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- Friday June 14
- 03:30 pmWould you spend $650 on a desk lamp? [Setups]
You could buy a computer for the price of a Dyson Solarcycle Morph Desk Light. Or you could buy a highly functional, self-adjusting lamp. (via Cult of Mac - Apple news, rumors, reviews and how-tos)02:50 pmToday in Apple history: Paul McCartney is unlikely star of iTunes ad
On June 14, 2007, Paul McCartney sang his song "Dance Tonight" in an iTunes ad, as icy relations between Apple and The Beatles thawed. (via Cult of Mac - Apple news, rumors, reviews and how-tos)02:31 pmJon Stewart speaks out following TV+ show’s abrupt end, says Apple didn’t censor him
Apple TV+ has had a number of shows cancelled over the years, but no cancellation received more attention than that of Jon Stewart’s show, The Problem with Jon Stewart. Reports indicated Apple and Stewart’s parting of ways had to do with conflicts over topics the show was going to cover, such as AI and China. Stewart only briefly discussed the cancellation previously. But now, in a new podcast interview, he shares in much more depth about what happened. more…02:26 pmApple Intelligence is AI for the rest of us
Apple Intelligence is the personal artificial intelligence system for iPhone, iPad, and Mac that combines the power of generative AI models… The post appeared first on MacDailyNews.02:26 pmBest features in watchOS 11 for Apple Watch
Apple Watch is getting its yearly feature infusion this fall with tons of updates. Here are our new favorite abilities in watchOS 11.Apple set to release watchOS 11 this fallEach year, most of the world's attention gets laid on iOS which is especially true this year with the addition of Apple Intelligence. But Apple's wrist-worn computer is poised for a big year, too. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums01:55 pmGoing on vacation? These are the best travel essentials for Apple devices
It’s vacation season, and whether you’re heading out of town for some much-needed rest, or just traveling for work as usual, the accessories you travel with can make a world of difference. Here are the best travel essentials for Apple devices. more…01:47 pmApple eyes best week since 2021 on hopes for AI iPhone supercycle
Apple investors finally have a roadmap for how the company will use and deploy artificial intelligence — and they’ve responded by… The post appeared first on MacDailyNews.01:42 pmFreeform in iOS 18 is enormously easier to work inside and navigate
Apple's Freeform productivity app has been made easier to navigate and to understand, thanks to some changes in iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia.Freeform's changes apply on iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS SequoiaIntroduced in late 2022, Freeform was launched as tool for creation. Enabling collaborative brainstorming by letting multiple people work on the same infinite whiteboard document.While it certainly helped some users develop new ideas, there were still some areas that needed fixing. In its updates to iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, the app is getting quite a few quality of life improvements. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums01:38 pmRashida Jones investigates a mystery with creepy robot in Sunny trailer
Join Suzie and her creepy robot companion as they uncover the dark truth behind Sunny, the thrilling mystery series coming to Apple TV+. (via Cult of Mac - Apple news, rumors, reviews and how-tos)12:56 pmWhatsApp video call features aim to better compete with FaceTime
Three new WhatsApp video call features are aiming to make the app more competitive with FaceTime – including the company’s own take on SharePlay. The company also emphasized the recent improvements it made to both audio and video quality … more…12:49 pmApple TV+ debuts trailer for ‘Sunny,’ starring Rashida Jones
Today, Apple TV+ unveiled the trailer for its highly anticipated, ten-episode, darkly comedic mystery series “Sunny,” hailing from… The post appeared first on MacDailyNews.12:28 pmWWDC, macOS Sequoia, iOS 18, and Apple Intelligence on the AppleInsider Podcast
At last we know everything about Apple's AI moves — or at least at lot more than we did. Looking at how it will impact the apps we rely on, here's what Apple Intelligence is going to mean for us all.Craig Federighi buckles up, ready for Apple IntelligenceMaybe we'd guessed everything about Apple's more high-profile adoption of AI after years of quiet Machine Learning. Maybe there's still a lot left to find out — and maybe we'll get used to the name "Apple Intelligence."What's clear is that Apple has gone for AI every bit as much as predicted, and with every bit as much of a focus on security, privacy, and utility, as Apple always does. Apple AI may have ChatGPT plugged into it, but if anything is going to avoid AI hallucinations, it's Apple Intelligence. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums12:17 pmApple underpaid female employees through two policies, claims lawsuit
A class action lawsuit filed on behalf of 12,000 current and former staff claims that Apple underpaid female employees over a four-year period. The lawsuit said that while the Cupertino company didn’t do this deliberately, it had two policies in place which led to this result … more…11:57 amHomeKit now lets you manually set what device is your Home Hub in iOS 18
HomeKit is giving users more choice about what controls the smart home network in iOS 18, by selecting what device acts as the active Home Hub.HomeKit's Home app on iOSHomeKit prefers to have a Home Hub, a device designated as the main point of contact on the network for all other hardware. A home could have multiple devices that can act as the Home Hub, but you couldn't previously designate one as the primary device for the task.In practice, this meant that the assignment rotated, sometimes to a device on the periphery of your network. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums11:55 amApple Intelligence is Sherlock and Watson all over again
Macworld Apple Intelligence marks a turning point. Not just for Apple, which finally learned how to say “AI” and is diving head-first into making big generative AI features a central part of its products. It’s a turning point for the tech industry as a whole. This year, AI begins its transition from a novel product to an expected feature, a move made by dozens of software technologies before it. And Apple Intelligence plays a key role. The software technology lifecycle It’s not true of every piece of software, but it happens a lot: something you used to have to seek out and buy eventually just becomes a baked-in part of the products you already have. The most famous example of this for Apple users is Sherlock. That was the name for Apple’s system-wide Mac search feature introduced way back in macOS 8.5. A third-party company (Karelia Software) sold a neat $30 utility called Watson that added internet search and other capabilities to Sherlock. Users loved it. Back when Spotlight was Sherlock, it was a big deal. Now it’s just another feature. Back when Spotlight was Sherlock, it was a big deal. Now it’s just another feature.Foundry Back when Spotlight was Sherlock, it was a big deal. Now it’s just another feature.Foundry Foundry Within a couple of years, Apple just added those features to Sherlock, making Watson obsolete. They never licensed or paid Karelia, didn’t buy the company, they just took what used to be paid software and turned it into a feature. We now call this “getting Sherlocked” and it happens all the time. You used to have to buy software to burn CDs or watch DVD movies. Antivirus software wasn’t built into anything. Companies like f.lux got Sherlocked by Night Mode display settings. All the big tech companies do it. From speech recognition to health trackers and so much more, software and services that you had to find, choose, and pay for eventually become included as part of the operating systems and devices you use. It happens on iPhone, iPad, and Mac, it happens on Windows, it happens on Android. This year, Apple is being accused of “Sherlocking” 1Password and Dashlane by making Passwords its own app, Truecaller by adding native call recording and transcription, and Magnet with the new macOS Sequoia window tiling feature. And now with Apple Intelligence, it’s starting to do the same to gen-AI apps and services. The transition will take years Apple’s not alone here. Microsoft’s new Copilot+ PCs require powerful NPUs (Neural Processing Units) and offer a mix of on-device and cloud AI services that include image generation, live captions on any video, and a built-in chatbot interface that works together with outside AI services like ChatGPT. Google has been infusing Android with its AI over the last couple of years and this year’s Android 15 release adds even more generative AI with an upgraded multi-modal “Gemini Nano” on-device model, on-screen awareness, real-time scam call detection, and more. Google’s own Gemini AI is all over its latest Pixel phones. Google’s own Gemini AI is all over its latest Pixel phones.Google Google’s own Gemini AI is all over its latest Pixel phones.Google Google Artificial Intelligence is a big field and still going through rapid growth, so its transformation from product to feature won’t happen in just one release. Just as people kept buying CD-burning software to get more powerful features for years after it was built into computer operating systems, stand-alone AI apps and services aren’t going to disappear anytime soon. People will want more than what is built in. But 2024 is the start of the next phase; the phase where AI, like so many products and services before, reaches most people as a feature that is baked into their phones, laptops, and tablets. What is built-in will be “good enough” for most, and integration with outside services will be free and seamless. Take Apple’s deal with OpenAI to integrate ChatGPT. Whether you’re using Siri, writing tools, or art tools, you’ll be able to call upon ChatGPT-4o’s expanded capabilities right from within the OS interface, without downloading an app, signing up, or signing in. Over the coming years, this will start to look like the search engine defaults in your web browser–most people won’t know or care that they can be changed or why they would want to. You just open your browser and search. AI will eventually become boring Apple makes improvements to its Spotlight system-wide search (the feature that grew out of Sherlock) every year. Nobody really cares, though. It’s barely noticed and not a selling point anymore. The same can be said of all the other software and services absorbed by platforms over the years. They start as neat new features worthy of keynote stage time and advertisements. Eventually, people get bored with it. They become features we’ve had and used for years, and the improvements are welcome but not worth crowing about. Apple Intelligence is exciting and new in iOS 18, but before long it’ll just be another boring feature. Apple Intelligence is exciting and new in iOS 18, but before long it’ll just be another boring feature.Apple Apple Intelligence is exciting and new in iOS 18, but before long it’ll just be another boring feature.Apple Apple This is the obvious endgame for generative AI, though the timetable looks longer. We’ll hear about amazing new AI capabilities as part of our operating systems (from Apple and others) for a few more years at least. Features pioneered by other companies in their stand-alone apps will slowly make their way into “free” features built into our products. And when there’s enough there, and it works well enough, to meet the needs of almost all customers, it’ll be just another boring feature that gets updated every year. A throwaway line from the CEO as he transitions to talking about the next big thing. Generative AI as a feature is not really a thing yet. You can’t yet walk into Best Buy and pick up a Copilot+ PC, Apple Intelligence doesn’t roll out to millions of users until the fall, and Android 15 is going wide in the second half of this year. But by January 1, 2025, tens of millions of people will use products where generative AI is just a built-in feature. That’s a huge shift in public perception. It won’t take long for hundreds of millions of users to just expect this to be the way things work, relegating self-selected and paid-for AI as a niche product for hardcore users with particular needs. iOS, MacOS11:32 amApple doesn’t use your data to train Apple Intelligence; other protections
A research paper explicitly says that Apple doesn’t use your data to train Apple Intelligence. This differs from OpenAI’s policy, which does use your ChatGPT sessions to help train its model. However, Apple says that it does scrape websites for content via Applebot, and website owners must explicitly opt-out if they don’t want this to happen … more…11:15 amiOS 18 solves iCloud's irritating habit of offloading the file you need
It's meant to save space on your device, but iCloud's decisions over what files can be temporarily offloaded can be aggravating — until a new feature in iOS 18 allows you to stop it.Pressing and holding on a document in the Files app now gets you a Keep Downloaded optionEven with only iCloud's miserly 5GB of space, the system will still upload files to the cloud in order to save storage space on devices. It's meant to be an intelligent system that realises this is, for instance, a large file that hasn't been opened in a while.In practice, though, that large file can be the very next thing needed and now it's off your device. At the very least, it's an inconvenience as you wait for it to download, but it can be more of a problem. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums11:15 amSteve Jobs would never have allowed this
Macworld Among Steve Jobs’ many philosophies at Apple was giving customers what they need, not necessarily what they want. He famously said, “People don’t know what they want until you show it to them. That’s why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.” At WWDC this week, Apple gave us a ton of features that were already on the page. Several chapters back, in fact. One of the main features of iOS 18 is a whole new level of customization that permeates the entire interface, from the Home Screen layout to the Lock Screen, icons, and the Control Center. It doesn’t even have a fancy name, it just falls under the umbrella of Customization. iOS 18 literally looks so good! pic.twitter.com/A0yj1Qs4AG— Snazzy Labs (@SnazzyLabs) June 10, 2024 On the surface, it’s all good. Apple users have been clamoring for Android-like customization for years and Apple absolutely delivered it in iOS 18: Put icons anywhere you want on your Home Screen Tint apps with a dark look and adjust the color Hide the names of apps under icons Adjust the size of apps and widgets Add buttons to the Control Center Rearrange and resize Control Center icons and sliders Swap out Lock Screen controls All of these have been on wish lists for years, and for the first time ever, your iPhone is as endlessly customizable as an Android phone, maybe even more so. Out of the box, you can customize the look of your iPhone’s Home Screens in a wide variety of ways—but after seeing what some early beta adopters have made, maybe it’s not such a good idea to give users so many choices. This is not a jailbroken iPhone..This is iOS 18. 😮💨 pic.twitter.com/l9BwX9GGGJ— Brandon Butch (@BrandonButch) June 10, 2024 Of course, as with all options, you can ignore whatever you don’t want; but so many options create unnecessary visual chaos and confusion. Where Control Center used to be a controlled list of buttons and sliders, it’s now several pages of options with a somewhat unclear hierarchy. We’ve been asking for this level of customization on our iPhones for years, but now that we have it, it feels cheap, convoluted, and a little un-Apple-like. It goes back to Steve’s mantra: what you think you want isn’t always what you want. The features that generated the most buzz—iPhone Mirroring, Safari Highlights, Math Notes—aren’t things we knew we wanted, but will likely become part of our workflow. That’s Apple at its best. This other stuff that lets users change the color of icons? Not so much. But that’s how it is these days. Now, Apple tries its best to strike a balance between what users want and what they need, while still delivering delightful and revolutionary features. Tim Cook has delivered some incredible products and continues to carve out new and exciting paths for Apple, most notably with Apple Intelligence, another feature of iOS 18. It’s impossible to imagine what Apple would look like under Steve Jobs in 2024. I’d like to think he’d be on board with Apple Intelligence, Vision Pro, even the many Apple Pencils. But one thing I know for sure—he’d never let us tint our icons. iOS11:07 amSpatial Audio now works over AirPlay with iOS 18
We’re still digging into all the new features coming with iOS 18, which was announced earlier this week at WWDC 2024. We’ve just reported on the update letting users choose their preferred Home Hub, but now there’s another significant change coming, especially for HomePod owners. With iOS 18, users can finally stream Spatial Audio over AirPlay. more…10:39 amJon Stewart reveals the moment thing went bad with Apple
"The Problem with Jon Stewart" host says that it was over one particular interview that he knew his show was not going to fit in at Apple TV+.'The Problem with Jon Stewart' [Apple TV+]Jon Stewart did originally say that he parted ways with Apple TV+ because the company "didn't want me to say things that might get me in trouble." He later expanded on that to talk about Apple being uncomfortable with a skit about AI.Now in a new interview with the podcast The Town with Matthew Belloni, he says that the split was a long time coming, but there was a specific moment when he realised that the relationship was not going to work. Continue Reading on AppleInsider | Discuss on our Forums