, that's kind of how they refer to them

00:54:33 ◼   ► and we have some links in the show notes

00:54:35 ◼   ► to Apple's machine learning blog.

00:54:37 ◼   ► But this I think is, we touched on it a second ago,

00:54:41 ◼   ► but Federico, do you wanna talk about the training

00:54:42 ◼   ► a little bit?

00:54:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, so they almost offhandedly mentioned,

00:54:49 ◼   ► in one of the Q&As that they did at Apple Park,

00:54:53 ◼   ► moderated by iJustine, I believe Craig Federico

00:54:56 ◼   ► first mentioned that they also used

00:54:59 ◼   ► crawling using Apple bot on the open web,

00:55:03 ◼   ► which is also something that they confirmed

00:55:06 ◼   ► on the machine learning website.

00:55:09 ◼   ► - And the talk show, it came up in the talk show as well.

00:55:11 ◼   ► - And the talk show, okay.

00:55:12 ◼   ► I personally am very offended by this

00:55:18 ◼   ► and I find it very insulting to publishers

00:55:23 ◼   ► and to creators on the web,

00:55:26 ◼   ► not just because of the technique being used,

00:55:30 ◼   ► obviously scraping the web to use the data

00:55:34 ◼   ► as training for AI that would be in a commercial product,

00:55:39 ◼   ► but to add insult to the injury is the fact

00:55:43 ◼   ► that we were told after the fact

00:55:46 ◼   ► and we were given instructions on how to block

00:55:49 ◼   ► Apple bot extended, now that the training has been done.

00:55:53 ◼   ► So yay, thank you for that.

00:55:54 ◼   ► Now I can block it now, but you've been scraping websites

00:55:59 ◼   ► for months at this point.

00:56:00 ◼   ► And the reason I'm so upset is that

00:56:04 ◼   ► of all companies that do this,

00:56:09 ◼   ► and literally every AI company does this,

00:56:11 ◼   ► save for like, I think one exception,

00:56:15 ◼   ► I think I did some research,

00:56:16 ◼   ► I only was able to find one LLM based on

00:56:21 ◼   ► like all licensed and open source content.

00:56:25 ◼   ► I believe LLM 360 is the only one that does this,

00:56:29 ◼   ► but of all companies.

00:56:31 ◼   ► - That sounds made up.

00:56:32 ◼   ► It's like a Roma 360.

00:56:34 ◼   ► - Trust me, it's not,

00:56:36 ◼   ► but of all companies that were expecting more from Apple

00:56:42 ◼   ► and to just say this in a blog post,

00:56:45 ◼   ► like, yeah, we also use data from the open web,

00:56:48 ◼   ► like I am not okay with it.

00:56:52 ◼   ► And I think it's pretty disgusting.

00:56:54 ◼   ► That would be- - It's disappointing.

00:56:56 ◼   ► - Yes, yes.

00:56:58 ◼   ► - It's disappointing and I think it is

00:57:00 ◼   ► another of the symptoms of how recently

00:57:06 ◼   ► they started this project,

00:57:08 ◼   ► that they felt like they needed to be on this quickly

00:57:13 ◼   ► and it did not give them the opportunity to do it better.

00:57:20 ◼   ► - I'm sure that's part of the problem.

00:57:26 ◼   ► - That's what I believe is the case.

00:57:28 ◼   ► - I hope that's the case

00:57:30 ◼   ► and I hope it's not instead a case of thinking,

00:57:36 ◼   ► I see this misconception

00:57:38 ◼   ► and it's what's part of the responses that I got

00:57:41 ◼   ► after I posted about this on Mastodon,

00:57:44 ◼   ► that anything that is on the open web,

00:57:47 ◼   ► you should be okay with AI crawlers ingesting that content.

00:57:52 ◼   ► And I think that is so wrong as an assumption to make,

00:57:57 ◼   ► that it's okay to-

00:57:59 ◼   ► - This is the excuse people will tell themselves

00:58:02 ◼   ► and tell others after they've done it

00:58:03 ◼   ► to excuse the fact that they-

00:58:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:58:07 ◼   ► And if it was okay,

00:58:10 ◼   ► we wouldn't see these instances of companies

00:58:13 ◼   ► suing other AI companies,

00:58:15 ◼   ► like for example, the New York Times suing OpenAI

00:58:18 ◼   ► and then making a deal,

00:58:20 ◼   ► like an official deal with OpenAI,

00:58:22 ◼   ► Vox Media has made it similar.

00:58:26 ◼   ► - There are, I don't think the New York Times

00:58:27 ◼   ► is on a deal with OpenAI.

00:58:28 ◼   ► - Oh, they haven't made one?

00:58:30 ◼   ► Okay, so the New York Times-

00:58:31 ◼   ► - New York Times is suing OpenAI.

00:58:33 ◼   ► - Okay, so New York Times is suing-

00:58:33 ◼   ► - They're holding out, they're holding out.

00:58:36 ◼   ► - But Vox Media has cut a deal with OpenAI.

00:58:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, and a bunch of others,

00:58:40 ◼   ► like Business Insider maybe,

00:58:44 ◼   ► there are lots of deals that are being done,

00:58:45 ◼   ► but the Times is like, they wanna win, right?

00:58:50 ◼   ► And-

00:58:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, so look, if OpenAI knew

00:58:55 ◼   ► that what they were doing was morally

00:58:57 ◼   ► and legally acceptable, right?

00:59:01 ◼   ► That anything that is on the open web,

00:59:03 ◼   ► it's fair use to appropriate it and use it for training,

00:59:06 ◼   ► they wouldn't cut deals now, would they?

00:59:08 ◼   ► If it was okay.

00:59:11 ◼   ► - I think this is, well, I think they think it's okay,

00:59:14 ◼   ► but they also don't wanna lose in court.

00:59:16 ◼   ► I think that's the situation.

00:59:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:59:20 ◼   ► - They're just trying to protect themselves.

00:59:22 ◼   ► But I do believe that these people think that it's fine

00:59:28 ◼   ► and that to me is the affront of it all.

00:59:31 ◼   ► - Yes, and what I find even more concerning

00:59:35 ◼   ► is the fact that, for example, in a bunch of interviews

00:59:38 ◼   ► that, as an aside, Apple has been

00:59:42 ◼   ► on a bunch of different interviews

00:59:49 ◼   ► with YouTubers this week.

00:59:50 ◼   ► You can find Tim Cook and Craig Federighi

00:59:52 ◼   ► on a lot of, everywhere on YouTube.

00:59:54 ◼   ► - Full cult press this past week.

00:59:58 ◼   ► - And it seems like Craig, for example,

01:00:00 ◼   ► genuinely loves image generation in Apple Intelligence,

01:00:05 ◼   ► to the point where he actually went on an interview

01:00:10 ◼   ► and said, "Oh, I love sending generated images

01:00:14 ◼   ► "of other people to my friends."

01:00:16 ◼   ► And I felt like, I don't know.

01:00:19 ◼   ► I will just point people to your excellent discussion

01:00:23 ◼   ► with Jason on Upgrade, Mike, where you both summed up

01:00:28 ◼   ► a lot of my feelings on the situation very well.

01:00:30 ◼   ► So instead of rehashing that here,

01:00:32 ◼   ► people should go listen to that.

01:00:34 ◼   ► - If you wanna see how emotional I get,

01:00:38 ◼   ► we also clip that part on YouTube.

01:00:40 ◼   ► I'll put both in it.

01:00:41 ◼   ► I am very upset about the image stuff.

01:00:44 ◼   ► Like, we haven't even gotten to that yet.

01:00:45 ◼   ► But can we, before we get to that,

01:00:48 ◼   ► I don't know if we have somewhere

01:00:50 ◼   ► that we will naturally get to that in this show,

01:00:52 ◼   ► so maybe we'll just like squeeze it in after this.

01:00:55 ◼   ► But you have made decisions, Federico,

01:00:58 ◼   ► that I think I would like to unpack a little bit.

01:01:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:01:03 ◼   ► For now, we have disallowed all AI crawlers

01:01:08 ◼   ► from Mac stories.

01:01:10 ◼   ► Over the weekend, we are gonna go one step beyond.

01:01:14 ◼   ► Right now, we're just telling crawlers

01:01:17 ◼   ► not to crawl our website for AI using the robots.txt file,

01:01:22 ◼   ► which is just like putting up a warning sign

01:01:26 ◼   ► that anybody can ignore.

01:01:28 ◼   ► But over the weekend, we are actually going to roll out

01:01:32 ◼   ► server-side change that will actively block those crawlers,

01:01:38 ◼   ► including Applebot Extended,

01:01:42 ◼   ► from accessing Mac stories, period.

01:01:45 ◼   ► Because I am done with these things.

01:01:49 ◼   ► I am not okay with it.

01:01:50 ◼   ► It's a, fundamentally, I believe it's a technology

01:01:54 ◼   ► that will kill the web as we know it

01:01:57 ◼   ► and will hurt people and their businesses for years to come.

01:02:01 ◼   ► And these companies and we collectively

01:02:03 ◼   ► will come to regret it.

01:02:05 ◼   ► We just don't see it now because we are collectively blinded

01:02:08 ◼   ► by the shininess of it all.

01:02:10 ◼   ► But we will come to regret it once we realize

01:02:14 ◼   ► that in order to power these fancy features,

01:02:17 ◼   ► we have killed dozens and hundreds, maybe,

01:02:21 ◼   ► of websites and web-based businesses

01:02:24 ◼   ► that got their content stolen from them

01:02:26 ◼   ► just to power these fancy new functionalities.

01:02:29 ◼   ► So that's my opinion, yeah.

01:02:31 ◼   ► - Steven, what's your thoughts on all this?

01:02:35 ◼   ► The tech stuff, the AI training stuff, all of that?

01:02:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know if I've had enough time

01:02:42 ◼   ► to think it through as thoroughly as Federico has,

01:02:45 ◼   ► but on first blush, I don't like that content

01:02:48 ◼   ► is being sucked into these things

01:02:50 ◼   ► without a return to the maker of that content.

01:02:54 ◼   ► I saw somebody on social media argue,

01:02:56 ◼   ► like, well, how is it different from Google search?

01:02:58 ◼   ► Where I was like, well, I'm getting a page view out of it.

01:03:02 ◼   ► This, I'm not.

01:03:03 ◼   ► And on one hand, I want these chatbots

01:03:07 ◼   ► to be really knowledgeable about the Macintosh Performa.

01:03:11 ◼   ► And so they have my content to make that possible,

01:03:15 ◼   ► but I'm not seeing any return from that.

01:03:17 ◼   ► And they are, and that's pretty gross.

01:03:20 ◼   ► - Or maybe at least you were never given the option.

01:03:24 ◼   ► - That's, I think, the biggest thing,

01:03:26 ◼   ► is that Apple did this and then talked about it

01:03:30 ◼   ► after the fact, and a little, at least in the talk show,

01:03:34 ◼   ► my impression of it when they gave the answer

01:03:39 ◼   ► was they were kind of sheepish about it.

01:03:41 ◼   ► One of my kids did something wrong,

01:03:44 ◼   ► and we both know they did it,

01:03:45 ◼   ► and I asked them if they did it, kind of that vibe.

01:03:49 ◼   ► And I just, I wanted them to be better than that.

01:03:51 ◼   ► - It is particularly interesting in a situation like,

01:03:58 ◼   ► you know, an interview like that.

01:04:00 ◼   ► And I'm sure it's gonna be interesting going forward,

01:04:05 ◼   ► where Apple is participating in these journalistic endeavors

01:04:11 ◼   ► because they want people to hear about their products,

01:04:15 ◼   ► while at the same time devaluing the work of the same people.

01:04:20 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:04:23 ◼   ► - I am intrigued to see what that relationship adapts to

01:04:28 ◼   ► over time for people that produce content like this.

01:04:32 ◼   ► For me, with the content that I make, it doesn't bother me.

01:04:40 ◼   ► I am very sure that my voice is a part of any voice

01:04:45 ◼   ► transcription model that exists because I produce hundreds,

01:04:50 ◼   ► I've produced hundreds of hours of free podcasts, right?

01:04:53 ◼   ► Like if you're building something like whisper, right?

01:04:55 ◼   ► Like OpenAI's whisper, the easiest data set in the world

01:04:59 ◼   ► is the podcast directory.

01:05:01 ◼   ► It's already there.

01:05:02 ◼   ► Like you can just point something at it and go for it.

01:05:06 ◼   ► For me, it doesn't just, like, because what podcasts are,

01:05:10 ◼   ► it doesn't really bother me.

01:05:11 ◼   ► Like page views or whatever, you know what I mean?

01:05:15 ◼   ► I feel like for written text--

01:05:16 ◼   ► - But it's not okay for them to use your voice.

01:05:20 ◼   ► Like it's not okay.

01:05:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause we didn't agree to it, right?

01:05:24 ◼   ► And so like, I'm just saying like for me personally,

01:05:27 ◼   ► like it doesn't bother me for me, it bothers me for you,

01:05:32 ◼   ► if you know what I mean.

01:05:34 ◼   ► I am more upset about the idea of them taking texts

01:05:38 ◼   ► that's on the web than audio that's on the web.

01:05:41 ◼   ► I don't know why, it's just my emotions.

01:05:43 ◼   ► But I, because just 'cause like also it's like

01:05:46 ◼   ► the business models of it all, right?

01:05:49 ◼   ► So like podcasts don't make money based on how many people,

01:05:54 ◼   ► at least the way we do it, listen to the episode, right?

01:05:59 ◼   ► Because it's all done before.

01:06:01 ◼   ► So that like me losing, yeah, I don't know.

01:06:07 ◼   ► It's just my, it's hard to explain your emotional reaction

01:06:09 ◼   ► to something, but I am upset at the fact

01:06:12 ◼   ► that they did this to websites.

01:06:16 ◼   ► It bothers me.

01:06:17 ◼   ► And I have bigger problems for me than this,

01:06:21 ◼   ► but like I'm very disappointed in them that they did it

01:06:26 ◼   ► and they didn't tell anyone they were doing it.

01:06:28 ◼   ► And now they just want us to accept it and forget about it.

01:06:31 ◼   ► And I think that that is, it's a shame.

01:06:34 ◼   ► It's a great shame in my opinion.

01:06:36 ◼   ► - And let me say, because I've seen this happen

01:06:39 ◼   ► as well on social media, it's okay for people

01:06:42 ◼   ► to have complicated and potentially conflicting feelings

01:06:46 ◼   ► about these things, right?

01:06:47 ◼   ► We can be excited about the technology

01:06:50 ◼   ► and disappointed by how the technology was formed.

01:06:53 ◼   ► We can be excited about the creative tools

01:06:56 ◼   ► at things like image generation unlocked,

01:06:58 ◼   ► but also be worried about things like bullying

01:07:01 ◼   ► or deep fakes, right?

01:07:03 ◼   ► Those things can all exist in the same person.

01:07:06 ◼   ► And so when you hear us or other people,

01:07:08 ◼   ► or even as you think about this yourself,

01:07:11 ◼   ► it's okay to be conflicted or have complicated feelings

01:07:16 ◼   ► because this is a complicated

01:07:18 ◼   ► and honestly pretty new thing to consider.

01:07:22 ◼   ► I mean, I felt myself really struggling with that

01:07:25 ◼   ► at the talk show, like listening to this interview

01:07:28 ◼   ► and kind of like rapidly going from excitement

01:07:32 ◼   ► to sort of horror, like all, like kind of back and forth.

01:07:36 ◼   ► And I just, I've come to the place to like, you know what?

01:07:38 ◼   ► This is just big and complicated,

01:07:40 ◼   ► and it's okay if my feelings

01:07:42 ◼   ► aren't completely sorted out yet.

01:07:44 ◼   ► And it's okay if our feelings change over time, right?

01:07:46 ◼   ► So this is, we all just need some grace in this

01:07:50 ◼   ► because I think that it's a new world for so many people

01:07:55 ◼   ► and we're gonna feel different about it as content creators

01:07:57 ◼   ► than a regular consumer.

01:07:59 ◼   ► I'm gonna think about differently as a parent potentially,

01:08:02 ◼   ► as someone who doesn't have kids with iPhones, right?

01:08:06 ◼   ► There's a lot of stuff here,

01:08:08 ◼   ► so I would just keep that in mind

01:08:10 ◼   ► when we're having these conversations,

01:08:11 ◼   ► when you're listening to us have these conversations

01:08:13 ◼   ► that we're figuring this out as we go

01:08:16 ◼   ► and it's okay if that changes over time.

01:08:20 ◼   ► Feelings.

01:08:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:08:25 ◼   ► Who knew?

01:08:26 ◼   ► It is a very feelings heavy WWDC.

01:08:30 ◼   ► Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you can't get away from it.

01:08:33 ◼   ► Like, it's, I think for a lot of people,

01:08:38 ◼   ► their conception of Apple is changing further.

01:08:45 ◼   ► And I think that that is very complicated

01:08:48 ◼   ► for a lot of people to be able to handle.

01:08:51 ◼   ► I feel like I can handle it because I for a long time

01:08:57 ◼   ► have had complicated feelings

01:09:00 ◼   ► with the way that they manage their business endeavors.

01:09:03 ◼   ► But ultimately I am a fan of technology

01:09:06 ◼   ► and exciting technology.

01:09:08 ◼   ► And I think that there is exciting technology here,

01:09:10 ◼   ► even if I don't agree with all the ways that it's been done.

01:09:13 ◼   ► But I think there is a whole new wave of people

01:09:16 ◼   ► that are trying to work out how to navigate their emotions

01:09:21 ◼   ► and the realities of the situation.

01:09:22 ◼   ► And I think that's just gonna play out for a little while

01:09:25 ◼   ► and we've all just kind of got to strap in

01:09:28 ◼   ► and deal with it, you know?

01:09:30 ◼   ► Oh yeah, everybody will deal with it their own way.

01:09:34 ◼   ► I guess, yeah.

01:09:35 ◼   ► Let's move on onto funnier things maybe.

01:09:40 ◼   ► Okay.

01:09:41 ◼   ► Yeah?

01:09:42 ◼   ► Yeah.

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01:11:28 ◼   ► So we're gonna circle back to image generation

01:11:35 ◼   ► and then we'll get to the risky picks.

01:11:37 ◼   ► This is something that I was a little surprised to see.

01:11:42 ◼   ► It feels like this is the riskiest thing

01:11:45 ◼   ► Apple has introduced.

01:11:46 ◼   ► And even though they have a lot of,

01:11:53 ◼   ► seems like a lot of boundaries

01:11:54 ◼   ► around what this technology can do,

01:11:57 ◼   ► there are some things in here that are a bit surprising.

01:11:59 ◼   ► So for example, there's only three styles of artwork

01:12:03 ◼   ► and lifelike or realistic is not one of them.

01:12:07 ◼   ► They're gonna look cartoony or hand-sketched or animated,

01:12:11 ◼   ► but they're clearly trying to steer clear of deepfakes.

01:12:16 ◼   ► But you can create an image of anybody in your photo library

01:12:20 ◼   ► and that feels not great to me.

01:12:23 ◼   ► I think about this in the context of my two,

01:12:28 ◼   ► well now high school students in my house

01:12:31 ◼   ► and like that can be pretty hurtful

01:12:33 ◼   ► if someone makes an image that is making fun of somebody.

01:12:36 ◼   ► And I said this on Mac power users,

01:12:39 ◼   ► but image generation doesn't feel new to us

01:12:43 ◼   ► because we've been playing with these tools

01:12:45 ◼   ► for a couple of years, right?

01:12:46 ◼   ► We've all played with Dolly and the other things,

01:12:50 ◼   ► but this is gonna be now in the pockets

01:12:52 ◼   ► or on the desks of a whole bunch of people

01:12:56 ◼   ► who are experiencing it for the first time.

01:12:58 ◼   ► And I just kind of wish Apple hadn't gone so far

01:13:00 ◼   ► down the road of the image generation stuff.

01:13:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, this is the,

01:13:06 ◼   ► in addition to the web scraping,

01:13:09 ◼   ► I just find this so sad.

01:13:14 ◼   ► And I think they shouldn't have done it.

01:13:19 ◼   ► I was hoping they wouldn't do it.

01:13:21 ◼   ► And this is where unfortunately I can feel a,

01:13:26 ◼   ► for the first time in maybe years

01:13:28 ◼   ► that I've been doing what I do for a living,

01:13:31 ◼   ► I can feel a disconnect between my opinions and my thoughts

01:13:36 ◼   ► and what this company is pushing forward.

01:13:40 ◼   ► And for me, seeing Federighi in interviews,

01:13:45 ◼   ► being so wildly excited for image generation,

01:13:49 ◼   ► a feature that I personally find so gross

01:13:54 ◼   ► and potentially dangerous, I'm like,

01:13:57 ◼   ► how, like, it makes me worried about future features

01:14:03 ◼   ► that this company will make

01:14:08 ◼   ► because I strongly, strongly dislike this one so much.

01:14:13 ◼   ► And I think it's so sad that they,

01:14:18 ◼   ► I'm sure they felt almost obligated to do it.

01:14:21 ◼   ► And I hate, like, I'm gonna do something

01:14:25 ◼   ► that I don't think I've done in years

01:14:28 ◼   ► because I think it's such a silly argument,

01:14:31 ◼   ► but I've been thinking about it and I'm just gonna say it.

01:14:34 ◼   ► And I hate being that person,

01:14:36 ◼   ► but I'll take the responsibility.

01:14:38 ◼   ► Yes, do it, oh, do it.

01:14:41 ◼   ► I wonder if Steve Jobs would have done it.

01:14:44 ◼   ► Yeah, you go.

01:14:44 ◼   ► And you know what?

01:14:46 ◼   ► I agree with you.

01:14:48 ◼   ► I hate using this card in this argument, but I-

01:14:53 ◼   ► 'Cause it's a terrible argument, right?

01:14:55 ◼   ► But it's everything I've been thinking about, literally.

01:14:58 ◼   ► So.

01:15:00 ◼   ► I think that this move lacks taste.

01:15:04 ◼   ► Yeah. Right?

01:15:06 ◼   ► And I think that's what you're getting at, right?

01:15:09 ◼   ► And I think it's an easier thing to say

01:15:12 ◼   ► than the Steve Jobs thing, right?

01:15:14 ◼   ► But I actually do completely agree with you.

01:15:16 ◼   ► I had not thought of that, but I agree with you completely.

01:15:19 ◼   ► As I said, as we were saying earlier,

01:15:21 ◼   ► everyone has their own emotions.

01:15:22 ◼   ► This is the thing that upsets me the most

01:15:24 ◼   ► because I don't think that they,

01:15:29 ◼   ► this did not even cross my mind

01:15:31 ◼   ► as a thing that they would do,

01:15:33 ◼   ► because honestly, I don't even think they need to.

01:15:36 ◼   ► Like, I don't think people are particularly calling

01:15:40 ◼   ► for this type of stuff.

01:15:41 ◼   ► I know.

01:15:43 ◼   ► This felt like the thing that happened

01:15:46 ◼   ► and has mostly gone away,

01:15:47 ◼   ► because I think in general, people don't like AI art.

01:15:51 ◼   ► Like, I feel like if you spend any time

01:15:53 ◼   ► on Instagram right now, and you see like any brand

01:15:56 ◼   ► that posts anything that looks like it was animated,

01:15:58 ◼   ► people think it's AI art, and they're so mad about it.

01:16:01 ◼   ► Yeah. Right?

01:16:02 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:16:03 ◼   ► And I feel bad for artists,

01:16:05 ◼   ► 'cause there are a bunch of brands

01:16:06 ◼   ► where I see this and I'm like,

01:16:06 ◼   ► "I'm convinced that this company is not using AI art,

01:16:09 ◼   ► but everybody thinks they are because it's not a photo."

01:16:12 ◼   ► And I don't really understand why they've done this.

01:16:16 ◼   ► I think it's particularly bad that it's of other people,

01:16:19 ◼   ► as you said, Steven,

01:16:20 ◼   ► and that is the part where I'm like,

01:16:22 ◼   ► "All right, you've decided to go

01:16:26 ◼   ► in this complete different direction

01:16:27 ◼   ► that nobody else has done."

01:16:29 ◼   ► And like, what's the path here?

01:16:32 ◼   ► Like, at what point are these images photorealistic?

01:16:35 ◼   ► Like, why would they not do that too in like three years time?

01:16:39 ◼   ► Why is it always gonna be a cartoon?

01:16:41 ◼   ► Like, I think there's only a cartoon right now

01:16:43 ◼   ► because it's all they can do.

01:16:44 ◼   ► And they can't even do that well.

01:16:45 ◼   ► That's the thing that annoys me the most.

01:16:47 ◼   ► They look terrible.

01:16:48 ◼   ► They look terrible.

01:16:48 ◼   ► You didn't even do it well.

01:16:50 ◼   ► They want to ease you into that.

01:16:52 ◼   ► So obviously they're not gonna do realistic now,

01:16:55 ◼   ► but can you be sure that they never will?

01:16:58 ◼   ► No. No, you can't.

01:16:59 ◼   ► No, you can't be sure.

01:17:00 ◼   ► And I really think that they just can't right now,

01:17:03 ◼   ► which is why one of the reasons they haven't.

01:17:04 ◼   ► There's also that.

01:17:05 ◼   ► There's also that. Yes.

01:17:07 ◼   ► So I just, this part to me is just like,

01:17:10 ◼   ► you didn't need to do it and you did it

01:17:12 ◼   ► and you didn't even do it very well.

01:17:13 ◼   ► So what is the point?

01:17:15 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:17:16 ◼   ► The emoji?

01:17:17 ◼   ► Fine.

01:17:18 ◼   ► The emoji, you know what?

01:17:18 ◼   ► That's good. Fun. Right?

01:17:20 ◼   ► I like that.

01:17:21 ◼   ► Even I will, it's a thin line,

01:17:25 ◼   ► but the fact that you can make an emoji

01:17:27 ◼   ► that looks like a Memoji, it looks like someone else.

01:17:29 ◼   ► I still don't love that, but that's okay-ish, I guess.

01:17:33 ◼   ► Right?

01:17:33 ◼   ► Like when it's actually like the,

01:17:35 ◼   ► sorry, not the Memoji,

01:17:37 ◼   ► you can make an emoji character

01:17:40 ◼   ► somewhat visually represent someone else, right?

01:17:43 ◼   ► This is in the like emoji creation thing.

01:17:46 ◼   ► I still don't love that,

01:17:47 ◼   ► but like that is as far as I think they should have gone

01:17:50 ◼   ► rather than the create a Memoji,

01:17:52 ◼   ► which is more on the lifelike,

01:17:54 ◼   ► is going to actually take more of somebody's facial features

01:17:57 ◼   ► and try and cross something that looks like them.

01:18:00 ◼   ► But like the emoji, Genmoji terrible name,

01:18:03 ◼   ► but you know, fine, right?

01:18:04 ◼   ► That I can not just have a pizza,

01:18:06 ◼   ► I can create an emoji, which is pineapple on a pizza.

01:18:09 ◼   ► That feels like a fun thing to do with your friends

01:18:11 ◼   ► and they're going to look like emoji.

01:18:13 ◼   ► That would have been, you know what?

01:18:15 ◼   ► A great feature that everyone would have been excited about,

01:18:17 ◼   ► but this now lives in the shadow of,

01:18:20 ◼   ► what is it? Image Playground,

01:18:21 ◼   ► which is just out and out for me, distasteful, bad feature.

01:18:26 ◼   ► Even the ones where it's like making an animal object,

01:18:29 ◼   ► again, it's like, it just doesn't look very good, gang.

01:18:33 ◼   ► Like I don't, I'm not sure that you really got out of this,

01:18:38 ◼   ► what you wanted.

01:18:38 ◼   ► The AI, like, sorry, the UI that you've built looks great.

01:18:43 ◼   ► The result, I don't think it does.

01:18:45 ◼   ► And like, maybe your model's going to get better over time,

01:18:49 ◼   ► but like maybe you should have faked it

01:18:51 ◼   ► for the presentation then,

01:18:52 ◼   ► because if this is your best foot forward,

01:18:54 ◼   ► I'm not really sure that the juice

01:18:57 ◼   ► was worth the squeeze on this one.

01:18:59 ◼   ► - Hmm.

01:19:00 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:19:01 ◼   ► - I felt like this is the most,

01:19:03 ◼   ► we have to catch up part of all that they're doing.

01:19:07 ◼   ► And I don't like that feeling either.

01:19:13 ◼   ► Like I can tell y'all from being there for a few days,

01:19:16 ◼   ► I've never been to a WBC, and I've been since 2013,

01:19:20 ◼   ► every year except the two COVID years.

01:19:22 ◼   ► I've never been to one of these things

01:19:26 ◼   ► where when you ask somebody like,

01:19:27 ◼   ► hey, what are your thoughts on the keynote?

01:19:29 ◼   ► The first thing out of their mouth is, well.

01:19:33 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Yeah.

01:19:34 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:19:35 ◼   ► - And it all came down to this.

01:19:37 ◼   ► And the feeling that Apple is doing something

01:19:41 ◼   ► because they think that they have to,

01:19:42 ◼   ► not because they think that they should

01:19:44 ◼   ► or that it's best for their customers.

01:19:47 ◼   ► And that's weird, y'all.

01:19:48 ◼   ► Like it's weird to see Apple doing features

01:19:53 ◼   ► and adding technology to their platforms

01:19:57 ◼   ► because they think the world has a leg up on them,

01:20:01 ◼   ► which is very unusual.

01:20:02 ◼   ► Not something I've seen very much in my career

01:20:05 ◼   ► covering this company.

01:20:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I'm seriously debating with myself right now

01:20:11 ◼   ► what to do with these features in my iOS review.

01:20:15 ◼   ► - Oh my word. - Later this year.

01:20:16 ◼   ► - I hadn't even thought of that.

01:20:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:20:19 ◼   ► - I gotta say right now I am leaning toward

01:20:23 ◼   ► not reviewing parts of it

01:20:26 ◼   ► because I just refuse to touch them.

01:20:28 ◼   ► But I could be swayed in different directions.

01:20:33 ◼   ► I know that it's objectively in a way my duty

01:20:37 ◼   ► to review them.

01:20:38 ◼   ► But also should I review and shine a spotlight

01:20:45 ◼   ► on a technology that I find disgusting

01:20:48 ◼   ► and potentially dangerous?

01:20:50 ◼   ► Probably not.

01:20:51 ◼   ► - Here's what I will say.

01:20:52 ◼   ► This is your choice.

01:20:53 ◼   ► I would say you should do it

01:20:54 ◼   ► and then say how you feel about it.

01:20:57 ◼   ► Because it's not like these features don't exist, right?

01:21:00 ◼   ► - They do exist.

01:21:01 ◼   ► But yeah, very complex feelings.

01:21:04 ◼   ► - You need to decide that for yourself.

01:21:05 ◼   ► That's a better reconstruction.

01:21:07 ◼   ► - We'll see when the day comes.

01:21:10 ◼   ► Let's move on to the risky picks,

01:21:13 ◼   ► which is another sad moment, but in a different way.

01:21:17 ◼   ► - My risky pick was VisionOS 2 has keyboard pass-through

01:21:22 ◼   ► in an environment and it works with any keyboard,

01:21:24 ◼   ► not just the ones that Apple makes.

01:21:27 ◼   ► This is the closest I think I've gone

01:21:32 ◼   ► to a risky pick in a long time.

01:21:33 ◼   ► I'm like so close, so close.

01:21:36 ◼   ► - Very close.

01:21:38 ◼   ► - If only you removed the part after the comma.

01:21:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I don't think you would have let me do it.

01:21:43 ◼   ► - No, and you said with any Apple keyboard,

01:21:46 ◼   ► like yeah, but we probably wouldn't have let you.

01:21:49 ◼   ► - I don't think you would have let me.

01:21:50 ◼   ► I thought about it.

01:21:51 ◼   ► Like if I would have said that they have a keyboard pass-through

01:21:54 ◼   ► in an environment, I don't think you would have let me

01:21:56 ◼   ► pick that.

01:21:57 ◼   ► - No, probably not.

01:21:59 ◼   ► Some people that have gotten this to kind of work

01:22:04 ◼   ► with their party keyboards, but it seems accidental.

01:22:06 ◼   ► Apple says--

01:22:07 ◼   ► - I've not been able to do it.

01:22:08 ◼   ► - Okay, yeah, I think someone at the Verge said

01:22:10 ◼   ► like it works occasionally, but this is something

01:22:13 ◼   ► that Apple says is for their keyboards,

01:22:15 ◼   ► that's what they've trained, I guess, their models on

01:22:18 ◼   ► to let you see the keyboard when you're fully immersed

01:22:22 ◼   ► in an environment, which is a good change because if you,

01:22:26 ◼   ► if you can't see what you're typing,

01:22:30 ◼   ► that can be problematic.

01:22:32 ◼   ► - Yep, it's a very good change, but I wish that they would

01:22:35 ◼   ► have taken it one step further than this,

01:22:39 ◼   ► but it's a good feature.

01:22:41 ◼   ► It's another good quality of life feature for VisionOS,

01:22:43 ◼   ► but it does not get me a point.

01:22:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, sorry, bud.

01:22:46 ◼   ► - I said Apple shows a Siri camera, not official name,

01:22:52 ◼   ► feature that lets you point the iPhone at something

01:22:54 ◼   ► and use AI to understand what you're looking at.

01:22:56 ◼   ► It'll use AI to determine various types of information,

01:22:59 ◼   ► such as objects or text in real time.

01:23:02 ◼   ► It may not ship this year.

01:23:04 ◼   ► Obviously, I did not get this, and I mean,

01:23:07 ◼   ► they couldn't get their little AI figurines look right,

01:23:10 ◼   ► imagine real time information on the camera, so.

01:23:13 ◼   ► Yeah, I did not get this.

01:23:17 ◼   ► - I like AI figurines, by the way,

01:23:19 ◼   ► it's like as a way to reference these little characters

01:23:23 ◼   ► that they've built. - They're not art.

01:23:24 ◼   ► They're not art, art is something else.

01:23:27 ◼   ► - Little figurines, I like that.

01:23:30 ◼   ► - That's good.

01:23:31 ◼   ► I did not get my related risky pick.

01:23:35 ◼   ► Apple previews a new VisionOS feature that puts overlays

01:23:38 ◼   ► over the camera pass-through with information

01:23:40 ◼   ► about objects in view.

01:23:41 ◼   ► - Which, to be fair, I think collectively,

01:23:45 ◼   ► these three sort of AI-based features

01:23:48 ◼   ► would have been better AI features

01:23:50 ◼   ► than whatever they announced.

01:23:53 ◼   ► - Well, I get, look, where we've gone into the upset spiral,

01:23:58 ◼   ► I think the system features for Apple intelligence

01:24:04 ◼   ► look really good, and I'm very excited about them.

01:24:06 ◼   ► I'm excited about the notification stuff.

01:24:09 ◼   ► I'm excited about my phone remembering things for me

01:24:12 ◼   ► that I can say, like I had this today

01:24:15 ◼   ► where I know I'd taken a picture of some notes,

01:24:19 ◼   ► but I didn't remember when they were,

01:24:22 ◼   ► and search wasn't helping me.

01:24:24 ◼   ► And I feel like if I asked my phone, I was like,

01:24:26 ◼   ► "I took pictures of these notes after meeting with

01:24:28 ◼   ► my accountant, can you help me?"

01:24:30 ◼   ► Like all of that kind of stuff looks incredible

01:24:33 ◼   ► and I can't wait, like, "Better Siri?"

01:24:35 ◼   ► "Fantastic, like give me it."

01:24:36 ◼   ► Like there's so much of the operating system features,

01:24:40 ◼   ► like the mail stuff, like prioritizing email messages for me

01:24:44 ◼   ► the automatic sorting, which is happening anyway,

01:24:47 ◼   ► but like all of this stuff, like anything where

01:24:50 ◼   ► it's the device helping me do stuff, love it.

01:24:54 ◼   ► It's anything generation, like create new

01:24:57 ◼   ► that I don't like, right?

01:24:59 ◼   ► I can draw a line from me where I'm happy with the idea

01:25:03 ◼   ► of take my text and rewrite it for me.

01:25:05 ◼   ► Like I can accept that 'cause I do these features.

01:25:07 ◼   ► Like I do this stuff with chat GPT.

01:25:10 ◼   ► Like I write stuff out and I'm like,

01:25:11 ◼   ► "Help me fix the grammar here, make this read better."

01:25:14 ◼   ► And it does it for me.

01:25:15 ◼   ► Like I'm fine with that.

01:25:16 ◼   ► It's the image stuff is my biggest bugbear, right?

01:25:21 ◼   ► I even liked the way that they've integrated chat GPT.

01:25:26 ◼   ► I think of all the ways you could have done that,

01:25:28 ◼   ► they chose the best way of doing it.

01:25:30 ◼   ► Where like open AI is not in the OS,

01:25:33 ◼   ► like we thought it was gonna be, right?

01:25:34 ◼   ► Like powering something.

01:25:36 ◼   ► No, it's just replacing Google essentially.

01:25:39 ◼   ► Like instead of Google searching,

01:25:41 ◼   ► which is what Siri currently does,

01:25:42 ◼   ► it will chat GPT search for you instead.

01:25:45 ◼   ► - Well, they are not sending user data to chat GPT,

01:25:49 ◼   ► but they do that with Google.

01:25:51 ◼   ► So, you know, there are some differences.

01:25:54 ◼   ► - They send user data with Google?

01:25:56 ◼   ► - I mean, right?

01:25:57 ◼   ► Like Google knows what you're searching

01:26:00 ◼   ► and where you are and all that stuff.

01:26:02 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, I understand what you're saying.

01:26:05 ◼   ► I don't know that if I ask a thing and in serious,

01:26:08 ◼   ► like I found this on the web for you,

01:26:09 ◼   ► I don't know if that's being attached to me, right?

01:26:13 ◼   ► - Fair.

01:26:14 ◼   ► - Like, I don't know.

01:26:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, and open AI is not getting the big money

01:26:17 ◼   ► from Google that Apple gets.

01:26:20 ◼   ► - They're getting anything.

01:26:20 ◼   ► No one's paying anything apparently.

01:26:22 ◼   ► - Doing it for exposure.

01:26:23 ◼   ► - Yep, well, yep.

01:26:25 ◼   ► And yeah, so I think that Apple intelligence

01:26:29 ◼   ► has a lot of features that I'm interested about,

01:26:32 ◼   ► but I just don't think that they nailed,

01:26:35 ◼   ► I don't think that they landed the plane

01:26:37 ◼   ► on this one very well.

01:26:38 ◼   ► And I think that there are a lot of holes in this

01:26:40 ◼   ► and it's awkward and upsetting and frustrating.

01:26:43 ◼   ► But I know, I'm just saying like,

01:26:45 ◼   ► I don't wanna throw all of this out as like,

01:26:47 ◼   ► I hate it and it's bad, personally.

01:26:49 ◼   ► Everyone can feel free to do whatever they want,

01:26:52 ◼   ► but that's where I'm coming from.

01:26:54 ◼   ► - So we're tied once again.

01:26:56 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Yeah.

01:26:57 ◼   ► We got closer though.

01:26:58 ◼   ► Like I think we're getting there, right?

01:27:00 ◼   ► Like if the goal is get the risky picks,

01:27:03 ◼   ► I think we're closer to that being a thing.

01:27:05 ◼   ► So we're just gonna keep working hard as a group.

01:27:07 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:27:08 ◼   ► - I think so.

01:27:09 ◼   ► - Which means we gotta flip coins.

01:27:13 ◼   ► - Yep, I'm gonna say heads.

01:27:15 ◼   ► - I'm also gonna say heads.

01:27:17 ◼   ► - I will also say, no, I'm just kidding, I will do tails.

01:27:21 ◼   ► - I mean, this could be a quick one then.

01:27:23 ◼   ► - Tails.

01:27:27 ◼   ► - Boom!

01:27:27 ◼   ► - That's how it happens.

01:27:30 ◼   ► - That's it.

01:27:31 ◼   ► - There you go, no more benchmen.

01:27:32 ◼   ► Goodbye, benchmanship.

01:27:33 ◼   ► - Steven wins.

01:27:34 ◼   ► - I am the keynote chairman.

01:27:37 ◼   ► - Congratulations.