00:00:28 ◼ ► I thought it was going to rain this morning, and it was kind of like a little bit windy.
00:00:35 ◼ ► We just don't have time for that, because we have a question from listener Ramon, who wants to know from you.
00:01:16 ◼ ► So we have quite the collection of herbs that we've been growing in a little, you know, we have a little bit of a collection of potted plants outside.
00:03:21 ◼ ► And on this week's Connected Pro, at the end of the show, we're going to be talking a bit
00:03:33 ◼ ► So, because this is a podcast well-known, you know, we talk a lot about media and media
00:03:55 ◼ ► So, you, several weeks ago now, told the world that you don't like the word Mesa when it
00:04:06 ◼ ► And then we had some anonymous feedback we discussed last week from someone who says that
00:04:19 ◼ ► Well, now we have dueling anonymous feedbacks because this week we got anonymous feedback
00:04:35 ◼ ► I think camera turret as a bit of a, I don't know, it sounds very video gamey, you know,
00:04:44 ◼ ► Like, you know, here comes the camera turret, you know, because also like, I guess it works
00:05:13 ◼ ► We also spoke about how you and I both want a natural law or phenomenon or equation, something
00:05:35 ◼ ► Snell's law is a formula used to describe the relationship between the angles of incidence
00:05:41 ◼ ► and refraction when referring to light or other waves passing through a boundary between two
00:06:05 ◼ ► Like, uh, seriously, I mean, if you're listening to the show, you know, it's, it's something
00:06:35 ◼ ► web apps, uh, on Apple platforms and some of the differences between Apple and Android,
00:06:40 ◼ ► And we got some feedback from Anton and Anton wrote in saying, I'm a developer, a video streaming
00:06:45 ◼ ► service and picture in picture have never worked in PWAs, even though they advertise it as enabled
00:06:51 ◼ ► in browser APIs, even worse, funnier since around iOS 17.4 or whenever Apple tried to cut
00:06:58 ◼ ► PWA support in the European union, when you start watching a video in PWA, you have to tap
00:07:46 ◼ ► Um, we were also, we were also talking about my issues with my vision pro, uh, sort of thinking
00:07:54 ◼ ► that I was traveling when I was using the computer at night and, uh, sort of asking me to enable
00:08:08 ◼ ► And Jim wrote in saying, I wanted to let Federico know I had a similar moving issue with the
00:08:14 ◼ ► I was in a, in a Horizon Workrooms meeting and after about 15 minutes, my avatar started sliding
00:08:26 ◼ ► As, as soon as it closed, I could see in my pass through that my MacBook's aerial forest
00:08:45 ◼ ► It seems like all the systems, when they see, uh, uh, something that looks like, uh, you
00:08:50 ◼ ► know, a landscape scene from above, they must be thinking, oh, this person is looking through
00:08:57 ◼ ► So yeah, it seems that it's quite a common, uh, misunderstanding in this, uh, mixed reality
00:09:18 ◼ ► Like, well, I'm guessing this is like one of the things where you got to use machine learning
00:09:30 ◼ ► And so the system may need to take a, make a decision like, okay, do I think the user is
00:09:41 ◼ ► I do think this is something that one of those vision APIs, for example, could easily fix by
00:09:46 ◼ ► segmenting, you know, the things that it's seeing and saying, okay, this is a computer.
00:10:04 ◼ ► And I would love to know, maybe we mentioned this, but I would love to know, like, did someone
00:10:37 ◼ ► That's why I'm pleased to let you know that FitBot is an easy and affordable way to build
00:10:44 ◼ ► Everyone's fitness path is different, which is why FitBot uses data to make sure they're
00:10:51 ◼ ► Adapting as you improve, so each workout will be challenging, pushing you to make the progress
00:10:57 ◼ ► Superior results are achieved when a workout program is tailored to your unique body, experience,
00:11:09 ◼ ► FitBot also tracks your muscle recovery, so you can avoid burnout and keep up your momentum.
00:11:20 ◼ ► They've analyzed billions of data points that have been fine-tuned by certified personal
00:11:25 ◼ ► And you can be sure you're learning new movements the right way, thanks to more than a thousand
00:11:43 ◼ ► That's why FitBot tracks muscle fatigue and recovery to design a well-balanced workout routine,
00:11:48 ◼ ► which also means you'll never get bored as the app mixes up your workouts with new exercises,
00:12:02 ◼ ► You can create sharing cards to let your friends and family know your achievements and your personal best.
00:12:08 ◼ ► And of course, it integrates with your Apple Watch, Wear OS smartwatch, and apps like Strava, FitBit, and Apple Health.
00:12:20 ◼ ► So as I get stronger in certain areas, or maybe I have an injury in another, it adapts and changes to me over time.
00:12:27 ◼ ► Personalized training of this quality can be expensive, but FitBot is just $12.99 a month or $79.99 a year.
00:12:42 ◼ ► So go and get your customized fitness plan at FitBot.me slash connected, and you'll get 25% off your membership.
00:13:15 ◼ ► He's got the boots, you know, he's got the boots with, what do you call the thing, the things in the back of the boots?
00:13:45 ◼ ► MacBook Pro models with M5 chips will launch later this year, probably October-ish, and then followed by the M5 MacBook Air early next year.
00:13:56 ◼ ► So, I think sort of the cadence we've been on the last couple of years is where Apple wants these notebooks to be, which, fine by me.
00:14:14 ◼ ► You know, I think I appreciate more to have regular, boring spec bumps than to go back of, you know, to what it used to be years ago, where you would go years without an update.
00:14:28 ◼ ► And then every once in a while, there will be a new Mac, even though they're boring, you know, racing the baseline, especially now in this highly competitive space for when it comes to desktop computers and maybe, or laptops that need to run like AI stuff locally.
00:14:40 ◼ ► I think it's much better to keep up and have, like, even like 10, 15% improvement year over year, rather than waiting two or three years for a big bump.
00:14:51 ◼ ► And it also means that no matter when you need a computer, like, there's probably one that's been recently-ish updated, right?
00:15:08 ◼ ► Gurman does say that in contrast to the M5 sort of spec bump generation he's expecting, that 2026 with the M6 chip could be much more exciting, complete with an OLED display up from mini LED, which we have now, and being thinner machines as well, which is really interesting to me.
00:15:33 ◼ ► You know, when they went to the current generation, sort of style, like, I was super happy about it.
00:15:53 ◼ ► And looking at that computer, really the only thing that I think if they really were to slim it back down, like, the HDMI port is sort of the first thing they run into.
00:16:02 ◼ ► And I, for one, even though I don't use the HDMI port on my laptop hardly ever, I think that's a really important port to have is, you know, people are hooking these things up to screens and to projectors and meeting rooms and stuff.
00:16:41 ◼ ► Yeah, I really don't know what they should do with the HDMI port because, like you mentioned, like, it's a MacBook Pro.
00:16:49 ◼ ► You're obviously running into the limits of the physical size of the HDMI connector, which is, in a way, it's also what's happening on mobile devices with the physical size of the USB-C connector, right?
00:17:02 ◼ ► We're going to talk about the iPad Pro in a minute, but you have the iPad Pro and the M4 is essentially limited by the size, by the thickness of USB-C.
00:17:10 ◼ ► So I really don't know if there's a good solution for this other than, say, well, you can just use a dongle.
00:17:17 ◼ ► And I think, you know, you can probably shave off a couple millimeters more by basically having the HDMI connector being almost flush with the thicker side of the MacBook Pro.
00:17:29 ◼ ► So I think realistically, that's what Apple is going to do, you know, make the computer lighter, make the display lid a little bit thinner, but probably not get rid of the HDMI connector.
00:17:58 ◼ ► It does make me increasingly sad about the state of the studio display being basically like the 5K iMacs, like LCD display.
00:18:37 ◼ ► But, you know, that's one way to make the MacBook Pro thinner while also retaining the HDMI connector.
00:18:43 ◼ ► You know, you say that the HDMI port is, like, this pretty long, like, the part that goes in the port.
00:19:08 ◼ ► So, it seems like we are going to be getting, later this year, Gurman says, sometime around October, an M5 iPad Pro spec bump.
00:19:32 ◼ ► But it looks like we are going to see, just like on the MacBook line that we mentioned a few minutes ago, we're going to see a spec bump of the iPad Pro to an M5 for a bigger update at some point in 2027 with the M6 and the second version of the Apple cellular modem, the C2.
00:20:01 ◼ ► Because there's plenty of things that you can do on Mac OS to take advantage, even of a spec bump.
00:20:20 ◼ ► I know plenty of people who are still using, like, that M1 iPad Pro, and they're completely fine.
00:20:38 ◼ ► I'm just, like, is there going to be anything in iPad OS 19 that is going to be made markedly better by the M5?
00:21:05 ◼ ► You know, maybe you're going to have a final cut for iPad export going from 1 minute and 20 seconds down to 1 minute and 10 seconds.
00:21:14 ◼ ► But, like, the one thing, the one thing that I could see is maybe the M5 enabling more RAM at the high end or more storage options for maybe, but then again, we go back to that idea.
00:21:37 ◼ ► There's plenty of power already for that on the M4 iPad Pro, and they're not taking advantage of it.
00:23:45 ◼ ► I continue to bring up this theory that I shared a couple of episodes ago here on the show.
00:23:53 ◼ ► So, if the idea is to have a more translucent, transparent UI that sort of is inspired by Vision
00:24:05 ◼ ► The thing about Vision OS is that it shows you the context of your digital surroundings.
00:24:10 ◼ ► And by digital, I mean it's like this mixed reality environment where it's both your physical
00:24:15 ◼ ► reality as showcased by pass-through, but also the windows, like the overlapping windows that
00:24:22 ◼ ► So, if we are bringing that philosophy to iOS, and this thing is called Solarium as a codename,
00:24:36 ◼ ► So, if we're letting the light in according to the codename, like, and I shared this a few
00:24:48 ◼ ► And this is the idea that I shared, like, what if Apple really, truly built a system that is
00:24:55 ◼ ► using some kind of camera, like some kind of extremely low power consumption ambient sensor
00:25:02 ◼ ► or a camera that analyzes your surroundings, capture your surroundings as you're using your phone in
00:25:09 ◼ ► your hand, and sort of makes the iOS UI sort of blend or, you know, be contextual to what's
00:25:21 ◼ ► This idea of, like, imagine that you have your iPhone in your hand, and sort of, like, with this
00:25:26 ◼ ► system, the bezels almost disappear in your hands, and it looks like your phone, and specifically the
00:25:44 ◼ ► I think it would be pretty cool, like, on a phone, but I have another secondary theory that
00:25:54 ◼ ► I could see a scenario in which this redesign is a bit of a training ground for Apple, because
00:26:03 ◼ ► this kind of UI that lets the light in, blends in with your surroundings, sure, made perfect sense
00:26:11 ◼ ► on, on, on vision OS, makes perfect sense on the vision pro, could be applied to iOS, could
00:26:18 ◼ ► be applied to other operating systems, but it sure seems like the perfect opportunity to
00:26:26 ◼ ► start testing a UI that would make a whole lot more sense if you were to project interfaces
00:26:36 ◼ ► in glasses. If you were to, so let's, let's say you're Apple, right? And you know, what's coming
00:26:44 ◼ ► down the pipeline, you know, what's coming out in three years or four years, and you know, you're
00:26:49 ◼ ► working on these mini glasses that can project, you know, could be something widget sized, could be
00:26:55 ◼ ► something very small, project a little UI in front of your eyes. It sure would make sense for that UI to
00:27:01 ◼ ► blend in and to sort of have the vision OS style, sort of contextual tinting and accent colors based on
00:27:10 ◼ ► what is physically around you, what your eyes are physically seeing. And I'll give you one more,
00:27:15 ◼ ► Steven. This kind of contextual UI would also make sense for a little appliance that you put in your
00:27:23 ◼ ► kitchen or that you put in your living room. You know, you're buying a HomePod with a screen or you're
00:27:28 ◼ ► buying a little Apple Robot, as the sheriff likes to call it. It sure would make sense if the interface
00:27:35 ◼ ► that you saw on those displays would blend in a little better with your physical space in your home.
00:27:41 ◼ ► I mean, I love it. I think this would be, it would be so cool to have your device and your UI
00:27:50 ◼ ► sort of shift and adapt to where you are. Like in a way, it's the end game set up by iOS 7. Remember,
00:27:57 ◼ ► one of the big things in iOS 7 was your wallpaper would tint the UI that came in front of it. So
00:28:05 ◼ ► like on the lock screen, if you did the pin code, the buttons, like if your wallpaper was like kind
00:28:10 ◼ ► of blue and green, the buttons would kind of be blue and green. Right. And yeah, over time that got
00:28:15 ◼ ► dialed down and down. Same thing on the Mac with the sort of the translucency and stuff we saw kind of
00:28:23 ◼ ► after the sort of like in the El Capitan days, like back then a lot of translucency and that's been
00:28:30 ◼ ► dialed up and down over time. But having it react to the real world is like, is like next level. And I
00:28:37 ◼ ► think it would be really cool. I would, I would love it. Here you're saying, like you mentioned the
00:28:42 ◼ ► wallpaper in iOS 7, but here we, we are essentially saying, what if your wallpaper was your wallpaper,
00:28:49 ◼ ► like your actual wallpaper in your home? If you do have a wallpaper, I mean, it could be something
00:28:54 ◼ ► else. It could be your kitchen table, you know, it could be your nightstand. I would love a phone
00:28:58 ◼ ► that looked like, uh, like my furniture to be, to be honest, you know? Yeah. I don't know. It's a,
00:29:05 ◼ ► maybe we are like not even reading between the lines. We are writing an essay between the lines here,
00:29:12 ◼ ► but like, I think there's something to the idea of let's actually take the, the, the digital interface
00:29:18 ◼ ► and make it blend in with your physical environment. I think there's something to that idea that goes
00:29:24 ◼ ► beyond the vision pro. I think it would obviously make a lot of sense for glasses, but I think
00:29:29 ◼ ► screens that you hold or screen screens that you place in an environment could also take advantage of
00:29:36 ◼ ► these. Okay. Here, hear me out. The new Siri interface, right? It has like the gradient rainbow
00:29:44 ◼ ► around the outside of it to distract us from the fact that Siri is still bad. Okay. If the UI is tinted
00:29:51 ◼ ► by your surroundings, then like Siri is like more present in your space. And when you're wearing glasses,
00:29:59 ◼ ► it would be like around the edges of your glasses, just like it would be on your phone. Like you sold me.
00:30:11 ◼ ► So if I'm using my phone in the bathroom, using your phone in the green, in your green room,
00:30:18 ◼ ► I know each of your rooms in your house is a different color because you're in architecture.
00:30:23 ◼ ► No, no, no. I'm just thinking about what Siri will look like if I were to use my iPhone in the
00:30:26 ◼ ► bathroom. Uh, well, I mean, if you're in the bathtub, you know, it's like, right. Bubbly. Right.
00:30:36 ◼ ► Right. Uh, but to be, to be fair though, there is a serious point here to be made about like
00:30:42 ◼ ► if Apple were to actually make an iOS UI that takes in the visual cues of your surroundings,
00:30:58 ◼ ► there's so much potential for people to misinterpret this idea and be like, wait, does it mean that my
00:31:03 ◼ ► phone is always looking at me and my, my iPhone design looks like what it's, what the camera
00:31:09 ◼ ► is looking at? Like it's, it's an extremely dangerous slippery slope from a, from a public
00:31:15 ◼ ► perception standpoint. That is a, I would say is the, the biggest, uh, downside of this theory.
00:31:26 ◼ ► Maybe they're doing like, Hey, we're going to pick the three, you know, sort of most prominent
00:31:32 ◼ ► colors and like build the UI off of that. Like not actually, I mean, like you said, you're sensing
00:31:38 ◼ ► the light, like not actually like a camera pass through, but like a, a vibes pass through.
00:31:43 ◼ ► Yeah. Vibes, vibes pass through. I like it. Vibes pass through. Uh, it's going to be fun. It's going
00:31:49 ◼ ► to be a fun summer unless you build apps, in which case it may be a very long summer. Uh, all right,
00:31:55 ◼ ► here's, okay. So all that's great. Macs, iPads, software. We now get to the part of the roundup
00:32:02 ◼ ► where I wish I could just leave town. Gerben reports on project mulberry. Okay. Codenames,
00:32:12 ◼ ► you know, maybe they mean things, maybe they don't. Uh, mulberry is a plant. I looked it up. Um,
00:32:18 ◼ ► that does things. Okay. Plant, planty things. It's got leaves and stuff, you know, like a plant.
00:32:24 ◼ ► I'm not a scientist. Project mulberry is a wide and broad project to build a new health coach
00:32:36 ◼ ► and health sort of apparatus for users. So, uh, German describes a new health coach as a quote,
00:32:44 ◼ ► an AI agent that will again, quote, replicate your real doctor. Okay. Um, this up, so this is an
00:32:53 ◼ ► update to the health app that would include things like food tracking, which I think it would be a
00:32:58 ◼ ► good addition to the health app. It would be like, you know, they're like the health app can do step
00:33:03 ◼ ► tracking and sleep tracking, but pedometer plus plus and sleep plus plus, you know, more powerful,
00:33:07 ◼ ► better applications for it. I think there's still be room for food noms and others to succeed,
00:33:12 ◼ ► do some basic food tracking in the health app or like better integration. Those apps can see activity
00:33:23 ◼ ► Um, so I'm for more data collection and data connection in Apple health where I sort of
00:33:30 ◼ ► struggle is making recommendations and giving feedback on that data. That feels like a very
00:33:37 ◼ ► potentially slippery area. And Apple's looking to do this with a new AI agent. That's being trained on
00:33:47 ◼ ► data managed by Apple hired physicians. You know, Apple has medical doctors working there. They're
00:33:54 ◼ ► also are looking to hire quote outside doctors to create videos for the new health app. So like,
00:34:01 ◼ ► maybe you're, you have to have your appendix out and you can find a video from a doctor telling you
00:34:07 ◼ ► about the appendix and appendicitis and the surgery and that sort of thing. Uh, German says these videos
00:34:14 ◼ ► will play to help explain concerning health trends to users. And a very specific note that it will be
00:34:21 ◼ ► recorded in a new facility in Oakland, California. So I guess they have a, uh, a health space there.
00:34:29 ◼ ► Apple also wants to find a quote, major doctor personality to serve as a host for the new service.
00:34:53 ◼ ► Oh, he is the president's nominee to serve as the administrator for chiefs of Medicare and Medicaid
00:34:59 ◼ ► services. Oh yeah. Things are going great. Things are going great. Yeah. Uh, a major doctor
00:35:08 ◼ ► personality. Yeah. I'm on his Wikipedia page. He ran for Senate in 2022 and just use the Dr. Oz show
00:35:16 ◼ ► logo, but instead of show said U S Senate, like it's the same logo. Sure. I mean, it is a show. It is
00:35:22 ◼ ► a show, a show. So here's the thing. Yeah. I hate all of this. I just, um, I think, I mean the more
00:35:35 ◼ ► stuff in Apple health and making it easier to use, that's all really good. And Apple health is a very
00:35:38 ◼ ► powerful part of, of the iPhone platform in particular. I do feel weird about apps and services
00:35:47 ◼ ► giving users like recommendations. So one thing I love about the Apple watch, right. If it detects
00:35:56 ◼ ► like an issue with your heart, right. It has the, the monitoring and, uh, it can say, Hey, you know,
00:36:02 ◼ ► we noticed this AFib thing, like you should go get it checked out and your whole history of it's in
00:36:07 ◼ ► Apple health. Anytime you run a, uh, an EKG, it's saved in Apple health. You can go, you can go over
00:36:12 ◼ ► it with your care provider. That's just really powerful. And like, it literally saves lives.
00:36:17 ◼ ► Like we've heard from listeners whose lives have been saved by their Apple watches, things like crash
00:36:22 ◼ ► detection, right. That I tested for the show a couple of years ago, like good, powerful features,
00:36:29 ◼ ► but that feels different than recommending a user change in their lives, their diet or their habits
00:36:38 ◼ ► or whatever, based on that information that feels like it should be left up to a medical professional.
00:36:44 ◼ ► And then you mix AI into it. Federica, I lost my mind. This was, this came out and we were talking
00:36:52 ◼ ► last week about how Siri doesn't know what month it is. Like this feels at this point with where we
00:37:00 ◼ ► know where Apple is with AI, this feels incredibly ridiculous for them to be taking on as a project.
00:37:17 ◼ ► I've read a lot of stories of people going to chat GPT or Claude to talk about their medical issues
00:37:29 ◼ ► and try and get a second opinion in terms of diagnosis and like figuring out things that actual
00:37:38 ◼ ► doctors were unable to figure out. Like I saw, I think a week ago, a thread on Reddit, but someone who,
00:37:45 ◼ ► and you know, this person posted screenshots and everything of what they did, but like this person
00:37:50 ◼ ► was, was saying that they had a rare medical condition. They, you know, years, they, you know,
00:37:55 ◼ ► these, these problems had been driving them crazy and, uh, they were able to get to a solution just by
00:38:01 ◼ ► talking, you know, over and over and sending sensitive data to, I think it was, I think it was Claude.
00:38:07 ◼ ► I don't think it was Chagypt. But you know, people, people are doing this now. Are a lot of people doing
00:38:14 ◼ ► this? I don't think so. Should people be doing this? Probably not. Because I feel like when it comes to
00:38:23 ◼ ► actual treatment and diagnosis, you do need to go see a proper doctor. There is an argument to be made for
00:38:35 ◼ ► this is such a complex political thing. There is an argument to be made for different parts of the
00:38:43 ◼ ► world having different access to healthcare, right? It may be extremely cost prohibitive for, say, a lot
00:38:53 ◼ ► of folks in the United States to say, you know, spare no expense. I'm going to go see all the doctors I can
00:38:59 ◼ ► to get to the bottom of this, right? And if that's impossible to do, I could see someone who's desperate
00:39:08 ◼ ► or, you know, doesn't, doesn't have any other options to say, well, you know, let me spend 20 bucks
00:39:15 ◼ ► on the fancy version of Chagypt and have a long conversation. Maybe this thing can help me figure
00:39:22 ◼ ► out my problems. Like I said, it's a very complex thing, especially when you consider how, like, in an
00:39:28 ◼ ► ideal world, everybody should be able to go see 50 different doctors if they are unable to get to the
00:39:35 ◼ ► bottom of an issue. Still, I feel like the problem here is that Apple doesn't exactly have the best
00:39:48 ◼ ► pedigree when it comes to artificial intelligence. They do have the incredible work that they have done
00:39:57 ◼ ► with the Apple Watch, with HealthKit, with sensors, with, you know, atrial fibrillation, all the health
00:40:03 ◼ ► studies that they have done. They have the data, they have the hardware, but I feel like building a doctor
00:40:11 ◼ ► agent is maybe for them right now a bridge too far. Like, how would you sell this to people when you cannot
00:40:23 ◼ ► even figure out your basic assistant, right? They have a perception problem right now when it comes to the
00:40:35 ◼ ► basic stuff. And to go from being unable to deliver on the AI promise with basic stuff to, well, I guess
00:40:46 ◼ ► we're building a health coach and a doctor agent that is going to live on your device and it's going to
00:40:52 ◼ ► give you actual recommendations. You know, it feels like one step too far for them right now. What I guess
00:41:02 ◼ ► I'm saying is that I think there is potential in the idea, especially when you consider how a lot of
00:41:10 ◼ ► medicine is about ingesting data, looking at patterns, visualizing images, dealing with a lot of text,
00:41:20 ◼ ► dealing with a lot of previous cases. And I say this as someone who in his life has produced a lot of
00:41:25 ◼ ► documents for doctors to analyze and study. I have been part of case studies and experimental
00:41:32 ◼ ► medicine, experimental treatments. I've done all of that. And I know that it involves a lot of research,
00:41:38 ◼ ► a lot of academic papers and text and images and opinions. Those are the sort of things that large
00:41:48 ◼ ► language models excel at. If you go back and read, for example, a few months ago, the CEO of Anthropic,
00:41:54 ◼ ► the company behind Claude, Dario Amodei, published this really popular, really long essay called The
00:42:02 ◼ ► Machines of Loving Grace, where he tried to extrapolate, like, given the strengths of large
00:42:08 ◼ ► language models, they see incredible potential for AI as applied to research and medicine in the future.
00:42:15 ◼ ► And so I do see the argument for that. I do see, especially when it comes to unlocking access to
00:42:21 ◼ ► a semi, you know, not even semi, but a pretty reliable digital diagnose tool to all kinds of people
00:42:32 ◼ ► living in, you know, all kinds of countries around the world with different healthcare systems.
00:42:38 ◼ ► I do see the potential, but it still makes me feel a little bit awkward because it's yet another thing
00:42:48 ◼ ► that we are potentially replacing humans with. So there's also that conversation going on.
00:42:52 ◼ ► And it's coming from Apple right now in 2025, the company that doesn't exactly have a great track
00:42:59 ◼ ► track record when it comes to AI. They do have a stellar track record when it comes to wearables
00:43:05 ◼ ► and sensors and sensors and health kit. But I feel like maybe they're biting off more than they can
00:43:18 ◼ ► I think we're in agreement there. Yes, it could potentially unlock care for people in new and
00:43:27 ◼ ► interesting ways, important ways. But it feels like Apple in particular is not the company to do this.
00:43:34 ◼ ► And to your point, people have been Googling health symptoms forever, right? Like there's a
00:43:38 ◼ ► reason the meme is like, I looked on WebMD and I'm going to die, right? Like any WebMD is like a
00:43:47 ◼ ► Plinko machine, but the only thing at the bottom is like terrible cancer diagnosis, right?
00:43:52 ◼ ► I just, the amount of trust you have to have in a platform with your health is so high, right?
00:44:04 ◼ ► There are already people who struggle with that, right? Who for good and understandable and logical
00:44:10 ◼ ► reasons may say, you know what? I don't want my fertility information in an app or on my phone,
00:44:16 ◼ ► right? This, if in the, in the end game version of this, it's like that time of that times a thousand.
00:44:26 ◼ ► Now, if they start small and I could see a world where, cause there are apps that do this sort of
00:44:38 ◼ ► uh, you know, I'd love to lose 10 pounds this year, or I would like to walk 10,000 steps a day.
00:44:44 ◼ ► And like, then they can use this technology and all the inputs they have from your Apple watch and
00:44:49 ◼ ► your other health apps and food tracking, whatever. And then it can guide you towards that goal in a
00:44:55 ◼ ► reasonable and sustainable way. Like that's a good thing, right? Like one of our sponsors this week is
00:45:00 ◼ ► something that they do in their app that I think is reasonable and even good, but it's the replicate
00:45:06 ◼ ► your doctor language that just like really made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. And I also,
00:45:13 ◼ ► okay. So, so the other angle to all of this, that, that really, I sort of am struggling with.
00:45:20 ◼ ► And I just, I had the thought this morning, Apple's executives are all getting older, right?
00:45:25 ◼ ► They're spending a bunch of time in doctor's offices. And at least here, when you go to a big
00:45:32 ◼ ► doctor's office, there's TVs on in the lobby, right? And they're always play one of three things,
00:45:47 ◼ ► Yeah. Like is Apple just trying to replicate that? Like we have food and Apple news plus now with,
00:45:53 ◼ ► um, iOS 18.4. We're going to talk about all the releases in a second. Uh, you're going to have,
00:45:59 ◼ ► uh, you're going to have now you're going to have like a host of your Apple health video series. Like
00:46:07 ◼ ► I just, I don't know, man, something about a bunch of this just kind of hits me the wrong way. And
00:46:13 ◼ ► I think there was a lot of potential upside to it, but the downside potential downsides to me feel so
00:46:21 ◼ ► like all encompassing. It's like, maybe it's not worth the upside to risk the downside. I just don't know.
00:46:29 ◼ ► Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. But don't worry, Federica, they're not going to replicate me with
00:46:35 ◼ ► an AI. Not yet. Okay. You sure? If my Devon thing becomes sentient, we're in trouble. Okay.
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00:48:35 ◼ ► connected and all of relay. Now would be time for the details, but these software releases are out.
00:48:44 ◼ ► So it's just regular news. It's just regular details. Just regular details. Yeah. Oh, that's good. Uh,
00:48:54 ◼ ► you want to tell us about all these software releases? It's a 0.4 week out here in Apple land.
00:48:59 ◼ ► Yeah. So all the 0.4s, uh, I saw some people saying that watchOS 11.4 is not actually out yet.
00:49:06 ◼ ► I was going to say, I tried updating, I updated my, my phone was already on the beta, but I updated my
00:49:12 ◼ ► iPad last night and went to go get my watch and just like, wasn't available. So yeah, I don't know.
00:49:16 ◼ ► All right. Yeah. So, uh, macOS 15.4, iOS and iPadOS 18.4, visionOS 2.4, watchOS 11.4 in theory,
00:49:24 ◼ ► and the tvOS, uh, what is it? 18.4 also on tvOS. Um, we have an article on Mac stories by John sort
00:49:32 ◼ ► of recapping the highlights. Um, these are not huge upgrades, uh, for European users. I guess
00:49:39 ◼ ► the big change is the availability of Apple intelligence in more languages. I can now use
00:49:46 ◼ ► Apple intelligence in Italian, but I won't. Um, also because I use my phone in English. Um,
00:49:52 ◼ ► so beyond that, uh, there's the new Apple news, Apple news plus food channel, which we previously
00:49:58 ◼ ► mentioned. It's got recipes from some, um, global publishers. Uh, you can browse them in Apple news
00:50:05 ◼ ► plus. There's a recipe catalog that allows you to like browse, search your recipes, save them in,
00:50:11 ◼ ► in a save the recipes section. Uh, there's a cooking mode, which is basically, as we mentioned
00:50:16 ◼ ► before, like inspired by the Apple music lyrics screen that allows you to follow cooking directions.
00:50:23 ◼ ► It's, it's the same screen, which I absolutely love. Yeah. Uh, and there are of course like
00:50:28 ◼ ► editorial curation going on with stories about restaurants, uh, stories about like healthy
00:50:34 ◼ ► eating habits, eating habits, that sort of stuff. Um, the six new emoji that we previously covered
00:50:42 ◼ ► with our little game, including the, the one with the tired face, which is an incredible banger of an
00:50:48 ◼ ► emoji. Um, in image playgrounds, God bless that little stupid app. Uh, you can now use this. You can now
00:50:58 ◼ ► use the sketch style illustration. Go check out the incredible. And by incredible, I mean, awful,
00:51:04 ◼ ► examples that John tested in the story on Mac stories featuring me as a farmer, or I guess,
00:51:11 ◼ ► you know, um, a person who pretends to be a farmer, especially the one with the hat, the one with the
00:51:17 ◼ ► hat in the sketch style really takes the crown. Um, I, I find it kind of amusing that Apple is sort of
00:51:24 ◼ ► releasing this and kind of bragging about it in the press release days after chat GPT image generation,
00:51:31 ◼ ► like two complete, like two completely different timelines going on here. Um, and then it's just
00:51:40 ◼ ► like, uh, Oh, and, and I guess there's the vision pro app on your iPhone that allows you to, to, to
00:51:46 ◼ ► browse like recommended apps for your multiple vision pros. If you have multiple vision pro, if you happen
00:51:52 ◼ ► to be a millionaire and you have multiple vision pros, you can, you can, you can see those like in the
00:51:56 ◼ ► watch app, you can see multiple Apple watches. Yeah. Uh, and then it's just like a grab bag of
00:52:01 ◼ ► stuff like, uh, on the Mac and on the iPad, you can see the categories in Apple mail. Um, or turn them
00:52:09 ◼ ► off if you don't want, if you don't want them, turn them off. The vision pro has the spatial gallery app
00:52:15 ◼ ► that has like a collection of immersive videos, uh, spatial photos, the panoramas. There's some like
00:52:22 ◼ ► behind the scenes footage from severance, uh, some third party content from Red Bull, like that sort
00:52:27 ◼ ► of stuff. Yeah. I think the spatial galleries are a really good addition to vision OS. I mean,
00:52:34 ◼ ► that stuff was sort of scattered around, like some of it was in the videos app and having it all in one
00:52:39 ◼ ► place is good. It does highlight kind of how thin this collection is right now. Yeah. But I think it
00:52:46 ◼ ► makes a lot of sense and it's, you know, vision OS 1.0 in hindsight really was missing a lot of like
00:52:52 ◼ ► kind of important things. I think this is one of them. Like this, this is a really good addition and
00:52:57 ◼ ► makes, makes a lot of sense. And, um, I think it's great. I agree. I agree. Uh, what else is there?
00:53:05 ◼ ► Uh, you, uh, if you have a matter enabled robo vacuum, you can now add it to HomeKit. Uh, you can
00:53:13 ◼ ► turn it off, turn it on. Uh, you do not have, there's not like a, like a proper, uh, mapping
00:53:20 ◼ ► integration to see, you know, the map that the robo vacuum built of your house in HomeKit, but at least
00:53:27 ◼ ► you can control them. So that's nice. Um, and yeah, there's, there's like an expansion of Apple
00:53:33 ◼ ► intelligence, more languages, the sketch style, the priority notifications, which I turned off
00:53:40 ◼ ► because I don't trust the system. Are you using priority notifications? No, I don't even have AI
00:53:45 ◼ ► summaries on notifications. I just, I find it all kind of infuriating. Yeah. Yeah. So it's obviously
00:53:52 ◼ ► like not to the point for updates that we were expecting, say like three months ago, we were all
00:53:59 ◼ ► convinced, Oh, it's going to be a big point for release with all the new AI stuff and the
00:54:06 ◼ ► personalized contextual series stuff. Uh, instead it's a, it's a miscellaneous update. Really? You
00:54:13 ◼ ► got a, you got a bunch of things here and there and the new emoji, but honestly, not that exciting.
00:54:19 ◼ ► And that's just, uh, I don't think we're going to get anything more exciting than this before WWDC
00:54:25 ◼ ► at this point. Yeah. This, this seems like kind of the closing chapter for these OSes. I mean,
00:54:31 ◼ ► there was a story that like 0.6 is running around, but I think we're kind of in bug fixed land now
00:54:36 ◼ ► until, at least until WWDC. I don't think there's gonna be any, any more major features. Yeah. Overall
00:54:42 ◼ ► though, I think it's good. Like, like the vision OS stuff. Uh, obviously we have new emoji. Um,
00:54:49 ◼ ► but yeah, man, image playgrounds, what it's just a toy. Like it, it open eye text or image generation.
00:54:55 ◼ ► Now, like it can do text and like, not look like gibberish and like they got sketch style out here.
00:55:01 ◼ ► I mean the one of you in the middle of John's story with like the little jaunty straw hat is so,
00:55:07 ◼ ► so bad. Yeah. I know. Right. I know. Uh, well, yeah. Yeah. Big releases though. Yeah. Yeah.
00:55:19 ◼ ► You've got that Mac mini and Mac stadium. We spoke about last week. Uh, do you run your,
00:55:22 ◼ ► your software update remotely? How'd that feel? I haven't done it actually. I guess I gotta do it,
00:55:29 ◼ ► right? Yeah. You got a Mac in your life again. Yeah, I do. Oh man. Well, uh, happy updating everybody.
00:55:43 ◼ ► All right, Steven. So Tom wants to know, hi, I'm a new listener of connected. So maybe this has never
00:55:52 ◼ ► been covered, but about Steven's pot cabin, is there a mini fridge in there? I mean, beyond the max and
00:55:58 ◼ ► recording equipment, is it a place to just hang out? That's a great question. And, uh, the answer is
00:56:05 ◼ ► there's no mini fridge. I have thought about it, but like, I would just keep like water and drinks in
00:56:10 ◼ ► it. And the noise I think would be concerning. Also, it's not very big. I mean, it's like 200
00:56:17 ◼ ► square feet in here. Like it is not, it is not big. Um, uh, in terms of hanging out, I actually don't
00:56:24 ◼ ► hang out out here. So like if Mary has like girlfriends over, they're going to have a movie night or
00:56:29 ◼ ► something and I've got work, I'll come out here, but if I'm going to read or do something else, like
00:56:34 ◼ ► I'll just like, uh, like go hide in our bedroom. Um, I treat this as my workplace. Like I only come
00:56:41 ◼ ► out here when it's time for work and I've been that serious about it for so long now. Like if I,
00:56:47 ◼ ► on occasion, so, you know, I'll have a friend over and maybe it's raining or the kids are doing
00:56:50 ◼ ► something inside and like, okay, I'll, we'll hang out in the office. Uh, it feels weird. It feels like
00:56:57 ◼ ► my brain is, is revolting against it a little bit. So, uh, yeah, not really a hangout space,
00:57:02 ◼ ► but it would be cool. It'd be a cool hangout space. That's for sure. Yeah. Okay. Up next,
00:57:10 ◼ ► we have, uh, a question from Brian. Do either of you have overall life advice for starting habits,
00:57:27 ◼ ► Uh, my advice is probably not what you're looking for, Brian. Um, my advice is pretty simple.
00:57:32 ◼ ► Don't use any apps. Don't use any habit tracker. Don't use any lists. Just convince yourself that
00:57:40 ◼ ► it's something that you want to do. Yeah. The, the, the biggest catalyst for a change that you want to
00:57:45 ◼ ► bring in your life is you need to be deep down inside. You need to be convinced that you want to do
00:57:52 ◼ ► it. And if you have that conviction, it becomes a habit by itself. If you don't, you can distract
00:57:58 ◼ ► yourself with a habit tracker. You can distract yourself with a productivity angle that makes you
00:58:03 ◼ ► feel good for a couple of days. And then those like missed badges keep piling up in the app.
00:58:11 ◼ ► Just, you know, just convince yourself about something that you want to do. And on a more
00:58:18 ◼ ► practical level, I mean, I guess it depends on the habit, right? But if it's something that doesn't
00:58:23 ◼ ► need to happen every day, perhaps at the beginning, don't do it every day. Just say, okay, I'm going to
00:58:28 ◼ ► do this twice a week and be flexible. You know, obviously if it's something that you need to do
00:58:33 ◼ ► every day, then it needs to start like that. But if it's something like, oh, I want to work out more,
00:58:37 ◼ ► like do it twice a week. Also because like, don't push yourself too hard, you know, to go from never
00:58:42 ◼ ► working out to working out every day, that's going to be bad for your body. So like, just be convinced,
00:58:47 ◼ ► you know, start simple, be convinced and be consistent about it. Even if it's just twice a week,
00:58:53 ◼ ► like, uh, it just needs you, you, I guess what I'm trying to say is that you don't need a habit
00:59:00 ◼ ► tracker. If the habit tracker is by default, your brain. So, yeah, I think the biggest thing is like,
00:59:08 ◼ ► you have to set it as a priority and you got to be willing to move other things around to make that
00:59:15 ◼ ► possible. So like, if your goal is to, you know, work out three times a week, like put it on your
00:59:21 ◼ ► calendar, but just know that you got to say no to other things to say yes to it. And you've got to make
00:59:26 ◼ ► it top of mind. BG asks, if your Audi is producing a podcast about Apple tech and video games. So my
00:59:46 ◼ ► INI cannot also produce podcasts about video games. I think my INI, so let's say a brand new
00:59:58 ◼ ► personality based on me, doesn't know anything about what I do. What would it do? Yeah. Uh, my INI
01:00:06 ◼ ► would do a podcast about, I don't know. I'm fascinated by like conspiracy theories, not in the
01:00:19 ◼ ► sense that like I believe in conspiracy theories. I'm fascinated by the people who believe them.
01:00:24 ◼ ► Right. So like debunking conspiracy theories, I guess that's what I would do. Okay. I would do a
01:00:30 ◼ ► podcast about that. Yeah. I just want to know, like, maybe we are our INIs and we just don't
01:00:37 ◼ ► know it yet. Wait. So there's like another version of us out there, out there. And so our life is
01:00:46 ◼ ► the INI is planet earth Luman. Is that what you're saying? I don't know. I don't know what I'm saying.
01:01:16 ◼ ► Steven, what would your INI do a podcast about? What would my INI do a podcast about? I mean,
01:01:22 ◼ ► he's me, right? Yeah. But he's like a younger, immature version of me because he's only a few
01:01:29 ◼ ► years old. I don't know, maybe like Lego? Lego. Yeah. Or emo music, or emo music, like high school
01:01:37 ◼ ► emo music. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, actually, you know, same. That's,
01:01:45 ◼ ► that's all things considered, like a younger version of me would probably do a podcast about
01:01:51 ◼ ► that. It's like the fascination with people who believe conspiracy theories. It's something that
01:01:55 ◼ ► I developed as an adult. So yeah, it would actually, I think we would both do a podcast about like
01:02:00 ◼ ► dashboard confessionals or Jimmy or that sort of stuff. There you go. That's perfect. Yeah. That's
01:02:05 ◼ ► perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, Steven, finally, Logan wants, you know, why do so many podcasts have such
01:02:10 ◼ ► terrible show notes? Relay has spoiled me with links, chapters, dynamic artwork. Why do all of
01:02:17 ◼ ► these other seemingly high budget podcasts I listen to putting seemingly zero effort to the show notes?
01:02:23 ◼ ► Oh, thank you, Logan. We do work hard on that. Yeah. I mean, just look at this, uh, week's chapter
01:02:30 ◼ ► art. Like I've done a bunch of jokes across all the chapter art. Like I said, of the details,
01:02:35 ◼ ► it said the details. If I may, if I may answer this, I think it's a, it's the same difference
01:02:43 ◼ ► between reading like an indie blog or an indie site, like ours, like five to 11 or Mac stories
01:02:50 ◼ ► and the time and the time and care we put into links or footnotes or like sections versus bigger
01:02:58 ◼ ► publications would just, you know, write in Google docs and just publish the output from a story that
01:03:04 ◼ ► was created in Google docs. Like it's, it's, I think it's a format thing. I think it's an indie thing.
01:03:11 ◼ ► Like I think people like us tend to gravitate toward plain text, RSS and Markdown and therefore really
01:03:21 ◼ ► taking advantage of the spec that is underneath and doing that out of two things. One is we're nerds and
01:03:31 ◼ ► two, we want to produce the kind of stuff that we as listeners would like to receive. And so we try to
01:03:38 ◼ ► put that out for our listeners. I think that's really well said. Um, I think that we, we value
01:03:48 ◼ ► that sort of thing and our business model allows us the time and opportunity to do it, right? If you're
01:03:54 ◼ ► doing some big podcast and like, you need people to go to your website for some other reason, or you
01:03:59 ◼ ► have dynamic ad insertions, like your chapter markers don't work. Uh, there's lots of things that
01:04:05 ◼ ► we do in the way that we've structured things so we can make the shows that we want. And we've been
01:04:09 ◼ ► very fortunate enough to be able to continue to do that. Uh, and hopefully forever. Like we always
01:04:15 ◼ ► want to make these shows the way we make them. And, um, we, uh, yeah, we try hard. It does drive me
01:04:21 ◼ ► bananas. Like if I'm listening to another podcast, like, Oh, I would love to learn more about this
01:04:25 ◼ ► thing. There's like the only thing in the show notes is information about their sponsor or
01:04:41 ◼ ► it to us at connectedfeedback.com or you can join and get a longer ad free version of the show
01:04:47 ◼ ► at getconnectedpro.com. You can find us on social media and our websites. Federico is the editor
01:04:54 ◼ ► in chief of macstories.net. And I am the writer over at 512pixels.net. Federico hosts a bunch of
01:05:01 ◼ ► podcasts, uh, and, and the greater app stories universe app stories is a must listen for me each
01:05:07 ◼ ► and every week. Uh, so go check that out and you can find me on Mac power users as well. I'd like to