WWDC 2025 Preview with Riley Hill

Intro

Riley Hill (0s)

Maybe maybe I prefer a pin over a necklace, but some whatever that thing's gonna be

Tom Anderson (8s)

Quote of the show right there.

Tom Anderson (14s)

Hello everyone and welcome to a new episode of Basic AF. I am Tom Anderson and I am joined as always by my good friend and co-host, Jeff Battersby. Hello, Jeff.

Jeff Battersby (23s)

Tom Anderson, good morning.

Jeff Battersby (24s)

How are you?

Tom Anderson (25s)

Doing great, sir. How are you?

Jeff Battersby (26s)

Yeah, you look great.

Jeff Battersby (28s)

I lied.

Jeff Battersby (30s)

No, no, no.

Jeff Battersby (31s)

I was telling the truth.

Tom Anderson (32s)

I've been working out.

Jeff Battersby (32s)

Um, yeah, I bet you, I bet you had, you got that cool gym.

Jeff Battersby (37s)

Why wouldn't you work out?

Jeff Battersby (39s)

Um, Tom, we've got a guest and, uh, we've given this guest short shrift should have had them on much sooner than this and more often.

Hello Again, Riley Hill!

Jeff Battersby (51s)

We have Riley

Jeff Battersby (53s)

Hill at Slatepad on whatever platform you're at. Riley, good morning.

Riley Hill (1m)

Gentlemen good morning. Thank you for having me.

Tom Anderson (1m 2s)

Welcome back, sir.

Jeff Battersby (1m 4s)

Yeah, we should have had you on a ton more than we've had you on. I don't know what happened. But somehow. Well, that no, no,

Riley Hill (1m 9s)

You guys are busy, that's what happened.

Jeff Battersby (1m 12s)

we just we we did you wrong. That's, that's all I can say. We need to get you back on here more often.

Tom Anderson (1m 13s)

No. (laughs)

Riley Hill (1m 15s)

No.

Riley Hill (1m 19s)

I'm happy to be here.

Jeff Battersby (1m 20s)

Yeah, it's good to have you. Definitely good to have--

Jeff Battersby (1m 23s)

I think we-- Time, you said earlier that we had Rayleigh on a year ago,

Jeff Battersby (1m 26s)

basically for the same episode, the WWDC episode of--

Jeff Battersby (1m 31s)

or the preamble to the WWDC episode.

Jeff Battersby (1m 35s)

So, nice to have you back a year later.

Riley Hill (1m 37s)

Thank you.

Tom Anderson (1m 38s)

And it wasn't intentional that we have you back for the same thing.

Tom Anderson (1m 40s)

It just kind of worked out that way.

Tom Anderson (1m 41s)

Yeah, it was back episode 36 and we're up to 62.

Jeff Battersby (1m 44s)

Dang.

Tom Anderson (1m 45s)

So don't forget show notes, basicafshow.com/62.

Jeff Battersby (1m 49s)

Yes, thank you very much. Good deal.

Jeff Battersby (1m 51s)

And just a reminder, Randall Martin Design and Show Music is by Psychokinetics and Celsius 7.

Jeff Battersby (1m 59s)

So we recommend you check them out.

Jeff Battersby (2m 1s)

Do that at the top, don't have to do it at the end.

Jeff Battersby (2m 3s)

Look it, we did all the business so we can get down to other business.

Tom Anderson (2m 3s)

Alright, we got a lot to talk about so we're going to talk a little bit later about the news that came out of Google I/O this week.

Tom Anderson (2m 14s)

Johnny Ive is back in the news doing a little thing with open AI that is pretty interesting so we're going to talk about that.

Tom Anderson (2m 22s)

But first our WWDC preview so that's coming up two weeks from today as you listen to this as the show is released on Monday.

WWDC 2025 Preview

Tom Anderson (2m 33s)

May 26, uh, all online and everything.

Tom Anderson (2m 37s)

Keynote is that morning of, uh, June 9th.

Tom Anderson (2m 40s)

So we thought we would dig into that, talk a little bit, maybe share some things we're hoping for what's coming, what's not coming, enthusiasm levels, and all of those sorts of things.

Tom Anderson (2m 52s)

Cause Apple's been getting dinged quite a bit lately, uh, for various reasons.

Jeff Battersby (2m 55s)

Yeeeep.

Tom Anderson (2m 57s)

Uh, so, um, why don't we kind of just kind of go through some of

Tom Anderson (3m 3s)

the rumors here, uh, start with iOS and iPad OS, we're up to version 19.

Tom Anderson (3m 9s)

And Riley of the rumors, have any been of particular interest to you?

Riley Hill (3m 16s)

Well, any time Apple does a redesign is of definite interest.

Riley Hill (3m 22s)

The fact that we seem to be heading towards what sounds like a unified design language across all of their major platforms is going to be interesting.

Riley Hill (3m 34s)

I'm sure it'll be, you know, everything is divisive these days.

Riley Hill (3m 40s)

I'm sure, you know, like literally everything, which is, which is fine, but.

Jeff Battersby (3m 42s)

No.

Riley Hill (3m 46s)

I'm very interested in that to see what they come up with, you know, the rumors suggesting they're going to kind of start with vision that the direction of Vision Pro and filter that across the line.

Riley Hill (3m 59s)

But which is, which is, which is, I think, good.

Riley Hill (4m 2s)

I think Vision OS is nicely designed.

Riley Hill (4m 6s)

And then obviously the iPad productivity rumors are always, you know, we used to get a big iPad release every two years, and then

Riley Hill (4m 16s)

now they come a few, you know, it takes longer to do those, but it sounds like whatever that ends up being, at least they're giving iPad some attention, which is always a positive

Jeff Battersby (4m 26s)

Now, what do you think of the idea that we're now going to get a macOS-like menu bar?

Jeff Battersby (4m 34s)

What do you think that speaks to?

Riley Hill (4m 35s)

I'm struggling to see the point with iPad, you know, obviously with iPad OS as it is today.

Riley Hill (4m 46s)

Like, I don't know, obviously, you know, if an app you're using has keyboard shortcuts,

Riley Hill (4m 51s)

that menu bar with the shortcuts looks like kind of a menu bar. Like, I don't know if they're just surfacing those better, like in Stage Manager or what they're going to do there. But I'm honestly

Riley Hill (5m 5s)

see the value personally. I mean, yeah.

Jeff Battersby (5m 7s)

Okay. Yeah, it makes me wonder whether or not it's going to swing more towards a Mac OS like user interface, you know, where we become a tablet in the sense that, you know, Microsoft has a

Jeff Battersby (5m 20s)

has a tablet where it's Windows OS, you know, running on on something that you can touch. I know, it's interesting to me, I

Jeff Battersby (5m 30s)

still, I, the only place I really do a lot of work on my My iPad is, as I've said several times here, is...

Jeff Battersby (5m 37s)

when I'm doing editing work, you know, I do manual edits on my iPad and I use it a lot for theater, but that's the extent of it. Otherwise it's a content consumption platform, you know, watching a basketball game or a baseball game or a movie while I'm cooking dinner or doing something like that. So it'll be interesting to me whether or not that opens up any other opportunities, but you're very different.

Jeff Battersby (6m 7s)

In that regard, you're using this every day.

Riley Hill (6m 10s)

Mm-hmm

Jeff Battersby (6m 10s)

You're recording this podcast.

Riley Hill (6m 13s)

Absolutely, yeah, I think that

Riley Hill (6m 19s)

You know, it's a good and bad thing on Apple's side, but

Riley Hill (6m 23s)

And I think I said this dad a year ago or something somewhere in a blog post But you know because all the platforms are tied together

Riley Hill (6m 32s)

you know

Riley Hill (6m 34s)

Priorities of one platform will kind of inform some of the priorities on the others and what I mean by that

Riley Hill (6m 40s)

So obviously this folding iPhone is coming right and it makes all the sense in the world

Riley Hill (6m 46s)

That that open you open it up. It's probably gonna run iPad OS right or an iPad OS interface, right?

Riley Hill (6m 52s)

And so now that and you know stage manager probably I think is we have a good chance of that

Riley Hill (6m 58s)

So if that's true It makes all the sense in the world then for Apple to now prioritize Okay, we should fix stage manager I give it's going on the iPhone now our most important product like those bugs

Riley Hill (7m 10s)

and sit, let's say, you know

Riley Hill (7m 13s)

Tying your your your boat to the iPhone is the best way to get your feature prioritized in Apple I think so. I think that's maybe what's happening here

Jeff Battersby (7m 22s)

Okay, interesting, it'll be interesting to see for sure.

Tom Anderson (7m 27s)

Well, I was just looking at one of the conceptual things that was posted on a 9 to 5 Mac posting.

Tom Anderson (7m 33s)

Someone came up with it.

Tom Anderson (7m 34s)

It might just be AI generated.

Tom Anderson (7m 35s)

Who knows, because you don't know these because what's interesting is looking at it, they have an iPhone plugged into an iPad that's running stage manager.

Jeff Battersby (7m 36s)

laughs No.

Tom Anderson (7m 46s)

So the links in the show notes, if you guys want to look at that fine piece of art.

Jeff Battersby (7m 48s)

Yeah, I'm seeing I'm seeing

Tom Anderson (7m 52s)

So you know, I was thinking about this, gosh, probably the last couple of months.

Tom Anderson (7m 57s)

That, you know, cause sometimes I'll set like a timer on the iPad.

Tom Anderson (8m)

Cause like, you know, for whatever reason, like I'm in bed, I'm doing something and then it's like, oh, I need to remember to do whatever.

Tom Anderson (8m 6s)

And so I just use a timer.

Tom Anderson (8m 7s)

So I do that, but I was thinking it'd be nice to have that.

Tom Anderson (8m 10s)

Timer just counting down up in the menu bar rather than having to find it a different way.

Tom Anderson (8m 16s)

Uh, and I'm curious too, like if they make some decent changes to stage manager, um, you know, that might help with.

Tom Anderson (8m 27s)

The user knowing what application they're in kind of like they do on the Mac, right?

Tom Anderson (8m 31s)

So when you switch from Safari to messages, you know, the whole.

Tom Anderson (8m 36s)

Menus change, but it also tells you what the app frontmost application is up there in the menu bar.

Tom Anderson (8m 41s)

So, so that could be interesting.

Tom Anderson (8m 43s)

Um, maybe pull some of that stuff that's buried in one of those 15 control center pages, put that up there.

Tom Anderson (8m 50s)

Uh, and I know, I think, you know, Jeff, you said too, it seems to be this

Tom Anderson (8m 57s)

towards, you know, the Mac and this kind of coming together in some ways.

Tom Anderson (9m 2s)

I don't know that they'll ever be just one.

Tom Anderson (9m 5s)

Um, but also at the same time, it feels like it's taking them 10 years to do something that seemed pretty obvious from the start and so, and I know that's divisive too, because some people, you want a Mac, buy a Mac, you want an iPad,

Tom Anderson (9m 17s)

get an iPad, and I understand all that.

Tom Anderson (9m 19s)

And I don't want the iPad is to be a Mac, um, by any means, but I think there's good things on the Mac that as they started to get into StageMan.

Tom Anderson (9m 27s)

things that were already invented and they don't know why they felt the need to reinvent it. I still hate that stupid round cursor with the passion. It's like, why did we need that other than it looks cool when it's, you know, snaps on to a user interface element? And I'm probably in the minority for that, but it looks goofy to me. So we'll see. I mean, I think I'm in favor of it at this point, but we haven't seen it and we don't even know if it's real so.

Tom Anderson (9m 57s)

Let's not lose sight of that.

Riley Hill (10m)

I appreciate when they do bring Mac features to the iPad that they at least try to do something different because, I mean, this is your opportunity, right, of like we don't just have to do things the way we've always done things, you know, on the Mac and Windows, but if those new things don't work then they shouldn't be afraid to just, you know, to go with the tried and true.

Jeff Battersby (10m 22s)

Toss 'em. Yeah, cool.

Riley Hill (10m 23s)

I think that's probably true.

Riley Hill (10m 25s)

I will say one wonderful menu bar idea someone mentioned.

Riley Hill (10m 30s)

and I'm unfortunately I can't remember who it was,

Riley Hill (10m 32s)

but the idea that if in stage manager,

Riley Hill (10m 36s)

or if Apple were to open up the iPad to more long running background tasks,

Riley Hill (10m 44s)

that something in that menu bar,

Riley Hill (10m 46s)

you'd have like a activity monitor like view that would show you the apps that were running background tasks or something like just a very easy UI.

Riley Hill (10m 55s)

So you can see why is my battery draining so fast?

Riley Hill (10m 58s)

Oh, right, this is exporting.

Riley Hill (11m 1s)

So I do love that idea, if they were to have some kind of widget of, you know, background tasks or something, that'd be cool.

Tom Anderson (11m 10s)

Yeah, and I'd still like to see them kind of move beyond the 10 hours battery life that's been on the iPad, I think, since the very first one, um, or at least the iPad.

Tom Anderson (11m 21s)

Two or three, one of those, but it's been stuck there for awhile.

Tom Anderson (11m 25s)

And when they moved to Apple Silicon, a lot or some of the folks who were using, like trying to be iPad only went back over to the MacBook air, especially, um, because that gets 15.

Tom Anderson (11m 40s)

Hours battery.

Tom Anderson (11m 41s)

So, you know, I'd like to see them do that, but also take some of those handcuffs off of iPad iOS, because if the MacBook can get 15 to 18 hours of battery life, they should be able to do 10 to 12 on an iPad and take some of those constraints out of the way that frustrate people.

Jeff Battersby (12m 1s)

Yeah, and to that end, I will say I have a relatively new iPad.

Jeff Battersby (12m 6s)

Thank you, Internapper.

Jeff Battersby (12m 7s)

We're still making that joke after two years.

Jeff Battersby (12m 13s)

And one of the things, so I had that iPad at rehearsal for a show with me,

Jeff Battersby (12m 20s)

for really the entire run of the show,

Jeff Battersby (12m 23s)

and one of the actors had their son at the rehearsal often,

Jeff Battersby (12m 27s)

and I would let him, while I didn't need my iPad,

Jeff Battersby (12m 29s)

that would let him sit in place.

Jeff Battersby (12m 31s)

And I will tell you that that in a,

Jeff Battersby (12m 33s)

we were having three hour rehearsals and by the end of three hour rehearsals,

Jeff Battersby (12m 36s)

if I did not put that iPad into low power mode,

Jeff Battersby (12m 40s)

him just playing games on it,

Jeff Battersby (12m 41s)

burned through the battery life in that time.

Jeff Battersby (12m 44s)

So it's, you know, 10 hours is a dream.

Jeff Battersby (12m 49s)

You know, it's more like two and a half, you know,

Jeff Battersby (12m 52s)

if you're being a little kid playing video games.

Jeff Battersby (12m 56s)

So yeah, I'd like to see something better than that.

Jeff Battersby (12m 58s)

And I don't know that that would be something

Jeff Battersby (13m 1s)

that would come with, I mean, I guess to some extent it could come with an iOS update,

Jeff Battersby (13m 5s)

but I don't think that that's the story.

Jeff Battersby (13m 11s)

And I meant iPad OS, not iOS.

Riley Hill (13m 13s)

We know what you meant, it's fine, it's good.

Jeff Battersby (13m 17s)

Changing, yeah, you did, right?

Jeff Battersby (13m 21s)

But there, you know, of the hundred people listening,

Jeff Battersby (13m 23s)

99 just went, what an idiot.

Tom Anderson (13m 27s)

Well, they will now that you've called it out six times.

Jeff Battersby (13m 29s)

I called myself out.

Jeff Battersby (13m 31s)

I just want to point that out.

Jeff Battersby (13m 32s)

I own my mistakes, Tom Anderson.

Tom Anderson (13m 35s)

I am interested though, like you said, Riley, on the visual overhaul to see what that looks like because I do think Vision OS looks really, really nice.

Tom Anderson (13m 47s)

And I think some of those glass type things that they've got going on there are interesting.

Tom Anderson (13m 52s)

Something that's been very divisive is the round icons.

Tom Anderson (13m 57s)

And so that's got, yeah, yeah.

Jeff Battersby (13m 58s)

Which Vision OS has, right?

Tom Anderson (14m 2s)

And so some of the mock-ups and stuff,

Tom Anderson (14m 4s)

people are like conceptualizing,

Tom Anderson (14m 6s)

oh, they'll have, you know, circle icons and stuff.

Tom Anderson (14m 9s)

And I'm like, well, maybe.

Riley Hill (14m 11s)

It's not the end of the world

Jeff Battersby (14m 13s)

Oh, so this is not even, this isn't real?

Jeff Battersby (14m 17s)

This is just people conceptualizing?

Tom Anderson (14m 21s)

Well, there's been, yeah, so Mark Gurman did some writing that hinted to some of this too.

Tom Anderson (14m 28s)

And so I think that one could be a thing.

Tom Anderson (14m 34s)

But yeah, so once he puts that out and the, you know, the leakers put their stuff out and I think John Prosser did some stuff too.

Tom Anderson (14m 40s)

You know, they kind of run wild with their concepts and I'm like, man, I really wonder where these people find all this time to make these concepts.

Riley Hill (14m 46s)

They're really good.

Tom Anderson (14m 47s)

Some of the videos, man, they're like, they're like Apple quality, like.

Tom Anderson (14m 51s)

I'm like, holy smokes, these guys must be good.

Tom Anderson (14m 54s)

Um, take me six months to do that and it would still not be good.

Tom Anderson (14m 59s)

So we'll see what's coming with that.

Tom Anderson (15m)

One of the things I haven't seen anything more on this.

Tom Anderson (15m 3s)

I don't know if you guys have or not.

Tom Anderson (15m 4s)

There was a rumor that, uh, the iPhone was also going to get that stage manager, kind of Samsung decks thing.

Riley Hill (15m 12s)

I'm definitely not against it.

Tom Anderson (15m 12s)

When you plugged it in to monitor, I I'd like that, I think.

Riley Hill (15m 21s)

I think, again, if the iPhone runs Stageman or some variant of it, then all of a sudden developers have real incentive to support it versus if it's just, you know, for a while it was just on the, I mean it is right now, just on the iPad Pro and the iPad Air, right?

Riley Hill (15m 40s)

So it's like, not even all iPads.

Riley Hill (15m 43s)

Which would be a nice side effect if this iPhone thing happens and then all the iPads have some stage manager, that'd be cool

Riley Hill (15m 50s)

But yeah, I think that'd be nice to have I do question

Riley Hill (15m 58s)

Everyone I know who has a Samsung phone

Riley Hill (16m)

The more technical people have have run into Dex and it's been like oh, that's cool. And then they never use it again

Riley Hill (16m 7s)

So I question the real world usage.

Riley Hill (16m 12s)

of that feature. I don't really have a way to know, but after years of being an iPad user,

Riley Hill (16m 19s)

I feel like, you know, you get this interface, and then the next question is, well, where are my desktop apps? It's great to have floating windows, but where's the Mac version of Photoshop,

Riley Hill (16m 32s)

or where's the Mac version of this or that? And then the value becomes questionable to some.

Riley Hill (16m 42s)

But to some, so it'd be interesting to see where that goes.

Jeff Battersby (16m 47s)

It to either of you use stage manager

Riley Hill (16m 51s)

I mean, I have to, on an external, okay, on my iPad, obviously.

Riley Hill (16m 56s)

With an external display, I have to.

Riley Hill (16m 58s)

I used to use it on the Mac, but I stopped because it didn't make any sense.

Jeff Battersby (17m 4s)

I've tried using it and I don't really have an iPad plugged into an external display so maybe that's the difference but for me it's like turn it off immediately it's not something that I use.

Jeff Battersby (17m 15s)

I'll be frank I don't really understand the concept you know the whatever the conceit is around that I don't get so maybe I need to play with it more to figure that out but I am not going

Riley Hill (17m 26s)

I feel like the idea, if this was conceptualized as an iPad feature, and it probably was, the problem I think they were trying to solve was people have too many windows on their desktop and they lose their windows and we can make that better.

Riley Hill (17m 47s)

And I think that's part of why we have that four window limit.

Riley Hill (17m 51s)

That's why I remember the first version the windows were like moving around as you were,

Riley Hill (17m 55s)

hated that but I think...

Riley Hill (17m 56s)

that's the problem they were trying to solve.

Riley Hill (18m 3s)

So, you know, obviously that wasn't what people wanted. They changed that.

Riley Hill (18m 8s)

But I think that was the problem to solve. I don't know why they put it on the Mac because...

Riley Hill (18m 15s)

and I see people... I have a couple colleagues actually using it and I'm always surprised when I see them using it and I just don't see where the... for the way I use my Mac...

Riley Hill (18m 27s)

Crap's on the windows everywhere. I just I don't see the value. But some people do.

Tom Anderson (18m 33s)

Yeah, it's funny. I see that too. I guess I've got a few co-workers that do it and I see students do it as a walk-around

Tom Anderson (18m 39s)

Campus and sometimes wonder to myself if they've just stumbled in somehow turned it on and they don't know how to turn it off

Tom Anderson (18m 49s)

But the co-workers that I've talked to though they've they know and they've left it on because they just like how they can

Tom Anderson (18m 56s)

Organize things to go back to what you were saying there Riley with being able to keep kind of you know This is my collection of chat apps.

Tom Anderson (19m 3s)

And this is my browser and those sorts of things.

Riley Hill (19m 8s)

To each their own, right? I mean, that's fine, I guess.

Jeff Battersby (19m 12s)

So one of the things, Tom, you said in our notes is,

Jeff Battersby (19m 16s)

is it just me or is this the least hyped WWDC that I can recall?

Jeff Battersby (19m 24s)

And it does feel that way.

Jeff Battersby (19m 26s)

And not a lot of talk about AI.

Jeff Battersby (19m 29s)

I mean, there's a little bit, but, you know,

Jeff Battersby (19m 33s)

Apple Intelligence, obviously,

Jeff Battersby (19m 36s)

in the dark hole of despair at this moment in time.

Jeff Battersby (19m 40s)

But I.

Jeff Battersby (19m 42s)

I am finding other than the usual hype outside of Apple, there's not a lot that they're teasing that I can see, is there a reason behind that?

Jeff Battersby (19m 51s)

Do you think?

Jeff Battersby (19m 52s)

Does that mean that that thing that I sent you earlier, Tom, I didn't send it to you, Riley, but it was video of somebody trying to put an app into a folder on iOS, which is, you know, like a game of cat and mouse.

Jeff Battersby (20m 5s)

99% of the time, you know, the folder moves out of the way because it thinks you're trying to put the, you know, which is crazy.

Jeff Battersby (20m 12s)

Making to me, um, really, really a frustrating UI feature.

Jeff Battersby (20m 21s)

Um, so I would love if, if, since we're talking about what we hope for in this, um, I would love if there's some cleanup to some things that really deserve to have been cleaned up.

Jeff Battersby (20m 38s)

eons ago. Something as simple also as, um, you know,

Jeff Battersby (20m 42s)

I've been using forever notes and I love it.

Jeff Battersby (20m 46s)

It's become my way of managing notes, which by the way, it's not an app.

Jeff Battersby (20m 49s)

It's a concept of a way to use tagging to manage your files or your, uh, documents in the notes app.

Jeff Battersby (20m 59s)

Um, but stupid stuff,

Jeff Battersby (21m 1s)

which I brought up to Tom a little while ago is if say I'm adding an

Jeff Battersby (21m 5s)

article that I found on Safari, um, if I try to tag it

Jeff Battersby (21m 12s)

the tag, doesn't become a tag.

Jeff Battersby (21m 14s)

I actually have to put the tag in then go up and open and open the note

Jeff Battersby (21m 19s)

and then put my cursor behind the tag and add a space and bang,

Jeff Battersby (21m 22s)

suddenly it's tagged. Um,

Jeff Battersby (21m 24s)

so really simple stuff like that would mean

Jeff Battersby (21m 29s)

a ton to me, you know, round icons, cute. Okay. I'm down with that, whatever.

Jeff Battersby (21m 34s)

Um, but usability features. And I want to point out too, you know,

Jeff Battersby (21m 39s)

One of the things we do is we complain.

Jeff Battersby (21m 42s)

a lot. At least, at least Tom and I are old men shaking fists at clouds. You might be a young man shaking a fist at the cloud. But we do we do tend to complain a lot. But one of the things about that is because when we do experience any kind of friction in whatever device it is that we're working on, we

Jeff Battersby (22m 12s)

that's because most of it is frictionless. You know, most is so when you run into something that Tom's rolling his eyes

Jeff Battersby (22m 19s)

kind of, it's like thinking, what's this guy lying about now?

Tom Anderson (22m 21s)

No, I was thinking, I was looking up and thinking, but go ahead.

Jeff Battersby (22m 24s)

Yeah, yeah, well, we'll let you cut me down to size. I am sensitive, Tom. You're hurting my feelings. Just by looking the wrong way. You look to be funny, Tom. I feel like kids in the back in my parents' car now.

Tom Anderson (22m 26s)

You're sensitive today.

Jeff Battersby (22m 39s)

Um.

Tom Anderson (22m 40s)

Don't look at me.

Jeff Battersby (22m 42s)  

• Tom's looking at me.

Jeff Battersby (22m 45s)

Anyway, all that to say that a lot of times the reason that I get annoyed with things like that is because most of the user experience is pretty solid.

Jeff Battersby (22m 55s)

You know, and so when you do face something like,

Jeff Battersby (23m)

you know, like the folder moving out of the way every time you try to drop an app on it,

Jeff Battersby (23m 4s)

it's like, why isn't this one thing fixed?

Jeff Battersby (23m 8s)

It should be easier than that.

Jeff Battersby (23m 11s)

But I would like to see.

Jeff Battersby (23m 12s)

Coming out of WWDC, um, across all the OS's, um, a commitment to, and this used to be the way it was, um, a commitment to really under the cover work, making sure things worked back in the day, you know, snow leopard and, and those kinds of things, you know, those kinds of operating systems that used to be, you got one big upgrade. That usually was jacked up in some way. And then you had to do a lot of work to get it to work. And so.

Jeff Battersby (23m 42s)

And then the next one, whatever the version of the OS was really did under the cover work to kind of refine the details. And then you moved into the next one. And I would like to see a return to that in some way. I think now we try to add so much to these operating systems that it, it.

Jeff Battersby (24m)

Drives an attempt to make changes that everybody's going to love without really refining some of the prior OS's changes. And of course that should be being.

Jeff Battersby (24m 12s)

Handled and, you know, done.

Jeff Battersby (24m 14s)

upgrades but isn't a lot of times so I'd like to see a return to that that's my that's my wish for WWDC DC Christmas oh no right I could talk for an hour and then it would be a sermon give you chapter and verse

Tom Anderson (24m 26s)

Not a sermon, just a thought.

Tom Anderson (24m 33s)

Yeah.

Tom Anderson (24m 34s)

And I think a lot of that is, is amplified as well.

Tom Anderson (24m 36s)

Cause you know, you sent that to me from was a Threats Post, X Post, some social posts, and, uh, so it's, you know, it just gets reinforced as more and more people repost share that look, none of this stuff works when, as you said, most of it actually works really well most of the time, but there are

Tom Anderson (24m 56s)

the glaring ones though, that it's like, maybe just fix this one.

Tom Anderson (25m 1s)

That would be great.

Tom Anderson (25m 3s)

But, and two to, I mean, they've got so much going on these days with all of the different operating systems they have.

Jeff Battersby (25m 3s)

Small detail, right?

Tom Anderson (25m 11s)

I mean, Mac iOS, iOS, iPad, iOS, watchOS, VisionOS, HomePodOS, TVOS.

Tom Anderson (25m 17s)

And back in the snow leopard days, there was snow leopard.

Tom Anderson (25m 20s)

Maybe it was the iPod out.

Tom Anderson (25m 22s)

Yeah.

Tom Anderson (25m 22s)

I think the iPod was around that.

Tom Anderson (25m 23s)

So, um, so.

Tom Anderson (25m 26s)

Yeah, it's a lot.

Tom Anderson (25m 27s)

And they, you know, more, they come out with these classes that are rumored to be coming out next year.

Tom Anderson (25m 32s)

So I guess that'll probably just be a fork of vision OS of some sort,

Tom Anderson (25m 36s)

but they've got a lot, um, but they're the ones that choose to make them.

Riley Hill (25m 40s)

Yeah, and in theory, I mean, they all share a common core, which should make it easier to fix some things. Obviously, the UI layers are all different. But yeah, I've always kind of thought,

Tom Anderson (25m 42s)

So there are on the hook to keep them working.

Riley Hill (26m 4s)

at least for the iPad, I mean, they obviously feel they can't do this for competitive reasons,

Riley Hill (26m 9s)

but I'd love, I'd be--

Riley Hill (26m 11s)

I'd be fine with every two years getting an OS update.

Riley Hill (26m 13s)

Like, we're stuck on this yearly update thing because I don't think anyone wants to blink first, right?

Riley Hill (26m 18s)

Google doesn't, Google does yearly updates.

Riley Hill (26m 21s)

Apple doesn't wanna be the one who doesn't, you know?

Riley Hill (26m 24s)

But that was the thing back in the day with the Mac, right?

Riley Hill (26m 28s)

Updates used to come 18 months, two years,

Riley Hill (26m 31s)

something like that.

Riley Hill (26m 31s)

Like, they gave this stuff time to cook and now they're just moving so fast.

Riley Hill (26m 36s)

It's like, there's no time to do some of the things.

Riley Hill (26m 40s)

I think they would have otherwise,

Riley Hill (26m 42s)

but they have to try to stay competitive,

Tom Anderson (26m 45s)

Keep that hype going.

Riley Hill (26m 45s)

which is, exactly, which is unfortunate.

Tom Anderson (26m 47s)

Yep.

Tom Anderson (26m 48s)

Yeah, and especially now,

Tom Anderson (26m 49s)

because they've spread it out so much over the year anyway.

Tom Anderson (26m 55s)

You know, with much of the big stuff comes,

Tom Anderson (26m 57s)

you know, in the dot threes, the dot fours,

Tom Anderson (27m)

later on as it is.

Tom Anderson (27m 1s)

So it really is like a year long release of things.

Tom Anderson (27m 6s)

Whereas previously, like a ton of it just came out in September.

Tom Anderson (27m 9s)

And it's probably to their credit,

Tom Anderson (27m 10s)

because I can recall some of that stuff when it would come out in September,

Tom Anderson (27m 15s)

it didn't work at all.

Tom Anderson (27m 15s)

And people were mad about that.

Tom Anderson (27m 17s)

And now they spread it out.

Tom Anderson (27m 18s)

People are mad about that.

Tom Anderson (27m 20s)

So, but I think, yeah, the yearly thing.

Tom Anderson (27m 25s)

Jeff, I think we talked about this show or two back,

Tom Anderson (27m 28s)

where it's tough, but people like it.

Tom Anderson (27m 31s)

They like to talk about it.

Tom Anderson (27m 32s)

They like to get hyped up about it.

Tom Anderson (27m 34s)

And I understand it.

Tom Anderson (27m 36s)

And I enjoy the events.

Tom Anderson (27m 37s)

I'm not gonna lie.

Tom Anderson (27m 38s)

I think the events are fun.

Tom Anderson (27m 40s)

But I do wish they'd go back to live events

Tom Anderson (27m 43s)

for the keynote like Google did.

Tom Anderson (27m 45s)

There's live the other day, but they seem to be content with the video.

Jeff Battersby (27m 48s)

Yeah, they should, because I think it we talked about that before, too, is the live events leave no room for you or it leaves room for you got to have something that really works before you ship it rather than, you know, doing a video that

Jeff Battersby (28m 5s)

looks cool, but it's all concept, not any reality. So there's something to be said for a live event to make those kinds of things.

Tom Anderson (28m 9s)

Right.

Tom Anderson (28m 11s)

Yeah.

Tom Anderson (28m 11s)

And Google ran into that the other day.

Tom Anderson (28m 13s)

I don't know if you guys watched any of that, but in the, um, when they were looking at the classes with Android XR, they were doing the real time translation and they were doing the demo and it got through two exchanges between the users and then it kind of failed and the guy was like, well, we told you this was kind of a high risk demo and everybody laughed and they just moved on, um, and.

Jeff Battersby (28m 34s)

Yeah, and and I think there's something to be said for that too. You know, it makes it so you have to have

Jeff Battersby (28m 40s)

Something real that you can show people

Jeff Battersby (28m 43s)

rather than You know made up

Jeff Battersby (28m 48s)

Apple intelligence

Tom Anderson (28m 50s)

New Super Siri

Jeff Battersby (28m 50s)

like they could they can read your read all your information and and

Jeff Battersby (28m 56s)

you know and

Jeff Battersby (28m 58s)

schedule

Jeff Battersby (29m 1s)

based upon actual information that's in there.

Jeff Battersby (29m 4s)

in your, uh, you know, that's in your contacts app or whatever it is.

Jeff Battersby (29m 9s)

I still do have opinions about this.

Jeff Battersby (29m 11s)

And, you know, there's an article, uh, that, gosh, I can't remember where it came out, and this is totally outside the scope of what we're supposed to be talking about, but who cares?

Jeff Battersby (29m 21s)

Um, where, uh, I think it was at Anthropic that AI was, they were, they were trying to get it to stop doing something.

Jeff Battersby (29m 31s)

So I started blackmailing the engineers.

Jeff Battersby (29m 35s)

Did you hear about that?

Jeff Battersby (29m 37s)

All right, I'm going to post this in the notes.

Jeff Battersby (29m 40s)

It's kind of interesting.

Jeff Battersby (29m 42s)

So my thoughts on that are that, you know,

Jeff Battersby (29m 47s)

as much as there's a lot of AI play going on,

Jeff Battersby (29m 51s)

and you know me, I'm Mr. AI cynic,

Jeff Battersby (29m 57s)

they still don't quite, even, you know,

Jeff Battersby (30m)

Chad GPT and and. Oh.

Jeff Battersby (30m 4s)

And I and Anthropic and Gemini and Grok, you know, all these things are being touted as the as the the next new thing, but there's still a lot going under the covers here that from what I understand and what I've read, even the engineers don't understand what's going on, you know, there's there's a not to say that there's sentience behind there, but it's enough of a black box that nobody knows what the heck's going on.

Jeff Battersby (30m 32s)

So I--

Jeff Battersby (30m 34s)

Some of-- when it comes to Apple intelligence,

Jeff Battersby (30m 37s)

some of what's going on with Apple, I think, is--

Jeff Battersby (30m 39s)

and I said this, Tom, a while ago,

Jeff Battersby (30m 41s)

when we first started talking about this--

Jeff Battersby (30m 43s)

is because it's--

Jeff Battersby (30m 49s)

the results are not as clearly defined as Apple might like.

Jeff Battersby (30m 52s)

I think the end of what's going on is not as clear,

Jeff Battersby (30m 56s)

and that's problematic, you know,

Jeff Battersby (30m 58s)

whereas all the others are willing to talk about it talk about it and, you know.

Jeff Battersby (31m 4s)

Shove it out in the open and see what happens.

Jeff Battersby (31m 6s)

I think, you know, we, there's still issues behind it.

Jeff Battersby (31m 9s)

And that may be some of what's going on with, uh, with Apple intelligence.

Jeff Battersby (31m 14s)

Uh, but I think they got on the hype train and then put a video out for the hype train and, uh, you know, the hype train and the real train, two completely different things.

Jeff Battersby (31m 25s)

So just me and my opinion.

Tom Anderson (31m 25s)

Yeah, I think they were more asleep at the wheel than playing it safe.

Jeff Battersby (31m 26s)

And so.

Riley Hill (31m 32s)

I think they do.

Jeff Battersby (31m 32s)

Yeah, well, fair.

Jeff Battersby (31m 34s)

I think they got too many things going on.

Riley Hill (31m 38s)

I think Apple needs to figure out what kind of AI company they want to be.

Riley Hill (31m 46s)

I'm a big believer, no one else agrees with me, that I don't think every company has to do everything.

Riley Hill (31m 53s)

I get their whole "we have to own our core technologies," but I remember the original

Riley Hill (32m 2s)

Apple hardware and Google services, Google Maps powering, all that.

Riley Hill (32m 8s)

I'm not upset that chat GPT is integrated into iOS right now, and that rumored Gemini is coming.

Riley Hill (32m 17s)

If they're leaning on partners like that, to me that's fine.

Riley Hill (32m 21s)

I don't need Apple to be an AI company, but I understand that competitively they have to.

Riley Hill (32m 31s)

Are they that company that builds?

Riley Hill (32m 33s)

Is that what they want to be doing?

Riley Hill (32m 35s)

Like, cause that's what, you know,

Riley Hill (32m 36s)

Anthropic and chat, cheap chat, TBT are doing.

Riley Hill (32m 39s)

Like, they're just, they're doing that research and stuff.

Riley Hill (32m 42s)

Right.

Jeff Battersby (32m 42s)

Right. That's their core business.

Riley Hill (32m 43s)

And so I'd right.

Riley Hill (32m 46s)

Whereas this is more or less a feature to Apple.

Riley Hill (32m 50s)

And so if you can achieve those same features, just partnering with someone,

Riley Hill (32m 55s)

uh, in a way that like, you know, the whole Google Android thing doesn't and again like the original iPhone where it's like "hey you're a part-"

Riley Hill (33m 2s)

"oh now you're a competitor" you know make a financial deal and like

Riley Hill (33m 7s)

I don't know it's not the worst thing in the world to me if they went that route

Jeff Battersby (33m 11s)

I mean, I'm with you on that.

Jeff Battersby (33m 13s)

I totally agree with that.

Jeff Battersby (33m 15s)

I don't think Apple has to have it built in as much as use maybe what exists and provide an interface to it,

Jeff Battersby (33m 21s)

which they kind of have done with Apple Intelligence.

Jeff Battersby (33m 25s)

So it would be interesting to see if that's something that they did.

Jeff Battersby (33m 27s)

I'd love to see them partner with Anthropic and make that a good back end.

Jeff Battersby (33m 30s)

I do like Claude for certain things.

Riley Hill (33m 34s)

Exactly, right? And that's kind of in my AI experience, right? It's not really one chatbot or whatever to rule them all. They're better at different things. You may use chat GPT for some things, cloud for some things, copilot for something. That's kind of been how I've been using AI to this point. And so, you know, is it from a PR perspective, you know, Apple being behind in AI is a problem for them.

Riley Hill (34m 5s)

It's not really been a problem for me.

Riley Hill (34m 7s)

It's not a problem for me until the point that they're like,

Riley Hill (34m 10s)

if they were to block the chat GPT app or something on iOS,

Tom Anderson (34m 14s)

right yeah yeah and I'm sure there's concern inside the company that if we go down the road ten years from now what is going to be the device of choice for people and will it be an iPhone or will it be something that has come to market through the AI progressions over the years that all of a sudden the iPhone isn't a big deal anymore" and I think it was Eddie Cue who even said a couple of...

Riley Hill (34m 14s)

it's like, okay, then I have a problem.

Riley Hill (34m 16s)

But everything I do, I can just get in that app and keep it moving, you know?

Tom Anderson (34m 44s)

well I read it a few weeks ago I'm not sure when he said it but he's like "in 10 years people may not even need iPhones anymore" and that's kind of what's kind of up in the air and that kind of leads us into the middle segment that we wanted to talk about with OpenAI and Johnny Ive now in a very tight relationship. Jeff, Sir Johnny, is coming back into the... he did and he'd kind of been kind of off doing his own thing with what was his company love from? I think he has.

Jony Ive & OpenAI

Jeff Battersby (35m 2s)

Very tight.

Jeff Battersby (35m 6s)

Got his company bought out.

Tom Anderson (35m 14s)

And then he had an AI company I/O. And so this week, word came out that OpenAI was going to pick that outfit up. Johnny was going to come on and help with some design work, which brings a lot of interesting thoughts.

Jeff Battersby (35m 32s)

Yeah, so one of the thoughts is that the whole reason or what what open AI has, has their eyes on is, you know, being the next Apple, you know, that's the end, you know, bringing Johnny Ivan,

Jeff Battersby (35m 46s)

I think that's legit what that device is. Or, you know, what kind of interface that provides is a fair question. You know,

Jeff Battersby (35m 57s)

what do you what are you doing? Is it a phone? Maybe? Is it a,

Jeff Battersby (36m 1s)

you know.

Jeff Battersby (36m 2s)

There's a lot, there are a lot of open questions.

Tom Anderson (36m 7s)

And so far they're saying rumors are that Wall Street Journal says through their reporting it's neither of those

Tom Anderson (36m 13s)

I'm like, all right. Well, it's just uh

Jeff Battersby (36m 14s)

Okay, interesting.

Riley Hill (36m 15s)

I read somewhere it was like a neck warn, something you wear around your neck, is like that, yeah.

Tom Anderson (36m 19s)

I saw that too. Yeah, and then then I saw something yesterday where

Tom Anderson (36m 24s)

Someone said johnny said I don't want people to have to wear it around their neck

Jeff Battersby (36m 28s)

It's so great. It's a chip embedded in your head.

Tom Anderson (36m 28s)

So I don't know what this is going to be. It's just it's an orb

Riley Hill (36m 34s)

Yeah.

Tom Anderson (36m 35s)

So yeah, that, uh, yeah.

Tom Anderson (36m 37s)

I don't know what that that's going to be.

Tom Anderson (36m 38s)

And so of course there's, you know, people say, well, what's Johnny really done of late?

Tom Anderson (36m 46s)

I was like, well, what's he had to do of late?

Tom Anderson (36m 48s)

I mean, the guy's a legend.

Jeff Battersby (36m 48s)

Nothing. Right. Right.

Tom Anderson (36m 49s)

What's he have to prove really?

Tom Anderson (36m 51s)

Um, and, you know, and then you can dig into the nuance around that as well.

Tom Anderson (36m 55s)

After Steve passed away, some of the design decisions were very questionable at Apple.

Tom Anderson (36m 59s)

Things got too thin.

Tom Anderson (37m)

They took away the ports, the keyboard sucked because of the design they wanted to go with.

Tom Anderson (37m 3s)

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Tom Anderson (37m 5s)

Uh, so.

Tom Anderson (37m 7s)

Yeah, I don't know that it'll be interesting.

Tom Anderson (37m 9s)

I think anytime you put Johnny, I've associated with something.

Tom Anderson (37m 14s)

There's interest, especially if you've been in the Apple realm or are familiar with the legend of Johnny with Apple, just by nature of that.

Tom Anderson (37m 21s)

I'm interested just to see what, what comes out.

Jeff Battersby (37m 26s)

Yeah, that's fair. And, and I'm sorry, Riley go. No, you

Riley Hill (37m 27s)

I was just I was just gonna chime in on what Tom said because I said the same thing on threads basically that was like I love Johnny Ive I think he he's a good designer but it seems like just yesterday man every every bad decision every bad design decision at Apple oh it was Johnny it was Johnny because of you know I was all just now and now he's moving to another company oh my god Apple's cooked because they have John Johnny's the best in the world it's like okay guys

Tom Anderson (37m 53s)

Yeah, I remember people were like, some people were happy when he left and then they brought the ports back to the MacBook, almost said PowerBook, good God, to the MacBook.

Riley Hill (37m 57s)

okay yeah yeah

Jeff Battersby (38m 6s)

[LAUGHS] Old man.

Tom Anderson (38m 8s)

People were like, "See, Johnny left and now it's, you know, we're back to function over form.

Tom Anderson (38m 13s)

This is great."

Tom Anderson (38m 14s)

Yeah.

Tom Anderson (38m 15s)

People have short memory and attention spans.

Jeff Battersby (38m 19s)

Really? Yeah, it'll be interesting to see. Yeah, and it'll be I don't know, we'll we'll see what a what is a standalone AI device, you know, and that's got to be that's got to be the question that they're asking, you know, what is it?

Tom Anderson (38m 20s)

Yeah, so, but.

Tom Anderson (38m 23s)

Maybe that's what he needs is a change of scenery.

Jeff Battersby (38m 39s)

And we talked about this again, we'll go back to what Leah, you know, what we talked about with Leah Reich, the few episodes back, the idea that are we...

Jeff Battersby (38m 49s)

Building things to fulfill an existing need,

Jeff Battersby (38m 53s)

or are we building things to create a need that you think you have?

Jeff Battersby (38m 58s)

And those are two very different ends to whatever it is that you're creating.

Jeff Battersby (39m 4s)

There's two completely different ideas,

Jeff Battersby (39m 7s)

and I think one is valuable,

Jeff Battersby (39m 9s)

and the other one is possibly commercially viable.

Jeff Battersby (39m 16s)

It's a way of, you know, getting more.

Jeff Battersby (39m 19s)

I do, but, but to a purpose, you know what I'm saying?

Tom Anderson (39m 27s)

Says the guy that uses all these Apple products.

Jeff Battersby (39m 32s)

It does.

Jeff Battersby (39m 33s)

They do fill needs for me.

Jeff Battersby (39m 35s)

Um, the watch, maybe not withstanding, but, um, I really want it for a sleep and exercise device.

Jeff Battersby (39m 43s)

I don't need a clock.

Jeff Battersby (39m 44s)

I don't need notifications.

Jeff Battersby (39m 45s)

I don't need text messages.

Jeff Battersby (39m 46s)

I don't need any of that stuff.

Jeff Battersby (39m 47s)

I really have come to that decision.

Jeff Battersby (39m 50s)

But I would like to track my sleep and I would like to, uh, to, um, you know,

Jeff Battersby (39m 55s)

be able to, when I get exercise to see what's going on there, that's, that's

Jeff Battersby (39m 59s)

truly the device that I need without stealing my personal information.

Jeff Battersby (40m 2s)

So there, there were three things that, that stand for me and that would be a need that I have.

Jeff Battersby (40m 8s)

Maybe I'm unique in that way.

Jeff Battersby (40m 10s)

I'm very unique, the most unique person in the world.

Jeff Battersby (40m 13s)

Nobody else has any more uniqueness than I do.

Jeff Battersby (40m 16s)

Um, but that's, that's the kind of.

Jeff Battersby (40m 20s)

if, if, and again, I'm reticent to tie my, uh, self to any AI star at this point in time, um, but if I were going to use an AI device, I would want something that was going to do that, which by the way, is something else.

Jeff Battersby (40m 38s)

That's rumored coming from Apple is that there's going to be better health.

Tom Anderson (40m 42s)

Right. Yep.

Jeff Battersby (40m 42s)

Access, you know, better health information.

Jeff Battersby (40m 44s)

That's one of the things that may come out in WWDC.

Jeff Battersby (40m 48s)

Those things are valuable to me.

Jeff Battersby (40m 49s)

Make sure that I'm getting steps in that kind of stuff.

Jeff Battersby (40m 51s)

So AI device, you know, is it going to be the same as I can just, you know,

Jeff Battersby (40m 58s)

do a search on the web and find the same thing.

Jeff Battersby (41m 1s)

And again, uh, I do remain concerned about, uh, the veracity of, and the value of the information that's coming back from these LLMs, it's still to me,

Jeff Battersby (41m 13s)

a little dicey, not that I haven't stated that a thousand times before.

Riley Hill (41m 17s)

that

Riley Hill (41m 19s)

Well that that's another problem Apple has that you know

Riley Hill (41m 24s)

partially, they've kind of dug their own grave here a bit, but you know

Riley Hill (41m 30s)

Kind of circling back to that whole live performance live event thing, you know

Riley Hill (41m 35s)

Google had that translation demo it failed like I didn't hear about it, you know, but I

Riley Hill (41m 42s)

I don't think Apple's afforded that same like if the member when

Riley Hill (41m 47s)

I think it was the iPhone 10 face ID failed on stage like I saw so many articles about that and how this was going to be like the worst thing ever and Apple made a mistake and like and the same thing I think with their health AI like anything they do with Apple intelligence or AI associated with it now is going to be scrutinized so much more than anyone else like and you know we've kind of in condition to this point we know that the generative AI stuff is not perfect it'll make mistakes, but I just...

Riley Hill (42m 17s)

People are going to be looking at this AI coaching thing with such a fine-tooth comb.

Riley Hill (42m 21s)

Any mistake is going to be like, "Oh, Apple doesn't... They suck at AI. They don't get it."

Tom Anderson (42m 26s)

Well, you said they dug their own grave there a little bit, and I think part of that that comes along with that is people have known Siri's been terrible for years and years and years, and they do nothing.

Jeff Battersby (42m 38s)

What? What are you talking about, Tom?

Tom Anderson (42m 42s)

And it's like, there's whole subreddits for Siri fails, Jeff and I send stuff back and forth.

Tom Anderson (42m 49s)

So, I mean, it's well-established, and they just kind of, meh.

Tom Anderson (42m 56s)

And then they say, here comes the new, more powerful Siri in the video, and then it turns out, well, that was not even ready.

Jeff Battersby (43m 4s)

Fake. News.

Tom Anderson (43m 4s)

And so they've just added even more skepticism to it.

Tom Anderson (43m 8s)

It's like, well, this thing has sucked for years.

Tom Anderson (43m 9s)

You guys have ignored it.

Tom Anderson (43m 11s)

And your highly touted new thing that you were going to do apparently wasn't working well enough to give a proper demo of.

Tom Anderson (43m 22s)

And so they've kind of shot themselves in the foot.

Tom Anderson (43m 26s)

with this stuff over years and years.

Tom Anderson (43m 28s)

And I think, you know, sometimes you wonder what are they working on there?

Tom Anderson (43m 32s)

That, I mean, they've hardware side of things.

Tom Anderson (43m 35s)

And I think this has been true for a long time now that people say hardware team knocks it out of the park and then the software tends to fall short.

Tom Anderson (43m 44s)

And a lot of the iPad, as you know, Riley,

Tom Anderson (43m 47s)

being in that a lot, criticisms come from that.

Tom Anderson (43m 51s)

It's like the iPad Pro hardware is amazing.

Tom Anderson (43m 56s)

And then people complain about running into the issues with, with iPadOS.

Tom Anderson (44m)

And one of the things that drives me nuts with iPadOS, and I use it a lot,

Tom Anderson (44m 5s)

is, and it could just be bad programming too, is how the apps throttle.

Tom Anderson (44m 9s)

And like the other day I opened Canva for the first time on the iPad in a while, and did what I needed to do.

Tom Anderson (44m 19s)

But every time I would go like into like the mission control view or whatever it's called on iPad, I can't remember.

Tom Anderson (44m 26s)

It would show full screen, like the little welcome thing that I made for the podcast for our show note with guests.

Tom Anderson (44m 32s)

It would show that.

Tom Anderson (44m 33s)

And I didn't even have that open, but when I went to Canva, it would go back to what I was working on, but it would flash that really quickly.

Tom Anderson (44m 39s)

And then like this happens on the iPhone too.

Tom Anderson (44m 41s)

Like the training app I use three times.

Tom Anderson (44m 43s)

You know, I'm using it.

Tom Anderson (44m 44s)

I switch out to, you know, send somebody a text or something.

Tom Anderson (44m 47s)

I go back and it's like the app had totally restarted, which is probably programming.

Tom Anderson (44m 52s)

But none of that crap happens on the Mac.

Tom Anderson (44m 56s)

And that's where the frustrations come in.

Tom Anderson (44m 58s)

I think for me on some of that, it's like, it's a supercomputer in your pocket, but yet it can't keep an app running where I left it.

Tom Anderson (45m 4s)

And it's like, it's got all this power.

Tom Anderson (45m 7s)

Now we know they were a little chintzy on the RAM for years because they had to upgrade the RAM for the AI stuff.

Tom Anderson (45m 13s)

But you know, some of these things, it just doesn't seem like that should be a thing in 2025.

Tom Anderson (45m 21s)

I'm off my soapbox now, not a sermon, just a thought from Tom.

Riley Hill (45m 22s)

It kind of goes back to what Jeff was saying too, about the hardware team has a very clearly defined set of, you know, they're producing a thing, and they know exactly what it's going to be, what it's going to look like, and all of that, whereas like Siri, they clearly thought it was going to be one thing, and then for years have had no idea what it was going to be.

Riley Hill (45m 50s)

And the software, I guess, falls some...

Riley Hill (45m 52s)

Somewhere in the middle, right?

Riley Hill (45m 53s)

Some software is easier to do than...

Riley Hill (45m 56s)

They know, kind of, some features, but I think there's definitely a spectrum to how they've been approaching just product development the past few years.

Riley Hill (46m 8s)

And we need more clarity on the software and, I guess, AI side from them.

Tom Anderson (46m 16s)

And then I think at one point they had different versions of Siri for the different platforms,

Jeff Battersby (46m 20s)

I think they still do, because it doesn't work the same way on my HomePod as it does on my iPad.

Tom Anderson (46m 20s)

like they might.

Jeff Battersby (46m 31s)

I can get the right answer on one device and the wrong answer on another one.

Tom Anderson (46m 35s)

and that's where they ran into problems is because there were so many different

Riley Hill (46m 38s)

Mm-hmm.

Tom Anderson (46m 39s)

systems of theory to have to work with.

Jeff Battersby (46m 40s)

They should all be accessing the same database.

Jeff Battersby (46m 46s)

There should be no difference between the back-end data that it's using.

Jeff Battersby (46m 51s)

Maybe the front-end UI is a little different, but the back-end should be.

Jeff Battersby (46m 55s)

You know, I should be able to ask, like, I'll give you an example of this kind of stupidity.

Jeff Battersby (47m 3s)

I will ask my Apple TV what channel or what app I can watch a basketball game in and all it will do is give me the scores.

Jeff Battersby (47m 14s)

Yeah, what?

Tom Anderson (47m 14s)

No need to watch. (laughs)

Jeff Battersby (47m 16s)

Yeah, it's like and I can't select any of you know, it's just dumb that kind

Tom Anderson (47m 18s)

Yeah.

Jeff Battersby (47m 21s)

Let me step back and ask you guys a question.

Jeff Battersby (47m 24s)

Then we have one more thing maybe to hop on and then we'll close this out because we're already running our usual longer than we need to.

Jeff Battersby (47m 34s)

What kind of what kind of device would you want, you know, OpenAI and Johnny I have to create?

Jeff Battersby (47m 43s)

What is it that artificial intelligence needs its own stand

Riley Hill (47m 56s)

You know, I hear it's a story recently of, I guess, the Apple canceled the watch with the camera project, apparently, that will watch with the camera that was going to sound like you're going to point it at things.

Riley Hill (48m 13s)

And then it would be ingested into AI or whatever, to see what you're seeing, which I, I love that idea.

Riley Hill (48m 24s)

they tested it and it wasn't really practical to just...

Riley Hill (48m 26s)

keep holding your arm out like, you know. So, exactly. I loved the idea of the humane pin. I think something in that direction is appealing. The problem is, I mean there's a lot of problems, obviously, that the product no longer exists.

Jeff Battersby (48m 28s)

FaceTime on a watch would be the same.

Riley Hill (48m 56s)

There are a lot of problems there, but I think there's something to that approach, and I'd like to see someone iterate on that in a way that kind of solves those issues.

Riley Hill (49m 13s)

I think a standalone AI device has the problem, one of the biggest problems with that was that it required its own plan, its own cellular plan, on top of your phone, just to work.

Riley Hill (49m 26s)

There needs to be more offline capabilities, it needs to value if I choose not to pay for that plan.

Riley Hill (49m 32s)

I don't hate that idea of a pin, or maybe, I prefer a pin over a necklace, but whatever that thing's going to be, I think there's value there, personally.

Tom Anderson (49m 47s)

Quote of the show right there.

Jeff Battersby (49m 48s)

Yeah, I think that's the lead, man, you found it.

Riley Hill (49m 49s)

Thank you.

Jeff Battersby (49m 58s)

Tom?

Tom Anderson (50m 1s)

I cannot think of anything.

Jeff Battersby (50m 3s)  

• All right.

Tom Anderson (50m 4s)

To be honest, I can't.

Tom Anderson (50m 5s)

It's like, 'cause I feel like the phone

Tom Anderson (50m 9s)

is at least with technology.

Tom Anderson (50m 12s)

Technology today seems to be close to perfect for a form factor.

Tom Anderson (50m 16s)

Man, it's got the power to do everything.

Tom Anderson (50m 18s)

It's got the cameras so it can see things.

Tom Anderson (50m 20s)

I saw they were doing a Gemini demo on the Google AI thing with their Gemini Live.

Tom Anderson (50m 28s)

And you know, the guy was like, "Hey, help me repair my bike."

Tom Anderson (50m 31s)

And so he's working on his bike, you know, and he, you know, it was scripted.

Tom Anderson (50m 34s)

But he's, you know, stripped out a screw and he's like, "Hey, I stripped, you know, stripped Check this out, you know, see what you can find out.

Tom Anderson (50m 42s)

And so that eventually could move into glasses.

Tom Anderson (50m 55s)

They showed a little bit of that with their, their glasses stuff, but like a separate device, that's not one of those, I don't know.

Tom Anderson (51m 3s)

Like, what's it, where's it going to go?

Tom Anderson (51m 5s)

Like, is it a pin?

Tom Anderson (51m 7s)

I mean, somebody mentioned, I think I saw on Reddit, Johnny said the pin was a terrible product.

Tom Anderson (51m 12s)

It doesn't mean it was a terrible idea, like the concept, but then again it's like I don't want to be talking to something all day either, that is the soul.

Jeff Battersby (51m 23s)

Or to have something listening all day either

Tom Anderson (51m 26s)

Right, yeah, which they already do.

Jeff Battersby (51m 26s)

Which you know, there's there's that aspect of?

Jeff Battersby (51m 30s)

that they correct But you have the ability to you know, leave your I mean my watch never gets anything right anyway, so

Jeff Battersby (51m 45s)

But you have the ability to leave those things aside if you're using an in AI always on AI device And by the way, eat glasses and a battery.

Jeff Battersby (51m 53s)

life for something like that, there are issues there as well.

Tom Anderson (51m 56s)

Right

Jeff Battersby (52m 1s)

It could be a lack of imagination on my part, but I don't see anything right now that isn't kind of Star Trek-y.

Jeff Battersby (52m 9s)

Computer, tell me what I'm supposed to do.

Riley Hill (52m 13s)

Well

Jeff Battersby (52m 13s)

I don't see a value.

Riley Hill (52m 15s)

Tom just touched on the biggest problem

Riley Hill (52m 19s)

it's been the biggest problem since the iPhone came out right is that

Riley Hill (52m 22s)

smartphones exist and they're really good and people like them and

Riley Hill (52m 27s)

so far People, you know all these attempts to get rid of the smartphone, which is silly conceptually have all failed

Riley Hill (52m 36s)

People don't hate their phones and our phones are really good. And so maybe I

Riley Hill (52m 41s)

I mean the tech industry

Riley Hill (52m 43s)

doesn't want to face this but maybe there isn't maybe it's just you know like there is no they talked about this third core device you know that they want to do I mean maybe it's only two

Riley Hill (52m 57s)

maybe there is no third and you know those two can be different obviously you know for me one of them's an iPad but like maybe it's just two devices maybe there is no people don't want a standalone AI device maybe. We don't know, but it's a very real possibility.

Jeff Battersby (53m 16s)

I for one do not.

Jeff Battersby (53m 18s)

I you know, that's that's not that that's old old news, but I for one do not.

Riley Hill (53m 19s)

Your phone can do it all, you know.

Jeff Battersby (53m 25s)

All right, I think we we can jump past Google I/O, otherwise we're going to be miles in.

Tom Anderson (53m 31s)

Yeah, I think we've touched on the big things kind of interwoven into our conversation anyway, so.

Jeff Battersby (53m 32s)

Yeah, we've we've we've hit all the all the big things.Close

Jeff Battersby (53m 37s)

Yeah, Riley, thanks so much for coming on.

Jeff Battersby (53m 39s)

We missed you.

Riley Hill (53m 41s)

Sure, thanks for having me on, this was a lot of fun.

Jeff Battersby (53m 41s)

We definitely need to have you on more than once a year.

Jeff Battersby (53m 43s)

So we're we're going to do that.

Jeff Battersby (53m 46s)

Appreciate it.

Jeff Battersby (53m 46s)

Why don't you tell everybody where we can find you and what you're doing?

Riley Hill (53m 55s)

I am continuing my YouTube thing.

Riley Hill (54m 1s)

My wife, to mess with me, calls me an influencer, and I'm like, I have a college degree, I'm I am not an influencer, don't call me that.

Tom Anderson (54m 4s)

I'm going to put that in the show notes, by the way.

Riley Hill (54m 11s)

Slatepad.org is where you'll find everything. I'm doing a lot more writing these days but still making YouTube videos. I've got my one-year iPad Pro review coming up pretty quick here,

Tom Anderson (54m 14s)

Riley Hill, influencer, joins us on this episode.

Jeff Battersby (54m 20s)

Shout out to your wife.

Riley Hill (54m 33s)

wrapping up that video. I continue to have an iPad slash post PC device focus,

Riley Hill (54m 41s)

but yeah, Slatepad.org will get you everything.

Jeff Battersby (54m 45s)

Cool.

Jeff Battersby (54m 46s)

Appreciate that.

Jeff Battersby (54m 47s)

And again, appreciate having you on really, uh, really good.

Jeff Battersby (54m 51s)

And we'll have you on again soon, maybe to talk about that other thing.

Tom Anderson (54m 54s)

Definitely sooner than one year.

Jeff Battersby (54m 57s)

Heck yes.

Riley Hill (54m 59s)

It'd be my pleasure.

Tom Anderson (55m 1s)

Yeah, always love having yawn, so we will do that.

Tom Anderson (55m 5s)

Jeff, anything else before we wrap it up?

Jeff Battersby (55m 7s)

I think I'm good. I have other things I want to talk about, but we don't have time. We'll jump to that in a subsequent episode.

Tom Anderson (55m 14s)

All right, well, next show, right?

Tom Anderson (55m 17s)

Which we have to talk about separately because our next show is due to come out on the same day as the keynote.

Tom Anderson (55m 24s)

So we'll talk about that.

Jeff Battersby (55m 25s)

Yeah, we'll talk about that.

Tom Anderson (55m 27s)

Maybe we just take that week off.

Jeff Battersby (55m 28s)

We don't have to bore the listeners with, uh...

Tom Anderson (55m 31s)

Well, they've already left.

Tom Anderson (55m 34s)

Once we get to this part, Jeff, you wanna take us home?

Tom Anderson (55m 36s)

They're like, okay, we're done.

Jeff Battersby (55m 38s)

Yeah, yeah, exactly right.

Jeff Battersby (55m 40s)

What's next in my queue?

Tom Anderson (55m 44s)

All right, well, Riley, thanks again, man.

Tom Anderson (55m 45s)

We appreciate having you on.

Tom Anderson (55m 47s)

And like Jeff said, we'll definitely have you back sooner than one year.

Riley Hill (55m 51s)

Thank you.

Tom Anderson (55m 52s)

That was bad on our part.

Tom Anderson (55m 53s)

So just love to get your insights on everything.

Tom Anderson (55m 57s)

Jeff, always a pleasure, sir.

Jeff Battersby (55m 59s)

Yeah, likewise Tom's good to see you and we'll talk again soon as we

Tom Anderson (56m 4s)

All right, and listener, if you are still hanging around, thanks.

Tom Anderson (56m 8s)

We love having you here.

Tom Anderson (56m 9s)

We know there's lots of places to go for this type of content and grateful that you'd spend some time with us.

Tom Anderson (56m 13s)

So we'll talk to you again in a couple of weeks.

Tom Anderson (56m 15s)

Until then, have a great rest of your day or your night.

Outro Music (56m 17s)

I don't wanna know about your imperfections, dude Prefer to leave you on a pedestal so I'll improve 'Cause if I'm finding out you're normal, then I'm just like you That gon' smash my whole world, lost in a little

Jeff Battersby (56m 18s)

See ya!