**Unlocking the Power of Apple's Image Recognition Software**

This week, we've been seeing some amazing examples of Apple's image recognition and analysis software in action. The feature, which is seamlessly integrated into both iOS and macOS devices, can search for a wide range of items, scenes, objects, and more within your photos. We're not talking about just simple searches here; the software is capable of returning instant results that are surprisingly accurate.

The lead example I have to share with you is one of my favorite: I searched for "avocado" in the Photos app on my phone, and sure enough, there were a collection of avocados in a photo saved on my device. But what's even more astonishing is that this software can search for locations, objects, and specific types of things – all with impressive results.

Take, for instance, when I searched for "zoo". The algorithm returned tons of photos of animals, including those found in cages at zoos. However, when I had taken a photo of ducks hanging out behind a metal crowd control barrier while living in Boston, the software saw it as an animal behind bars – even though it was just a normal street scene. This highlights how Apple's algorithm arrives at its conclusions and puts all the pieces together.

Another fascinating example is searching for "scoreboard". When I entered this search term, the software returned 14 results, with 13 of them being photos taken in arenas with scoreboards in them. While one result didn't quite match (it was a photo of a scoreboard in a different context), it shows just how effective this feature can be.

One interesting distinction made by Apple's algorithm is between "cat" and "adult cat". This highlights the software's ability to differentiate between similar-looking images. However, there are still areas where the software falls short – such as when searching for more specific or complex objects like razors or shaving (but surprisingly, it does know about ravines!).

**Apple Insider's Tips and Tricks**

We've been playing around with Apple's image recognition software, and I'm excited to share some of our discoveries. One tip we found was that you can search for art, birthday cakes, piggy banks – the list goes on! The software even returns accurate results when searching for specific types of objects or scenes.

But it's not just about the quantity of results; the accuracy level is surprisingly high. We searched for "marriage", and the algorithm returned plenty of photos from weddings – although some of the incorrect results included men in suits, women in dresses, and even couples kissing. These examples show just how well Apple's software can put together seemingly unrelated pieces of information.

**The Full List of Search Terms**

For those interested in exploring more, I found a list compiled last year that showcases all 4,432 different types of items, scenes, objects, and search terms that Apple's image recognition software can identify. From "rainbow" to "rafting", this list covers it all.

While the software is still not perfect – as we saw with our attempts at searching for razors or life jackets – these examples demonstrate just how powerful and useful this feature can be in your daily life. So, go ahead and give it a try – you might be amazed by what Apple's image recognition software can do!

**Additional Resources**

For those interested in learning more about Apple's image recognition software or exploring its capabilities further, I recommend checking out the latest article on Apple Insider and following me on Twitter @AppleInsider for more exciting tips and tricks. We'll also be back next week with another episode of this podcast, so stay tuned!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enyou're listening to the Apple Insider podcast welcome to another episode of the Apple Insider podcast this is Apple Insider episode 119 I'm your host Victor marks and with me is Neil Hughes editor-in-chief hey Victor how's it going brilliant how have you been doing all right excellent so we had a rendering that we talked about on the site this week MH of of a of a so-called iPhone 8 and this is we're saying this is based on CAD files that are allegedly used for actual construction of the cas this is some of the stuff that's leaked already that's out there um showing a design of a device um it's interesting because you know modern phones are essentially just a slab and glass on it right um and so I remember a few years ago there was a uh leaked model that came out of at the time was called a future iPhone and it turned out it was just some Chinese manufacturer made something that looked a lot like an iPhone you know of course given patent disputes between Samsung and Apple and stuff there are people that would allege copying of course but uh at the same time there's only so many ways to differentiate a small you know piece of glass and metal essentially so you always have to take these things with a grain of salt but as we get closer and closer to September and an anticipated announcement um you'll start to get a clear picture of what's going on with these devices uh and what they're going to look like um and I think that we'll have a pretty good idea by then okay so should I take this this render as something very serious or should I take it with uh some skepticism I would take it with some skepticism because we're seeing renders and and CAD files and stuff and and mockups and everything else out there um and they continue to circulate some of them showing a Touch ID on the back of the device and as we've talked about on the podcast I I don't think that apple is going to move the touch ID to the back of the phone I I just really don't see that happening um however we don't know you know um if Apple really has their heart set on uh getting an edgo edge display on this and they can't get touch ID to work in the screen maybe they will put it on the back I I can't say with 100% certainty my gut says uh that that's not going to be the case but we just don't know because this is not just as simple as you know manifesting an idea and making it happen I mean there are all kinds of moving parts that have to come in here including the fact that the technology needs to be able to be produced at scale without any uh major issues and and proper yield rates it needs to be profitable uh you know Apple could create a theoretical million dooll iPhone that they could make a hundred of and and sell those if they wanted to but you got to be able to sell these at a certain price that people want to buy them at and and they got to crank out you know some 15 million of them for a launch weekend and stuff I mean there are so many moving parts to line all this up here and the modern supply chain and and modern components are so complex that think things could change at the drop of a hat if if Apple will do a thing and and you know this better than anybody Victor with your experience in the industry you can have multiple suppliers as Apple does that are competing essentially and trying to sell you their technology and So when you buy an off the shelf iPhone sometimes you might get a display made by sharp you might get a display made by LG you might get a display made by somebody else and they all fall within a certain range of one another so you don't really know which screen you're getting because in Apple's mind and really any other electronics Maker's mind it shouldn't really matter as long as you get the same experience um but Apple also uses that to their advantage in terms of yield rates so there have been times in the past where a company will uh be making parts for apple and they just can't make them reliable enough or they can't produce them at cost or they can't get the numbers up and so Apple drops that supplier and and goes with an alternate um and so we don't really know what's going on uh at this point as they gear up but you know we're coming down to the wire they're going to have to start man facturing these phones and start ramping up production relatively soon if they want to hit a launch uh this year and of course they want to hit a launch this year so that's just what we're expecting but you know there are rumors that the iPhone 8 the flagship model the high-end thousand plus dollar model may be a little bit quote unquote delayed now I hate using the word delayed because you can't delay something if you don't announce it uh but Apple has historically for the last five or so years launched new iPhones in September um and it is rumored that this Year's iPhone 8 may not actually ship to Consumers until October or November even um and if that's the case um that would be a quote unquote delay uh from the normal time frame of shipping things but um you know as we get closer and closer to September we're going to have a better idea of what's going on here but as as of right now you got to take it all with a grain of salt you can't believe these mockups these renderings these supposed leaks these parts uh you can't you can't count on them just yet we're not at that Point yet right and and they're very pretty and they may lead you to believe cuz they seem to begin to have things in common right uh the vertical camera Arrangement that we see popping up on these things uh you know that there are some things that that people feel strongly about but even those things aren't entirely certain right and there may be uh things that apple is considering that don't make the cut um for example last year we had a number of leaks showing a uh magnetic SMART connector port on the back of the iPhone 7 plus but not on the 7 now of course Apple's never going to tell us but the question becomes was that some madeup leak that just kept making the rounds and you know got caught in the Echo chamber so people bought it or was it actually something that Apple was considering and then ultimately decided not to put in the shipping product um I think the second one is true for a number of reasons but I don't know because Apple's not going to tell me right and and we only find out about the validity of those kinds of things years later uh a good example of that is the Prototype of the first iPad that made it to eBay and then was course taken down you know years and years ago back in 2009 uh early 2010 uh there there were schematics for an iPad that appeared to have two 30 pin connectors one for landscape and one for portrait and you know I we'd always sort of suspected that this was them trying to figure out which orientation was the default orientation of this device and it wasn't until uh that that device made it to Ebay that we found that there was a physical thing that actually had both connectors on it yeah yeah and that was interesting I think the real treasure Trove of those was from the Samsung patent infringement suit where Apple through disclosure revealed a number of designs and concepts for both the iPhone and iPad that never made it to Market all kinds of crazy stuff um and it was really fascinating to look at and to kind of get a Peak at how their design process works but certainly again for all the reasons that I detailed before whether it's Parts yields uh reliability cost whatever um you got to think that Apple has a handful of uh different designs they're all probably very similar to one another um probably the external chassis is locked down at this point I would guess but there might be some features here there where they test it out and it doesn't pan out you know I mean nobody wants to at this point I mean not not ever but certainly not at this point nobody wants to have a Samsung Galaxy Note issue you know like if Apple's going to put wireless charging into this phone You' be better sure that you're testing it testing it testing it if it's not coming if it's coming down the wire and it's not working they just got to yank that feature well and I would say that if if the release is ostensibly September October November that everything that's going to be made is already locked down by now right yes because and if something isn't panning out then they might yank it but they're not going to add anything at this point right but but at this point I I would say that everything that's going to be yanked has probably also been yanked this is the point where everything has to be stable and all of the deliveries of all of the parts have to start coming together right you know it's it's it's it's not too late but it's almost too late to make any kind of change yeah the rumor right the rumor is with this touch ID they're still facing issues now who knows how much lag effect there is on that you know maybe as of 3 months ago they were having issues and they've since sorted out or made the decision you know as of today we don't really know um but you got to I mean you're right you got to think that they have this pretty much figured out at this point we're in May they're going to start ramping up production usually their time frame is June July okay so let's delay them a few months for the iPhone 8 because it the rumors so we're going to look at you know August September maybe October in in Earnest Manufacturing in in a big way uh if they're going to do an October November launch so I mean they're they're at make or break time right now there there's a calendar there's a calendar and you have to work backwards and you know how many manufacturing lines you have open and what the yield is on device per day from those lines right and how many pieces of those lines are being pulled for testing to QC and make sure that they're all working right so that you can stop the line if you have a problem uh it's it's it's all very well laid out it's pretty fascinating when you think about it and and how much we take take it for granted the the moving parts and the complexity and everything that needs to come together to put out a new iPhone every year is is is quite fascinating yeah months in advance all of the parts are purchased and reserved and you know you you you don't have Parts showing up at warehouses and and manufacturing companies until it's ready to be go together for assembly but you you've got everything bought well in advance so that you don't risk a competitor coming in and saying buying up all the supply so they they've purchased every part that they need well in advance and then once production starts coming together after they've done their EVT and their pilot run those parts start arriving one of my favorite examples of how these things pan out is uh it was many years ago I just started working at Apple Insider actually and this is back when the iPod Touch was still a big deal and uh Apple had just introduced a year prior the first forward facing camera on the iPhone 4 and so the expectation was that they were going to uh put uh a forward- facing camera on the iPod touch that next year and it was a done deal the rumors had said for months whatever and we had a reliable source that came to us and said uh Apple got some bad parts and this was like maybe 3 weeks before the iPod Touch was announced and they said Apple's got some bad parts and they pulled the forward- facing camera from the iPod touch and I was not sure about it but I mean this guy that we had was reliable um or girl and uh uh we um uh ran the story and sure enough they iPod Touch shipped without a camera but what made it really interesting was nobody knew until I fix it of course got their hands on it and took a look and sure enough there was a place in that iPod Touch for camera but there were no there was no camera in there and apple the parts just didn't pan out and so they said okay well we're scrapping it and that was it and they shipped it without one and the same thing was true of the the iPod that the previous to that the third generation iPod Touch which was also meant to have a rear facing camera and when you took the back off there was a great cavity for rear-facing camera but no camera Y and uh the the people who came out the best on that deal were Inc case because incase had made a a case with a honeycomb Arrangement that coincidentally had one of the holes line up with exactly where the rear facing camera would have been but since the whole case was honeycombed it didn't matter they could continue to sell that case for the device that had no camera everyone else had made one had a camera hole had to scrap the cases yes that's my big it's always well it's always funny when these you know uh these case manufacturers there have been a few high-profile cases of them making uh cases for devices uh based on designs that don't really come to Market you know and in some in some cases no pun intended on the word choice there um they they do this on purpose because it gets them some publicity so you're not an apple authorized manufacturer just you know Joe Casemaker or whatever and you can make it based on a design and then get some hype for your product that no one would have heard of otherwise um and put it out there so it's like a strategic move in some ways um so you know it's it's uh it's interesting to see how this whole ecosystem works of companies that rely on Apple whether they're supplying them or selling accessories for them or whatever yeah when it comes to cases it's an interesting one because there's there's this crushing pressure this huge amount of pressure to be in stores on launch day because that's when people are going to buy a case for certain right right they they walk in they buy the device they're not leaving there without the attached sale of a case and a screen protector right and so if you're one of the many case manufacturers that is still an you know a partner of Apple but not so close a partner that you got the schematics prior to the release of the device Through official channels let's say um you make a case based on what your best best guesses from the knowledge that your factory shares with you right and yes it's through unofficial channels but you go ahead and and do that so that you can be available on launch day and you run into some interesting problems where when Apple catches you at this they'll say something like um you got that information through unofficial channels and so now you're not going to be in Apple retail stores for x amount of time or you know some other form of punishment right you know there's there's different things that Apple can do for favored suppliers and and suppliers that fall out of disfavor and uh so you have to be very careful if you're in that kind of manufacturing position you know you need to to balance the what you do with the information you have right it's uh it's a very tricky position sometimes and it's it's interesting to think too about how drastically these things can affect these companies like you know um you look at a company like obviously GT Advance is a great example there was just to be a sapphire supplier for apple and they couldn't meet Apple's demands and and and quality expectations and they went out of business um but even if you're just a you know a company like Samsung that used to make all the CPUs for apple and now Apple switched over at tsmc I'm sure that's a huge effect on their business um and then if you're a Casemaker uh how does it affect you if the iPhone 8 is going to be available in limited quantities and won't launch until November you know how how does that affect your business if you depend on Apple to get that phone out in September and to sell 15 million of them in a weekend and you know you'll have you know sell hundreds of thousands of cases or whatever um how does that how does that hurt your business how does that affect you yeah and it can mess up your whole quarter if it's not uh as you expect or forecast exactly and you mentioned tsmc so tsmc has uh and we have we have this story that we ran this says tsmc started production of the 10 Mill 10 nanometer a11 chip to support this rumored iPhone 8 mhm so this this ties right in with what we're talking about in terms of you know when when do parts manufacturing start when does the whole device manufacturing start well the uh this the story in part comes from Digi times so you know take take that part with uh a grain of salt that was the part where Digi times said that uh Supply was limited or there problems initially with the components but uh you know you know every piece of information that we have says that's all been resolved if there ever was a problem to begin with um Ming quo KGI analyst says that production may start as late as October or November like you just said um which means that the mass production has to happen uh in or around mid June to July right tsmc has to go mass production around June and foxcon who makes these phones end up going into mass production around July does that make sense yeah so yeah you can kind of work backwards with the calendar I see I see something funny too A lot of times with um uh commenters who will read an article about potential delays for upcoming products or uh they'll read about uh Limited at launch it will be extremely limited launch and they say we always read this every year and it never happens well it does happen you're just not thinking at the scale that that that apple is dealing with like apple may ship you know 7 million iPhone 7 pluses last year at launch or whatever they shipped but that product remained difficult to get throughout the holidays especially in the jet black uh finish um so was it constrained at launch absolutely yes now you may have pre-ordered woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning when it became available for pre-order and got it on launch day and you didn't experience an issue but youd have to step outside of your own personal experiences and realize that uh for other people they couldn't walk into a store and get one and that is how the vast majority of people buy iPhones the same happened with the Apple watch the same happened with a lot of products when they came out uh the Apple watch was in constraint for I think like five months or so well look at airpods now right I mean um you know those uh were delayed uh didn't make it to Market until right before Christmas you still can't get them at the store well there are two things that happen here right one of them is is that you you first of all you start out with lower production when you first turn on the man the the manufacturing lines and you do that so that you can catch any problems right you you do slightly lower yield your first week because you're trying to make sure that you you spot potential problems and you solve for them M the other thing that happens is that you you you try and open up additional lines to account for this kind of of demand so you open up additional lines you open up additional factories right foxcon and apple also work with pegatron and wistron to assemble they're hiring additional people so that they'll be ready to meet this demand but when you turn on these lines you've got to have all of the tooling and all of the other machines to support these product lines so there's that's a cost that has to be accounted for in a time to build those things and you have to uh you know you have to staff them so you have to train the people that are going to do these things so it's it's all got time attached to it we just don't feel it at the retail end as much we feel it a little bit you know as you say they're constraint Supply but this is a KnockOn effect that started months back right tell me about inch what do we know about LG and inch I say that without giving you enough hint um so oh the facial recognition story sorry I have yes the facial recognition story still talking iPhone 8 let me just some compy names out there to surprise you right yeah first I was thinking initech was uh um uh isn't that the name of the the company from um uh office space spelled differently i n i t what a great company name right well here you go LG inch i n n o t e k um they are supposedly supplying the facial recognition camera modules for the iPhone 8 um so last year on the iPhone 7 plus uh they introduced a new dual camera system um one of those cameras uh being a uh 2x uh telescopic Zoom whatever you want to call it and then the other being a traditional camera and between the two of them they could do some Advanced and interesting stuff um so now this year they're expected to bring a dual camera system to the front the FaceTime cameras um and this is believed to open up the an Avenue for Apple to uh include some form of augmented reality 3D facial recognition technology uh in this year's iPhone which could have a number of potential applications um including uh you know the ability to map things over your face like you look at the kind of stuff that Snapchat's doing but imagine that in a more advanced way U but also the ability to recognize a user unlock the phone potentially even fast user switching access to apps and features that sort of stuff um think about what Touch ID currently does but in a uh a way that is even more seamless than it has been done to date um and potentially with more features and and more security as well um there's another um report uh that is uh out there as well about those cameras uh suggesting that uh the lenses on the front could be uh different focal lengths um which would again like the rear cameras give the front-facing cameras different sensing capabilities um and kind of uh allow uh for it to do unique things um so two cameras offers a lot of uh capabilities for capturing in three dimensions obviously like we have two eyes um so I think that you're going to see as Apple shows and and Tim Cook has publicly said that Apple's very interested in augmented reality um this is uh something that they are going to continue pursuing with both hardware and software and as we're gearing up for iPhone 8 you're getting the hardware rumors and so um LG initech is apparently been tapped to make these cameras for the front-facing camera we won't really have an idea of how it's all going to work until we see the software side of it which is the part that's easier for Apple to keep under wraps because they don't Outsource that yeah one of the things that I I observe is you we we hear a lot from commenters and from from especially people who are fans of other platforms you know Apple did this second Apple did this third right someone else did it first and so I always kind of keep my eye out to see what it was that that someone might use to to explain that it occurs to me that the Amazon fir phone had multiple cameras on its face first yeah how that work out for him um brilliantly it was it was outstanding I would say um because and then meanwhile this week they announced thing look like a Chum going to sit on your I mean it does look like a chumby that's a really good comparison wow yeah I mean they they're good for Amazon for for uh getting some Hardware into people's homes and all that but whatever well I think one of the issues with fir phone without going too deep into it was that they they had these four cameras and they used them for two reasons one of them for Amazon's advantage and one to no one's Advantage right they they put four cameras on the front so that you could scan super cool stuff to buy on Amazon which well you know that's nice and all but life is a little bit bigger than that um and and the other thing that they did was they had the four cameras so that it could understand where you were holding it and orienting it and that they would scroll based on how you were holding it so if you rotated it in a in a sort of vertical plane backwards uh that that it would then scroll and um well let's not forget that Amazon has no real experience or meaningful experience developing software and so fire OS whether you're on an Amazon tablet or or on the defunct phone uh is not doing them any favors and and you see this in many ways with Samsung too uh Samsung for all the the crap that they get from Apple Fans is a pretty fantastic hardware company um especially even if you you know uh are buying into the whole you know the slavish copying you know uh narrative that Apple puts out there which a lot of is true but uh the ability to which they can uh copy very quickly you know they they come out with a phone that looks a lot like the iPhone including like where they put the the antenna lines and stuff um uh in a very dispute they can make some Hardware they can make some Hardware but the software side of it you know Touch wiz and overlays on Android and teasing and all this other stuff and their watch platform yeah I mean software is really really hard and that's one of the things that Apple does that uh doesn't get enough attention or credit certainly their their Hardware design is Best in Class um reliable functional uh beautiful but the software for all the problems that it has uh is really hey all software has problems and all Hardware has problems too but man uh Apple makes some really really great software and nobody else out there is really competing with apple on that front I don't think and I would say that that can be part of the problem right we criticize Apple routinely for for issues with software and for what feels like neglect because we were spoiled by how good it was and uh I I would say that they had a lot stronger competition they they they were a lot more uh you know they felt like they had stronger competition at those times when it was better well like you look at um so apple or Microsoft actually announced this week that uh Apple's going to release iTunes on the Windows store and the main reason I have to assume that this is happening is because uh W Microsoft is bringing Windows 10s to Market soon um and it's only going to allow apps from the mic or from the Windows store to be installed on it um and this goes to show how difficult software is to do um and and the troubles faced by I mean say what you will about Microsoft but obviously software first company um have been pretty successful at doing that uh they took a look at the education market and and problems with Windows and realized how do we really lock down in Secure windows don't allow people to install third party apps from anywhere but our storefront hm who who who did that on a big scale for the first time which sounds great except that it means you have to curate that store properly and which is something that Apple's been doing on iOS since 2008 right but I would suggest that Microsoft hasn't done as good a job of curating their store and policing their store probably I I I haven't experienced uh the Microsoft store so I can't I can't say but it is funny because they made this announcement last week and they're getting apple on board with iTunes which is great I mean there's you know however you feel about Microsoft it's good that that these options are out there well this isn't the first time that participated in someone else's store right they they've got the move to iOS and apple music on the Google Play Store as well but yeah I mean you know software is very hard to do and and Microsoft took a look at the landscape and they took a look at their options and they ended up doing something that Apple's done definitely on iOS and to a lesser extent on Mac and they made it so that you can only install if you have Windows 10s stores from their storefront now Apple hasn't gone that extreme and what's really interesting to me about this is could you imagine I mean if you get a new Mac now right and you set it up right out of the box by default it only lets you install thirdparty apps from outside of the App Store if if you go into the settings of your Mac uh the security and allow apps downloaded from outside um and then even then um if you make it so that an unidentified developers can have Stu installed yourself to enter your administrator password that helps cut down on malware viruses whatever right um but you can make it so that you can lock down a Mac and so you can only install stuff from the app store which is essentially what micros default way it ships right it ships only for Mac store yeah Mac app store right and so um if if if Apple did what Microsoft is doing right now uh that would be charging $50 to be able to install apps from outside of the app store could you imagine the outrage that people would have for that I mean I realize Apple doesn't charge for their operating systems and whatever but but Microsoft is going to be charging people a $50 fee to be able to install apps from outside the Microsoft store let me ask because the way that as I understood it Windows 10s works is that people can switch between a 10s and uh Windows 10 professional pretty seamlessly and that that this I was under the impression perhaps wrongly that this $50 fee was the the trigger to be able to switch from 10s which is locked down to professional which is not right exactly it's a $50 fee to upgrade CHC to the other product which is the only way to install apps from outside of the App Store okay I'm I'm I'm not as offended by that idea as as you might think and the reason for that is that Microsoft has always charged a license Fe for their operating system in all the different versions at different price rates for the different variations of them uh there was a time when Apple charged for two different versions of the operating system that the the base operating system was 129 and and the server version was about a th uh you know those days are long gone now for Apple but it was it was very much accepted to pay a licensing fee for an operating system to pay the difference to get up to another level or even to just offed by it I'm just saying I'm just saying could you imagine the outcry if they did that uh on Mac yes especially since the Mac App Store for all its good is is not nearly as as as the third party ecosystem for Mac has always been and it's not as advantageous for developers as it could be there there are plenty of developers who distribute both in and outside of the Mac or App Store and there are plenty of third- party developers who have decided to distribute only outside of the Mac App Store after having distributed through it MH it's it doesn't fulfill their needs right there there are things missing about the Mac App Store that the IOS app store even has so it's it's uh it's and it's it's getting more and more difficult for a third party developer to necessarily survive uh especially on say iOS only so for to survive in MA app for only would be difficult too one thing I find interesting about this is uh Microsoft does have some apps on the Mac App Store but they do not have Microsoft Office on the Mac App Store well they have they have H that's interesting they have one note and one drive one Note One Drive and remote desktop mhm which isn't an office application per se but you can certainly lump it in there with other things and RMS sharing and uh syncing for the defunct Microsoft band oh and also the Windows phone application so you can sync with the defunct Windows phone not seeing it on the app store right now I'm looking right now I pulled it up on the App Store there are only five apps and there's nothing for Windows phone on here maybe they rolled it into one drive or something it's possible pulled it as well but I I used to get that app through App Store um yeah they don't put office on there office is a weird one though because office has changed to be a subscription service and so you know you you'd think they they would put it on there as the download and then sell the subscription as an Ina purchase but they don't want to give that subscription purchased uh you know the 30% cut to Apple that's probably why they keep it out huh maybe but I mean you can get office on iOS so you certainly can well I I just find it all funny because Microsoft and Apple uh even though they are competitors um and certainly with their newly announced uh weird fuzzy laptop uh the cloth topped uh keyboard uh that they announced last week um they're they're while they are competitors and and they and Microsoft directly positioned that that laptop against the MacBook Air which is like a laptop that has been updated like two years uh the companies are kind of strange bedfellows now um in some ways um that I find uh uh interesting they're both kind of like the Privacy Advocates now and you see this alignment between Apple and Microsoft with Bing search being the native for Siri um and now iTunes coming to the the Windows store and all that stuff and it's funny to see where their corporate interests and and philos oph align um and as the rise of Google and Facebook and all these other companies has been going on and companies that don't really have any respect for your privacy uh Microsoft and and apple have become kind of strange bed flows in this like privacy consumer Focus world it is interesting it's kind of strange um you know one of the other things that happened was that Microsoft launched visual studio for Mac so now there's a Microsoft development tool that runs native on Mac to create apps for Mac OS iOS TV watch OS and Android as well as web and Cloud apps uh it's got git integration for GitHub it's got uh extension system and it's this is this is the work basically of Miguel deaza who did uh zamarin for so long that's really what's what's behind and zamarin kind of apps for iOS for years so this that's that's how what's under the hood here for uh for visual studio do you think this means that we'll get xcode on Windows I'm going to answer that but I'm going to answer it like this xcode that compiles for Windows has existed for years and years and that's how we have iTunes for Windows and and it it predates that even because before OS 10 was Mac OS 10 it was next and next had uh a thing called yellow box that ran next applications on Windows and so objectivec and the uh the Frameworks exist for Windows it would take a heck of a lot for Apple to update everything else to make it work on Windows but it's it it exists and it could be done it'll never happen you you will see xcode on the Apple watch before you see it on Windows I just want to point out that the Steve Jobs quote for this point is that um you'd have a glass of ice water in hell when iTunes was released on Windows and it was no no no you have the well great give it to me people running iTunes on the people running iTunes on Windows it's like giving them a glass of ice water in hell he had he was carrying the glass of ice water at the time that he said that I believe yeah and he was saying that they love having iTunes on Windows because it allows people on the Windows platform to see what good software is like which thanks I iTunes is not exactly the best example of the time it was software prowess at the time it made a lot of sense I don't know that I don't know that iTunes is ever been great but I mean it is a b mess I want to thank you for the correction you know I I wish that Apple would make iTunes great again but uh they just need to split it up it's it's we've come a long way right that was that was the time when you had to have iTunes and a cable and synchronized music directly too on iPod and we've cut the cord we're using phones instead of uh instead of iPods A lot's changed and never mind all the other stuff that's been jammed into iTunes since the intervenient time when it was only originally for music and then movies and then apps and everything else well that's one of the things I find interesting about Apple having the incentive to bring iTunes to Windows they are the obvious uses for it like uh you know downloading uh stuff on iTunes your Apple music subscription whatever um and apple wants to get people tied on those Services as well but I wonder how much of that is people that are not only still setting up their iPhone or iPad or syncing by plugging it in either through habit or preference or they don't like the cloud or whatever and how many I I wonder how many like ancient iPods are still out there in circulation and you got to sync to it somehow and like people are still using them um I know like my parents still like work out with their iPods and stuff you know um yeah running that sort of stuff I I I wonder I wonder how many people need itunes because they're sinking their music to like an old iPod Nano or something I would not be surprised if that market is in the tens of millions of people still doing that easily cuz think about how many iPods Apple sold over the lifetime of that product I mentioned that the Apple watch is about to get worse a second ago and we published a big story about this while you and I were together in New York for the Adorama event so what is what is the deal with Apple watch apps I mean take take me through a little bit of the history right we we had this this the watch is a platform and they said go and make apps and people went for and they made apps and the apps were always a little clunky and kind of hard to use is that about right yeah Apple watch um it's become a thing now where you know Apple can't really launch a platform without having an app store on it uh because the app store has become so crucial to the success of iOS that naturally it would lend itself well to other devices and people want to have apps on there and so it makes sense um and Apple kind of pushed the Apple watch as there was a lot of hype for it obviously um and it pushed it as this uh platform that was going to be you know potentially the next big thing for apps just a big deal bring your apps over and the first generation of Apple watch watch OS one um the the apps didn't even run natively on the device they had to be all the processing was done by the iPhone they were very conservative with the battery life and attempting to squeeze every little bit ever that they could um and the experience was terrible uh the experience has since gotten a lot better um but the apps still and I have to assume that this is something to do with apple um and their software development kit and is not just poor developers because a lot of the apps just crash they just do unless they're native apps so I think that there's some Kinks to be worked out with the software development kit um but uh also there's just the the question of of apps uh there are certain apps that came to the Apple watch that uh don't really offer a lot of value and most people probably would not be using them on a regular basis it just makes more sense to pull your phone out of your pocket um now some of that could be changing going forward certainly I expect that the watch development kit is going to get better certainly I expect that developers are going to figure out better uses for their apps and I could also see more utility for certain apps that don't make sense when your phone is always on you with a watch that does not require phone so maybe I don't want to read the news on my watch when my phone is in my pocket but maybe I don't have my phone on me and I want to read the news and it makes a little bit more sense however all of that is to say that uh uh Apple watch recently lost some major uh apps um uh Chief among them Google Maps um is just pulled from the Apple watch and uh what's really funny about this to me is uh this happened and nobody realized it like it just completely went unnoticed and so so what happened is you go to your your your app store automatically updates your apps for you on your phone because that's the default kind of setting right and so Google Maps issues an update and your phone automatically updates and the next thing you know it's not on your watch right so you don't even realize it if especially if you're not using it especially if you're not going to the the app uh uh honeycomb layout or whatever um to look for apps and stuff it just uninstalls and you just wouldn't notice because it's tied to the IOS app so other ones that join Google Maps were Amazon and eBay um and they just don't have Apple watch apps anymore um Target last year pulled its uh Apple Watch app although they still offer their Cartwheel app and some of these being pulled makes sense right um who wants to shop on Amazon with your watch well I me you say that but here's what I want is I want delivery notifications or shipping notifications correct right so I bought something on Amazon I I want my watch to let me know that something's shipped or something deled you can still get those without the app running natively because you get all of your iPhone notifications on your watch so okay um if if we're talking about eBay which is a similar kind of thing because they're both shopping kind of apps I I want the notification that auction is ending in 15 minutes and I better go you know bid up on it right right and you can get that notification you just can't do anything with it so you'll get the notification on your watch that your bid is ending and um you got to pull your phone out or go to your computer or whatever so a lot of that is is uh is intentional you know I think that these companies may have just realized that the way that people are using their watches is not necessarily interacting with them it's more for glancing your risk getting notifications and and I've said this many times I think that the Apple watch works best the less that you have to interact with it uh it works best with Apple pay it works best with Siri it works best with notifications those sorts of things but if I have to pick up my watch and start pressing a bunch of stuff on it the screen is too small the interface is too limited the device is too slow for it to really work in any sort of meaningful way it's a device that you want to glance at get the information that you want and then move on with your day and and the things that do that work great things that work in the background Fitness tracking pulse tracking whatever that's the kind of area where it excels um and Bill Bill geyser likes you a lot you know that right bill is the guy behind the uh The Meta watch and he's now at HP making HP smart watches and and the idea he always had was that the smartest watch is the one where you glance at it and that's your Computing with it you don't you don't interact in other ways it's just you glance and that's what you need and and The Meta watch was a product that I really liked before the Apple watch came out because they got that idea of glance ability and apple gets that as well with complications on the watch face it's the information that you want right now with limited need to interact with it you look down you want to check the time you want to check the weather you want to check uh you know the news you want to whatever you can put it on a complication on your watch face and you can get it right there when you need it without having to really spend a lot of time messing around with it so you know I think that Google Maps being lost on there while it was a terrible Apple Watch app is a is a loss for Apple because a lot of people use Google Maps for Transit um and for driving and that sort of stuff um and I would hope and Google has s said in a statement that they're going to bring it back to the Apple watch I would hope that it comes back better than ever I think that some of these apps are going to have more utility when the Apple watch becomes a more independent platform and I would hope that the likes of Amazon and eBay would revisit and find ways to do them uh that might be more meaningful um and I think that Apple you know this is an example of two where uh Apple needs to do something about uh jumping even more so they've done a great job of improving it but they need to make it even better to open apps jump between apps you know to make it more seamless and and more natural the fact that major apps were removed from the Apple watch and nobody noticed you know it's like it's kind of indicative isn't it if a Forest Falls in the trees and no one's there you know yeah like it shows you how infrequently people were using these things and even myself as an avid Apple watch user um there are some great third party apps for Apple watch but they are few and far between there are not a lot of them um my my favorite third party apps um I have complications on my watch face for carrot weather and for um Nike Plus run Club um and I also got to use the slopes app earlier this year when I went skiing and those are all fantastic really really well done Apple watch apps that I cannot recommend highly enough uh however the likes of Amazon you know whatever if you really need it fine but I just don't see the the utility of that all right this episode is brought to you by jamp now when you first start your business it's pretty easy to keep track of your own computer and phone but as you grow and start to buy more tech for your employees it gets harder to keep track of everyone's Macs iPhones and iPads thankfully jamp now lets you manage your Apple devices from anywhere maybe you need to secure the iPad that your sales rep lost when you're in different locations well jamp now makes that and a lot more much easier configure settings protect sensitive information even lock or wipe advice from anywhere jamp now secures your stuff so you can focus on your business instead no it expertise needed and as a special offer for our listeners you can start securing your business today by setting up your first three devices for free add more for just two bucks a month per device go to jam.com appleinsider to create a free account and set up your first three free devices today that's jf.com slapple Insider so Neil your your opinion here what do you think about USBC um I like USBC a lot I think that um it's going to be a painful transition for a lot of people but uh I don't think it's as painful as some folks think it's going to be as well um I think that uh the in the long run it's going to be a very good thing for computers and for Max okay so you like it so how do you feel about it on your iPhone I think it's a terrible idea and I don't think it'll ever happen ah I knew that was coming so so let's this is something that you and I get asked about and let's just go over the reasons really quickly why we're not getting USBC on an iPhone why lightning is the way for iOS devices okay so for starters uh it's very difficult for some people who are very invested in technology and spend all their time on Apple Insider and other similar websites to understand that there's a big difference between us that nerds and the Casual users the Casual users still haven't gotten over the switch from 30 pin to lightning uh it was only a couple years ago that Tim Cook was on Steven kar's program and Steven coar jokingly threatened him and said if you change the connector on this phone again I'm going to kill you um so Apple can't ditch lightning for a number of reasons but that's probably the biggest one the people would flip out you think that ditching the headphone connector was a big deal getting rid of lightning might even be a bigger deal for some people um especially now if you think about them switching to USBC nobody has USBC you know there are a handful of USBC devices out there they're they're they're here and there they're starting to come to Market but most people are just going to go oh great another connector you know and they're going to be using micro USB or mini USB and lightning and all these different things for all their different devices that alone is is the worst reason for Apple to do it um and and it's just it's not going to happen for a number of reasons but that's the biggest one okay what else should we know about it right because I I know that we have on the 12-in iPad it's got the usb3 controller so that it can charge quickly and do faster data transfer uh correct so you can um you can actually get USBC capabilities through lightning and so when we say that we'll see USBC on the iPhone probably this year um and an iPads shipping and stuff like that what that means is it's going to be a USBC connector on one end plugging into uh either your Mac that has USBC or a wall adapter that could go up to potentially in the case of the iPad Pro 29 Watts uh actually the same wall adapter that comes for the 12-in MacBook um now that has higher uh trans uh uh transfer speeds for both data and for power um and it charges the 12.9 in iPad Pro over USB 3 technology much much faster would not be surprised if we see that capability in the iPhone 8 and 7s coming later this year uh quick charge capabilities imagine plugging in your iPhone for 5 minutes and getting like a 50% charge or something like that oh I I what we'll get I I have a Nexus 6p with USBC and it charges that fast I can't wait for it to be on iPhone that that is going to be a big deal for a lot of people um and that is something that does not necessitate a switch to the USBC connector it can be done with the existing lightning technology yet another reason that they don't need to switch the US BC and and won't because the USBC connector would mean that everybody's Legacy lightning cables just wouldn't work and they wouldn't be able to charge and they wouldn't be able to sync and they wouldn't be able to do anything they'd have to buy all new connectors so um that is another reason uh lightning is actually about comparable to USBC in terms of size but it's a little bit thinner um it's also uh more durable than USBC in in some ways based on the current design and current ports um and really the only thing that you need to look at um Apple kind of tipped their their hand on this uh the last couple years um and I think that they wanted to uh in a not not so subtle way reinforce that lightning was here to stay and they continue to introduce accessories that are dependent on Lightning uh most recently the airpods shipped with a lightning connector for charging uh the apple pencil has a lightning connector for charging a male one um the uh Siri remote for or Apple TV has a female lightning port for charging so um Apple would not have continued to bring lightning to all these iOS connected accessories uh if they were planning on ditching lightning so it would be shocking and absolutely unexpected if they embraced USBC this year I know a lot of people wanted I saw somebody comment on our Facebook page earlier like that they couldn't wait for Apple to announce USBC later this year and prove all of our BS wrong or something like that and I was like okay please do tell um but there are just so many reasons that they're not going to do it um but Apple's doubling down on lightning is another example of them really saying this is the port that is here to stay for our iOS connected devices so I think what you're going to see going forward is USBC for Mac lighting for iOS devices and other parts of that ecosystem tvos that sort of thing um and then um I think that what you'll see is rather than switching to USBC they'll just get rid of the ports entirely and then any cables will uh either attach through you know contactless magnetic charging or contact pads or whatever um I think that you'll see that sort of stuff the current Apple TV does have USBC but again that's for developers professional users whatever and I think loating system datas basically that's continues to draw that distinction between what consumer is going to do what you're going to do on a Mac that sort of thing so um USBC will be here to say it's not going anywhere but it's not going to be coming to iOS devices anytime soon um for the reasons that we just explained yes and I would expect that rather than ever doing USBC they would just get rid of the lightning Port entirely and go to completely wireless data syncing and contact based charging now we we ran a story that I want to touch on because this is uh this is one if you've been using a Mac for ages will resonate with you uh sonnet which is a that you'll know if you were using Mac during the power PC era that that time between let's say 1998 and 1997 1998 and uh 2006 Sonet used to make all kinds of of adapters and things you could get fire wire cards from them I think there were uh processor upgrades for Power Max back in the day they were they were one of a few C companies that really supported Mac users during what we call the dark time of apple and they're still around to to honestly my great surprise cuz I hadn't realized um they have added a product to their lineup it's a breakout box that allows you to add three PCI E cards on Thunderbolt 3 so you can go ahead and connect this box to your new Macbook Pro and put in graphic cards put in uh networking cards other kinds of cards that take pcie uh these are the uh the X8 slots they aren't x16 but they're that that uh perfectly capable kind of thing for for adding cards to your Thunderbolt 3 Mac I I think it's cool it's it's one of those things that um that really residents with me seeing companies that supported Apple through the dark time still around still doing it so yeah I'm really excited about the prospect of external gpus and and cards and accessories for Pro users on Max we need to see some level of software support for it I understand why Apple doesn't want to make these accessories but they need to support them and we really need to get some form of comprehensive GPU support that goes beyond what is built in and and what is offered in the current product lineup external GPU support can be hacked together but the moment that Apple starts just allowing people to kind of Run free and connect whatever high power GPU they want internally uh the technology is there the bandwidth is there the capability is there we just need the software support in Mac OS so please Apple come on do it for us yes now we ran a story on a patent that talked about Siri integration with messages uh what what do you know about this so I mean you know Apple explores a lot of uh uh Concepts uh and different ideas that don't necessarily make it to Market but this is one that that was pretty interesting and I think that uh is an application that you could see uh becoming sort of a reality um and it talks about integrating Siri into iMessage essentially allowing users to participate in text based exchanges with the AI so uh imagine a scenario in which you don't want to talk to your phone or your computer or whatever but you want to get information um and so uh you would instead type it to Siri now chat Bots like this as they're called are becoming increasingly popular Facebook is investing in them other companies are doing AI driven stuff with this and it's really just an extension of what's already being done with voice except instead of being voice first it's just based through text and you can see a lot of situations where this would be valuable you know you're in a public place and you don't want to be yapping away to Siri um you are want to be discreet about it whatever um and it's a way to uh to get information but also uh one of the key aspects of Siri that is important going forward for apple as they compete with Google is um it negates the need to open a browser and to search Google denies Google advertising Revenue doesn't allow them collect information from you apple as we mentioned has been partnering with Microsoft Bing to return search results imagine if you wanted to get the kinds of things that Google returns now like events going on or uh you know multip simple multiplication or division or currency conversion or whatever imagine if you could just type that into an iMessage with Siri um in your messages application and get the answers that you want uh immediately and and reliably uh so this this seems like something that I could actually see apple doing right so when I first started thinking about this I was considering it in the way that Google uses their Google Assistant which is you can certainly do this sort of of either one-way voice conversation where you talk and Google Assistant answers in text or or no voice where you're just typing to the assistant and it responds back in in text mhm uh and and you see this stream of the conversation where traditionally when you're using Siri uh it's sort of like a temporary lock screen almost where that that conversation is ephemeral and goes away you can't consult the history of it the thing that Google Assistant does is that it integrates with messages and with uh Google aloe which is one of their many text messaging applications and so you can be having a conversation with someone else and then the assistant will answer things for you as a part of that conversation here Apple because but there are privacy concerns with doing that because now you have to expose your conversation with another human being to assistant Apple it looks like from this patent are not doing that where what what's instead happening is that they're treating Siri as if it were another separate individual what I don't know is if just the same way that you can do multiple people in a chat if you can add Siri to a chat like that you know how I mean that yeah that would be interesting and also potentially chaotic yes but good chaotic evil chaotic good yeah yeah you totally could do that you could totally add the that's part of the patent actually as we look through it MH and it makes sense because if you're saying you know where should we go should we go have Chinese then you can ask Siri where is the nearest Chinese or where's the best Chinese and and arrange those kinds of things it um yeah you could even um imagine in the way that iMessage has grown with dedicated buttons for voice memos and uh uh apps and that sort of stuff uh integrating Siri as a dedicated button or app into um into a message window um and you could you know invoke information and share it with somebody directly from there there there are all kinds of ways of doing this that uh uh that would make a lot of sense in in other sort of AI news Apple's got work on being able to identify objects within photos so this is one of those things that uh has been in iOS for some time now and people don't realize it uh it's a feature that doesn't really get used and so I was you know we try to come up with tips and little tricks that you can get through your iPhone and your Mac and whatever that people don't realize and this is something that like whenever I mention to friends and stuff they don't realize that it that it works and so I published it um uh this week and people in the comments and people on Facebook and Reddit and all that were All Amazed like I've never heard of this before uh so yeah you can type in seemingly anything into the search menu in the photos app for iOS and for mac and Apple has advanced image uh recognition and analysis software that will find things in your photos and return instant results that it thinks fall under certain categories and uh some of the results are quite uncanny um it's pretty astonishingly powerful software that's hidden in your phone and you don't even real it um the lead example I have in there is I searched for avocado and sure enough there was a collection of avocados uh uh in a photo saved on my phone uh but you can search for locations you can search for objects um and uh certain types of things and they all show up now of course it isn't perfect but it casts a wide enough net that even if there are just a handful of incorrect uh items returned it's still of significant value one of the examples I had in the article was I searched for zoo and the again the results were pretty great um tons of photos of of zoos and animals um and specifically animals in cages as they are in zoos one of the photos that was return that I found really interesting was um I had taken a photo when I was living in Boston of a collection of ducks that were hanging out uh behind a metal crowd control barrier and um so the Ducks are all Behind These bars and so Apple's algorithm saw that and said oh he must be at a zoo because it was animals behind bars when in fact they wasn't at the zoo it was just along the street but you can see where the algorithm comes up with that information and says oh that must be what this is um another one uh that uh uh was interesting was I searched for scoreboard just like you know like a Jumbotron that you have at at an arena yeah and uh it returned 14 results 13 of them were photos taken in arenas with scoreboards in them pretty impressive um so it's the the accuracy level is is pretty high um there was one search that I did for uh marriage and when you search for marriage it returned a lot of photos from weddings and stuff like that it also the the incorrect results were either men in suits or women in dresses so you understand why it came up with that and then photos of people kissing showed up so you understand why I came up with that so it's interesting how they arrive at this and and uh the way that it kind of puts it all together and so it's not 100% accurate but I think if you try it out you'll be pretty impressed and pretty surprised by how good it is I did find a list that was put together last year of everything that you can search for at least as of last June and it's a total of 4,432 different types of items scenes objects that you can search for that it will find in your photos automatically and instantly I I need to figure out who to contact there cuz I've already found a couple of words that stump it but uh but I what what stumping it uh it it turns out it doesn't know razors or shaving okay it does know Ravine and rainforest though good good but I I can't recall the last time Railroad Station it knows it knows rainbow good does it know double rainbow uh so I I just searched for rainbow and I have four out of the five or actually of rainbows and then one of them is uh lasers it's a pretty good that's one of those High School photos with the the laser background that you've got going on there yeah I have uh uh rafting rafting uh and there is sure enough the one photo in there is a photo of my uh my brother and his wife rafting so yeah um accurate on that I put in rafting cuz I've got some pictures of us in life jackets but it didn't pick those up so I don't know interesting does it have life jackets let's see life jackets no I got mlife Stadium though it's got lifts I'm not sure what how that even matches what I've got okay no idea anyway yeah you can search for art and it will find like paintings and stuff um you can search for uh birthday cake you can search for piggy bank um it even has as I mentioned in the article it can differentiate between a cat suit and an actual living cat wow uh there's actually two different searches in here one for cat and one for adult cat that's an interesting distinction uh you can read me and all my exciting tips on appleinsider.com and you can find me on Twitter at this is Neil NE and I'm your host Victor and you can find me on Apple Insider and on this podcast and we'll be back next week with more exciting tipsyou're listening to the Apple Insider podcast welcome to another episode of the Apple Insider podcast this is Apple Insider episode 119 I'm your host Victor marks and with me is Neil Hughes editor-in-chief hey Victor how's it going brilliant how have you been doing all right excellent so we had a rendering that we talked about on the site this week MH of of a of a so-called iPhone 8 and this is we're saying this is based on CAD files that are allegedly used for actual construction of the cas this is some of the stuff that's leaked already that's out there um showing a design of a device um it's interesting because you know modern phones are essentially just a slab and glass on it right um and so I remember a few years ago there was a uh leaked model that came out of at the time was called a future iPhone and it turned out it was just some Chinese manufacturer made something that looked a lot like an iPhone you know of course given patent disputes between Samsung and Apple and stuff there are people that would allege copying of course but uh at the same time there's only so many ways to differentiate a small you know piece of glass and metal essentially so you always have to take these things with a grain of salt but as we get closer and closer to September and an anticipated announcement um you'll start to get a clear picture of what's going on with these devices uh and what they're going to look like um and I think that we'll have a pretty good idea by then okay so should I take this this render as something very serious or should I take it with uh some skepticism I would take it with some skepticism because we're seeing renders and and CAD files and stuff and and mockups and everything else out there um and they continue to circulate some of them showing a Touch ID on the back of the device and as we've talked about on the podcast I I don't think that apple is going to move the touch ID to the back of the phone I I just really don't see that happening um however we don't know you know um if Apple really has their heart set on uh getting an edgo edge display on this and they can't get touch ID to work in the screen maybe they will put it on the back I I can't say with 100% certainty my gut says uh that that's not going to be the case but we just don't know because this is not just as simple as you know manifesting an idea and making it happen I mean there are all kinds of moving parts that have to come in here including the fact that the technology needs to be able to be produced at scale without any uh major issues and and proper yield rates it needs to be profitable uh you know Apple could create a theoretical million dooll iPhone that they could make a hundred of and and sell those if they wanted to but you got to be able to sell these at a certain price that people want to buy them at and and they got to crank out you know some 15 million of them for a launch weekend and stuff I mean there are so many moving parts to line all this up here and the modern supply chain and and modern components are so complex that think things could change at the drop of a hat if if Apple will do a thing and and you know this better than anybody Victor with your experience in the industry you can have multiple suppliers as Apple does that are competing essentially and trying to sell you their technology and So when you buy an off the shelf iPhone sometimes you might get a display made by sharp you might get a display made by LG you might get a display made by somebody else and they all fall within a certain range of one another so you don't really know which screen you're getting because in Apple's mind and really any other electronics Maker's mind it shouldn't really matter as long as you get the same experience um but Apple also uses that to their advantage in terms of yield rates so there have been times in the past where a company will uh be making parts for apple and they just can't make them reliable enough or they can't produce them at cost or they can't get the numbers up and so Apple drops that supplier and and goes with an alternate um and so we don't really know what's going on uh at this point as they gear up but you know we're coming down to the wire they're going to have to start man facturing these phones and start ramping up production relatively soon if they want to hit a launch uh this year and of course they want to hit a launch this year so that's just what we're expecting but you know there are rumors that the iPhone 8 the flagship model the high-end thousand plus dollar model may be a little bit quote unquote delayed now I hate using the word delayed because you can't delay something if you don't announce it uh but Apple has historically for the last five or so years launched new iPhones in September um and it is rumored that this Year's iPhone 8 may not actually ship to Consumers until October or November even um and if that's the case um that would be a quote unquote delay uh from the normal time frame of shipping things but um you know as we get closer and closer to September we're going to have a better idea of what's going on here but as as of right now you got to take it all with a grain of salt you can't believe these mockups these renderings these supposed leaks these parts uh you can't you can't count on them just yet we're not at that Point yet right and and they're very pretty and they may lead you to believe cuz they seem to begin to have things in common right uh the vertical camera Arrangement that we see popping up on these things uh you know that there are some things that that people feel strongly about but even those things aren't entirely certain right and there may be uh things that apple is considering that don't make the cut um for example last year we had a number of leaks showing a uh magnetic SMART connector port on the back of the iPhone 7 plus but not on the 7 now of course Apple's never going to tell us but the question becomes was that some madeup leak that just kept making the rounds and you know got caught in the Echo chamber so people bought it or was it actually something that Apple was considering and then ultimately decided not to put in the shipping product um I think the second one is true for a number of reasons but I don't know because Apple's not going to tell me right and and we only find out about the validity of those kinds of things years later uh a good example of that is the Prototype of the first iPad that made it to eBay and then was course taken down you know years and years ago back in 2009 uh early 2010 uh there there were schematics for an iPad that appeared to have two 30 pin connectors one for landscape and one for portrait and you know I we'd always sort of suspected that this was them trying to figure out which orientation was the default orientation of this device and it wasn't until uh that that device made it to Ebay that we found that there was a physical thing that actually had both connectors on it yeah yeah and that was interesting I think the real treasure Trove of those was from the Samsung patent infringement suit where Apple through disclosure revealed a number of designs and concepts for both the iPhone and iPad that never made it to Market all kinds of crazy stuff um and it was really fascinating to look at and to kind of get a Peak at how their design process works but certainly again for all the reasons that I detailed before whether it's Parts yields uh reliability cost whatever um you got to think that Apple has a handful of uh different designs they're all probably very similar to one another um probably the external chassis is locked down at this point I would guess but there might be some features here there where they test it out and it doesn't pan out you know I mean nobody wants to at this point I mean not not ever but certainly not at this point nobody wants to have a Samsung Galaxy Note issue you know like if Apple's going to put wireless charging into this phone You' be better sure that you're testing it testing it testing it if it's not coming if it's coming down the wire and it's not working they just got to yank that feature well and I would say that if if the release is ostensibly September October November that everything that's going to be made is already locked down by now right yes because and if something isn't panning out then they might yank it but they're not going to add anything at this point right but but at this point I I would say that everything that's going to be yanked has probably also been yanked this is the point where everything has to be stable and all of the deliveries of all of the parts have to start coming together right you know it's it's it's it's not too late but it's almost too late to make any kind of change yeah the rumor right the rumor is with this touch ID they're still facing issues now who knows how much lag effect there is on that you know maybe as of 3 months ago they were having issues and they've since sorted out or made the decision you know as of today we don't really know um but you got to I mean you're right you got to think that they have this pretty much figured out at this point we're in May they're going to start ramping up production usually their time frame is June July okay so let's delay them a few months for the iPhone 8 because it the rumors so we're going to look at you know August September maybe October in in Earnest Manufacturing in in a big way uh if they're going to do an October November launch so I mean they're they're at make or break time right now there there's a calendar there's a calendar and you have to work backwards and you know how many manufacturing lines you have open and what the yield is on device per day from those lines right and how many pieces of those lines are being pulled for testing to QC and make sure that they're all working right so that you can stop the line if you have a problem uh it's it's it's all very well laid out it's pretty fascinating when you think about it and and how much we take take it for granted the the moving parts and the complexity and everything that needs to come together to put out a new iPhone every year is is is quite fascinating yeah months in advance all of the parts are purchased and reserved and you know you you you don't have Parts showing up at warehouses and and manufacturing companies until it's ready to be go together for assembly but you you've got everything bought well in advance so that you don't risk a competitor coming in and saying buying up all the supply so they they've purchased every part that they need well in advance and then once production starts coming together after they've done their EVT and their pilot run those parts start arriving one of my favorite examples of how these things pan out is uh it was many years ago I just started working at Apple Insider actually and this is back when the iPod Touch was still a big deal and uh Apple had just introduced a year prior the first forward facing camera on the iPhone 4 and so the expectation was that they were going to uh put uh a forward- facing camera on the iPod touch that next year and it was a done deal the rumors had said for months whatever and we had a reliable source that came to us and said uh Apple got some bad parts and this was like maybe 3 weeks before the iPod Touch was announced and they said Apple's got some bad parts and they pulled the forward- facing camera from the iPod touch and I was not sure about it but I mean this guy that we had was reliable um or girl and uh uh we um uh ran the story and sure enough they iPod Touch shipped without a camera but what made it really interesting was nobody knew until I fix it of course got their hands on it and took a look and sure enough there was a place in that iPod Touch for camera but there were no there was no camera in there and apple the parts just didn't pan out and so they said okay well we're scrapping it and that was it and they shipped it without one and the same thing was true of the the iPod that the previous to that the third generation iPod Touch which was also meant to have a rear facing camera and when you took the back off there was a great cavity for rear-facing camera but no camera Y and uh the the people who came out the best on that deal were Inc case because incase had made a a case with a honeycomb Arrangement that coincidentally had one of the holes line up with exactly where the rear facing camera would have been but since the whole case was honeycombed it didn't matter they could continue to sell that case for the device that had no camera everyone else had made one had a camera hole had to scrap the cases yes that's my big it's always well it's always funny when these you know uh these case manufacturers there have been a few high-profile cases of them making uh cases for devices uh based on designs that don't really come to Market you know and in some in some cases no pun intended on the word choice there um they they do this on purpose because it gets them some publicity so you're not an apple authorized manufacturer just you know Joe Casemaker or whatever and you can make it based on a design and then get some hype for your product that no one would have heard of otherwise um and put it out there so it's like a strategic move in some ways um so you know it's it's uh it's interesting to see how this whole ecosystem works of companies that rely on Apple whether they're supplying them or selling accessories for them or whatever yeah when it comes to cases it's an interesting one because there's there's this crushing pressure this huge amount of pressure to be in stores on launch day because that's when people are going to buy a case for certain right right they they walk in they buy the device they're not leaving there without the attached sale of a case and a screen protector right and so if you're one of the many case manufacturers that is still an you know a partner of Apple but not so close a partner that you got the schematics prior to the release of the device Through official channels let's say um you make a case based on what your best best guesses from the knowledge that your factory shares with you right and yes it's through unofficial channels but you go ahead and and do that so that you can be available on launch day and you run into some interesting problems where when Apple catches you at this they'll say something like um you got that information through unofficial channels and so now you're not going to be in Apple retail stores for x amount of time or you know some other form of punishment right you know there's there's different things that Apple can do for favored suppliers and and suppliers that fall out of disfavor and uh so you have to be very careful if you're in that kind of manufacturing position you know you need to to balance the what you do with the information you have right it's uh it's a very tricky position sometimes and it's it's interesting to think too about how drastically these things can affect these companies like you know um you look at a company like obviously GT Advance is a great example there was just to be a sapphire supplier for apple and they couldn't meet Apple's demands and and and quality expectations and they went out of business um but even if you're just a you know a company like Samsung that used to make all the CPUs for apple and now Apple switched over at tsmc I'm sure that's a huge effect on their business um and then if you're a Casemaker uh how does it affect you if the iPhone 8 is going to be available in limited quantities and won't launch until November you know how how does that affect your business if you depend on Apple to get that phone out in September and to sell 15 million of them in a weekend and you know you'll have you know sell hundreds of thousands of cases or whatever um how does that how does that hurt your business how does that affect you yeah and it can mess up your whole quarter if it's not uh as you expect or forecast exactly and you mentioned tsmc so tsmc has uh and we have we have this story that we ran this says tsmc started production of the 10 Mill 10 nanometer a11 chip to support this rumored iPhone 8 mhm so this this ties right in with what we're talking about in terms of you know when when do parts manufacturing start when does the whole device manufacturing start well the uh this the story in part comes from Digi times so you know take take that part with uh a grain of salt that was the part where Digi times said that uh Supply was limited or there problems initially with the components but uh you know you know every piece of information that we have says that's all been resolved if there ever was a problem to begin with um Ming quo KGI analyst says that production may start as late as October or November like you just said um which means that the mass production has to happen uh in or around mid June to July right tsmc has to go mass production around June and foxcon who makes these phones end up going into mass production around July does that make sense yeah so yeah you can kind of work backwards with the calendar I see I see something funny too A lot of times with um uh commenters who will read an article about potential delays for upcoming products or uh they'll read about uh Limited at launch it will be extremely limited launch and they say we always read this every year and it never happens well it does happen you're just not thinking at the scale that that that apple is dealing with like apple may ship you know 7 million iPhone 7 pluses last year at launch or whatever they shipped but that product remained difficult to get throughout the holidays especially in the jet black uh finish um so was it constrained at launch absolutely yes now you may have pre-ordered woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning when it became available for pre-order and got it on launch day and you didn't experience an issue but youd have to step outside of your own personal experiences and realize that uh for other people they couldn't walk into a store and get one and that is how the vast majority of people buy iPhones the same happened with the Apple watch the same happened with a lot of products when they came out uh the Apple watch was in constraint for I think like five months or so well look at airpods now right I mean um you know those uh were delayed uh didn't make it to Market until right before Christmas you still can't get them at the store well there are two things that happen here right one of them is is that you you first of all you start out with lower production when you first turn on the man the the manufacturing lines and you do that so that you can catch any problems right you you do slightly lower yield your first week because you're trying to make sure that you you spot potential problems and you solve for them M the other thing that happens is that you you you try and open up additional lines to account for this kind of of demand so you open up additional lines you open up additional factories right foxcon and apple also work with pegatron and wistron to assemble they're hiring additional people so that they'll be ready to meet this demand but when you turn on these lines you've got to have all of the tooling and all of the other machines to support these product lines so there's that's a cost that has to be accounted for in a time to build those things and you have to uh you know you have to staff them so you have to train the people that are going to do these things so it's it's all got time attached to it we just don't feel it at the retail end as much we feel it a little bit you know as you say they're constraint Supply but this is a KnockOn effect that started months back right tell me about inch what do we know about LG and inch I say that without giving you enough hint um so oh the facial recognition story sorry I have yes the facial recognition story still talking iPhone 8 let me just some compy names out there to surprise you right yeah first I was thinking initech was uh um uh isn't that the name of the the company from um uh office space spelled differently i n i t what a great company name right well here you go LG inch i n n o t e k um they are supposedly supplying the facial recognition camera modules for the iPhone 8 um so last year on the iPhone 7 plus uh they introduced a new dual camera system um one of those cameras uh being a uh 2x uh telescopic Zoom whatever you want to call it and then the other being a traditional camera and between the two of them they could do some Advanced and interesting stuff um so now this year they're expected to bring a dual camera system to the front the FaceTime cameras um and this is believed to open up the an Avenue for Apple to uh include some form of augmented reality 3D facial recognition technology uh in this year's iPhone which could have a number of potential applications um including uh you know the ability to map things over your face like you look at the kind of stuff that Snapchat's doing but imagine that in a more advanced way U but also the ability to recognize a user unlock the phone potentially even fast user switching access to apps and features that sort of stuff um think about what Touch ID currently does but in a uh a way that is even more seamless than it has been done to date um and potentially with more features and and more security as well um there's another um report uh that is uh out there as well about those cameras uh suggesting that uh the lenses on the front could be uh different focal lengths um which would again like the rear cameras give the front-facing cameras different sensing capabilities um and kind of uh allow uh for it to do unique things um so two cameras offers a lot of uh capabilities for capturing in three dimensions obviously like we have two eyes um so I think that you're going to see as Apple shows and and Tim Cook has publicly said that Apple's very interested in augmented reality um this is uh something that they are going to continue pursuing with both hardware and software and as we're gearing up for iPhone 8 you're getting the hardware rumors and so um LG initech is apparently been tapped to make these cameras for the front-facing camera we won't really have an idea of how it's all going to work until we see the software side of it which is the part that's easier for Apple to keep under wraps because they don't Outsource that yeah one of the things that I I observe is you we we hear a lot from commenters and from from especially people who are fans of other platforms you know Apple did this second Apple did this third right someone else did it first and so I always kind of keep my eye out to see what it was that that someone might use to to explain that it occurs to me that the Amazon fir phone had multiple cameras on its face first yeah how that work out for him um brilliantly it was it was outstanding I would say um because and then meanwhile this week they announced thing look like a Chum going to sit on your I mean it does look like a chumby that's a really good comparison wow yeah I mean they they're good for Amazon for for uh getting some Hardware into people's homes and all that but whatever well I think one of the issues with fir phone without going too deep into it was that they they had these four cameras and they used them for two reasons one of them for Amazon's advantage and one to no one's Advantage right they they put four cameras on the front so that you could scan super cool stuff to buy on Amazon which well you know that's nice and all but life is a little bit bigger than that um and and the other thing that they did was they had the four cameras so that it could understand where you were holding it and orienting it and that they would scroll based on how you were holding it so if you rotated it in a in a sort of vertical plane backwards uh that that it would then scroll and um well let's not forget that Amazon has no real experience or meaningful experience developing software and so fire OS whether you're on an Amazon tablet or or on the defunct phone uh is not doing them any favors and and you see this in many ways with Samsung too uh Samsung for all the the crap that they get from Apple Fans is a pretty fantastic hardware company um especially even if you you know uh are buying into the whole you know the slavish copying you know uh narrative that Apple puts out there which a lot of is true but uh the ability to which they can uh copy very quickly you know they they come out with a phone that looks a lot like the iPhone including like where they put the the antenna lines and stuff um uh in a very dispute they can make some Hardware they can make some Hardware but the software side of it you know Touch wiz and overlays on Android and teasing and all this other stuff and their watch platform yeah I mean software is really really hard and that's one of the things that Apple does that uh doesn't get enough attention or credit certainly their their Hardware design is Best in Class um reliable functional uh beautiful but the software for all the problems that it has uh is really hey all software has problems and all Hardware has problems too but man uh Apple makes some really really great software and nobody else out there is really competing with apple on that front I don't think and I would say that that can be part of the problem right we criticize Apple routinely for for issues with software and for what feels like neglect because we were spoiled by how good it was and uh I I would say that they had a lot stronger competition they they they were a lot more uh you know they felt like they had stronger competition at those times when it was better well like you look at um so apple or Microsoft actually announced this week that uh Apple's going to release iTunes on the Windows store and the main reason I have to assume that this is happening is because uh W Microsoft is bringing Windows 10s to Market soon um and it's only going to allow apps from the mic or from the Windows store to be installed on it um and this goes to show how difficult software is to do um and and the troubles faced by I mean say what you will about Microsoft but obviously software first company um have been pretty successful at doing that uh they took a look at the education market and and problems with Windows and realized how do we really lock down in Secure windows don't allow people to install third party apps from anywhere but our storefront hm who who who did that on a big scale for the first time which sounds great except that it means you have to curate that store properly and which is something that Apple's been doing on iOS since 2008 right but I would suggest that Microsoft hasn't done as good a job of curating their store and policing their store probably I I I haven't experienced uh the Microsoft store so I can't I can't say but it is funny because they made this announcement last week and they're getting apple on board with iTunes which is great I mean there's you know however you feel about Microsoft it's good that that these options are out there well this isn't the first time that participated in someone else's store right they they've got the move to iOS and apple music on the Google Play Store as well but yeah I mean you know software is very hard to do and and Microsoft took a look at the landscape and they took a look at their options and they ended up doing something that Apple's done definitely on iOS and to a lesser extent on Mac and they made it so that you can only install if you have Windows 10s stores from their storefront now Apple hasn't gone that extreme and what's really interesting to me about this is could you imagine I mean if you get a new Mac now right and you set it up right out of the box by default it only lets you install thirdparty apps from outside of the App Store if if you go into the settings of your Mac uh the security and allow apps downloaded from outside um and then even then um if you make it so that an unidentified developers can have Stu installed yourself to enter your administrator password that helps cut down on malware viruses whatever right um but you can make it so that you can lock down a Mac and so you can only install stuff from the app store which is essentially what micros default way it ships right it ships only for Mac store yeah Mac app store right and so um if if if Apple did what Microsoft is doing right now uh that would be charging $50 to be able to install apps from outside of the app store could you imagine the outrage that people would have for that I mean I realize Apple doesn't charge for their operating systems and whatever but but Microsoft is going to be charging people a $50 fee to be able to install apps from outside the Microsoft store let me ask because the way that as I understood it Windows 10s works is that people can switch between a 10s and uh Windows 10 professional pretty seamlessly and that that this I was under the impression perhaps wrongly that this $50 fee was the the trigger to be able to switch from 10s which is locked down to professional which is not right exactly it's a $50 fee to upgrade CHC to the other product which is the only way to install apps from outside of the App Store okay I'm I'm I'm not as offended by that idea as as you might think and the reason for that is that Microsoft has always charged a license Fe for their operating system in all the different versions at different price rates for the different variations of them uh there was a time when Apple charged for two different versions of the operating system that the the base operating system was 129 and and the server version was about a th uh you know those days are long gone now for Apple but it was it was very much accepted to pay a licensing fee for an operating system to pay the difference to get up to another level or even to just offed by it I'm just saying I'm just saying could you imagine the outcry if they did that uh on Mac yes especially since the Mac App Store for all its good is is not nearly as as as the third party ecosystem for Mac has always been and it's not as advantageous for developers as it could be there there are plenty of developers who distribute both in and outside of the Mac or App Store and there are plenty of third- party developers who have decided to distribute only outside of the Mac App Store after having distributed through it MH it's it doesn't fulfill their needs right there there are things missing about the Mac App Store that the IOS app store even has so it's it's uh it's and it's it's getting more and more difficult for a third party developer to necessarily survive uh especially on say iOS only so for to survive in MA app for only would be difficult too one thing I find interesting about this is uh Microsoft does have some apps on the Mac App Store but they do not have Microsoft Office on the Mac App Store well they have they have H that's interesting they have one note and one drive one Note One Drive and remote desktop mhm which isn't an office application per se but you can certainly lump it in there with other things and RMS sharing and uh syncing for the defunct Microsoft band oh and also the Windows phone application so you can sync with the defunct Windows phone not seeing it on the app store right now I'm looking right now I pulled it up on the App Store there are only five apps and there's nothing for Windows phone on here maybe they rolled it into one drive or something it's possible pulled it as well but I I used to get that app through App Store um yeah they don't put office on there office is a weird one though because office has changed to be a subscription service and so you know you you'd think they they would put it on there as the download and then sell the subscription as an Ina purchase but they don't want to give that subscription purchased uh you know the 30% cut to Apple that's probably why they keep it out huh maybe but I mean you can get office on iOS so you certainly can well I I just find it all funny because Microsoft and Apple uh even though they are competitors um and certainly with their newly announced uh weird fuzzy laptop uh the cloth topped uh keyboard uh that they announced last week um they're they're while they are competitors and and they and Microsoft directly positioned that that laptop against the MacBook Air which is like a laptop that has been updated like two years uh the companies are kind of strange bedfellows now um in some ways um that I find uh uh interesting they're both kind of like the Privacy Advocates now and you see this alignment between Apple and Microsoft with Bing search being the native for Siri um and now iTunes coming to the the Windows store and all that stuff and it's funny to see where their corporate interests and and philos oph align um and as the rise of Google and Facebook and all these other companies has been going on and companies that don't really have any respect for your privacy uh Microsoft and and apple have become kind of strange bed flows in this like privacy consumer Focus world it is interesting it's kind of strange um you know one of the other things that happened was that Microsoft launched visual studio for Mac so now there's a Microsoft development tool that runs native on Mac to create apps for Mac OS iOS TV watch OS and Android as well as web and Cloud apps uh it's got git integration for GitHub it's got uh extension system and it's this is this is the work basically of Miguel deaza who did uh zamarin for so long that's really what's what's behind and zamarin kind of apps for iOS for years so this that's that's how what's under the hood here for uh for visual studio do you think this means that we'll get xcode on Windows I'm going to answer that but I'm going to answer it like this xcode that compiles for Windows has existed for years and years and that's how we have iTunes for Windows and and it it predates that even because before OS 10 was Mac OS 10 it was next and next had uh a thing called yellow box that ran next applications on Windows and so objectivec and the uh the Frameworks exist for Windows it would take a heck of a lot for Apple to update everything else to make it work on Windows but it's it it exists and it could be done it'll never happen you you will see xcode on the Apple watch before you see it on Windows I just want to point out that the Steve Jobs quote for this point is that um you'd have a glass of ice water in hell when iTunes was released on Windows and it was no no no you have the well great give it to me people running iTunes on the people running iTunes on Windows it's like giving them a glass of ice water in hell he had he was carrying the glass of ice water at the time that he said that I believe yeah and he was saying that they love having iTunes on Windows because it allows people on the Windows platform to see what good software is like which thanks I iTunes is not exactly the best example of the time it was software prowess at the time it made a lot of sense I don't know that I don't know that iTunes is ever been great but I mean it is a b mess I want to thank you for the correction you know I I wish that Apple would make iTunes great again but uh they just need to split it up it's it's we've come a long way right that was that was the time when you had to have iTunes and a cable and synchronized music directly too on iPod and we've cut the cord we're using phones instead of uh instead of iPods A lot's changed and never mind all the other stuff that's been jammed into iTunes since the intervenient time when it was only originally for music and then movies and then apps and everything else well that's one of the things I find interesting about Apple having the incentive to bring iTunes to Windows they are the obvious uses for it like uh you know downloading uh stuff on iTunes your Apple music subscription whatever um and apple wants to get people tied on those Services as well but I wonder how much of that is people that are not only still setting up their iPhone or iPad or syncing by plugging it in either through habit or preference or they don't like the cloud or whatever and how many I I wonder how many like ancient iPods are still out there in circulation and you got to sync to it somehow and like people are still using them um I know like my parents still like work out with their iPods and stuff you know um yeah running that sort of stuff I I I wonder I wonder how many people need itunes because they're sinking their music to like an old iPod Nano or something I would not be surprised if that market is in the tens of millions of people still doing that easily cuz think about how many iPods Apple sold over the lifetime of that product I mentioned that the Apple watch is about to get worse a second ago and we published a big story about this while you and I were together in New York for the Adorama event so what is what is the deal with Apple watch apps I mean take take me through a little bit of the history right we we had this this the watch is a platform and they said go and make apps and people went for and they made apps and the apps were always a little clunky and kind of hard to use is that about right yeah Apple watch um it's become a thing now where you know Apple can't really launch a platform without having an app store on it uh because the app store has become so crucial to the success of iOS that naturally it would lend itself well to other devices and people want to have apps on there and so it makes sense um and Apple kind of pushed the Apple watch as there was a lot of hype for it obviously um and it pushed it as this uh platform that was going to be you know potentially the next big thing for apps just a big deal bring your apps over and the first generation of Apple watch watch OS one um the the apps didn't even run natively on the device they had to be all the processing was done by the iPhone they were very conservative with the battery life and attempting to squeeze every little bit ever that they could um and the experience was terrible uh the experience has since gotten a lot better um but the apps still and I have to assume that this is something to do with apple um and their software development kit and is not just poor developers because a lot of the apps just crash they just do unless they're native apps so I think that there's some Kinks to be worked out with the software development kit um but uh also there's just the the question of of apps uh there are certain apps that came to the Apple watch that uh don't really offer a lot of value and most people probably would not be using them on a regular basis it just makes more sense to pull your phone out of your pocket um now some of that could be changing going forward certainly I expect that the watch development kit is going to get better certainly I expect that developers are going to figure out better uses for their apps and I could also see more utility for certain apps that don't make sense when your phone is always on you with a watch that does not require phone so maybe I don't want to read the news on my watch when my phone is in my pocket but maybe I don't have my phone on me and I want to read the news and it makes a little bit more sense however all of that is to say that uh uh Apple watch recently lost some major uh apps um uh Chief among them Google Maps um is just pulled from the Apple watch and uh what's really funny about this to me is uh this happened and nobody realized it like it just completely went unnoticed and so so what happened is you go to your your your app store automatically updates your apps for you on your phone because that's the default kind of setting right and so Google Maps issues an update and your phone automatically updates and the next thing you know it's not on your watch right so you don't even realize it if especially if you're not using it especially if you're not going to the the app uh uh honeycomb layout or whatever um to look for apps and stuff it just uninstalls and you just wouldn't notice because it's tied to the IOS app so other ones that join Google Maps were Amazon and eBay um and they just don't have Apple watch apps anymore um Target last year pulled its uh Apple Watch app although they still offer their Cartwheel app and some of these being pulled makes sense right um who wants to shop on Amazon with your watch well I me you say that but here's what I want is I want delivery notifications or shipping notifications correct right so I bought something on Amazon I I want my watch to let me know that something's shipped or something deled you can still get those without the app running natively because you get all of your iPhone notifications on your watch so okay um if if we're talking about eBay which is a similar kind of thing because they're both shopping kind of apps I I want the notification that auction is ending in 15 minutes and I better go you know bid up on it right right and you can get that notification you just can't do anything with it so you'll get the notification on your watch that your bid is ending and um you got to pull your phone out or go to your computer or whatever so a lot of that is is uh is intentional you know I think that these companies may have just realized that the way that people are using their watches is not necessarily interacting with them it's more for glancing your risk getting notifications and and I've said this many times I think that the Apple watch works best the less that you have to interact with it uh it works best with Apple pay it works best with Siri it works best with notifications those sorts of things but if I have to pick up my watch and start pressing a bunch of stuff on it the screen is too small the interface is too limited the device is too slow for it to really work in any sort of meaningful way it's a device that you want to glance at get the information that you want and then move on with your day and and the things that do that work great things that work in the background Fitness tracking pulse tracking whatever that's the kind of area where it excels um and Bill Bill geyser likes you a lot you know that right bill is the guy behind the uh The Meta watch and he's now at HP making HP smart watches and and the idea he always had was that the smartest watch is the one where you glance at it and that's your Computing with it you don't you don't interact in other ways it's just you glance and that's what you need and and The Meta watch was a product that I really liked before the Apple watch came out because they got that idea of glance ability and apple gets that as well with complications on the watch face it's the information that you want right now with limited need to interact with it you look down you want to check the time you want to check the weather you want to check uh you know the news you want to whatever you can put it on a complication on your watch face and you can get it right there when you need it without having to really spend a lot of time messing around with it so you know I think that Google Maps being lost on there while it was a terrible Apple Watch app is a is a loss for Apple because a lot of people use Google Maps for Transit um and for driving and that sort of stuff um and I would hope and Google has s said in a statement that they're going to bring it back to the Apple watch I would hope that it comes back better than ever I think that some of these apps are going to have more utility when the Apple watch becomes a more independent platform and I would hope that the likes of Amazon and eBay would revisit and find ways to do them uh that might be more meaningful um and I think that Apple you know this is an example of two where uh Apple needs to do something about uh jumping even more so they've done a great job of improving it but they need to make it even better to open apps jump between apps you know to make it more seamless and and more natural the fact that major apps were removed from the Apple watch and nobody noticed you know it's like it's kind of indicative isn't it if a Forest Falls in the trees and no one's there you know yeah like it shows you how infrequently people were using these things and even myself as an avid Apple watch user um there are some great third party apps for Apple watch but they are few and far between there are not a lot of them um my my favorite third party apps um I have complications on my watch face for carrot weather and for um Nike Plus run Club um and I also got to use the slopes app earlier this year when I went skiing and those are all fantastic really really well done Apple watch apps that I cannot recommend highly enough uh however the likes of Amazon you know whatever if you really need it fine but I just don't see the the utility of that all right this episode is brought to you by jamp now when you first start your business it's pretty easy to keep track of your own computer and phone but as you grow and start to buy more tech for your employees it gets harder to keep track of everyone's Macs iPhones and iPads thankfully jamp now lets you manage your Apple devices from anywhere maybe you need to secure the iPad that your sales rep lost when you're in different locations well jamp now makes that and a lot more much easier configure settings protect sensitive information even lock or wipe advice from anywhere jamp now secures your stuff so you can focus on your business instead no it expertise needed and as a special offer for our listeners you can start securing your business today by setting up your first three devices for free add more for just two bucks a month per device go to jam.com appleinsider to create a free account and set up your first three free devices today that's jf.com slapple Insider so Neil your your opinion here what do you think about USBC um I like USBC a lot I think that um it's going to be a painful transition for a lot of people but uh I don't think it's as painful as some folks think it's going to be as well um I think that uh the in the long run it's going to be a very good thing for computers and for Max okay so you like it so how do you feel about it on your iPhone I think it's a terrible idea and I don't think it'll ever happen ah I knew that was coming so so let's this is something that you and I get asked about and let's just go over the reasons really quickly why we're not getting USBC on an iPhone why lightning is the way for iOS devices okay so for starters uh it's very difficult for some people who are very invested in technology and spend all their time on Apple Insider and other similar websites to understand that there's a big difference between us that nerds and the Casual users the Casual users still haven't gotten over the switch from 30 pin to lightning uh it was only a couple years ago that Tim Cook was on Steven kar's program and Steven coar jokingly threatened him and said if you change the connector on this phone again I'm going to kill you um so Apple can't ditch lightning for a number of reasons but that's probably the biggest one the people would flip out you think that ditching the headphone connector was a big deal getting rid of lightning might even be a bigger deal for some people um especially now if you think about them switching to USBC nobody has USBC you know there are a handful of USBC devices out there they're they're they're here and there they're starting to come to Market but most people are just going to go oh great another connector you know and they're going to be using micro USB or mini USB and lightning and all these different things for all their different devices that alone is is the worst reason for Apple to do it um and and it's just it's not going to happen for a number of reasons but that's the biggest one okay what else should we know about it right because I I know that we have on the 12-in iPad it's got the usb3 controller so that it can charge quickly and do faster data transfer uh correct so you can um you can actually get USBC capabilities through lightning and so when we say that we'll see USBC on the iPhone probably this year um and an iPads shipping and stuff like that what that means is it's going to be a USBC connector on one end plugging into uh either your Mac that has USBC or a wall adapter that could go up to potentially in the case of the iPad Pro 29 Watts uh actually the same wall adapter that comes for the 12-in MacBook um now that has higher uh trans uh uh transfer speeds for both data and for power um and it charges the 12.9 in iPad Pro over USB 3 technology much much faster would not be surprised if we see that capability in the iPhone 8 and 7s coming later this year uh quick charge capabilities imagine plugging in your iPhone for 5 minutes and getting like a 50% charge or something like that oh I I what we'll get I I have a Nexus 6p with USBC and it charges that fast I can't wait for it to be on iPhone that that is going to be a big deal for a lot of people um and that is something that does not necessitate a switch to the USBC connector it can be done with the existing lightning technology yet another reason that they don't need to switch the US BC and and won't because the USBC connector would mean that everybody's Legacy lightning cables just wouldn't work and they wouldn't be able to charge and they wouldn't be able to sync and they wouldn't be able to do anything they'd have to buy all new connectors so um that is another reason uh lightning is actually about comparable to USBC in terms of size but it's a little bit thinner um it's also uh more durable than USBC in in some ways based on the current design and current ports um and really the only thing that you need to look at um Apple kind of tipped their their hand on this uh the last couple years um and I think that they wanted to uh in a not not so subtle way reinforce that lightning was here to stay and they continue to introduce accessories that are dependent on Lightning uh most recently the airpods shipped with a lightning connector for charging uh the apple pencil has a lightning connector for charging a male one um the uh Siri remote for or Apple TV has a female lightning port for charging so um Apple would not have continued to bring lightning to all these iOS connected accessories uh if they were planning on ditching lightning so it would be shocking and absolutely unexpected if they embraced USBC this year I know a lot of people wanted I saw somebody comment on our Facebook page earlier like that they couldn't wait for Apple to announce USBC later this year and prove all of our BS wrong or something like that and I was like okay please do tell um but there are just so many reasons that they're not going to do it um but Apple's doubling down on lightning is another example of them really saying this is the port that is here to stay for our iOS connected devices so I think what you're going to see going forward is USBC for Mac lighting for iOS devices and other parts of that ecosystem tvos that sort of thing um and then um I think that what you'll see is rather than switching to USBC they'll just get rid of the ports entirely and then any cables will uh either attach through you know contactless magnetic charging or contact pads or whatever um I think that you'll see that sort of stuff the current Apple TV does have USBC but again that's for developers professional users whatever and I think loating system datas basically that's continues to draw that distinction between what consumer is going to do what you're going to do on a Mac that sort of thing so um USBC will be here to say it's not going anywhere but it's not going to be coming to iOS devices anytime soon um for the reasons that we just explained yes and I would expect that rather than ever doing USBC they would just get rid of the lightning Port entirely and go to completely wireless data syncing and contact based charging now we we ran a story that I want to touch on because this is uh this is one if you've been using a Mac for ages will resonate with you uh sonnet which is a that you'll know if you were using Mac during the power PC era that that time between let's say 1998 and 1997 1998 and uh 2006 Sonet used to make all kinds of of adapters and things you could get fire wire cards from them I think there were uh processor upgrades for Power Max back in the day they were they were one of a few C companies that really supported Mac users during what we call the dark time of apple and they're still around to to honestly my great surprise cuz I hadn't realized um they have added a product to their lineup it's a breakout box that allows you to add three PCI E cards on Thunderbolt 3 so you can go ahead and connect this box to your new Macbook Pro and put in graphic cards put in uh networking cards other kinds of cards that take pcie uh these are the uh the X8 slots they aren't x16 but they're that that uh perfectly capable kind of thing for for adding cards to your Thunderbolt 3 Mac I I think it's cool it's it's one of those things that um that really residents with me seeing companies that supported Apple through the dark time still around still doing it so yeah I'm really excited about the prospect of external gpus and and cards and accessories for Pro users on Max we need to see some level of software support for it I understand why Apple doesn't want to make these accessories but they need to support them and we really need to get some form of comprehensive GPU support that goes beyond what is built in and and what is offered in the current product lineup external GPU support can be hacked together but the moment that Apple starts just allowing people to kind of Run free and connect whatever high power GPU they want internally uh the technology is there the bandwidth is there the capability is there we just need the software support in Mac OS so please Apple come on do it for us yes now we ran a story on a patent that talked about Siri integration with messages uh what what do you know about this so I mean you know Apple explores a lot of uh uh Concepts uh and different ideas that don't necessarily make it to Market but this is one that that was pretty interesting and I think that uh is an application that you could see uh becoming sort of a reality um and it talks about integrating Siri into iMessage essentially allowing users to participate in text based exchanges with the AI so uh imagine a scenario in which you don't want to talk to your phone or your computer or whatever but you want to get information um and so uh you would instead type it to Siri now chat Bots like this as they're called are becoming increasingly popular Facebook is investing in them other companies are doing AI driven stuff with this and it's really just an extension of what's already being done with voice except instead of being voice first it's just based through text and you can see a lot of situations where this would be valuable you know you're in a public place and you don't want to be yapping away to Siri um you are want to be discreet about it whatever um and it's a way to uh to get information but also uh one of the key aspects of Siri that is important going forward for apple as they compete with Google is um it negates the need to open a browser and to search Google denies Google advertising Revenue doesn't allow them collect information from you apple as we mentioned has been partnering with Microsoft Bing to return search results imagine if you wanted to get the kinds of things that Google returns now like events going on or uh you know multip simple multiplication or division or currency conversion or whatever imagine if you could just type that into an iMessage with Siri um in your messages application and get the answers that you want uh immediately and and reliably uh so this this seems like something that I could actually see apple doing right so when I first started thinking about this I was considering it in the way that Google uses their Google Assistant which is you can certainly do this sort of of either one-way voice conversation where you talk and Google Assistant answers in text or or no voice where you're just typing to the assistant and it responds back in in text mhm uh and and you see this stream of the conversation where traditionally when you're using Siri uh it's sort of like a temporary lock screen almost where that that conversation is ephemeral and goes away you can't consult the history of it the thing that Google Assistant does is that it integrates with messages and with uh Google aloe which is one of their many text messaging applications and so you can be having a conversation with someone else and then the assistant will answer things for you as a part of that conversation here Apple because but there are privacy concerns with doing that because now you have to expose your conversation with another human being to assistant Apple it looks like from this patent are not doing that where what what's instead happening is that they're treating Siri as if it were another separate individual what I don't know is if just the same way that you can do multiple people in a chat if you can add Siri to a chat like that you know how I mean that yeah that would be interesting and also potentially chaotic yes but good chaotic evil chaotic good yeah yeah you totally could do that you could totally add the that's part of the patent actually as we look through it MH and it makes sense because if you're saying you know where should we go should we go have Chinese then you can ask Siri where is the nearest Chinese or where's the best Chinese and and arrange those kinds of things it um yeah you could even um imagine in the way that iMessage has grown with dedicated buttons for voice memos and uh uh apps and that sort of stuff uh integrating Siri as a dedicated button or app into um into a message window um and you could you know invoke information and share it with somebody directly from there there there are all kinds of ways of doing this that uh uh that would make a lot of sense in in other sort of AI news Apple's got work on being able to identify objects within photos so this is one of those things that uh has been in iOS for some time now and people don't realize it uh it's a feature that doesn't really get used and so I was you know we try to come up with tips and little tricks that you can get through your iPhone and your Mac and whatever that people don't realize and this is something that like whenever I mention to friends and stuff they don't realize that it that it works and so I published it um uh this week and people in the comments and people on Facebook and Reddit and all that were All Amazed like I've never heard of this before uh so yeah you can type in seemingly anything into the search menu in the photos app for iOS and for mac and Apple has advanced image uh recognition and analysis software that will find things in your photos and return instant results that it thinks fall under certain categories and uh some of the results are quite uncanny um it's pretty astonishingly powerful software that's hidden in your phone and you don't even real it um the lead example I have in there is I searched for avocado and sure enough there was a collection of avocados uh uh in a photo saved on my phone uh but you can search for locations you can search for objects um and uh certain types of things and they all show up now of course it isn't perfect but it casts a wide enough net that even if there are just a handful of incorrect uh items returned it's still of significant value one of the examples I had in the article was I searched for zoo and the again the results were pretty great um tons of photos of of zoos and animals um and specifically animals in cages as they are in zoos one of the photos that was return that I found really interesting was um I had taken a photo when I was living in Boston of a collection of ducks that were hanging out uh behind a metal crowd control barrier and um so the Ducks are all Behind These bars and so Apple's algorithm saw that and said oh he must be at a zoo because it was animals behind bars when in fact they wasn't at the zoo it was just along the street but you can see where the algorithm comes up with that information and says oh that must be what this is um another one uh that uh uh was interesting was I searched for scoreboard just like you know like a Jumbotron that you have at at an arena yeah and uh it returned 14 results 13 of them were photos taken in arenas with scoreboards in them pretty impressive um so it's the the accuracy level is is pretty high um there was one search that I did for uh marriage and when you search for marriage it returned a lot of photos from weddings and stuff like that it also the the incorrect results were either men in suits or women in dresses so you understand why it came up with that and then photos of people kissing showed up so you understand why I came up with that so it's interesting how they arrive at this and and uh the way that it kind of puts it all together and so it's not 100% accurate but I think if you try it out you'll be pretty impressed and pretty surprised by how good it is I did find a list that was put together last year of everything that you can search for at least as of last June and it's a total of 4,432 different types of items scenes objects that you can search for that it will find in your photos automatically and instantly I I need to figure out who to contact there cuz I've already found a couple of words that stump it but uh but I what what stumping it uh it it turns out it doesn't know razors or shaving okay it does know Ravine and rainforest though good good but I I can't recall the last time Railroad Station it knows it knows rainbow good does it know double rainbow uh so I I just searched for rainbow and I have four out of the five or actually of rainbows and then one of them is uh lasers it's a pretty good that's one of those High School photos with the the laser background that you've got going on there yeah I have uh uh rafting rafting uh and there is sure enough the one photo in there is a photo of my uh my brother and his wife rafting so yeah um accurate on that I put in rafting cuz I've got some pictures of us in life jackets but it didn't pick those up so I don't know interesting does it have life jackets let's see life jackets no I got mlife Stadium though it's got lifts I'm not sure what how that even matches what I've got okay no idea anyway yeah you can search for art and it will find like paintings and stuff um you can search for uh birthday cake you can search for piggy bank um it even has as I mentioned in the article it can differentiate between a cat suit and an actual living cat wow uh there's actually two different searches in here one for cat and one for adult cat that's an interesting distinction uh you can read me and all my exciting tips on appleinsider.com and you can find me on Twitter at this is Neil NE and I'm your host Victor and you can find me on Apple Insider and on this podcast and we'll be back next week with more exciting tipsyou're listening to the Apple Insider podcast welcome to another episode of the Apple Insider podcast this is Apple Insider episode 119 I'm your host Victor marks and with me is Neil Hughes editor-in-chief hey Victor how's it going brilliant how have you been doing all right excellent so we had a rendering that we talked about on the site this week MH of of a of a so-called iPhone 8 and this is we're saying this is based on CAD files that are allegedly used for actual construction of the cas this is some of the stuff that's leaked already that's out there um showing a design of a device um it's interesting because you know modern phones are essentially just a slab and glass on it right um and so I remember a few years ago there was a uh leaked model that came out of at the time was called a future iPhone and it turned out it was just some Chinese manufacturer made something that looked a lot like an iPhone you know of course given patent disputes between Samsung and Apple and stuff there are people that would allege copying of course but uh at the same time there's only so many ways to differentiate a small you know piece of glass and metal essentially so you always have to take these things with a grain of salt but as we get closer and closer to September and an anticipated announcement um you'll start to get a clear picture of what's going on with these devices uh and what they're going to look like um and I think that we'll have a pretty good idea by then okay so should I take this this render as something very serious or should I take it with uh some skepticism I would take it with some skepticism because we're seeing renders and and CAD files and stuff and and mockups and everything else out there um and they continue to circulate some of them showing a Touch ID on the back of the device and as we've talked about on the podcast I I don't think that apple is going to move the touch ID to the back of the phone I I just really don't see that happening um however we don't know you know um if Apple really has their heart set on uh getting an edgo edge display on this and they can't get touch ID to work in the screen maybe they will put it on the back I I can't say with 100% certainty my gut says uh that that's not going to be the case but we just don't know because this is not just as simple as you know manifesting an idea and making it happen I mean there are all kinds of moving parts that have to come in here including the fact that the technology needs to be able to be produced at scale without any uh major issues and and proper yield rates it needs to be profitable uh you know Apple could create a theoretical million dooll iPhone that they could make a hundred of and and sell those if they wanted to but you got to be able to sell these at a certain price that people want to buy them at and and they got to crank out you know some 15 million of them for a launch weekend and stuff I mean there are so many moving parts to line all this up here and the modern supply chain and and modern components are so complex that think things could change at the drop of a hat if if Apple will do a thing and and you know this better than anybody Victor with your experience in the industry you can have multiple suppliers as Apple does that are competing essentially and trying to sell you their technology and So when you buy an off the shelf iPhone sometimes you might get a display made by sharp you might get a display made by LG you might get a display made by somebody else and they all fall within a certain range of one another so you don't really know which screen you're getting because in Apple's mind and really any other electronics Maker's mind it shouldn't really matter as long as you get the same experience um but Apple also uses that to their advantage in terms of yield rates so there have been times in the past where a company will uh be making parts for apple and they just can't make them reliable enough or they can't produce them at cost or they can't get the numbers up and so Apple drops that supplier and and goes with an alternate um and so we don't really know what's going on uh at this point as they gear up but you know we're coming down to the wire they're going to have to start man facturing these phones and start ramping up production relatively soon if they want to hit a launch uh this year and of course they want to hit a launch this year so that's just what we're expecting but you know there are rumors that the iPhone 8 the flagship model the high-end thousand plus dollar model may be a little bit quote unquote delayed now I hate using the word delayed because you can't delay something if you don't announce it uh but Apple has historically for the last five or so years launched new iPhones in September um and it is rumored that this Year's iPhone 8 may not actually ship to Consumers until October or November even um and if that's the case um that would be a quote unquote delay uh from the normal time frame of shipping things but um you know as we get closer and closer to September we're going to have a better idea of what's going on here but as as of right now you got to take it all with a grain of salt you can't believe these mockups these renderings these supposed leaks these parts uh you can't you can't count on them just yet we're not at that Point yet right and and they're very pretty and they may lead you to believe cuz they seem to begin to have things in common right uh the vertical camera Arrangement that we see popping up on these things uh you know that there are some things that that people feel strongly about but even those things aren't entirely certain right and there may be uh things that apple is considering that don't make the cut um for example last year we had a number of leaks showing a uh magnetic SMART connector port on the back of the iPhone 7 plus but not on the 7 now of course Apple's never going to tell us but the question becomes was that some madeup leak that just kept making the rounds and you know got caught in the Echo chamber so people bought it or was it actually something that Apple was considering and then ultimately decided not to put in the shipping product um I think the second one is true for a number of reasons but I don't know because Apple's not going to tell me right and and we only find out about the validity of those kinds of things years later uh a good example of that is the Prototype of the first iPad that made it to eBay and then was course taken down you know years and years ago back in 2009 uh early 2010 uh there there were schematics for an iPad that appeared to have two 30 pin connectors one for landscape and one for portrait and you know I we'd always sort of suspected that this was them trying to figure out which orientation was the default orientation of this device and it wasn't until uh that that device made it to Ebay that we found that there was a physical thing that actually had both connectors on it yeah yeah and that was interesting I think the real treasure Trove of those was from the Samsung patent infringement suit where Apple through disclosure revealed a number of designs and concepts for both the iPhone and iPad that never made it to Market all kinds of crazy stuff um and it was really fascinating to look at and to kind of get a Peak at how their design process works but certainly again for all the reasons that I detailed before whether it's Parts yields uh reliability cost whatever um you got to think that Apple has a handful of uh different designs they're all probably very similar to one another um probably the external chassis is locked down at this point I would guess but there might be some features here there where they test it out and it doesn't pan out you know I mean nobody wants to at this point I mean not not ever but certainly not at this point nobody wants to have a Samsung Galaxy Note issue you know like if Apple's going to put wireless charging into this phone You' be better sure that you're testing it testing it testing it if it's not coming if it's coming down the wire and it's not working they just got to yank that feature well and I would say that if if the release is ostensibly September October November that everything that's going to be made is already locked down by now right yes because and if something isn't panning out then they might yank it but they're not going to add anything at this point right but but at this point I I would say that everything that's going to be yanked has probably also been yanked this is the point where everything has to be stable and all of the deliveries of all of the parts have to start coming together right you know it's it's it's it's not too late but it's almost too late to make any kind of change yeah the rumor right the rumor is with this touch ID they're still facing issues now who knows how much lag effect there is on that you know maybe as of 3 months ago they were having issues and they've since sorted out or made the decision you know as of today we don't really know um but you got to I mean you're right you got to think that they have this pretty much figured out at this point we're in May they're going to start ramping up production usually their time frame is June July okay so let's delay them a few months for the iPhone 8 because it the rumors so we're going to look at you know August September maybe October in in Earnest Manufacturing in in a big way uh if they're going to do an October November launch so I mean they're they're at make or break time right now there there's a calendar there's a calendar and you have to work backwards and you know how many manufacturing lines you have open and what the yield is on device per day from those lines right and how many pieces of those lines are being pulled for testing to QC and make sure that they're all working right so that you can stop the line if you have a problem uh it's it's it's all very well laid out it's pretty fascinating when you think about it and and how much we take take it for granted the the moving parts and the complexity and everything that needs to come together to put out a new iPhone every year is is is quite fascinating yeah months in advance all of the parts are purchased and reserved and you know you you you don't have Parts showing up at warehouses and and manufacturing companies until it's ready to be go together for assembly but you you've got everything bought well in advance so that you don't risk a competitor coming in and saying buying up all the supply so they they've purchased every part that they need well in advance and then once production starts coming together after they've done their EVT and their pilot run those parts start arriving one of my favorite examples of how these things pan out is uh it was many years ago I just started working at Apple Insider actually and this is back when the iPod Touch was still a big deal and uh Apple had just introduced a year prior the first forward facing camera on the iPhone 4 and so the expectation was that they were going to uh put uh a forward- facing camera on the iPod touch that next year and it was a done deal the rumors had said for months whatever and we had a reliable source that came to us and said uh Apple got some bad parts and this was like maybe 3 weeks before the iPod Touch was announced and they said Apple's got some bad parts and they pulled the forward- facing camera from the iPod touch and I was not sure about it but I mean this guy that we had was reliable um or girl and uh uh we um uh ran the story and sure enough they iPod Touch shipped without a camera but what made it really interesting was nobody knew until I fix it of course got their hands on it and took a look and sure enough there was a place in that iPod Touch for camera but there were no there was no camera in there and apple the parts just didn't pan out and so they said okay well we're scrapping it and that was it and they shipped it without one and the same thing was true of the the iPod that the previous to that the third generation iPod Touch which was also meant to have a rear facing camera and when you took the back off there was a great cavity for rear-facing camera but no camera Y and uh the the people who came out the best on that deal were Inc case because incase had made a a case with a honeycomb Arrangement that coincidentally had one of the holes line up with exactly where the rear facing camera would have been but since the whole case was honeycombed it didn't matter they could continue to sell that case for the device that had no camera everyone else had made one had a camera hole had to scrap the cases yes that's my big it's always well it's always funny when these you know uh these case manufacturers there have been a few high-profile cases of them making uh cases for devices uh based on designs that don't really come to Market you know and in some in some cases no pun intended on the word choice there um they they do this on purpose because it gets them some publicity so you're not an apple authorized manufacturer just you know Joe Casemaker or whatever and you can make it based on a design and then get some hype for your product that no one would have heard of otherwise um and put it out there so it's like a strategic move in some ways um so you know it's it's uh it's interesting to see how this whole ecosystem works of companies that rely on Apple whether they're supplying them or selling accessories for them or whatever yeah when it comes to cases it's an interesting one because there's there's this crushing pressure this huge amount of pressure to be in stores on launch day because that's when people are going to buy a case for certain right right they they walk in they buy the device they're not leaving there without the attached sale of a case and a screen protector right and so if you're one of the many case manufacturers that is still an you know a partner of Apple but not so close a partner that you got the schematics prior to the release of the device Through official channels let's say um you make a case based on what your best best guesses from the knowledge that your factory shares with you right and yes it's through unofficial channels but you go ahead and and do that so that you can be available on launch day and you run into some interesting problems where when Apple catches you at this they'll say something like um you got that information through unofficial channels and so now you're not going to be in Apple retail stores for x amount of time or you know some other form of punishment right you know there's there's different things that Apple can do for favored suppliers and and suppliers that fall out of disfavor and uh so you have to be very careful if you're in that kind of manufacturing position you know you need to to balance the what you do with the information you have right it's uh it's a very tricky position sometimes and it's it's interesting to think too about how drastically these things can affect these companies like you know um you look at a company like obviously GT Advance is a great example there was just to be a sapphire supplier for apple and they couldn't meet Apple's demands and and and quality expectations and they went out of business um but even if you're just a you know a company like Samsung that used to make all the CPUs for apple and now Apple switched over at tsmc I'm sure that's a huge effect on their business um and then if you're a Casemaker uh how does it affect you if the iPhone 8 is going to be available in limited quantities and won't launch until November you know how how does that affect your business if you depend on Apple to get that phone out in September and to sell 15 million of them in a weekend and you know you'll have you know sell hundreds of thousands of cases or whatever um how does that how does that hurt your business how does that affect you yeah and it can mess up your whole quarter if it's not uh as you expect or forecast exactly and you mentioned tsmc so tsmc has uh and we have we have this story that we ran this says tsmc started production of the 10 Mill 10 nanometer a11 chip to support this rumored iPhone 8 mhm so this this ties right in with what we're talking about in terms of you know when when do parts manufacturing start when does the whole device manufacturing start well the uh this the story in part comes from Digi times so you know take take that part with uh a grain of salt that was the part where Digi times said that uh Supply was limited or there problems initially with the components but uh you know you know every piece of information that we have says that's all been resolved if there ever was a problem to begin with um Ming quo KGI analyst says that production may start as late as October or November like you just said um which means that the mass production has to happen uh in or around mid June to July right tsmc has to go mass production around June and foxcon who makes these phones end up going into mass production around July does that make sense yeah so yeah you can kind of work backwards with the calendar I see I see something funny too A lot of times with um uh commenters who will read an article about potential delays for upcoming products or uh they'll read about uh Limited at launch it will be extremely limited launch and they say we always read this every year and it never happens well it does happen you're just not thinking at the scale that that that apple is dealing with like apple may ship you know 7 million iPhone 7 pluses last year at launch or whatever they shipped but that product remained difficult to get throughout the holidays especially in the jet black uh finish um so was it constrained at launch absolutely yes now you may have pre-ordered woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning when it became available for pre-order and got it on launch day and you didn't experience an issue but youd have to step outside of your own personal experiences and realize that uh for other people they couldn't walk into a store and get one and that is how the vast majority of people buy iPhones the same happened with the Apple watch the same happened with a lot of products when they came out uh the Apple watch was in constraint for I think like five months or so well look at airpods now right I mean um you know those uh were delayed uh didn't make it to Market until right before Christmas you still can't get them at the store well there are two things that happen here right one of them is is that you you first of all you start out with lower production when you first turn on the man the the manufacturing lines and you do that so that you can catch any problems right you you do slightly lower yield your first week because you're trying to make sure that you you spot potential problems and you solve for them M the other thing that happens is that you you you try and open up additional lines to account for this kind of of demand so you open up additional lines you open up additional factories right foxcon and apple also work with pegatron and wistron to assemble they're hiring additional people so that they'll be ready to meet this demand but when you turn on these lines you've got to have all of the tooling and all of the other machines to support these product lines so there's that's a cost that has to be accounted for in a time to build those things and you have to uh you know you have to staff them so you have to train the people that are going to do these things so it's it's all got time attached to it we just don't feel it at the retail end as much we feel it a little bit you know as you say they're constraint Supply but this is a KnockOn effect that started months back right tell me about inch what do we know about LG and inch I say that without giving you enough hint um so oh the facial recognition story sorry I have yes the facial recognition story still talking iPhone 8 let me just some compy names out there to surprise you right yeah first I was thinking initech was uh um uh isn't that the name of the the company from um uh office space spelled differently i n i t what a great company name right well here you go LG inch i n n o t e k um they are supposedly supplying the facial recognition camera modules for the iPhone 8 um so last year on the iPhone 7 plus uh they introduced a new dual camera system um one of those cameras uh being a uh 2x uh telescopic Zoom whatever you want to call it and then the other being a traditional camera and between the two of them they could do some Advanced and interesting stuff um so now this year they're expected to bring a dual camera system to the front the FaceTime cameras um and this is believed to open up the an Avenue for Apple to uh include some form of augmented reality 3D facial recognition technology uh in this year's iPhone which could have a number of potential applications um including uh you know the ability to map things over your face like you look at the kind of stuff that Snapchat's doing but imagine that in a more advanced way U but also the ability to recognize a user unlock the phone potentially even fast user switching access to apps and features that sort of stuff um think about what Touch ID currently does but in a uh a way that is even more seamless than it has been done to date um and potentially with more features and and more security as well um there's another um report uh that is uh out there as well about those cameras uh suggesting that uh the lenses on the front could be uh different focal lengths um which would again like the rear cameras give the front-facing cameras different sensing capabilities um and kind of uh allow uh for it to do unique things um so two cameras offers a lot of uh capabilities for capturing in three dimensions obviously like we have two eyes um so I think that you're going to see as Apple shows and and Tim Cook has publicly said that Apple's very interested in augmented reality um this is uh something that they are going to continue pursuing with both hardware and software and as we're gearing up for iPhone 8 you're getting the hardware rumors and so um LG initech is apparently been tapped to make these cameras for the front-facing camera we won't really have an idea of how it's all going to work until we see the software side of it which is the part that's easier for Apple to keep under wraps because they don't Outsource that yeah one of the things that I I observe is you we we hear a lot from commenters and from from especially people who are fans of other platforms you know Apple did this second Apple did this third right someone else did it first and so I always kind of keep my eye out to see what it was that that someone might use to to explain that it occurs to me that the Amazon fir phone had multiple cameras on its face first yeah how that work out for him um brilliantly it was it was outstanding I would say um because and then meanwhile this week they announced thing look like a Chum going to sit on your I mean it does look like a chumby that's a really good comparison wow yeah I mean they they're good for Amazon for for uh getting some Hardware into people's homes and all that but whatever well I think one of the issues with fir phone without going too deep into it was that they they had these four cameras and they used them for two reasons one of them for Amazon's advantage and one to no one's Advantage right they they put four cameras on the front so that you could scan super cool stuff to buy on Amazon which well you know that's nice and all but life is a little bit bigger than that um and and the other thing that they did was they had the four cameras so that it could understand where you were holding it and orienting it and that they would scroll based on how you were holding it so if you rotated it in a in a sort of vertical plane backwards uh that that it would then scroll and um well let's not forget that Amazon has no real experience or meaningful experience developing software and so fire OS whether you're on an Amazon tablet or or on the defunct phone uh is not doing them any favors and and you see this in many ways with Samsung too uh Samsung for all the the crap that they get from Apple Fans is a pretty fantastic hardware company um especially even if you you know uh are buying into the whole you know the slavish copying you know uh narrative that Apple puts out there which a lot of is true but uh the ability to which they can uh copy very quickly you know they they come out with a phone that looks a lot like the iPhone including like where they put the the antenna lines and stuff um uh in a very dispute they can make some Hardware they can make some Hardware but the software side of it you know Touch wiz and overlays on Android and teasing and all this other stuff and their watch platform yeah I mean software is really really hard and that's one of the things that Apple does that uh doesn't get enough attention or credit certainly their their Hardware design is Best in Class um reliable functional uh beautiful but the software for all the problems that it has uh is really hey all software has problems and all Hardware has problems too but man uh Apple makes some really really great software and nobody else out there is really competing with apple on that front I don't think and I would say that that can be part of the problem right we criticize Apple routinely for for issues with software and for what feels like neglect because we were spoiled by how good it was and uh I I would say that they had a lot stronger competition they they they were a lot more uh you know they felt like they had stronger competition at those times when it was better well like you look at um so apple or Microsoft actually announced this week that uh Apple's going to release iTunes on the Windows store and the main reason I have to assume that this is happening is because uh W Microsoft is bringing Windows 10s to Market soon um and it's only going to allow apps from the mic or from the Windows store to be installed on it um and this goes to show how difficult software is to do um and and the troubles faced by I mean say what you will about Microsoft but obviously software first company um have been pretty successful at doing that uh they took a look at the education market and and problems with Windows and realized how do we really lock down in Secure windows don't allow people to install third party apps from anywhere but our storefront hm who who who did that on a big scale for the first time which sounds great except that it means you have to curate that store properly and which is something that Apple's been doing on iOS since 2008 right but I would suggest that Microsoft hasn't done as good a job of curating their store and policing their store probably I I I haven't experienced uh the Microsoft store so I can't I can't say but it is funny because they made this announcement last week and they're getting apple on board with iTunes which is great I mean there's you know however you feel about Microsoft it's good that that these options are out there well this isn't the first time that participated in someone else's store right they they've got the move to iOS and apple music on the Google Play Store as well but yeah I mean you know software is very hard to do and and Microsoft took a look at the landscape and they took a look at their options and they ended up doing something that Apple's done definitely on iOS and to a lesser extent on Mac and they made it so that you can only install if you have Windows 10s stores from their storefront now Apple hasn't gone that extreme and what's really interesting to me about this is could you imagine I mean if you get a new Mac now right and you set it up right out of the box by default it only lets you install thirdparty apps from outside of the App Store if if you go into the settings of your Mac uh the security and allow apps downloaded from outside um and then even then um if you make it so that an unidentified developers can have Stu installed yourself to enter your administrator password that helps cut down on malware viruses whatever right um but you can make it so that you can lock down a Mac and so you can only install stuff from the app store which is essentially what micros default way it ships right it ships only for Mac store yeah Mac app store right and so um if if if Apple did what Microsoft is doing right now uh that would be charging $50 to be able to install apps from outside of the app store could you imagine the outrage that people would have for that I mean I realize Apple doesn't charge for their operating systems and whatever but but Microsoft is going to be charging people a $50 fee to be able to install apps from outside the Microsoft store let me ask because the way that as I understood it Windows 10s works is that people can switch between a 10s and uh Windows 10 professional pretty seamlessly and that that this I was under the impression perhaps wrongly that this $50 fee was the the trigger to be able to switch from 10s which is locked down to professional which is not right exactly it's a $50 fee to upgrade CHC to the other product which is the only way to install apps from outside of the App Store okay I'm I'm I'm not as offended by that idea as as you might think and the reason for that is that Microsoft has always charged a license Fe for their operating system in all the different versions at different price rates for the different variations of them uh there was a time when Apple charged for two different versions of the operating system that the the base operating system was 129 and and the server version was about a th uh you know those days are long gone now for Apple but it was it was very much accepted to pay a licensing fee for an operating system to pay the difference to get up to another level or even to just offed by it I'm just saying I'm just saying could you imagine the outcry if they did that uh on Mac yes especially since the Mac App Store for all its good is is not nearly as as as the third party ecosystem for Mac has always been and it's not as advantageous for developers as it could be there there are plenty of developers who distribute both in and outside of the Mac or App Store and there are plenty of third- party developers who have decided to distribute only outside of the Mac App Store after having distributed through it MH it's it doesn't fulfill their needs right there there are things missing about the Mac App Store that the IOS app store even has so it's it's uh it's and it's it's getting more and more difficult for a third party developer to necessarily survive uh especially on say iOS only so for to survive in MA app for only would be difficult too one thing I find interesting about this is uh Microsoft does have some apps on the Mac App Store but they do not have Microsoft Office on the Mac App Store well they have they have H that's interesting they have one note and one drive one Note One Drive and remote desktop mhm which isn't an office application per se but you can certainly lump it in there with other things and RMS sharing and uh syncing for the defunct Microsoft band oh and also the Windows phone application so you can sync with the defunct Windows phone not seeing it on the app store right now I'm looking right now I pulled it up on the App Store there are only five apps and there's nothing for Windows phone on here maybe they rolled it into one drive or something it's possible pulled it as well but I I used to get that app through App Store um yeah they don't put office on there office is a weird one though because office has changed to be a subscription service and so you know you you'd think they they would put it on there as the download and then sell the subscription as an Ina purchase but they don't want to give that subscription purchased uh you know the 30% cut to Apple that's probably why they keep it out huh maybe but I mean you can get office on iOS so you certainly can well I I just find it all funny because Microsoft and Apple uh even though they are competitors um and certainly with their newly announced uh weird fuzzy laptop uh the cloth topped uh keyboard uh that they announced last week um they're they're while they are competitors and and they and Microsoft directly positioned that that laptop against the MacBook Air which is like a laptop that has been updated like two years uh the companies are kind of strange bedfellows now um in some ways um that I find uh uh interesting they're both kind of like the Privacy Advocates now and you see this alignment between Apple and Microsoft with Bing search being the native for Siri um and now iTunes coming to the the Windows store and all that stuff and it's funny to see where their corporate interests and and philos oph align um and as the rise of Google and Facebook and all these other companies has been going on and companies that don't really have any respect for your privacy uh Microsoft and and apple have become kind of strange bed flows in this like privacy consumer Focus world it is interesting it's kind of strange um you know one of the other things that happened was that Microsoft launched visual studio for Mac so now there's a Microsoft development tool that runs native on Mac to create apps for Mac OS iOS TV watch OS and Android as well as web and Cloud apps uh it's got git integration for GitHub it's got uh extension system and it's this is this is the work basically of Miguel deaza who did uh zamarin for so long that's really what's what's behind and zamarin kind of apps for iOS for years so this that's that's how what's under the hood here for uh for visual studio do you think this means that we'll get xcode on Windows I'm going to answer that but I'm going to answer it like this xcode that compiles for Windows has existed for years and years and that's how we have iTunes for Windows and and it it predates that even because before OS 10 was Mac OS 10 it was next and next had uh a thing called yellow box that ran next applications on Windows and so objectivec and the uh the Frameworks exist for Windows it would take a heck of a lot for Apple to update everything else to make it work on Windows but it's it it exists and it could be done it'll never happen you you will see xcode on the Apple watch before you see it on Windows I just want to point out that the Steve Jobs quote for this point is that um you'd have a glass of ice water in hell when iTunes was released on Windows and it was no no no you have the well great give it to me people running iTunes on the people running iTunes on Windows it's like giving them a glass of ice water in hell he had he was carrying the glass of ice water at the time that he said that I believe yeah and he was saying that they love having iTunes on Windows because it allows people on the Windows platform to see what good software is like which thanks I iTunes is not exactly the best example of the time it was software prowess at the time it made a lot of sense I don't know that I don't know that iTunes is ever been great but I mean it is a b mess I want to thank you for the correction you know I I wish that Apple would make iTunes great again but uh they just need to split it up it's it's we've come a long way right that was that was the time when you had to have iTunes and a cable and synchronized music directly too on iPod and we've cut the cord we're using phones instead of uh instead of iPods A lot's changed and never mind all the other stuff that's been jammed into iTunes since the intervenient time when it was only originally for music and then movies and then apps and everything else well that's one of the things I find interesting about Apple having the incentive to bring iTunes to Windows they are the obvious uses for it like uh you know downloading uh stuff on iTunes your Apple music subscription whatever um and apple wants to get people tied on those Services as well but I wonder how much of that is people that are not only still setting up their iPhone or iPad or syncing by plugging it in either through habit or preference or they don't like the cloud or whatever and how many I I wonder how many like ancient iPods are still out there in circulation and you got to sync to it somehow and like people are still using them um I know like my parents still like work out with their iPods and stuff you know um yeah running that sort of stuff I I I wonder I wonder how many people need itunes because they're sinking their music to like an old iPod Nano or something I would not be surprised if that market is in the tens of millions of people still doing that easily cuz think about how many iPods Apple sold over the lifetime of that product I mentioned that the Apple watch is about to get worse a second ago and we published a big story about this while you and I were together in New York for the Adorama event so what is what is the deal with Apple watch apps I mean take take me through a little bit of the history right we we had this this the watch is a platform and they said go and make apps and people went for and they made apps and the apps were always a little clunky and kind of hard to use is that about right yeah Apple watch um it's become a thing now where you know Apple can't really launch a platform without having an app store on it uh because the app store has become so crucial to the success of iOS that naturally it would lend itself well to other devices and people want to have apps on there and so it makes sense um and Apple kind of pushed the Apple watch as there was a lot of hype for it obviously um and it pushed it as this uh platform that was going to be you know potentially the next big thing for apps just a big deal bring your apps over and the first generation of Apple watch watch OS one um the the apps didn't even run natively on the device they had to be all the processing was done by the iPhone they were very conservative with the battery life and attempting to squeeze every little bit ever that they could um and the experience was terrible uh the experience has since gotten a lot better um but the apps still and I have to assume that this is something to do with apple um and their software development kit and is not just poor developers because a lot of the apps just crash they just do unless they're native apps so I think that there's some Kinks to be worked out with the software development kit um but uh also there's just the the question of of apps uh there are certain apps that came to the Apple watch that uh don't really offer a lot of value and most people probably would not be using them on a regular basis it just makes more sense to pull your phone out of your pocket um now some of that could be changing going forward certainly I expect that the watch development kit is going to get better certainly I expect that developers are going to figure out better uses for their apps and I could also see more utility for certain apps that don't make sense when your phone is always on you with a watch that does not require phone so maybe I don't want to read the news on my watch when my phone is in my pocket but maybe I don't have my phone on me and I want to read the news and it makes a little bit more sense however all of that is to say that uh uh Apple watch recently lost some major uh apps um uh Chief among them Google Maps um is just pulled from the Apple watch and uh what's really funny about this to me is uh this happened and nobody realized it like it just completely went unnoticed and so so what happened is you go to your your your app store automatically updates your apps for you on your phone because that's the default kind of setting right and so Google Maps issues an update and your phone automatically updates and the next thing you know it's not on your watch right so you don't even realize it if especially if you're not using it especially if you're not going to the the app uh uh honeycomb layout or whatever um to look for apps and stuff it just uninstalls and you just wouldn't notice because it's tied to the IOS app so other ones that join Google Maps were Amazon and eBay um and they just don't have Apple watch apps anymore um Target last year pulled its uh Apple Watch app although they still offer their Cartwheel app and some of these being pulled makes sense right um who wants to shop on Amazon with your watch well I me you say that but here's what I want is I want delivery notifications or shipping notifications correct right so I bought something on Amazon I I want my watch to let me know that something's shipped or something deled you can still get those without the app running natively because you get all of your iPhone notifications on your watch so okay um if if we're talking about eBay which is a similar kind of thing because they're both shopping kind of apps I I want the notification that auction is ending in 15 minutes and I better go you know bid up on it right right and you can get that notification you just can't do anything with it so you'll get the notification on your watch that your bid is ending and um you got to pull your phone out or go to your computer or whatever so a lot of that is is uh is intentional you know I think that these companies may have just realized that the way that people are using their watches is not necessarily interacting with them it's more for glancing your risk getting notifications and and I've said this many times I think that the Apple watch works best the less that you have to interact with it uh it works best with Apple pay it works best with Siri it works best with notifications those sorts of things but if I have to pick up my watch and start pressing a bunch of stuff on it the screen is too small the interface is too limited the device is too slow for it to really work in any sort of meaningful way it's a device that you want to glance at get the information that you want and then move on with your day and and the things that do that work great things that work in the background Fitness tracking pulse tracking whatever that's the kind of area where it excels um and Bill Bill geyser likes you a lot you know that right bill is the guy behind the uh The Meta watch and he's now at HP making HP smart watches and and the idea he always had was that the smartest watch is the one where you glance at it and that's your Computing with it you don't you don't interact in other ways it's just you glance and that's what you need and and The Meta watch was a product that I really liked before the Apple watch came out because they got that idea of glance ability and apple gets that as well with complications on the watch face it's the information that you want right now with limited need to interact with it you look down you want to check the time you want to check the weather you want to check uh you know the news you want to whatever you can put it on a complication on your watch face and you can get it right there when you need it without having to really spend a lot of time messing around with it so you know I think that Google Maps being lost on there while it was a terrible Apple Watch app is a is a loss for Apple because a lot of people use Google Maps for Transit um and for driving and that sort of stuff um and I would hope and Google has s said in a statement that they're going to bring it back to the Apple watch I would hope that it comes back better than ever I think that some of these apps are going to have more utility when the Apple watch becomes a more independent platform and I would hope that the likes of Amazon and eBay would revisit and find ways to do them uh that might be more meaningful um and I think that Apple you know this is an example of two where uh Apple needs to do something about uh jumping even more so they've done a great job of improving it but they need to make it even better to open apps jump between apps you know to make it more seamless and and more natural the fact that major apps were removed from the Apple watch and nobody noticed you know it's like it's kind of indicative isn't it if a Forest Falls in the trees and no one's there you know yeah like it shows you how infrequently people were using these things and even myself as an avid Apple watch user um there are some great third party apps for Apple watch but they are few and far between there are not a lot of them um my my favorite third party apps um I have complications on my watch face for carrot weather and for um Nike Plus run Club um and I also got to use the slopes app earlier this year when I went skiing and those are all fantastic really really well done Apple watch apps that I cannot recommend highly enough uh however the likes of Amazon you know whatever if you really need it fine but I just don't see the the utility of that all right this episode is brought to you by jamp now when you first start your business it's pretty easy to keep track of your own computer and phone but as you grow and start to buy more tech for your employees it gets harder to keep track of everyone's Macs iPhones and iPads thankfully jamp now lets you manage your Apple devices from anywhere maybe you need to secure the iPad that your sales rep lost when you're in different locations well jamp now makes that and a lot more much easier configure settings protect sensitive information even lock or wipe advice from anywhere jamp now secures your stuff so you can focus on your business instead no it expertise needed and as a special offer for our listeners you can start securing your business today by setting up your first three devices for free add more for just two bucks a month per device go to jam.com appleinsider to create a free account and set up your first three free devices today that's jf.com slapple Insider so Neil your your opinion here what do you think about USBC um I like USBC a lot I think that um it's going to be a painful transition for a lot of people but uh I don't think it's as painful as some folks think it's going to be as well um I think that uh the in the long run it's going to be a very good thing for computers and for Max okay so you like it so how do you feel about it on your iPhone I think it's a terrible idea and I don't think it'll ever happen ah I knew that was coming so so let's this is something that you and I get asked about and let's just go over the reasons really quickly why we're not getting USBC on an iPhone why lightning is the way for iOS devices okay so for starters uh it's very difficult for some people who are very invested in technology and spend all their time on Apple Insider and other similar websites to understand that there's a big difference between us that nerds and the Casual users the Casual users still haven't gotten over the switch from 30 pin to lightning uh it was only a couple years ago that Tim Cook was on Steven kar's program and Steven coar jokingly threatened him and said if you change the connector on this phone again I'm going to kill you um so Apple can't ditch lightning for a number of reasons but that's probably the biggest one the people would flip out you think that ditching the headphone connector was a big deal getting rid of lightning might even be a bigger deal for some people um especially now if you think about them switching to USBC nobody has USBC you know there are a handful of USBC devices out there they're they're they're here and there they're starting to come to Market but most people are just going to go oh great another connector you know and they're going to be using micro USB or mini USB and lightning and all these different things for all their different devices that alone is is the worst reason for Apple to do it um and and it's just it's not going to happen for a number of reasons but that's the biggest one okay what else should we know about it right because I I know that we have on the 12-in iPad it's got the usb3 controller so that it can charge quickly and do faster data transfer uh correct so you can um you can actually get USBC capabilities through lightning and so when we say that we'll see USBC on the iPhone probably this year um and an iPads shipping and stuff like that what that means is it's going to be a USBC connector on one end plugging into uh either your Mac that has USBC or a wall adapter that could go up to potentially in the case of the iPad Pro 29 Watts uh actually the same wall adapter that comes for the 12-in MacBook um now that has higher uh trans uh uh transfer speeds for both data and for power um and it charges the 12.9 in iPad Pro over USB 3 technology much much faster would not be surprised if we see that capability in the iPhone 8 and 7s coming later this year uh quick charge capabilities imagine plugging in your iPhone for 5 minutes and getting like a 50% charge or something like that oh I I what we'll get I I have a Nexus 6p with USBC and it charges that fast I can't wait for it to be on iPhone that that is going to be a big deal for a lot of people um and that is something that does not necessitate a switch to the USBC connector it can be done with the existing lightning technology yet another reason that they don't need to switch the US BC and and won't because the USBC connector would mean that everybody's Legacy lightning cables just wouldn't work and they wouldn't be able to charge and they wouldn't be able to sync and they wouldn't be able to do anything they'd have to buy all new connectors so um that is another reason uh lightning is actually about comparable to USBC in terms of size but it's a little bit thinner um it's also uh more durable than USBC in in some ways based on the current design and current ports um and really the only thing that you need to look at um Apple kind of tipped their their hand on this uh the last couple years um and I think that they wanted to uh in a not not so subtle way reinforce that lightning was here to stay and they continue to introduce accessories that are dependent on Lightning uh most recently the airpods shipped with a lightning connector for charging uh the apple pencil has a lightning connector for charging a male one um the uh Siri remote for or Apple TV has a female lightning port for charging so um Apple would not have continued to bring lightning to all these iOS connected accessories uh if they were planning on ditching lightning so it would be shocking and absolutely unexpected if they embraced USBC this year I know a lot of people wanted I saw somebody comment on our Facebook page earlier like that they couldn't wait for Apple to announce USBC later this year and prove all of our BS wrong or something like that and I was like okay please do tell um but there are just so many reasons that they're not going to do it um but Apple's doubling down on lightning is another example of them really saying this is the port that is here to stay for our iOS connected devices so I think what you're going to see going forward is USBC for Mac lighting for iOS devices and other parts of that ecosystem tvos that sort of thing um and then um I think that what you'll see is rather than switching to USBC they'll just get rid of the ports entirely and then any cables will uh either attach through you know contactless magnetic charging or contact pads or whatever um I think that you'll see that sort of stuff the current Apple TV does have USBC but again that's for developers professional users whatever and I think loating system datas basically that's continues to draw that distinction between what consumer is going to do what you're going to do on a Mac that sort of thing so um USBC will be here to say it's not going anywhere but it's not going to be coming to iOS devices anytime soon um for the reasons that we just explained yes and I would expect that rather than ever doing USBC they would just get rid of the lightning Port entirely and go to completely wireless data syncing and contact based charging now we we ran a story that I want to touch on because this is uh this is one if you've been using a Mac for ages will resonate with you uh sonnet which is a that you'll know if you were using Mac during the power PC era that that time between let's say 1998 and 1997 1998 and uh 2006 Sonet used to make all kinds of of adapters and things you could get fire wire cards from them I think there were uh processor upgrades for Power Max back in the day they were they were one of a few C companies that really supported Mac users during what we call the dark time of apple and they're still around to to honestly my great surprise cuz I hadn't realized um they have added a product to their lineup it's a breakout box that allows you to add three PCI E cards on Thunderbolt 3 so you can go ahead and connect this box to your new Macbook Pro and put in graphic cards put in uh networking cards other kinds of cards that take pcie uh these are the uh the X8 slots they aren't x16 but they're that that uh perfectly capable kind of thing for for adding cards to your Thunderbolt 3 Mac I I think it's cool it's it's one of those things that um that really residents with me seeing companies that supported Apple through the dark time still around still doing it so yeah I'm really excited about the prospect of external gpus and and cards and accessories for Pro users on Max we need to see some level of software support for it I understand why Apple doesn't want to make these accessories but they need to support them and we really need to get some form of comprehensive GPU support that goes beyond what is built in and and what is offered in the current product lineup external GPU support can be hacked together but the moment that Apple starts just allowing people to kind of Run free and connect whatever high power GPU they want internally uh the technology is there the bandwidth is there the capability is there we just need the software support in Mac OS so please Apple come on do it for us yes now we ran a story on a patent that talked about Siri integration with messages uh what what do you know about this so I mean you know Apple explores a lot of uh uh Concepts uh and different ideas that don't necessarily make it to Market but this is one that that was pretty interesting and I think that uh is an application that you could see uh becoming sort of a reality um and it talks about integrating Siri into iMessage essentially allowing users to participate in text based exchanges with the AI so uh imagine a scenario in which you don't want to talk to your phone or your computer or whatever but you want to get information um and so uh you would instead type it to Siri now chat Bots like this as they're called are becoming increasingly popular Facebook is investing in them other companies are doing AI driven stuff with this and it's really just an extension of what's already being done with voice except instead of being voice first it's just based through text and you can see a lot of situations where this would be valuable you know you're in a public place and you don't want to be yapping away to Siri um you are want to be discreet about it whatever um and it's a way to uh to get information but also uh one of the key aspects of Siri that is important going forward for apple as they compete with Google is um it negates the need to open a browser and to search Google denies Google advertising Revenue doesn't allow them collect information from you apple as we mentioned has been partnering with Microsoft Bing to return search results imagine if you wanted to get the kinds of things that Google returns now like events going on or uh you know multip simple multiplication or division or currency conversion or whatever imagine if you could just type that into an iMessage with Siri um in your messages application and get the answers that you want uh immediately and and reliably uh so this this seems like something that I could actually see apple doing right so when I first started thinking about this I was considering it in the way that Google uses their Google Assistant which is you can certainly do this sort of of either one-way voice conversation where you talk and Google Assistant answers in text or or no voice where you're just typing to the assistant and it responds back in in text mhm uh and and you see this stream of the conversation where traditionally when you're using Siri uh it's sort of like a temporary lock screen almost where that that conversation is ephemeral and goes away you can't consult the history of it the thing that Google Assistant does is that it integrates with messages and with uh Google aloe which is one of their many text messaging applications and so you can be having a conversation with someone else and then the assistant will answer things for you as a part of that conversation here Apple because but there are privacy concerns with doing that because now you have to expose your conversation with another human being to assistant Apple it looks like from this patent are not doing that where what what's instead happening is that they're treating Siri as if it were another separate individual what I don't know is if just the same way that you can do multiple people in a chat if you can add Siri to a chat like that you know how I mean that yeah that would be interesting and also potentially chaotic yes but good chaotic evil chaotic good yeah yeah you totally could do that you could totally add the that's part of the patent actually as we look through it MH and it makes sense because if you're saying you know where should we go should we go have Chinese then you can ask Siri where is the nearest Chinese or where's the best Chinese and and arrange those kinds of things it um yeah you could even um imagine in the way that iMessage has grown with dedicated buttons for voice memos and uh uh apps and that sort of stuff uh integrating Siri as a dedicated button or app into um into a message window um and you could you know invoke information and share it with somebody directly from there there there are all kinds of ways of doing this that uh uh that would make a lot of sense in in other sort of AI news Apple's got work on being able to identify objects within photos so this is one of those things that uh has been in iOS for some time now and people don't realize it uh it's a feature that doesn't really get used and so I was you know we try to come up with tips and little tricks that you can get through your iPhone and your Mac and whatever that people don't realize and this is something that like whenever I mention to friends and stuff they don't realize that it that it works and so I published it um uh this week and people in the comments and people on Facebook and Reddit and all that were All Amazed like I've never heard of this before uh so yeah you can type in seemingly anything into the search menu in the photos app for iOS and for mac and Apple has advanced image uh recognition and analysis software that will find things in your photos and return instant results that it thinks fall under certain categories and uh some of the results are quite uncanny um it's pretty astonishingly powerful software that's hidden in your phone and you don't even real it um the lead example I have in there is I searched for avocado and sure enough there was a collection of avocados uh uh in a photo saved on my phone uh but you can search for locations you can search for objects um and uh certain types of things and they all show up now of course it isn't perfect but it casts a wide enough net that even if there are just a handful of incorrect uh items returned it's still of significant value one of the examples I had in the article was I searched for zoo and the again the results were pretty great um tons of photos of of zoos and animals um and specifically animals in cages as they are in zoos one of the photos that was return that I found really interesting was um I had taken a photo when I was living in Boston of a collection of ducks that were hanging out uh behind a metal crowd control barrier and um so the Ducks are all Behind These bars and so Apple's algorithm saw that and said oh he must be at a zoo because it was animals behind bars when in fact they wasn't at the zoo it was just along the street but you can see where the algorithm comes up with that information and says oh that must be what this is um another one uh that uh uh was interesting was I searched for scoreboard just like you know like a Jumbotron that you have at at an arena yeah and uh it returned 14 results 13 of them were photos taken in arenas with scoreboards in them pretty impressive um so it's the the accuracy level is is pretty high um there was one search that I did for uh marriage and when you search for marriage it returned a lot of photos from weddings and stuff like that it also the the incorrect results were either men in suits or women in dresses so you understand why it came up with that and then photos of people kissing showed up so you understand why I came up with that so it's interesting how they arrive at this and and uh the way that it kind of puts it all together and so it's not 100% accurate but I think if you try it out you'll be pretty impressed and pretty surprised by how good it is I did find a list that was put together last year of everything that you can search for at least as of last June and it's a total of 4,432 different types of items scenes objects that you can search for that it will find in your photos automatically and instantly I I need to figure out who to contact there cuz I've already found a couple of words that stump it but uh but I what what stumping it uh it it turns out it doesn't know razors or shaving okay it does know Ravine and rainforest though good good but I I can't recall the last time Railroad Station it knows it knows rainbow good does it know double rainbow uh so I I just searched for rainbow and I have four out of the five or actually of rainbows and then one of them is uh lasers it's a pretty good that's one of those High School photos with the the laser background that you've got going on there yeah I have uh uh rafting rafting uh and there is sure enough the one photo in there is a photo of my uh my brother and his wife rafting so yeah um accurate on that I put in rafting cuz I've got some pictures of us in life jackets but it didn't pick those up so I don't know interesting does it have life jackets let's see life jackets no I got mlife Stadium though it's got lifts I'm not sure what how that even matches what I've got okay no idea anyway yeah you can search for art and it will find like paintings and stuff um you can search for uh birthday cake you can search for piggy bank um it even has as I mentioned in the article it can differentiate between a cat suit and an actual living cat wow uh there's actually two different searches in here one for cat and one for adult cat that's an interesting distinction uh you can read me and all my exciting tips on appleinsider.com and you can find me on Twitter at this is Neil NE and I'm your host Victor and you can find me on Apple Insider and on this podcast and we'll be back next week with more exciting tips\n"