336 - Strapping Two 5K Displays to Your Head
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Welcome to episode 336 of In Touch with iOS, the show that talks about iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Apple TV, Vision Pro, and related technologies. I'm your host, Dave Ginsburg, and we've got our usual contributors to the show this week. Let's start off with Jeff Gamet. He's back. How are you doing, Jeff? Welcome back to the show. I'm doing well. Sorry I had to cancel.

Miss one, two, I've lost track. Sorry I had to miss some time. That's okay, but we missed you. You were here in spirit. You were here in spirit, and now we got here with all of you. A great show, and then we are recording on Friday mornings. I had a little bit of an appointment I had to take care of Thursday, so we're doing it today. So thanks, everybody, for being here. And also great to be here is Ben Rathick. How you doing, Ben? I'm doing fantastic. Fantastic.

I'm happy to be here with these fine gentlemen. Yes, I am too. As well as Marty Gentius is here. Doing this earlier in the day, I've only done my morning drinking. I haven't done my afternoon drinking or my early evening drinking. So I don't know how on game I'm going to be today. I feel your pain, Marty. I feel no pain, Jeff.

Uh, well that's because you probably started drinking before I did today. All right. Well, we got a lot to talk about this week as we always do. It seems Apple's been pretty busy. 18.2 dropped. We'll be hitting on that. A lot of vision pro discussion. We're going to have some lively conversation. So, uh, let's go ahead and, uh,

Go into the first topic, as we always do, with InTouch with Vision Pro. Well, all releases have come out. We'll hit the other ones in a minute here, but Apple did release the Vision OS 2.2. It's now in the hands of everybody. This was the major update to the operating system that came out in September, which was 2.1. You can download it through the Vision Pro headsets by navigating to that settings app, to the general section, then choose the software update option.

And as you know, when you install the update, the Vision Pro headset needs to be removed and there is a software progress bar available on the front eyesight display. So what the 2.2 added was a wide and ultra-wide aspect ratios to the Mac virtual display features. So you can have much more workspace working with the Vision Pro as a display off of your Mac. It's equivalent to 5K monitors side by side. So,

And all the features we've really talked about, I don't think it's much different for us, Marty, because we've been running the beta for a while. So anything else that you noticed? Yeah, what's different is the zeitgeist on it. You know, suddenly Macworld thinks it's a great thing, or excuse me, Macrumors thinks it's a great thing. And if you follow Reddit or you follow Discord groups on it, everybody's going wild about it.

Yeah, it is. You know, for those of us, those of us who's been testing it for a while, it's cool. But now I guess these final versions have worked a lot on pass through and clarity and people are real excited about that with the 2.2 full release. Yeah, no, I mean, just, it'll continue. Apple will continue to make it even better.

Ben or Jeff, do you have anything to add about this? I don't know if you had anything you've been seeing. Yep, I do. This makes it a much better value proposition. If you look at an ultra-wide 5K display like this, you're paying about, what is it, $1,500? Yep. So the fact that you have...

you know, different types of reality, spatial computing, plus basically your entire high, high resolution desktop in one package. This, this is starting to get very compelling for those of us who wasn't very compelling before. Yeah. Yeah. So,

I'm strapping two 5k displays to your head. Believe me, it's not easy. That's a lot of duct tape. It was. And maybe a couple extra straps. So, yep. Go check it out. And we'll, you'll be hearing more about it as, as we go, as time goes by here. So,

Other topic I want to hit on Vision Pro is Apple Vision Pro was named the 2024 Innovation of the Year. It was named by that by Popular Science Magazine.

It's their annual list of the 50 greatest innovations celebrating groundbreaking achievements in science and technology. And this year, Apple Vision Pro earned top spot. According to Popular Science, the device represents a pivotal moment in AR innovation, providing a glimpse of the future of immersive computing.

So, and it goes through a lot of the details, including the 23 megapixel display system over 4k resolution for each eye and all the other stuff. So it's great to hear it. Don't you guys think Jeff? Yeah. Yeah. It just makes sense. Just makes sense with all of the technology they've crammed into that device and how it, well, it works.

Thank you for that insight, Jeff. No problem. I'm totally being a butt. Jeff sounds a lot like Marty these days. I've been working on my impressions. Yeah, wait till I start doing my Chuck Joyner impression. And Marty, you'll be glad that you day drink.

Okay, Rusty. Rusty, what did you have to say? Go for it, Chuck. You have to go wait in the car again. What did I have to... Oh, I remember now. Innovation of the Year. Innovation of the Year. Right. Okay. Applicating an Innovation of the Year recognition, I think it is super important because to me it says that

that more people, or at least people that are involved in creating these awards, are getting that Vision Pro isn't just a VR headset. And that's an important distinction that more of the public needs to understand. Because I think right now there are a lot of people that still think that paying $3,500 for a MetaQuest that Amazon's... or the other bad guy,

Facebook sells meta cells for a fraction of the cost. Anyhow, point being, this is the kind of visibility that Apple needs. Definitely. How about you, Ben? Yeah, this is definitely the giant step forward in what they call it, immersive computing that we've been looking for. I mean, granted, it isn't, it's not affordable to most users, but

And it can't do everything as well as a meta quest as we're about to talk about. Uh, but it's gotten good. It's gotten good enough where Google is now copying it with Android XR. Absolutely. Yeah.

I just, I think popular science, you know, this wasn't some niche little, you know, magazine or online journal is popular science. They have a lot to choose from when they look at innovation of the year. So it's very cool. Yeah, for sure. Also very cool. Cool. And in addition to what they've added to vision OS 2.2 is Apple vision pro apps get a 5g boost.

5G may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the Apple Vision Pro. After all, there's no built-in cellular option. But it turns out that iOS 18.2 and Vision OS 2.2 introduce a low-key 5G enhancement for Apple Vision Pro apps.

But what you basically starting with iOS 18.2 and, and visualized to point to both available. Now the apps are going to be, be able to take advantage of a new feature called enhanced 5g for apps. And Apple explains that it's a personal hotspot will let you share the cellular data connection of your iPhone or your iPad with other devices like Apple vision pro. If you, if,

You use a supported carrier network that has a qualifying plan. The enhanced 5G for apps can provide you with optimized experience for supportive apps on the Vision Pro. So, of course, you're going to have to have a compatible iPhone or iPad. We all pretty much have that. The 15 or 16 should be good. And iPads, you've got different models in more recent months. Then you've just got to go into the...

In the settings under what Apple provides these steps, go to the on the iPhone, go tap cellular, tap enhanced 5G for apps. If you don't see it, make sure your iPhone or iPad supports it. And then you can turn it on and off. And once it's activated, the Vision Pro apps will be optimized. What do you think, Marty?

I, you know, when I first, I quickly went through this and didn't understand the process, but the first thing I thought about was the other rumor that came out this week is that they're going to start embedding 5g chips and vision pro and Mac books. And I'm wondering if this is just part of fits well with that potential platform. Yep. Guys, any other thoughts, Jeff?

Even though Marty has given me all kinds of crap today, I'm still compelled to say Marty nailed it. There you go. Yeah, this is something that is definitely for the future, that if you're like us, and in addition to a Vision Pro, spent a lot of money on a high-end Apple phone, it's useful to you now. Yep.

And lastly, on the Vision Pro, I think we're going to have a good live conversation about this. Apple hopes to save Vision Pro with a fresh gaming strategy. The rumor is that they're going to be teaming up with Sony to sell the third-party VR gaming controllers in the Apple stores.

you know and and of course he's the the author article says that the headset hasn't caught the imagination of the world's gamers which is a which a failing which may be this partially down to the fact that you don't it doesn't support any dedicated vr and gaming controller app controllers you can use a ps5 and xbox controller with the headset but it doesn't support the third-party grip accessories specifically designed for vr content and that's the problem so

This was also, this is all called, quoted out from Bloomberg and Mark Gurman claims that the company is currently working on with Sony to build the support for these VR2 controllers into Vision Pro. But it's a more complex project than you think, not because it's Sony that doesn't currently sell the controllers on their own. It's only available when bundled with the VR2 itself.

But the controllers are going to be available for the Vision Pro that owners would buy would require Sony to undertake the logistic work for the package to ship. So there's logistics issues here about this, too. So we're going to open right up to Ben because we are waiting to hear what your thoughts are on this because you are a gamer and where do you think this is going to go? Look, first off, I am very thankful I just listened to the latest episode of Connected on this.

Because Jason Snell absolutely nailed it. Look, if you're doing a productivity general interface kind of task, the current hand-based interface is fine. If you need precision, it can't do that. Games need precision. Certain high-end specific apps need precision. And for that...

controllers are a much better option. And if you look around the landscape, well, there are 3D controllers available. And thankfully, Apple is supposedly doing the same thing that it has with its other platforms. Instead of going like, okay, let's build our controller. It's, hey, let's let everybody else spend the money and we'll just take advantage of that. You know,

Right now, Vision Pro is great for a lot of brand new things, but it's just not that good as a VR gaming platform. These controllers will make it that. And I think that's one of the things you'll see kind of going forward, especially when we go from the Vision Pro to eventually the mainstream Vision.

that the more things that VisionOS can do as a platform, the better for the platform itself. It's not going to be just really high-end productivity tasks and Mac add-ons. Gaming's got to be part of it for it to go mainstream. Marty? Yeah, I get excited with the possibilities. I'm excited about Ben, hearing Ben's take on it, because I think of him...

When I think of gaming and what's necessary for it. And so, you know, I am kind of an optimist around this. I think if Apple has, you know, Ben has in the past been asking, why doesn't Apple just buy a gaming, you know, platform?

Yeah, this is the, this is the next best thing. I think if they start opening up their device for external controllers, that'll work with that. Cause you know, Sony can start porting over games that will work well within the Apple ecosystem, Apple vision ecosystem, and everybody's happy. It's a win-win for Sony and it's a win-win for Apple.

And when it comes to consumer space, let's be honest, no matter what you want to call this particular slice of the computing universe, Meta's eating everybody's lunch in it right now. Jeff, got thoughts on this?

Oh, yes. I have thoughts. Okay, so first, when Ben talked about the precision element being missing right now, that's something that hadn't occurred to me, probably because I don't have a Vision Pro. And so what I'm feeling now is that the PlayStation-style game controllers, the

The VR game controllers that Apple will eventually have available, that's akin to making Apple Pencil for the iPad. Because, like Ben said, it's about the precision. So that's good. All right. Now, I take umbrage with the headline in this article.

WTF, Macworld? Seriously? This is a clickbait headline, and it's completely inappropriate. This is not about Apple trying to save the Vision Pro. Apple is playing the long game. We have said this before. They don't need to have a jillion sales a quarter of Vision Pro right now. They need to have it out in the wild so people can use it, developers can develop for it,

And they can learn how we use this. And then they can iterate. They're already working on version two and version three of this. This is not about Apple trying to save the platform. Holy forking shirt balls, bull. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, let's be honest. Marty and Dave are kind of like early beta testers. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. And, and,

Thank you for doing that for us, that when Ben and I get around to getting a Vision Pro, it will be much more refined thanks to the pain and suffering that you two are going through. Yes. Thank you, guys. Dave, did they just call us suckers? I think so. Okay. No, Rusty, I didn't call you a sucker. I think I'm a show title.

I would say more pioneer, less sucker. Yep. Yes. You two are so brave that you rush in where angels fear to tread. That's why we run betas. Yep.

Absolutely. So it's going to be, I think, a lot to look forward to here with gaming. I'm excited to hear, we'll see what goes next and if this partnership actually comes to fruition with Sony and Apple. But I can't see why not. And Sony needs to get a little bit of a fire under them to get things pushing even more with the PS5 and their platform. So let's go ahead. We'll go ahead and move on.

to it to to the next stories here i'm going to start about the beta of course 18.2 and all the other os's got released this week to everybody it's open to everybody to update but let's talk a little bit about what's going to happen next with beta there is a psa here that there is another update and for those of you who are running we're running the beta of 18.2 the rc build

There's going to be a new build available for your devices, and iOS 18.2 has the differences as far as there was version RC and then RC2. Now the official release is 22C152, so make sure that you run that update as well. And it looks like a Mac did that as well, because I did run that on my beta Mac, and I did have to update it as well.

So just be aware of that when it comes to the beta updates. And 18.3, which is probably going to be out when, and I would anticipate next week, that's an article here from 95Mac talking about it's all science point to it, launching this next week as we record here, probably around maybe December 12th or 13th. It could be actually today, if we have to see. I'm happy to see it as we're recording this, but we'll

likely see it. There won't be any holiday impact because lots of times Apple starts winding things down for the year. And if you look back at previous history, this is right around the same time that they've done it for other versions of iOS when they released that too. What are we expecting? They're going to be a new, they're talking about features such as new features in the image playground style sketch, bringing Apple's mail redesign to iPad and Mac because it doesn't currently have it right now with this release.

Then the Genmoji will have a Mac debut. We just can't wait. Robot vacuum support for HomeKit. It'll be interesting to see where that goes. So...

We'll be talking about it, and there's going to be a lot more to see when it comes to that. So that's anything with the beta, but let's just jump right in now because it's release week. iOS 18.2 was released, and I want to review some of the changes. What happened? I mean, we've pretty much been talking about it as far as during the beta phase here and everything that was new. You can, of course, run the update by going into Settings, General, and Software Update. You'll get the updates with that.

Of course, Apple introduced some new Apple intelligence features, including the first image generation capabilities of image playground. And you have the Genogees and now the chat GPT support is now going to be able to access right from S-Lady or the writing tools. You can compose in writing tools allows you to create something from scratch with chat GPT and be able to go through a lot of that stuff.

A couple other things that are on here too is the image wand for turning sketches into handwritten or typed notes. The camera control for the iPhone 16 has got some more enhancements with the visual intelligence. The camera control helps you instantly learn about places or interaction with information simply by pointing your iPhone at an object and then you just tap the Google search or chat, G-G-G-G-G-P-T.

And then the two-stage shutter will now let you lock focus and exposure in camera when lightly pressing the camera control. A couple of things I'm not excited about, I'll probably be talking about just a bit here, is the mail categorization. Your messages help you prioritize the most important messages. I'd like to hear what you guys think about that. And digest views, groups, all the messages from one sender in a single bundle for easy browsing. I'm on the fence with that.

Photos, it's got video viewing improvements, including the ability to scrub frame by frame and set to turn off auto looping and video playback. Improvements with navigation to collection views and lots more stuff, including Safari.

Got some other enhancements, improvements. One of the notable things was voice memos support layered recording, lets you add vocals over an existing song idea without the need for headphones. And then you can import your two-track projects directly into Logic Pro from the iPhone 16 Pro or Pro Max. And there's a number of other things. I'm not going to go through all this stuff.

I'd like to know what you guys think, what stands out for you. I don't know. I'm assuming everybody here has it. Jeff, did you already install 18.2? I did, but I've been very busy. Yeah, so you haven't had much of a chance to. I haven't had a chance to really play with anything yet, but I'm glad that it didn't cause any noticeable problems. So that's always a plus.

So, Marty, you've been beta testing like me. Where do some of these things stand out for you? I'm not a big fan of Genmoji or Gmoji. But to go to your question about mail categorization, I use SaneBox for sorting some of my mail. And I know where to find things, you know, for insane later that are not so important.

And I think mail categorization is attempting to do that, but I don't have it on all my accounts. So, I mean, I don't have SaneBox on all my accounts. So what I'm finding is if I'm using my phone, um,

And mail categorization can stick something into the non-priority mail that really, if I was on my MacBook or on my desktop, it would be sorted the way I want it sorted with SaneBox. And it's just a matter of preference right now. I've got to get used to that sorting process. But yeah, I mean, I'm already used to that categorization experience by using SaneBox, but doing it on the phone is a little different.

Hey, Marty, I have a hypothesis here. And it's that what Apple's doing with their categorization and sorting features, it's much like they've done with keychain and now passwords and their text expansion thing, where they give people the basic useful feature, but if you need more, then there are the third-party options like 1Password and...

SaneBox that take you to that higher level of control. Yeah, I kind of, now I'm anxious because I want Apple to do more categories for me because that would suit my lifestyle and process better. And then I drop SaneBox. Drop SaneBox. Ben, what's standing out for you with 18.2 and all the features that are out there?

To be perfectly honest, not a lot. Other than even better chat GPT integration. Apple intelligence is more like Apple almost beginning intelligence. You know, Genmojis isn't quite my thing. I'm a little bit too old for that. You know, the image playground...

is about two to three years behind where the competition is it's it's kind of a preview of where the puck is going but right now the puck is in the minor leagues i have a hypothesis about that if you want to hear it or if you want to yes please okay no no go ahead ben

My hypothesis is that the sentiment that you just expressed is valid and that this is how a lot of people see Apple's AI efforts. What I think is going on is that these features we're seeing now that feel like they're behind the curve,

And features that may not appeal to us personally, but do appeal to an important part of Apple's user base. These are the little treats, the little pieces of candy, if you will, that Apple's throwing out.

To let people know that, hey, yes, we're invested in the whole AI thing, but all the stuff that they've been doing for years that's ahead of everyone else under the hood, the quiet stuff that no one really talks about because we take it for granted at this point, that's where Apple is continuing to push forward and in many cases is way ahead of its competition.

The unfortunate side effect is that throwing out the little flashy features like they are right now so that they can give that public perception of, hey, look, we're doing stuff right.

Yeah, a lot of those features are behind what their competitors are doing. And I don't know if it's serving Apple in the way that they want it to, because instead of saying, look at all this great stuff Apple's doing, we're getting the reactions. Like Ben, you said Apple is a couple of years behind. Yeah, I mean, to be perfectly honest, these features are more meant for investors than users. Yeah, I agree.

You know, I like what Jeff has said, but to me, what separates Apple from a lot of the other AI add-ons that you see with other devices is Apple really feels like it's a personal context.

And I know one of the points of argument that people don't like are the summarized notifications. I'm really beginning to get into the summarized notifications because it will collect a whole bunch of stuff that happened while I'm doing something else. And in its own Yoda speak, it will tell me essentially from the responses what I have to look at or not look at.

When I, you know, can sit down and look at it. So it's, and I just swipe it off my screen and, you know, I know what I'm walking into with the summarized notifications. Yeah, I'm looking for the day that those notifications get it right because the idea itself is powerful and useful. I updated both of my parents' iPhone 15s to iOS 18.2 a couple days ago.

And they were both super excited about the summarization feature. Huh. Okay. And yeah, they, they are texting with friends and family all day long. And there's like multiple family group chat things or friend groups. And I mean, they're busy just talking to people all day long on their phones.

And they loved the idea of being able to get a quick summary without having to read through a whole chain so that they're caught up. And then they can go back and read the stuff that they know they need to check out. Yep.

I've always been in the world. I just not, it was their huge fan of categories. I might give it a chance again, but for now it's, it's pretty easy to be able to go in and make the change. All you have to do is go into the mail app. You tap the more of the three dot, the three dots on the upper corner of your inbox, and then you can select the list view. It's very simple. They made it really simple and you can,

toggle show priority or not, or you can go back to categories and then categories will add that. I'm not a huge fan of the icon they added to each email. I always, I always like the clean list view, but you guys, but, uh,

That one, I have not seen that you can turn that off, but each email that I get has an icon based on what type of communication it is. Whether they're selling you something or if it's a bank or if it's something from Google Maps or something like that, I understand. So they're still kind of forcing the categories on you with the icons, but at least it's got a list view.

I wish they would do it like, hold on. What's the other email app I'm playing with right now? Spark, where it looks at the domain for the email.

And then it goes and gets the favicon or it gets some logo graphic for that domain from somewhere. So I'm assuming favicon. And then it drops that onto the notification email or, excuse me, the notification for the email on your home screen. I think that's very cool. So being able to see who a message comes from in a sort of visual sense before you even read anything.

That's kind of cool. Apple needs to give us that option. Then I go and I'm going back again. Maybe I'll give it another chance. You know, you could set it like I have. I think all of us here have multiple mailboxes or different email accounts. So the buttons at the top there for category. So you have primary.

You can select all mail. That's the all mail. And then you have the cart for transactions. Then you have the updates of anything that's updated for you. And then you have promotions. So they make that pretty easy. And in fact, that's kind of cool. They even filter back some of the older messages that are way back there. It makes it a little easier to find. So I might give it another chance. I just, it's muscle memory. I'm so used to having the list view for all these years, you know, that hard to, hard to change, you know.

Can I throw out a harebrained idea? Yes. You say that with trip addition. Okay, so when you look at the way Apple is giving you those icons for messages, doesn't that look a lot like messages? Is Apple maybe working on giving us a unified communication app? Interesting. Like slowly taking us down the path towards that?

That's a good thought. It's very possible. Told you it was a herberian idea. No, but it makes sense. No, it makes total sense. So that's kind of the standout thing with mail. I will mention again, I did mention it during the intro here with iOS 18.2, this layered voice memo recordings is...

for the iPhone 16 Pro, I think is pretty amazing. Apple did team up with Canadian songwriter Michael Bublé and also country star Carly Pearce and record producer to demonstrate the feature. And Michael Bublé actually said that this could be a game changer for music, being able to do this with

With these voice memos that you can layer a vocal track on top of an existing instrumental recording and with no headphones needed, instrumental compositions can be played through the iPhone speaker while vocals are recorded at the same time using the iPhone 16 Pro mics.

And they say Apple does say the feature is driven by the A18 Pro chip with advanced processing and machine learning to isolate the vocal recording. So I have not played with this yet, but I'm kind of looking forward to play around with this a little bit, you know?

I think I have an idea to break up with my partner. I can put music soundtrack underneath it. I love day drinking, Marty.

So I think this is a cool new feature. I want to make sure we'll explore this in other episodes here. Take a look. I want to play with this a little more and get my insights on this. So very interesting stuff here. But other than that, there's a lot more things we could talk about in iOS 18.2, but we'll continue on to this in future episodes with more features here.

I'll briefly mention watch OS 11.2 was released today after we're, and it can be downloaded and open in the Apple watch, but using our software updates, it does according to Apple's release notes. It does let you pause video that you're recording the iPhone using the camera remote app on Apple watch, as well as it does the tides app expands map support for tide title conditions and coastal locations. Um,

So not much really to report on Apple Watch as far as watchOS. So not much else to say about that. And then HomePodOS and HomePod software was released. And what they did add, that was designed for the HomePod and the HomePod Mini. It adds support for Apple Music Natural Language Search, which means you now can describe

what you want to hear in a more casual language. So you can ask the S lady for music using different combinations of genres, moods, activity, decades, and more. So examples include song about songs about cats. And Ben, you would ask that songs with a, with a vibe or relaxing songs. So it's got some enhanced, enhanced. It also, they also improved enhanced dialogue with the Apple TV for K for making clearer speech. So they add some cool things on this, uh,

Jeff, you being the HomePod aficionado, what's your thoughts on this? I'm very much looking forward to trying this out. Updates are installed on all my HomePods, and I didn't get home in time last to really play with this. So I'll be doing my testing, potentially some griping, after we're done recording today.

But this will be cool. Like you said, hey, play me songs about cats. Play me songs about pants. Or not. Or not. Yeah. And I want to play with it and see how much I can refine this. Like play me 60s style lounge piano jazz. Yeah.

and see what I get. Hopefully a lot of Christmas songs right now. Yeah, probably. Oh, okay. And there's a thing. Do all of that and then end it with, but not holiday music or only holiday music and see if it can really refine what you're listening to to that level. That would be really cool.

Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. So what you're saying, Jeff is the best is yet to come and won't it be fine? Yes, Ben. That's exactly what I'm saying. Yes. Yes. Yes.

tv os had just two features that were added like i guess support and if you want to call it there's a new snoopy screensaver screensavers and projector support it'll now be able to work with a large a larger aspect ratios for projectors so we kept that so beyond that there really isn't much else exciting about tv os that's 18.2 for tv os

And that's pretty much it with the releases for this week. And I'm sure we'll be hearing more as beta comes, but it'll start slowing a little bit here too. And we'll see where that goes. A couple things I wanted to mention in touch with Mac this week. Mac OS Sequoia 15.2 was with new Apple intelligence features.

So the update has now added ChatGPT integration with the SLADY, which is an opt-in feature. When enabled, the SLADY will be able to hand complicated requests over to ChatGPT. It can essentially do much of what the dedicated ChatGPT app can do, but with the convenience of the SLADY instead of third-party.

So that's, I think, a lot of what was on there. And they, of course, added Image Playground in Mac as well and that kind of stuff. Anything stand out with you guys with Mac OS on this at all besides this? I did install Tall Trees 15.2, and I like how it gives you a walkthrough process to granularly enable or block the AI features you want.

So that was cool. Like for me, I never went to talk to my Mac. The S-Lady has enough trouble figuring out what device I'm talking to anyhow. This is true. If I throw my Mac into it, it's just going to be a crap storm. So, you know, it was nice being able to go through. And when you got to that part where you actually talk to your computer, I just said no. And it kept going and that was fine. Yeah. Anything else you guys want to add about Mac OS?

It's, you know, I've been playing with the beta so long, it's hard to, and I think I mentioned this at some point before, when it's finally released, it's sort of like you've opened your Christmas presents a couple of weeks early. So Christmas is not as much fun. Or a couple of months. Yeah, months. Well, now everybody else has something to look forward to.

One other thing I noticed here that this was published here to Apple today, made a mistake with its update by releasing software for two Macs that are yet to be launched. There is a software file for Mac 16, 12 and Mac 16, 13, which are the upcoming MacBook Air models. Those would be the references to the M4 13-inch 2025 and the M4 15-inch 2025. So...

I don't see there going to be any design updates. I would anticipate that's going to probably be in around spring of 2025. So this is actually kind of interesting because Apple tries to be so secretive of when they're going to release things. And all these smart people out there are able to crawl through the code in macOS, and they find this very easily. Yeah.

Well, you know, was it intentional or was it just... Could be. Or what are we going to do? Release another version of it when these other MacBooks come out? When we're really not changing anything fundamentally except the...

I can tell you, I won't be upgrading because the M3 is perfectly fine. Thank you. But I can tell you this, with the features we saw on the MacBook, the M4-based MacBook Pro, the 15-inch MacBook Air M4 is going to be an awfully compelling machine. Yeah, for those who are in the market for something new, yep, for sure. Yeah.

So that's in touch with Mac this week. Let's go ahead and jump into the news. One of the first stories I want to talk about this week is we, we would just been talking about Apple intelligence features, keynote pages and numbers, both get Apple intelligence features. They released this yesterday as a record this and it's for support for both Mac and iOS.

and iPadOS with Apple Intelligence features with the ChatGP Slade integration, writing tools, image playground that were largely introduced in iOS and iPadOS and macOS. All three apps support writing tools for proofreading, summarizing, rewriting, composing text with the latter feature relying on ChatGPT.

It'll be able to answer questions, what's in presentations, documents, and spreadsheets. And pages, numbers, and keynotes will also offer the image playground support. So now there's an option to create original images that can be included into the iWork documents. I'm kind of excited about this, guys. I don't know about you guys, but this is even making the Apple versions of their Microsoft counterparts even more compelling to use. I mean, I try to use them as much as possible, but

being worked on. I'm more in the Microsoft ecosystem. It's hard to do that. But what do you think, Jeff? Well, you've nailed it. This helps make Apple's, do we still call it the iWork suite? Well, I guess. I don't think Apple does anymore, but that's an easy way to identify it. Yeah. This makes that suite of productivity apps more compelling for a lot of people.

This is never going to overtake Office or Google Suite. But having the ability to have native apps that aren't phoning home all kinds of data and give you the features you need, I think that's great. And what I'm looking forward to is really experimenting with the ability to see what's in documents.

And what I'm hoping is that with the new AI features and the new searchability, this will allow me to do things like, say, find me the document where I talk about...

cloud server security features relating to a specific whatever security threat is going on. And now instead of having to do a search just on keywords or whatever, I can just do like a Star Trek style natural sentence and get that search that I need that gives me accurate results. Yep. What do you think, Mike?

I was just blown away from what Jeff just said. I think part of my frustration is finding, trying to find a document, you know, and do I, how do I do the search? What does it pull up? When does it pull it up? You know, it might be a document from maybe a presentation I gave in 2013. I don't want that presentation. I want the one that I gave two years ago.

Just the idea of being able to do voice or even text searches that allow for that kind of granularity. Now, you know, I do some stuff on Word and some of the other Microsoft products.

And I like, and I don't see them integrating AI into them at all at this point. It's, I have to go out and do that. I have to use an ancillary app, but having it built into the ecosystem really, I think is a big plus. Particularly, you know, if they roll out some short videos or maybe commercials for Apple that shows how somebody can do that in a quick little bit.

And it shows up on their screen. How about you, Ben? First, I would like to say this. Grammarly, I'm sorry I'm breaking up with you. It's not you. It's Apple. Ben, do not apologize. And it's okay to give them some tough love and say, Grammarly, it's you. But the bonus you're getting here is

is that you're not feeding your content into a system that is learning from everything you're creating. It's all being done locally. Grammarly is sucking up everything that you're typing. And so if you're working on something for a client where it's proprietary information, you don't want that stuff going to Grammarly or ChatGPT because you could be unintentionally revealing NDA content

information. You don't have to worry about that anymore. Yes. But I mean, on the serious side, as a independent writer with no editor, writing tools is something that is very good now and will be even better in the future. Sometimes you do need a second look at your article. I know I sure do. We all do. And yeah, this makes it better.

Yeah, Ben, you can now break up with Grammarly by sending him a text message with Michael Blueblade playing in the background. Yeah! That's a good one. I'm going to try that. All right, next story here. This is more on the rumor side, but fun to talk about. New Apple TV and HomePod mini launching in 2025.

Apple plans to refresh both the Apple TV and the HomePod mini in 2025 as part of a major push into refreshing its smart home product offerings.

Of course, our friend Mark, Mark Herman and Bloomberg reported this. It's, it's in a report on an upcoming Apple design, Bluetooth and wifi chip. And the German says that the chip will be introduced in a new Apple TV and HomePod mini that are scheduled quote unquote for 2025. While there's no exact timeline included, it's, it's mentioned that the chip will be included in iPhones later next year, which suggests that the cut, that it will come to the HomePod mini and Apple TV before the September timeframe.

The component will support Wi-Fi 6E, although Apple may not be able to match all of Broadcom's chip capabilities in that first-gen in-house chip. Adopting the customized design Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip will allow Apple's upcoming smart devices to work better.

They're also working on a Home Hub command center that's set to come out in 2025, but it's not clear if that device will use that custom chip. The command center will have a six-inch display, the built-in speaker and camera, and it will be able to control smart home devices and make video calls and more. Jeff, I'm going to throw this right at you because of HomePod, really. What do you think on this? I am totally game for Apple updating these devices. HomePod Mini is way overdue.

at this point. And then Apple TV, there's a lot of people out there like me that still aren't running an Apple TV 4K because there wasn't anything compelling enough for our use cases to make that jump. A new Apple TV comes out in 2025. At that point, replacing my Apple TV HD or throwing it in the box that I have my portable projector in

Yeah, that makes sense. It's time to get another refresh to Apple TV. HomePod Mini, please make it happen sooner in 2025 as opposed to later. Great. Shut up and take my money, Apple. What about you, Ben? Yeah, I'm kind of in the same boat. I'm still on one TV in the house. I'm still running my OG first-generation Apple TV 4, aka the HD before the HD.

So literally, I have almost every tvOS device in my house. I mean, granted, that OG tvOS Apple TV still works brilliantly with a small TV, but Apple, use your newfound chip powers to actually throw us a TV Mini device.

Ben, here's another thing that Apple could do. Give us one of these newer, more powerful M-series chips in an Apple TV. Oh, yes. And now it's a game console. They say this is your all-in-one home entertainment system and game console. Yes, I want that too. Which, by the way...

Ben's House of Crackpocket Theories will be stealing from Kelly, that new Mac Mini form factor would be great for a game console. Right? You could even put extra storage in there. Hey, Ben, since Kelly has the House of Crackpot Theories, we can have Ben's Crackpot Theory Condo.

There you go. Yes. Yes. It is the million dollar house of crack theories. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Marty, how about you? I just about an hour ago, press the button on buying a new Apple TV as a gift.

for a relative coming up this Christmas. And they'll be excited to have it. And they won't know the fact that the next gen is coming out possibly early next year. I heard another interpretation of this rumor that the home device will be more like an iPad on the wall.

And, you know, so crackpot rumors, I would be rather excited to purchase a couple of these for my household that basically are screens you hang on the wall. It could have camera capabilities, but it could also be connected. Instead of thinking of it as an iPod or a HomePod that sits on a table with a screen on it, think of it as a screen that hangs on the wall like an iPad that has these kinds of functionalities. And for me, that's great.

That I, that I will stand in line to get that. Yep. And suddenly I'm having, I'm having fantasies of it replacing my thermostat. Do you want to get a taste of that today? Oh, I know, I know there's, I know there's devices that do that. I just, I just want one from Apple that will actually stick around. If you, if you have an iPad, a spare iPad, throw controller for home kit on it.

One of their recent updates added this whole thing where you can turn like an iPad into your smart home control center. I know. Pretty slick. That is slick. iCloud plus storage price hikes, but it's only happening in 10 countries this year.

Over the past several months, Apple has raised prices for some or all Apple iCloud Plus storage plans in 10 countries, including Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, Nigeria, Egypt, Tanzania, and the Philippines. The updated prices in these countries are listed in a support document on Apple's website. So it looks like I average about a 15% increase. I'm curious to know if anything will happen in the U.S. What do you guys think?

It'll happen. Yeah. It's inevitable. Maybe not today, but it'll happen. Yeah. And then we still get stuck with five gigabytes of base storage too. Well, they won the lawsuit, so they're getting cocky. Yeah. Yeah. If anybody doesn't know, there was a lawsuit against, it was a class action lawsuit against Apple. They threw that case out, then they won. So five gigabytes of base storage, it is. So nothing much else to say about that.

And there was several Apple TV Plus shows that scored Google, Colton Globe nominations. No, not Google. So the popular series Slow Horses has been nominated for Best Drama. Disclaimer, a psychological thriller miniseries starring Cate Blanchett also was nominated for Best Limited Series.

I'll tell you, Slow Horses is an amazing show. If you aren't watching that show, it's awesome. Gary Oldman is incredible on that show.

Disclaimer is a good show as well. And then Jason Siegel and Harrison Ford were nominated for Best Comedy Performance for Shrinking. I absolutely love that show. And it'll be announced in January. So it's exciting to hear the more continued awards for Apple TV Plus content. And it just continues on to be a great platform for original content. Don't you guys think? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm, I'm kind of moving back to the phase where it's time to pick the headset up again, which I do, but not as much as I normally would and make that the entertainment device and start to get into some of these series series that I hadn't gotten into or like silo has started back up again. And I, I haven't jumped into that program yet.

And I, you know, it's been, it's been out for more than a couple of weeks. So it's time for me to start that flow again. And yes, we must all watch. And then sevens will be back in the next month. Yeah, I know. I gotta, I gotta get the first series of that done before next month. Oh, yes, you do. Yes, you do. Yeah.

A couple of Microsoft stories. I know, should I be talking about that dirty word? But this story would be perfect if Chuck Joyner was here. Microsoft Teams for iPad now supports external webcams. Microsoft this week released an update to the Teams app on the iPad that adds an important new feature. With the new version, Microsoft Teams users with iPadOS can now connect an external webcam rather than the iPad's built-in camera.

This is made possible by an API introduced last year in iPadOS 17, which enables support for external web cameras and microphones connected to the USB-C port. At the same time, developers can add support for these accessories to their apps. So Microsoft is no different on that. And yeah, in the corporate world, we are living in teams. They sure I do as well. So this is a nice thing to have travel carry around to.

a webcam with you and pop it up on your iPad and fire up your laptop, right? You know, it's Microsoft Teams. But it's not about whether or not we like, enjoy, look forward to using these tools. It's about making sure that they have all the features that are necessary for the people that rely on these tools.

So adding the external webcam support, that's super important. It needed to happen. Because the internal webcam was not good enough on an iPad? Oh, which it is. I think it is. Yeah. I mean, I don't understand the logic. It's like putting rims on a Yugo. Ha ha ha!

Even the picture in the article, it's like, why would I want to do that? I've got an iPad. Okay. You know, if you have a setup in your office where you're expected to use specific stuff and, and it should just be like modular for what, what computers plugged into it. It's yeah. And, and granted, most of us aren't going to want to use the external camera, but

But having the ability to do so, since it's available in their tools on other platforms, it's important to have it here so you have future parity. Yeah. The only thing I can say is this. Number one, Microsoft shouldn't have to add this. This should be a system-level API that Apple automatically adds in. Right. And two, now Apple...

add a USB-C port to the Apple TV so Microsoft can do that there too. Well, isn't the API for the external devices, like the camera's already there and it's up to Microsoft to hook into it? I'm asking because I think I'm right, but I'm not certain. I mean, you can already plug in external microphones and as long as the app you're using works,

is correctly coded to use Apple's sound system, the API hooks are already enabled. So maybe Microsoft did their own wonky thing with cameras, and they finally fixed it. I'm speculating here. Okay. Last story. I believe I'm wrapping up on another Microsoft story here this week.

Microsoft introduced a feature that enables file sharing between iPhone and Windows PCs. Microsoft this week has announced a new feature coming soon to Windows that will let users easily share files between the iPhone and a PC, similar to what Apple's AirDrop does, which is of course only available on Apple devices.

It's becoming a reality now. As it's detailed in a blog post, the company is now rolling out a beta version of the phone link for registered users in the Windows Insider program. That includes the new feature for sharing files between iPhones and PCs. Those who are unfamiliar, the phone link for Windows app from Microsoft that lets users connect their phones, whether it's iOS or Android, to their PC wirelessly.

Once paired, the user will be able to see notifications and answer calls on their PC and so on and so forth. So to me, it looks like Microsoft is finally just realizing, you know what, we've got to get these iPhone users to be using our Windows PCs of those who don't have Macs. So what do you guys think? I have more thoughts if you want to hear them. Please do. Microsoft has figured out that...

The way they win, the way they want to win, is to make sure that their products are accessible everywhere on every platform. So knowing that there are a ton of Windows users who have iPhones, why not enable things like this so that your iPhone integrates even more seamlessly with your Windows platform?

They're not going to win them over to some other phone platform. So why not give them what you need to be able to use your iPhone with the desktop platform they want everyone on? Yeah. If you need any more of an idea that Windows Phone is so dead that it's pretty much just... It's been eaten by the worms at this point. This is it.

Yeah. Even the witches of Dathomir could not bring, bring a Windows phone back to life. Yes. Or Paridia. Right? Yeah. All right. So I might check that out to see, to see what the experience is. Most corporate setups probably won't allow it. So, cause that's, that's a bit of a security risk, but, uh, just a bit, just a little. So.

All right. With that, thanks, guys. This was a great show. We had a lot of great things to talk about this week. And we will go ahead and wrap up this week. That's a wrap for this week. Please send your comments, questions, and suggestions to our email address, which is feedback at InTouchWithiOS.com. You can follow us on Blue Sky and Macedon at InTouchWithiOS.

Support the show by buying me a coffee at InTouchWithiOS.com slash coffee. We really appreciate it. You can become a patron of the show by going to Patreon.com slash InTouchWithiOS. We have two tiers available to support the show. We would really appreciate it. Make sure you like, share, and subscribe so when you're notified when we are live streaming, usually it's on Thursday nights at 8 p.m. Eastern Time, 5 p.m. Pacific on our YouTube channel, which is YouTube.com slash InTouchWithiOS, where you can watch the current and past live streams and listen to past shows.

Visit InTouch.ios magazine on Flipboard where many of the topics we've discussed are flipped into that magazine. The link is in our show notes. You can subscribe to the show on your favorite podcatcher, including Pocket Casts, Overcasts, Apple Podcasts, many others. But just go to our website, InTouch.ios.com, where all the links to all the ways to listen to us are on that website. I am Dave Ginsburg. You can find me on Blue Sky and Mastodon at DaveG65. Ben Rathick, thank you for being here. We appreciate it. Where can people find you?

Well, you can find me, excuse me. You can find me on social media at Ben Rathig. I'm on all of them. Unfortunately, I have no life. You can find my writings and ravings at rathigtech.com. You can also find me on such podcasts as the Mac show on the British tech network, uh,

Mac Voices Live with Chuck Joyner. And of course, here on Intergovernal S when I'm not working. Yep. Thanks. Appreciate you being here. And Marty Gentius, thank you for being here. Appreciate it. Where can people find you? You can find me at gentius, J-E-N-C-I-U-S, at bluesky and also mastodon.social.

And favorite show right now, takes a lot of work, enjoy the heck out of it, is Vision Profiles on Monday nights at 9 p.m. You can find us on YouTube or listen to the content in another stream. And Old Mac Gang on Wednesday nights at 9 p.m.

which is issues that are hopefully being addressed by folks 65 and plus with technology, and just having a fun time just starting that show out. Also, Tuesdays with Chuck Joyner on Mac Voices Live, and of course, Thursdays generally with Dave here on In Touch with iOS.

All right. Thanks party. Last but certainly not least, Jeff Gamet. So glad you're here and glad you made it this week. And where can people find you? I'm so glad I'm here too. And I, I'm, I'm just really pleased to get to spend time with all of you. Um, so where can people find me? Social media, Jay Gamet on everything. The places that I'm active mostly are, uh, messed it on Instagram and blue sky turns out. Um,

Then for shows, most Tuesdays on Chuck Joyner's Mac Voices Live, most Thursdays, but today, Friday, on Dave's show, In Touch With iOS. On the British Tech Network, I get to hang out with Ben a lot on the big show and the Mac show. Brian Chaffin and I do the Context Machine, and then Patrice Brendamore and I do Retro Rewatch. Check out the cool mug. Oh, my gosh. Retro Rewatch.

Anyhow, I'm just super happy to get to be here today. So thank you. Yes, thank you. And thank everybody here for listening, for watching, for being here. We hope you enjoyed the show. We enjoyed doing it. And until next time, we'll talk again soon. Bye.