This is Technology Bytes, episode 66 for June 9th, 2024.
Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share brief bytes on interesting technology.
My name is Joel.
Enjoy, and here we go.
So this week I want to talk about technology that does not yet exist.
And as most know who might listen to this podcast, if you’re at all technical or you like the Apple products, that’s who I’m speaking to for the most part.
Um, next week, actually, Monday is the worldwide developer conference week, and it kicks off with a keynote on Monday morning, and they will cover some of the basics of, of what’s going to be new in all the operating systems that run all the devices that Apple makes.
And so this week, I’m going to do a little bit of a preview.
Um, I don’t really know what’s going to happen, but I want to talk about what I’ve heard and what I think, what I would like, um, just yesterday evening, as I was reading through some news, there was a headline that said everything Apple’s going to announce that WWDC was leaked.
I didn’t click on that story because I like to be surprised a little bit, but it doesn’t mean that I haven’t listened to tech podcasts that talk about what they think is going to happen.
So I’m going to talk a little bit about that and then a little bit about what I want, and then I’ll end with a little more of what I’ve heard.
So the main thing that I’ve heard about WWDC is it’s going to be AI all the time.
Everything that Apple talks about is going to be a wrapper around what they’re doing with artificial intelligence.
Every aspect of their operating system, every aspect of how the things work together, it feels like all they’re going to talk about is artificial intelligence.
And while I guess that’s okay, it’s not something that I really have used at all.
I don’t have a lot of personal experience.
It’s kind of weird as a techie to not have used some of those tools.
Um, but that seems to be what they’re going to cover.
Many people think they’re going to be in a catch up mode because they are so far behind maybe the other tools from Google or Microsoft or open AI that are already existent.
So it’ll be interesting to see how they coach that, how it looks, what they say exactly.
Um, and I am looking forward to it because I’m curious what their direction is.
So I have heard a few things while listening to the other podcasts that I listened to, and I’ll cover some of that in, when I talk about what I would like and what I’ve heard other people say about it, other tech pundits, not that I’m a tech pundit, but tech pundits that I listened to.
Um, but one thing I did see and just happened to pop up in one of my news feeds is that Apple is going to actually make a full blown password manager.
Right now I use key chain exclusively.
I don’t have any other password manager.
I really like how it works.
In the iOS 17, they actually added a feature for me to be able to share passwords with my wife.
Um, I’ve tried to get that to work and I know it does, but it’s hard to get my wife on the same page and she’s not all that interested in participating.
Or maybe I just haven’t explained it well enough, but that is an interesting thing because I use Apple exclusively as my password manager.
I really haven’t heard much else specific.
I hadn’t even been thinking about wanting that because I think key chain works for me, but that is one thing that I think would be a neat things for Apple to produce.
So now I’m going to spend a few minutes talking about what I would like them to do or what I would like them to announce or, or whatever, and wrapped around some of that is what I’ve heard from other people that, that I listened to.
And it’s like, yeah, I like what that person is saying.
I’m very interested in hearing that and in seeing what Apple does with that.
And so the first thing is a better Siri.
Um, I use Siri all the time because I have a smart home.
So I use her to turn on lights.
I use her to play music.
I use her to do all kinds of things with my smart home, but that’s about it.
I use her in the car for directions to places.
I use her randomly in other scenarios, but not a lot.
And so while many people complain about Siri, I find that she works exactly how I want her to work because I only use it for the things that I know it works well for in my environment.
So they need, Apple needs to improve that.
They need to make Siri a better digital assistance.
And, and I think that’s where the AI is going to come in.
Something else that I think would be nice is, is a better search tool for information that is on your phone.
Some way to see all of that, whether it’s pictures or texts or email or whatever, to, to be able to co collate some of those things together and give you an overview of sorts that you can say, okay, here’s the information that’s on your device about a given subject, a person, a place, whatever that may be.
And here’s the review about it.
And all the places that I got that information from, I think that would be pretty cool.
I use automation quite a bit.
You know, when I leave home, turn these lights on.
If it’s after dark, turn these lights on.
If it’s before dark, if it’s, you know, so I use those kinds of automations.
I use automations when I’m plugged into CarPlay and I’m not in my hometown, then tell my wife that I’m on my way home.
So I use those kinds of automations on occasion, but what I would really like is better and easier automation in those sense, and I think that can come with a little better smarts of my phone and how I use it, I already said I have a smart home, I put lots of things on it.
I’ve got lights, I’ve got switches, I’ve got outlets, I’ve got all kinds of things, a garage door opener, all kinds of things on it, and I would like to see Apple spend some time on home kit and make huge improvements to how it works and how the parts are integrated and those kinds of things.
There’s always been the promise of, you know, uh, what’s it called?
Matter that lets everything work together.
I just haven’t seen it.
I really like to use things that work with home kit and only things that work with home kit in my house.
I’m just more comfortable with that.
And I think it’s time for Apple to step up to the plate with that.
The other thing that I think that Apple could work on, even though some of the things they do are really great in this arena and it’s just a device integration, interaction, those kinds of things.
So I’ve got all the devices, I’ve got the home pods, I’ve got the Apple TV, I’ve got iPads, uh, iMacs, MacBook airs.
So I’ve got, you know, the, the gamut of Apple products and they all do work together fairly well, but I think Apple could do some things in that arena with.
And a lot of it has to do with watching how I use my things, how I use my devices and being smart about how I want to use them going forward.
You know, the car already says, when I get in it at, you know, six in the morning, do you want directions to go to work?
Because it knows that’s what I do every day.
So that works pretty well.
When I get it in, when I get in the car in the afternoon, it says, Oh, do you want directions home?
Because it knows that that’s what I do.
But then when I am away on a weekend and somewhere driving somewhere, I get in the car and it says, Hey, do you want to go home?
Well, it doesn’t know if that’s where I want to go.
Maybe I’m going home again after going to the grocery store.
And so sometimes that works, but I don’t know.
There needs to be a little more smarts in that.
So that is why Apple doesn’t listen to me because what I want, what I’ve heard, what I use is probably not as forward thinking as Apple’s engineers and developers and idea people are thinking.
And I hope it’s true.
I hope that my wants, my desires, my thoughts of what Apple should do with their hardware and software and integration and automation and Siri and all those kinds of things just blows my expectations out of the water.
I try not to get my hopes up too high, but I’m always interested to see what they’re going to do next.
Oh, one thing I left out is they talking, they’re talking about a free form homepage, so you don’t have a grid of, of widgets and, and apps.
You can put them wherever you want.
Yeah, that’s fine.
That’s been around in other devices for some time, but I just think Apple needs to think a little bit more out of the box and while their privacy and security and all those things is why I’m on the Apple platform that needs to be front and center and tell me how they’re going to do things better with the use of all of the devices I have and all the money I’ve spent with them.
So I’m looking forward to Monday, um, with, uh, some anticipation, some intimidate, uh, intrepidation, I think is the right word and hoping that overall I’m super excited about getting the betas of iOS 18 and macOS.
Is it 15 and tvOS, whatever the numbers are there.
Um, isn’t it time to drop the numbers?
That’d be cool.
And just say the latest or something like that, but I am looking forward to it and we’ll obviously be spending time, probably not in the morning when they announce everything because I’ll be at work, but as soon as I get home, I’ll be putting it on the TV, the Apple TV and watching what they have to offer.
That is all I have for today.
A bunch of ramblings from an old man talking tech.
If you have comments or suggestions, you can send them to technologybitesatmerigfamily.com.
Thank you for listening to the Technology Bites microcast.
And I look forward to the next time we are together taking another bite of technology.
