You folks out there who have been waiting for a good deal before picking up Amazon’s Kindle Scribe, the company’s first Kindle with stylus support, now may be your time. The device has dropped to an all-time low price of $240. That’s 29 percent off the regular price for the base model with the Basic Pen and 16 GB of storage. In addition, there’s an option you can plump for that includes three months of Kindle Unlimited. That bundle costs the same price, but remember to cancel Kindle Unlimited before the three months are up if you don't want to keep using it (the service typically costs $12 per month).
One important thing to bear in mind here is that Amazon Prime Day is slated to take place in July. That mega sale always includes steep discounts on Amazon’s own products. While $240 is the best offer we’ve seen for the Kindle Scribe, there’s the possibility that the price will drop even lower for a couple of days in July.
That said, a discount of $100 is nothing to sniff at for our pick for the best e-reader E Ink tablet around. The 10.2-inch touchscreen has auto-adjusting front lights to make it easy to use in a variety of lighting conditions. The stylus and tablet combine to deliver a low-latency writing experience, which makes writing on the device by hand feel more natural. You can create multiple notebooks too, adding pages as you see fit.
The Kindle Scribe's battery can power the device for months between charges as E Ink screens are incredibly efficient. You can, of course, read e-books from Amazon and Amazon Unlimited. You can also listen to audiobooks thanks to Audible and Bluetooth support.
On the downside, we found it somewhat frustrating that it's not possible to write notes in the margins of most books. For the time being, that function is limited to a selection that's made up of journals and puzzle books such as crosswords and sudoku ones. In fiction and non-fiction books, you'll need to hold the stylus against the screen to highlight a word or phrase and add notes there. If that's not an issue for you, we reckon you can't go too far wrong with the Kindle Scribe.
There’s about a one in three chance you’re reading this on a desktop computer — and you might be wondering whether there’s a way to make your computing-at-a-desk experience more ideal for your body. Sitting for hours on end appears to be the biggest detriment to our health, which is why getting up regularly or switching things up with a standing desk can help. Then there’s the health considerations of peripherals like mice and keyboards. A traditional mouse can constrict your wrist and put pressure on your forearm, something ergonomic mice can alleviate with their more natural orientations. I tried out around 20 highly rated vertical, semi-vertical and trackball mice to see which ones felt good, worked well and most importantly, did anything to alleviate my chronic shoulder tension. Here are the best ergonomic mice I found.
Like everything related to ergonomics, the mouse design that works best for you will depend on your body and what you need to do on a typical day. So the shapes, added features and how the mouse communicates with your computer will determine which you should get.
Types and shapes of ergonomic mice
When we’re talking about ergonomic mice for productivity purposes, it usually refers to mice that look distinctly different from the standard, typically with shapes that tilt your hand towards a more “handshake” position instead of facing your palm downward. A vertical ergonomic mouse has the most severe up-and-down angle, semi-vertical mice split the difference and trackball models stay put on your desk while your thumb controls the movement of the cursor. Gaming mice have an ergonomic category as well, but that simply refers to a mouse with curves designed to fit either the right or left hand. It differentiates those mice from ambidextrous models, which don’t conform to a particular hand.
Each of three ergonomic mice shapes can help address different concerns. If you’re trying to avoid twisting your forearm, a vertical mouse could be what you need. Clicking a vertical mouse feels more like pinching your finger and thumb together, which could relieve certain other wrist issues as well.
A semi-vertical mouse feels the most like a traditional mouse, with an angle closer to 50 or 60 degrees from your desk. Semi-vertical mouse clicks can feel easier too, since you're pushing down instead of pinching. Some vertical and semi-vertical mice have an optional flange that supports the heel of your palm. Instead of pivoting on those bones to make the mouse move, your palm and wrist stay aligned and the entire arm controls the motion.
A trackball mouse can also keep your wrist from bending, as it keeps your forearm planted. My personal struggle is with neck and shoulder tension, so trackballs and very lightweight vertical mice work best for me as their configuration lets me keep my forearm from moving.
DPI, weight and buttons
As this guide focuses on productivity mice, gaming-specific stats like polling rates and IPS values don’t really come into play. (My colleague Jeff Dunn does a good job of explaining those metrics in his gaming mouse review guide.) What matters here are numbers like DPI, or dots per inch, which indicates how sensitive a mouse is. The higher the setting, the faster your cursor will move across the screen. Low DPI settings let you do precision work like pixel-by-pixel editing in Photoshop. All the mice here have at least two and as many as five settings, ranging from 400 to 3,200 DPI. Mice that make it easy to switch from high to low DPI might make sense if you do a lot of detailed work.
Weight makes a difference in vertical and semi-vertical mice (but not trackballs, since they stay put). A lighter mouse will be easier to move around, which could put less strain on your wrist and arm. That said, a little weight can make the movements of your mouse feel more precise. For reference, a featherweight gaming mouse might weigh 45 grams and a large vertical mouse with a flange attached might weigh 140 grams. The latter may feel a little heavy, but a mouse with smooth feet and used with a decent mouse pad will feel lighter.
It's always nice to have easily clickable buttons, but that matters even more when body health is a concern. Pressing hard on a button tenses up my arm and shoulder like nobody’s business. Since it’s an action desk workers perform hundreds or thousands of times a day, it's essential that it be effortless — nothing ruled out a mouse quicker in my tests than tough buttons.
Photo by Amy Skorheim / Engadget
Extra features
All mice have the basics: a right and left button and a scroll wheel. All mice in this guide also have a DPI selector button. Some have other functions such as a scroll wheel that can click with a press or handle horizontal scrolling by tilting the wheel to the right or left. Many also have back and forward buttons for browser windows, and sometimes those two are programmable to perform different functions in other apps.
More complex mice have additional buttons to customize, typically using a mouse’s proprietary software. Depending on that software, you can set buttons to mute calls, copy and paste, undo and redo, switch tabs and more. Performing multiple functions without extraneous movement is a big plus in ergonomic design. Of course, there are a number of keyboards that let you program multiple functions into specific keys, which cuts down on superfluous movement even more, which you can read about in our ergonomic keyboard guide.
Connectivity and compatibility
All the mice here will work with Mac's operating system as well as Microsoft Windows, and some work with Chrome, Linnux and even iPadOS (though I didn’t test those) as well. They connect in three ways: Wired, via Bluetooth or with a 2.4Ghz wireless dongle. More devices have incorporated USB-C interfaces, but most mice still use USB-A. So if you have a laptop that only sports USB-C ports (looking at you, MacBook), you’ll need an adapter to use a wired or dongle-enabled mouse. You can use a hub or docking station for this purpose, but in testing this guide, I ran into connectivity issues using a wireless USB receiver in a docking station, particularly when there wasn’t a direct and completely clear path between the mouse and receiver. Everything worked far more reliably with just a direct USB-C to A adapter.
The difference between wireless and Bluetooth is twofold: a wireless dongle connection tends to be quicker to set up. You just plug in the accessory, turn on the mouse (potentially granting permission for the device) and you’re set. For Bluetooth, you need to open the settings menu, activate pairing mode on the mouse, search for the mouse and then click connect. There’s also a bit more latency when using Bluetooth versus a wireless mouse. It’s not something most people will notice doing workaday stuff, but if you plan on playing some Overwatch after hours and want to use the same mouse, you might want to go with the faster, 2.4Ghz route.
How we test ergonomic mice
After many hours of research and reading reviews, I gathered just over 20 mice with good claims to ergonomic design to test in my work setup. I mostly tried out mice geared towards a work-from-home or office setting, as opposed to gaming (we have a whole guide dedicated to that topic). I used each mouse for a few hours or a few days, noting how well they felt as well as how they performed. I mostly used a MacBook Pro M1 but verified Windows compatibility with an Asus ROG Strix laptop. For reference, my right hand measures 7.25 inches from the wrist crease to the tip of my middle finger, which is just under average for a man and large for a woman.
Best ergonomic mouse for 2024
Other ergonomic mice we tried
Logitech MX Master 3S
In our guide to the best productivity mice, we name the Logitech MX Master 3S the best you can get. As I considered its merits as a mouse, it was indeed an impressive option — it connected flawlessly, has a useful sideways wheel as well as the traditional scroll feature and the thumb rest is a nice touch. But the ergonomics didn't quite do it for me. For one, it holds your hand in the standard, palm-down, claw-grip position.
Logitech Lift Vertical
Logitech’s Lift Vertical is likely one of the more popular ergonomic mice out there. It’s fairly lightweight, has an attractive design with a nice feel to the exterior. The buttons are easy to click and nearly silent. It also connects quickly using either Bluetooth or a dongle. Unfortunately, it doesn’t glide across the mouse pad all that smoothly, and the pinch grip the design requires actually aggregated my wrist. The cursor movements are fairly precise, though I occasionally had trouble getting the cursor to land just where I wanted it. Also, it’s small; my hands are too large for the Lift. Logitech’s Logitech MX Vert is essentially a larger version, but again, the skinnier shape was uncomfortable in my hands and it was tough to get the cursor to go where I wanted it to.
HP 920 ergonomic vertical
The HP 920 ergonomic vertical also has a flange for resting your palm, but it makes the mouse overly heavy to move around. Without it, however, it's an extremely comfortable mouse with a premium feel, rechargeable battery, and two programmable thumb buttons. Unfortunately, the cursor movement was frustratingly imprecise and didn’t go exactly where I pointed, forcing a number of corrections — and extraneous movement is what we’re trying to avoid in ergonomic setups.
Turtle Beach Pure Air
Apart from the rather loud clicks, I was impressed with the build and performance of the Turtle Beach Pure Air. It’s lightweight, moves smoothly, and has impressively accurate cursor movements. But despite being labeled an ergonomic mouse, it’s particularly light on the ergonomics. There’s a divot for your right thumb, so it can't be called ambidextrous, but beyond that it’s a pretty standard (albeit quite nice) gaming mouse.
Perixx Perimice 719
The PERIMICE-719 from Perixx is a solid mouse with an exterior that feels nice to the touch. It has a comfortable, semi-vertical design, accurate cursor moves and a satisfyingly ratcheted scroll wheel. Plus, it offers reliable connectivity with a wireless dongle and only costs $22. Unfortunately, it was too small for my hand. Only folks with smaller glove sizes (or don’t mind adopting more of a fingertip grip) will be able to get the most out of this one.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/accessories/best-ergonomic-mouse-120004931.html?src=rss
There was so much Apple had to cram into its WWDC 2024 keynote that some features were left out of the spotlight. Here at the company's campus, I've had the chance to speak with various executives, as well as get deeper dives into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, Apple Intelligence, watchOS 11 and more. In these sessions, I've been able to learn more about how specific things work, like what steps exactly do you take to customize your iPhone's home screen and control center. I also got to see some other updates that weren't even briefly mentioned during the keynote, like new support for hiking routes in Apple Maps and what training load insights look like on watchOS 11. Of all the unmentioned features I've come to discover, here are my favorites.
Maps: Create and share custom routes
I've always been a Google Maps girl, in part because that app had superior information compared to Apple Maps in its early years. These days, I stick to Google Maps because it has all my saved places and history. When I found out that iOS 18 would bring updates to Apple Maps, particularly to do with hiking and routes, I was intrigued.
Basically, in iOS 18, when you go into search in Maps, you'll see a new option under "Find Nearby" called hikes. It'll show you recommended hikes, and you can filter by the type of hike (loop, for example) and specify a length. You'll find options in the vicinity and tapping into one will show you a topographical view with the elevation details, how challenging it should be as well as estimated duration. You can tap to save each route and store it for offline reference later and add notes too. There's a new Library view and you'll find it in your profile in Maps.
You'll also be able to create new routes in Maps by tapping anywhere to start defining your route. You can keep tapping to add waypoints, which will cause the trail to continue to connect them, then hit a "Close loop" button to finish your trail. These routes can be shared, though it's not yet clear if you can share it to, say, your friend or driver to have them take your preferred path to your destination.
Apple
The hikes that Apple will serve up in Maps are created by its own team, which is working with US National Parks, so they'll only be available for the 63 national parks in the country to begin with. In other words, it's not porting information from AllTrails, for example. In a press release, Apple said thousands of hikes will be available to browse at launch.
As a city dweller who only sometimes hikes, my excitement is less about hiking and more about the potential of sharing my custom routes to show people how they should walk to my building or favorite restaurant from the train station. It's a compelling feature, and arguably a reason I'd choose Apple Maps versus Google's.
Calendar integration with Reminders
Frankly, the Maps update might be my favorite out of everything that wasn't shown off during the WWDC 2024 keynote by a huge margin. But some of the new tools coming to Calendar tickle my fancy too. Specifically, the new integration with reminders makes it easier to not just schedule your tasks right into your daybook, but also check them off from the Calendar app. You can soon move reminders around by long pressing and dragging them, so that note to call your mom can be placed on a slot at 5pm on Wednesday, instead of sitting in your Reminders app. In addition, Calendar is getting new views that better detail your level of activity each day in a month, similar to how the Fitness app shows your daily rings progress quickly in the monthly view.
Tapback insights showing who exactly responded with what emoji
This isn't one that wasn't mentioned at all during the keynote, but there are details about how Tapback works that weren't described at yesterday's show. If you're like me, you might not even have remembered that Tapback refers to those reactions you can send in Messages by double tapping on a blue or gray bubble. With iOS 18, you'll get more options than the limited selection of heart, thumbs up, thumbs down, "Haha," exclamation points and question mark. They're also going to show up in full color with the update, instead of the existing (boring) gray.
What I found out later on, though, is that when you double tap a message that already has reactions attached, a new balloon appears at the top of your screen showing who has responded with which emoji. This should make it easier to lurk in a group chat, but also could double as an unofficial polling tool by asking your friends to react with specific emojis to indicate different answers. That should make Messages a bit more like Slack, and I wish Whatsapp and Telegram would take note.
Others: Math Notes in iPhone, updates to Journal and Safari
There are quite a lot of features coming to iOS 18 that didn't get much love on the WWDC stage, like the Journal app's new widget for the home screen, which shows prompts for reflection and lets you create new entries. Journal also has a new insights view that displays your writing streaks and other historical data, plus a new tool that lets you add your state of mind to each entry from within the app.
Meanwhile, Safari is getting a new "Highlights" button in the search (or URL) bar, and tapping it will show a machine-learning-generated summary of the webpage you're on. Tapping into this brings up a panel with more information like navigation directions to a restaurant mentioned on the page, for example, or a phone number to call up a business. You can also quickly launch the reader view from this pane.
I wasn't super enthusiastic about either of those, largely because I don't use the Journal app much and I don't need Safari summarizing a webpage for me. But there are some other buried updates that I really wanted to shout out. For example, Math Notes for iPad and with Apple Pencil certainly got a lot of time, but it wasn't till I looked at Apple's iOS 18 press release that I found out the iPhone's Notes app is also getting a version of it. According to the screenshot Apple included, it looks like you can tally up and split expenses between a group of friends by writing a list of expenses and how much each item cost, then add the names of each expense to a formula with plus and equal signs, then get that divided by the number of people in your group. Not quite Splitwise, but I could see this becoming more powerful over time.
I was also intrigued by some of the Smart Script features on iPadOS 18, especially when I realized that you can just move your handwritten words around by dragging your handwritten words further away from each other, and the rest of your scrawled text moves in tandem. This is hard to describe, and I'll have to wait till I can try it for myself to show you an animated example. But it was impressive, even if it's not extremely useful.
Finally, the Passwords app and other privacy updates got a shout out during the keynote, but I learned more about how things like accessory setup and contacts sharing with apps work. Apple is releasing a new accessory setup kit so that device makers can adopt a pairing interface similar to how you'd connect your AirPods or Apple Watch to your iPhone. If developers don't use this approach, the new Bluetooth connection interface will be clearer about what other devices are on your network and what you're actually granting access to when you let an app see other devices on your network. Though it wasn't entirely skipped during the keynote, the Passwords app is something that makes me happy, since I'm absolutely sick of having to dig through settings to get codes for apps which I use my iPhone's authenticator to unlock.
There are plenty of features that were talked about that I'm excited by and learned more about the workings of, including the new dynamic clock style in the Photos face in watchOS 11, pinned collections in the redesigned Photos app and iPadOS mirroring for easier remote tech support. Oh, and that Airplay feature that'll let you send money to friends by holding your phones together? Yes! Being able to pause and adjust your Activity rings in watchOS and that Training Load insight? Hallelujah!
And though I can see the appeal of locked and hidden apps, I'm not sure I'd find much use for that and it would probably exacerbate my already prone-to-suspicion nature.
I'm also a little wary of things like Genmoji and Image Playground, which are both Apple Intelligence features that won't hit all iOS 18 devices. There will be metadata information indicating when images were generated by Apple's AI, and guardrails in place to prevent the creation of abusive and exploitative content.
Clearly, there are plenty of updates coming to Apple's phones, tablets, laptops and wearables later this year, and I can't wait to try them out. The public beta should be ready around the end of summer this year, which is when most people (who are willing to risk an unstable platform) can check them out.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/my-favorite-ios-18-ipados-18-and-watchos-11-features-that-flew-under-the-radar-at-wwdc-2024-113044069.html?src=rss
There was so much Apple had to cram into its WWDC 2024 keynote that some features were left out of the spotlight. Here at the company's campus, I've had the chance to speak with various executives, as well as get deeper dives into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, Apple Intelligence, watchOS 11 and more. In these sessions, I've been able to learn more about how specific things work, like what steps exactly do you take to customize your iPhone's home screen and control center. I also got to see some other updates that weren't even briefly mentioned during the keynote, like new support for hiking routes in Apple Maps and what training load insights look like on watchOS 11. Of all the unmentioned features I've come to discover, here are my favorites.
Maps: Create and share custom routes
I've always been a Google Maps girl, in part because that app had superior information compared to Apple Maps in its early years. These days, I stick to Google Maps because it has all my saved places and history. When I found out that iOS 18 would bring updates to Apple Maps, particularly to do with hiking and routes, I was intrigued.
Basically, in iOS 18, when you go into search in Maps, you'll see a new option under "Find Nearby" called hikes. It'll show you recommended hikes, and you can filter by the type of hike (loop, for example) and specify a length. You'll find options in the vicinity and tapping into one will show you a topographical view with the elevation details, how challenging it should be as well as estimated duration. You can tap to save each route and store it for offline reference later and add notes too. There's a new Library view and you'll find it in your profile in Maps.
You'll also be able to create new routes in Maps by tapping anywhere to start defining your route. You can keep tapping to add waypoints, which will cause the trail to continue to connect them, then hit a "Close loop" button to finish your trail. These routes can be shared, though it's not yet clear if you can share it to, say, your friend or driver to have them take your preferred path to your destination.
Apple
The hikes that Apple will serve up in Maps are created by its own team, which is working with US National Parks, so they'll only be available for the 63 national parks in the country to begin with. In other words, it's not porting information from AllTrails, for example. In a press release, Apple said thousands of hikes will be available to browse at launch.
As a city dweller who only sometimes hikes, my excitement is less about hiking and more about the potential of sharing my custom routes to show people how they should walk to my building or favorite restaurant from the train station. It's a compelling feature, and arguably a reason I'd choose Apple Maps versus Google's.
Calendar integration with Reminders
Frankly, the Maps update might be my favorite out of everything that wasn't shown off during the WWDC 2024 keynote by a huge margin. But some of the new tools coming to Calendar tickle my fancy too. Specifically, the new integration with reminders makes it easier to not just schedule your tasks right into your daybook, but also check them off from the Calendar app. You can soon move reminders around by long pressing and dragging them, so that note to call your mom can be placed on a slot at 5pm on Wednesday, instead of sitting in your Reminders app. In addition, Calendar is getting new views that better detail your level of activity each day in a month, similar to how the Fitness app shows your daily rings progress quickly in the monthly view.
Tapback insights showing who exactly responded with what emoji
This isn't one that wasn't mentioned at all during the keynote, but there are details about how Tapback works that weren't described at yesterday's show. If you're like me, you might not even have remembered that Tapback refers to those reactions you can send in Messages by double tapping on a blue or gray bubble. With iOS 18, you'll get more options than the limited selection of heart, thumbs up, thumbs down, "Haha," exclamation points and question mark. They're also going to show up in full color with the update, instead of the existing (boring) gray.
What I found out later on, though, is that when you double tap a message that already has reactions attached, a new balloon appears at the top of your screen showing who has responded with which emoji. This should make it easier to lurk in a group chat, but also could double as an unofficial polling tool by asking your friends to react with specific emojis to indicate different answers. That should make Messages a bit more like Slack, and I wish Whatsapp and Telegram would take note.
Others: Math Notes in iPhone, updates to Journal and Safari
There are quite a lot of features coming to iOS 18 that didn't get much love on the WWDC stage, like the Journal app's new widget for the home screen, which shows prompts for reflection and lets you create new entries. Journal also has a new insights view that displays your writing streaks and other historical data, plus a new tool that lets you add your state of mind to each entry from within the app.
Meanwhile, Safari is getting a new "Highlights" button in the search (or URL) bar, and tapping it will show a machine-learning-generated summary of the webpage you're on. Tapping into this brings up a panel with more information like navigation directions to a restaurant mentioned on the page, for example, or a phone number to call up a business. You can also quickly launch the reader view from this pane.
I wasn't super enthusiastic about either of those, largely because I don't use the Journal app much and I don't need Safari summarizing a webpage for me. But there are some other buried updates that I really wanted to shout out. For example, Math Notes for iPad and with Apple Pencil certainly got a lot of time, but it wasn't till I looked at Apple's iOS 18 press release that I found out the iPhone's Notes app is also getting a version of it. According to the screenshot Apple included, it looks like you can tally up and split expenses between a group of friends by writing a list of expenses and how much each item cost, then add the names of each expense to a formula with plus and equal signs, then get that divided by the number of people in your group. Not quite Splitwise, but I could see this becoming more powerful over time.
I was also intrigued by some of the Smart Script features on iPadOS 18, especially when I realized that you can just move your handwritten words around by dragging your handwritten words further away from each other, and the rest of your scrawled text moves in tandem. This is hard to describe, and I'll have to wait till I can try it for myself to show you an animated example. But it was impressive, even if it's not extremely useful.
Finally, the Passwords app and other privacy updates got a shout out during the keynote, but I learned more about how things like accessory setup and contacts sharing with apps work. Apple is releasing a new accessory setup kit so that device makers can adopt a pairing interface similar to how you'd connect your AirPods or Apple Watch to your iPhone. If developers don't use this approach, the new Bluetooth connection interface will be clearer about what other devices are on your network and what you're actually granting access to when you let an app see other devices on your network. Though it wasn't entirely skipped during the keynote, the Passwords app is something that makes me happy, since I'm absolutely sick of having to dig through settings to get codes for apps which I use my iPhone's authenticator to unlock.
There are plenty of features that were talked about that I'm excited by and learned more about the workings of, including the new dynamic clock style in the Photos face in watchOS 11, pinned collections in the redesigned Photos app and iPadOS mirroring for easier remote tech support. Oh, and that Airplay feature that'll let you send money to friends by holding your phones together? Yes! Being able to pause and adjust your Activity rings in watchOS and that Training Load insight? Hallelujah!
And though I can see the appeal of locked and hidden apps, I'm not sure I'd find much use for that and it would probably exacerbate my already prone-to-suspicion nature.
I'm also a little wary of things like Genmoji and Image Playground, which are both Apple Intelligence features that won't hit all iOS 18 devices. There will be metadata information indicating when images were generated by Apple's AI, and guardrails in place to prevent the creation of abusive and exploitative content.
Clearly, there are plenty of updates coming to Apple's phones, tablets, laptops and wearables later this year, and I can't wait to try them out. The public beta should be ready around the end of summer this year, which is when most people (who are willing to risk an unstable platform) can check them out.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/my-favorite-ios-18-ipados-18-and-watchos-11-features-that-flew-under-the-radar-at-wwdc-2024-113044069.html?src=rss
We might know how much more Spotify’s high-fidelity plan will cost, should the thing ever arrive. Rumors suggest the plan is coming by the end of the year and will cost $5 a month on top of an existing Premium subscription. Much as there are rumors of extra features thrown into that mix, it’s a significant charge on top of what Apple Music charges for the same thing.
We might know how much more Spotify’s high-fidelity plan will cost, should the thing ever arrive. Rumors suggest the plan is coming by the end of the year and will cost $5 a month on top of an existing Premium subscription. Much as there are rumors of extra features thrown into that mix, it’s a significant charge on top of what Apple Music charges for the same thing.
There was no new Apple hardware at WWDC 2024, but Apple still had tons of news around AI and its upcoming operating systems. In this bonus episode, Cherlynn and Devindra brave the California heat to discuss Apple Intelligence and how it's different than other AI solutions. And they dive into other new features they're looking forward to, like the iPhone mirroring in macOS Sequoia and iPadOS 18's surprisingly cool Calculator app.
Listen below or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you've got suggestions or topics you'd like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcast, Engadget News!
Hosts: Devindra Hardawar and Cherlynn Low Music: Dale North and Terrence O'Brien
Transcript
Devindra: What's up, folks? This is Devindra here, and we are live at Apple Park. Cherlynn and I are in the middle of covering Apple's WWDC conference. Cherlynn, what's up? How's it going?
Cherlynn: We are, I feel quite zen right now, because even though I have a lot more meetings coming up, we are seated outside, it's nice out, and even though it's really hot, it's not dying. it's nice. I'm chill.
Devindra: It's nice we are both, we've gone through four to five meetings. For both of us. We've gone through the keynote. We're writing a bunch of news folks. So we're just gonna sit down and Give you our thoughts about what's going on. Cherlynn and I also did a video that's up on our YouTube channel recapping why we think Apple intelligence is doing things a little differently and maybe better than Stuff from Microsoft and Google, but yeah, Sherlyn, you've been talking with Apple a lot.
What is your general takeaway from this year's WWDC?
Cherlynn: Yeah, to set the stage a little, I think, this morning 8 a. m. I had my first meeting and then it's been four meetings like you said, Devendra, covering topics like Apple intelligence, privacy, iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 and watchOS 11 as well. My main thing is that yes, we have actually throughout the keynote, we heard things that we've seen in other platforms, right?
Like they're blatantly copying magic eraser from Google's editor on, this thing called cleanup and photos. and they're adding different things like, oh, you can now rearrange your apps and skin them the way you can in Android's material you. But, the way Apple's thought things through proves and continues to prove to be different from everyone else.
It's a bit more thoughtful, a bit cleaner, a bit more sophisticated. And, again, I think you see this most in Apple Intelligence. And, Devindra, you've been asking everybody here, can we say AI? Can we?
Devindra: I don't know. So one thing I started figuring it out, or at least as we were writing about Apple Intelligence, is that Making an acronym for it is tough because I can't just call it AI and then talk about That stuff versus Copilot or versus OpenAI and I've started using Apple AI as a way to shorten it But I have been asking Apple folks here basically everyone we've encountered about how they shorten Apple intelligence and the resounding response I get is like a data processing error.
It's like watching a human kind of just like stop being able to process information. They look over to the PR person. They're like, what do I see here? But the response I always get is, Apple intelligence. That's all we say. We only ever say Apple intelligence. One person said, personal intelligence, which is a phrase Tim Cook used.
But yeah, it is funny that it is, it seems almost like a corporate command not to call Apple intelligence AI or shorten it that way in any way.
Cherlynn: they think of the words AI, or the letters AI, to stand for Apple Intelligence, it seems And then the word that they fall back on when they don't want to say Apple Intelligence is just Intelligence. three syllables, is only one more than saying AI. Still, though, AI is so much easier to say, in my opinion.
Devindra: It just feels like they have stumbled themselves into this weird branding hole, where they took the letters A and I, but they can't use AI. But it is also an AI powered thing. I just think it's funny, and shows, like, how I don't know how absurd these companies can be at some points. but yeah, let's briefly talk about Apple Intelligence, Cherlynn. I'm more impressed by what Apple's doing here because it does seem like they're announcing features that we actually would want to use, and it's more centered on features within apps, stuff like making Siri better, rather than what Microsoft did.
Microsoft was just like, hey, nobody likes our search engine. Here we put AI in our search engine then everybody all of a sudden thought it was cool And then they put that copilot they rebranded as copilot They put that in Windows and it's like dot profit I don't think it actually led to anything.
I don't care about copilot in Windows It hasn't been functionally useful for me But just looking at the stuff here that Apple has shown off like I want to use this new Siri I want to use a lot of these new features that they're showing off. I don't know if you feel differently
Cherlynn: I think Siri is only one part of the Apple intelligence puzzle.
I think there's a lot of other stuff that they were, that they demoed that would be very intriguing. I do feel like a lot of their writing tools, things that we're going to see on Mac and iPad, are things we've seen elsewhere, like Copilot, like Gemini and OpenAI, have all offered some version of rewriting something for you, summarizing it for you, providing a TLDR.
Apple obviously being the sort of, vertical integration king that it is good at Bringing it so that when you highlight a body of text or something, you can see this like blue or yellow or whatever circle up here at the top left, where you find your copy and paste options, you might also go there to get a writing tool like, yeah, help me adjust the tone of this cover letter that I'm writing, for example. it's Stuff that we've seen, but yet applied a just a bit better, a bit more thoughtfully. the Siri stuff, they've redesigned Siri to better understand you if you, interrupting yourself in the middle of, issuing a command. if you're like, Oh, adjust this timer. Oh, sorry, set it for 15, not 20 minutes, that sort of thing. it will do it. It's smart enough. it is definitely, more thought out and more system wide and deeply integrated. And to use their own words, Personal, more personally, contextually aware than say, Gemini on a Pixel phone. And that's the only real other place I can compare it to because the Copilot on Surface PCs don't seem that deeply integrated just yet.
Devindra: It almost seems like Copilot is directionless. It's like Microsoft was just like, Hey, OpenAI is cool, do you like ChatGPT? look, we put it in Windows. are you not entertained? Aren't you happy about this? And I wasn't, I've tested this stuff for a while. I think Google's at least trying to be a little more, Thoughtful also about how it's doing it with Gemini.
Like it's trying to like hook into all the Google services and all the stuff you're already relying on. But Apple's whole thing is like they are building on the privacy standards that they have talked about before a lot of this Processing is happening on device with their local models They do go to the cloud for some of their like more complex things.
But we also read about the what is it the private cloud? connection that they were talking about and even that seems cool I'd recommend you all it's like weird to even discuss something like this, but they have basically Created a cloud solution that is they say is more secure You it's an anonymized connection.
Like when, first of all, Apple's models only send little bits of data to their cloud. It's anon anonymized in a way, like the, the VPN relay thing that they have on iPhones is, these servers don't save your data. They don't save logs. So that's also something that will prevent, authorities like police or the FBI from getting records of what you're doing. but Apple's just like keeping yourself out of that. And they also say that they're publishing the images. of the software being used on the servers for researchers to audit and to take a look at and your phone can only talk with basically servers running the exact software that they expect it to so your phone will have to keep getting updated there's like just multiple layers of security which is not the sort of thing I think most people think about when they're doing like cloud services, at least from what I've seen.
Cherlynn: I think, so one thing, the irony of Copilot being directionless is just quite funny to me. you don't want a Copilot or a Pilot to be directionless. But anyway, yeah, the private cloud computing is definitely something that, Apple is approaching differently compared to Microsoft and Google, where they explicitly lay out how anonymized and how protected and encrypted your data is. and true. Apple's point, which something that Craig Federighi pointed out during the keynote as well, they actually put it out there. They want independent verification and validation that their stuff is securely happening and all the transfer of your process. for example, right after the keynote, a certain co, CEO or owner of a certain social media network or platform was like, OpenAI integration with this thing is going to be a security risk, right? I am referring to Elon Musk's tweets on X. And, from my understanding, having taken a lot of meetings since, the OpenAI integration is happening like this. whenever you ask Apple Intelligence devices a query, Siri for example, the first thing it's doing is figuring out whether it can do it on device or if it needs to send through privacy cloud compute to the servers to process.
Then, on devices obviously like quite direct, right? But if it needs to pass your information on to chat GPT because you've asked it something that, whatever. It will first surface hey, do you want to pass your information to chat GPT? And it will do it every time. you're not going to say yes once and then afterwards never have to be asked chat GPT access again. and then there is a contractual thing between OpenAI and Apple which prevents OpenAI from storing your requests. and also Apple is just not handing any IP address information over. It is using that sort of private relay thing, to pass on like any IP address information needed. It's just hiding the actual info. and then once OpenAI has done chat GPTing your answers for you, It is supposed to erase your information or whatever and get rid of it. It is a contractual thing supposedly, and that remains to be seen, right? that's how much you trust OpenAI to do that. and then the similar sort of concepts for privacy, cloud compute here.
So again, very well thought out, right? just very Apple in its approach.
Devindra: Thoughtful, I think, is the word. I don't want to sound like I said this in the video. Not too much of a fanboy. We have not seen this stuff in action yet or in the wild. But, I think like the initial I don't know. Problems we saw was something like Microsoft Recall, which was a cool idea.
But Microsoft, it was like a blunt force approach to Hey, we're just going to remember everything you did on your computer by capturing everything we did on your computer. And we're going to serve it, we're going to save it in a database on your system that, Hey, anybody can apparently access with like very little protections around it.
And it literally took days for security researchers to even be like, what the hell is this? this is. Very easy to break through. Microsoft ended up having to, basically rework how that feature is. Initially it was, it was a feature that was always enabled and you had to opt out of it. Now it's opt in. people had to complain to alleviate these very obvious issues. And I think at the very least, I don't have that sense with Apple. Like I feel like they've at least sat down, maybe also talked with researchers and be like, is this cool? Is this actually copacetic in terms of like privacy and user safety and everything?
So I don't know if you have any further thoughts on that.
Cherlynn: Because Apple knows that the sort of price to pay if it's caught with egg on its face is so high and actually arguably higher for it than any of its other rivals to be, is all the more invested in making sure this is going and being done the right way and honestly I wish Google and Microsoft would take notes. I will say there's a lot of other privacy things that are very intriguing to me. I did, I am fresh from like a privacy related demo that, was very, so the passwords app is a new thing that I'm very excited about, I'm very welcome. I feel very welcome. Or I'm welcoming it? Whatever. they're also changing certain things like the allowing access to all your contacts or limiting access or whatever in the permission settings for various apps that need.
Like for example, if I'm playing Match Factory, why do they need to get all the access to all my contacts they don't need? I also think it's funny, no, maybe not funny. one of the new features coming to iOS 18 is locking and hiding. specific apps. locking makes sense. I get it. Hiding, though, seems like you're, like, Ashley Madison ing things for everybody, letting the cheaters of the world keep secrets.
I don't know how I feel about that, but, it's the, atomic bomb thing, right? Do you make it and then let people use it how they will, or, I don't know who at Apple decided this was a necessary feature. Are you going to use this feature Devendra?
Devindra: listen, I could have my Tinder account somehow.
I don't know. but I do think the app blocking thing is cool because parents often have to give their devices to kids and Oh, you don't want them to swipe away, you don't want them to do other stuff. So this way you can lock an app if you want to show off your photos or show off something to somebody and just have them not poke around, which has been.
It's also like a very common problem we see on like TV shows and movies where somebody would be like, Hey, can I take a look at this photo? And they're like, get all your personal data from your phone instantly because it's open. So it seems like a very smart way of dealing with privacy too.
Cherlynn: And very Apple esque in that, if you lock an app, say, your messages, for example, then it, also the contents of that app won't show up, and search won't show up, and series suggestions, or spotlight suggestions, or, even map suggestions. there's just a lot here. and, just to take away broader notes from WWDC2, like I said earlier, there's a lot of, small changes that, that make everything seem very meaty. iOS 18 actually might be a big upgrade. the messages updates that are coming. the new tap back, emoji.
Finally, we can do more than exclamation marks. Sometimes I just want to make a sad face. I can't do that. I have to do thumbs down. I like that they're coming. Oh, and I'm back to the Apple Intelli I know I'm jumping around a bit, but talking about emoji, another thing that Apple did right from the get, I think because it's been able to observe the pitfalls that other people have fallen into is to be like, okay, we're limiting it to these very obviously cartoonish sort of graphic like representation, so no photorealistic.
And then when it's creating images of people in gemmoji, you can only use your own creation. So you're basically choosing from a template or based on your like people that you have in your photos or your people gallery sort of situation. But because it's in a cartoonish representation, people are never going to mistake it for someone that's actually a real life.
You can't, for example, there are guardrails in place that like, prevent you from making the image playground generate something that looks harmful or violent or is exploitative. which again, goes to show, Apple's thought this through, right?
Devindra: And I think a lot of people are asking, what are, where, what are these models trained on?
Because Apple's talking about a lot of its own models, small ones that run directly on your device, larger ones that are in the cloud. And occasionally they'll reach out to OpenAI for chat GPT stuff. Apple has told us that they are training their models on licensed data, like images, things like that.
Some stuff from the open web, publishers can refuse to participate. Like they can say their site is not crawlable by Apple stuff. and they say that, Apple will, if somebody changes down the line, like what they want to be accessible to their own models, Apple will reflect that with further updates.
So again, it's opaque, but at least what they're telling us. To me sounds better than what I've heard from Google and certainly from open AI. so I think that's cool real quick. Let's talk about macOS Sequoia, which has most of the features again All these features pretty much come across all of its products.
So apple intelligence is going to be a thing that's by the way is going to be working on Max running Apple Silicon, so M1 to M4 No M4 Max yet, but M1, M series Max and also the iPhone 15 Pro Sherlyn you wrote a piece about the features people can expect if you have an iPhone 14 Pro Basically, you're sore out of luck.
You get some iOS 18 features, but not everything, right?
Cherlynn: Yeah, all the iOS 18 features, but none of the Apple intelligence features, unfortunately So that redesigned Siri with the glowing edges. That's not coming. It is so pretty I also want to say that the iPadOS things that seem really cool, all the pencil features, the handwriting stuff.
So a lot of the, Keynote or like in demos I've taken, some features will be like, this is ML power, it's like Smart Script, for example, is powered by ML, but it's not part of Apple Intelligence. So you are still going to get that in iPadOS, 18 when you upgrade, regardless of whether you have the M1 iPad or like an older one. but yeah, I gotta talk to you about MathNodes, Devindra. Were you blown away by that demo? Like, when they just draw the equal sign, then that, thing just sums itself. The solution just solves itself. It's Mean Girls Mathletes, but on a whole other level to me.
Devindra: It's, it's cool, and that's also something they say is ML powered, not necessarily Apple Intelligence powered.
So if you have older iPads, you will see some benefits of that. It's cool, but I also feel like, Bye for now. It's like a superpowered calculator. I don't know how many people have Apple Pencils and are like scribbling down math formulas, but it's cool. I dig it.
Cherlynn: I think to, to begin with the fact that an iPad never had a calculator app before this, it's like astonishing.
But then now that it's here, Apple's clearly thought about look, we're bringing this to the bigger screen. We want it to be pencil friendly. We want it to be big screen friendly. Let's really think about the layout here. And this is explains why there's been a delay. And I actually get it. there's you can go into the history tab to see your previous like calculations. There's a lot more calculations you can do on this calculator, A currency conversion, which I forgot to ask, like, how is it pulling the actual rate? But whatever, and then you can go into the notes section and then I feel like almost feel like calculator is a misnomer in this case because it's doing way more than calculating and solving equations.
It's like you can draw like a blueprint of a house and have it measure the areas like length and width, whatever, but at the same time, map that to like price calculations, like price estimates, like if you use this material. So something I saw happen was like you did Price equals X, area equals Y, and then price times area equals, and once you draw the area, it's like programming basically, but all done in the notes app.
And that's really it blew my mind a little bit, which I hate to admit because I don't like to be so like, fangirly, but damn, that was cool.
Devindra: It was cool. Maybe the excuse for not having a calculator app built into the iPad. one thing I want to mention about macOS Decoy is iPhone mirroring. Which was something I like half predicted.
Like I wrote a wish piece for what I would want to see in Vision Pro and Vision OS 2. And one thing was I would really love to be able to mirror the iPhone just the way like you can mirror a MacBook inside Vision Pro. have a full projection of the screen. That's not coming to Vision OS 2. Vision OS 2 is like very minor updates it seems.
But It is something coming to Mac Sequoia and to use that you need to use a phone, an iPhone. With I 18 A Mac with Mac, Sequoia, you get almost instantly. I haven't seen projected, like how it actually works in real time, but it does seem like you hit a button, you get a window view of your iPhone and you use it.
On your Mac as you would in real life you see your home screen you can scroll between apps You can your notifications like very smartly are reintegrated into the max notifications. That's fun you could play games on your iphone and when you launch a game, the window will go widescreen The audio seems to come through pretty quickly just seems like a really cool feature because At least on Macs, like I always have my phone nearby.
It's always like doing other stuff, but I would love to be able to like just have that open and also see other notifications coming in. It's just like very extensible in terms of like how you're interacting with your hardware. The iPhone, by the way, stay the screen stays locked. So it doesn't look like somebody is just like you're just like mirroring a direct computer or something.
One thing we learned from Apple because I've been asking around about this. If you mirrored your Mac inside of the Vision Pro, And then that Mac was also mirroring an iPhone. Would you actually be able to do the iPhone stuff from within the Vision Pro? And I've heard from a couple of folks that is basically not going to happen.
You can run one continuity feature. iPhone mirroring is part of continuity. So those features that let you like copy and paste across devices and stuff. You can only run one mirroring feature at a time. So basically you can't do that with the Mac. I'm still sitting here waiting for iPhone mirroring in Vision OS.
Clearly though, like they have the capability. The Vision Pro is running an M. 2 chip. If iPhone mirroring works on M. 1 and M. 2 Macs, there is no reason why that isn't going to be in Vision Pro eventually. So I'm kinda, I feel like we half won that bet, basically.
Cherlynn: I just gotta say that Windows and Android have been trying to do this forever.
I can remember like years ago though, when the first like Galaxy books try to do this. That's at least my earliest encounter with it. It works. I haven't seen this happen, yet on the iPhone side of things, as in I haven't personally taken a demo, so I couldn't tell you if it's actually better or more thoughtful. knowing Apple, knowing its deep integration prowess is probably gonna work better.
Devindra: probably. Apple also gives very good demos, so that's something we've learned. do you have any further thoughts about WWDC or what's ahead for Apple, Sherlyn?
Cherlynn: I have so much to dive into in detail, like the watchOS stuff, the iOS and iPadOS features.
I guess broad strokes. It's it feels almost revolutionary because Apple is finally jumping on board the AI train, and renaming the train, taking over basically. And you know what? The thing is, I hate this, but now people are going to pay attention. Because what? now my friends actually are going to realize what Genmoji is supposed to do, what you can actually do by, feeding AI, generator.
It's gonna, and we're gonna start seeing more, writing tool assisted emails and reviews, I think it's momentous. I think people are really going to start paying attention to what AI means and what it can do. I don't know if it's good for the world, but yeah, it just feels like big.
Devindra: We ran out of time talking to Apple people, but I did want to ask them, do you think these writing tools are actually helpful?
Because then it just, All our emails, all our conversations are going to start to sound like weirdly robotic or extra formal AI documents or AI texts and I'm not a fan of that, not too interested, but the Genmoji stuff is cool because it's like we have had Dali and other things like create these AI images, what do you do with them? post it on social media? I don't know. Genmoji is just if you want to create an emoji based on a specific feeling, you can create a thing to your liking. Just a really smart use of that. That technology, So anyway, I am in the process of installing the, the iOS 18 developer beta on my phone. I think according to the rules, you can't talk about that, but we can talk about it when they launch the public beta. So that's, later next month, I believe. But we're going to be testing this stuff out. We're going to be thinking about these features. any other takeaways from Apple, Sherlyn?
Cherlynn: No, send us your thoughts though, right? podcast@engadget.Com is the most direct way to reach us. but come back on, we do a Thursday livestream at podcast@engadget.com Eastern on our YouTube channel where we have direct Q& A sessions where we can probably answer your questions, in real time. And I'm pretty sure we'll still continue to dig deep into what we learned, this week on our episode, that drops on Fridays or Thursday nights, right? come back for all of that.
Devindra: Yeah, definitely. We're still gonna be doing a longer, a normal podcast episode this week. Cherlynn and I are in California now, but we'll be flying back tomorrow and ready to podcast on live stream on Thursday. So we'll be back folks. let us know what you think about all this news, podcast@engadget.com. Thanks folks. We're out.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/engadget-podcast-recapping-wwdc-2024-from-apple-park-011440662.html?src=rss
So close, yet so far. Ahead of WWDC 2024, I had hoped Apple would let you mirror your iPhone inside of the Vision Pro, just like how you can use your Mac on an enormous virtual display. Instead, we got iPhone Mirroring on macOS Sequoia. As the name implies, it will let you see everything on your iPhone from the comfort of your Mac.
But, I wondered, what if you mirrored a Mac that was mirroring an iPhone in the Vision Pro? It seems like the ideal workaround in theory, one that would solve the headset's annoying inability to play nicely with your iPhone. But, unfortunately, it won't work. We've heard from knowledgeable sources that Apple's hardware only supports one of its Continuity mirroring features at the time. So if you're sending your Mac's screen to the Vision Pro, you won't be able to mirror your iPhone at the same time.
We haven't heard the exact reason for that limitation, but I'd wager it comes down to networking limitations. Mirroring a sharp and lag-free version of your Mac's screen is difficult enough — juggling that alongside a perfectly rendered copy of your iPhone might be too tough for some Macs. Apple is already pushing beyond its current Continuity restrictions with visionOS 2, which will support higher resolution Mac mirroring, as well as the ability to virtualize an ultra-wide display. So perhaps there's room for multi-device mirroring down the line.
It's not hard to imagine Apple bringing the iPhone mirroring feature directly to the Vision Pro eventually, but ideally, it would also work alongside Mac mirroring in the headset.
Here are a few other tidbits we've learned about iPhone mirroring on macOS Sequoia while exploring WWDC:
It requires both WiFi and Bluetooth to work, and the iPhone is projected at 60 fps.
When you launch a game, the iPhone window flips into landscape view on your Mac. The game's sound also appears to be synchronized well.
Mirroring will use around the same amount of battery life on your iPhone as typical usage.
If you unlock your iPhone directly, the mirrored window closes immediately on your Mac.
You'll eventually be able to drag and drop files and other content between your iPhone and Mac. This feature will also be available on third-party apps.
Update 6/12/24, 1:16PM ET: Early testers have discovered that visionOS 2 supports direct AirPlay mirroring from iPhones and iPads. This isn't the same as the Mac's iPhone mirroring feature, since you can't directly interact with the window within Vision Pro, but it's one way to keep tabs on your other devices. We've reached out to Apple for comment on this feature, which wasn't discussed during WWDC.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/you-cant-mirror-your-iphone-while-mirroring-your-mac-on-apple-vision-pro-222021905.html?src=rss
Yesterday, following Apple’s announcement of a partnership with OpenAI to integrate support for ChatGPT into the company’s devices, Elon Musk did what he always does: he tweeted. The owner of X wrote, on X, that he would ban Apple devices at his companies "If Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level." And to that I say: Go right ahead. And while you’re at it, remove your company's software from Apple’s App Store too.
Musk’s companies (at least the major ones) currently include Tesla, SpaceX, X, X AI and Neuralink. Even if we’re just talking about phones — which according to Counterpoint Research Apple currently has a 52 percent market share in the US — around 80,000 of Musk’s 155,000 employees would be subject to the ban, if general statistics hold true. And that’s not counting anyone who uses a Mac computer or iPad. (Note: The lion’s share of these workers would be at Tesla, which employs around 140,000 people.)
And visitors will have to check their Apple devices at the door, where they will be stored in a Faraday cage
Now as we’ve seen with staff reductions at X and Tesla, Musk's management style might best be described as "willing to shoot himself in the foot." But subjecting more than half of his staff to a ban covering one of the most popular gadget makers in the world seems especially obtuse. Yes, all of this would be a headache (especially for the poor souls on his IT teams). But what's truly at issue is that, if Elon truly cares about security, he's only proposing a half-measure.
Why stop at just banning Apple devices? Surely, the apps his companies makes for iOS are in jeopardy as well. So why not pull the apps for X, Tesla and all the others from Apple’s App Store? That would offer even more insulation against the threat of OpenAI, would it not?
It’s patently absurd that Apple isn’t smart enough to make their own AI, yet is somehow capable of ensuring that OpenAI will protect your security & privacy!
Apple has no clue what’s actually going on once they hand your data over to OpenAI. They’re selling you down the river.
Some of the stronger students here, I'm sure, have had their hands raised by now. "But if the problem is that ChatGPT is integrated at the OS level, shouldn't that also mean Musk's companies would be barred from using Windows?" How right you are. And as a man of conviction, I fully expect Elon will ban those machines from his workplaces as well. I suspect his engineers will have a relatively painless time calculating the trajectory of spaceships into orbit on a Ti-83.
Musk followed up his statements by saying “It’s patently absurd that Apple isn’t smart enough to make their own AI, yet is somehow capable of ensuring that OpenAI will protect your security & privacy! Apple has no clue what’s actually going on once they hand your data over to OpenAI. They’re selling you down the river.”
To no surprise, that statement does not accurately describe Apple and OpenAI’s partnership, which readers quickly pointed out using X’s additional context feature. (On Musk’s own website no less, oh the ignominy!) Apple says it will have its own AI models that will either run on-device or in a private compute cloud, and will only send data to OpenAI with a user’s explicit permission on a strict opt-in basis. So despite Musk's claims, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of trickery there.
The bottom line is that, as the founder and CEO of a handful of companies, Musk can do what he wants. And in this case, I encourage Elon to follow through. Show us that your posts aren’t a bluff, as some are already claiming. It’s time to fuck around and find out.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/hey-elon-go-ahead-and-ban-apple-devices-211521967.html?src=rss
"How do you shorten Apple Intelligence?" That’s the question I’ve asked several Apple employees at WWDC 2024, and their practiced responses have become comically absurd.
“We just say Apple Intelligence,” they tell me. “Yah, but do you say that every time? The AI acronym is right there!” I’d retort. The usual response is a stiff smile and clenched teeth, like a human programming error in real-time. (Yes, I'm aware it's just overly aggressive media training in action.) One person suggested they also say "personal intelligence" — yes, a phrase that's longer than Apple Intelligence.
There's no doubt Apple Intelligence means many things to the company. It's an effort to compete with Microsoft's (still unproven) Copilot and Google's Gemini. It's a way to make Apple seem "hip" with ChatGPT. And it should enable a slew of new features for consumers. But Apple Intelligence is never "AI" to Apple.
Normally, I'd chalk this up to a silly branding quirk. But it becomes a problem as we cover Apple Intelligence. It's a long phrase that's just begging to be shortened to "AI," but then how do you distinguish that abbreviation from ChatGPT, Copilot and the general concept of AI? During the WWDC 2024 keynote, Apple only mentioned the phrase "artificial intelligence" three times: Twice while referring to its previous AI-powered features, and another while referring to "other artificial intelligence tools" like ChatGPT.
At this point, I've just decided to call Apple Intelligence "Apple AI." It's shorter and it differentiates the product from competitors. And yes, it just means "Apple Apple Intelligence," but everyone still says "ATM machine" and "PIN number." It's not my fault Apple decided to co-opt the acronym "AI."