Apple Intelligence?! Reflecting on WWDC with Jon Evans

In this episode of Tailoring Talk, host Roberto Revilla is joined by Jon Evans (part of the Tailoring Talk Bondathon team) to discuss the future direction of the podcast and then dive into the recent Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) announcements. 

They explore the new Apple Intelligence (AI) features, including enhanced Siri capabilities, writing focus, and math notes. They also discuss the privacy measures taken by Apple, such as on-device processing and self-destructing data. 

Other topics covered include the Image Playgrounds feature and the potential implications of turning photographs into emojis. 

In this conversation, Roberto and Jon discuss their thoughts on the new features and updates announced by Apple, including Apple intelligence, customization options, and enhancements to iPadOS. They also touch on the Photos app, AirPods updates, and the overall user experience. The conversation highlights the excitement and anticipation for the new features while acknowledging the limitations and potential challenges.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Podcast Direction
02:47 Overview of WWDC Announcements
12:20 Apple Intelligence and Enhanced Siri
21:42 Exploring Image Playgrounds and Emoji Creation
26:31 Engaging with the Audience: Feedback and Suggestions
27:41 Introduction and Discussion on Apple Intelligence
31:11 Exploring Customization Options in iOS 15 and iPadOS
40:32 Enhancements in the Photos App
44:21 Updates to AirPods
46:00 Final Thoughts and Conclusion

Enjoy! 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to Tatering Talk with your host, roberto Rivela. This is going to be a different episode today. I've not been putting episodes out quite as regularly. There's been a lot going on in life, but also we've kind of been pausing a little bit, trying to work out the direction for the podcast. Some little stats to begin with.

Speaker 1: 0:18

We are apparently in the top 5% of business podcasts worldwide, which I'm really, really proud of, and I'm very, very grateful to everybody that is listening and watching on YouTube as well. And that's the other thing. We launched the podcast on YouTube about four months ago and in four months the podcast has had more downloads than the audio version in three years, which is incredible. I don't know what you guys and girls, if you're watching or listening to this on YouTube I don't know how you do it press play on your laptops, leave it in the background, whatever it is that you do. I'm very, very grateful. It's amazing, and my little fledgling YouTube channel is starting to grow like. The recent numbers in the last two weeks have been phenomenal, in part because I've been talking about my new ipad, which brings me to my guest. If you're watching the video version, you already know who he is because you'll have seen him and enjoyed and had the pleasure of his company on our bondathon episodes. There is one dropping very soon, by the way john evans the voice. How are you, john?

Speaker 2: 1:26

I'm very well, thank you. I'm lamenting the british summer summertime, unfortunately, as we sit in our our warm houses whilst it rains outside through our conservatory windows.

Speaker 1: 1:37

Yes, I'm missing my garden drinking wine time, really yeah, it's really funny that you look out of your window to see what the weather's like. I don't do that anymore.

Speaker 2: 1:45

I just look at my iPhone or my iPad because I've got my dynamic home screen and lock screen.

Speaker 1: 1:52

I've got set to the weather so that I don't have to look out there.

Speaker 2: 1:55

It's always raining in my iPad at the moment.

Speaker 1: 1:58

Yeah, but it's sunny in here, john, in the Taylor Thorpe recording studio. But it's sunny in here, john, in the Tailoring Talk recording studio. So, before we get into the topic for today, so we're going to talk about WWDC. If you look at the logo, it looks like WDC or WVDC or VWDC, but WW, the Worldwide Developer Conference, is happening right now. Day four is tomorrow.

Speaker 1: 2:29

But the stuff that we're concerned with, as lay people quote unquote happened on Tuesday, which were the announcements regarding iOS 18, ipados, macos, watchos, apple intelligence We'll talk about that and Vision OS 2. Now, considering that none of us in the UK and I know all my American listeners, or sorry, our American listeners, yes, and you're right to raise an eyebrow, john, we'll get into it in a second, but I know our American listeners will be familiar with the vision pro. We haven't got a clue over here. I don't think any of us. John definitely has not touched one. I haven't touched one. We want to get our hands on one, don't we? But we're not going to talk about vision os2 today because it means absolutely nothing to us. Well, so we don have an opinion on it.

Speaker 2: 3:26

It's very hard when you've never ever used it, because you can't even compare it with VisionOS 1, can you? I am looking forward to at least having a demo of it in one of the Apple stores at some point. I'm sure they'll get a lot of what we used to call in the industry tire kickers people coming in just to try it out without buying. But that's the nearest we're going to get to it. Until you know, our coffers are slightly fuller of hard cash, but yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:50

Exactly so, just before we get into WWDC. John, I'm glad that you're here. I absolutely have loved my podcasting journey with you because I originally came on as a guest on what was tangents and then became play paul's turn. Oh god, yeah, many moons ago, shazam, reviewing shazam that was my first episode, wow. And you know the other reason I'll never forget. It is a. I was so excited, I did so much homework and I was so nervous all day. And then we went to the cinema and um the uh, the. The attendant said as they, you know, scanned our tickets. I was going to say tour our ticket stubs hasn't happened for years um showing your age there, bobby yeah said are you excited?

Speaker 1: 4:38

and I said I've got no idea about shazam, but I am going to be reviewing the movie on a podcast, and he looked at me like we were celebrities and changed our seats as well. I have to remember that one. Well, it doesn't work so much these days because so many people have got podcasts, but I think then, whenever it was 4 or 5 years ago, 2019,.

Speaker 2: 5:03

March 2019. Shazam came out, so 4 years ago. Um, it was quite a novel 2019, march 2019.

Speaker 1: 5:06

She then came out. Yeah, so four years ago but you know it's been it's been a wonderful ride. Um, you know, I've just loved being part of play paul's turn and then, obviously, starting my own journey here on tailoring talk. It's been fantastic and it's just been so lovely to have you. Um, we've done an apple episode before, I think, but definitely for the bond-a-thon it's been amazing I've had lots of fun.

Speaker 2: 5:29

Yeah, it's nice actually it's nice sometimes to have random people that you, that you know but don't know very well, who say oh, I've listened to your bond-a-thon.

Speaker 1: 5:37

Um, it does make you think what do I say, but yeah, that's quite nice um, but we're gonna have a lot more fun, I think, uh, because we're going to change the format of tailoring talk. Well, you know what? We're not going to change the format of tailoring talk. I think. I want to do more of what I enjoy doing here, so there is going to be more actual tailoring talk, I think, and everybody who's listening to this, please, please, right now, tailoring talk podcast at gmailcom or dm me if you follow me on instagram and so on. Let me know what you want to hear.

Speaker 1: 6:16

Um, my thoughts at the moment and we'll get john's in a second are that I don't want to stop the conversations with people from around the world creators and self-starters, et cetera because I believe that those conversations help certain people At certain times in their lives. Those episodes are needed and those conversations are very important. At the same time, I like doing my social commentary and looking at the news, and you know we had the Henry Cavill episode recently, which so many of you listened to, and it brought so many new listeners and viewers on the YouTube channel as well. I want to do more of that. I want to do more of bringing my Instagram, my educational Instagram reels into Tailoring Talk and using this as a platform to expand a bit more on the 60 second stuff that I do, and I want to talk about movies and I want to talk about computer games and I want to talk about music and all the other things that I love. So, yeah, john, what?

Speaker 2: 7:18

do you think? No, I agree with you. I mean, what I've enjoyed most about the content oh, it's a bit of a word in it the content that you produce is I really do love your little instagram, sort of two or three minutes um history of the type in videos and um, you know, I and I'm building my own dream wardrobe of some of the jackets that you show off. Um, and that's great for me being a gentleman, because a lot of the clothes are suited for me. I do wonder sometimes what other people think. Maybe the lady dresses, whether you can do any female clotheslines. It depends on what you produce, doesn't it really? I presume you're predominantly gentleman's dresses, aren't you Gentleman's clothes?

Speaker 1: 8:00

Yeah, we are, so we do some ladies' pieces like casual jackets and things like that.

Speaker 2: 8:09

But we, we are male focused, yeah, so maybe maybe the shoe, the shoe line might change, but that I love that because it's it's um, it's the little snippets information that you can then pass off as your own when you're at a wedding or something, uh, which is really useful, um. But I, I do like unboxing videos as well. It's good to see it. I actually watched yours before I opened my iPad. So it's just not to expect you know what to leave behind and what to keep. But yeah, no, I agree with you, I think more of the entertainment content will be really good, really interesting, so I look forward to that.

Speaker 1: 8:40

We're going to carry on those conversations over the next week or so, you, alex and I getting together, because we've got Casino Royale wrapped up next in our Blu-ray players or streamers or whatever. So we're going to be reviewing that in a couple of weeks, but we'll take that sort of offline. But I would really love all of you that are watching and listening to join in this conversation and help me out and just let me know what you want to see, because at the end of the day, I don't make any money from this at all. I do it because I genuinely love helping people. That's why I do my day job.

Speaker 1: 9:11

The reason I do my Instagram reels is to try and help people and educate people and you know, since coming on to YouTube, that has been a scary journey because you don't quite know how people are going to react or if anyone's ever going to watch. But you know, as this little YouTube community grows I mean I'm just connecting with so many great people. I'm going to give a special shout out to Stephen, who has been asking me a lot of questions today about the iPad Pro, and I will put together some shorts answering every single question, not that Stephen has asked, but all the rest of you have asked as well. So yeah, so thank you to everyone who's contributed so far. So, anyway, let's get to the main topic of conversation, which is WWDC. Have you been tempted to install the beta? I don't know if you've got access to the early beta. I have, because I'm on the developers forum.

Speaker 2: 10:04

Yeah, I did actually develop an app for the iPhone many years ago with a friend. Know if you've got access to the early beta? I have because I'm on the developers forum. Yeah, I, I did actually develop an app for the iphone many years ago, uh, with a friend. So I still have my. I still get the emails for the developers forums and so on, so I get in the daily emails, all the things going on, so I could install it.

Speaker 2: 10:17

Um, no, I have not been tempted, to be honest. Um, it is very. It is very tempting because I have my mac is an M1 Mac, so I could install it on there, I could have the new iPad, but I don't have a good enough phone because I have a iPhone 13 Pro, so I don't want to have a chunked up ecosystem. I want to test it all in one to test the mirroring of the iPhone, which we'll talk about later on. So, no, I have not. I'm usually quite scared doing that anyway, because my Mac is a web device and you shouldn't really be installing it on a separate device you don't use as often to live the risk otherwise.

Speaker 1: 10:58

Yeah, I think I've only ever done a beta of Mac OS once about five or six years ago, and then swore I would never do it again. And it wasn't because it bricked my machine or anything, but it's just because it was so buggy that things weren't working. And, like you, my laptop is my work device, so I shouldn't really be messing around with that, but I'm really tempted.

Speaker 2: 11:19

I have heard that the iPhone feature is quite buggy. Yeah, I'm going to.

Speaker 1: 11:25

I think I'm just going to be patient.

Speaker 2: 11:28

Also, you have to remember Wait, you have to remember that a beta does not represent the final product and quite often Apple will. There'll be features that you'll have in the beta that get removed by the time the gold version comes out, and it's you know, for whatever reason they want to. So again, it would be a bit of a shame if something nice is there that gets removed when it gets updated in the official output of the install. Yeah, no, I've not been tempted.

Speaker 1: 12:00

Were we to install the betas, though this is what we would have to look forward to playing with um. So, first of all, look, the biggest thing that was announced was the ai. We knew it was coming. We knew that apple was going to rebrand it as their own sort of thing or give it their own name. Um, you know, we've we've heard machine learning for from them for such a long time. You know we've had this chat between you, me and Alex every now and then in our Discord about. You know, alex will sort of rib because he comes from the Android point of view. You and I are the Apple guys, you know, and a lot of the time, admittedly, he is right. You know, android are always just those couple steps ahead. But the thing with Apple is that they tend to kind of wait and wait and wait, and most of the time not all of the time, but the majority of the time when they implement something and bring it to the market, they knock it out of the park and they just do it better than everyone else.

Speaker 2: 13:00

They're very thoughtful. It's a phrase that Tim Cook uses all the time. It's obviously a buzzword at Apple, but they're very thoughtful. It's a phrase that Tim Cook uses all the time. It's obviously a buzzword at Apple, but they're very thoughtful. So, as you say, they wait and they see what works and they also see I think most of the time the dangers and pitfalls of taking up a certain technology. I'm not sure if they've been 100% thoughtful this time around, but we can talk about that later on.

Speaker 1: 13:24

We can talk about it now. Let's get into it. Apple intelligence.

Speaker 2: 13:30

Well, first of all, I've just sent you a photograph of a I don't know what you call them on Masters On a toot. Isn't it a toot rather than a tweet? I sent a toot out to another tech podcast I listen to called Connected, which I love listening to, on the 27th of 2024, where they were talking about um siri updating, and I actually sent them a message saying great show, as always, chaps. I'd love it if apple rebranded siri is apple intelligence or ai for short, natch. So I actually, I actually predict well, I mean, it's, it's kind of obvious. I mean, a lot of the articles that reacted to the announcement said the joke that actually became reality. So it may have been a bit obvious, but I did. I did think of this name six months ago. Um, I'm wondering how much I should charge apple for my, uh, my ideas.

Speaker 1: 14:19

But there you go um, I mean, in a certain light you do look a bit like johnny ives. So yeah, the return maybe and you are a john too yeah, yeah exactly the father of Apple intelligence.

Speaker 2: 14:34

You heard it here first. On my home pods off and I mentioned the lady.

Speaker 1: 14:38

No, I have to say a different name. I was going to say sugar.

Speaker 2: 14:43

Yeah, um Siri, stop, um sorry, she's still talking. Yeah, you know on. On the whole, I think Apple Internet is amazing, but I think there are a couple of well, there's some caveats. I think Apple have been very clever. As you said, they've been waiting to see what the world thinks of AI and obviously they think now we've got to get on that bandwagon quickly. Did you see the Marcus Brownlee and MQBHD interview with Tim Cook?

Speaker 1: 15:18

No, not yet. I've not. Actually I've listened to the Verge cast. Yeah, I've listened to that. This morning I listened to Apple Insider's summary of WWDC, but I think it's tomorrow that they've got their longer episodes. Yeah, sort of going deeper into it. But I've kind of purposely been avoiding a lot of the expert chatter, because what I wanted to do with you is kind of come at it from a lay personal, just a regular user point of view, because the thing is right.

Speaker 1: 15:46

So right now, on my desk here, I've got a studio display, I've got my MacBook Air M3,. I've got an M4 iPad Pro3, I've got an m4 ipad pro. I've got an iphone 15 pro, I've got an iphone 15 pro max. One's a personal phone, one's a work phone. People and um, I've got the I've got.

Speaker 2: 16:04

I'm still the beta. I've really got a lot of devices yeah, do it on my um.

Speaker 1: 16:08

I've got my ipad mini. You can't install it on the. I've got my iPad mini.

Speaker 2: 16:11

You can't just do it on the mini.

Speaker 1: 16:12

I've got my Beats Studio Pros. I've got my AirPods Pros plugged into my ears, I've got the Beats Fit Pros over there. So I mean, this is Basically, I've got everything that you could buy in an Apple store on my desk, and there are so many. These are feature-rich products, right? Yeah, these are feature-rich products, right? Do I use even half or a quarter of the features available on macOS or iOS, or iPadOS for that matter? Are you?

Speaker 2: 16:42

a power user? Is that what you're asking? Am I a power user?

Speaker 1: 16:44

No, I've got certain things that I use day in, day out for my workflows. That's it. I don't really need to go use anything else. Just because I've got all these buttons in the car doesn't mean I need to press all of them.

Speaker 2: 16:57

But it's interesting you say that, bobby, because I think apple intelligence why apple have been so thoughtful is they've actually looked at what are the most uh, common use cases for the populace, rather than looking at high-end pro user. It's all basic stuff. That's just really nice, really clever. So I love the writing focus because I use my iPad quite a lot for writing notes on conferences and training sessions and I currently use an app called Notability which I've used for several years, which is great. I think a lot of university students use it for their lectures and it lets me write and then, as I'm writing, I can record the audio that's in the theater and wherever you tap on the writing where you were at the time that recording was happening, it jumps to that section in the audio and I think apple basically of sherlock vat um in notes. But also you've got this wonderful feature for me because my writing is terrible of tidying up your writing, which I look forward to trying out as well. And obviously the notes, the math notes tool looks amazing as well as a math teacher Perfect, you know.

Speaker 2: 18:09

But I think you know at its core, all of these different ideas aren't power user ideas. They are kind of fun, a little bit quirky, user-friendly, just daily use items, and I think that's very clever of Apple to kind of make the iPhone 15 and above, which are the only devices that can can run this up with intelligence. Suddenly I think there's going to be a big uptake in in people deciding to upgrade. I think this is going to hit their upgrade cycle. There's going to be much higher demand than previous iterations. Yeah, I don't know if you agree with that.

Speaker 1: 18:46

You could be quite cynical and say that this is all very developed, uh deliberate, because obviously we reach peak iphone, probably around about the iphone 12, iphone 13, I think around about that sort of time and, and you know, now I speak to people who always are they're like oh, what iphone do you have? And I've got the 15 pro and they're like I'm still on the 11 or the 12 because there's not really for for the average person, there's no real need to upgrade. And especially in this day and age where we're all feeling the pinch on our wallets and so on, says the guy that just bought a one terabyte ipad pro vm for um, um, you know, people are a bit of becoming a bit more mindful about just because I can do something, do I need to? Or should I know this thing actually does everything that I need it?

Speaker 2: 19:31

to do. Yeah, I mean, I've been my friend for four years, yeah exactly.

Speaker 1: 19:39

So let's just let's have a look at some of the features of Apple. I mean the other thing as well, john. I don't know how you feel about it, but I kind of felt like so I've got on my mac and on my ipad and my iphone I've got gemini, gpt, uh, perplexity, and the other one, co-pilot which is right.

Speaker 1: 20:03

So I the way I tend to go about my days, is that I will start to do something and I might be writing a letter to someone or dealing with a certain problem, whatever, and then I'll think to myself why am I scratching my head? I can get some help here from one of my AI tools, and then I'll use whichever one I kind of feels probably going to give me the best help in that moment. But sometimes I do forget. And even Carolina, so I've, you know, put all of these tools onto her mac and um, you know, she'll come to me. She's like I'm just writing this draft and I need you to proof it, and so on. And uh, I'm like, okay, yeah, fine, she'll send it over to me. I'll just run it through gpt or gemini or perplexity or whatever, and then I'll check it. And then I give it back to her and she's like, how did you do that? In like 30 seconds. I'm like, well, you know, did you not do the draft in that? And she's like, no, I didn't. And then I remind her and she's like, oh, shit. So you know with this, what, what I'm?

Speaker 1: 20:59

The way that I've seen it is is apple aren't really trying to bring anything revolutionary as such, because these tools are already out there. But what they're doing is they're taking devices that are already very useful in our day to day lives and necessary. They're kind of almost extending and enhancing their capabilities. They're leveling them up as opposed to saying, hey, we're rewriting the rule book on all of this. It's just like now, you know you're typing a text message to someone in a professional capacity and you know you're talking in colloquialisms. It's like, oh, hang on a second. Do you want to change the tone of that? Actually, do you know what? Yeah, I do so. It's you know what I mean kind of well, I mean it's like.

Speaker 1: 21:44

It's like the. It's like the apple. Intelligence ai, modern version of clippy. Hey, you seem to be writing an email to your boss, but you've used a few swear words. Do you want my help with that?

Speaker 2: 21:57

I'm not sure how tim could feel about that comparison to microsoft, but, um, you know, technology had come to go through circles, I think. I think I think what apple have done is very clever. First of all is they've compartmentalized the upgrades to Siri in terms of Siri's usability across the system, this ability to issue commands and allow things to happen within apps. Like you can search for a person in a red T-shirt eating ice cream at a beach on a windy day that, for me, is a real game changer trying to find that particular photograph. But also they'd be very clever about keeping the on-device processing and the private servers they use. So Apple have built their own private servers, using probably M1 or M2 chips, I imagine, so that when you do ask for a search that needs a bit more processing crunch, that isn't a chat GPT processing. They have created the most private servers in the world and this is very clever. They've been very, very thoughtful about this. But at the same time, these servers can still be very cleverly regulated so they can still be audited. But Apple can't access any of that data either. That data is not kept. It self-destructs after it's been used. So they'd be very careful about saying that they're not training, using any of your data on device to train their large language models. They've obviously licensed them out. So I think that's really clever, because there's a lot of scamming, scare mongering about ai. I mean, if I asked my other half um, she's same as you with carolina asking for me to check something, and I'll say I'll run that through chat gbt. Oh no, no, no, don't do that. There's kind of a bit of a stigma attached because people are recognizing the language style of the large language models. Um, which I can understand completely. Um, if you're a power user, you use it as an inspiration that you can tweak. A lot of people think you're pressing a button and cheating. So I think Apple have been very clever about creating these private servers that they use. But also they've been very clever at telling you every time if your phone is using ChatGPT and you have to click OK every single time.

Speaker 2: 24:09

If you are a subscriber, I pay for the full version of 4.0 to get the extra quality and content of ChatGP. That's 20 quid a month in the UK. It's quite a lot of money for something that's like three streaming services, but I use it a lot for my job. Apple will basically allow you to log in so you don't have to keep asking yes, because you're paying for it already. But if you're one of want the free users, you're going to keep asking.

Speaker 2: 24:36

And if something goes wrong with chat gbc in the future, apple can just literally move to a different service provider for that and in fact they're probably going to offer. You're using Gemini, aren't you? They're probably going to offer Gemini on there at some point as well, or other future AI systems. It's very clever because it means if things go wrong with OpenAI or if Sam Altman does something Elon Musk-esque, apple can just say we've cut our agreement with OpenAI, we can move to someone else without that affecting any of their systems, because everything else is separate to the chat GPT usage, the world search they're using and it's really clever. They've not integrated OpenAI's services into the phone actual operating system. They've just kept it as a door to a larger area that they can shut whenever they want to. I think it's really clever.

Speaker 1: 25:27

Yeah, although obviously anything that Siri can't handle does have to be handed over to GPT.

Speaker 2: 25:34

Well, yes and no. As I said, some of it gets handed over to their private service. But you're right, there are certain material you can't scrape from apple server. They haven't certain material they haven't licensed out. So, yes, they do have to go to a chat gpt, you're right. Yeah, it's weird, isn't it? It's kind of a triple tier system with a phone, private servers of apple and then chat gpt yeah, no, exactly, I mean I, you know I'm.

Speaker 1: 26:01

Is there anything that stood out for you, john, that you that you're really really most excited about Any one or two features, that you're really really excited about coming to your iPhone or your Mac? I?

Speaker 2: 26:11

mean I really well, I really really like the maths notes. As a teacher of maths, that was really cool. I'm just thinking for children at home, that work, that's going to be really useful. I love all the writing, the writing stuff. For me it's the. I use the apple pencil a lot, so that stood out for me.

Speaker 2: 26:28

I have to say I wasn't so impressed with, uh, the, the icon, the picture making stuff, the. Um, imagine, what's it called? The imagine playground. Or the dream, what's it called? Oh, image playgrounds. I mean, yeah, I, I have to. I mean I do use image generation a lot, but I am a bit concerned about you know, I thought that the original sketch of the dome looked better than the one that they replaced it with.

Speaker 2: 26:53

The hand-drawn blueprint actually looked nicer than the replacement. It's very clever. Genmoji, I think, is fun. I've got no problems with it. I think that's where Apple should have kind of maybe gone too farmoji, I think, is fun. I've got no problems with it. I think that's where Apple should have kind of maybe gone too far with it. I think a little bit. How would you feel if some random person found your photograph on the internet and turned it into an emoji and then posted it as a comment underneath your YouTube channel. That seemed a little bit more creepy to me, I don't know which. I just think is a little bit of a stumble from Apple that they allow that. You know, I don't know what sort of offensive content you can make, but I imagine, because their image playground is so guardrail with those three different animation styles, apple is probably very, very seriously looking down on the offensive content as well. But how do you feel about that? Did you quite like that sort of aspect of the Apple Intelligence kind of remit, these different aspects you can play around with?

Speaker 1: 27:53

You know they're kind of fun to play around with, but I'm kind of like you know my day-to-day life and I think for most people as well, it's not really anything that they're going to really use.

Speaker 1: 28:03

You know it's one of those things that you play around with for the first two days because it's like a new toy. And then after that, I mean I I'm really intrigued by the, the maths, the calculator thing where you hit that button then you can actually draw your formulas and stuff. Because very often when I'm working things out, I that's how I do it, right, but base kind of formulas. The one thing I was I was wondering about, because you're a teacher, you'd be able to tell me. Um, so when we had to do algebra and stuff, I was absolutely rubbish simultaneous equations, all that sort of thing.

Speaker 1: 28:34

And if I could go back in time, I'd jump in my delorean, go back to me at secondary school at the age of 14 and I would stick that ipad in his hand and I'd say don't tell anyone, this is how you do it, okay, just come with that. And then I would be top set maths. No freaking problem, I could not. So so how I managed to get a b in maths was purely on getting marks for showing my working out. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:05

Yeah, well, that's good. You're a good student for showing your working out, because loads of kids don't do that and if they, when they get it wrong, they get it completely wrong.

Speaker 1: 29:12

Well, it's not so much that I was a good student, John. It's just that I knew that that was the cheat code to getting some. So I was just writing down gibberish brackets and minuses and divide signs and whatever it's like they'll go okay.

Speaker 2: 29:26

Well, you know he tried a good teacher will look at what you've written and say have they got an understanding of the question? No, it's completely gibberish, wrong, to be fair.

Speaker 1: 29:35

So I don't know who your teacher was, but yeah, I can't even remember that far back there has been an app.

Speaker 2: 29:43

I've had an app on the iPad for quite a long time several years that does a similar thing to Math Notes Not quite as cool, but you can write any sort of equation and press equals and it solves it, just like Math Notes. But what Math Notes does is it allows you I mean, variables is a massive thing. My app does not have variables. This has variables, which is really useful when you're working out equation of things. But also just the little clever bit, the apple bits, like that dial above the degree symbol that turned into like a. Really I'd love to try to have a play and find out what it can do, what else it can do.

Speaker 2: 30:14

Um, that was really interesting, yeah, yeah. So for me the caveat is the caveat is a. Where are they scraping that picture information from? Is it all licensed? Or have they nicked anything off the internet themselves? Because I think that's where Apple's put themselves into tricky waters really. But apart from that, it's really good. I mean, I'm loving the look and the style of it and the fact it's embedded into all the iWork apps as well. I think children will find it really useful if they're doing projects, they can just, rather than searching hours for a picture, they can make a great one in their work. That's quite cool, you know, that saves them time.

Speaker 1: 30:50

So I'm going to kind of quick fire on iPadOS and iOS 18. But generally, you know, I think the main thing for me to answer your question is with Apple intelligence in general is just having it kind of baked into the system so that I don't have to go remember that I've got an open chat gpt to help me out with something or to check something or whatever it's just.

Speaker 1: 31:14

It's like it's there um floating around ready to help whenever, um so so that's probably what I'm kind of most looking forward to when you come on to ios 18. I think really the biggest thing with ios 18 because they've added little features in, like the. The one that is going to make a big difference to me, that I'm very excited for, and when it was announced I was like, yes, can't wait for that is um being able to send I messages at a later time. Yeah, that's your schedule. Yeah, imagine imagineMessages at a later time.

Speaker 2: 31:45

Yeah, message schedule.

Speaker 1: 31:46

Imagine, from a customer service, a CX point of view, like you just find out that a customer's 50th birthday is in three weeks from now. Well, instead of writing it in your diary and missing the diary entry, you can literally just send that happy birthday, hope you're having a great time, and just time it for whenever.

Speaker 2: 32:08

And you know it's going to go out. Know, forget about it. I don't know how far forward you can go.

Speaker 1: 32:10

I mean, we'll have to play around with that. I don't know if there's a limit.

Speaker 2: 32:10

I could be very disappointed but, um, yeah, that is cool. I mean, I use that quite often for work as well with emails. I don't like to. I don't like to promote the image of um sitting up and responding to parent emails at 10 in the evening, because teachers need to have time off as well. So if I see a very important message from a work colleague or a parent, I will schedule it for 6 am the following morning so that I can become a really early riser, which is great. One of the things I liked was the. I really enjoyed the screen customization tools. That's what I wanted to get into with you. I knew you would. I knew you would the screen like customization tools, because I have.

Speaker 1: 32:44

I'm ashamed. That's what I wanted to get into with you. I knew you would.

Speaker 2: 32:47

I knew you would because I still use my. You can see on my screen here viewers rather than listeners. But I've got my iPhone up with mine's all black and white, so I've custom photoshopped all my icons and created shortcuts to my icons. I don't know if you can see mine, so I, yeah, I, I like I might go back to my normal colored icons and then adapt them. I'm hoping that there's a black and white filter in the new updates um, I got on the beta for a for a launcher for ios.

Speaker 1: 33:17

Yeah, I can't remember what they're called. I'll let you know, but all I've got on here you can't see it on the screen because of the glare. But, um, I'll put a screenshot into the video so you can see it. But there's one widget which just says my battery percentage, the date and time, and then the next one is just it's just literally call message camera music. That's it. Will you, now that you?

Speaker 2: 33:42

now that you can change the two icons the lock screen icon, the torch and the camera, you could put similar things on the bottom there for your phone as well. Yeah, I quite like that. The torch seems fun. You can actually shape on the iPhone 15 and upwards, because the flash is different. You can shape your beam now as well, so you can actually, in the torch setting, slide around on the, the controller and it will change the brightness and shape of your beam, which I'm trying to think what the use case for that would be.

Speaker 2: 34:08

But if you're, if you're working in a plumbing or electricity and you want to target your beam somewhere, that seems really clever and just very aptly and it's kind of fine detail. Um, I I like, uh, the way the bezel of your phone um bends in when you press the buttons, that kind of animation down the side that uses the black of the frame so it looks like you're pushing the screen in and the whole Siri animation is lovely as well. I prefer that to the circular thing at the bottom. Yeah, no, it looks really good outside. Tine, it looks.

Speaker 2: 34:39

You know the fact you can lock or hide apps, which you know I'm always very nervous about. I've got nothing to hide, but I've always had an issue with handing my phone. You know, when you hand someone's phone over to show them your photographs, I'm very precious about my phone, so I like that. That's really good, and the fact you can also resize your widgets is really cool, because some of my screens have different size widgets on them as well, which I like to adapt and play around with. I think it almost feels like they've released three or four updates in one, because Apple normally hold these things back, don't they? They've gone for it big time.

Speaker 1: 35:19

They'll hold certain features back so that they can force people to upgrade mid-cycle.

Speaker 2: 35:23

So the images thing is a big one right yeah. So what is it you know for me?

Speaker 1: 35:29

yeah I mean initially, when they were talking about customization. And craig federici you know the way he talks- love on craig, hey you dumbasses look, you can do this.

Speaker 1: 35:40

Um, isn't this amazing? Because nobody's ever done it before and all the android people and people like me that have dabbled with android as well and we're like but you could do that on android like 500 years ago. Yeah, the problem always with android for me is that I didn't want that much customization. It was too much. I don't want to. I wanted to actually use my phone, not actually sit there just fine, tuning the thing to infinity and beyond, whereas I think the way that apple have done it, I probably still won't customize to the extent that they're now going to allow us to. Um, well, I say allow us to.

Speaker 1: 36:20

It's still not a code level, it is literally. These are your options and this is what you can do. So you're still within a. You know, a playpen, but that's fine. Me personally, I'm happy to be in that playpen. I want an a la carte menu. I don't not a la carte, no, I want a set menu with several options on each course. I don't want a la carte or even all the ingredients given to me so that I can put whatever I want together. I just don't have the patience for all that nonsense. So, being able, to.

Speaker 2: 36:50

I think that could be our age, bobby, that could be our age. I think, a little bit I think and a lot of android users are probably younger gen z is who want to have a fiddle and play around with, which is fine, even that's, that's completely fine years ago, when I was still doing my whole.

Speaker 1: 37:03

I've got an iphone, but I'm gonna dabble with an android. You know the samsung galaxy s6 or whatever it is um, you know, even you know, the reason I threw the android away after two weeks was because it's just too much um. So you know um, and don't forget mentally, I'm not that old.

Speaker 2: 37:24

So true, and also, alex is a big fan of android, isn't it? And he's, you know, he likes to have a dabble. So I think I think it's great that there's different uh systems out there for different people. Um, I I think we it was ever thus. When it comes to the non-apple users kind of rolling their eyeballs about all these new, new features that they've had for years, that's fine, it's not a problem, because Apple generally does those features in a more kind of a solid and pretty kind of way, don't they? They kind of they just feel a bit more magical, and that's what I think. That's why we like it so much. It's like a gift that keeps on giving.

Speaker 2: 37:59

The Photos app. I just want to go quickly mention, because we haven lose things in that app. There's no tab at the bottom anymore, to jump to the recent picture. So I'm a bit worried and I'm wondering if that might be like the. Do you remember the Safari tab? The Safari tab, the way they pushed everything to the bottom at one point and top or whatever it was. I think we might see some changes in the Photos app up to September when they release the software. So I'm going to hold my thoughts on that I might end up using the Photos app more outside the Photos app than inside, if that makes sense, by using the Siri app, the Apple Intelligence, to find photographs. I quite like the clearing out of background images, the editing, that's cool.

Speaker 1: 38:46

Yeah, you could do that on a Google Pixel, Exactly yeah, 7 years ago but it's nice that we've got it now. I mean, there are third-party apps that you can do that sort of thing in as well. You know, like photo, whatever it's called, lightroom does that, and so on yeah, um. So, moving on ipad os, we've both got the ipad m4. We'll talk about that another time because we're short of short of time today. Um, again, not the revolution that some people wanted. Some people wanted to see Mac OS brought to the iPad.

Speaker 2: 39:17

I disagree, I think the iPad should be an iPad.

Speaker 1: 39:20

The MacBook should be a MacBook If you can't afford both. I've got a video coming out in about a week or two's time which compares the MacBook Air with the iPad Pro M4, and I try to help you make that decision between the two devices.

Speaker 1: 39:33

But anyway, the things that I'm most excited about with the enhancements to iPadOS are live audio transcription, because for me, I take a lot of voice notes and when I'm either interviewing people or doing something on the fly for content creation, it's just, it will be a godsend for me. Um, and the other thing is um smart script, because, again, I write a lot, like you, on my ipad. I love using my apple pencil, especially love using it on this new nano texture display right, by the way, people so more on that later as well, um, you know. And customization actually, having said what I said about the iphone, I would like more customization on my ipad because it's my workspace, I use it all the time and I I would just like to be able to move things around where I want them to be well, don't forget, normally Apple leaves the features they bring out on the iPhone to another year, but we are going to be able to resize the widgets and do the same colour filters on the iPad, exactly like the iPhone.

Speaker 2: 40:42

For the first time ever, they've not held the iPad features back for a year, so that's really good. There's some lovely examples on the Apple website of customised iPads and I'm going to go crazy on that. I think I think a lot of the features that are on the iPhone are coming to the iPad straight away, which is great. It means you get the best of both worlds. For me, depending on the release date of the iPhone 16, I'm just going to be able to experience this on my iPad because my iPhone is not powerful enough I probably will be getting the iPhone 16. It's my time. I'm quite happy that I'm going to have it on every device I'm hoping. I mean, I think, the game mode. We didn't talk about game mode on the iPhone but.

Speaker 2: 41:27

I tend to use my iPad more than my iPhone for game mode. But game mode I was a bit disappointed. I did buy and download the latest Assassin's Creed game, mirage, on my iPad but despite having an M4 iPad, it didn't run very well. I got a refund. So be careful what they promise you at these events, because they make big promises about performance. But I'm wondering if perhaps game mode might change that, because it reduces background activity. Maybe the frame rates would have been better. Maybe I should have held back for a bit. But that's really interesting because it makes your AirPods and your controls more responsive. I'm hoping that will work with remote play too. I use that quite a lot on my iPad for my PlayStation 5.

Speaker 1: 42:06

Yeah, that's one thing I need to try out on mine. I want to mention the Photos app, but I already use the photos app like that, so I will just ask it. I'll say find me all the pictures of kids. You know. Recently there was this trend on social media post a picture of yourself when you were a kid, 30 years ago yeah, yeah, and I, I was just like pictures of kids now I did this on a busy tube train.

Speaker 2: 42:29

I did this on a busy tube train.

Speaker 1: 42:30

That's what the dodgy one is for, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 42:32

I did this on a busy tube train and the people around me were looking at me cycling through photos of all my friends' kids, who were all mostly white and yeah, there was one woman who sort of coughed and I just turned around to her and I was like I'm just trying to find a picture of myself when I was a child and she's like okay, picture of myself when I was a child and she's like okay, oh, you had to explain yourself, had a I mean her hand on the emergency brake.

Speaker 2: 42:59

Yeah, um, the the biggest feature. If you're asking about the biggest feature in your ipad life, for me it's a silly one, but the fact you've got this shareplay where you can show other people how to use their ipad will really help me with my father. But I'm not sure if it will work on. All right, I guess you have to have the new iPad for that to work. Yeah, I think you would. I don't know.

Speaker 1: 43:17

No, actually I'm not sure, I don't know. Well, you need to have the share play feature on both iPads, so I would guess both iPads need to be able to run the same, At least M1. Yeah exactly, and maybe we'll have to look into that actually, because that's a really interesting question, because that would actually help me with carolina, because often she's stuck on something.

Speaker 2: 43:35

yeah, well, surely a lot of people who have problems with their ipads people perhaps who are less tech savvy and perhaps less ingrained in the upgrade cycle have older ipads. I'm not sure how useful it will be until we're a few years down the line, but anyway I think it's a really cool feature. Um, I just really wish that you could do iPhone mirroring on your iPad like you can on a Mac, which we haven't really talked about, unfortunately, but maybe we'll save that for our next conversation.

Speaker 1: 44:02

Exactly and very last one, which I think we can do in about 45 seconds before you have to shoot off AirPods are getting an update.

Speaker 2: 44:09

This is cool. They're nodding in the air, shaking their head.

Speaker 1: 44:12

That's cool man, I do this a lot, john. I don't know about you, but when I'm cycling, I I need to ask siri to do things right, like play music, and it's like hey siri, nothing, hey siri. I start quietly. Hey siri, hey sir. And then I'm going, I'm like hey siri, um and nothing, and I look like an absolute mental case, right, or? Uh, you've got a call coming from john evans. Should I take it?

Speaker 2: 44:37

no, okay, and then and then it starts connecting the car.

Speaker 2: 44:41

No, no, no so I'd love to just be able to nod and shake my head but also, actually, if you've got the voice isolation feature, which they're bringing in as well, it's's possible that Siri will be more responsive on your bike. I don't use my AirPods on my bike. I have a pair of shocks because I like to be able to hear what's going on around me. But in terms of me walking to the train or commuting and so on, the fact that you can have a conversation with someone without the background noise with this new noise sound isolation from the other end is really good as well. I imagine that will help with things like podcast recording easier on AirPods as well and everything else.

Speaker 2: 45:19

I tend to record with my transparency mode on so I can hear my voice, but I wonder if that will affect the listener at the other end. I don't know. But yeah, it's really cool and it's nice because it's I still remember the days of the paid for updates't know, but yeah, it's really cool and it's nice because it's it's um, you know, I still remember the days of the paid for updates.

Speaker 1: 45:37

so it's nice, it's all free, making our nice things even nicer, yeah yeah, well, there's going to be a lot of subscription shit coming our way, but we'll talk about that another time. We've got a wrap up, john. Thank you ever so much. Thank you all for watching and listening, um to support the show. You can find link in the show notes. We will be back for bondathons. We're going to talk more Apple with John, but for now we've got to love you and leave you because John's got to rush off. Thank you so much. See you soon, john. Thank you as ever.

Speaker 2: 46:03

I love you, always a pleasure thank you very much, bye, bye, bye you.