AI Security and Bug Bounties

It's time for Mac Break Weekly. Andy, Christina, Jason are here. We're just coming off of Google I.O. What will their reaction be to all the AI announcements from Google? More importantly, what's Apple going to do in a couple of weeks at WWDC to the strategy change. Let's talk about it next on Mac Break Weekly. This episode is brought to you by OutSystems, a leading Agenic Systems platform built for the enterprise. Organizations all over the world are building, orchestrating, and governing agentic systems on the OutSystems platform, and with good reason. Architect, deliver, and scale, governed agentic systems with agility and trust using one open and unified platform. Power secure, company-wide agentic orchestration for core business operations. Teams of any size and technical depth can use out systems to build, deploy, and manage AI apps and agents quickly and cost-effectiv ely without compromising reliability and security. 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We I'm sure you were watching the Google I.O. keynote, which is I think a preview of what we're gonna see in a couple of weeks from apple but we'll find out also with us christina warren developer relations at github hello film girl hello did you watch i imagine you did. Your old boss was uh was on stage. He was. He was a lot of my old old team. Um was it was it exciting to uh to see all the stuff that they announced and uh good good for them, right? I feel like, yeah. So I guess we could kick off with that a little bit. I mean, we're gonna be talking about how this will affect Siri on the iPhone because as we know, the Apple's going to use uh Gemini uh for Siri. So they announced a new Gemini model, which I presume Apple will get. This is all, you know, it's gonna be really interesting to see what Apple says on June 8th at WWDC. Yeah. Especially since a lot of the stuff that they showed off today, I wouldn't say steps on the toes of of some of the a lot the rumors that we've been hearing about uh about uh iOS 27, but uh lends credence to the stuff we've been talking about for a while now, which is like if you're if whatever AI that you subscribe to at twenty bucks a month is doing the stuff where you say, hey, whoever it is, uh prepare me for this meeting and make sure you get the latest data and create a table that we can send to all the everyone who's going in there and do that 20 minutes before the the meeting starts. And it can make that happen. Nobody's going to care whether that happens off off of an Apple logo or a Google logo so long as they're not the ones who have to pay for the tokens to make it happen. Well that was my uh that was kind of my reaction to this is you know, this would work just as well on an iPhone and it made a point anywhere. Although it's I mean s the the the failure uh not failure, but the the difference is that as always ever,y demo that they showed off, and they showed off a lot of really impressive actually live actual live fire working stuff. But all that assumes that what is your inbox? Well, it's great if it's gonna be Gmail. Okay, where are all your files and documents? Be great if it's g if it's Google Trial it work, which is not to say that's that that won't be st uh true still with Google because there's some hooks that are in the the the Macintosh app uh for for Gemini that are certain that are forward looking, but that's always going to be something that Apple's going to be able to play that Google and other providers are going to have a harder time doing. I think Google's taking a page actually from Apple's playbook. This is the ecosystem play. Uh they really make it makes you want to live in La Vida Google as Jeff Jarvis calls it. And uh it the more you use Google . So they announced a new model that they say uh Gemini Flash 3.5 is as good as Gemini 3.1 Pro for less cost, and presumably there'll be a 3.5 Pro. But they also announced an agentic version of this called Spark. That's kind of interesting because uh, you know uh agents are the hot thing with open open claw and so forth. Uh they're modifying uh anti-gravity, their IDE to have a command line interface like Claude Code and and OpenAI's uh codex. They're gonna have subagents, they're gonna have uh agentic and what's really interesting, they're adding this kind of agentic search uh capability to their search. And yes, it all works better if you use Gmail and Google Calendar and Google Address book and Google Drive. Yeah. That but did did the search demo scare you the way that it did me a little bit? On the on one level, it was really, really impressive uh impressive, especially since they picked up on something that they kind of slipped under the table last week during during the Android event, about talking about basically uh generative user interfaces. Basically that we're gonna whatever it is that the tasks that's before you or the requests that you've made, we can create an actual interactive user interface. That's exactly for that. And one of the interesting examples they they came up with is that if you want a desktop widget for your phone, for your watch, for whatever, just describe what the widget should do. We will build that widget for you. That was super interesting. Uh but the uh uh I wonder how much of this is gonna end up in Siri. That's the real question, right? I'm sorry, that's uh I'll I've just just complete the thought. I'm sorry. Uh I it m it made me wonder if you're gonna be generating those kind of user inter faces, like I'm gonna I'm not just gonna give you the raw data, I'm going to interpret it a couple of different ways through a couple of different filters. We will give you this wonderful interactive model of physics that you can play with and learn how learn the answer to your question, but it's not giving you directly the answer to the question from a human being who actually published a paper on this, which is another level of okay, what uh do I can I trust that this little gizmo that you've given me to teach me is actually accurate? And as always , these are great demos, but the ha it has to k has to work every time you try it. Uh Google uh gave a big thing a few months ago about hey, wow, now like uh agen tic uh Chrome. N weow uh Chrome can do things like fill out forms for you. And I'd like, well, it's great because every week I fill out the exact same form to reserve this exact same uh conference room. It's a simple, basic, like HTML form, which label it, what is your name? It knows my n ame. What is my email address? What is my great the thing that I use every single week? It should be able to figure that out. And it didn't work. It had to like say, well, gee, I can't figure that out, but why don't you walk me through this? Like like, no, I don't want you to and I never and I haven't been drawing it again. It has to work. If it doesn't work, you will lose the first time that they try it, and then they won't keep trying it until a couple of years have passed, and now you are using the Apple thing because the Apple thing was six months later than yours, but it did work. Jason, if uh if Apple adapts or adopts Gemini to Siri , will they be able to make the same ecosystem promises that Google is. In other words, would they use iCloud and Apple Mail? Will that be as good? I mean that's the that's the question. Ideally they'd be using on dev ice connected data, so it wouldn't be using iCloud mail, but it would probably be using whatever email was attached to Apple Mail. Ah and whatever. Right. Exactly. So I think um you know, I think that's the idea. The question is like, do they let third party email or calendar apps into the party or you're gonna have to re-add all your data in the first party app just to get it to to look at it and all that. But that's my guess is that it won't be because Google is all about its services, right? Whereas Apple is all about kind of the apps running on its devices. So it would be whatever you connect. I think I think it's funny because I'm connected to Google Calendar and Gmail. Right. So so in my case it would need to talk to Google, but I think that from Apple's perspective, it's more like we'll look at whatever email you have attached to Apple Mail or your default email client, depending on how they do it. Remember that Google or sorry, Apple uh kind of blocked AI apps, AI developed apps in the App Store, right? Well they they blocked the ability to use an app to build another mobile app from the app store. Uh there's there's nothing there's lots of bytecoded apps in there. I was going to say that there are many, many But they blocked Repelit, for instance, which by the way, they've made a deal now and it's back. Yeah. But uh they were nervous about I it seems to me what Apple's saying is I'm a little nervous about the idea of, for instance, Gemini creating an app in your on your phone uh you know for you. It's kind of what Google's offering, though, is these widgets and so forth. I don't know. What will it look like on an iPhone to have this I mean it's interesting because g Google's only desktop app is on Mac. They don't have one for Windows. Yeah. I think I think it was a technicality uh uh on band excuse me. The they they cited the rule about no you can',t have a an app that basically once we we've approved your app, you cannot then push out another version of that app that fundamentally changes what that app does without going through another approval process. I think that they said that because you're basically creating an app that can create other code and create features that have not been approved by the App Store's approval process, on that technicality, we are basically saying you have to fix this. Don't know. I'm not not well, they can't do it to Google search because again, they don't control the browser. Uh but don't control the browser. Google doesn't control the browser, you're saying. Oh I'm sorry. Google's putting this inside a browser container, which Apple doesn't uh doesn't control. You still not have a problem with that. But yeah, that's you but you're absolutely right. I mean the the biggest the the biggest fun you can have is when you're actually creating things that live inside your phone. There's a rumor I think from uh from German that IOS 27 that's one of the things that uh that uh one of the one of the one of the one of the most interesting features of Siri is going to be that you can simply ask Siri to create uh a shortcut for you and it will build the shortcut for you. That's the sort of stuff that Apple's probably gonna want to reserve for itself. And if it's even she was a little perturbed by that notion. But but the but it's the most obvious and and and should be expected thing, period, right? I mean honestly like the the fact that that I'm gonna criticize shortcuts here because I I do like it and I I use it a lot, but I was actually struggling with this yesterday. I was as I was building a shortcut out and I went, this is the worst freaking language ever to exist. It's awful. The fact that it doesn't compile down to an actual language so you can't even see the actual code to then write it in something that is not their terrible interface. I mean, honestly, it's the sort of thing that was built for for AI, right? Like i if if Siri can be trusted to create those things. Can your AI create a shortcut now? I No. My AI can't here paste this into shortcuts. Federico you talk about Federico Fitti , he's he's talked about it and I believe that that that there will be more on this later this week on Mac Stories that he has built a tool that will use codecs or Google code or no codex or claude code and it will generate shortcuts. That would be nice. Yeah, that would be nice. And I And I think it's I think I I think he's doing it now because he's been working on it a long time and he's proved that it's possible. But I think he also is doing it now anticipating that Apple will probably be Sherlocked. You can you can do this yourself. And we don't need Federico anymore. Yeah. Well, and and and I'm sure that whatever he's building is is is far more advanced than what I've done. But I've done the similar thing, which I assume his his his approach was similar to mine, which was to kind of create like a a comp iler of source of basically letting it create something that then is able to be generated to then be able to be imported into shortcuts the right way. Is it like a so shortcuts will let you import some form of there is an import format. You can have a shortcuts file. It's they don't want you to see it. They don't you to see it. It's hard to do. But I I actually I was was playing around with with um with the various um services like the various models actually yesterday looking to see where we were on that and I was I got back something and I was able to kind of configure my own. I'm sure that whatever he releases will be better. But no I mean Apple is obviously this is a very obvious way for AI to go if you know um I mean uh assuming that this theory can be relied on to be like, okay, I can actually use actual human language to have it create the shortcut I want rather than going through the arduous process that exists now. I think my question about like the the Google stuff, because you know obviously what they're gonna show off at I.O. as you pointed out is all about their ecosystem and everything that's that's within their world and their purview. Um, you know, Apple, I don't know exactly what access they're getting to everything. They're getting the models, but there's no guarantee that all these other features are going to be things that Apple will just be able to integrate into iOS or into Siri or anything else, right? So I think that uh and I'd and I'd be very surprised if Google would just let them have access to all that stuff without any of the work. I feel like there's going to have to be a lot of work on Apple side to then say, okay, well, we have access to this model and we can have it talk to the local data to Jason's point about however you know you'll get account information in um and and you know uh talk talk talk to the cloud and and maybe do some on device stuff well I guess it'll depend um but it'll be largely up to to Apple build any of the tooling and to use the model to do what it wants to do. Whereas I think Google is making a very clear play to say, yeah, if you stay in our ecosystem, you can do all these wonderful things on our services. Uh, and those services might include our iOS apps, right? Um, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it includes the core iOS stuff. Just because Gemini is is gonna be powering Siri doesn't mean that everything else that that Google is bringing to that broader ecosystem is stuff that Apple will be able to get. I guess that's kind of what I'm asking is is there now a tension between these partners? Of course. Yeah. There's always been attention.. Okay I mean, I I I mean I at least my experience. Yeah. Well, I mean I think there's always been tension. Well yeah. I'm sure I I'm sure that look big companies work, at least my experience, you have lots of different divisions of people who make different deals for different reasons. And you have some groups of people that are gonna be very upset by how those partnerships work. And you have other teams that are going to be very happy that those partnerships exist because they hit different revenue parts of the business and and different people, you know, get happy about those things. But no, I mean, I think that this has always been a, you know, we need to rely on your technology standpoint, but it's always been, it's always been a little bit of an awkward situation. And this is true for a lot of companies that Apple has relationships with, right? Like they, you know, have had partnerships with Amazon in the cloud and and and Microsoft even going back um a a decade, and they've done stuff with Google Cloud too. And I'm sure that, you know, they have the the Google search deal. I'm sure that Google doesn't love that a huge amount of their their search revenue is, you know, um incumbent upon, you know, being the default provider on iPhone. At the same time, that's also, you know, 20 billion dollars or whatever that they pay Apple because they get more than that, you know, um in in in aggregate. So I I I think there's always going to be tension between those things and just comes down to where are those swim lanes and and what do you do to differentiate? And I think that this is I even more increasingly uh an opportunity uh uh ironically I think for Google to kind of show we have models that other people can use to build their own ecosystems, but we have our own ecosystem too . And that's that's a different thing. Mark German had a big leak yesterday and I'm kind of thinking maybe this was planted the day before Google I.O. to reassure the Apple Faithful. He says besides having a a grammar checker, companies testing a new write with Siri toggle at the top of the keyboard as well as a help me write option. But this is the key. The iPhone maker, this is yesterday in Bloomberg, the iPhone maker is additionally preparing an upgraded version of shortcuts . It's app for creating time savers such as for sharing calendar availability and summarizing a PDF or automations like opening the garage door, turning on the lights. The version. Now in testing, let's users create shortcuts simply by describing what they want them to do. A prompt, in other words. Yeah. Uh the updated app users are presented with a prompt asking what do you want your shortcut to do along with a text field to describe the request the I don't think this was a a chosen, a planned leak. If anything, it might have been timed by German to have it be like here's your answer already about some of the stuff that he knows that Apple is doing. I don't know. I mean, you never know with big companies, but Apple is kind of a customer of of Google and Gemini. And so if the people who are supplying the Gemini tech to Apple uh view them that way, then I I don't I don't know how awkward it actually has to get. I think more of the concern is like what's the lag like because with AI, like how how what is their plan, not just for WWDC and for shipping iOS 26 or 27 in the fall. But like as the models progress, when does Apple get access to that model? Is there or a model based on the new model? And and that's the stuff that they presumably been talking about. I'd actually be surprised if Apple, if the people working with Gemini at Apple were surprised by anything that good that Google said, because they're their customer and their supplier, and they obviously are planning to be supplied with future Gemini models as a part of their development process. So I think this might not be a sh uh too much of a shocker. The the challenge though is the Gemini Gemini isn't just like one thing. And and what's really going on is there's the Gemini at the core that's the model. And then there's all the connections you make to control apps and to everything else in the OS. And like that line is the difference between Google builds it and Apple builds it, right? Like Apple has to build the connectivity in iOS. Google's just supplying them with that model. And that model will have capabilities, but get but Apple will have to implement it for their customers, just like Google is for their customers. It's not a monolith. So I would imagine that they actually talk a lot, but that that doesn't necessarily affect the outcome of like what Apple Apple's vision for how this stuff gets implemented in iOS context might be very different than Google's vision for Android. Yeah. And also a lot of the stuff, particularly this the stuff that they showed off today, uh is not on a lot of the stuff is on device stuff. They made a big deal of how they've got their nano models, the stuff that's going to run locally on device. But they are also leveraging the idea that look, you don't have to keep your laptop on while it's working on this this agentic stuff we will actually create an instance for you in the cloud so it'll be running in the background and also it means that you can start something on your laptop and then have the widget appear or have the solutions appear to you on your phone or on your watch like uh much, much later. So that's so obviously it's not something that it's it's not something that you're uh the by virtue of the fact that there is common DNA between Apple's AI model and Gemini that all these features are going to go across. I mean, this we there's still so much we don't know about what the limit what the limitations of that deal are. Mostly we've that it's been described in terms of no, it's not as though we're it's not as though uh Apple is buying a shrink wrap copy of Gemini and installing the CD and using Gemini as their AI model. More like this is a company that has built this wonderful foundation model. We want to use this as the basis of our brand new foundation uh our brand new model while we build our own foundation model. So yeah, that's still a lot up in the air about while uh a lot of the stuff that they were talking about today at Google was simply the difference between Gemini 3 and three point five and the leaps that they're making there and also the leaps that they intend to be making towards AGI in the near future. So yeah, that's these are all very, very relevant questions. Will Apple benefit from access to that DNA , or is it no, you you you you bought like the four cylinder c uh grocery getter car engine. We have this 12 cylinder uh uh the 12 cylinder supercharged turbocharged one for aircraft, you don't get that because you didn't actually buy that or you didn't that's not the engine you wanted us to build for you So, all right. So I'm just I feel like that Google today showed stuff that is completely independent of either Android or iOS or any operating system that really incents you to just live in the in the app or the browser, right? Just not leave. Everything you want to do, including shop, by the way. Yeah. You do in that window. You and that's what I mean by La Vida, Google. There is you don't need anything else. Yeah. You can have access to all of this stuff. Remember that this is another big difference between uh Apple and Google like was showed off again last week at the at the Android show where uh where Google said, Oh well, here's this wonderful like Gemini intelligence, and look how wonderful your phone will be. And then in the in the and then in the small print, it's like, yeah, uh, if you bought a phone like 12 months ago, it's not going to work on your phone. It's only going to be like you got to buy a phone this year or next year for it to work. Whereas we can pretty much count on Apple creating features that are going to be as device agnostic as possible. So there's the flip the at this the traditional flip of flip of the coin where Google tr is is trying to when it comes to to software, they try to make stuff that is on as many platforms as possible because so long as more people are using something that ha that Google has touched, they become more valuable property to Google. So it's very much in their best interest to make sure that they've got uh ecumenical services, which is great because we don't want to have this sort of AI divide where uh there are people in the room who can't afford to have their own Apple uh Mac Mini running OpenClaw. They have to basically grind through their inbox all by themselves. These people should have access to these same sort of productivity tools. They can compete on the same level. Uh but uh it's it's so it's okay so long as it works for everybody. So long it's bad when it becomes a divide between I'm sorry you don't have a phone that will run this sort of stuff. Uh it's very interesting. I'm just really curious how Apple's going to um spin what Google did today. Yeah. Are they going to modify the keynote the the keynote for in the few weeks basically? Not not change it all they must wait because they have to redress something. I assume they know because they're the supplier, they're the client and they're supplying this, that they know at least broadly what Google's doing, but could is Apple capable of building on this stuff yet, or is it like in process and Apple will get it later? And there's all that mystery. I think how Apple sells all of this is fascinating and and to a point we've made here before. The Apple-Google relationship thus far has been defined by like two sentences that were released jointly by Apple and Google and have been occasionally repeated by the executives for verbatim. Right. Now I'm thinking there's a being cagey, in other words. Well, I mean, and it might also just be as matters, look, I I I there's a lot of things that I can't say, but what I can say is and I and I don't know how much they knew about what was going to be announced at I.O. or not. I'm sure that they're broadly familiar with the capabilities of the models. I also feel confident that they have looked at other past relationships that that companies have signed with with model providers and you know didn't just lock themselves into one version and whatnot and probably had a clause that said and all subsequent you know types of models going up to a certain you know amount will be accessible to us. So I I I'm not gonna pretend like I know what features they had access to and what they don't, but I will say it that these things change relatively quickly and the partners often don't get a ton of advanced notice about what the capabilities will be when they come out and what they can build on with those things. Apple might get more than others. I don't know. I don't know if there's any reason why they necessarily would, unless that the money that they were getting paid was so significant. I don't know if that would be any different from anyone else. Um, but I mean I don't know what this this changes. Again, this is Google's implementation of their models and their ecosystem. And whatever. Exactly. Well exactly. And so so you know, whatever Apple is building and whether they make it Apple would want an agentic? Yeah, I mean I think they would, but I think that they would do it in a different way. Right. Um I think that they would abstract it more than than the way that it's it's being abstracted and and it's kind of, you know, on you know, on on Maine, you know, at Google events or you even look at this at the Microsoft screen. Sure. Well spar Spark is, but but I'm saying you know in some of the other stuff, like I don't know if Apple, I don't necessarily see them getting into the developer tooling space the way that you know Google is, that Microsoft is, that you know, Amazon is, um, that that um OpenAI and and and Anthropic both are. Uh I don't know. Um but uh I I don't feel like that that would be the right abstraction for what they're doing there. But I feel like what they can do is they can take the capabilities of whatever is going to be available in these latest models and then write that into their when we talk about their narrative about this is how we will continue, you know, Siri will continue to add features over time. Siri will continue to get smarter over time and they can continue to build out new integrations as that becomes available. Now what that lag will be in terms of like when the model is released and and when those things can be updated to to up Apple's capabilities. I don't know. This is the downside of relying on someone else's tech for, you know, part of part of what you're building, is that you have to do that. Remember what Apple said when they released uh I think it was when they released iTunes for Windows, they said, but the best experience will always be on Apple. Yes. Right. And I think Google will say, well, the best experience will always be on Google. Here's a question from uh Victor Garcia wants to know I pay for Gemini, but will I have to pay for Gemini when Apple rows out Gemini ? No, right? No, I'm sure you will. Oh you will If you want those extra capabilities. Yeah, if you want the extra capabilities. I'm sure that it'll be exactly like G V D plus now. Yeah. I I I don't know. I mean I assume that'll be similar to whatever Google gives for free through the gym and I have have now. They do a free tier. I'm assuming that it'll be, you know, some very similar to the way that the GPT the ChatGPT integration works now. This is just my guess, where if you connect it to your paid chat GPT account, you can obviously do more things with it. And I imagine that there might even be potentially a Rev share agreement that says if you sign up for, you know, Gemini Plus or whatever through, you know, um Apple, that Apple gets a cut. I have no idea. But but I I would not in any way expect all of the add on services that Google is charging twenty dollars a month for to come to i iPhone users for free just because it's part of the operating system. I mean that that that's insane. That's absolutely not going to I don't think that's it. And it may be uh that I mean they there have been those reports that they're gonna let users connect with different AI providers, and that's probably where that factors in is like outside of whatever Apple's Siri or whatever you wanna call it is if you want to use Gemini, if you want to use stuff from OpenAI or Anthropic, they'll let you connect it in. But there'll be like the base that Apple provides and that I think will be covered by your using an Apple . I should mention open AI is according to uh TechCrunch and others considering suing Apple uh I guess it was Bloomberg reported this. That because Yeah. They're talking to lawyers who might consider to consider possibly thinking about suing them, which is the weakest . They're merely saying, Hey, we're a little miffed that you chose Gemini instead of OpenAI uh for your model. But that's not the suing. The suing is we wish that we wish that a 2024 WWDC announcements had gone better. To which Apple would say, yeah, us too. So does everybody. Yeah. I think but one of the things that's been so consistent and all that that shared language that Jason talked about is that Apple does not want people to think that they're interacting with Gemini. They think they want to that you're acting interacting with an Apple product or interacting with the iPhone. So that's going to be buried, buried, buried hard. So I don't think that people are going to see. I think there's going to be a really a hard line of demarcation be between hi, you are inside Apple Intelligence Space. When you leave Apple Intelligence Space, whatever provider you use, they're going to there's basically going to be o kay you're now leaving you're now leaving Apple intelligence. Good luck with that uh for all these extra features. Uh because Apple really does have to balance this idea of they have to make sure that they're control ling the experience of their users. They have to give their users an Apple experience. And the Is there a risk that their users will say, but I really like what Google's doing. And that and that's and that's fine. They also have to make sure that if you like what Google's uh or open OpenAI or Claude is doing that they have access to that as well. But the they can't allow themselves to become irrelevant uh in the sense that uh they've they've managed to stave off the idea of the iPhone is uh is just the is just the platform where you where uh where you run a web brow ser and you run Instagram and you run your banking app and you run all these apps that are multi-platform. They've managed to change to chase that off really, really effectively. AI is another threat to that kind of problem. If the in if the user interface stops being uh windows and menus and mouses and stops being multi-touch and starts being I'm just gonna speak what I want and I'll trust that it will give me what I want, then it just becomes I've got a premium I've got a premium phone and that's basically all that's got all I need. I have no necessary I don't have no I have no attachment to emotional or technical to this one platform. Every time I buy a new phone, I will go into the Verizon store, the the ATT store, and I will buy whatever has the the the the coolest looking case. Apple has to avoid that as well. And the way they can do that is by making sure that Apple intelligence is something very, very special. And I I'll just wind it up by saying I think one of the smartest things that they're doing is that app Google's mistake has always been that hey, AI, AI, hey, we know you love AI, we know they're not forcing it down our throat. Yeah. Whereas Apple simply say here's a cool feature. Microsoft's made the same mistake and uh they're having to backpedal. Uh because people don't want AI forced down their throats. In fact, the front page of the Wall Street Journal this week is today, rather, is people hate AI, they're booing them in college crowds. They they're voting against uh AI data centers. People hate AI. When I talk about how Apple may get away with kind of missing the AI thing because of what they do. This is kind of what I mean is that the in technology you get these waves where it's like new tech happens and it's really raw and a bunch of companies push it out because it's so exciting, but they haven't really figured out what the use case is. They just shove it out there because it's new. And a lot of times that's rejected. And the more they push, the more hard the rejection is because people are like, why are you giving me this? I don't know what I'm even supposed to do with it. It's just a buzzword. And the game Apple has always played is I want to take and this goes back like to the Apple One, right? Like this has always been the game for 50 years of Apple, which is we are going to take this technology and think about how you want to use it and wrap it in like a use case, wrap it in a feature that is a thing people want to do, a solution to a problem. And Apple has undoubtedly been so far behind and has given up in areas of AI where they're like, we're just gonna use these companies that have these big models. But like their advantage is, I think we have been in that first phase, other than like the coding has kind of gotten there now, but like for consumer use, I feel like we're still in the give me better solutions to a problem. And and the problem with what Apple showed in 2024 was a lot of it was like, is your problem that you want to make ugly pictures sort of based on photos you of people you know? Even there they were doing it and they were that and that was their mistake. So they there's a chance that if Apple can take this stuff and having thought about it and sat in the corner with their head down for two years. They can they can bring out things that actually are useful for people. Because I think I think people, I think we've seen this in how people have used AI up to now. How you've got college kids who say they hate AI, but they use AI. It's like if you can give people use cases , I think they will use it. I think what they hate is this kind of clueless pushing of stuff like Copilot and all this other stuff where you're like, but I don't want it. I didn't ask for it. What are you why are you shoving it at me? Because people don't like to Google that. So if you can give them what they want, they'll like it. Well Siri does this. Apple Intelligence does this as well, honestly. I mean this is like a this is very like fine balance, I think that all the companies are trying to uh trying to find, but I agree with you. I think that that so far it has not necessarily worked. And and ironically, the the services that have worked is when you go to those applications direct directly. Like if you're actually using Cloud Code, if you're using Codex, if you're using you know the Gemini app, you get a better experience than sometimes if you're using these other services. And that's that's the challenge I think that uh a lot of these um different labs have, because they have all these different services. They all act in different ways. And all these companies, to Jason's point, you know, two years ago were all about, well, we're just gonna push this all on you. There's now kind of a a little bit of a retreat because people realize, well, no, we actually want this to be useful. So think whatever Apple shows off and however Siri is going to work and whatever their future of however AI is going to be integrated throughout their operating system works, it needs to be useful. The shortcuts thing, I think, is actually a great example. If that will work as it's designed, that is exactly the sort of thing you should be doing with large language models, is making it easy for people to create these sorts of automations without having to go through the convoluted process that has existed now. I think that's exactly the sort of thing that that Apple could do where you could say, hey, you know, write me something that will make sure that I get an alert every time you know the, garage door, you know, is is left open um after X you know, period of time or whatever, or or, you know, let me know if um, you know, somebody, you know, knocks on the door between this hour and this hour. Like there are there are things that um would be fantastic for regular users who might not have ever wanted to to get into that space before that could really be unlocked. Uh but I don't want to see just the same way, I don't want to see the copilot button everywhere in Word. I don't want to see it in Apple Mail. I don't want to see it um you know in in in my text messages and saying oh we can help you with these writing suggestions. A no you can't and B like you know you're uh you're you're getting in my way and you're actually actively impeding what I'm trying to accomplish. Yeah. Work Google Workspace does that. I every time I'll I'll open up a document. It will open up a sidebar that I will never ever use. Yeah. And there are like at least four or five places for Gemini in there where again, including a floating button at the bottom that obscures something at the very, very bottom. Yeah. So annoying. I Google did little I at least I thought it was a little shot at Apple uh on the IO stage today where they kind of showed a genmoji like capability. Only it looked so much better. Yeah, we got image playground. What about it? All right, we're gonna take a little break. More to come. You're watching uh Mac Break Weekly with Christina Warren, Andy Yanako, Jason Snell. Glad to have you here. Our show today brought to you by Webroot . Uh this is a problem I think everybody goes through at some point. Your computer starts to feel a little sluggish. It starts to heat up. You open a few tabs and you almost can hear the gears grinding. It sounds like it's preparing for a liftoff. May not be the hardware. It may well be the antivirus you're running. Many big name brands have become bulky, complicated, and full of pop-ups and upsells. 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Actually a story from Aaron Tilley writing uh for the information last uh Wednesda y saying Apple is exploring ways to incorporate AI agents into its app store. Now they don't I presumably plan to do AI agents themselves, but they're trying to figure out how you could have an app store supported AI agent that would be more secure . Uh and the information said details couldn't be learned, but staffers are designing a system to adhere to Apple's standards of privacy and security and prevent some of the more freewheeling behavior like OpenClaw , where agents can go haywire and delete things and stuff like that. We will see. Uh the information says next month, and we now know June 8th for WWDC's keynote, which we will cover. Apple is widely expected to make a full-throated AI push . Unknown whether we' anllnounce the agent integration with the app store at the event. I you know, this is unclear. Uh I clearly Apple has to pay attention to these trends. Yeah, it they have to integrate that into the storytelling. This is this is good the WWDC, the keynote this year, is gonna be so critical that they get the storytelling correct, that they say this is the next chapter of the of the saga, that here is where we're going, here is where our master plan is, and here is is what we think important and here are things by not mentioning them that we don't that we think we can leave aside right now. And yeah, they're gonna have to address the idea of uh boy, uh agentix, agentix stuff is about two years uh in the future where users, regular users are gonna want to trust it and use it, but it's gonna be the same sort of thing that we were into a couple years ago with AI, where people are using it and people who aren't a people people are gonna start to notice why you were able to do that so quickly? And why do you have this artwork on your stuff that's so uh that that's so relevant? And then that's uh they're gonna want to actually have access to this, those same tools, uh, those same tools. And then when they find out that if they find out that, well, my phone can't do that, my operating system can't do that, my notebook can't do that, they're gonna ask, well, is there a phone or notebook or operating system that can do those things? Because I don't want to spend 45 minutes every morning uh summarizing and planning out my day. I want to basically have this waiting for me in my inbox. I want to be able to go into to WhatsApp and simply ask a message to an agent and simply say prepare A, B, and C for me and get a reply back in the same the same uh communications channel uh and i've done that during the walk from my car to my office apple has to match that here's something apple should do but uh Rui Carno in the Dow of Mac blog which he's been doing for decades, says they probably never will do. He wants a Siri for families. He says, why Siri should have the ability to understand my family is a unit. Incidentally, Google doubled down on exactly that kind of collective knowledge today at Google I o Do do you think that this is a something do you think Rui's right that this never gonna happen? That 's I think this has always been the tension that Apple has always had when it comes to cloud services.. Privacy Yeah, well exactly. Well, I mean I think that I'm I'm gonna be honest, I think that they've presented it as privacy. Um when in actuality it's maybe been about either their own interest or or their own capabilities um when it comes to being able to provide these sorts of of higher level services. And and, you know, the privacy became a really, really good way of of marketing um and and telling a story around things that might have just been about okay, uh, you know, in the pre-modern AI days it would have been you know machine learning maybe their machine learning prowess wasn't it was not as good as Google's right and so there were there were fewer things that that Apple could do but instead they could say oh but but our data is going to be your data is secure on our on our devices and on our servers. And so that becomes the difficult thing of like how do you thread that needle? How do you go from having at this point decades of of building out that message to then wanting to say, okay, but we can now holistically know more about your family and we can know more holistically about the people that you want to interact with. Because those two things, in my opinion, are incompatible. Um and and and I think that it would be very difficult to, you know, maybe, maybe you do agree to to opt in for certain members of a family, but maybe there are some things you don't want people to know about. And that becomes a difficult thing too. So I I I think I do agree with him insofar as I don't know if this would be a thing that they could lean into it happening just because I think it goes against a lot of the core tenants that Apple has pushed out for again like the last like 15 years for the ex since the existence of of iCloud that you know our your your information is is private and is is kind of siloed. Um there are downsides that go along with that. Carno writes, Apple doesn't think of families as a product category. They think of them as a collection of individual customers who happen to share a payment method ? Every design decision reflects this. iPads are still single-user devices. iCloud storage is pooled but grudgingly, and shared files live in a sort of no man's land. App purchases are shared grudgingly in a sub menu of a sub menu. Family sharing is an afterthought, not a platform. He says the only thing that Apple seems to care about after iMessage is that we can share what we're watching on Apple TV, which has been relevant in our family for exactly zero Maybe. I don't I don't know if I would want this. Would would would I would would any of you want it? 'Cause I'm gonna be honest with you, I don't know if I necessarily want that sort of sharing. I mean, granted, I don't have small kids, and so maybe that changes things if you have small people. There's a brief place period of time with your children. Where you would want that. But I have to admit, uh Lisa turned off. She said, No, I want my own Apple account. I don't want I don't want your apps. Damn it. Right. I mean, I'm I'm I'm I'm I have an Apple family account and my parents are on it as a way to save them money for their iCloud backups basically because I I I pay for it. My husband's not on my family uh plan. And and it's not because we don't trust one another, it's just that's just not how our our our world works and it never has. So I think that in it but I think it comes down to what you come up on, right? Because I think if you maybe come up in the Google ecosystem where it is different and you do have these ideas of, you know, like child accounts and you know kind of carrying things on, maybe able to share more seamlessly, maybe that makes more sense to you and that's great. I I don't know. I think it I think it's it for me it would be I would be angry if that sort of thing changed, right? Or at least if it changed without giving me the option to keep them in these, you know, accounts that exist right now where it's like, okay, you're people who might not even live in the same household who have a shared payment plan, which for for me is completely fine if if if what we're doing is subsidizing , basically saying we're gonna have five users on a plan who are sharing the $45 a month that one of the users pays me for the iCloud storage and everybody gets access to Apple music, great. But I I I don't know. It's it's har it's a s it's a very hard problem because even b even without technology, there's information that people in the family are okay with flowing from one member of the family to the other. There are clicks within the family if you've got more than one kid. And there's stuff that no, there's no way I want anybody to know about this. I'm still kind of working out like this experience. And so where if they decide to create uh an Apple entity known as the family, how do they create those blobs of security and privacy? It's a non-trivial problem. That said, multi-users is a is a really, really, really multi-user is necess arily I think an iPad especially. That I would love to see. Like I Apple's always been bad about that. Why is it well I don't understand. That's they I think I think there is a philosophy at Apple, which is if you would like to have two people use an iPad, buy two iPads. And I understand it on a level as a company that's selling hardware, but there are contexts, right? And the fact is I've had I've had friends who've tried to build apps to do this. My friend Casey Lisp built an app that was basically you got to select what photos were going to be visible in an app that you then show to people so that they can look at photos so that they can't look at your whole photo library, right? Because like Apple there are contexts where you want to shut it down a little bit or or put it in a safe mode or put it in a limited mode. And it's hard to do that. I I I don't know why I think there's a cultural issue there. Some of it is the one-to-one hardware idea. Some of it is I think you've got people who maybe don't have especially kids and are not they're they're young enough that they're just sort of like solo operators or maybe they've got a significant other, but maybe they're coming and going and and so they're just not thinking of themselves as individual operators and although the managers who are higher up may think differently about it. I do, I do think sometimes that happens. The fact that it took photos like 10 years to do any sort of family sharing. Yep. And when they did it, it was engineered smartly to try to understand the idea that you may have personal photos as well as a shared pool with your family members. And they did a decent job at it given that they didn't what they didn't is like a fire hose where you're either in or you're out and you share everything or nothing. Like my daughter is on our shared family library, but she doesn't share any of her photos with us, right? But she can get access to the ones when she was a kid and stuff, and that's fine. Um so like they just don't do it . I I think just culturally they they are not for whatever reason thinking about what do you want digitally that's shared and that's not with a family group. They like iCloud families, look, there are things about it that I really like. I like that my mom can be on my family group and so she can get that iCloud back up. And I like that when I buy an app that has an in-app purchase that can be shared, or I buy an app that can be shared, that that means my wife doesn't need to buy it again. I like I like that. I think that's good. I think and it doesn't mean she has to do it that way, but she can do it that way. And they do keep track of your purchases separately , even in a family, you can see which ones you bought versus what other people bought. But like I don't know. I I just come back to the fact that I think they they add stuff after the fact and that says something about how they don't bake it in because they're not thinking about it. Is it a cultural issue? Is Ternus maybe gonna fix this? I think it's I think most of it boils and I'd like to be wrong, I'd like to be proven wrong, but like it my gut feeling about this is what I say about a lot of this stuff. It goes to like Apple Maps and all sorts of other stuff, which is who's making Apple software and who's making the decisions. And the fact is it's a lot of relatively young, relatively single people in Silicon Valley who make a lot of money and their bosses are a little bit older and they do have some families, but they also make a lot of money and they live in Silicon Valley. And I think, you know, whether it's, oh, it gets cold here, or oh, the metadata in this other part of the world is not the same, or you made an assumption about California. And I'm I'm a Californian, so I get it, but like it is I I think it comes down to that a lot of the time is that one of Apple 's blind spots is that they have struggled to think of a world larger themselves than themselves. And part of it I think is that in the classic Apple is all about remember Steve Jobs the the classic line was that he never did a focus group, right? They just chose what they thought was right. And I think that there was a time when Apple was a size and had the reach and and filled an ecological niche and and an economic niche where they could afford to do that because they were a niche product uh and they were charting their own course. So many of their products are so huge and they reach such a broad audience that I I'm not sure you can do that navigate that way anymore because your lived experience is probably not a good enough match for your customers. And I've seen areas where they've learned that lesson over the last two decades or a decade and a half. But I think it's an ongoing challenge for them culturally to start thinking about like it's not necessarily a crime to do research about your customers. It's not necessarily, you know, going to a focus group instead of choosing what's right to do research and understand how people use your products. But I do think that maybe there's some it's just it's just a feeling based on what I've observed. But I think there maybe is a cultural pushback. Cultural, not individual, right? It's not the individuals involved. You could probably talk to them and they'd all agree with this, that like, yeah, yeah, it's very important that we understand. But like culturally, there's still this, we don't do focus groups. We don't listen to other people. We just make a decision. And if that's in your culture, it makes it hard sometimes to step outside yourself and think of other use cases. Yeah. I I also think that iPad is iPad, Mac OS is Mac OS is a very, very hardline dogma. They're starting to break free from that by making the by making the the use cases blur a little bit. But for years and years and years, that was a no, why would we ever do that? That would be like a Mac sort of thing. So I do think that that's another thing, but I but I think you're absolutely right. That that's a that's a classic thing in all technology where p uh engineers tend to solve problems that they can see in front of them. And so you're limited by the sort of problems that an engineer making six to mid-six figures in Silicon Valley tends to have. You get a lot of people who are like, How do I how do I have a problem where I've got so many pairs of sneakers and I can't really match this the laces to the well, okay, that's a solution. Actually, what I what I want the solution to be is that I can only afford X amount of dollars and X amount of time to pick up my eight kids. How do my the eight my the kids be my my family and the family next to each other? How do we basically solve these transportation issues? It's like that's the problem that doesn't get solved. Uh yeah, we were to actually when we were doing the uh keynote uh today with Micah Sargent and Jeff Jarvis, we both all of us noted that Silicon Valley has a culture is lives in a cultural bubble. I mean, they're talking about, you know, the appointments they're making in my dog has to go to the doggy daycare because we're going. And it's like this is not the world most people live in. Yeah. And it really harms Silicon Valley because they're making products for themselves , but not for the mass majority of users. Now you can step outside that like I mean these companies do have offices all over the world, although they tend to be in urban areas, and so you're gonna get a certain kind of professional either way. Um but I i i whether it's a silicon valley bubble or individual bubbles or whatever, I I do think that one of the things like I said, I don't think these companies when they weren't this big had to deal with this. I think Apple used to navigate on its own kind of like do what's right and that that worked for them. But I'll give you a really simple kind of dumb example of how this bites you, which is when they did AirPods and AirPods Pro , they , I believe the story is basically they looked at the shapes of the ears of the people who worked at Apple and they tested it on the people who worked at Apple about how do they feel. And when they came out with, I forget, maybe it was the first AirPods Pro , they told me, oh, it turns out we need toed measure more e ars because our original AirPods didn't fit as well as we thought they would because our group of ears was not a representative of the range of ear shapes in the world. And when the AirPods Pro 2 came out, they told this story to me again and said, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know we said that about AirPods Pro, but we we really needed even more data to make this shape fit a a wider range of ears better. And that's that's a great example where they got a lesson because they built hardware and you can't update hardware later. And people were like, I can't use this product because it doesn't fit my ears. And they learned we were being a little too insular with something as dumb as like, I mean, dumb, but also super important that if you're gonna make earbuds, they better fit. And if everybody you work with says they fit, that doesn't mean they fit. It means they fit people who work at Apple. And I I think that's all of these companies as they've gotten larger. This is the struggle. I think it's a struggle for everybody, not just Apple. But it is a struggle, which is you don't want to do everything by you know a poll, but at the same time, you do need to have a culture of understanding who your audience is, who your customers are, and how their needs are much broader, which is why I want to differentiate between like a focus group and market research. Cause those are those can be different. And understanding your who your customers are and what their lives are like it is important. All you have to look is at, I think the best example of the disconnect is commercials for AI, TV commercials from for AI, all of which use examples that are nonsense. Or you could say like the the that Apple intelligence thing at twenty twenty four WWDC where they did the uh I wonder what breed this dog is. The owner is standing right here, but I'm going to ignore them and take a picture and ask. It's like a lot of people and say, I wonder what the weather's like, Siri. They're ginned up examples that don't really make sense because they haven't thought it through. So I I I just I I I think it's a really interesting subject because I think this is one of those areas where like some of the most powerful companies in the world still kinda have some boxes they could check to make their stuff better. Well we're moving the wrong direction. We're we're eliminating diversity. We're eliminating uh inclusion . Uh the boards uh boardrooms are becoming increasingly white male, not the other way. I would argue the building of AI models leads to a lot of homogeneity of output. Absolutely. Right. Which means it gives you an answer, and that answer is based on an average, and it doesn't necessarily actually fit what the real answer is. So I understand why the kids are booing at these college announcements. I really do. I wouldn't be in their shoes. Um, I feel very privileged and fortunate to have grown up in an era where there was some opportunity. Yeah. And that the problem with one of the main problems with one of the major problems with AI is that we're all going to whatever the the ecological effects are going to be, uh we're all going to suffer them planet wide. But not everybody on the planet is going to get the benefits of AI. And those are the sort of things that cause trouble when it's really, really great that wow, I've got I'm I've got a $150 million company and I've made it much more valuable because I'm using the AI tools that I have I've been able to retool my company to use AI and now basically we're even wealthier than ever. That's great. But again, there are people in this country that are not going to benefit from that whatsoever, but they're still going to have problems with power sort shortages. They're that regionally are still going to have problems with water and other and other shortages. U h it's not a it's not an either or proposition, but it's the thing is the benefits get distributed very, very uh indiscriminately and unfairly. Yeah. I just learned um that fifty percent of uh the American popul ation doesn't can't make enough to pay for food, rent, yep, clothing, and medical. That they're underwater. That where is suddenly 25% of buy now pay later loans are for groceries. 25% last month. And there are there can be solutions to figure out how do we redistribute food that is not being sent to the correct correct communities. There is food deserts in in which even if you had the money to pay for groceries, how do you get to the place where you buy the groceries? You have to go to a convenience store because there's no supermarket nearby. A lot of must uh that I we'll get into the long long harangue, but those are the solutions that that we hope that AI and other t technologies are will step up to try to solve, but unfortunately that's not the sort of thing that gets people excited. Looks like they're going the other way. To me. Absolutely the rich get richer . We're gonna take a little break. This is Mac Break Weekly. You're watching and we're glad you are with Andy Yanako , uh communist living in the library. Proud Pinko . Red diaper baby. Christina Warren. She uh works for a small little firm called GitHub. And you know what? God bless 'em. God bless 'em. Uh I love I love GitHub. When is uh when is the conference coming up? Is it soon? Well so Microsoft Build is in uh two weeks and we will have a presence there. So that's gonna be in San Fran cisco um on uh January or sorry June um uh first uh through third or second and third I think is is is when it is and then um GitHub Universe is uh is in October that's our big conference but uh but yeah but we'll be at Microsoft Build in two weeks. Good because I want my GitHub badge again. I missed it last year. Yeah we'll make sure we get you one. Because Christina wasn't working there. I wasn't there so I've but I'm back so I felt I will I I'll I will make sure to get you my I have a whole series of GitHub uh badges. I love them. Also Jason Snell from sixcolors. com . What's the what is the what are people uh all up in arms about these days at six col ors. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Always hard to do shows in these, you know, last few weeks before the big conference. But I have to say I'm glad Google did I. And I'm sure Apple is really thinking hard about this at this point. Um I it may it made me wonder uh you know, maybe people should just be buying Chromebooks instead of MacBooks . Do you think Apple's threatened by this? You can get a Chromebook for half the price of a Neo. Probably not because MacBook a MacBook is not a Chromebook. I love Chromebooks. One of my favorite laptops of all time has been a Chromebook. Uh but no Chromebooks are a very, very separate thing. Uh it's gonna be the uh uh Google really stepped on a rake when they introduced quote unquote the the Google book last week without really telling people this is just a sneak preview. We're not actually showing you the little thing yet. But it slowed down sales. Yeah. It look I mean it looked lame. It looked stupid. It looked like, well great, you've got Android and a laptop. So well what else are you gonna what else are you going to show me? Um but and no idea of like what the price is going to be. So that's that's there they're they did say they're going for sort of a premium sort of build, premium sort of processor. So we're not talking about 300 laptops, but if they can create a $500 premium notebook that is super thin, super light, has more battery life than a Neo , can arguably be more useful day to day than a Neo with its one and a half uh USB ports. That could be an interesting head to head, but Let's see. Let's talk about uh iOS twenty-seven. Here it comes . We'll see it for the first time on June 8th at WWDC. Ryan Christoffel writing at 9 to 5 Mac. IOS 27's new design leaks sounds a lot about what I've been wanting most. This comes from Ger man. German's Sunday piece, the only thing I could deduce from it was this weird, oh, Siri might be able to delete messages, which didn't seem like a feature I really was looking for Well I think he's he's thinking of like what's the chatbot interface going to be like and and i is it gonna be more like yeah you're right. I mean it's it's about what details he happened to get and that that that's one that they're gonna be like a default auto-delete and then you can set it for different things. But I think he's just trying to iterate on that same idea that they're they're essentially out of the dynamic island actually, which is kind of interesting. And with a gesture they're building a Siri interface that can also be um more chatbot like because people seem to like that. And you know, I having a Siri chat history with uh like they shouldn't done that a long time ago in the AI thing is the thing that finally got them there. But you're starting to see like the dynamic island detail, I think, is kind of fascinating because you know you're you're seeing how does Apple build this kind of assistant tech into its existing interface on the iPhone, the idea that it might be kind of finally a merge between Siri and Spotlight, which I think is really welcome in the sense that right now, where you depending on where you type, you get completely different responses. And why is that? So I like it's all going to be in the details. And German, you know, as good as a reporter as he is, does not have all the details. And we're going to have to wait for the the actual event to to get all of that. But like they're obviously according to him doing the work to try to build a better experience that is like Siri all what was used to be so abstract. And I think they want to make this new experience be a feature that you can get to and you can look at and you can control like an app. And like that, yeah, that's I don't know why it took this long, but yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah. Uh he says the image playground has been completely redesigned. Yippee. It would almost it would almost have to be. Uh Apple's adding a new describe, a change option to eas ily edit an image after it's created in I guess in a prompt in text. Upgraded models to make the images created with the app more lifelike. They couldn't be less lifelike. So I guess more is good. Yeah. Uh the weather app will have a new conditions section on the main page. More in-depth data for things like rain and wind. You know, that is one thing that grapes me a little bit. They bought dark sky, shut it down, and yet didn't incorporate any of its good stuff into Apple Weather. Well, I mean a lot of that is in there. The precipitation forecasts are right out of Dark Sky and they're using Dark Sky's API, and that API is now the Apple Weather API. So I mean a lot of dark sky it it's not Dark Sky because you know again Dark Sky was a niche weather app for people who cared about the details and Apple weather is never gonna be that, but the Dark Sky API is also now whatever weather kit and people can get that and use that and, it's basically the same sort of stuff. It's a very fertile ecosystem. The weather app's better because of it. Yeah. The weather app is better. The uh radar and all that stuff. Some of that's in there. I mean, it's in there. You gotta find it, but more. I think I think that it's just but to Jason's point, I mean, it's the weather app for everyone. It's not just for the weather nerd. So that's that's everybody loves weather. Everybody's a weather nerd. No, but but I mean, but you have different expectations if you've purchased an app like Dark Sky and you open and you use that versus my mom who's just gonna want to see what the forecast is, right? Like think that that that's the the line you have to to balance. And I think they've done an okay job with it. I'm glad that acne weather is now, you know, an app again from that team so that you can have those things. Um and and I was glad that they kept Weather Kit around, although I was upset that they shut down the Dark Sky API the way that they did that. Um but but other people were able to kind of pop in and come up with drop-in replacements. But yeah, I mean, we'll see what they're going to do. It is interesting to see how some of the leaks are kind of trickling out. I think Jason made a point, uh, was it last week that like a lot of uh German's you know sources seem to be designers and so a lot of these things do seem to be in in some ways kind of you know like reinforcing uh you know like oh no but but like but this this this you know interface that everybody hates you hate it because you're on un uncultured, but we're we're gonna we're gonna fix some basic things that should have always been fixed. And look, I'm I'm a big liquid glass hater on on Mac OS. I I'm ambivalent about it on iOS to be honest, but if they can do something. Uh where I do have an issue is there are very real, I would argue, accessibility problems um with the way that especially the way so the tabbing works and being able to see through certain things. Like it just it wasn't thought through correctly. And and if you don't have perfect vision or if you don't have the right type of background, you know, match with with what you're trying to do, it isn't always very legible, they can fix some of that stuff. Yay? Uh so among other things Google announced in the new Android, and they showed it today, which I really liked, is Rambler. Andy, what is what is Rambler? Um well like me, let's put it that way. It's um it's uh well it's a it's a it's a piece of uh of game tech well not game technology uh but uh it it's uh uh based on here's what it is. And I'm I'm I'm actually interested in He's rambling right now, folks. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So what you know, because sometimes you you talk and say, Oh wait, no, that's not Tuesday. That happens on Wednesday. It will basically figure out, okay, he's basically I'm not gonna say I'm not gonna put all that in there. I'm going to make it so that he just already always said Tuesday. It smooths out a lot of the things that when you're speaking to a robot or to a computer. Speak in perfect sentences. And uh you know so that's and that's going to be part of uh G board, the uh which is which is gonna be that's bad news for Apple because uh uh people there's the the You're talking about the Google keyboard on Google Keyboard on Android. Uh because there's some so there's some problems that it doesn't cause people to revolt immediately. It's just that little things keep building and building and building and I've never seen the case. Is Apple's keyboard on the iPhone getting worse? It seems like it's getting worse. It's hard for me to use. I don't it's and that's not even talking about the lack of features in it. I mean it's it's not terribly accurate. But the thing is like I I tend to I have to go from other people's comments because obviously I'm using an iPhone maybe like a half hour a day. Sometimes I'll be using it like for three or four hours at a shot. I'm not using it each and every day for all my interactions, but I do notice that uh so I don't know if it's because my Android keyboard is just has just knows me much better. Yeah, that's what people keep saying because of bugs or because of it's just not as good. And it it doesn't um it misunderstands my typing more. Am I wrong, Jason? Is that no? Dictionary. Oh. Um because which you can do, what you actually have to go under, it's under the res et menu and erase menu. So you're like, no, no, it couldn't be, but that's actually where it is, and it wipes out your dictionary, which means it starts from scratch and it doesn't know you. But like I was getting such weird responses that I decided I would do that. I don't know if if it's actually helped at all, but I think they I think you know, I don't know what's going on. there They switched to that transformer model. It was supposed to be better. Sometimes it's better. Sometimes it's where I find myself a lot, especially on the iPad. I find myself typing things that absolutely can't be anything else, but what I intended. And the Apple's response is like, I guess you mean this thing that's not a word. And it's like it's so close to the actual word, you can see where my fingerprints were when I wrote it. Why would you not suggest that as the word I'm writing there? And it happens all the time. So I I just I don't understand what they're doing. Um it also bugs me that you can't do sw you can't do swipe on the iPad. But that also bugs me, right? You can do it on the iPhone on the small keyboard, but they don't do it on the biggest I have to type it like a like a caveman. I mean Sometimes I'm like drinking tea sitting in bed in the morning, I'm drinking tea and I got my other hand and I I have to type something in and I'm like, goe, one letter at a time. It's like I could just swipe it, but it's not there. I don't know. I I like like I I'm just reduced to maybe next year it'll be better. Like that's all I can say about it is it's not great. So where do I go? I go to general uh reset? Yeah. Scary. That is really scary. I was gonna say, I was gonna say, I was gonna ask you about this, Jason. Yeah. And then what, reset or erase all contents and settings? No, no, no, no, no no no there should be a dictionary uh or keyboard setting in here. Here's one that says transfer to Android. Maybe I'll just do that. You could do that. That would be another way to go if you want to do that. So should I go to keyboardbe? Ma they res ets there. No. General transfer or reset iPhone. Oh no, maybe it's not there. General erase all content and settings. Nope, that's not it. They moved it again. Where is it? Yeah . 'Cause it's down in in one of those in one of those settings. Not in where you would expect it, the keyboard settings. That's where it used to be. Where where'd they move it? Apple. Come on, Apple. Well, so much for that tip. Apple I don't know. It's reset. You have to tap reset. And then not only is it the reset, you get the reset network settings, which is really great if you're having weird network behavior like that. That's sub reset key set. It'll reset keyboard dictionary. So it's uh reset the button reset is really a set of all the things you're of all the other buttons. Yeah. Plus it'd be very easy to hit the wrong . It would this is and this is so unlike Apple. Like this is a they've own they use the they use this UI pattern a few places, but not many. So but you're not used to seeing another list that way. I'm gonna ask you Jason because I've seen this tip that other people have given too and I haven't done it. Do you do you think it made a difference or not? Because I however many years this goes back with my my dictionary and and it's obviously not great, but I also don't want to have to have it relearn very specific words that I type all the time. I mean all the time it'll come back. It really is like if you are if you are just at wit's end, I would say give it a try. Like I I felt like it couldn't get worse. Yeah. Like so I just reset it. What about names? Is it still like if if someone's in your contact list, like does it reset that too? Because that's that's the thing. Okay. The contact list is still there and it still uses that as as info. So okay. It will still if there's a last name you're trying to type and it's in your contacts, it'll know that that's one probably what you're trying to type. Okay it's I I don't recommend this necessarily for everybody, but if you' likere you're at wit end's and you're like, I can't stand it, give it a try. Like and and if it is a if you will lose that training, but like if there's a word you type all the time, you'll type it a couple of times and say no, that's what I mean. And it'll lear To easily move between favorites, bookmarks a reading list of saved articles in browing browsing history. Okay. Uh what else? Apple's tweaking the tab bar across the bottom of several. This is all minor. Yeah, this is all minor. This is clearly mark is going to his design friends. Hey give give me give me I gotta write a column. Safari needs a revolution. Yeah, I was gonna say like like I I there there's so many things would have to be changed for me to actually get excited about Safari updates one way or another, right? Like which isn't even necessarily a criticize. I mean, I have lots of criticisms, but I I'm mostly satisfied with it. So yay, new cute bar. So you use so here's uh you use safari, then not as your browser Oh no, I use Safari. Yeah. Yeah. Because we know that at least in the US, uh if you use Chrome or something else, it's still WebKit under the hood. It's still Safari, it's just a different UI. But isn't that changing thanks to the EU ? Or not in the US? Not in the US. Not in the US. And and in the EU, right? That's theoretically possible, but it's not actually happening. I was going to say, no, well, because I mean it would take a lot of work. What they want us to write a whole new version of Firefox for the iPhone and in the EU? In the EU, yeah. Good I think I think everybody else who's got a browser was like it's not really plausible for us to just do this for the EU. They could, but they're just not. They could, but the but but this is the sort of the problem with these sorts of things is that like the the EU gets very excited and they're like, look at how important we are, and then the rest of the world goes, actually, no, we're not going to do this just for you. Yep. You're not that important to us. But the but the the desktop versions of between Chrome and actually between Safari and pretty much anything else, it's like it's like going from black and white to cat and color. Oh yeah. To be clear, I don't mind Safari on on iOS. Right. Right. What do you you okay, this is a good time to poll our fabulous panel. Amazing. What do you what is your desktop browser, Christina? Uh I'm I'm I'm on Chrome. I mean or or a chomer uh chromium variant. It it depends. I mean sometimes I use the helium browser. Um I liked Arc a lot, but no, I'm I'm a Chrome person. I miss Arc too. Uh no I'm I'm a Chrome person and uh I was a Safari diehard until about eight years ago and, then I just got to the point where I went, why am I torturing myself? Why am I having a lesser, worse experience? Um, just because I felt like you know, maybe their adherence to certain types of standards was better. Um, and it wasn't. And and the battery life argument that people used to make, Chrome is actually more efficient in a lot of ways. Same is also true for some of the RAM usage stuff. So like, no, I'm I'm a Chrome person for better or worse. And it's not even my favorite browser. There are a lot of things I would like about what Firefox does better, but for rendering things the way that they need to be rendered, sometimes Chrome's faster than using it. It's just Chrome. So much faster. How about you, Andy? What what's your default browser on this? Absolutelyome chr uh and i the first reason why uh it was chrome was because i do want i did want to have cross platform uh uh bookmark syncing and so i was at the time i was willing to take the hit for weaker battery life on my MacBook and my iPad and stuff like that. But now like Christina said, they've really they they know that that they knew that that was a problem and they have pretty much addressed it at this point. So I don't really see that much of a difference. But on top of everything else, it's just simply I,'m looking, I'm I I've got a Chrome window right in front of me right now. And I've got uh recently they added uh vertical tabs. So now instead of so now I have the entire section of my window back and to the very, very left of the window, there is a tiny little strip of like mini icons showing me because I I go right from one app or one document or one feature to the other as much much cleaner. It's got s uh it's got uh split views just like it's it basically stole a lot of really great ideas from from ARC. And the number of times where like I'm writing a show doc and Google Docs, and I basically can basically have one full-screen experience in which I don't have to worry about yes, I can have two windows side by side, but then I have to manage like the gap between the two of them. So many nice little productivity features that just make it a much more comfortable place to be. It is a very modern browser. Just like other competitors, Safari, our modern browsers, Resafari is like , wow, it's good for what it is, but what it is is a very 2017-2018 view of how we use the web . All right, Jason. Convince me to use Safari . Every time I open Chrome up, I feel a little bit sick. You too. I don't want to use Chrome. I it I mean, I I have the advantage of being only on Apple's platform, so the the bookmark syncing and everything else works really great for me. Um I I just I don't see why I would use Chrome. I every time I use it I I I hate it and I want to use Safari and I go back to Safari. I have used I've tried some of the alternative browsers . I don't like them. I heard somebody saying the other day about about how interesting the the side tabs feature is like no you can do left tabs now and I just don't I just I I'm sorry. I just I I find s Safari to be fast and useful and I hate it when I have to. And I will say this about it. I don't understand why there is a whole raft of features, especially video conferencing features, that um Apple refuses to put in WebKit or Safari. I don't understand it. It's been for years now. There are all of these fairly, I mean, they used to be cutting edge audio ones. Now there's fairly cutting edge video ones. They all work on Chrome and Chromium browsers. They use web standards. And when you talk to Apple, they look like you don't, they don't even know what you're talking about. They've never really supported the web's RTC stuff for real-time communication. And as a result, I do use Chrome because if I want to record in any of the podcast recording apps that are web based record Chrome. Chrome, yeah I have to use Chrome. So that's on Apple. If Apple just decides it's not going to support something, it makes Safari less interesting. But that said, every time I go over to Chrome, I'm like, how quickly can I quit this app because I don' It don't particularly like it. And I'm not like a super anti Google person. I use like I said earlier in the show. I use Gmail. That's my email. I I use Google Cali. Yeah, you know, in the end, it's so and and this is the velvet trap, right? Of being an Apple user who's in and I can afford to do it because I'm in the ecosystem everywhere. Is it's way more convenient to use Safari because my open tabs on my iPad show up on my Mac and my bookmark sync and all of those things happen. And if I wanted to, if if I like Safari on my iPhone but not on my Mac well what do I do then because now I I I d now they're out of out of sync regardless it's just a lot easier to do it and it it I have never I have never felt like I had a reason to stop. But I am also well aware that that is Apple using its power as the platform owner. And also I am well aware of all the times that I have to launch Chrome to do stuff. And I don't like it because it reminds me of back in the day where you would go to a uh a site with an Apple uh browser and be told you can't use it because you're using a Mac or because you're not using Internet Explorer. I do not like that. And I do not like that the fact that years into uh real-time communication in safari or i on the web using web standards there are standards that apple just refuses to support i don't i don't understand it and i do not like it because i feel like safari should strive to be the most compatible browser it can be. And anytime Apple throws their weight around like that, I I have to assume, even though it may not be true, I kind of assume it means there's some strategic reason that they've just decided to block something altogether because they don't want people building web apps using it on iOS. And I hate that . Well, there you go. But Safari all the way. So Safari or die ? I use uh I mean I don't have a tattoo. I don't have like a safari tattoo or something. I don't go that far. I'm not a ride or die with Safari, but I am I am all in for now. I use uh Zen browser, which is a Firefox browser. Yes, Z en is great. Really? Well it's Arc. Yeah, I was gonna say it's very similar. Doing, but again, like you run into those little niggles, and like I was I was Jason, you know, eight years ago, and then my life changed and my circumstances changed, and even though I still was just using, you know, Mac devices. When you have to, if if every single day you're interacting with websites that don't work well in your browser, that sort of changes what what you're willing to put up with and what you're not. Yeah. So and you know, I don't know. I I I use um pen boards still even though I'm sure they're better bookmarking and sync tools, but that's what I've been using for the longest time. So for me, that's also part of why I feel like I can switch browsers more frequently. My default browser is actually an app called Choosy, which lets you basically choose what web browser you want to use for a certain task and I have it set to basically open. So Slack links always open in a certain profile in Google Chrome for work, right? Email is always going to open in in a certain profile for something else and you can um uh have rules to do that. So that's actually my default browser is is choosy. Um and there are other apps like that too. Um and so I can kind of switch back and forth. But yeah. And to to be fair, I also I I I think that most people like benefit from having more than one browser installed for different purposes. Well you have to have more than one, right? I mean that's kind of a requirement almost. Yeah. Yeah. I had I had to look up a the name of a commercial product and whenever I and I didn't I just needed to know some information about it. I didn't want this become, hey, he's interested in buying like a Harrier jump jet. It's like so that's that's when you fire up Tor saying, I just want to know when was this manufactured and like where how much does these do these ? We hear you want to buy a Harrier jump jet . I I once searched for a uh lin otype. We were talking Jeff Jarvis and I were talking, and he said you could still buy line of types, and I searched for it and now i get ads like i'm gonna buy a linotype for years ever since i've been getting live ads for linotypes they just had emails and like you know are you still interested in line of type because we've got some hell of a deal. No . If I if I had a if I had an unused linotype in my storage unit, I would be desperate to unhold it to the case Any portnus I beg you please buy my line of type. Uh you're watching Mac Break Weekly with Andy, Christina, Jason. We're so glad you're here . Uh let's talk about the uh iPhone a little bit . Uh iPhone sales still going well. I guess we knew that from the quarterly uh quarterly results. Uh but others are confirming it. Um Apple gained share across ATT T Mobile and Verizon in the quarter. This is according to Counterpoints US monthly smartphone channel share tracker. Yeah. Oh, the C U M S C S T. Well exactly. There you go. It was it was big because they there's the their report says it was up one point three percent in the US, but that was in a world in which uh in a country in which uh smartphones decline five point seven percent year over year. And Android fell fourteen point four percent year. But that but that is just like the first quarter. So that's a quarter in which like most of the flagship Android phones are in different quarters. Right. But nonetheless, it's kind of interesting. Yeah. Still i i it it's still interesting to t to see that and it be' interdesting to you know, see, especially I think like 'cause what what else has really launched I guess since then? I guess we had like the the the Pixel um the the cheaper Pixel phone and and the the Samsung flagships, but um I don't know how compelling any of those were. I think this goes back to what we were saying a couple of weeks ago, which is that like the the base iPhone, they did such a good job with the iPhone 17 this year that I'm not surprised at all to see that the sales have been so good because they really did make I think not only a good argument to upgrade if you had a phone that was three or four years old or or older than that, but to even people who, you know, would would maybe have historically maybe been a iPhone like, you know, S E or or or E user in general to say, okay, I'm gonna spend that extra, you know, $200 and get the better screen and the better front-facing camera and all the other features that just I don't know, they they knocked it out of the park this time with iPhones. Yeah. Nice. Just I'm kind of curious, the prepaid and low-cost smartphone segments continue to weaken. They think it's because, of course, higher gas prices and uh debt payments . Um sales weakness particularly severe below the hundred dollar smartphone tier where of course Apple doesn't compete at all . Um so it really kind of a gloomy market except for the premium tier function. Well and it's interesting too, 'cause I um I hang out on some of the subreddits where I guess people have like the no contract stuff because I have a second line that I don't have on my main Verizon plan because it is actually like embarrassingly cheaper to just have it with Mint Mobile. But it's one of those things where you pay a year in advance and you pay the equivalent of $15 a month. And then after that year, you're going to need to find another carrier. So I'm like looking at okay, who are these other carri ers? And they are doing pretty good deals. I wonder if what's happening with that lower end market is that there had been, I think, a window where people were almost kind of arbitraging and figuring out how long do I need to stay on this, you know um month to month carrier before I can have the phone unlocked and then sell it and do other things and they've they've put in more restrictions on that and so I wonder if maybe that's part of why that that hundred dollar um market is is falling because it's there's more constraints on on what you all have what you have to commit to to even get that hundred dollar phone. Right. So uh more rumors about the uh what we think is going to be called the ultra, the folding iPhone . I still do we know if it's gonna be a halfway decent camera or uh uh that's my biggest concern about the whole thing. I don't know. I don't think they've anyone said anything about that. Yeah, the rumors aren't clear for two grids. We assume Yeah. Well we assume not though because of the form factor. It's got to be thin . They will have, according to the rumor nine to five, Mac is reporting on two rear lenses plus two front face facing uh the 48 megapixel main and the 48 megapixel ultra wide. That means no telephoto . Uh which I've been using a lot when I was in Hawaii, I used that 8X a lot. I love it. I really love it. Like it's really good. Yeah, it's really good. Means I didn't need to bring a you know pro camera with me. Right. Uh the reason of, course for, the two front facing cameras is there are two displays. There's one when it's closed and there's one when it's uh open. According to nine to five Mac, not much is known about these cameras. So there you go. Um I guess you could assume it'll be the same eighteen megapixel center stage camera that's on the 17 . And we have talked, Mark German has talked extensively about the new software, which will um I think it's gonna be very interesting to see what they do uh with the fold. He's German says side by side apps, so the left half and the right half can have separate apps, and iPad like app layouts, but not clear whether it'll be iPad OS or iPhone OS. Well they're the same, so it's just a semantic issue. They'll probably do a different tiling interface for it. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, I I don't know. Maybe maybe they'll get rid of uh overlapping windows, but like split view is a natural for this device, slide over is a natural for this device, like for a smaller screen. It seems as though if all they did was simply implement those two very well and handle the transition from hey, I've got a phone in my hand too. Hey, I've now got sort of an iP an iPad mini in my hand. That's I I I'm hoping I'm hoping and expecting and anticipating they'll do something very, very special with it. It's all it's all there for them to use. They just have to pick and choose. But saying iPad or iOS, I was like it's it's the same OS, so it's just what features do they want to make available for easy on this device. Is that an easy do we even know? I mean it's it's literally in the code base. So I always hesitate to say how easy it is. They have to come up with an interaction model for it because they won't do the thing where you turn on multi-window mode like you do on the iPad. Right. They will have to decide what that interaction model is and how it works, and that will be interesting to see. But all the functionality is there for them to do, and for app developers already supported, and like it's it's all just sitting there for them. So it's just a matter of how they choose to. It's like they've got all the ingredients. They just have to choose how they plate them. Now I think the interesting thing will be what apps will you be able to install, right? Will it only take iPhone apps or because there because there is still a dem arcation where there's some apps that are still only designed for iPhone and some that are only designed for iPad. Will that go away? Will it only be viewable in a certain mode? I'm not really sure. And I and I feel like that's in some ways kind of a a a problem of Apple's own making to a certain extent. Like I I don't begrudge just having the iPhone mode per se. Um I do think a little bit that there is it's a little weird, I think uh and and I guess I'm gonna I'm actually gonna while I'm saying this, I'm gonna disagree with myself. The point I was gonna make, I was like, oh well, you know, you should just if it's on the iPad, it should also be on the phone. I can understand there's scenarios where you might not want that either, but I think that'll be the interesting demarcation. I have a feeling they'll probably just do like if it runs on the iP hone then it's there but if it has a tablet view then maybe it can do that for slide over or for multi window if if they do that but I'm not really sure um but that'll be the interesting thing to see if if you know they'll make any any um I guess concessions there because for some app developers it is completely different apps and uh and and that would be I think it the only thing I would think about that might be challenging from your developer story which is okay how do you maybe like think about what what app you want people to use in what scenario? There's been a lot of talk in the world about mythos, which is an anthropic model. People are saying will be so good at finding security flaws. Well, Anthropic saying we're not going to release it to the public, but only to 50 companies. I think I don't know if Apple's in that list. I know Microsoft is. I think they were. Yeah. Were they? Yeah. So that they can find the flaws before the bad guys get access to this model and find it for them . Uh and apparently uh two researchers with a company called Cali ph uh have in fact used mythos to find a flaw, a very rare flaw in Apple's very locked down operating system. And it used a technique that uh Mythos seems to have exclusively compared to other Frontier models, the ability to link exploits together. This is what uh real hackers do uh often to get these zero-click exploits and others. The software they wrote links together two bugs and a handful of techniques to corrupt max memory, then gain access to parts of the device that should be inaccessible. It's a privilege escalation exploit . Um so this is certainly proof that uh bugmageddon is a coming? Uh we've seen yeah, it's there was a there's a there's a uh I I don't have in front of me, but a couple of weeks ago when this first like was w when when they first announced that hey by the we got we got this thing mythos we're putting in the hands of just some people to test it out to be because it's too dangerous to put out in the to put put out in the field. There's a there's a company that uh or there's a source that does like uh benchmark testing for the for exploits, and they were able to give it a challenge of it was able to do a 30 step exploit and figure out all of us on like I said, chaining together multiple different techniques, putting together a game plan for a start here, and here with with uh with fully owning the owning the device Researchers, the Wall Street Journal says were so excited about their discovery they drove down to Apple. Yeah. Report uh to Apple. They're very, very proud of themselves. That's Bruce Dang and uh Ty Duong uh of Caliph . Uh they're waiting for Apple to patch it before they uh release details uh and uh Duong says the bugs will probably be fixed pretty quickly. But still a big deal that uh this this AI was able to find a way into a Mac . Yeah, one of the world's most secure operating systems. And Apple has they've done they've ratcheted up what they pay on their bug bounties. Um you know obviously they're you know you're never gonna beat a state actor or or someone who sells to state actors for for bounties, but if we s talk about people who are kind of like on the good side, they are they are paying more now, which is a good sign um of them of their focus on this. And and you know, I love that you know, they're out in Cupertino and seem excited to be there. That's kind of fun. Those guys get to come and present this to Apple and take their own take a picture and all of that stuff. That's a that's kind of a because remember, I mean, Apple could approach this as being like, we don't want to talk about it. Where they used to basically say if we talk about security, it makes people worry about our security. So we'll just never say anything. And I feel like they've now come around to the idea that they need to communicate that that they are an entity that lives in the world and has attackers and gets attacked and actually is more comfortable. Like I I've literally been on three calls with people from Apple Security on background, but like telling me how they feel about approaching security challenges. And like they never would have done that before. But they're so they're opening up and I think it's a good thing. They used to make that as a marketing thing where they say,, hey oh, using Windows, pull enjoy all of your hacks and malware and stuff like that. Of course that doesn't happen at all on Mac. Like actually it did a lot, just not a whole lot. It's just that you're piddling little operating system that nobody cares about. And now it's like, yeah, actually people even care, but people sort Bitcoin on the most piddling operating system. So yes, we're concerned. It's a badge of honor that the Mac is doing so well that it's also an attacker. It's also an attack . Yeah, but but i I think they realize that um this is a conversation that's happening and to ignore it and not and not talk explain about what they're doing. I think they finally realize that they actually need to come and say we are making an effort to make the the you know, the Mac, not just iOS where it's a little bit easier for them, but the Mac more secure and that they're increasing their bug bounties and they're doing all of that stuff. That instead of pretending like I don't know what you're talking about. The thing is the great thing about Mike Town is that it's a simple old fashioned we we don't even lock our doors at night. Like that's okay, that's no longer something to brag about. It's no we have to uh also mention that Foxconn has apparently been ransomware, bad guys say they uh exfiltrated eight terabytes of information from Fox Foxconn's uh North American factories. Foxconn, of course, makes uh iPhone and uh I don't know a lot of other Apple stuff . Um, this isn't the first time Fox Foxcom has been uh ransomware, but uh this uh you know it's the latest . Uh couple other stories before we get our picks of the week, Epic Games, Fortnite, back in the App Store. Finally. Worldwide. Yeah. They were in the Apple, the US App Store, I think, last year, but they had a very, very proud blog post. Oh, with the uh God, what was the actual headline but it was but it was like we yes now we're finally back in the app store absolutely everywhere uh and uh yeah but the Fortnite is back on the App Store around the world as the final battle approaches uh and I don't know if they're so there's also Apple and Epic like uh filed like a joint proffer to the court because now Apple is in the is kind of in a bed now that they've had their their uh uh their uh contempt citations basically upheld by everywhere. Now they are acno now they acknowledge that that we have to come up with a pay a a new payment system, excuse me, a uh a percentage of how much is how much we're gonna c charge developers for uh outbound links that that install stuff. And no, it can't be 27%. So basically they basically have uh they the two of them have an agreement that they gave to the judge not to solve the problem, but we've agreed that Apple in 45 days is going to give us a number. Not only are they going to give us a number, but they're going to give us an explanation of how they came to the number. And they're going also going to give us uh documentation and internal documents that support that number. We will then respond to that as a as a pretext to we are going to have uh we're gonna solve this problem so that Apple can you know get back to making money off of the App Store, which now they because of the injunction they really can't offer. Meta has a new app on the app store called instance uh and an Instagram feature for ephemeral sharing of uh photos . Uh kind of like Snap, I guess, where where the photos uh disappear after a while. Meta says I don't know. This is an interesting thing for me because this is an app and I saw a lot of people in my feed downloading it and using it and I was just like kind of like Why? No, I don't I don't really have any Why are you doing that? Well I don't know, maybe maybe it's just as maybe about like where I am in my life, or maybe it just is more state on like the the meta of it all, but I'm kind of like if I wanted to send ephemeral photos, I'm not going to do it through Instagram. I have other ways of talking to people if I just wanted to send them photos in the moment, you know. She just put 'em I put them in messages. I was that that's what I mean so much of my social media has moved from being public to being just in group chats and various messaging apps and signal and iMessage and you know um wherever. Yep. I use Signal, uh WhatsApp, Apple's messages, and if I'm gonna put an a photo send a photo to somebody just gonna send it there. But you can now do it with instance it starts in the camera when you use the uh app itself. And it's free. And it's already got four point eight out of five stars on the app store so I guess people people like it . Um what else? I think that's oh Spotify is gonna support Apple's HLS streaming, which initially they only for video, which they only did on the uh Apple app. Uh now Spotify doing it means I think more and more podcasts will probably support HLS streaming. As far as I can tell, the only advantage we're we're looking at it, uh, we weren't going to do it if it was just Apple, but maybe if if you know it becomes the standard format for video. I think one of the main virtues is you could be watching the video and then just go to audio only . Right. Right. Or vice versa. Yeah, I think that's one of them. And isn't it supposed to also be like more efficient? I think that's supposed to be one of the problems with the standards that's supposed to be supposed to be like more more you know um efficient from a broadband perspective, which is obviously I think probably why Apple initially supported it and why Spotify now that they're serving so much video content is probably looking at it too and they're like, oh okay, if if if we can cut our own, you know, you know, bandwidth bills uh from all of this, that might be a good thing. Right. Uh all right, let's take a little break and then your picks of the week coming up next. You're watching Mac Break Weekly. Our greatest, deepest thanks of course to our club members who make this show and all the shows we do possible. If you're not yet a member of the club, let me just pitch it to you. You get a lot of benefits. You get ad-free versions of all the shows. You get access to the club to it discord. We do special pro I don't like paywalls, the the only time we have exclusive programming in the club is these keynotes like today's Google I.O. because we don't want to get taken down or get strikes against us on YouTube and Apple has threatened that in the past. So the WWE C keynote, for instance, will be in the club only on June 8th. You get ad-free versions of all the shows. You get access to the club to a Discord, which is a great hang. It turns out if you make people pay for access to social media, they're much nicer. So it's a really great place to be. Uh and uh we do a lot of extra programming uh for the club, thanks to the club, which we often uh most often stream live. I'm gonna do an event uh with Jeff Atwood of coding the coding horror blog uh on Friday at 2 p.m. Pacific. Micah does his crafting corner. We do the AI user group every month. There's a lot of things like that. Stacy's book club. Actually Micah and Stacy have agreed 'cause Stacey was only doing the book club every other month or every third month. The Micah's gonna in the in intervening months we'll always have a show every month now and Micah will do media. So if you're in the club, you can now vote on the next uh topic uh for uh the Micah and Stacy's media club, I guess we'll we'll call it. I don't uh for want of a a better name. And Micah's picked a few things that we could all watch together or talk about together and Stacy's picked some books. So that's a lot of fun. Anyway, the real point of it is you're supporting independent, not owned by anybody, not beholden to any big company. Independent, uh, high quality journalism through your club membership. And we appreciate it. Twit.tv slash club twit. Wait a minute. This just in from our engineer, Patrick Delahanty. Club members get chapter markers if you're using a chapter compatible podcast apps starting today, rolling out uh last week to video and this week to audio. So a lot of people have saying we want chapter markers. Um there are some technical reasons we didn't do it in the past, but uh we can now do it in the club. Uh and it's maybe just another way to get you to join. Twit.tv slash club twit. Thank you. Ten ten bucks a month. Thank you for your support. We appreciate it. Pick of the week time. Let's start with Christina Warren . Yeah, so this is uh this is an app called Sentinel, um, and it's um by a um a guy whose name is um uh Alan um although his uh his a uh GitHub um A-L-I-N is his uh name and his website is it's alanal in .com. Um but if you search a Sentinel uh Mac OS, you should be able to find the GitHub link to this. And what it basically is is it's a GUI app that basically configures a gatekeeper. And this is, I'm gonna be honest, from a security standpoint, you want to be careful when you're using this. You want to make sure that you're only using this for files that you know you can trust. But if you've ever run that into instance where you've downloaded an app that isn't um signed uh by the app store isn't notarized, the gatekeeper comes up and says, or you have a uh a file that says I can't access this, the way that you would normally um uh remove that from gatekeeper would be to open up the terminal type in x a t r uh minus d then like the you know file name and then you know uh basically remove from quarant ine um this will do that for you where you can just drag uh an app or or a file onto um the the GUI that the app has uh which basically will uh basically let you um access it so you can allow the unsigned app to launch and then you can even sign the app with either your own certificate or with no certificate if you want to make sure that it'll open in the future. And so this is one that I just uh I actually recommended it to a colleague earlier today and it reminded me of that. And I was like, this is actually a really great app. It's free. And the developer, he also makes a really nice app called Pair Cleaner, which is an open source app cleaner that is, you know, has uh that has privacy mining features involved. But yeah, uh Sentinel, if you've ever had to deal with, you know, especially uh downloading apps um you know from independent developers who might not have them signed all the times or binaries that might come in other ways. Um again know, what you're doing first, but I think this is a great way of not having to have the terminal open and know exactly what commands you need to uh to type into the file every time. I have X attribute in my fingers. I type it so often. I download so much stuff that I have to take out of quarantine. This will be a nice way. Just drag it to it. That's a great idea. Uh thank you, Christina. Uh you can find it uh on the web or in our famous website, uh mbwpicks .com. You're looking for sentinel. The gatekeeper gooey . I am going to create a sacrilege . A terrible, terrible pick . Ooh. If you hate the Mac Doc, wouldn't it be nice to turn it into the Windows XP or 98 menu? All boos. Boo. I'm not going to do it, but I just think it's the villain of the show. I just think it's hysterical. It's called from a guy named Peng Peng. It's called Retro Win. Bring them Classic Windows Task Bar back on Mac OS. There are some, I think, probably uh useful reasons for this. And you can choose uh this is the Windows 98 version, this is the Windows XP version. The Vista version, or the Windows 7, I guess it was. Windows 7 version. There is no Windows 11 version, so don't get your hopes up, kids. He actually really kind of wrote it, which is cool. It's not just a skin, but it is it is free, I believe. Uh it is ret ro win . Windows 98 XP7 taskbar. If the doc is driving you crazy, suffer no longer Well, also like because there are a lot of people who are like repl uh buying their parents and their grandparents replacing their old Windows machines with like it's it'll it's just like just like the old frame. I know how to use it . Andy, pick of the week. Uh my pick is this common thing. This is of course an LED light bulb. Ah, but it's a special light bulb because it is actually rechargeable. Wait a minute. You're it's not even plugged in. It's not in. It has a USB C charging port. That's hysterical. Uh and also see the bottom is actually just this is a dummy thing. It's just magnetically connected. So it gets no power from the from the socket. Exactly. No power from the socket. This is just like a dummy. But the the point, the point of this little fixture is that if you have like an old lamp that you actually really, really like, but you are you want to put it in a place where there isn't an outlet and you don't usually you can basically screw this into the same like fixture or screw it into the wall. But also it's magnetic, so it also comes with like peel and stick little metal tabs so that I've got a couple of them of these tabs uh under us under under under a shelf that again I access a lot. It's not worth running power to. Uh there's also the if you want if you want to like flaunt it, there's also like a little strap that you hang it around your neck. Yeah. Shang on the Christmas tree or whatever. Uh it's it's the thing this is a just a nice little like again, no name sort of thing. It has multiple modes, uh different colors. You can also set the brightness level. It comes with a remote so you can do it uh vi via IR. Uh and again it's not it's not a sp an immensely wonderful piece of technology. How long does a battery last? I've been finding it lasts about five to six hours. That's pretty good. Because so I get for for me it is again there's a closet I not worth there's a closet's not worth uh running power to I've got uh a bookshelf that again not worth running power to or snaking up like LEDs up there. I just put again little self-stick piece of metal there. I've got this uh clo clapped up there and I can simply flick it on, get what I would need, then flick it back off again. And they're cheap. They're like on Amazon. They're again you can get these from all kinds of different sources. This happens to be called the bright town e26 rechargeable light bulb uh but they're two for twenty bucks as a matter of fact after i got my first two i actually bought like uh four more because i just found them so useful it it would be terrible if it only lasted like an hour and a half, two hours. It'd be terrible if they didn't throw off very much light. It's about as bright as about a 40 watt light bulb. Uh but they're very, very useful. And it's it's not micro USB. It is again USB 3. Uh and for all those reasons, again, a nice tidy solution to a problem that was not worth solving until I could solve it for just ten bucks and so easily. It's waterproof. That's cool. I have not tried that yet, but that's really cool. All right. Very cool. Uh Brighttown . Nineteen dollars for twenty dollars for two of them. Probably good for cosplay too. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Dramatic storytelling. Just give them a put 'em down your pants and everybody'll wonder. And there on the hanging on the hood . It was his own face. What? Jason Snell, wrap it up with your pick of the week. I have a free Mac utility, uh, vibe coded by our friend Glenn Fleischman uh because he saw a need and uh it comes after a bunch of how-to articles about how people sometimes let their Mac hard drive fill up too far, and there is such a thing as too close to full, and the Mac starts to freak out when your hard drive is too full. And so he created this little app. It is called Mr. Plim Soul. You can get it at Mr. Plimsoul. What's the name from? What's that ? Well if you scroll down to the bottom, Leo, you will see Plimpsel mark is the load line painted on a ship's hull, the limit past which you can't safely add more weight without risking the boat. Cause there is such a thing as too full. What Mr. Plimso does is it sits in your menu bar and you you can I was gonna say it's the most Glenn name every yeah it is it is the most Glenn name but it's great. I mean names are hard. Uh and it it it warns you when your hard drive, any of the hard drives you choose to monitor, is too full and you choose how close to too full it is. So like I have this on my RAID because when my RAID gets above like 90%, I probably should rethink my life about why I'm saving all of those old videos, right? So uh and it will how does it notify you? Cause like if it's on a server, that's not very helpful if it just puts up a push notification or whatever. It will send you an email. It will send you a if it's on a m it will send you an iMessage. It will send you something via pushover. I think he's working on a on a on a um a webhook version of it. So there's lots of ways to let you know, hey, uh, this hard drive is filling up, which is a real thing that you don't want to have happen. Or just let it live in your menu bar and look up there and you can click and it'll say, oh, you know, you've got you you're only at 70%. You're okay. It actually serves a very simple need with a very simple thing. And then and then the text messaging thing's really amazing. So since it runs on the Mac, like if you put it on a server, it'll open messages and send you from you a little text that says, Mr. Plimsel says this hard drive is filling up. Really great idea. And uh it's not really, it's you know, project managed by Glenn and coded by Claude, I believe. But um it works great. I actually have it on my server now. Nothing wrong with that. And that makes it free. It's free. It will not track you. It will not track you. It will not ask for like money. It is just to help you, and that's pretty cool too. Mr. Plimso Mr. Plimso dot app dot app or for the free Mr. Plim soul. Let's see, launch menu. Yes, launch it. Show it in doc. No. Critical override at 95%. Yes. There you go. And then you can choose a notification. This is great. And it just lives up there and says, hey, I'm right now Macintosh HD, 68%. I'm doing great. I don't have to worry about it. Very cool. Thank you, Jason. Jason Snell, sixcolors.com. And if you want to know what podcasts he does, he does a lot of them, sixcolors.com slash Jason. Yep. Any incomparables coming up? Uh there's always one. Um I would say over at the Incomparable Network, Dan Morin and I are continuing to talk about the current um just about to end fifth seas on of For All Mankind on Apple TV, uh on a podcast we call NASA Vending Machine for reasons. And uh the fun thing is next week it rolls straight into Star City, which is their new show that's a spin-off. It's set in the Soviet Union in the late 60s and early 70s. The Soviet space program has landed the first man on the moon because it's set in the for all mankind universe. What what will they do next? And also, like, there's lots of KGB spy stuff in it. And I can tell you, having seen the first four episodes of that show, it's great. Uh, so check that out. And uh NASA Vending Machine is a place to get all your for all mankind and Star City podc ast thoughts. Very nice. Thank you, Jason. Andy and Iko . I I have two things to clear the backlog and I have to clear the backlog. I've there people are people there are people that I owe a debt of gratitude to that have to be attended to and I did not finish for the weekend. Did you turn the lights off in the library? It seems like it's starting to be a little bit for for effect, exactly. So you can see the you know the effect of the light bulbs. Yes. Look at that. That's Mrs. Plimsall. She's excited. Thank you, Andrew. And of course the wonderful Christina Warren. She's film underscore girl, film girl, developer relations at GitHub. Anything uh you would like to mention I other podcasts? I do. So I have a show that this uh we we don't do it as frequently as we should, um, called overtired, overtired pod dot com. I love that. That I do with uh Brett Turpstra and uh Jeff Severns Gunzel. And uh yeah, that's that's uh that's the other the only other thing I'm doing right now. I used to do more. Um maybe I'll I'll bring another one back someday. It's more culture related. We'll see. We thought we were watching Google I.O. and they talked about how you could have your uh agent spark uh noti fy you when there's a new sneaker drop. And I thought of you. Oh yes. I thought of you. Do you still do the sneakers? Not so much. Um I I the got to the point I got I kind of realized I was like, I think I have enough shoes, but if there is a there but if there is like a you only have two feet young lady right and so and and when I looked and I was like I have like 20 pairs that I have like in storage because I don't have room for the boxes that I've never worn I was like, maybe, maybe it's a little bit too much but. But when really cool, you know, uh sneakers come out, I'm obviously always gung ho. I mean, I don't know. Carrie Radshaw would disagree with she would agree with you. She'd she would disagree with me, but I I d I think I did get to the point where I was like, Maybe I have too many sneakers. Yeah. Yeah. That happens, you know, you you outgrow your your hobbies for new girls. Well, you know, and and you but you also never know when the hyperfixation's gonna come back, right? So I'm I'm al alwaysways open to that because the hyperfixation can always just grab you back when you were least expecting it. So all about that. Yeah. Trust me. Um well that wraps it up for Mac Break weekly. Security now just around the corner. I appreciate those of you watching live, your patience. We started a little late due to Google IO , but I think we got you all out of here in a prompt fashion. Normally we'll do Mac Break Weekly on a Tuesday around 11 a.m. Pacific, 2 p.m. Eastern, 1800 UTC. You can watch this live if you're in the club, in the club twit discord, but of course, everybody's welcome to watch on YouTube, Twitch, X , Facebook, LinkedIn, and Kick. Uh after the fact, on-demand versions of the show at twit.tv slash mbw. And we do have audio and video, so you can choose your uh platform. Of course, club members can also get chapter markers now. Isn't that exciting? Uh there is a YouTube channel dedicated to Mac Break Weekly. And of course the best way to get it is to subscribe. You'll get it automatically the minute it's available. And then you don't have to think about it. You just know I've got a Mac Break Weekly to listen to of a Tuesday evening. Thanks for being here, everybody. Now I'm sorry to say it is my sad and solemn duty to tell you, get back to work. Cause break time is over. See you next week.