Apple WWDC Highlights 6-9-25
Posted: June 9, 2025 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Apple, iOS, iPhone, Tech, technology, WWDC Leave a commentThe hour and a half nonstop hype and ‘reality distortion field’ that is the Apple World Wide Developer Conference Keynote is over. So, cutting through the haze, what are some of the cool new features you might actually use? Although the presentation opened with a big hype for Apple Intelligence…which is running a bit behind…the various presenters did weave it throughout. As expected, the large, over-arching items though were the major redesign of iOS…which basically extends across all platforms. The first redesign since iOS 7, it is translucent, transparent, and pretty. New looks, design elements, and reimagined icons are the rule. Apple calls it ‘Liquid Glass.’ As we reported here, all the operating systems will get a unified naming system…iOS 26, macOS 26, etc…based on the year…what? You expected them to use this year, that’s half over? Nope…like the auto makers, they will have next year’s models out this Fall with next year’s model numbers.
As most of the useful features, in my opinion, are showing up on iOS..which is what most users use anyway, I will focus there…and skip over CarPlay and Vision OS. One of the biggest changes predicted, and which was announced, was to the phone app on the iPhone. Improving phone use…what a concept! the first thing they have done is pulled voicemails and calls from users together, rather like text messages. It does seem cleaner. Another change is a beefing up of call screening. The phone answers from unknown numbers silently in the background. When the caller shares their name and reason for the call, the phone rings…unless you have ringing off like I do!
A really cool feature is Hold Assist. The iPhone detects crappy hold music, and automatically mutes it. The call stays connected, and you can continue using your phone for other stuff while it holds its place in the queue. When an agent finally answers, they are asked to hold a moment, and you are connected with them.
Messages is getting some updates, too. You can now select backgrounds (like Facebook Messenger has) on group messages that all can see..including from your photo library or you can make an image from Apple’s Image Playground. They also have added polling and using Apple Cash in groups…so you can send or get cash…say to divvy up paying for lunch. By the way, like with the phone app, unknown texters are sent to a dedicated area so as not to bother, BUT with time sensitive messages like ‘your table is ready’ or a verification code, you will see those right away.
In messaging and the phone app, Live Translation can translate a caller speaking or typing in a different language on the fly, which will be way cool if you are traveling.
Apple Wallet gets more car keys for supported cars and driver licenses and even a digital ID for your US passport. Apple claims that you can use these at TSA checkpoints within the US, or in-apps. Boarding passes now include indoor mapping to help you get to your connecting flight without leaving the boarding pass…and Find My is built in too…to track your checked luggage.
Apple Watch gets the same Liquid Glass look, and as far as I can tell, not much else. There is a sure-to-become irritating ‘Workout Buddy’ that will say crap like ‘You’re Crushing it’ during your workout to encourage you…or just piss you off.
macOS Tahoe gets the Liquid Glass treatment, which really does look cool…the menu bar at the top is invisible now, and the mini=icons are kind of translucent…a much cleaner look. Live Translation comes to the Mac, along withe the improved Image Playground. Continuity has been improved…a great feature if you are deep into the Mac system as I am. You can start something on your Phone and pick right up on your Mac…or iPad. Here is a real feature…Apple FINALLY gives us a phone app on the Mac…which mirrors the one on the iPhone with most of the features like Call Screening and Live Translation.
iPad OS makes all iPads that can run the new system immediately more useful. Apple has finally brought real windowing to the iPad. You can move them, resize them, tile them, etc just like on a Mac. There is also a menu bar at the top…translucent like on the Mac. They have now made it so you can choose other audio and video inputs…so you can use a pro quality microphone and record your podcast on an iPad if you are traveling…or just prefer to use the smaller interface.
As noted at the top, I have skipped over Vision OS, which has some cool features…but I will be surprised if any subscribers to this report have dropped the $3500 to buy a Vision OS headset. It very well may be a great view of the future, but still a bit into the future and still very pricy.
I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Technified’ for now.
Apple WWDC ’24 – Some Highlights
Posted: June 10, 2024 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Apple, iOS, iPhone, Mac, technology Leave a commentAfter about an hour of reveals about new features for iOS, MacOS, iPadOS, WatchOS, VisionOS, etc, Apple dove into what they call Apple Intelligence…AI for the Rest of Us…their branding for their expanded AI. Most will be on device, but some things will need to be elevated to the server level. Apple has what they claim will be secure ways to only share info needed to the servers and it won’t be saved. On top of that, they have integrated ChatGPT 4.o without a charge or account. If you have a ChatGPT account, it will still work the same on your device.
The much maligned Siri is getting a hefty AI upgrade, which look good…we’ll have to see how well they actually work when the operating systems are released to the public this fall. Of course, if you want to dive in earlier, a beta will be out of all their operating systems later this summer.
As for iOS 18, you will now be able to lock Apps as well as just the entire phone…requiring FaceID or TouchID to open them. They are making the screens vastly more customizable with layout, colors, and even a custom Control Center. A couple standout areas are improvements to Mail and Messages. Mail will get some machine learning help in separating your mail into categorized ‘buckets,’ including Primary, Transactions, Updates, and Promotions. You can set to Primary, and screen out a lot of sales pitches or junk mail. For Messages, there is a huge expansion of emoji customization, and they can be used for tapback responses. A big plus if you are heading to the beach or mountains, or wilderness areas…messages will soon work over satellite, just like Emergency SOS…so you can stay in touch even in a non-emergency situation.
The WatchOS update gives you a deeper look at your vitals, including new overnight vitals. It also gets a new ‘training load’ measurement to check your workout intensity.
For iPad OS, the biggest headline to me was that scientific calculator is coming to the iPad at long last. They even have included ‘Scratch Math,’ which lets you write out formulas and the device will solve for you after an equals sign or it will automatically sum a stack of numbers when you draw a line under the last one. It will create graphs from your work, too, and you can save your work…and calculator works in Notes, too.
A new wrinkle for MacOS allows you to bring up your iPhone screen on your Mac…so if your phone is downstairs, and you want to use an app on it to order coffee ahead, you can do that. The iPhone screen on the actual device stays locked, to no one can get into it. iPhone notifications will also appear on your Mac…and with AI, notifications are prioritized and summarized if you are in Focus mode. You can drag and drop items and files from Mac to iPhone.
A big bump in Keychain power. New Passwords will let you use passwords, verification codes, etc across all your Apple devices. They will autofill as before, but you can do it on any device now…and they stay in the secure enclaves.
Photos also gets a major makeover across all devices. AI will help remove unwanted objects from images, or you can just tell Siri ‘make this picture pop’ and it will enhance the photo without going into the Edit functions and doing it manually.
There’s a lot more, but this gives you the Cliff’s Notes version, boiling things down from and hour and 45 minutes to just a few minutes.
I’m Clark Reid and you’re ‘Apple-ized’ for now.
Aussies Ban 5G Tech From ZTE & Huawei; Androids Phone Home WAY More; Solid Guess- iPhone Rollout Day
Posted: August 23, 2018 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 5G, ads, Android, Apple, Australia, Google, Huawei, iOS, iPhone, Pinging, ZTE Leave a commentThe faster 5G networks will be showing up next year, but there won’t be any equipment from Huawei or ZTE used in Australia’s 5G networks. Techcrunch.com reports that the Australian government has banned use of equipment from those companies due to risks to national security. The US banned most Huawei and ZTE tech use by government agencies and contractors earlier this year.
ET may have phoned home, and all smartphones also do…but Android handsets do it a lot more. According to mashable.com, a Vanderbilt University professor named Douglas Schmidt did a study, and Android units ping Google nearly 10 times more than Apple’s iOS touches base. Most of Google’s data collection happens when the user isn’t directly engaged with any of it’s products, and according to Schmidt’s study, Google is able to de-anonymize such data. Hey, gotta target those ads somehow!
When will the new iPhones be shown, and when can you order one? Bgr.com is betting the rollout will be on September 12th, and the preorders will start on the 14th. This is also the date reliable Apple tout Ming-Chi Kuo sees, but now BGR says they have further indications. Apparently a number of Apple partners and 3rd party accessory makers have sent them pitches with embargoes of September 12th.
Twitter Tightening; WPA3 WiFi Security; Alexa Voice Hits iOS; Motion Sickness Fix for Self-Driving Car Riders
Posted: June 27, 2018 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Alexa, Amazon, Apple, Bots, iOS, Motion sickness, Self Driving Cars, Spam, Twitter, Voice Control, VR, WiFi, WPA3, YouTube Leave a commentIt’s widely known that Twitter has had ongoing issues with spam accounts and malicious automation. Twitter is saying that now, using AI, they are able to identify a lot more spam accounts and deactivate them more quickly…9.9 million a week, up from 3.2 million last September. Engadget.com reports that Twitter is not only using AI on present spammy accounts…going forward, new accounts will have to verify with an email address or phone number when they are being created. That feature will be out later this year. Meanwhile, the ‘firehose of social media’ will continue to audit and challenge what appear to be spammy accounts…like ones that do high volume Tweeting using the same hashtag or Tweeting at the same handle without getting a reply.
After it got out that a huge number of routers had been infected with malware, here’s a little good news going forward: WPA3 has been finalized. New Wi-Fi routers will come with the stronger protections for your data using the new standard. Cnet.com says it will make it harder to run a common hacking attack on your router…frequently called an ‘offline dictionary-based attack,’ which allows hacker to make endless guesses of your Wi-Fi password. WPA3 is available on new routers certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance. It updates WPA2, which has been around since 2004 and has bee woefully out of date. Some manufacturers are looking for ways to update existing routers, but the best bet may be to upgrade your router in the coming months to one that comes with WPA3.
Alexa voice control for the Android app has been out nearly half a year, and Amazon says now it is finally coming to iOS. According to techcrunch.com, it isn’t baked in…you’ll need to tap a button in the app, but after that you can ask Alexa questions, listen to music, access skills, and control smart devices. The update is being rolled out to users over the next few days, so if you love controlling everything possible around your abode with Alexa voice commands, you’re going to have a way to do so on iOS. The touch of a button is unfortunate, but since Apple wants you to use their Siri, iOS devices are unlikely to get voice access without first touching the app. Since their last try at smartphones, Amazon has been at a disadvantage in the mobile market, having to rely on apps on Android and iOS without having and Alexa native device.
As with the space program years ago, Virtual Reality tech is throwing off some cool side benefits. Macrumors.com says Apple engineer and popular YouTuber Mark Rober is the primary inventor of some tech patents that can be used to help stop in-car motion sickness for passengers in self-driving cars. One replaces the view of the real world with virtual environments including visual cues to match the physical motion the passengers are experiencing. Another helps allow passengers to work or surf without getting sick. Drivers are usually not affected by motion sickness, as they are watching the road ahead and their surroundings. Besides his Apple engineer gig, Rober’s YouTube channel with science related videos has some 3.4 million subscribers!
Google’s Waymo Pedestrian Detection Breakthrough; Facebook Reorganizes into 3 Divisions; iPhone Strikes Back at GreyKey
Posted: May 9, 2018 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Apple, Facebook, Google, GreyKey, iOS, Pedestrians, Self Driving Cars, Waymo Leave a commentAt Google I/O, Waymo took the stage with the claim that they have “unlocked truly autonomous vehicles.” Thenextweb.com reports that they have really made a breakthrough in making driverless cars safer for pedestrians…claiming to reduce the error-rate for detecting pedestrians by 100X (not 100%). The tech was even able to detect a man’s head sticking up out of a manhole and a person wearing a goofy costume like a sports mascot.
Facebook has reorganized into 3 new divisions, or product areas. The first consists of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. According to businessinsider.com, the 2nd category is for the more experimental parts of the company….AR, VR, and a new blockchain unit. The third area is for what they call ‘central product services. That consists of ads, analytics, integrity, growth, and product management. Facebook has moved around executive management to oversee the 3 new areas.
Apple is striking back at the GreyKey box, that allows law enforcement (or crooks that get hold of one) to get into iPhones. In iOS 11.4, which is in beta, there’s a USB restricted mode. Macrumors.com says that if the phone isn’t unlocked with a passcode or connected to the paired computer within a week, the Lightening port becomes useless for everything but charging.
iPhone X Made Bank in 4th Quarter; New iPhone SE Soon; Facebook’s EU Privacy Compliance; Company Using Facebook for Massive Facial Recognition Database
Posted: April 18, 2018 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Android, Apple, EU, Facebook, Facial recognition database, GDPR, iOS, iPhone SE, iPhone X, NSA, Privacy, Terrogence, US Navy, Varint Leave a commentThere has been so much coverage about what a big flop the iPhone X is…now, comes word that the flagship handset brought in 35% of total worldwide iPhone profits in the 4th quarter….and really only 2 months of that quarter! Macrumors.com reports that Counterpoint Research crunched the numbers, and also found that the handset generated five times the profit of over 600 Android OEMs that quarter! For comparison at Apple, the iPhone 8 brought in 19.1% of the profits, and the iPhone 8 Plus 15.2%.
The diminutive (by today’s standards) and dated iPhone SE only amounted to .9% of Apple’s iPhone profits in the 4th quarter last year, and now it looks like it will be getting a long-overdue refresh. According to bgr.com, Apple has registered a number of new model numbers for iPhones that will run iOS 11 with the EU and with Russia, which require them in advance. The smaller and less pricey iPhone may be out in May, or around WWDC in June. It will have greatly improved internals, but one rumor has it staying the same on the outside, with another indicating a brand new design. At any rate, we will know in a matter of weeks.
The EU’s new privacy regs go into place next month, and Facebook has released some details about how they will comply. 9to5google.com says the US will get a watered down version, as had been previously rumored. The GDPR….General Data Protection Regulation compliance makes Facebook ask users specifically to agree to a number of things, and is not allowed to present pre-selected defaults. Three key things they must ask are to chose whether or not you want them to use data from partners to show you ads, if you want Facebook to continue to let them use info you’ve shared about political, religious, or relationship info (hint: they will still have the data!), and lastly if you will allow them to use face recognition tech (like for tagging in photos.) These are such mild requirements, don’t expect much change in the ‘watered down’ US version!
If you thought the Cambridge Analytica scandal was creepy, you’ll love this…a surveillance company founded by former Israeli intelligence officers called Terrogence has been using social networking sites like Facebook and YouTube to build a giant facial-recognition database. Mashable.com reports they’ve been at this for five years! The database is part of their facial recognition service called Face-Int. Terrogence, and its parent company Verint supply intelligence tech to the US government including the NSA and the Navy. They would not disclose whether or not the US government utilizes their face database.
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