Apple Vision Pro anniversary, Gemini confusion, and iPhone Flip on the AppleInsider Podcast

Hello, welcome to the Apple Sider podcast. Sorry, exactly as I was saying that, notification popped up on my Mac. Apple has emailed me back about an Apple Creator Studio problem I've been having. And now I am, of course, dying to know whether that means I've solved it, but that will wait. You are more important. So anyway, hello, I'm William Gallagher. Our sponsors this week are Masterclass and Nordsteller. More about them later. And I am joined as always by Wesley Hilliard, who I think by now has kind of grown used to the fact that frankly, I just use him. I use this podcast to ask him about Apple issues. I know he knows better than I do. And this time not to tip him off too soon it might be about gemini who do you believe with that but first wes i trust you are brilliantly well and i trust that you're wearing your apple vision pro on its two-year anniversary but what is this iphone in space thing i keep hearing about so nasa is letting astronauts take their phones with them for the first time in history so maybe we'll finally get the real live footage of we'll send the rock to space with an iPhone for an actual ad instead of faking it. Right. Okay. I went down a Muppet line with that, but you went serious? I thought you were going to take a left turn into conspiracy. We'll be able to see if it's really the moon they land on. The fighters. Anyway, details details of the story are on Appetite.com. Of course, there'll be links in the description. But then also... Before we get too far in, Apple Insider Plus this week. Well, I was going to ask you about this, because we've got the Super Bowl coming up, and I do want to ask you about that. But the thing is, I'm thinking that, you know, eventually, one day, there will be AI that realises, I have never watched sport in my life. And so it would just automatically skip forward to the Bad Bunny halftime music show. and yet I say that to you I feel like you're looking at me and I'm looking at me because I'm certainly not actually that convinced that's a good idea because I could miss out on something brilliant so okay this ties in because this week's Apple Insider Plus segment is about some of this let me just say um I'll forget it if I don't Apple Insider Plus uh if you haven't heard me bang on about it before it's an ad-free and extended version of this podcast and you get it by subscribing either through Apple podcast subscriptions or Patreon. Now, ad-free, I think you can grasp the concept there, but extended, that's different. Wes, you're itching to tell me what is our extended Apple Sider Plus segment about this week? So we're going to discuss, can you, should you run from artificial intelligence? And mostly just because I'm seeing an increasing number of people say, Hey, I'm just gonna like, I don't know, sell all of my Apple gear because they're increasingly promoting Apple intelligence or they announced this Gemini deal. And, uh, I don't want anything to do with that. And so I want to discuss like, is it, can you even run from AI? Is there a possibility of doing so? Should you be running from it like what what is the greater discussion or what is what are your actual tools in your tool belt if you want to avoid this stuff and so we're going to kind of cover both spectrums of this william and i have different differing opinions i think and uh we'll get into it there but that is our bonus topic for after the credits roll at the end i have so much to ask you about that but that's in a pesado plus later on for now we've already mentioned it um and it's possible to pick up from my accent that I'm not American. I am aware of the Super Bowl-ish. I didn't know until you told me when it was on, but you not only know when it's on, you're going to watch it. And I mentioned Apple Vision Pro, but we have a feature on Apple Insider about how to watch it on every sort of device. So what actually is your preferred Apple device of choice for Super Bowl? And I'm sorry, I don't know what number it is this time. 60 lx really yeah so i think uh so we're gonna be it's sunday obviously uh i'm gonna be watching on a roku tv at someone's house so uh not my choice but that's what they have um but yeah we're gonna be going to family's house to watch uh the super bowl mostly for the ads um go seahawks uh just honestly only because the patriots have forever been this bane of existence i don't really care about sports but i do know that you're supposed to hate the patriots uh even fans of the patriots i believe hate the patriots so it's it's a shared dislike so that was just practically meaningless to me except you did say go seahawks and i remember them saying that in frasier so are the seahawks the local band in um uh seattle no that's that's yeah that's who's going to be playing against the uh the patriots i don't know yes i don't i'm not trying to claim ignorance i genuinely don't know and i'm embarrassed about it where did the patriots come from oh honestly i couldn't tell you uh new england patriots what where where where where do they hail from let me let me find this real quick we're gonna make ourselves sound really smart here um yeah i've long given up on that but yeah but but new england see i knew it was new england patriots but like But like, but like New England isn't a place. Well, it is. It's just a big place. I've been there, I think. Let's see. We're going to cut all this out. I, I honestly, like where? I visited a town in New England where you could still see the bullet holes from when cowboys were shooting up the place. Boston. Of course it's Boston. But why? Boston versus Seattle. Well, that's a Frasier cheers. I've got to watch now I've got to cut all that out because that was ridiculous Okay So yes, Seattle versus Boston it's New England Patriots and Seahawks I don't really care NFL especially, I just don't care I like college football I cheer for the losing team every time Tennessee Volunteers, they're doing okay the last couple of years, but they'll never be big shots people aren't really talking about Tennessee So, uh, just, I enjoy the game. I enjoy the drama. I have a team I'm rooting for. I'm, I will be rooting for Seahawks, as I said. Um, but I'm mostly here because it's a fun time. Ads are crazy during the super bowl. It's an American tradition to, uh, spend millions of dollars for a 10 second ad spot. That is just absolutely as chaotic and insane as possible to catch your attention. Cause that's, you get maybe one, if you pay for two, you're, already a rich company but you only get one chance to catch everyone's attention and so like they always do these insane ads and i hate the internet for the fact that people are already publishing their ads don't go look spoilers i want to see i see that's during the show yeah right then of course the halftime show the anthropic ads um and i didn't understand how that was out yeah actually something else i don't understand i genuinely nothing against sport at all honestly I promise you, it just doesn't happen to do it for me. I'm never going to watch the game. So our feature on how to watch it on your iPhone, your Mac, Apple Pro, iPad, all this stuff, that doesn't really help me. Once the game is over, is it streamed somewhere that I can just fast wind to the ad breaks? You know, this is a good question. No idea. Because the streaming rights of every sport are awful these days. and the ability to even watch the Super Bowl. I guess you can watch it on Peacock, which is discounted through Apple, and I believe there's a free trial. So if you haven't used that free trial, go nuts. NBC or NBC Sports app, I believe. You have to have a cable subscription for that, though. Oh, yeah. You need a cable subscription to watch it on NBC. NFL also is offering it. but you need an NFL plus subscription. So it looks like you're, you're pretty much paying for this. Um, YouTube TV, Hulu plus like whatever live TV coverage you have, you have to be paying for the super bowl. But, um, as far as after the fact, I couldn't tell you, uh, there's probably going to be a replay on one of these platforms, probably peacock, uh, but it doesn't matter. Someone's going to have a higher highlight reel if you're really that interested. But the only thing we really care about is the halftime show. Yes. And actually, that's the only reason we mentioned Super Bowl before, because Bad Bunny is it, Apple Music is sponsoring it and all that stuff. But since we last mentioned it, Bad Bunny's gone and won a Grammy for it. So the man's doing well. Yes. Well, do you know the difference between Album of the Year and Record of the Year? I didn't even know there was a question about this. No. Yeah, me neither. So I don't think the industry knows. They are two different things, but he did win Album of the Year. so that's fun Apple also won a Grammy this year for the F1 soundtrack that country song I think is Stapleton I still haven't seen F1 but I can tell you I've now got the screenplay to read so I'll look at that at some point and it won't help me with the music side but I'll catch up somehow okay excellent film honestly I think we should go ahead and do the press day here because I think that would flow. Well, this is something I'm surprised to say I don't know that much about because it used to be that I would actually go to press events. All the networks, I mean, I'm in England, so it's BBC and ITV, Channel 4, they would hold these days where they would show journalists a clip reel of the best shows they've got coming that they had any footage for. They'd wheel out some celebrities. It's quite fascinating. I have really strong opinions for and against certain celebrities because of meeting them at these things. But this time, because in the States, I didn't go, but Apple has done it. They used to be called the upfronts in the States. That's what it was, because they were upfront to advertisers. This is what we're going to be trying to sell later. And I think that term still floats around, but doesn't really apply to streaming so much. So all I know is what I've read in Apple Insider, that a massive amount of new content coming to Apple TV has been listed. but I don't fully know what they are. Is there anything that has leapt out at you? So there are 20 separate properties listed here, which is impressive considering I think Apple launched with, what, eight on Apple TV? It was very small. And the fact that we're getting 20 properties, eight of them are returning, 12 of them are new. That's good, yeah. And what's interesting too is this isn't everything, I'm fairly certain. we apple usually sprinkles in a few uh things usually children's programming because i think they get the rights and just publish it very quickly that's why sometimes they'll just announce a show and it's coming out next week so there's still more coming from this i'm sure we'll get a couple surprises a couple of big shows um more premiere dates and stuff like that especially summer and fall apple will probably have some more theater-esque films to announce but anyway um the tv shows wise they uh several of them look really good um i want to check out margot's got money troubles nick offerman is in there with uh l fanning so michelle pfeiffer that looks great uh maximum pleasure guaranteed looks like it might be interesting i kind of like the idea of it just being this uh comedic thriller which is always a fun combination um yeah But movie-wise, I'm very interested in Eternity, which we've known about for a while, but that's debuting February 13th. Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller, Callum Turner, they're in a love triangle in the afterlife. Like, come on. That's great. Well, I didn't know about that, but there was a gorgeous BBC Radio 4 play that had a couple die, but the man had been married before so his ex was in heaven or hell whatever it was and now there was a like which one oh yeah all right i'm up for that yeah that's this that's the plot here uh she was um formerly with this guy who died young as uh i guess in the in the war uh whatever war that i couldn't keep track but there was a war and he is not he passed young tragically she fell in love again and now they're all dead and she has to choose between the man she spent her whole life with or her first love and uh that looks that looks very great uh you know what i didn't connect it but that's a good valentine's day movie we we do have valentine's day coming up well it kind of depends how it works out really doesn't it it could go either way yeah right but you know maybe watch it check it out first before you make it a date night uh is coming he's gonna be with uh Cameron Diaz and Jonah Hill in a movie called Outcome, directed by Jonah Hill. It's his third directorial film. So that should be fun. Love a good Keanu. Basically, he's being blackmailed with something that could ruin his Hollywood career and has to figure out a way to fix that. Actually, not to be a downer on this, but something that bothers me about, okay, only the little I've read of this slate, but also all Apple's been going on about creatives using Apple gear and other stuff. Apple consistently won't talk about the writers. So the people who thought up this thing just get ignored. I mean, I've even directly asked Apple who wrote things like the underdogs that they've done or their campaign about creatives, who wrote it, who aren't you crediting? And they will occasionally mention the actor. You can find out the director if you look in the right place, but never the writer. And it sounds like so far, it's again ignoring them. And that really bothers me for a company that's pushing its support of creatives. The press has more details about executive producers, and I think the writing team is in the main press releases, but this was kind of a... They're not, actually. I mean, generally speaking, that's what prompted the asking. You've listed everybody except the writers. That might also be my fault, just based on how I covered the news, just because, again, I was grabbing the headliners and wanted to keep the explanation fairly short. I'm not in any way dissing you. And coverage of all this thing, and I suppose even Apple's own coverage, it does concentrate on the people you see on screen because that's who you know. That's who's going to sell it for it. But we have things like at the moment, I believe, I don't have proof of this, but it looks to me like creatives will tend to go to Disney Plus last because they get so badly treated there, all sorts of things going on with Disney, which may change now there's a new CEO, that they are more likely to go to Apple. But there's Apple doing some less than creative stuff with it. Sorry, I'm off on one here. Yeah, if you go into the Apple TV Plus press room, which is a public website, they do list the writer of everything. you just have to go to the property. The writer for... They're consistently not. So if they have now, that's fantastic. Which is great. Yeah, it's Casting Crew is listed. Again, I'm looking at the main... So there's an Apple TV Press page. You go to Eternity's Press page and the Casting Crew is listed. And Pat Cunane I guess is the writer is how you say that name I so pleased Thank you And again that Apple press website Now, did the newsroom, like the actual article that announced the release of that film, say so? Probably not, but you're right. Not to press on this, but actually the full details before have not. So I'm just, I'm so, so excited about this. So, okay, you made me happy there. Good to see. But talking about happy, there was a headline I saw that isn't in this list, but it's kind of mentioned at the same time, that I thought, Wes, immediately. F2? Is that likely? Well, it won't be called F2 because that would mean Brad Pitt was demoted. Sorry. Okay. Yes, it would. Okay. F2 is the slower cars of the same racing. Which I believe they actually, that's what they drove. in the film wasn't it but okay so formula one i think they should call it no f1 the movie the sequel i think that would be that's a bit like airplane the sequel that that's what that was called but okay there's a few there's a few uh joke bits uh title wise i mean i'll always go with electric boogaloo because i think that's just funny um i i so yeah there was a tease i i briefly want to get back to the list because there's a couple of movies here that i have to point out but um but before we do yes eddie q and the f1 ceo spoke at this thing and apparently what they said was just completely boring because no one actually covered what they said even though it was a press day briefing we got one quote from one outlet i believe deadline actually just said yeah they said a bunch of stuff but the one thing we cared about is someone asked if there's going to be a sequel the f1 ceo is like not this year but maybe in the future we'll consider it if it you know keep it keep your eyes out like not confirming anything and then eddie q's just like yeah we have 24 sequels coming out this year it's called f1 watch it on your tv it's a sport yeah there's 24 races in the season so and apple's giving them all to us uh through apple tv so that's exciting quickly though because we do have other topics to get to i wanted to point out the dink looks silly this is a show about a guy who grows up i guess working at his dad's tennis thing and his dad hates pickleball so he's raised to hate pickleball and then because of an injury he has to pick up the sport and then falls in love with it i just find that whole premise very silly uh so good good comedy there but we have ryan reynolds returning mayday this one's kind of another like i kind of want to watch it to see how it goes because he is a cold war pilot who ends up behind enemy lines in russia and meets an xkgb agent and this is described as a buddy comedy movie okay so you know so behind enemy lines in russia as a american you know guy just the whole thing sounds absurd i i i'm excited to see a trailer for it see what they're what angle they're going for because that could be very funny or very bleak and and two more so matchbox the movie. Are you aware of what Matchbox is? Dinky cars or something. Toy things. Little toys. There's hundreds if not thousands of them of just these little cars. I used to collect them and play with them as a child. This is very much up my alley. Guess what this movie is not about, William? Would it be not about those cars? It is Mattel, makers of the cars. oh that's interesting the movie brought to you by apple tv starring john cena but the plot of the movie is not about them him being a cia undercover agent and dragging his childhood friends into a undercover thing by accident where they have to try and save the world if this doesn't somehow tie back to them playing with cars i'm going to be very upset well i'm interested in this because i didn't know about it before but mattel uh once barbie was i mean barbie's fantastic film once it was this amazing hit it was announced that mattel was looking to license everything it could but that's a couple years ago now and this is the first time i've heard this is their second other okay i mean apple grabbed it now i'll watch it because of barbie or at least i'll give it a start for it but yeah barbie's complicated on its own like it's it was a great movie but what what it represented may have been overplayed a little bit as far as you know feminism and everything as like there's blogs and blogs and blogs about it yeah but they're all wrong um no i again i i thought it was an excellent excellent movie it's just uh they they there's certain things that they did that could have anyway that's that's a whole different topic we're not that show uh matchbox though i do think is funny is basically the literal polar opposite of that this again the description i want to see the trailer because this could be a very different movie but the description is very machismo fast and furious uh guns and explosions uh they might have this cute thing where uh john cena is this actually even though he's a undercover agent he's actually the silly childish guy who hangs out with his buddies whatever we'll see but i want to see i don't see apple coming out with uh uh machismo the movie so i i don't know and again mattel seems to know what they're doing this this one's for the boys right so i i think that's that's the angle that they're like going from barbie to matchbox is such an interesting step so i'm very interested in seeing how this is played but that doesn't come till october i've got to say now sorry i've got to say this you only see you said explosions and things i want little tiny explosions with those little tiny cars and all this our community did that somebody sent a tiny tiny warning with the little toy car exploding yes i'd be in for that but no you've got something else and then i have a question if the matchbox doesn't involve somehow the titular cars i will be very upset yeah uh finally way of the warrior kid this one looks interesting just because ignoring the fact chris pratt's in this movie um it's he plays a navy seal who is going to help a kid who's dealing with bullying but when i first read this i thought oh he's going to teach him to beat up these kids but no apparently he's going to design a training session just like his navy seals training for this child but the result is to help him have more courage and not to teach him how to fight so i don't know if i'll watch this one but it's just there's a lot of weird plotty things going on there in the description i was just like hmm i don't know i'll at least watch the trailer do you know you mentioned the list several times there and i should have looked before so i did while he was speaking and i'm not seeing references to uh slow horses which we know is coming back and um down cemetery road that unquestionably got a two series deal that's not mentioned either so i think you're right there are going to be more announcements throughout the year excellent this isn't everything this is just what they wanted to reveal to us at that time just a sizzle this episode is brought to you by masterclass the online learning platform that i've been using to well you learn new things yes but also just enjoy the absolutely fascinating company of people i admire across writing across art and technology um and i'm not ever going to say that i've been using masterclass wrong because i don't really know how you could but for years right i I've been watching classes on my Apple TV 4K in my living room. 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I mean, I love the stuff, drama, Apple, they do so well, just my wheelhouse. But we can just tie this back to something else here, because you will be able to watch all of this on Apple Vision Pro, if you have one. and you've now had exactly two years in which to buy one. So that's a sort of not really conflicting articles on AppleInsider.com, but Mike Weatherly's less sure about it. You're more sure, but I think you're both kind of hovering around the middle. Neither is against or for it. Where do you stand? Mike echoes my points. uh he's just we're we're if you glass half full glass half empty we're just on opposite ends of the spectrum um but we're we're in full agreement here uh as mike says it apple doesn't seem to have a good plot like good through line for apple vision pro what it's doing or at least they haven't told us publicly because as i've said before my reviews and my most recent review it it's missing developer support and apple is in full control of this they need to come up with an incentive program they just need to buy some developers they should go hire all the game studios that meta just laid off right like apple needs to be doing something internal that can that will push this narrative they have not changed what native apps there are on the platform since launch two years ago. These same iPad-compatible apps are still iPad-compatible apps two years later and have not been converted to native. So this conversation continues. Mike wrote this story, but again, as long as Apple isn't putting everything into Apple Vision Pro, native support, developers, incentives, it's a product without a purpose. It needs developer support to get that killer app, to get people to buy it. but the chicken and egg problem also exists of developers can't develop for it if they can't make any money because no one owns the thing so something needs to budge and apple's the one with all the cards and all the money so they need to do something right but um certain things like that i'm quite shocked about the native apps the non-native apps still being non-native it sounds like from outside, a solution is obvious, more investment, create native apps, support developers, buy studios even, like you say. Apple appears to have done none of this. So why not, do you think? Well, it's complicated. Apple, for whatever reason, is a very, you know, focused company. And the fact that it seems like they have 12 employees and they can only work on one project at a time and apple intelligence kind of took over everything uh apple vision pro was announced at a very unfortunate turning point in the company where as soon as it was announced uh the media was basically beating them over the head every day with why aren't you doing ai why aren't you doing ai and meanwhile apple's like but look at this cool thing we made and they basically seemingly pivoted every resource they had to let's get this ai stuff working and here we are it's now working at least internally. We're about to get it to the public and that's finally done. So maybe we'll see some attention elsewhere. WWDC could be very interesting this year for Apple vision pro because this is the two year mark, right? That first vision OS update was a baby step. Vision OS 26 added something, some very interesting stuff, but it wasn't a big departure. I think this is the time for Apple to have a make or break moment in the development community. WWDC is a developer conference. This is where they make these kinds of announcements. They got to say something about this platform there. Now, all that said, I have no doubt in my mind that Apple Vision Pro is fine. I still am fully of the mind that Apple Vision Pro is doing what Apple wants it to do. It is in the wild. They're able to learn from people's use of it. They're tweaking development pipelines based on it being released. So it being released was correct. and how it's selling is probably fine for what Apple wanted it to do, especially at that price. But for us to move forward, things need to change. I don't think the platform is dead. I don't think Apple's going to give up on it. Or if we see glasses later this year, the headlines will say, Apple gives up on Vision Pro and releases smart glasses. They can release in tandem. And I think that's what they're doing, but something's got to give. And I think this is the year to do it or else I'm going to start getting really concerned. I was going to ask you about the next glasses because you've said before things like, I mean, there are rumors of all sorts when they'll be out, but you were saying 27 seems to be the most likely for it. Is there any chance that by now Apple is waiting for that release? So not this year's WWDC, but next? They're separate products. They don't even have a UI. The first set of glasses, which are expected in the winter, So this is like an October announcement of 2026 that could launch by December. So think AirPods Max, AirPods Max launched in December. This could be that kind of product, but it's a set of glasses you wear with maybe cameras, microphones, no discernible UI. Your interaction is through your voice and your other devices. So it's not Vision OS as a platform, at least not yet. It could evolve into that, and it might even run Vision OS underneath the hardware, but it won't have a display. So that is going to be more app-intense-based. It's going to be more widget-based. It's going to be what we already have through our devices. Honestly, developers probably have very little that they need to do to support this thing. So that, I don't think, has anything to do with the development of Apple Vision Pro. something that you and i've kind of disagreed on in the past is um the difference between something like apple vision pro spatial computing and foldable devices uh previously you felt foldables are kind of gone uh had their time such as it was and special computing is the future but that future doesn seem to be coming and this week we have heard stories about well a folding iPhone but an iPhone flip so a clamshell version rather than a book thing I more on the foldable side than you ever been Are you starting to come my way Well, there's still no evidence of the fold actually being prepped for the fall release, which is really funny. It's getting closer and closer to that make-or-break period where the industry has to be ramping up, right? development of this device should already be well into we're ramping up supply chain and we have we have not seen the supply chain ramp up for this a rumor came out as we record um from the and they're talking about apple prepping for small um basically a small supply chain pipeline beginning mid-February, that's not historically good. If that's when they start production, that is literally the last viable moment that they could for them to have the units ready in time for September. Now, of course, Apple probably isn't expecting to sell that many. They probably have plenty of time to manufacture the ones that they do intend to sell, but it's just we're at that weird point if we have if we reach the end of february and we don't have like actual ming chi quo level supply chain this is happening i'm going to be very surprised if we see an iphone fold this fall okay that so the flip that you're asking about is apparently the sequel right this is apple is going if the fold does well the flip will come out next and this is from mark german the thing is is going back to 2019 when these folding rumors started when the industry launched foldables this has always been the case apple has internally been developing both a clamshell and a book style foldable this entire time so i don't know why this is coming out now other than whatever is internal sources is just making assumptions or maybe there is a more definitive timeline but again like the fact that this story exists on top of a bunch of ifs if the foldable launches in the fall if it does well i don't think this is really anything to even look at currently like i this is like if the leprechaun exists at the end of the rainbow there will be a you know a thing of gold well we need to make sure that the there is an end of the rainbow first where we're in step one you're talking about step four i i don't think there's anything to even discuss here yet i'd actually forgotten that the first Samsung phones were flip I think up to now I've been imagining a book like one because I just that appeals to me but as soon as I heard this idea of a flip the room of surfacing again it flashed me back to the days of flip phones and the one benefit they had is if you were having a row with somebody on the call instead of shouting down I'll never speak to you again and then having to find the off button and hear a little bleep you could just crunch the phone close you really feel it we could get back to that there's a video game franchise called final fantasy 7 in which they have a movie that they made because square enix loves making movies even though they've only made like three uh they're fairly good at it considering the script writing is not that good but they're very beautiful to look at um they made a film set after the original game called advent children in which this is 2000 i mean they would have been developing the movie in 2004 to 2006 but they have this flip phone and this phone was sold in japan and you could actually buy it and it had a mobile game set in the final fantasy 7 universe built into it uh all very interesting but the point i'm trying to make is every shot of that phone in that movie was the most dramatic like slow they're they're reaching the the ringtones going off they're flipping the phone open and then slowly holding it up to their head what is it and it's just like they really sold that flip phone and i'm like man yeah i do miss flip phones and and and then they come out with a remake recently and they all have smartphones now and they're all touchscreen and i'm like darn it that was like that was so fun that was a good dramatic i believe anyway like it's just one of those silly things you notice i want to see that now but okay it's it's very very silly uh very good movie for the series the series itself and you would have no interest in it but anyway i've heard of final fantasy i didn't know there was seven of them but i've heard of it are there more now 16 oh goodness okay you as a writer though might find it interesting that each game is its own universe uh final fantasy one does not connect to final fantasy two they're all individually anyway yeah moving on my point is is flip phones neat they still exist uh foldable format with the touch screen i am not sold on their practicality or usefulness even more so than book phones at least the book ones you're opening to a tablet this one you're opening to a phone you're still dealing with it yeah you're still dealing with the double thickness problem complexity for complexity's sake. I don't know. That's rotten. You've just put me off it again. But I'm still on the book-like one. So by September, one of us is going to be disappointed if it doesn't come. The other one, no, actually, I'm getting mixed up here. I could be pleased that it's come, but it'll be so expensive I can't afford it. We could both end up wrong. William, I could see you buying the iPhone Fold, the book style one, and you're using it unfolded. You're sitting there in a chair with a cup of tea and someone walks in to ask you a question and you dramatically snap the phone shut and look at them and say, what is it? It writes itself, doesn't it? The script, okay. This episode is brought to you by Nordsteller. Nordsteller is a threat exposure management platform for businesses. It detects cyber attacks against your company and it helps you take control before they escalate. So for C-level managers, Nordsteller's attack surface management provides faster detection, faster prioritization. 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You go to do that, and I'll go to thank Nordsteller for supporting the Apple Insider podcast. You mentioned about complexity there. There's a small thing I do want to touch on before we move to some serious topics. Call screening. I read about this. Call screening, which is a reasonably new feature on the iPhone, has been thwarting celebrity lawyers in Hollywood. Now, I wrote this story for AppleInsider.com. a link to it with the full details and I wasn't gentle for these lawyers but actually I don't think it's anybody's job to know what was ours really uh but yeah in normal everyday use to study the manuals to read the press releases none of that is true you just you use what you need to use you find what you need in this case it seems that lawyers were actually turning on call screening and then forgetting that they'd turned it on and complaining when their calls were screened. That's the bit I think is a bit silly, really. But it brings me to this. I think a long time ago when this first came out, I told you I couldn't ever do it because I get a lot of calls, most specifically from BBC Radio, and it can be from any producer in any local radio station. So the number could be absolutely anything. There's no way for me to allow those calls. So I just never turned it on i think you have turned on call screening and if i'm right do you do you like it it's complicated i i've kept it on because i like the feature i like that it exists um but i think it also might be creating a problem because every day at around the same time every day i'm i want to say between 4 p.m and 6 p.m i get a call and it is from the same spam group of, I am a lender looking over the details of your loan for $47,000. If you would like to discuss this further, please call back. Like it's the same thing every single time. And the call screening picks it up. It comes up with an option for me to view the call screen. And I do. And then the second I see the phrase, like I am a, your lender department, I hit end. and it ends and then i go to the phone app block the number and then report spam right and then i get a call the next day from a different number so i don't i i i want to see it they must have an infinite number of there seemingly is an infinite number of phone numbers but i think i can block them all ultimately that's my goal at this point it's just for spite i have to do this because I think the problem is, is Siri answering the phone and saying, hey, the user will answer if you leave a good enough reason, is sending the signal of there's a human on the other end. So now my bots are talking to each other and I may be actually hurting myself because of that. When I answer the phone now, it's an unknown number. I don't say anything. And after a couple of seconds, either it's somebody going, hello, are you actually there? Or more often, and I mean very many times a day, I get three bleeps and it hangs up. And that's why I'd forgotten why I do it, because I don't want to encourage them. We need one more setting, and this would be perfect. And I hope Apple does this. The thing that's wild about this is anytime I do this, it lists the number as probable spam. Right. I think I've got their early albums. Sorry. Okay. Yeah. They still list the number as probable spam and they still do the call screening on it anyway. Just let me put in settings. If it's probable spam, hang up. Don't do call screening. That's it. That's all that would need to happen. And it would solve all of my problems because my alternative right now, which I could do, which again, I'm not going to because I want to block every number known to man out of spite. But I could go into settings, say, turn off call screening and automatically direct all unknown callers to voicemail. And that would solve it. But then I wouldn't be using call screening, which is a feature I actually like. And I like that it exists. I want to use it. But, yeah, that's one little complexity there. Well, I can't use call screening for those reasons. I do really like picking up the phone and seeing a transcript of a call that I've missed. But actually this week, my sister-in-law phoned my wife and her message began, Hi, it's only me. And that was transcribed as Honey May, which is what we're now calling her. Yeah. So, you know, it's a creative tool, really. I didn't think this was going to be, of course, going to be quite such a controversial topic. short topic but this week in which we do not have a controversy corner we do have something that well it's confusing me um this is the conflicting stories about gemini and privacy that we have a headline in app inside about how google and apple ceos uh are contradicting each other about their ai partnership now you said before that google wants everybody to think that's it we're running Siri and Apple actually wants to toss them out the door as soon as they've got Siri working. Is that feeding into that or am I totally wrong again? So my angle here, of course, is seemingly contradictory because if you actually pay attention to all this and are reporting, they're not contradicting each other. But if you read other websites and for some reason, mark german these are contradictory statements and it's just like i i don't know why they need to be contradictory i think it just adds to the drama um people really love this this idea that apple is this abject failure and they're relying on google and they can't do anything right and they're just bad at it and google's here to save the day that that whole thing that keeps pushing through to the surface of all these stories and coloring how they're covered. But when you just look at what's being said, it, it, and you connect the dots factually, it makes sense. Basically, Google had its earnings call and, uh, send our Pichai and his, uh, chief business officer CBO said basically identical quotes and their prepared statements. We are collaborating with Apple as their preferred cloud provider and to develop the next generation of Apple Foundation models based on Gemini technology. Now, William, what does that sentence mean to you? They've studied every syllable, they've lawyered up, and they're trying to sell, excuse me, trying to say nothing, really. They're not tying themselves down to anything. all right well i don't know well so people are getting hung up on preferred cloud provider meaning now mark german and everyone's just like see see look apple is using google to power siri in the cloud i don't read it that way so and it gets complicated so we'll get into it but this is my summary. This is, if we took every quote and every statement to the public so far, this is where I've arrived. Right. And what I've written in the story, Apple and Google have partnered to utilize a version of Gemini built to run on Apple's private cloud compute servers to train Apple foundation models and will make that makes them more capable. The resulting Apple foundation models will power Apple intelligence and Siri, both on device and in private cloud compute. and those servers will either be Apple's or Google's while upholding Apple's privacy standards. Okay. Now, I don't know how that's confusing to people. I think the glitch here is people are like, well, if it's a Google server, it can't be private cloud compute. So I went and looked at what Apple defines as a private cloud compute server and it currently does specifically call out Apple Silicon, but not because that is what is running the model, but that's because of what is running the cryptography. So basically private cloud compute is possible because all of your data is being sent to Apple server encrypted and a secure enclave running on Apple Silicon is able to with built in secure boot has the ability to decrypt that incoming message pass it along to the more powerful Apple intelligence model re it using the Apple Silicon and pass it back Now, Apple doesn't define what Apple Silicon is performing the AI processes that are occurring in the servers. So it is reasonable to assume that Apple could still rent Google's TPUs and insert an Apple Silicon or even program, because, again, Google's TPU servers are being created to be private servers as well with Google's technology. so theoretically Apple could use this it's the same technologies as a secure enclave and secure boot just Google's version and Apple is able to do identical processes if that's not the case then all Apple has to do is put a bit of Apple silicon between the user and the Google server TPUs but either way Apple using Google servers does not automatically mean it is no longer private cloud compute and no longer secure and private. I think that's the confusion. What I picture when it's using Google servers, that it's a computer in one of Google's offices. So somebody can just stick in a USB stick, do something like that. That's what people assume. Yeah. But it isn't like that at all. We use AWS, Amazon, like cloud. True. And Apple uses Google, increasingly so, Google servers for iCloud. But that doesn't mean your iCloud data is accessible by Google. So why is it suddenly that if Apple uses Google's TPUs in the cloud, that it's suddenly we're giving data to Google? I don't buy that. And again, these statements from CEOs, they don't leave any wiggle room for interpretation. They are vague, but vague on detail not vague on legality tim cook is saying explicitly that the what is coming to apple's devices in the future is apple intelligence running apple foundation models on device and private cloud compute he doesn't say and other servers like there's no there's nothing else there to interpret now the only give i will give mark german here and others disputing this is apple and Google both have been very adamant about saying Apple intelligence and Apple foundation models. They're not mentioning Siri specifically, as far as I can tell. Maybe I'm forgetting one of their statements, but I'm fairly certain. I'll go back and look, but I'm fairly certain none of these statements say Siri explicitly. But there's a problem with that though, because Mark Gurman himself has said that the next incoming Siri is going to be powered by foundation models built by Apple. And people are saying, well, actually, it's not going to be Apple foundation models. It's going to be Gemini, but Apple is saying, no, it's going to be Apple foundation models powering everything. So I, there's some disconnect here and how this is being told. And I, and I believe it just comes down to people deliberately trying to find some failure here as silly as that sounds well you see that in politics i mean maybe it's a new uk thing so not unfamiliar i think in a way this is all kind of wearing me down um but we should soon so here it is okay sorry i i wanted to so this is the original joint statement just to be clear apple and google have entered into a multi-year collaboration under which next generation of Apple Foundation models will be based on Google's Gemini models and cloud technology. So even there, they said cloud technology, by the way. These models will help power future Apple intelligence features, including a more personalized Siri coming this year. Apple's portion of the statement, after careful evaluation, Apple determined that Google's AI technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation models and is excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for Apple users. Apple intelligence will continue to run on Apple devices and private cloud compute while maintaining Apple's industry leading privacy standards. They're not mincing words here. And they even go out to point to Siri being part of this. So unless Tim Cook is lying and that's a legal problem that you can sue him for and apple's definition of private cloud compute hasn't changed and according to their website it hasn't this isn't suddenly going to be going through google platforms that is not what any of this says and i don't know why that keeps coming back as a suggestion okay i do feel worn down by all of this back and forth and it's google it's serious all this stuff but uh we keep saying everybody keeps saying the new series coming in the spring yeah when should i expect to actually be able to try it out do we know enough so for one last thing because i completely forgot during the earnings call i wanted to say this tim cook said we are not sharing anything else about this just straight up like they kept asking the analysts like i think four different analysts during the call was asking, so what about this? What about this Google deal? And straight up, Apple says, we're not releasing any more details of this deal. And that was the end of the discussion. So we may not ever know exactly how this is implemented beyond leaks, but again, you have to listen to what they're saying. So what you're asking is, when is this coming? So 26.4 is the expectation uh we should see 26.3 next week i i'm assuming because we have our least candidate as we record so that's great uh there's a new xcode ai we might have a second to talk about there's really not much to say but that's coming and then 26.4 betas should start probably next week if not the week after but very soon the thing is as i've mentioned before this is a lot of this is also server side now apple intelligence on-device models all of that app intents yes that's on device but a lot of this is checking boxes in the background apple may not enable this on the first beta they may not enable this at all during the betas they might wait to release it all together at the end of the beta cycle. We don't know, but it is due in 26.4 at the bare minimum. No, that this will be available to the public when 26.4 releases sometime, probably in early March. So, and if you're thinking, Oh, I'm going to join the betas and test this, hold off until you know for sure that it's there, but also don't install the betas just to test this. It's probably going to be very broken. and this is so intimately entwined with all of your devices, services, and features, it might not be a good idea to just throw it on your device. I trust Apple to put out a good beta for this, but still, don't just run out and do it immediately. Give it a day. Listen to what people have to say about it. Joe, I'd actually forgotten. Apple did exactly what you just said about not releasing the betas. I think it was the very first Apple Intelligence suddenly came out later. i'm going to be mildly crushed because i wanted to play with it but um okay i can hang on for a few more weeks uh we're not far no it will be before june so we are getting we are confirmed from apple from everyone we are getting new features based on apple intelligence and this new gemini partnership in the spring before wwdc so okay i'm just aware that apple's definition springs can be quite literal and it's later than you think but yeah april okay yes i mean this beta cycle could go long we've seen long ones before we've we've seen beta eights right so it could take a few weeks before this fully launches but i'm expecting march april so okay i mean obviously april at the latest one thing you did just mention this but actually i think i'm more excited about it than you um the new apple intelligence and ai features excuse me in xcode this is just out now in at least in beta xcode 26.3 and if you don't happen to know and why would you xcode is the app development platform that apple makes um i've i've been developer apps before i've used it i've struggled through it i've hired people to fix my problems but i did re-download xcode 26.3 this week and i actually did make an app that I've been meaning to make for ages. It was, I've got to tell you, total rubbish, but it worked in moments. So there's the thing of AI being useful. Have you given in and tried developing apps this week? I would have to turn on my Mac to do that. The last time I used Xcode deliberately was before emulators became more available on iOS. I would sideload Delta and similar using Xcode. I didn't know you could do that, but okay, right. Yeah, you need your own developer certificate and have to be, anyway, like you basically execute it as a app that you're testing on your device and then you can just run it. So I would use it for that kind of stuff. And Xcode's fairly straightforward, easy to navigate. It's error systems, somewhat obtuse, but you can get around it if you Google enough to find where you need to be. But I am fine with this, first off. This is clearly where things are going. The key, and we're going to get into this into Apple Insider Plus in a moment, but the key to understand with all AI tools is it is a better hammer, and you have to hammer nails, right? It's not a thing that's going to solve all the problems. You're not suddenly going to become a developer because you can tell AI to develop this app for you. It can get you started. It can correct, find errors or correct errors that you've made easier. Like it speeds up the development process. I've been keeping up with other people doing this and it's really cool. The stuff they've done, they've made websites and apps, web apps that they need or want or have wanted for years. And they just type in a prompt describing what they want and get something usable at the output. That's amazing. It's just, you have to understand there are risks involved. You're allowing it access basically to shell level scripts on your device. You are, Apple obviously has built in safeguards, but still if you are already a developer and you already have an app using vibe coding can lead to pushing updates that you didn't mean to push because the bot decided to do it for you, right? There's a lot of scary things that can happen with this kind of stuff. You have to take a lot of precautions with it, But if you know what you're doing and you already know how to build an app, it's like suddenly having encyclopedic knowledge about every single Apple rule and API at your fingertips while also understanding what an app should look like and how to code it. So it can really open up possibilities and it does lower the floor of being able to build something. just understand that this doesn't it's not some superpower the thing that you're trying like if you are literally never touched a line of code before in your life and you wanted to generate an app whatever you make is not going to be as good as what someone else has probably already made and published on the app store i've seen people um reddit discord they're saying stuff like i don't need to buy apps anymore if i want to use an app i just tell it hey this app on the app store is cool make it for me and then i can just run it that is not going to work you might you might think it's going to work and you might even get something that turns on it's not going to work this has put me back in mind of funnel cut pro on the ipad uh imagine going into xco and say make me a video editor like funnel cut pro yeah uh which doesn't cause me problems and have me phoning apple but that's another story i'll tell you if anyone if you actually or anyone wants to buy my absolutely rubbish app, they can contact me about it on williamatappleinsider.com. I'm not even going to tell you what it was. It was that bad. But, you know, if you're interested, it's yours for however much I can get out of you. You can also find me on YouTube at 58keys. But what about you? If people want to totally disagree with you about AI, how would they do it? Well, you can reach out to me, wesatappleinsider.com, for email, Hilly Tech on Blue Sky, Macedon. I always appreciate messages and things that I get there. Emails are always good. Been getting some of those. Nothing really new in Apple Podcasts. We got a couple of reviews who don't like Controversy Corner, but as I've said, we're not going to read reviews that are politically motivated here anymore. But if you leave any actual critique, I don't care if it's one star. If it's an actual critique of the show, you can leave it. We will read it here. but we also like our five-star reviews from people who enjoy the show. So if you want to leave that and tell us what you like about the show or give us suggestions, feel free. We'll read it here, but nothing new to share this week. And I have also been working on the Hilly Tech blog. It's a separate thing. It's not Apple Insider, but I am writing about everything. It's kind of just a life and fun blog. I'm talking more about tech, going more in depth about my feelings and thoughts about this stuff we talk about here. But also I might recommend an anime or a video game. So it's more of a personal thing. But if you guys want to check that out, reach out to me on Blue Sky or look it up. But, yeah. We'll make sure the link's in the show notes as well. Forget this reaching out to you. Just go straight to it. Yeah. I would like to say, this is going to sound like I'm biased because you and I talk about this, Controversy Corner every week. uh i think it's great and it was not anything to do with me it was entirely your idea and i thought you'd let us um address the issues that are affecting apple and therefore affecting all of us but doing it in a way that at least is straightforward and controlled and sticks to the facts so i really like that and i'm grateful for you coming up with it but speaking of sticking to the facts that is actually the point of the apple insider podcast until you get to app insider plus no wait that sounds like we just lied i was gonna say fact-based opinion yeah yeah um we're not throwing facts out the window leprechauns invited let's go do you know i'd listen to that actually um anyway the point of apple cider plus is that we all use this gear and we all mostly like it or we wouldn't or we wouldn't put up with if we had to do it um but there are things like well my final cut pro issue there are things we don't like things we need to discuss things we can enjoy and then there are these much much broader issues that i think actually affect all of us in and out of technology and that's what this week's one i think is going to be more about you know ai you can run but can you hide that's what we're going to discuss in this week's up side of plus which if you're not already listening to you can get to buy um patreon or I always struggle saying this, Apple Podcast Subscriptions. You could subscribe. You could be an Apple Podcast Subscriptions subscriber. Made it. And it'd be a treat to have you there. But in the meantime, thank you very much for listening. Thank you too to our sponsors, Masterclass and Nordstella. And we will be back with more news next week. Thank you.