So last week we talked about my first attempt at using IDs in Apple Wallet at the airport. So I was flying out of BWI here in Baltimore and I went through TSA, used my ID on my wallet, on my iPhone instead of my physical ID. And I explained the process that I did, which was I double clicked the side button to invoke like the Apple Pay screen, tapped on my ID, and then tapped it on the TSA reader. Then a share sheet style.
pop-up appeared on the iPhone where I had to approve the release of my info to TSA. Then it was all, then it was done. That was the process. We got some feedback on Mastodon from Peter who outlined that there's actually or there have been two different ways to do this. So what he called the old way, you unlock your iPhone and hold it near the reader. Then the reader automatically pulls up your ID from Apple Wallet. Then you see that TSA.
share sheet consent pop-up and you authenticate and you release your ID info to the TSA agent. And the... the consent sheet part can be done not holding your phone still on the reader so you just hold the phone on the reader to start then you could bring it back to your hand um so it's kind of emulating like touch id style apple pay purchases right where
you touch id on your thing as you bring it because that like they changed it right in the old double click thing was added for face id right so before face id you could just put your finger on the home button and then put your phone on the pad and it would do the purchase, right, because it's authenticated with the fingerprint. Obviously, when they did the Face ID era of iPhone's time on the iPhone X, they changed the...
Apple Pay process so you double click that does the face ID and then you hold to the reader to confirm so they kind of like inverted it so what you're describing there is almost like the touch ID equivalent obviously it's modern So that was the old way that Peter described. And then he says that that's how Apple described the process until a few months ago on their website, and they updated their support docs with the new way. And the new way is what I did when I was flying last week.
The key difference between the old way and the new way, or one of the key differences, is that it seems like for the old way, you only had to authenticate with Face ID once. But on the new way, and this is something I talked about last time. I had to authenticate with Face ID twice, right? I had to authenticate to open the wallet interface. Then I had to authenticate again to share my info with TSA.
Peter also says that there's a feature called tap to present ID on iPhone. That I think is more for the non-TSA environment. So like if you're in a bar and they have a... you know like how you have tapped to pay an iphone it's like okay present your iphone so they have like an iphone receiver and you just hold your phone near to it and it automatically brings up the relevant card there's been some recent changes to this process and i'm flying again
on saturday to california for wwdc so i'll maybe try to use the old way or just kind of play around with it if the tsa line isn't too long and the tsa person is relatively friendly which is not always the case but
This was good feedback from Peter, and I'll link it in the show notes so you can go and read his full thread because there is some interesting stuff that I know I wasn't aware of at all, having this been my first time using IDs in Apple Wallet. Yeah, because it kind of sounds like from the fact that they were...
promoting the old way then they change and update the video that maybe there's like incompatibility with the TSA terminals so they're still promoting the quote-unquote old way for tap to present which is what they want you to do at a restaurant or other locations So maybe when you go to the airport, you can try the bar there or something before you get on the plane, which you failed to do the last time.
Flight is at 6.45 in the morning. So I do think I draw a line at getting a drink at 6.45 in the morning. Just buy something overrated and force them to present the ID for it. So it kind of sounds like that's what Apple wanted or intended when they were making this feature. And for whatever reason, the TSA systems require a slightly different way around.
But I mean, they're similar, but they are, you know, subtly different. And the old way, quote unquote, is a bit easier because it has slightly less steps. So it's almost a regression they've had to change it to...
be compatible whatever the tsa system however the tsa system works and my question last week's episode was well that must mean there's some sort of wireless component right because obviously with apple pay the whole transaction happens when you're on the nfc reader and that's it but on this you have to hold it to the reader and then you have to accept
on the phone wirelessly right like you're not holding your phone still on the pad and peter indeed confirmed that this whole standard runs on bluetooth so low energy bluetooth is what finishes the connection after you do the activation either with nfc or a qr code but obviously apple pushes the nfc approach then we have some more follow-up on the ongoing epic games versus apple battle over the app store
So when we first talked about the latest injunction from Judge Yovan Gonzalez Rogers about Apple not being able to in any way prohibit a developer's ability to link out to external payment platforms, we noted that Apple was both appealing the ruling.
then also requesting a pause of the injunction. So if they got that pause, they would be able to not allow developers to link out just as they had all along. Until the appeal finished. And obviously it could then go their way or against their way, but the intervening...
The fact is, the appeal will take a year or so, or a couple of years. At least, yeah. So in between times, Apple could put a halt on the current free-for-all. But unfortunately for Apple, and perhaps unsurprisingly, the court did not... with its request for a pause. So we continue through the appeals process to have support for external links in apps on the App Store in the United States.
In an Apple statement, they said, we are disappointed with the decision not to stay the district court's order and will continue to argue our case during the appeals process. As we've said before, we strongly disagree with the district court's opinion. Our goal is to ensure the App Store remains an incredible opportunity for developers and a safe and trusted experience for our users. Yeah, and although it's not a win for them, it's not necessarily the end of the road because the bar for...
a stay is a lot higher like you know a lot lower than the actual appeal in the end like this the getting a stay is like is there active harm going on in the meantime and when the person asking for the stays a three trillion dollar company it's pretty hard to show
you know active harm it's not like their business is going to be threatened you know they're not going to go out of business in the next two years while the appeal goes on so whether the merits of the case are in their favor or not the ruling doesn't really make a comment on that it's just like look you can put up with it being like this until
the full court process is finalized. Which is contrary to what some people, including Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney, were tweeting last night where he was saying the era of Apple's monopoly on the App Store is over. Which is not entirely true because the appeals process is continuing, like you said. Yeah, I mean, I don't think they've got a surefire win on appeal. No, not at all. No, so it will take a while, but I think there's a chance for them to get some...
mitigation so it's not as free for all but I don't think it's going to be like oh no the entire injunction is thrown out there's going to be some sort of middle ground that they might find at best but like I said that will take a long time to make its way through the system
Then we also have the ongoing DMA stuff. And this all hangs over WWDC quite a bit. And most recently at the end of May, the EU, I think we talked about it at the time, but they said Apple's App Store is still in violation of the DMA. And Apple has 30 days to comply. So that was on May 27th. This is when they got the $500 million fine, right? Yeah. So they have 30 days from May 27th to comply.
You've got to expect we're going to get an announcement soon on that, but it seems they're waiting until after WWDC to announce any of those changes. This entails stuff like free-for-all linking in the EU, and it also... um implicates uh commission inside the app store i believe so like there's a debate over the dma's interpretation of available free of charge right so obviously right now
you know you're you're if you're inside the app store you're paying some form of commission and apple changed the rule so you didn't have to use apple in it purchase but use other in it purchase it was 27 the eu is pushing for free of charges in 0% commission obviously Apple disagrees with that there's also some wiggle room in the DMA requirements that like the first time that Apple makes a
customer relationship they can put a fee on that but they can't do it on an ongoing basis so it might be a case where they can take some commission on the first sale but you know the second year of a subscription or the second month of a subscription doesn't count or even if the like the person
bought something and then comes back later successive purchases also wouldn't count there's been some apple legalese saying that that's an unfair representation of the value the app still provides and you know blah blah blah so that's all still getting fought and apple's like appealing some of that as well at the moment but The way the EU law works is that while the appeal goes on, the current policy gets enforced.
save anything crazy coming out in the next two weeks i think this will all change before june you know before the deadline of june 23rd and apple have to basically offer the same policy that they now offer in the us in the eu um while both appeals are ongoing
Or alternatively, they could just not comply during the appeals process, but they will continue to face penalties, the periodic penalty payments assessed by the European Union. Yeah, I don't think that's going to be sustainable because the... The point of the EU fines is they like ramp up, right? So they got 500 million for however many years of abuse, but I think they can get like...
50 million a day at worst right like that's the what the power the eu has to impose so i think they're going to have to comply one way or the other um there's also been some talk about maybe longer term apple were like remove features from the EU market right to try and get around some of these things so like maybe instead of offering alternatives to airdrop or open airdrop to the parties they could just
take airdrop out of the eu and so they still sell their phones in the eu but some key features won't be available they kind of already do this right because um iphone mirroring still isn't available in the eu yep that's a big one That's a big one. Apple Intelligence was like this until literally April when they did something to conform to the rules. Yeah, who knows what, because basically the features look identical to how they launched in the US, but...
I think there was just some backdoor discussions or negotiations that they had to wait for on that one. But yeah, iPhone Miriam is a good example of like... but that was a new feature being introduced right like if they took away airdrop it'd be removing existing functionality so they haven't gone to that extreme before but maybe their hand would be forced and that's the only way they can see to proceed
A report from The Information last week dove into Apple's both growing and apparently also declining interest in... expanding its satellite connectivity features. And there's a lot of interesting tidbits in the story that I don't think we'll get into about Apple and... discussions between apple and boeing about a satellite internet project so that would be full-blown wireless internet service starlink-esque rice was the kind of implication yeah
Some on again, off again, on again, off again talks with Elon Musk about some sort of partnership between Apple and SpaceX and how Apple's rejection of Elon Musk has now led to SpaceX. battling Apple via the regulatory system to prohibit its access to certain spectrum for its own satellite SOS features. Yeah, they seem to be arguing that basically like...
Apple's buying up Spectrum but not really using it. So they shouldn't be allowed to keep buying it. And SpaceX should be able to use it all for their own service. But one of the more interesting and I think immediate impact parts of the information story was... In regards to the existing satellite features on iPhones, which were free when Apple first introduced them on the iPhone 14. And Apple said they'd have everybody who bought an iPhone would get two years free of satellite connectivity.
Then they've just extended that deadline multiple times since then without a clear plan to ever charge for the features. And I think our interpretation of why they were extending the deadline and just giving everybody this connectivity feature for free was... They didn't want to charge for something that people would need in a life-threatening situation, right? They didn't want somebody to need emergency SOS via satellite but have not paid for the feature.
And either they couldn't use it in the moment or they used it and then Apple had to like awkwardly send them a bill for $20 after the fact because they used the feature. Or maybe they...
It's not necessary that they were like never going to do that, but they were still discussing it, right? They were like, do we have the morals to actually roll out a feature like that? And obviously they demurred at the time and kept pushing the date back. I mean, I have the iPhone 14 Pro and I was meant to be paying.
if i wanted to merge the sos fire satellite at the end of last year right but they pushed it forward another year so we'll see what happens in this year but this report actually has an interesting potential reason why they haven't started charging Yeah, the information says one reason Apple executives have been reluctant to charge customers for the features is their fear that it could trigger the U.S. government to regulate Apple as a telecommunications carrier.
That could force Apple to build backdoors into communication services like iMessage. Federal law requires telecommunication carriers to allow for surveillance to comply with government information requests. This is an angle that I had absolutely not thought of, but reading it like that, it makes 100% sense, I think.
You'd have to be really nervous if that is the implication that you start charging for these features and suddenly you're considered a telecommunications carrier, which invokes a load of regulation and oversight. However, they did introduce these features.
saying that they were going to charge them eventually right because they're like it's two years free so did they have a different plan when like surely the you know the team of apple lawyers must have been aware of this right issue when they first deployed this stuff so
It's a bit confusing why they kind of presented that way at first and didn't just always do it as like Hey, we're doing these emergency espos features. They're just a free perk of having an iPhone, you know More recently they've added like the ability to do texting over satellite without
um being in an emergency right that was a rolled out last year at the time we kind of speculate maybe well maybe they're going to charge for the texting but not for the emergency side right but this kind of implies they can't charge for any of it and
You know, Apple's not a charity. These features cost them quite a lot of money. They're having to pay... global star hundreds of millions of dollars a year to keep this service running keep the satellites maintained and you know they're rolling up more satellites and they even did an investment where they're invested you know they have a 20 stake in global star as a company now like it's a pretty big involvement and
It seems like originally they thought they were going to be able to monetize it, but maybe now they found they can't. It's weird because this fear would theoretically... impact any future plans they had for more advanced satellite features on the iPhone, right? Maybe eventually they plan to add support for like full-blown.
But if they have to offer it for free, then there's no way they do that. They either have to come or get with their lawyers and the United States government and say, hey, we want to do this, but we don't want to be a telecommunications carrier. How do we go about that?
And I don't think the US government is going to have any flexibility in that because they are already at odds with Apple for all kinds of their privacy and end-to-end encryption stuff in the US and in other countries around the world too. your home in the UK, there's been issues around all of this. I don't think there's any way they can get around this requirement. So I don't think there's going to be any future major advancements to satellite stuff.
You can't see much more stuff. They get an ad and it'd still be free. All this stuff has a pretty big cost. Are they going to just give up on it? One of the workarounds is... What they've done with carrier partners, so T-Mobile has a deal with SpaceX for Starlink. T-Mobile carriers can get access. I think it's in beta right now, but they can get access to Starlink connectivity on their iPhone.
That's a way for Apple to offer, theoretically, satellite connectivity features without it being involved in the process. So maybe from Apple's perspective, you get messages, you get the emergency SOS stuff, and you get the ability to share your location with FindMy. the three aspects of the feature as it exists today. Then for anything more advanced, you have to go to your carrier, get it through T-Mobile or whoever, and probably I think T-Mobile is going to charge for the feature.
There's ways for Apple to just kind of lay its stake in the ground where it is right now and then say, hey, if you want more satellite features, go to T-Mobile, go to AT&T, go to Verizon. So they're going to run like. satellite infrastructure forever just as a way to get people in the door to then sell other people's satellites like yeah i mean sounds kind of messy which goes back to what you said surely they knew that this was going to be messy when they launched the feature yeah
Is it like this upstart thing a small group did and somehow it got shipped and then they're like, oh, wait, this actually has all these other implications. Like, that can't be the case. These things are, you know, checked with a fine-tooth comb. I mean, the information article ends with, like, some...
dissent from the executive team about whether they should keep doing it like apparently Craig Federighi has said why are we bothering Adam Perica which is like Apple's head of acquisitions and corporate management has said well if Starlink's doing it better than us and
you know more expansively why are we bothering like maybe we should hang up the goat so there's some there's some um quotes of like reticence inside the group but they've shipped this feature and then also improved on it adding you know the the default texting stuff
Not so long ago. So it's almost like two different trajectories for this thing. But I guess we'll find out at the end of the year when they have to inevitably extend the deadline for the free paying of the iPhone 14 Pro customers again, right? Yeah. whether they actually have a plan here or not. Maybe they're just hoping that they can lobby governments to get them some more exemptions and stuff on... I don't know. Yeah.
Apple's relationship with the government, Tim Cook's relationship with the government is not great right now. Trump has a quote unquote little problem with Tim Cook. Maybe they can sell off the satellites. capacity to a third party then the third party can be the telecoms giant and they can just like run it through the iPhone which I guess would be similar-ish to the relationship of the Starlink thing with T-Mobile right?
But it sounds like it's going to have to go out of Apple's hands for it not to fall foul and invoke the telecommunication laws. But part of Apple's commitment to this is they invested 1.1... billion dollars in expanding satellite connectivity last November. So that's super recently. And they bought a 20% ownership stake in Globalstar, who is their partner for the satellite connectivity features.
I don't think you do that if you're not planning on full-blown long-term commitment to these capabilities. They must have some sort of legal argument that they're ready to roll out then. Yeah. If it was that questionable... and obviously the information story is mostly just quoting internal Apple executives who are saying the issues, then surely they would have put the brakes on doing a $1 billion investment or something. It doesn't feel like a feature that they're ready to give up on.
given how much investment they've done to it and the rollout of new customer features too. It's not like a Skunk Works internal project that... you know like like project titan right where it never actually got out into the customer's hands they brought this out into customers hands they've used it as a selling point of the iphone now for what three years in a row and they've made it better like it feels like they must have some sort of end
goal for this thing but as described in the information story there's a big blocker and unclear how they can navigate that happy hour this week is sponsored by story worth We've all had that moment when you're having like a casual conversation with your parents and then spontaneously you learn something about their past that you've never heard them say before. Well, story worth memoirs try to generate even more of those moments in the form of a unique heartfelt gift.
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Bloomberg's Mark Gurman now says that this app is slated to launch as part of iOS 26 or iOS 19. We'll talk about that in a minute. It is said to feature things like Game Center integration, features from the App Store. highlights what apps you should try, leaderboards, achievements, all that kind of stuff. I think when we talked about it at the time, both of us were a little bit skeptical about the need for this app, but Bloomberg insists that it's still coming.
And it also correlates to Apple's acquisition of a game studio called RAC7. And that game studio is a two-person game studio. And they are behind the popular Apple Arcade title Sneaky Sasquatch. The Apple statement about the acquisition of RAC7 is interesting. They say, we love sneaky Sasquatch and are excited that the two-person team has joined Apple to continue their work on it with us.
We'll continue to deliver a great experience for Apple Arcade players with hundreds of games for many of the best game developers in the world. So they've acquired this team just to continue the development of Sneaky Sasquatch?
Or have they acquired this team to help them build out this dedicated app for gaming? Yeah, I mean, it's probably a bit of both, but I think a lot of it is just Sneaky Sasquatch is a popular game on Apple Arcade. It's been there since the beginning, and it kind of represents...
the best of Apple Arcade's values, you know, like the original pitch for it, whereas you'd have like indie developers who wouldn't be able to really make a case for being on the App Store on their own, or they'd have to fill it with ads and, you know...
upgrade power up things you want to buy and be kind of exploitative to children and stuff no you can just make a really nice game and you can get it as part of this subscription where you pay one fee a month and you get these nicely curated games that continue to get better and better and just kind of target niches that app store economics in general don't really support anymore. And Sneaky Sasquatch was a launch title and it's been very popular. It stays in the top 10 chart.
Do you remember when they did that homepage takeover where they advertised Apple Arcade on Apple.com? Oh, yeah. Sneaky Sasquatch, the character, was one of the characters that appeared on that page, for instance. And they use it in a lot of their marketing. They show that game off a lot.
And I think it has a dedicated fan base of players. It attracts new players. I've played that game a little bit. It's fun, you know, and it's a pretty deep game. Like a lot of the games in Apple Arcade are pretty shallow, I find. They don't feel... The original pitch to have those really involved stories and games that aren't possible on other platforms because of the economic factors doesn't necessarily play out.
in the reality of app arcade since because most of the games in app arcade just kind of feel like games that could have been in the app store anyway but they just don't have ads anymore i mean half of the games they get you know now they have the little um
the plus versions which are like app store classics that just get brought into they're not even like new exclusives like those titles they most of them still have the exact same mechanics they would have if they were in the app store they just stripped away the fact you have to buy them so like you get the power-ups and you get the stars
But you still have to wait or whatever. You still have those kind of obvious mechanics of time, you know, the resources that wouldn't really be in the game if it was planned from the beginning to just be a, you know... a one-time only purchase kind of deal. A lot of the games in Apple Arcade feel like they've just come from the app store. That's especially true for the Plus games because they literally were.
But also some of the original arcade exclusive titles also feel like that where maybe they were being developed to be released to the App Store and then Apple caught wind of it. So then they're like, oh, we'll pay you a bit of extra money and just come to the arcade exclusively instead. The...
um sega racing game is like that a lot like you can just feel like that game is intended to hit the app store on its own and then apple kind of like someone told them about and they're like oh this game's kind of cool we'll pay you a license fee and you can just bring to arcade you know with no internet purchases But you run the game and it's like, you can buy carts, you can buy these, but you just buy it with coins rather than actual money. Whereas Sneaky Sasquatch is literally...
There's no extra purchases. It literally feels like a game that could be on the DS or a proper console platform. It's deep enough and gets continual updates. It hasn't been abandoned.
And you click on it and it has 11,000 reviews in the App Store Arcade section. So, like, it's obviously a popular title. And it was probably coming up to, like... you know a time when they need to up their renewal license to keep the game on the platform and they're like well why don't we just buy out the studio you know it's not like a it's not this monstrous company it's two people normally and we can keep the game on there we can maybe
give them some more resources that can help them accelerate a game more quickly than if they were still independent. And then maybe also we can, you know, kind of like the pro workflow team.
We can also use them to get a bit of advice about maybe where we should address the gaming market in general. But I feel like first and foremost, they were presented with, well, we either pay them, you know... one million dollars to renew the license to stay in arcade for the next five years or we could just buy out the studio for two million dollars and they could just come all in-house and we could you know save money over the longer term and also empower them with more
presence and money and resources and team and also then there can be a bit of cross calibration with the other parts of the gaming group I don't think we're going to see this as like, oh, now Apple's going to go on a spending spree and buy up a load of different studios. It would be different if they were buying studios of hundreds of people. But a two-person team is almost like a... It's almost just like...
Hiring someone. It is the ultimate. Yeah, it's the ultimate hire, right? Instead of hiring one person, you've hired two people. It's like, okay. Similar to Pixelmator Pro, right? We're not expecting Apple to go and buy out loads of Mac apps, but...
They clearly saw synergies with one particular pro workflow app and they brought it into the fold. I think this is similar, but on... on the gaming front I think it's good it's great I love I love that they've done it because it shows confidence in the thing and you you never quite know how successful things like Apple Arcade really are it's like
It's not doing terribly, but it's clearly not doing fantastically either. It's in this weird, like, no man's land of middle ground. But if they're investing in it, they're buying out a studio, they must clearly care enough in it to keep it running. That speaks positively in my book. And we needed some evidence of a commitment to Apple Arcade because remember last year there was the report from...
Mobile Gamer, which kind of collated a set of complaints from Apple Arcade developers who said there are no incentives to make games for Apple Arcade. There are delays in getting paid. And that was actually a follow-up to their previous story, which highlighted a bunch of the same things. So clearly there was evidence both within the game developer community and for people like us who wondered what was the future of Apple Arcade if Apple's this huge monstrous corporation.
not paying the indie developers making games for Apple Arcade. Yeah, I mean, there's been constant rumors of weird frictions. On the flip side, they keep releasing games on the service. Yeah, I mean... You know, release 5th of June, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4 titles in June, 5 titles in May, 4 titles, 5 titles in April. Like, you know, every month they release new titles to the service. I mean, I believe also some of the older games.
get dropped off the service like the less popular ones they don't bother renewing the licenses for when they do fall away um but mostly they they maintain a catalog well in excess of 200 games 250 games so
We keep hearing these rumors like maybe they're not 100% committed to it, but on the front side, what the customer actually sees, the service does keep getting better and is supported. So I'll give them that at the very least. And if they're going to buy out a game studio to keep it vibrant, then even better.
The gaming app. Yeah. Game Center exists, right? You barely know it. Yeah, sort of. It's in the settings app. If you go into a game that supports Game Center, which a lot of the Apple Arcade games do, you can like... click on your face in the game center and it like opens this in app little mini portal where you can see game center friends and achievements and leaderboards and stuff. But if you're not inside a game or you don't go to three pages down in settings, you wouldn't know.
It's a thing. And it's a pretty competent service for leaderboards and achievements and has some sort of social aspect to it. I always thought it was a dedicated app for a while and then they got rid of it.
I always thought that was a bit of a mistake. I mean, what do you get now with the App Store? You get an arcade tab, which has these custom... featured sections and you know full screen videos and little bits and categories like they could just rip all of that out of the app store and put in a dedicated app and then if they wanted to they could include other types of games too like it wasn't clear to me whether this gaming app will also have
Obviously, I have Apple Arcade stuff in it, but what other games in the app store? Would it have every game that you can get in the app store also exposed through the gaming app? I'm not... I wasn't 100% clear on that. I mean, German suggests that maybe even on the Mac, it might include games that are sold outside of the Mac App Store. Which is weird. Which is weird. Yeah, I mean, are they going to agree a business deal with these people? Like, is it a backdoor to find a different way?
of like we're not going to let you give you a lower commission rate or something I don't know I mean they don't need to make a dedicated app to offer a different commission structure they have like the news the news program they have the video app program which gives lower rates to apps and in the apps already like 15% rates and stuff as long as you commit to these certain features so they don't need a dedicated app just to offer alternative business terms
But maybe it's a way to, I think it's mostly just a way to promote the games that they've got and push Apple Arcade. Which is a great strategy, I think, because Apple Arcade, I've said this for a long time, is a highly underrated service offered by Apple. It's one of the Apple services that I use most, and Emily uses it all the time. She's probably top 5% of people who play Apple Arcade games in the world. That's how often she's in there. And if you want to make something more popular...
make an icon for it on the iPhone home screen. Yep, exactly. It's a perfect strategy. And we keep talking about them, why are they not making dedicated apps for like Apple News Plus food, right? Or Apple News Plus puzzles. This is like a case where they actually are making a dedicated app. So I feel like it's in keeping. You could put the puzzles in the game app too if you really wanted to. Yeah, that is true. That is true. So you can bring a new portal, a new mini store where it can promote.
Obviously Apple Arcade and also I presume some other stuff but unclear whether it's everything or just a curated selection. It'd almost be more useful if it was a curated selection because then you wouldn't be overwhelmed as much. They could just put quote unquote high quality games in there.
and have like dedicated editorial and recommendations and feature sections and then you could also have leaderboards achievements here's what my friends are playing you could put that social stuff in which is basically already built out from game center but now it actually have a proper destination for it so i think it makes a reasonable amount of sense and ultimately if you want to promote something and make it more popular make an icon for it and that sounds like exactly what they're doing
So iOS 26 instead of iOS 19. This is also from Bloomberg Smart Garmin. The whole suite of Apple software platforms is getting rebranded to 26. So that's iOS, macOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS. All will be 26 this year. Part of Apple's efforts to unify all of its software platforms, and it aligns with the redesign that's coming to all of Apple's software platforms to bring a cohesive design language across devices.
The best part about this is Vision OS going from Vision OS 3 to Vision OS 26. It's such a dramatic change. But in terms of the naming strategy, I am 100%. on board with this. There have been countless times where I'm editing this very show and we'll be talking about like the Apple Watch and I'll say watchOS 9 instead of watchOS 11. Like I just have no idea how to keep
those individual numbers for each platforms straight. Especially when a couple of the numbers already line up. Yep. Because you have iOS 18, iPadOS 18, TVOS 18, and then you have the other ones which are just... On a different number because of what they decided at the time. I mean, TVS didn't start at TVS 1. No. It started at TVS 15 to line up with the iOS. But obviously, WatchOS started at WatchOS 1. And VisionOS started at VisionOS 1.
I am also all for unifying the numbers. Doing it by year seems the thing that makes the most sense. I also wouldn't have cared if they just made everything 19. Just align everything on 20 or whatever you want to do. Putting it as the year it comes out, or I guess not the year it comes out, it'd be the next full year of the operating system, right? Because it'll ship in September and then be available from that September through to the next September.
Which is what they did for like iLife and iWork back in the day, right? When they had iWork 09, it came out at the end of 2009 and existed. Sorry, it came out at the end of 2008 and existed for the whole of 2009. So they're retreating to historical... patterns uh but i'm fine with it ultimately it's a number it's going to be funny the for the fifth for this year when we're talking about going from ios 18 to ios 26 but then next year will come around it'll be like
Well, now it's time for iOS 27. And they've just saved us all a few syllables from having to say iOS 2027. I hope it's just iOS 26. No 2026. No apostrophe 26. Just plain iOS. And it's only going to be weird, like you said, in this first transitional year. And I saw some people complaining that they don't like the kind of the. car model year strategy that Apple's using here. Like they wish what Apple announced at WWDC 25 was iOS 25, not iOS 26. I don't have a huge problem with that. I think.
It makes sense for it to cover the vast majority of the year the software is available. So that's 2026. The question, though, is whether hardware, particularly the iPhone, is going to follow suit. Maybe this year we get the iPhone 26 instead of the iPhone 17 because that's another number that's currently kind of hard to keep straight. And getting higher every year, right? And getting higher every year, yeah. Other hardware, they don't put numbers on anymore, right?
Oh, the Series 10. Yeah, I guess the watch is. But like Macs, they don't. And iPads are now delineated by the chip they run. So it's like iPad Pro bracket M4. It's not iPad 2024. So this is mostly talking about the iPhone, right? And I guess the watch would have to follow suit. The iPhone is probably too big a brand for them to change the numbering like that. It's the same way it's still called iPhone and not like Apple phone, you know, when they did...
They obviously want to do that for like the watch and stuff. They could do the number. I mean, Apple can survive anything, right? And they can market wherever they want. But I kind of feel like for the iPhone, they might want to wait until there's more of a... monumental moment to do it like with operating system software it's a bit less high profile people don't really care ultimately what it's called I feel like the iPhone has a bit more of a
an oomph to it because it also then has to like stand there next to the iphone 6 and the iphone 15 on shelves which affects how customers see it when they buy the things so maybe they've got to wait for like an iphone 10 style moment to do it again right and so maybe that could come up next year when they do the foldable stuff like i'd be really interested to see when they do the foldable phone is it called the iphone 18 fold or is it just called like
the iphone fold you know like that's a good opportunity for them to reset the numbering um so i guess we'll see what happens there then mac os 26 will not only be mac os 26 but also mac os 26 Tahoe so named after California's Lake Tahoe I don't have a whole lot of opinions on this it's a name it's a place in California it's apparently a place in California that all of the
Very wealthy, rich people like to go for vacation, so you can see why it's popular among the Apple executive team. I am waiting for them to do macOS Skyline. And I honestly thought this might be the year with the redesign. I don't know. Skyline, some, some shimmers made sense. I thought. And if you're from the Midwest, particularly.
From the area near or in Ohio, you know that Skyline Chili is a famous landmark for us Midwesterners. So I always like the idea of macOS being named after a chili restaurant. Why do they need a name for it when they...
The whole point is unifying the numbers across all their operating systems. Because they're in California and they're like bragging about all the beautiful places they have in California? I'll be calling it MacOS 26, I think. Not a believer. I mean, I don't mind the names, but like... annoying to remember. Like, your point about all the version numbers is like, what was the Mac OS called last year? Sequoia, maybe? Yeah, I think so. Sonoma.
but going forward it'd be a lot easier oh it's the 2025 you know yeah it's the 2026 year operating system the 27 year operating system it'd be a lot easier to keep straight Sequoia is this year, by the way, so that's how confused we are. Sonoma was last year, Sequoia was this year. Was last year Ventura? Maco was 13. Ventura, maybe? Sure. Loads of names. It's easier. Everyone will be on the same number.
Very shortly. I also think it somewhat plays into their narrative that they're bringing all the OSs closer together in terms of design and they're trying to make it more cohesive. Oh, yeah, yeah. They can now present, here's all our upper operating systems. It's the, you know, 2026.
cycle etc um so i think it all kind of plays in quite neatly the mac os names were okay when they were cats just because that was kind of whimsical and fun but places in california are just cool i'm sure if you live in around Lake Tahoe in California, you're probably really loving this. Or if you go on vacation there, but no reason to get too attached to the name Mac OS Tahoe. And I don't think any normal person knows what they're called. They just call it Mac, you know?
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The pole just disappears from the 360 footage. So to get a free 114cm invisible selfie stick worth $24.99 with your Insta360 X5 standard package purchase, head to store.insta360.com and use the promo code HAPPYHOUR. available for the first 30 standard package purchases only for more information be sure to check out the link in the show notes thanks to insta360 for sponsoring the show So let's do some final WWDC 25 expectations, our hopes, our dreams of what we're looking forward to next week.
We should start with our scoop from this week. So we got the lowdown on a handful of features beyond the redesign that's coming to iOS 26 this year. So in the Messages app, we're expecting automatic translation. So ingoing and outgoing iMessages can be automatically translated. I'm guessing this will be based on the device language of your iPhone. So if your iPhone is set to English.
Incoming messages can be translated directly to English, and outgoing messages can be translated to whatever the other person's device language is set to. Support for polls in iMessage, so the ability to...
In a group chat, create a poll about where you want to go for dinner, what time you want dinner to be, what movie you want to see. For the music app, the full screen, the beautiful animated artwork that's currently in the music app on the now playing screen will apparently extend to the lock screen.
for the first time, so you'll get some beautiful animations on your lock screen. You can also imagine that on the Apple TV and the HomePad eventually, right? If it's got playing music, it could have the nice animated artwork on there too. Support for editing or for exporting. Notes from the Notes app to Markdown. And then CarPlay, that's an interesting one. So we've talked a lot about CarPlay Ultra, and we've talked specifically about the feeling that CarPlay...
standard CarPlay 1.0 as we all know it feels a bit neglected. It hasn't gotten new features, a new design language, but apparently it's going to get at least some user interface adjustments to match iOS 26. I'm not getting my hopes up about this one because my guess is that it's probably just going to be new app icons mainly to mirror what's on the phone. New icons and some gradients and more translucent. Yeah, just...
Some very minor changes. I don't think this is going to be anything dramatic for CarPlay 1.0, as much as I wish it was. I am glad, in general, that it seems like this design change is being applied pretty comprehensively. Yep.
Because they've never really done that before. It's always been, oh, we're doing it on the iPhone or we're doing it on the watch or we're doing it here. And then maybe some of that stuff rolls out to other platforms eventually or it takes a year. Like, I mean, how many years did we go through where the iPhone would get flagship new features and you have to wait till they... n plus one version for the ipad to get it you know in this case they've got what sounds like a pretty vast design overhaul
Coming not just to the iPhone, not just to the iPad, but every OS and even the ancillary stuff like CarPlay at the same time. That's a pretty big undertaking. And I'm pretty thrilled if they can pull that off as rumoured. Every time we've talked about iOS 26, iOS 19 rumors, we've said we're waiting for the story about features X, Y, and Z being pulled out at the last minute. We're waiting for somebody to walk back the claim.
that iOS 26 will be the biggest redesign since iOS 7. That hasn't happened yet. In fact, the rumors have only grown because now we know it's also coming to the Apple Watch and the Apple TV, like you pointed out. There's no evidence that... The plans have changed in the last couple months in the lead up to WWDC. Yeah, I do think this event is going to be quite heavily focused on the redesign, right?
And then it's going to be a larger list of smaller improvements. Going back to even the stuff we talked about a few weeks ago, like the improved syncing of captive Wi-Fi network information, right? at least based on what we've heard so far it doesn't seem like they've got a load of big initiatives in the offing it's like we're going to do the visual redesign we're going to get all our os's to be more similar you know new icon set for everything to bring it in line so you don't have
The notes icon on Vision OS looking completely different to the notes icon on the iPhone. We're going to try and harmonize everything as much as possible. While still respecting the... unique elements of each platform and the input methods and stuff but overall it should seem like go s is more cohesive and a bit more modern and fresh and just look different visually but in terms of new features it doesn't seem like a year where we're going to get like
lock screen widgets you know this whole new concept or home screen widgets or like it doesn't seem like there's stuff on that on the horizon probably because they've had so many engineers just focused on updating all the apps and updating all the system UI components and stuff like that so I think you're going to have
the visual update to be a the major flagship and then you're going to have a bunch of like tidbits of stuff like you know the addition of polls to iMessage or wi-fi networks like the smaller scale stuff that isn't life-changing but is a nice enhancement for you know your daily use of the phone
There's questions about the AI side, obviously, because, you know, the wider, like it or not, the wider tech narrative this year is how every other company's adopting AI left, right and center. How much of that is Apple going to have ready to show? Unclear.
I mean, I think it might appear in smaller spots. Like we even say in our exclusive that maybe the polls will be generated. They could have suggestions based on the conversation using some, you know, Apple intelligence features to kind of figure out what...
topics people want to pull on, for instance. Obviously, there's the rumors about, you know, the AI-powered battery optimization stuff. Like, I think they're going to try and push. They're not just, like, sitting on the laurels as it comes to AI.
But I don't think there's going to be like a dramatic difference. They'll probably improve the performance of writing tools and maybe the performance of image playgrounds. And they'll just have some other applications where you could maybe infuse some AI stuff to help you out.
But it would be more smaller tidbit style stuff rather than like a big overarching vision. Like, for instance, you know, maybe some AI... playlist generation the music app for instance which kind of feels like they could have done that last year and they didn't but you know it's the second year round they've had more time maybe they can roll that out um that's kind of where i think they're going to come from and they'll push on
You know, App Intelligence offers all these features that run on device and in our private cloud. And now you can also do it in... the reminders app or in safari or in here and they're just they've just rolled out small surfaces for the same kind of feature set they had last year probably powered on you know updated models that are a bit more performant or whatever but based on all the reporting it the big stuff for
AI-based features is not arriving until next year or maybe the year after that. And you can even see where they might... that some features are powered by Apple intelligence, where in previous years they would have said, hey, this is a new feature, like translations in Messages app. They could have done that for years.
But they could very well say, and a new Apple intelligence feature in the Messages app is automatic translation. So even features that don't necessarily use AI or they don't use large language models, they can just say they're part of Apple intelligence.
Yeah, which actually might be quite useful, right? Yeah. Maybe not as life-changing as if you're going for a really ambitious AI agent kind of thing, which obviously OpenAI and other companies are pushing on more presently. But... and apple's obviously working on stuff in the background but short term roll out you know ai help help it helping in different little spots and dotted around the systems i think is probably what's going to happen
But the big headline is going to be the visual design, which I'm all for because I love, like one of my favorite things about this industry is like software design, right? And they're going to impact seemingly everything. You know, everything that you see on a screen on an Apple device is going to look a bit different.
come next week so that's a pretty big shift that doesn't come along very often and what happens in every other year everybody's like oh it's so boring it looks the same it's like this is the year when they you know they cash those checks and they make it look different and Hopefully it'll be different in a good way. But we will obviously talk about that in extensive detail over the months to come. I think there's a lot of anticipation in the lead up to WWDC this year. Some of it is not.
happy anticipation. There's a lot of skepticism, I guess, a lot of pessimism going into both the redesign, because I think people are concerned that Apple will go too far, that they'll botch it, that they'll make changes to apps that... are changes just for the sake of design and without an upgrade to performance or the ability of those apps. Just the general vibe on social media around WWDC this year.
doesn't seem to be as excited as it usually is. And I think you can correlate that to pessimism around the App Store among developers and with all the cloud of the regulation hanging over Apple. But I think John Voorhees at Mac Stories had a good story this week, kind of outlining why there's a reason to be optimistic about iOS 26 and why there's a reason to still be excited about WWDC.
And it really boiled down to just removing the concerns about the app store, removing the concerns about AI, whether you like AI or you don't like AI or you're upset that Apple's behind or you're upset that Apple's even using the words AI. And focus on the community aspect of WWDC, the excitement of just everybody being together, the excitement of seeing new stuff. Like, regardless of what you think, whenever Apple has an event.
especially an event that, like you said, Mayor, they're cashing the checks. They're making dramatic changes to the software platforms. That's just exciting, I think. Putting aside everything else in the... broader Apple ecosystem right now, it will just be exciting to see what Apple has been working on and what it means for us as users, as users of the iPhone, the iPad, the Mac. We use all of these platforms. Yeah, I mean, I think I'm far less offended by the...
regulation in the business machination stuff as other people are not because i think that everything apple's doing is good right but they are a company right and companies have the business side and have the art side you know they're the products and they also have the money and like
They're not charities. They're not all, you know, they are only profit-making enterprises. And when the things that hate me the most is when the profit incentives make the products worse, right? So that's when it really angers me.
But everything that's been going on and all the releases where it's like, oh, let's make this terrible. It's like, well, we kind of knew that was what they were doing when we complained about it at the time. It's just now you've seen a bit more evidence of it in court filing and stuff. So I can kind of like...
Not ignore that stuff, but it's kind of like a different bucket, right? So of course we talk about that stuff, but that doesn't make me any less excited for seeing how they've redesigned iOS 19 to look new and shiny.
And if they make the Safari icon different, I'll be over the moon. I've been... railing on the design of the of the icon since iOS 7 came out and this feels like a real the first time ever where it actually feels like it might change you know since that time um and it's basically been 10 years it's like this is the time to do it
give us a whole new OS look, redesign the icons. Will the fundamentals of how you use the iPhone change? Probably not, but everything might look different and have a nice little visual refresh. And they don't do that every year. They don't do it very often even, but...
It's the kind of once a decade change that we kind of look forward to. So I'm excited to see what they do with it. And obviously, I'll also criticise it. I think they've mucked it up. But you look at general Apple's overall design, software design sensibilities of late, it's mostly positive.
I'm pretty impressed with Vision OS, for instance. Obviously, I don't have a Vision Pro, but you kind of look at the software design of that platform and it's pretty good. And you look at apps that they have updated or have refined since...
you know ios 7 ios 10 that kind of era and it generally all trends in the right direction but now we're in a kind of case where some of the stuff is more updated than others and this is the opportunity to bring it all in line i mean the mail app which they updated literally last year with ios 18
is a good example of this where if you're in the mail view you know where the mail messages are you obviously have those like bubbly categories now at the top but then you also have like the select and the dot dot dot buttons with a rounded rectangle background right so it kind of implies button shapes
But then you go back to the mailbox view and the edit button up there is just plain text. So I feel like this is an opportunity for them to finalize on a new design standard and then actually apply that consistently throughout all their applications. And from everything we're hearing, that's exactly what they're going to do.
For me, that can't be anything but exciting to see what they've come up with. And the changes they've made to the Mail app and probably more importantly, the Photos app, like the Photos app in particular has been divisive. But I think even the people who don't love the new design can agree that Apple's made worthwhile changes to that design since it was first showed at WWDC last year.
And what I've said time and time again about the Photos app and what I really love about the Photos app is how customizable it is, how you can rearrange things to exactly your liking. You aren't set to just. the design that Apple's engineers and designers felt was perfect. They give you the outline, the template of the design. Then you can rearrange things based on how you use the photos app, whether you focus on albums or collections or shared albums, whatever you focus on most.
you have the ability to prioritize that. And that's something that I hope we see extended to other apps on the phone as part of this redesign. And I, we don't know, but I don't think that the redesigns to the other apps on the phone that are coming on 17 will necessarily be as dramatic as what they did with the photos app you know like the tab bars will look different the icons will look different
But it doesn't necessarily mean they're going to change the navigation structure of all these other applications too. Like an app that revolves around a tab bar and screens will probably still revolve a tab bar and screens. With the Photos app, they ripped out the tab bar and replaced it with this like single list scrolling thing, right? I don't think maybe I'll be shown wrong in...
a week's time I don't think that's necessarily what's coming for everything in iOS 19 I'm still on the more of the side it's going to be more of a visual update right where things are kind of laid out the same way they kind of work the same way you navigate in the same kind of way
but it still just has this like modern appearance. With the Photos app, they were a bit more dramatic than that because they also changed the navigation hierarchy. And, you know, I'm on record saying I don't like it or I don't prefer it.
Probably still agree with that. They've made it better for sure than what it's shipped as. But I still kind of prefer the older way of doing it. But I don't think the Photos app is going to be like, you know, every app on the phone now will work like how the Photos app does. I just don't think that's on the cards. And I think as the quote unquote power users of the Apple ecosystem, we probably stand to benefit from this redesign more than.
normal people because we do use all of Apple's platforms on a daily basis or most of Apple's platforms on a daily basis. I use the Mac, the iPhone, the Apple Watch. and the Apple TV on a daily basis. So seeing a visual, cohesive overhaul to all of those platforms, my day-to-day use of these platforms is going to dramatically benefit from that, and I'm really excited to see that.
All right. I think that does it for this week. You can find us on Apple Podcasts where you can leave a rating and a review. Find an ad-free version of the show with bonus content each and every week at 9to5mac.com slash join for $5 a month or $50 a year. Send us feedback happyhour at 9to5mac.com. I am on threads and elsewhere at Chance H. Miller. And Mayo, what about you? At Bezade Mayo. All right. Thanks, Mayo. Bye-bye.