The Constant Struggle with Permissions and Privacy

It's never too late to complain about Android's status bar. Thankfully, we're not there yet, but sometimes it feels like it could get that way. For instance, when you take it a step further to ask if you're sure you want to give this access, and then you have to be careful because that's a serious privacy issue. But then you look at the permissions they offer, and it's just another little tiny step further. Oh no, you've given this app screen recording permissions are you sure? It's like asking if you're ready to commit to a lifelong relationship – one minute you think it's fine, the next you're wondering if you made a huge mistake.

That being said, I do wish more people would use their common sense and say no when it comes to sharing their contacts. It's not that hard to keep those private, but sometimes it feels like people need a little nudge in the right direction. But then there are things like the new contacts permissions where you can technically give per-contact access – I just still say no, no one gets my contacts period. Wishing more people would do that is all I can ask for.

When it comes to permissions, sometimes it's hard to know what's reasonable and what's not. It feels like every app needs permission after permission, until you're like, "Is this really necessary? Can't we just be done with it?" But then there are those little reminders that pop up once a week asking if you're sure about the permissions – it's like they're saying, "Hey, remember all those permissions you said yes to? Yeah, good luck with that." Walk it back and ask for permission only once, or better yet, make an option to say never ask again. That would fix everything.

The Importance of Personal Boundaries

Listen, I think the key to avoiding this whole mess is setting clear boundaries for yourself. If you don't want your location tracked, don't let apps track it. It's not that hard. But sometimes, we just have to accept that things are a little more complicated than that.

A Personal Story: Quitting Twitter X

I recently decided to delete my Twitter account and it was a liberating experience. I had been feeling overwhelmed by the constant stream of information and the pressure to be constantly connected. But when our web dev got in touch with me saying my account was still active, I realized that I needed to think about this more carefully.

Apparently, there's a feature called "Tweet Delete" that you can pay for – $7 a month – which will delete all your tweets from the platform. I had to give my data file to them and then hand it over to Tweet Delete, who would then wipe out my entire Twitter history. It was like hitting the reset button on my online presence.

What This Means for My Online Presence

Now that my Twitter account is gone, I'm feeling a sense of relief. But at the same time, I'm also a bit sad. I had spent a lot of time building up my profile and connecting with other users. But I think this experience has taught me that sometimes, it's okay to take a step back and reevaluate what's important to me.

The Future of Social Media

For those who are curious, you can find me on Macdon (not Twitter X – more on that later). And yes, my email address is still active. If you want to get in touch with me, just hit reply to this article or send an email directly. I love getting emails and having one-to-one conversations with people.

But as for William, he's a different story altogether. He's been drifting around the interwebs for years, but lately, he's found himself drawn to the world of Madon (not Twitter X either). There's something about the community there that feels like home to him.

William's Take on Social Media

As for me, I'm still not sold on social media. I love the idea of being able to connect with people one-on-one, but sometimes it just feels too overwhelming. But William, on the other hand, is a different story altogether. He loves the energy and excitement of social media, even if he's not always sure what's going on.

The Silliness of App Permissions

And then there's the regular edition of Apple Insider Plus – our show that's all about exploring the wild world of tech. If you're not a subscriber, join us next time for some silliness. That's right, folks – we'll be covering some of the more... unusual aspects of app permissions.

A Quick Note to Our Listeners

Finally, I just want to say thanks to our listeners out there. It's been a blast talking to you all about social media and tech. Don't forget to check out Apple Insider Plus if you're interested in exploring these topics further. And remember – no social media is the best option for some people!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello welcome to the Apple Insider podcast I'm William Gallagher and back from one of those de vacation things you and I have got Wesley hilard who has had some pretty big news where tell everything spill everything what's your six-month opinion the Apple Vision Pro well um It's Complicated uh the review should be up by the time you guys are listening to this if it isn't it uh that means you listen to this at the cadon Friday um I believe if this isn't P if it isn't published Thursday evening it'll be published early th uh Friday so be patient but hey maybe uh if you're listening this early it means you get a sneak peek into the review but long story short it's not that my opinion of the hardware has changed I still love the Vision Pro I like the idea that it's um portraying for Apple's you know vision of the future of computing and all of that that's all fine but uh I'm I'm pretty down hard on the progress they've made so far as far as um software vision os2 is a good update uh it actually addressed a lot of my issues going into that first month review that I wrote um so that wasn't really the concern it's everything else so the OS and the hardware fine uh they they're actually what lift up the product uh from just being uh an absolute problem um but it's everything else the lack of seemingly lack of commitment from Apple on entertainment uh which is a big selling point of the device right now while it's good for it can be used for work it if I'm going to recommend it to someone I'm probably going to recommend it over the exclusive content and games and things that you can do with it and um you can do all of it in under an hour right now and that's still not great uh uh and so the developer story isn't there developers still aren't making apps for it top developers are just saying either they're not bothering or the ones that have are not making any money uh that's also because the user base is still very small but Apple isn't providing any incentive any evangelism programs they've done this for other Platforms in the past so it's confusing to see such an important product launch with almost nothing from Apple pushing in the direction that we want it to go wow I thought you were just going to say yes it's amazing it's 6 months in and I'm still using it but what what got me was that it's 6 months yes but to you it's 6 months to me it's about 3 weeks as it's been in the UK and I tried it one thing I didn't know when sorry if everybody has already had the demonstration it was new to me apple offers you different demonstrations depending on what you're interested in and one of the things I said was oh uh they get I remember productivity which I went for um entertainment must have been one of them one of them the one I didn't bother with was games I said yeah no don't bother but they did show me an awful lot of sport and I actually told the guy I don't watch any sport but I can't now understand why anyone would watch any sport in any other way than true Apple Vision Pro when it's there but it's not there uh it took them four months to make a uh what six minute Sizzle reel of footage from a game that was played in December um I understand it's a difficult medium to edit and they probably had other priorities but it just it it just sends the wrong message uh and and I know third parties really can't record that kind of media yet it's all in Apple's Court to actually produce um this media but why aren't they is the question there's a few TV shows in the immersive section um you know boundless Adventure uh the prehistoric Planet uh stuff and then um we have one thing from Alicia Keys but that's not and wild of course there that's not much and each of them only have one episode uh there's a second episode to Adventure there's a uh as we record the second episode of wild is available it's about elephants I'll be checking that out uh tonight but that's that that's it that's it's a very small catalog and apple set this thing up a year ahead of time we we knew Apple Vision Pro was coming um in June of 2023 and it launched in February of 24 uh in all of that time there's not one director in the world there's not one video editor in the world there's not one camera that records this stuff right could they not have had several of these things recording in parallel I understand it's expensive but that's why it's an investment people don't want to buy this product for $3,500 if there's nothing you can do with it that you can't already do on an iPad and that's kind of this that's kind of the position I took in the um review is not only did Apple have a heck of a lead time cuz they knew about it ahead of time uh the world knew about it it was no longer a secret right so it wasn't like they had to keep it hidden that they were recording this 3D content um over that span of what is it eight months or so yeah and then here we are 6 months on from that and we've got a few announcements of upcoming stuff submerged looks interesting there's a couple of things but where is this content and where are the apps uh why is there no app evangelist uh system going on Apple should just pay Microsoft some unknown amount of money to bring Minecraft to uh Apple Vision Pro it it not being on this platform hurts it like people want to be able to do the things like you look at um the failing Sony uh VR headset uh that they've pretty much given up on and it still has games and products that exist in the VR space that should exist on Apple Vision Pro and people are going to make those comparisons and wonder like why would I even bother when I can get a $400 failing Sony headset and do more games uh and then as far as productivity goes how can you get anything done if there's no apps on the platform I'm lucky because drafts lets you run it in the iPad version uh on the Vision Pro but that gets back to it the compatibility app folder is my biggest folder on the product it I'm running a bunch of iPad apps um there are a handful of very nice well-made Vision Pro native apps of course not to disparage any developers but there's so few and far between we hit a thousand a month or so after Vision Pro launched and I'm sure we're you know well above that now it could be tens of thousands for all it matters but the apps that are there are either you know it's very early app store if you remember we had so many far apps that apple had to basically say we're not approving anymore right Vision Vision Pro doesn't have that issue but they do have a lot of fake uh pool apps where you can look at a pool table but not actually play um there's a lot of weird in between apps that are kind of like demos for what could come later and so the the actual working apps are fewer and further between and your actual use case okay I'm going to go get an RSS app what's available they're all bad uh if I need a productivity app or a calendar the fantastic I believe has an app on this system uh carrot weather is here but outside of these core examples you don't have much selection right you I just wonder what's happening um in this space and why Apple isn't pushing harder goodness I'm I'm quite rocked by that I mean I knew there weren't that many apps but I know also uh omn Focus my beloved to-do app is there Omni plan project plan these are really strong solid app so I just because I knew they were there I assumed unthinkingly really that others were coming along but uh do you think they released the Apple Vision Pro a year too early it's not that um it's a new platform so don't take everything I'm saying as me discounting this product again I wear it uh constantly you guys made the joke I wear it 8 hours a day I I don't but I do wear it quite a lot I do use it um not daily but nearly daily at this point cuz I I have shifted further back to the iPad Pro because that m4 model is just so nice and uh bit more portable and um practical in a lot of cases but Vision Pro is still great for a lot of different workflows it's good for focused workflows like writing that review was awesome on the Vision Pro cuz I could just you know go to a lake and write uh without any distractions um so it does serve a purpose and I'm not telling anyone not to buy Vision Pro if you have the money and you're interested go buy one it is an interesting product um but understand that we are early adopters and a lot of the things I'm describing are early adoption issues Apple could have waited 5 years and we'd still be running into similar issues it's just how are they course correcting is the problem so again go read the review we can get more I get in more detail there but the long and short of it is this it released in February and it's understandable that maybe developers couldn't get a hold of any kind of development Hardware beforehand fine it released in United States then and then uh further around the globe uh in June July so okay it's getting out there developers are getting their hands on it it's a slow rolling process I understand that at the same time Apple should be going door too to the top developers in the App Store saying hey you made an amazing app for iPad or iPhone can we what can we do to get you to make your app for Apple Vision Pro here's a model you you know maybe you have to return it in in six months but uh here's a direct line to our development team ask us whatever question you need to ask let's get your app on Apple Vision Pro and do whatever it takes and do that with 10 or 15 of the top apps on the app store and just make it happen but they they they seemingly haven't and then on top of that you know lack of commitment from that space because Developers uh already see that there's no money to be made here so why do they bother and Apple's not evangelizing so again why bother so the other side of the coin is Apple's commitment how many apps do they actually have running on Apple Vision Pro natively it's not many and the list that are compatible is even is very long uh the podcast app calendar right reminders these basic apps don't even have Vision Pro equivalents and then there's some apps just completely missing there's no contacts app there's no even acknowledgement that fine my exists you can't even the messages app opens and you can check uh people's information like you can on iPhone but the F my section if they're sharing your location is gone so there's an again I understand that a lot of this will come in future updates these complaints are about 6 months in okay if you're listening to this podcast in 20125 a lot of what I'm saying is going to be moot because Apple will hopefully have addressed it by then it's just right now now the feeling 6 months in at this moment this snapshot feels wrong to me and it feels like apple needs to reup their commitment and make people see Vision OS 2.1 and there be a lineup of native apps more content immersive content and maybe at least a timeline or a plan for more immersive uh environments and maybe a commitment to bring third party of environments into uh The Wider Spectrum you can go to Bikini Bottom from SpongeBob SquarePants and Paramount plus uh fun that's great it's very cute it it's it's well it's actually a very well-made environment you can uh pop bubbles by uh pinching them or you can actually play a jellyfishing game there that's the first time I've seen an environment with an interactive game that's that's funny um more people should be doing that but the only thing you can do in that environment is watch Paramount plus I can't bring my uh my text and safari stuff in there like it's it feels odd and uh so anyway all that said Vision os2 great Vision Pro Hardware Great the future of this platform I think is secure I think it's going to get better it's just what is Apple doing right now to make people want to buy this thing and I don't think it's enough well I was going to buy three but I think I'll return two of them I have one rather serious concern after all that you mentioned in there that we talked about you wearing this a that we talked about that while you were away I thought I was talking behind your back I mean I'm going to have to watch it now aren't I could have said anything I do listen to the show okay even well I mean I've listened uh off the coast of Alaska and things there's something nice reading in a new environment which it sounds like actually bit of an unintentional segue is a good thing about Apple Vision Pro cuz I've done that thing now sitting by the lake and suddenly noticing it gently raining and things but you it feels like in some ways we're still almost waiting for Apple Vision Pro to be what it can be how about this as we record this just moment ago we it's only a rumor and you don't know how to take these rumors but it's an exciting rumor that there will be an M4 Mac Mini and we kind of expected that but we didn't expect is that it could be tiny now this is the thing I don't know if you know this story yet but uh the information is it will be smaller but it might be like an Apple TV so Apple TV uh is it's a lot smaller than a Mac Mini but it's also taller so I don't know if they're trying to uh match it to the Apple TV instead of matching it to the Mac Studio these days or just showing off that they can make everything smaller I imagine if they released a Mac Mini the size of an Apple TV that I would sell my 14-in MacBook Pro and just use that okay right I'm sorry I will get again um I just the whole thing of just a Barely Used Mac in the corner but that would make sense a headless um Mac Mini I'm surprised to say I'm actually tempted by it as well I'm currently using a uh an M1 Mac Mini is my main driver in my office and I'm starting to find it a little slow so a smaller need to a new one imagine if um even better because of the low power requirements of the M4 processor imagine if you could run this thing off of a battery pack and just you know and and someone could make a b spoke little base station battery kind of like they did for the homepod mini where you just kind of nestle it into this little square and you plug it into a USBC port and now it's this self-contained powered on Mac unit and maybe may apple could get clever in software and just uh tell it to run headless uh but you can buy those little adapters that tell it that is connected to a monitor even though it isn't cuz a Mac has to be connected to a monitor for it to turn on and actually function um because that's my setup right now I have a uh kind of junky uh portable monitor that I don't really care about um underneath a cabinet uh connected to a cable that goes to my um MacBook Pro when it's sitting on the bookshelf so when it's in clamshell mode it's still connected to a monitor I can wake it with a mouse and jump into it from Vision Pro now take that concept and apply it to a tiny hockey puck Mac Mini connected to a battery supply and I can just sit down put my little hockey puck out on the table uh put on my Vision Pro and then now I have a 50ft wi Ultra wide 4K display showing my ma and my Mac Mini is now inside of my Vision Pro and my primary interface point is from The Vision Pro now how interesting would that be and would that not be a compelling uh reason to buy Vision Pro this is what I was getting back to sell us on this product Apple show us why we want it can't quite decide whether to reveal this or not so especially as I think I I may already done so before Let's Do It um about four months ago I had to go somewhere overnight and I actually took my Mac Mini with me because there's one particular thing I do that has one particular the flavor of two Factor authentication and I didn't set it up I don't know how it worked or who did it but the code only goes to that Mac Mini not to any of my other devices and I knew I'd need it that night so I took the Mac Mini but I did not take a display all I took was the trackpad the keyboard and the Mac Mini I switched it on I left it for a few minutes to assume it would get to the password thing typed in my password and then after another couple minutes got a cup of tea came back and I used um a VNC uh to look into the depths of it got the six-digit number out and then shut it all down again um actually funny funny you mentioned that um back a few years ago and I'm sure I've written about it here somewhere uh but I actually had I have access to this smack mini so I kind of donated to a family member it's an Intel one I didn't really care for anymore but um at the time I was using it as kind of a server kind of guy had a giant 10 terabyte uh spinning disc drive attached to it noisier than anything on the planet but um it was headless and I had to work really hard to convince it to stay headless um I didn't actually use any work around so I guess with the Mac Mini it does actually run um uh headless pretty easily but uh I I convinced it using scripting um and shortcuts to turn on authenticate and run Sidecar all from a uh Apple script um that was executed via shortcuts on the iPad uh and that was that was pretty handy I'm sure you'll never have to do this with your Mac Mini again but you know side car is always an option and uh Apple scripts pretty pretty easy uh to execute um remotely you have to do like a zh zsh command through the shell and it it actually it's doable if I can figure it out William I'm sure you can well as soon as you start going into V VHS means something else to me but how about this you brought this back from the depth of time somewhere in the 1990s I had a laner power book from Apple one of the very first color ones and I'm writing an article I'm on deadline it's the morning I've got to deliver something at the screen completely dies forever with the screen totally off I was still able to use a track ball as it was then find the uh documents I want drag them off to the floppy disc floppy disc G and then eject the floppy disc all from my memory of where the things were on the screen beat that that should be an Olympic sport you're your own automator I frankly yes you see when I say it I feel a tiny bit smug and I say it out loud and I feel a little bit silly but you know it saved the day so whatever anorexia I had at the time it worked speaking of old things um I did want to bring up sorry me or the power book here let's be okay bit of both yes I was wondering have you um listened to this l so there there's a podcast that analyzes sound that's actually kind of interesting i' never heard of it before but it popped on my radar it's called 20,000 Hertz oh I love that show yes this uh a recent one about Apple sound is that the one you you caught yes and there's going to be another episode not out yet uh where they cover iPhone ring tones and such but the first episode was about the um trone that Apple adopted and the history of it being built uh pre iTunes being bought out turned into iTunes used for uh document uh import complete sounds and stuff ultimately being turned into the iPhone uh uh message tone and the history of those uh and they dive into all these sounds and break them up and talk it's it's such a good show it's only 30 minutes so I would highly recommend going in and just giving that a listen and catch that second episode when it comes out so you listen to this one yes absolutely I'm not every episode but um a lot of them they also have a mystery sound every week which I not once in my life come close to working out so that's a frustration but the apple one is what I'm asking um I listened to the first one I obviously not enough I I remember I had to leave for the end of driving somewhere I presume that's when they revealed the second one cuz I didn't know that was coming I'll definitely be at the very end they they're like but this isn't the end of the show and they play the iPhone the classic iPhone ringtone and they say we'll be back for another one so I assume that that there's going to be a second part to this uh this reminds me I should say apple Insider plus this week is actually all about other podcasts aider plus is the extended adree version of podcast for subscribers and the point of it is yeah yeah we do the news of course we do the news but we're all into this ecosystem environment and we en it mostly and we share these things about it this time we just want to enus about other podcast so it's weird that this should come up right now cuz 20,000 HZ is going to be one of my recommendations for it but I'm sure between the two of us we have a billion of these things I do have a re uh a question for you based on this uh so text tones ring tones alert sounds where where do you stand do you have your phone on silent permanently forever or do you allow some sounds to come through and which ones do you customize your ring tones and text tones uh I'm trying to think of the shortest way to answer this right at the moment I am having a weird bug with iOS 18 in that not all the alerts are sounding and and I have this recoring thing of it going into to do not disturb but when things are all working um for the last few years I've just had What's called the universal uh phone ring you remember from shows like Columbo and things it was one sound effect Universe studos one ring telephone sound effect got a copy of that that's my ringtone uh but I did also for quite a while I gave my whenever my wife Angela would ring I would have it set to be um have you any idea what Mutley is from Wacky Races that must be an American thing have you seen it right I I have I do know Mutley yes right that sort of snickering yes yes that's exactly what I have I have been in some really serious meetings when that's out and it's always gone down a storm you know you have a moment's fear of embarrassment but then everybody likes it and I think I even got work because of that so that's really all I've done I I I use um default sounds and funny enough uh since the Apple watch till about a year ago I was permanent silence because I was getting tapped on the wrist for everything I felt like you know it felt a little extreme to have loud noises alert everyone in the world that I just got someone just liked my post or something like that just seemed kind of silly to me um so I've eased back a little bit into it and you focus modes help a lot with this like um if I am in my work Focus I get my slack tones and stuff in because it makes sense and I'm in my office I'm not bothering anyone uh if I'm on my personal only certain tones get through it's very limited to so I know if I hear a sound it's probably important from someone I care about um it's kind of funny but uh so I can say this now my fiance uh she has a different setup she just lets all the noise through and her text tone is the Kim Possible uh ringtone so the the Beeper sound so yes every time she gets a text the World Hears Kim Possible and we and it's funny as many times as I've heard it and to the point of it almost being annoying uh everyone who hears it is like oh I love that it's it's always funny when it goes off in public and people are like I know what that is introducing a bit more Kim Possible to the world is a good thing but let's not just skip the major news there uh congratulations you're getting married for eventually it'll be a long engagement but yes uh I did propose over my once she's sorted out her notification sounds and you've come to some Accord okay oh actually I li I've just lied to you I said that was all I did for justments but you know recently logic pro added this thing of um uh stems they call it you can take apart music and just isolate the voice that um there's a couple of Kate Bush songs that I think I mean as marvelous as her voice is the I think the music in her music is underrated there's a couple of certain bits where I just utterly adore a certain riff for it and I've lifted those out to be alarm uh Tunes through logic pro one last question we can move on have you ever purchased a ringtone I don't think so no have you I think so um back in the day when it was more popular to have these novelty ringtones I'm sure I bought some sort of theme uh maybe Pokemon related I can't remember what exactly CU this has been at least a decade the ringtone store still exists it's there you have to find it um you can buy ringtones from Apple even today it's wild uh but I I don't really remember I I do I do remember someone I knew buying the uh Stewie from Family Guys saying mom over and over again trying to get her attention as their uh ringtone and that was uh pretty funny but gone are the days of these custom wacky ring tones everyone's just uh marba or trone and you know we've all matured that's what it is okay actually I remember reading I never heard this remember reading somebody uh that there was uh I think they called it a valley girl um thing and it was actually a woman's voice going like beep okay or something like that and that that actually appealed to me a little bit I don't think it would have lasted songs so so from if I remember um from there's two things that'll slightly date me because I'm not that old but uh the funny thing is uh I remember it being so popular a having a song about a phone as your ringtone so like uh having the song be about answering the phone or um do you remember and I don't know if if the UK even participated in this or not but there was a time when you could set a call back song b or like a ring back song I can't remember what they were called exactly but when someone called you instead of them hearing the the the the ring back or whatever uh they would hear a song play and this was like a a thing you could buy through like Verizon or whatever this is a very uh Motorola flip phone era type thing do you do you ever did you ever encounter that completely new to me um right my mind's gone to Ali mobile and picking theme songs but for other people instead of yourself I'm thinking what's the name this's a s uh Blondie call me I'm oh what was there's the name of a song that's actually the main riff is the original iPhone tune and I like the song but I can't remember the name of it it I'm going to look that up and find it and in fact basically it's running in my head now but of course what's running in my head is the iPhone ch um well I'm shocked actually at how much you've brought back but on the other hand they cly didn't make a massive impact or I would have remembered them Spider by No Doubt you just play that as your um message so you say leave a message at the tone but you play spiderwebs by no doubt if you do not know the song go listen to it it's a it's a it's a anyway you you'll get it spider webs spider webs okay right well let's talk music um actually just cuz I mentioned about apple plus and the podcast stuff that we're doing about this will not be it but there's a podcast called strong songs which she did examine a blondie track uh for an hour going into every possible note of it and it's a really good episode but right after it having heard the whole thing for an I played song it popped up on Apple music and I was astounded how short the real thing is I felt quite let down for it but all of this let's just try to bring this back to vaguely apparat stuff all of this revolves around the iPhone and you know what we're now there's a decent chance we're certainly within 6 weeks of the next uh iPhone it might even just before just about 4 weeks to the iPhone 6 stain are you excited I mean I don't know where I am on this anymore it everything just blurs together it feels like I just got my iPhone 15 but I I'm on the annual upgrade cycle so I'll still be getting the 16 oh I keep forgetting that Yes actually how does that work I mean I understand how it works you get the new one you presumably hand back the old one um but what how long does it take is there like a massive overlap where you're phoneless or no so I'm I wake up uh no longer at 6:00 a.m. now at uh a lovely um like 8:00 a.m. uh Eastern Time CU Apple moved the time up for us uh wake up click the button repeatedly like everyone else until the Apple Store refreshes orders my phone same as anyone else but I get to uh I'll have it pre-loaded the configuration I want uh with all of my details already ready to go the upgrade program actually makes it basically a two-click process for ordering your iPhone uh you get it in there under the wire hope cross your fingers hope you get it for Dave of release it arrives and then you have like two to three weeks to send your old one back so I actually get some overlap with the new device so I can uh do some comparisons and do uh photos with both devices and all of that stuff so it's very handy for me as a reviewer and a writer to uh do the upgrade program presumbly have to wipe your old phone before it goes back as as long as the screen is intact they don't care what condition in but my my phone's very clean so it's not a problem Oh I was such thinking of personal data but of course yes whenever I've gone through um the tradeing thing it's asking about condition of various things so okay factory reset it too so you don't have to worry about that yeah um can you remind me which iPhone you've got at the moment then iPhone 15 Pro Max PR Max are you just automatically going to actually on the upgrade program do you have to get the equivalent the you can get whatever you want Max again you could get the iPhone SE if you wanted to it's it would be very silly of you to but yes right I'm sure somebody has uh and Carries on paying whatever the fee is um so are you is are you happy with that will you go onto the max or are you going to consider your option if they came out with an ultra I would get I mean like I'm I'm going to get the biggest phone that they offer uh just because I want the best camera the best display I want the shebang like what whatever cuz even when they're in Tandem and they release a Pro standard uh like a 6.1 in phone that has all the same stuff I still want the bigger phone I want I want all of the display I can get if it was an iPad Mini I would still buy it I just I'm honestly really torn this time um I was in an Apple Store over the weekend examining the iPhone 15 Pro Max next to my iPhone 15 Pro and it did make my 15 Pro seem very small in fact one from Apple came over and was infusing what a shock there about the more expensive phone and then she got out hers and hers was a prom Max but it was in a case and the case made it seem gigantic compared to mine so I don't know there's a story that the screen on the prax will be slightly bigger this time and I think it will also won't it on the the pro so will the slightly bigger Pro be nicer for me and the slightly bigger Max too big for me I'm I'm on Horns of a dilemma here I getting into rumors cuz uh there's a lot um it seems that iPhones are just getting bigger right ever so slightly every year we're getting we're ticking a little higher like we're going to have a 7in iPhone potentially they're just tricking us every year it's like the Apple watch where I think they've trained us to expect a bigger screen for IT umad thing I I don't know I just um I mean with the watch I really like the size of the screen of the ultra I just I really don't like the the heft of the rest of it that's put me off but you mentioned about wanting the best photography and things I what do we know about the iPhone 17 Pro Max on on the camera side um cuz how much more can they put it the 16 Pro Max 16 well no no let's go ahead no I didn't mean 16 you're right what can the 16 have well there doesn't seem to be a lot here I mean I've been trying to keep up but um it looks like they're more focused on the other cameras I mean we already have a 48 megapixel main shooter and a uh Tetra prism um 5 x uh lens so where do we go next well let's increase the resolutions of the other cameras so the main camera 48 megapixels we could see the ultrawide camera become 48 megapixels as well allowing for if both of these are the same resolution we could get much better um spatial video recording uh likely all right a very improved like actual 4K um it'd be interesting to see maybe frame rate increases maybe they could increase the frame rate of the main camera to allow for better slow even better slow motion video and then the tetr prism of course is probably going to remain 12 megapixels I wouldn't mind seeing that jump to 24 but I doubt that we'll see that this year rumors seem very focused on the main on the wide camera the ultra wide camera getting a megapixel jump everything else likely will remain hardware-wise the same uh they'll just pull what they do every year and they'll put a better image signal processor in the a17 Pro chipset or a18 Pro chipset see they I I always get confused which chip we're on cuz it's different from the phone um but yes uh whatever chips sets in there we'll have a better image signal processor better neural engine we'll have better uh image processing so overall we'll probably see better night shots better spatial video recording uh a lot of the usual Staples that Apple likes to um promote better portrait mode maybe a new mode altogether they did the Cinematic mode before maybe we'll get a 4K cinematic mode uh with um improved uh boka control and all of that stuff I have tried using that by the way have you use cinematic mode at all I played with it but when whenever it was it was only in um HD and I needed it to be 4K for whatever I was doing so I just thought this is very nice very clever and never went back I don't know if it's improved or it I so there's a problem I'm not no it hasn't okay yeah I'm not a filmmaker and but I I do take a lot of photos I understand photography Basics uh I I I'm pretty photography uh video is a step up from that in a lot of ways but I understand how it all works and I can see how what it's doing and um so I actually I I've used had not I've I haven't had much opportunity to use the the catic uh video feature because I don't record a lot of video I'm very much a photographer in that way um I've tried forcing myself to record more video I've been taking a lot of spatial video which has been interesting uh uh for the Vision Pro but since cinematic video is trying to do an artificial boka basically uh it's trying to get that depth of fields that a more expensive camera with a big lens uh with a large aperture um will get you now problem the phone camera still needs to focus and when it's focusing on a subject it changes where the depth of field goes in the natural depth of field and then that natural depth of field is going to compete with the artificial depth the field so if you're cinematic mode appears best suited for when you're filming static subjects that are moving about a scene at a reasonable distance now the reason why I mentioned this is because we went to a bird sanctuary uh at a at a Bush Gardens um Bush Gardens has a little bird thing in there you can go walk around with the birds and feed them um it's an amusement park if you haven't heard of Bush Gardens before but um uh anheiser Bush the beer company has a uh theme park but anyway um you go into this little bird sanctuary and there's birds flying around you feed them this uh junk they give you whatever it's cute so I was like oh this would be a great opportunity to test a couple things I took a spatial video which turned out actually really well and then I saw while I was scrolling through the video options oh there's a cinematic option completely kind of left my mind so I turned it on started recording video and then went later to look at it and edit it and it kept changing Focus based on how close I was to the subject because and so I tried to force it to focus on a specific bird and it struggled with that because how close I I I was getting too close to the birds clearly I was causing the um autofocus adjustment to keep triggering uh it was a problem uh so yes I it's it's nice but it's not all the way there and clearly there's uh we need a force focused a professional video app to make this long story short a professional video app will would allow you to set your aperture and say stay here stop autofocusing stop looking at different uh aperture links whatever just stay in this one position while I'm recording this video and lock it in and allow me to focus with my hands instead of the camera lens um can't do that in the phone camera app so cinematic video has a lot of room for improvement maybe we'll see that in the next update anyway that was a long tangent to talk about that but there I mean you're talking about the iPhone's own like general purpose camera app but there is now the um what's it called there the Final Cut uh Final Cut camera that's what I'm thinking of I had to look at my phone there where I've got it and there's also black magic and filmic pro I'm pretty sure I've used uh filmic Pro to just shut up up with the moving kind of thing like that so there are options but then do they record special I honestly get very confused about uh photography and video on the iPhones I should probably read an apple Insider article or two on the topic that's what I should do I'm I'm just always excited about the cameras um processors are already so good how how much better can they be uh gaming on the M4 is obviously better than on the Apple's a series chip so we can always see better stuff there I don't know the iPhone 16 because it's going to be a similar design I I'm excited for the upgrades mostly to the camera because uh because of the stuff I'm interested in and photography I'm just not sure what else can go on here I mean it's going to be probably the same display the same Dynamic Island it's going to be running iOS 18 so day-to-day use isn't going to change that much but I'm going to get better pictures out of it so that's worth it for me so basically I was right to start talking about the iPhone 17 that it wasn't a mistake at all uh what about um the iPhone fold which we are obviously getting any minute now um would you be drawn to that I love these rumors because William if you you've been paying attention as long as I have it's always almost been here I mean I I swear when the Galaxy Z flip whatever in 20 correct me if I'm wrong 19 came out um it any moment now Apple was going to answer Samsung with a flip phone and it was just rumor after rumor after just no um it just never happened uh the technology wasn't there it's I I still would argue that it's still not quite there they're getting better okay don't get me wrong I can hear the the foldable people coming after me uh they're they're fine it's a cool gimmick but it is still a gimmick um Android software is not very well built for that kind of system again they're finally getting better cuz Google's making their own foldable so Android's getting more foldable ecosystem benefits it's getting there but Apple will I think will do a better job because they have the iPad OS and iOS built on the same it's basically the same operating system with the fork so uh being able to shift between the two will be nice if it's an iPad version but I say that and it's actually not going to be an iPad version it's going to be the iPhone flip uh which we're going to be uh writing more out soon where it's a flip phone where you pop it up uh from the center fold across the uh the short side so cool I guess um what does it really do it would have to be really thin because it doubles the thickness of the phone when it's in clamshell um what benefit do you really get there other than novelty uh do you get a double tall phone I I'm just I understand the Samsung flip exists and it's a neat concept you can play um a Game Boy game on it like it's a gamey Boy Advance SP or a Nintendo DS that's that's interesting but how far from novelty to utility is it right does is there actually a purpose to this and I wonder if Apple's held off so long because they still haven't found a proper utility for it and is it just a gimmick that's going to pass as a fad into the distance foldable phones I'll let you sorry foldable phones have improved in sales over the past few years cuz more people are making them but I I think that's because more people are making them at different price points and not because they're getting um noticeably more popular if you understand the difference yeah I'm just I'm thrown uh part thinking five years since the first folding phone and apple still hasn't done one but then more shocking five years and only now is the software on those phones getting decent like so fragile and if you break them who fixes them because no one there's in a Samsung repair shop that's going to fix a foldable phone you have to ship it off and then you're without a phone for a while and then it's expensive in its own right to get fixed we're talking about $2,000 smartphones ouch and the the crease the points of failure on this device are numerous the crease in the phone can cause the display to go out you can lose pixels anywhere on the display I've seen people have problems with their hinges coming loose uh Parts rattling around there's just been so many weird problems that it it again it's a a solution in search of a problem what are we solving with these foldables and does Apple actually want to get into this industry does it matter enough to get into I can tell you that back in the day before the iPhone uh not every phone I had was a flip phone but once I'd found one I stuck with flip phones because if you're ever having a row on the phone used to be able to slam the phone down and really get it out of your system and then we had mobile and the best you could do is never call me again and then beep as you push the little button tying up but with a flip phone you got to Crunch it close and feel good just looking at me yeah I imagine doing that with a touchscreen flip phone would shatter it but um immediate regret no that's the danger isn't it like you can't you'd have to daintly like push it closed there's an intentional Gap in a all of these phones to keep that from happening but the Gap lets dust in so one design uh compromise creates another issue I I just I don't see it as practical it's fun they're cool don't get me wrong they're interesting like I would own one if they weren't astronomically priced just to play with just something just a toy but it gets back to that Android problem again where is the utility just like the operating system at some point something's got to give you just need it to be a phone and not be a toy and uh flip phones right now feel like expensive noties and I say that wearing a Vision Pro but still uh I understand the irony here but it just feels like we're always almost there but never quite and by the time the technology is safe enough good enough no more failure rate problems Apple can do it in a way that is just perfect that by the time we get to that point if be it the iPhone 17 the iPhone 18 that the fat will have moved on and there will be better technology to pursue El where okay um I'm just going to pause the fact that you just said that about you saying this while wearing an apple Vision Pro but the Apple Vision Pro is here and you're using it most of what we're talking about just isn't it's all it's right back to the new Mac mini stuff most of what we're talked about today is not here and there is something that is here which is the very latest beaters and I have so many questions about beaters because the one thing I don't understand is I went through hoops to get my UK based iPhone to believe it's in America so I could get apple intelligence try it out and I'm still not getting all of the bits that I know you have Malcolm AR on Apple Insider he's not that far away from me he's getting these things and I'm not so I don't know what I'm doing wrong but uh of the latest beaters have you had chance since you came back from holiday to try the new ones and in particular the Safari distraction thing well so uh we're at a conundrum here uh there are two beta lines and I'm on the 8 18 18.1 beta so I do not have distraction um control oh that's why I haven't got it then right that I'm on 181 as well oh okay I was starting to take this personally but 181 should get it any day even as we record it could I I I haven't looked at um the feed since we started recording but it could potentially already be here I don't know um but yes anytime now 18.1 will get their beta whatever 2 three and get the new features as well but it's just not it's not in 181 yet it launched an 180 and it's not an apple intelligence feature it is just a basic feature and uh I guess we can get into that like what do you what do you think about distraction control and how Apple's trying to tow the line between uh eliminating annoyances and eliminating people's Revenue my very first thought was that there is one particular site um it's a doctor who site a fan site uh which has been going for so along if you have any questions about anything it's all in there the material is brilliant but the display of it is just horrible and feels like it's been getting worse recently so the ability to just run my hand across the screen and get rid of some of those interruptions they're not even necessarily ads it's just weird displaying of certain things to just wipe them out of my sight that appeals um but that's only one site really that I'm that fussed about uh are there any that annoy you that much I don't know I'm I don't really use the web that much I I know I'm such an anomaly but I I don't use YouTube I don't use Tik Tok I but like doesn't use YouTube doesn't use the web doesn't use his Mac I mean I use the web oh goodness what do I even do I just sleep all day I guess frankly that's what it sounds like okay no I have other things in my life to do no um I no I browse the web you know I'll go to you know different video game for like websites to find information about things or uh you know I'm I'm on the web all the time I'm just trying to think of like what do I I I just don't think about websites that way and I've actually kind of moved away from content blockers because I found that most of the websites I use are pretty um friendly uh yeah I I can think of a couple that are a bit more aggressive you know when we could have used something like distraction control like early 2000s websites with the flashing banners and the uh colorful like everything just is yellow at you constantly like that would have been a good time but it responsible web design today kind of gets rid of a lot of that and and it allows you to allows people to focus on the content um this is this is going to be kind of weird because you can tell it to erase an ad but if that ad is a Google ad that means its code is updating every time you refresh the page or at least every few minutes um so that ad will return uh distraction control isn't looking look at the actual elements location it's looking at the elements code so as long as the code is Shifting the element's going to return um static areas like some websites use like uh let's use daring Fireball as an example he'll have a sponsor and an ad slot for a week if you erase that it's gone for the entire week um that's not great right that's how you make money by just showing even if it's just showing the icon if you never click on it it's still a add view so a lot of websites rely on those things and um content blockers have existed for a few years now and people have been upset about it and I mean if people want to block ads they're going to block them there's nothing you can do about it if it's not going to be done in Safari someone's going to download Firefox and go get every ad extension that they can to eliminate everything except text and images on the web fine they're going to do it so I have seen a little bit of blowback I remember a community in France uh reaching out to Apple saying please don't do this but on the other end of the spectrum like I can see the damage it could potentially do but I think also the damage has been done the people who want to block ads are going to block ads um the web is more or less the people who know how to do this who want to do this are going to do it the distraction feature is interesting because it's hidden in a menu you have to go invoke it you have to know what you're doing with it you have to see how it works is there going to be a a tutorial for every iPhone user to go through will they care enough to utilize it we're talking about William I know I've seen so many people I'll I'll I'll look over their shoulder with their phone and what they're doing and they're watching a video but they're watching a 16x9 video while holding their phone horizontally but not only that they haven't entered full screen view or theater mode no the phone the video is a thumbnail inside of YouTube with other elements around it as like there it's literally one button press away from a full screen view and they could rotate their phone 90° and see it in a beautiful full device view they can't even be bothered to full screen the video are you telling me we're worried about normal people going out here and going to a menu option and selecting an element to delete it like no I this is a power user feature if it ever was one and the people who already are limiting ads probably already got rid of it this I think the best place this is going to be used and hopefully this works is we can finally kill the open this in this app view or cuz those are permanent or get rid of the uh accept all cookies Banner or whatever like eliminating those is a godsend and for some reason content blockers just don't understand how to handle those uh there's workarounds a million maybe this being native to Apple Safari we help get rid of those better uh that's where I can see this succeeding but the average Joe just isn't going to care they're already watching postage stamp size videos within an embed in YouTube so I think we'll be fine it's a SAT world isn't it we go out and buy 66 in televisions and then we watch videos the size of your thumb mhm okay recorded in 8k uh well that's what you'd want that actually I I presume I also don't have this um the another not as big a change but one of the significant changes is that Apple's backtracked on the photos redesign and got rid of the carousel um if I've got this right the carousel is just a thing at the top that you could swipe and see a selection of photographs and that was nice but you didn't have to swipe you didn't have to see them my only problem with photos is that I'm finding it difficult to get just to the video section when I've just shot a video I didn't have anything else with the carousel but the carousel is gone it was a nice feature but I can see it being a problem because people could open their photos up and be like where are all my photos and not realize they have to swipe through a half dozen um widgets to get back to the photo view like I I can see that becoming an issue for the um average user uh especially if they didn't set it up and it just they accidentally swipe something away and then it's gone forever or my photos are gone what do I do um so that going away is a regression but uh they still seem committed to the single pain view which is nice I do enjoy the single Paine view I hope um more apps kind of figure out what new intuitive ways to implement this kind of stuff because sometimes the multi pane views get redundant um I want to see it where it works I think in the photos app it works get in there and customize it William if you haven't actually um gone through and organized how all of those little widgets are arranged go in and uh try customizing it because it it's very useful actually okay I'll look into that for it sorry I just hesitated on there because there something else about the betas and things um I don't mind the carousel I'm actually sorry it's gone and it doesn't sound like I'm I I'm sure I'll play with the distraction thing just for the fun of it and then unplay with it but there is a thing on the Mac OS uh B Mac OS seoa that I actively dislike um as you're not really a Maus have you even come across the change to the permissions prompts that you get I think I've used Mac OS Sequoia for about 8 minutes since June so well I mean to be fair I just I don't know it's just not my operating system I know what they're talking about though because um I I've now deleted it I previously used B uh bartender and then I have um screen uh what's the what's the screen cenot X good one yeah yes like that like I have that installed um I just haven't had much use for my Mac lately so I haven't it's I turn it on to update it and then shut it okay moving on so just yeah but I am aware of this cuz I've seen people complaining about it and uh we've seen this before so I understand the um anger and frustration and uh the many blog posts getting generated from this um Apple obviously overcorrected and we'll we'll we'll explain what it is in a minute I'll let you William because you you'll be able to go more detail but I've got a history with this voice yeah if we remember Windows Vista and the ad making of this uh with um um what's his name something long Justin Long uh you know Apple used to make fun of this very concept of nannying babying users um and walking through them through every permission but the problem with this one is is it resets every week for screen recording uh apps or anything that requires screen recording permissions or uh microphone access or anything like that so you there's no way to say apple no for ever I trust this app I've had it installed for 20 years just trust it no way to do that you will be prompted randomly every so often to say do you still want to do this now I will say that seems to be a conscious decision to at least weekly warn people of this permissions are also broken on beta right now every time I open the Weather app it asks me for my location every time I open reminders it asks me for my location and notifications so um I wonder if Apple will be able to back track this and just be like you know we overstepped but right now in the current beta 5 and uh 15.1 beta it's a mess so what have you encountered this William so many many many different ways I mean to be clear this is supposedly about screen recording that if you have an app that you use to record your screen once a week Apple will do just like you said you you really you want to keep doing this but what I think Isn't So immediately obvious is how many apps screen record uh keyboard Maestro for example the the brilliant keyboard Maestro uh if you're trying to automate something and apple won't let you there you need to press a button and there's no keyboard shortcut while keyboard mro it can kind of do keyboard shortcuts but it can also look at your screen and when it sees say the delete button move the cursor to the center of that button and click it for it but it does it using screen recording uh you mentioned bartender I don't really understand why bartender uses it but it does you're right there are accessibility apps that do this and then there are actual screen recording apps like screen flow um and clean trat X and all of these there's so many apps that need this and once a week is irritating but for some reason and who knows why on my particular the Mac in my office I have had a permissions bug for years where it will suddenly say you don't have permission to record the screen screen and you have you've gone in you've set it up you've said yes and the answer for some reason is to say no and then to say Yes again so I've got used to being irritated by that and in the last few weeks of the beta it's been back and I thought a lot worse suddenly I'm getting it every time I try to use uh clean shot X actually is the one that I've been using the most so it's the one I've seen it name the most it comes up I take a screen grab and it says are you sure on the good side it gives you two buttons neither of which are no by the way it doesn't say I won't have this the options are go to system settings or go on then carry on continue to allow is the word and given that continue to allow is at least quicker than my going system settings turning it off turning it on again I been kind of half grateful for that but the number of Apple Insider screenshots I've taken that I've so carefully positioned something to get it just right to show just what I need and the screenshot turns out to have this massive prompt in the middle saying are you sure it's it's been driving me a bit spare and I put it down to beat a bug going away and then this week we learned not so much uh so um yes you can hear I'm relaxed about this there there's some good things Apple does with um their privacy prompts like I really enjoy the popup that says this app has had access to your location here's everywhere you've been in the last week that it's been able to see it doesn't do it very often but when it does it's appreciated it's like yeah no that makes sense like I feel like for the average user that sees that maybe they might think twice before giving Facebook their location access or the photos permission it's like they've changed it to select some of your most precious photos it's like if you give it your entire Library access it can see all these images like I like those tactics like it's smart and um they don't repeat too often it's useful um and then you get to slightly more aggressive stuff like a permanent red or green dot in your status bar uh for microphone or camera use or uh the location indicator right it's never it's thankfully we're not Android yet we don't have 37 icons in the status bar but uh sometimes it feels like it could get that way um and then you take it a step further to uh are you sure you want to give this access I do like the new contacts permissions where you can technically give uh per contact access I just still say no no one gets my contacts period I wish more people would do that but um because that's a serious privacy uh issue but then you look at the permissions they it's just another little tiny step further oh no you've given this app screen recording permissions are you sure and then asking that once a week that that's a step too far walk it back ask it once give us an option to say never ask again that's all honestly I think that that would fix everything put a check box in that prompt that says never ask again click it actually make it never ask again and then move on with your life like that would solve everything honestly uh listen very good to have you back congratulations on the engagement but you've just told us uh you don't share your contacts you don't like having your location tracked where can people find you if they want to get in touch it's not that William um well so I am on McDon that was very ominous pause uh it was yeah well so I want to tell a little story uh so Twitter X is uh increasingly a nightmare so I decided I'm going to delete it I just I'm I'm done I'm leaving um I so I did and then a week later uh our webdev got a hold of us said um you don't have a Twitter account anymore what's going on it's it appears to be activated and I explained he said well you might want to reactivate it because someone could go and take your username and then say whatever they want pretending to be you I was like I guess I hadn't really considered that so I went and reactivated it and now there's still an X account for me but now I've made it private and I rediscovered a feature if anyone's curious it still works called tweet delete now apparently there's a GitHub script you can do for free I don't know anything about any of that so I paid someone $7 to do it for me uh tweet delete $7 a month make uh do the subscription then cancel it immediately uh will delete whatever tweets you want if you give if you go and request your data file from X and then give that to tweet delete it will delete every tweet in your history and I have done so so my 3,000 tweet library is now zero or well 22 but I can't apparently it can't find them because they're not there um it says I have 22 tweets but you can't see them anyway so that account is is now pretty much locked down just wanted to explain why that went away to our listeners if anyone's looking for it why I am now a series of planets as my profile photo that's why um that said still active on social uh I am on Macedon you guys can find me there uh of course emails are easily found for any Apple Insider person uh top of every article so you can always email me I enjoy getting those uh email me about um me quitting Twitter I don't mind I'm sure there's going to be people upset about it uh because people are very emotional about Twitter X these days but yeah I I just I've really enjoyed madon I think it's my kind of place and um I I'm going to be sticking around there uh William what about you have you found love on madon yet are you still uh bouncing around the interwebs I'm still a drift but it's I don't know what it was there's something about the whole Twitter felga cab that um just kind of soured me on social media I I find I'm getting a lot of emails and I love love that I really like that onetoone contact have a gas with people I like that immensely so email is the best way for me the best social media is no social media William remember that okay so no social media no contest no right anyway I'm not going to move into a cabin in the woods there's ways to interact with humans other anyway uh listen on that slight bum shell that's it for the the regular edition of appid plus if you're a subscriber uh then hang on for a minute because we have have apple Insider plus if you're not a subscriber join us join us you get adree versions and sillly let's go with calling it silliness after the regular episode that seems a bit harsh but join us and you'll find out but for the moment where great talking to you thank you very much for listening hang on for a moment for Apple Insider plus good to be back guys see youall next week\n"