This is Technology Bytes, episode 167 for May 17th, 2026.
Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share brief bytes on interesting technology.
Enjoy, and here we go.
This week I want to talk about what’s next.
We are in kind of a lull for the Apple community at this time in the calendar, and the next big thing is not really till June where they have the Worldwide Developers Conference, and then they’ll release all of the OS 27 versions of their software.
And there’s lots of speculation on what could be coming, what it could look like, what might they announce.
And so I’m going to talk a little bit about what I want.
But one of the things that I want to say first is most times when I watch this keynote from the Worldwide Developer Conference, I am surprised by some of the things that Apple announces.
And it’s not really the big things, it’s really often some of the small things.
And I thought about things in the not too distant past.
But, you know, I use three computers at work, iPad, iMac, and a MacBook Air.
And I use them with one mouse and keyboard.
And that is an environment that was not always available.
I also use my phone on the computer.
So that’s being able to link my phone to the computer and just run my phone without having to take it out of my pocket.
And that’s really cool.
And then there’s copy and paste from one device to another.
There’s all kinds of little tools that just make working in the Apple environment so cool.
Those are the things that I often look forward to when I’m looking forward to the Worldwide Developers Conference.
Not necessarily the big shiny, but some of those little things that make it easy to work in that environment, that make it easier to work with multiple devices in the Apple ecosystem.
I don’t know what they’re going to do this year, and that’s really not what I’m even going to talk about because, I don’t know, I don’t have that kind of imagination.
I’m going to talk about some of the bigger picture things for me.
So I thought, you know, three words, smarter, faster, stronger.
That sounds like an athlete, right?
But I really need my Apple environment to be smarter.
I take the same path, the same drive to work every single morning.
I never change.
And yet for some reason, Apple Maps wants me to get off on Northern and then get right back on the freeway.
That makes absolutely no sense.
I’ve never done that.
I never do that.
And yet there’s no way for me to change that as my preferred route.
There are times where I do things on my phone or on my iPad or on my computer, and I do them at the same time all the time.
I’m always doing this particular thing, whatever it might be.
And yet none of them seem to recognize that that’s what I do.
There are times, you know, everybody complains about Siri, and I understand that.
And that definitely needs to get smarter.
But I think this thing with app intents, as I’ve heard it called, is how do my apps talk to each other and work together?
And I wish developers would get on board with Apple here and make this work.
Because without the developers, Apple can’t really do anything.
I live in mostly Apple apps, so maybe it works better for me.
But I don’t know.
There’s just something that says, you know, I can use this, you know, the water app.
I can use the Foodnom app.
I can use the Apple Health app.
And, you know, right now they all talk to each other, and I like that.
But there’s got to be some smarter.
It’s almost like I want my devices to have some intuition about what I want to do next.
And I think they call that artificial intelligence.
And maybe that is what it’s going to require.
But I’m looking forward to seeing what they do there.
As far as faster goes, I think it’s just, you know, the devices are what they are.
And Apple’s technology is really good.
And I think it’s just a matter of maybe doing some streamlining.
I think sometimes when our hardware is so fast, our programming gets lazy.
I know I’m not a programmer, but in the things that I’ve written, because the power of the computer makes it look like things are going very quickly, I don’t write very efficiently.
And I think there’s some work that needs to be done in that environment as well.
And then on the stronger side, I think that’s where I was talking about at the beginning of this microcast, where there’s just kind of a seal around this Apple environment.
It’s already in a walled garden.
Everybody’s going to say that.
But, you know, I think Google I.O.
or something is happening, and people are going to be talking about, and some already are, I think some of it’s been announced, about doing this and doing that and doing that.
And it doesn’t matter to me what Google does at all.
I will never, ever switch to a Google environment.
It’s not because I need to be in that walled garden, but nobody, and I mean nobody, makes devices that work together like Apple does.
And I think they need to make that even a stronger knit ball.
And you want to call it a walled garden, you want to talk about not being able to get out, I don’t care.
I want all of my devices to know each other.
I want all of my devices to work together.
I want all of my devices to talk to each other and know who I am.
And I am no longer interested in working with any other company’s technology.
I want everything to be done in my Apple environment.
I spend a lot of money on Apple product.
I spend a lot of money on Apple software.
I want all of that to work together for me in a stronger, more tight-knit, better environment.
I think that almost wraps in the smarter, faster thing as well.
But because I’m a nerd and because I love Apple products, I can’t wait for, what is it, June 8th?
I almost thought about taking that day off.
I never take days off of work and I lose money because of it.
I’m like, this is a day.
I could take this day off, sit at home, watch the keynote, play with stuff.
My problem is as soon as the betas are out, I’m probably going to put them on my devices.
And if you listen to anything, I don’t know, last week, the week before, things break when I do that.
I have a hard time not doing it.
But I’m super looking forward to what Apple is going to announce.
A lot of people think they’re going to be conservative because two years ago they got burned really bad.
In fact, they should be giving me some money because of that.
But either way, I feel like there are such smart people that work there.
And I look forward every year to, like I said, just the little things and then wrapping that in a huge container that says, this is our look going forward.
Not overpromising, but often as they’ve done in the past, underpromising, overdeliver, and give me a warm, comfortable Apple cocoon.
Well, that is all I have for today.
If you have comments, suggestions, or questions, you can send them to technologybytes at merrickfamily.com.
As always, I want to thank you for listening to the Technology Bytes microcast, and I look forward to the next time we are together taking another bite of technology.
