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Get ready for the M5 iPad Pro — and R.I.P. Dynamic Island (CultCast #705)
Jun 28, 2025
More Apple news: http://www.cultofmac.com Produced by Extra Ordinary for Cult of Mac Music composed by Will Davenport, arranged by D. Griffin Jones Chapters: 0:00 Intro 1:24 Apple Intelligence + Liquid Glass 14:03 iPhone screen cutouts 19:52 iPhone 17 mockups 27:52 Folding iPad + iPadOS 26 36:35 M5 iPad Pro 46:08 iOS 26 Beta 2 Follow us! Threads: https://www.threads.net/@cultofmac Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@cultofmac Instagram: https://instagram.com/cultofmac/ X: https://x.com/cultofmac Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cultofmac
View Video Transcript
0:00
[Music] good evening and welcome to the cult cash The best 30 plus minute Apple
0:06
conversation you're going to hear all week long I will be your host today Driffin Jones Uh I should say right off
0:12
the top has decided to extend his break from the show a little longer He'll be dealing with some importantly family
0:18
matters for the next few weeks But we still have a great show coming up because joining me today he is no longer
0:25
podcasting from a door factory He is in his very own basement Leander Canny our managing editor joins the show Hello Hey
0:32
there Oh sorry I got your title wrong Our our our editorin chief How could I forget uh can you tell that I last
0:38
minute substituted Lewis for Leander before we Well now you can Yeah Also
0:44
joining us from the city that never sleeps so presumably he'll be a little cranky today unless he had a nap or a
0:50
coffee before the show Sam Henry Gold Welcome Hello Hello I had neither I'm going to be very orary Although unlike
0:58
Lewis you're on the uh correct time zone so presumably you've already had lunch so you won't be hangry This is true I
1:04
had a sandwich Not to brag or anything I had some lovely chicken Alfredo
1:10
I was thinking about having a chicken Alfredo You know not to get too personal but I I was thinking about having that
1:15
last night Well it's great that we're recording this uh remotely because my
1:20
breath does smell very heavily of garlic Lovely So Sam you have um you bring an
1:27
interesting perspective to the show that we haven't had in a since the WWDC announcements and that you are a
1:33
full-time developer Yes I am a design engineer I'm the
1:38
founding designer at Patina Systems which is a startup and uh we're working on our first product which is all about
1:44
organizing your life through your uh your camera roll Um we'll have more to
1:49
say about that later but um right now we're heads down working very hard on it Um and we've been experimenting a lot
1:57
with the various new APIs that have come out Uh we decided to target our first
2:03
product towards just uh iOS 26 plus and just the um devices that support AFM So
2:11
all Apple intelligence devices know we are um truly unburdened by what has been
2:20
uh we are just going for um what can we do with the absolute bleeding edge and
2:25
it turns out um having AFM exist is very
2:31
convenient because you could just build it in like any other um asynchronous
2:37
request you make to the system It can be as overt as a chatbot or something as
2:43
subtle as just like hey in a background task like extract
2:49
some vibe out from this text and then like suddenly update the UI So um we're
2:56
we're kind of pushing the boundaries and seeing what what's up with AFM but I'm really excited for September when we get
3:02
more uh developers publishing publishing their AFM apps to the store and seeing
3:07
what what they can do with that I've been playing around with the Apple Foundation model as well just in the
3:12
scope of a tiny little shortcut because you can build a shortcut where you can just like prompt it and it'll just like give you a response whatever through
3:18
text And um how would you say I mean from that perspective you can see well
3:24
AFM is kind of like a slightly crummyier version of chat GPT but it is kind of impressive that it can be a slightly
3:31
crummy version of chat GPT entirely on your device How would you say it stacks up against like other AI tools that you
3:36
may have played around with it can be used as a chatbot in that you can write
3:43
something to it and it will send something back It absolutely should not be used as a chatbot It's these 40 model
3:50
the chat GPT40 claude these have enormous like hundreds of thousands of
3:56
token context limits meaning how much can it remember in one conversation
4:01
before you have to make a new conversation Um hundreds of thousands of tokens Gemini even goes into the
4:08
millions AFM is 4,100
4:13
tokens which is very very little Um Mhm So as a chatbot it's underpowered and it
4:23
has a very short memory Mhm Which is bad news if you're using it as a chatbot
4:28
which you shouldn't be What it is very good at is um it's really good at
4:34
discrete atomic tasks where it's not completely open-ended Um it's really
4:42
good at summarization It's really good at tagging It's really good at uh the
4:48
these sort of like direct tasks where it's just slightly too complicated to do
4:55
it from a programmatic perspective Mhm That it it that's where it really excels
5:01
Do you feel like Apple may have intentionally limited the context window to weaken it as a chatbot but you know
5:07
still allow all these other use cases or would a small like context window sort
5:12
of nerf other things as well i honestly think they just don't have any better
5:18
model that can run reasonably well on device Um I have not tried out too too
5:25
many other LLMs that that run directly on the phone but for what it is it's
5:34
great Um if you don't treat it like it's at the same class as a chat GPT or
5:41
Claude or a Gemini it it's a nice um enhancement to any app
5:48
But uh the reason I I would have to assume if they made a really good chat
5:54
companion they would already like be baking it into Siri but it's not So it's
6:01
exposed to developers in the same way that they expose hey import the vision
6:06
framework and you can just extract a subject out from the background or you can detect a barcode or you can detect
6:12
some text in a photo and and here's like the rectangle uh of of that piece of text These are
6:19
all like discrete tasks None are the destination but they they all kind of help you get on to what your app is
6:26
supposed to do And uh how how are you feeling about liquid glass the design Overall thoughts I I guess I should
6:32
start by saying like which betas are you personally running or have a lot of time with
6:37
i was told by many people don't install it Don't just hold out and Mhm
6:46
I am not that strong of a person Immediately after the keynote ended just
6:51
hit that button immediately on every device I own Um everything is
6:58
everything is boiling hot Everything is crashing and it's fantastic
7:04
I I was taking some pictures outside with a friend over the weekend and literally like 5 minutes into the camera
7:09
app it's lagging It's gone down to a frame rate of like one per second and I
7:14
just like you know friend picks up my phone It's like why is your phone like boiling hot it's like it's just how it
7:21
is Yeah I will say I am really thrilled with betas that are a train wreck All
7:28
the best iOS releases have been a train wreck during the beta season iOS 7 right
7:34
now no other examples Uh so I have high sign huh i I have high
7:41
hopes that they they are swinging for the fences and they just barely scratched by that that beta 1 deadline
7:49
So I'm I'm feeling pretty good 10 use as another example that like straight up murdered my 2008 MacBook Pro for like 3
7:56
months because it was one of the uh I think one of the developer betas like randomly killed the third party hard
8:02
drive that I had in my computer at the time So that was really fun and cool Um
8:08
what are your impressions of Mac OS Tahoe because Tahoe scares me It it improved quite a bit uh between beta 1
8:15
and beta 2 Don't do it just take it from just don't install it on
8:22
expensive hardware Um it's it's fine but it is very slow and you can tolerate
8:29
snow slowess slowness on in a phone an iPad when it's the thing that you use
8:36
for a livelihood it's infuriating to just have hangs resizing windows Uh and
8:44
I'm I'm not going to complain about it because I know what I did and I did this to myself but just don't do it if you
8:50
don't have to I've been okay with it's been okay for me mostly Um especially
8:55
the beta 2 Uh the only thing that wouldn't work was Slack but everything else seemed to work fine but then I've
9:01
got a limited you know I mean most of my work is in the browser uh email um Slack
9:07
Uh so you know it's not too demanding but um I you know I think it's kind of worth it because otherwise how do you
9:13
get to experience them really you know like I do have spare devices but I'd never use them if
9:18
I didn't um load up uh these OSS on my main devices I mean you know it does it
9:25
does it sometimes it can really burn you like I think last year my Mac was unusable throughout the whole beta
9:30
period Um but uh but so far it's hasn't been too bad What do you feel about
9:36
liquid glass on the Mac because um it it seems to be definitely like although Apple says that it's like designed for
9:42
everything you can really tell that it sings the best on the iPhone and I've heard other people say that it's a
9:47
little more subtle on the iPad and it's just kind of weird looking on the Mac What do you feel about the visual look
9:53
there is no liquid glass on the Mac It is just transparent Uh there's none of
9:58
the morphing or the like squishy buttons where you can pull
10:04
it on your finger and it it has that halo ripple None of that happens It's
10:10
barely even got that very clear reflect reflection
10:17
styling It's much more akin to
10:23
uh the previous big su language but just adapted slightly towards this and with
10:30
uglier title bars They are go I'm bless their hearts truly Uh the I I'm willing
10:39
to just stick it out for the beta run The kicker for me has been what they're
10:46
trying to do with Safari where the title bar has no color So it just adapts to
10:53
whatever it is that you're looking at And if you're looking at one tab say like Hacker News with the orange top
11:02
section the entire top eighth of the browser is now going to be orange and you flip to
11:07
like Netflix with a black letter box and your entire browser theme switches over
11:13
to black As you scroll if you're on one of those New York Times articles where
11:18
it has the full bleed image as you scroll the title bar will also
11:25
completely invert colors If you're looking at white like black text on a
11:30
white background and scroll to a a black photo your entire UI Chrome just flips
11:37
and inverts and it is not subtle Isn't that um kind of like how the the
11:44
existing compact title bar in Safari works because I'm one of those masochists who's that enabled since uh
11:51
what was it mac OS 11 or something like that But um the the kicker for me was that uh once you install iOS 26 and you
11:59
know you you soon realize well liquid glass isn't everywhere cuz there are things like settings where it's like well there's nothing transparent to
12:05
shine through in the background like the basic list views and all that are still going to be like gray on black But on on
12:11
the Mac all those basic elements like you know buttons panels and stuff like that if they're not liquid glass they're
12:17
even flatter than before Like they've they've lost gradients in colors Now all the buttons are just solid blue or solid
12:24
gray instead of having like that subtle gradient It's it's even Liquid Glass has made Tahoe even flatter which is
12:32
so weird to me You would expect if they're going to roll out this huge unified design language everything would
12:38
kind of shift in the same the winds would be the same across all platforms But it is a very odd evolution It it
12:47
does kind of seem the the Mac seems like the odd man out here where everything else is UI kit based and at the very
12:55
last mile someone thought "Oh god we got to do the Mac too." Uh and we we're just
13:01
kind of seeing it cobbled together So it it makes sense given the Mac is a very
13:07
utilitarian platform and if they added in that liquid slider thing where you
13:13
you click down on the track and uh the whole thing kind of wobbles out
13:19
I think you you would see people rioting in the streets and uh thank god they didn't port that thing over but it it
13:26
also feels like you did 60% of the design
13:32
It's It's like if you go back to like the WWDC video when Allan D is talking about liquid glass and you see all the designers like moving these like glass
13:40
bubbles and like objects and things around like those are all the iOS people and then like in front of the camera in the other side of the room you have like
13:46
people playing with like Duplo blocks and then that that's where the Mac design came from
13:52
I Allan Dy did not Allan die for this And you can quote me on that
13:59
Okay Well it's not going to get any better than that So moving right along Why don't you tell us about the iPhone
14:05
rumors let's hit the latest news I would love to So it seems like the iPhone
14:12
camera cutout is just going to be here for quite a while Uh the the the cutout
14:18
the sensor bar on the front is likely going to stick around for another 5
14:24
years It might shrink before then It might get more compact but it it's
14:30
looking like it's not going to be a truly edgetoedge zero inset uh screen
14:37
for at least 2030 Um Ross Young of uh
14:43
Display Supply Chain Consultants said that it's probably going to shrink in a series of
14:50
of steps rather than just all at once Uh the first will come in 2026 with the
14:56
iPhone 20 Uh no iPhone 18 Is that correct
15:01
assuming they don't switch to the the year base numbering Uh do you think they will do you think that this this fall
15:06
they'll unveil the iPhone 26 in my heart I would love that to be the case In my brain I know that is super not going to
15:13
be the case because they are banking on people
15:18
not being able to associate these phones as one is newer than another one is like
15:25
"Oh it's from the old year." Uh so I think if they had iPhone effectively an
15:32
iPhone 2024 and an iPhone 2025 I think they would see sales from 2024
15:39
take a hit in the same way that it's a little bit trickier for uh cars to roll
15:47
off the lot and they have to fire sale these the 2024 cars before the the new
15:53
stock rolls in They can do that with software just fine bits over the the wire uh and no one's
15:59
paying for anything But I I have a feeling like this is a a far more
16:04
political decision uh to change the iPhone numbering scheme in the same way that like releasing an iPhone Everyone
16:12
is banking on this case makers carriers or Verizon will live or die by if there
16:17
is a new iPhone in September I I've been saying this like ever since they they announced the new OS names It's nice that all the OSS are the same number as
16:24
each other but like just within the scope of the iPhone it actually introduces a third number to keep track of because you used to be able to bank
16:30
on like iOS 18 Oh that means that the latest iPhone has an A18 chip in it But
16:35
now we'll have iOS 26 the A19 chip and maybe the iPhone Who Who knows anymore
16:42
who who knows it's all messed up No no not not iPhone Yeah wait iOS 26 A19 chip
16:49
and iPhone 17 in 2026 It's that simple I'm a designer I'm I'm
16:56
not a numbers person This three is a lot of numbers for me Mhm At any point in
17:01
life just in any context if I see a the panel of buttons in an elevator I will
17:07
cry Um unless they're unless they're they're they're squirles I I will check if it's a uh if the
17:14
corners are continuous and if if not Oh boy that's that's a mess So let's see We
17:21
have um 2030 the the camera might disappear entirely under the iPhone and
17:26
um apparently like some Android phones do this right now but uh the uh you can still see like a little hint of the camera dot behind the screen and that is
17:33
just unacceptable So Apple's waiting until it can be entirely hidden to to to do that That makes sense I have have any
17:41
of you seen uh Android phones with a the hidden camera under the screen and it
17:46
looks like there's a like a dot pattern on top of it i haven't No I haven't No
17:52
It's from from like 10 feet away You can barely notice it Often times you are not
18:00
looking at your phone from 10 feet away and it it looks significantly lower resolution
18:06
Like it it's bad if it's just a lock screen or or a home screen image when
18:11
you're watching a video on it and it goes underneath Whoa It's It's like the
18:17
I can picture it like it's probably like there's a little stain on there isn't it it It looks like someone spilled something on the screen Liquid glass
18:24
porative Mhm Um I was going to say cuz I mean some there's there's a few Android
18:30
handsets that have uh that continuous screen right but if it if it looks horrible when you're actually using it
18:36
uh you can see why Apple's uh lagging I I mean people bashed them for uh the
18:43
the notch for the longest time but Android was kind of messing around with
18:49
with these strange roundabout solutions of I mean do you remember the Pixel 3 or
18:56
the Pixel 3 XL where it had a huge buck to notch in the top and it had this
19:03
ridiculous chin and it was asymmetrical you see something like that and you look at your your iPhone 10 and you think it
19:11
could be worse I don't even notice a notch these days I mean I'm I'm completely you know it's a I'm blind to
19:16
it I don't even see it Except you know sometimes when it obscures the content
19:22
or whatever you know maybe if you're watching a video but not really I'm I'm excited for for the for the not to go
19:28
away just because it means that you'll be able to have more room for dynamic island stuff Like you could have you know three or maybe four things going on
19:34
up there could be a whole party in your in your status bar I we are going to see the convergence of iOS and Mac OS by
19:41
virtue of bringing the menu bar to the iPhone Bartender for iOS finally at last
19:52
Uh so Leander why don't you tell us about what we can expect this year from the iPhone 17 series yeah so I mean what
19:58
what's what's not to know i mean it seems like uh everything has been leaked out or you know the rumors are almost
20:05
completely encompassing the uh although you know saying that the one thing is how will they look and there's still
20:13
some debate about even though it's pretty much certain that it's going to
20:18
that the pro models will have a larger camera module that will now stretch across the whole width of the back
20:25
There's some speculation as about whether that color will be complimentary or um it'll be a different texture maybe
20:32
a different color Um regardless imagine Buu who has a he's a prolific Apple
20:39
leaker with a somewhat mixed reputation
20:44
but he throws so much against the wall that a lot of it ends up sticking um leaked up a new um image that purports
20:53
to show the whole lineup and it's worth checking out It's a because oh my god it
20:59
looks gorgeous They look absolutely beautiful in this image and you know it tracks with all the rumors that have
21:06
been leaked so far and all the rumors cross check with each other There seems to be a lot of agreement it seems to be
21:12
converging upon you know that the iPhone 17 lineup is going to look I mean if
21:18
you're a betting person you would probably put money on this You're probably going to say this is probably this is ex exactly what they're going to look like Um regardless it's definitely
21:25
worth checking out you know and we have a we have a post on the on the site today with uh with with the image uh
21:31
embedded into it So I think yeah you know they look they look really gorgeous They look absolutely beautiful I love
21:36
that big camera hump um you know do you remember when the first um what was it
21:42
the iPhone I can't remember what number it was the iPhone 6 was the first with a camera bump on the and people lost their
21:48
minds you know it had a it had like a it was like about a millimeter um uh but you couldn't lay it flat on
21:53
the table anymore and I remember the controversy about that oh my god uh and of course you know since those days are
21:59
long long gone now the thing is basically just a bump I mean very soon it's going to be just a big bump um with
22:06
massive cameras in it Uh yeah they look they look gorgeous I mean and I'm kind of really attracted to
22:11
the the base model too like the the um you know the very basic one I'm actually
22:17
thinking of downgrading I mean I've had I've had a Pro phone since you know they they started making the Pro just cuz I
22:22
always wanted the better camera Um and you know my kids are all grown up now
22:27
They've all left the house What do I take pictures of anymore you know I don't know You know so I I'm just wondering whether I I I'd be happy with
22:33
a with a simpler phone I've always been attracted to that kind of like you know like a basic I I wear an Apple Watch
22:38
Ultra but you know I used to wear old Casios and I liked you know that that sort of basic utilitarian design I hated
22:45
fancy watches Um and that same kind of I
22:50
have that same feeling about these these these upcoming ones Like I used to have an iPhone mini That was my favorite iPhone mini 12 Um love the form factor
22:58
It kind of you know it did everything for you and it was small So the the size of the thing you know was a was a major
23:03
attraction So I don't know Yeah it's a beautiful looking lineup And of course and there's the iPhone 17 Air as well
23:09
and that's going to be pretty interesting to see you know like I love to see how thin they get that the new iPads are so thin It's kind of they look
23:15
impossibly thin And um you know this this thing is going to be is going to be really I think lustworthy You know
23:22
people are going to lose their minds over um how how thin this thing is going to be The the 17 Air really stands out
23:29
to me especially in this picture that Majin Buu has It It looks like they've changed the I don't know if this is
23:35
going to be true of the final model or not but from this picture it looks like they've changed the texture of the glass bump on the back to make it look kind of
23:41
like bubbly I was I was like Yeah If Yeah I I wasn't sure if this is just the
23:47
the way the lights hitting it but it it looks like a like like the top half of a lozenge got lobbed off and that's what
23:54
they're uh that's what they're going for If it is going to be a uh kind of a
24:01
reference back to the liquid glass I think that's brilliant It hearkens back to that iPhone 5C commercial where they
24:08
show the the playful plastics morphing and and melting into each other and then
24:14
it shows how the uh the more vibrant colors of iOS 7 complement that Uh I I I
24:20
think that would be a great I think that would be a great ad that they would not take down in 202
24:30
Yeah Yeah It that that ad that they took down I don't know I it wasn't the
24:35
funniest thing but I thought it was kind of amusing I don't know why they took it down It was so weird It was benign I I
24:40
think it would not have gotten as it might have been a marketing ploy This
24:46
this might just be rage bait of them taking it down after 24 hours to get
24:51
more people talking about it themselves as a strategy That's very very devious I don't know if Apple thinks like that but
24:57
um there was no outrage about it that I remember I mean the crush ad there was a huge outcry There was a whole bunch of
25:03
stories but this one like you said was was was relatively benign I don't remember anyone complaining about it Do
25:08
you do did you guys see any complaints no not really If you scroll very deep on the Reddit post in uh in r/Apple you'll
25:16
see people being like that's cringe But also I don't think their head of
25:22
marketing is looking at the the depths of Reddit comments sees a comment like
25:27
that They shouldn't Nobody should be Guys take it down They don't like it I don't think that's I don't think that's
25:34
their MO Well definitely not because you know the crush was definitely that was
25:39
definitely misguided I mean it was it was um as as they were not reading the room at all You know there is a lot of
25:46
anxiety in the um creative community about uh these changes that are coming
25:51
uh you know AI and copyrights and being out of work being destitute you know
25:58
those kind of those things are very very real fears and and Apple's that ad you know definitely didn't add it sort of fuel to the fire Their ads are tonally
26:06
very bizarre recently If you wind back the clock 15 years it's very head empty
26:13
just vibes of "Hey take a look at this iPhone 3." If you 3GS if you have an a
26:19
Starbucks account you can scan it Hi guys Take a look at the Shazam app If
26:24
you don't have an iPhone you don't have iMac It has colors It comes in these colors That's it And uh they've had some
26:30
good ads though don't you think um there was that one about the Christmas uh
26:35
uh their Christmas ads are very uh the Christmas ads are very touching Um but
26:41
you know like if you don't have an iPhone you don't have an iPhone It's very direct and and forward and uh you
26:47
take a look at the ads they're putting out now and it's I was going to die if the Apple Watch did not call 911 You
26:55
will die if you don't have an Apple Watch the Apple Watch I owe my life to
27:00
my It's a very And the the same thing with the uh the car crash detection
27:06
of uh I think it was someone driving down the road and then the car flips over and it's just Mhm it it it has the
27:13
same aura as the anti-smoking ads from 2000s where people were like wheezing on
27:19
a respirator Yeah This is your heart on the Samsung Galaxy Watch
27:25
Yeah real real Samsung users not actors just the most like falling apart dest
27:41
otherwise you will die That's not a bad pitch I give it at least 72 hours on
27:47
YouTube Oh yeah Oh yeah Voice pulled Yeah Let's talk about the iPad Uh this is a
27:55
bit of an op ed from Ed Cult of Mac IO iPad OS 26 paves the way for a
28:01
superersiz folding iPad So Mingchi Quo another analyst says there's a computer
28:07
with a 20-in foldable screen on Certino's drawing board And this has been corroborated by Omdia analysts
28:14
saying that there's an 18.8 in computer with a folding display And Mark German
28:20
also agrees on that date But um people haven't really agreed on what to call it whether it's an iPad or a Mac Some
28:27
sources mention Mac OS others call it a very large iPad Ed Hardy or as I like to
28:32
call him Federico Fatici at home uh says that after testing iPad OS 26 it's
28:38
pretty obvious that um Apple created this new iPad windowing mode with a big
28:44
iPad in mind And I not that I'm a big iPad user but I have to agree it it seems like um that's the direction
28:50
they're going in it Uh windowed apps are far more Mac-like than on every any
28:55
previous iPad OS So it'll scale up to a big folding screen pretty easily And not
29:00
to mention that Mac OS it doesn't have the same kind of touch targets that iPad OS has Uh especially with the the you
29:06
know the new version of iPad OS 26 if not for a desktop or a portable computer
29:13
I'm thinking of the Surface Studio or the whatever that the big Surface with the the easel style thing Yeah that
29:21
would eat as an iPad if they stuck an iPad on there Mama mia that's a spicy meatball You you can rest you you use a
29:28
pencil and you can rest your arm on it and you're just drawing on it and you can scribble all over the place That
29:34
would be awesome That would rule When you're done when you're done doodling you you put the screen back up You got
29:40
your own keyboard You do real work Then you What happened to those Surface those big Surface um tablets though i mean
29:46
they never they never set the world on fire did they i can't remember hearing about them for years They made one
29:51
revision to the Surface Studio and then they discontinued it Russ Power Yeah it that But you know
29:57
what Lander you when when you put your iPad in that in that iMac G4 that you have behind you and you know do some
30:03
surgery on that then you can try it out Yeah Yeah Well that's you can do exactly that I think that one's uh it's too
30:08
small I think the the um the 13-in iPad would fit in there perfectly And I've
30:14
actually got one So which I'm going to wait when I get to talk about the next story Um you know I'll uh I'll be um
30:21
I'll be retiring my my current iPad and probably putting it in there I don't know why It's probably going to cost me
30:26
hours and hours of messing around and then I'll probably end up breaking it I just my last repair just went horribly
30:33
disastrously wrong as predicted last week by Charlie Surell trying to repair my Gin bike computer and it's now a pile
30:39
of parts in the in a in a heading for the recycling Oh no But I I think it
30:45
makes sense You know they they they've got this new iPad OS and I haven't played around with it like like Sam have
30:51
you touched it at all the windowing mode on the iPad The only iPad I own is an
30:56
iPad mini And that is something I bought last winter when I decided they're not
31:04
going to make this a real computer anytime soon So why am I why am I holding a real computer sized device in
31:11
my hands and I just got this little guy Uh it's you throw it in your backpack
31:17
take it out on the train It's it's fantastic I turned on windowing mode and it's very
31:24
goofy It It looks like someone forgot to flip a uh a config flag on their end But
31:30
you can totally just have multiple windows on a 7in screen It's haunted
31:36
It's very much the way that the government has been with weed where they just give up hope and go you know what
31:41
man i I don't care anymore Just do it I sure whatever It's fine
31:47
It works pretty well on the 13-inch iPad Pro I have it from 2018 Although you know to to be honest I haven't actually
31:52
used I haven't tried to sit down and use it for any work yet but you know for for browsing and for for general sort of iPad uh you know media consumption I
32:00
think it's been great I think it's really fantastic I've really enjoyed it uh on the mini it uh fixes your windows
32:06
to the the compact size class very quickly meaning uh if you shrink it a
32:14
little bit past 3/4 width it'll just snap down to iPhone size class So you
32:22
know like when you're on an iPad and you resize a window from big and then you shrink it and then the sidebar goes away
32:27
and it just works kind of like an iPhone app If you so much as sneeze near an
32:32
iPad mini with windowing mode it won't just turn into an iPhone Uh which makes sense but it it also it might be a great
32:40
workflow for some people just having a bunch of iPhone apps all layered out Uh
32:45
I I kind of miss slide over I kind of miss split screen because then it it was truly every pixel of the iPad mini
32:52
screen is just dedicated to apps And when you have only seven inches of
32:58
screen you you kind of need every pixel Well this split screen is a little
33:03
better than the split screen they had before because now you can do thirds now you can do quarters now you can do top and bottom They they could never make
33:10
the user interface work with split screen that way And although the crux of the story is saying like oh you know
33:15
this new iPad OS is clearly what the operating system is going to be for that future folding iPad But I want to take
33:21
it one step further I'm my theory is that they're also doing this at this time because when you have the folding
33:28
iPhone next year this is what it'll be when you open it up It'll be like a slightly smaller iPad mini that can run
33:35
two iPhone apps or even three iPhone apps multi-wind on the screen at once I
33:41
I would be a big fan of that I I think they're going about the folding devices
33:46
direction all wrong I I would not start with an iPad or an iPhone I would simply start with an Apple Watch with a slap
33:53
bracelet band I I want I want a slapple watch if you will A slapple watch I I
34:00
want to take my my very expensive watch and kind of slam it at my wrist and I want it to wrap around I want a a metal
34:08
foil band to wrap around my arm I want to win it at a scholastic book fair I I
34:13
think I think that would do I I think it would heal the country truly Imagine uh
34:18
I mean just on the watch face like you'll have the fulls size watch face there You won't have to scroll down to see your your smart stack It'll just
34:25
always be there Don't call it the slap stack Yeah smart slap Uh does it still
34:31
confuse you how they changed uh whether the swipe does control center or the smart stack i I still don't know and I
34:39
do this for a living I I've just determined that they can do whatever they want with the watch and we're just
34:45
going to have to be fine with it They have changed what the watch is and does and works and how the navigation exists
34:52
in the world Mhm At least half a dozen times Mhm And you know what go for it I
34:59
think it's Yeah I dare you to change it again I mean honestly most days I'll go
35:05
until like lunch or maybe even like the early evening before I even realize that
35:10
my watch has been in the water lock mode all day ever since like my morning shower So yeah honestly it could they
35:18
could just remove all of the buttons and gestures and I wouldn't even notice Have you ever been in a situation where the
35:25
the double pinch gesture has been genuinely a a godsend i'm holding on to my Series
35:32
6 until they bring back the blood oxygen sensing So I haven't I haven't used the double tap It's um not that I ever plan
35:39
on using the blood oxygen sensor and I don't think I ever have but I don't want to buy a new Apple Watch knowing that it
35:45
isn't there I was at an Apple store in that one week period where they couldn't
35:50
sell anything other than the uh the Apple Watch SE I I was at the Upper East Side Apple store and they had a this
35:58
oneoff display case of just Apple Watch SE's and it looked incredibly ridiculous
36:05
of this huge long wooden table and then like one spoke with a watch sitting on
36:10
it Mhm Just like the it one offc center logo that says Apple Watch SE and
36:17
clearly waiting for the the rest of the board to get rolled out But it's just like this one
36:24
It it's like going to a mall with one uh one inflatable tube man
36:31
It's it's it's a bizarre state Well Leander why don't you bring
36:37
it back home and tell us about the M5 iPad Pro yeah so it's uh supposed to be coming this fall Um and uh it uh is
36:46
going to this is coming from Digit Times which you know an a a Korean outlet that has a has a mixed uh reputation too but
36:53
it it it kind of tracks they they refresh the product the iPad Pro product line is refreshes every 18 months and
37:00
the last um the last release was in spring 2024 So that means if it sticks
37:06
to the same timeline we're looking at something in the fall of 2025 Um and uh Digis I think was reporting
37:13
that Samsung display and L display two companies they're already producing the OLED panels for this uh for this tablet
37:20
Um and uh there's been reports too that Apple's already uh testing these M5
37:26
equipped iPad prototypes Um so it's supposed to be already in production and
37:31
the big thing is going to be ondevice AI performance which sounds given Sam what
37:37
you were saying about the ondevice AI models it doesn't sound that exciting but um you know I this I'm really
37:44
looking forward to getting a new iPad sometime in the future You know my the one I got right now the iPad Pro is a
37:50
2018 model and that thing is still going really well Um it's still a great iPad
37:55
Uh but uh yeah I've been really jealous about the new um the new machines the
38:02
new iPads They the industrial design is so gorgeous that um I'm really tempted
38:08
by them Uh there's one little wrinkle though Uh the price and the tariffs
38:16
which might um affect this We never know We'll see Mhm Uh but come the full I
38:23
have a uh I have a conspiracy theory I I think they don't really want to upgrade
38:30
the iPads year over year but they just there's a handful of chips where they're
38:36
at peace selling them forever and ever and ever And there are some chips where they're like "Second we can stop selling
38:43
this chip we're done with it." Uh the there are some Apple silicon chips that
38:50
only got one device with it I think there was that one iPhone Prole iPhone
38:59
chip where it was only ever in an iPhone and then immediately done with it And I
39:04
I get the sense that with the base chips with the base M series chips
39:10
they just want to keep moving it as soon as possible And it makes more sense for
39:16
them to just upgrade the iPad so they can avoid having to sell all right we
39:21
got the M5 Max and then the straggler iPads and we're just going to have to order these from TSMC until the end of
39:26
time Whereas like the Ultra chips is like they spend so much money making those for all 12 people who buy a Mac
39:32
Pro It's like you know gun to your head You will keep buying the Mac Pro until we have sold until we have sold enough
39:38
You're not getting another one yet We have 10,000 of each ship You will get you'll get a new one when we're done
39:44
with it Mhm Go to your room But yeah buy a Mac Pro then go to your
39:51
room and think about think about how this what you've done Uh
39:57
I mean it is a very bizarre economic situation of the what is it the M3 Pro
40:04
where the second they stop selling that MacBook Pro that's done We're done with that chip Never think about it do not so
40:11
much as whisper its name Uh that chip is dead to us But they had they stuck
40:17
everything that walked and talked and lived and breathed with an I with an A12
40:23
chip I think they still sell that thing It's It's got to be making up new new
40:28
letters for it too A12X Is it A12Z i think about that that statement
40:34
constantly where they said to the Verge uh when when the first iPad with an A12Z came out um someone asked why is it the
40:41
A12Z you just had the A12X in the last iPad and they went well because Z is more than X
40:49
Nonsense Truly truly deranged But I I
40:54
have to commend the the commitment to the insanity Do you think I I think
40:59
it'll still be a while until we get the fir because the lead time on silicon is so long I think it'll still be maybe
41:05
until like the M6 before we start getting the first generation of Apple silicon that has been like truly designed for Apple intelligence I mean
41:13
in part because they only started developing Apple intelligence like 12 months before they unveiled it But they
41:19
um that that could be interesting There was that talk at the the talk show last year someone brought up as as a side
41:27
tangent I think it was JG where he said you know in 2020 we designed when when
41:34
we were designing the M1 chips we we kind of kicked around this idea of oh transformers might be something at some
41:41
point Ah we'll we'll make a little part of the chip We'll we'll make it accelerate transformer-based workflows a
41:47
little bit better Who no one will care it won't matter And then transformers
41:53
ML models on the transformer architecture super duper mattered And that's I think that that one
42:02
side project bet years and years ago is
42:07
really paying off in spades now that the uh even the M1 chips support Apple
42:13
Foundation models Mhm Yeah Isn't the neural engine I mean isn't that what uh isn't that the you know the the part of
42:20
the chip that uh is designed for Apple intelligence and isn't Apple way ahead in that than other chip manufacturers
42:26
like from I mean I haven't deep dived in dive deep into it but from what I
42:31
understand uh I mean someone was saying that the um oh who was it one of the um
42:37
open AI founders uh was talking about the Mac Mini and how it was the best
42:42
bang better even than data centers I think for um you know what per
42:49
performance um in AI processing and that you you get
42:54
you know you'd be better off buying a whole bunch of Mac minis and stringing them together than you are investing in a massive data center It's not practical
43:01
but he was saying you know if you examine the the price performance uh and what per what I think it was energy um
43:09
what per performance um they come you know Apple silicon comes out tops I mean Mac Studio I assume you mean because
43:15
just because it has 512 GB of unified memory and it's just nobody else makes processors like that right the uh the
43:23
neural engine is something quite special that I I don't think is replicated in in
43:28
similar Snapdragon chips with the the uh NPU where a lot of the AI tasks that
43:35
happen on uh an iPhone are either made
43:41
inhouse by Apple and it's just you know some silent process that runs in the
43:46
background of the photos app in the background uh or it's something like I was talking about earlier with the
43:52
vision framework or a Apple foundation models AFM where it's made by Apple
43:58
exposed by them to developers and we don't have to worry about what's going on with the neural engine We just trust
44:04
that the system is going to take the fastest possible route and that is the
44:10
main secret sauce Uh where the system exposes so many of these
44:17
building blocks for us to kind of string together in in different ways where the
44:24
the benefits of the neural engine the uh the A&E are just immediately apparent
44:31
Mhm It's it's very difficult to to run something directly on the A&E the the
44:37
neural engine uh with full confidence that it will happen on the neural engine We we're working with a lot of uh corML
44:45
uh tasks at work and the way that you set it up is you tell the system when
44:51
you're about to execute a task hey I have this work um I would like it
44:56
if you put it on the CPU or I would like it if you put it on the CPU and and GPU or It would be really nice if you ran it
45:03
on CPU and GPU and A&E and the system go I hear that I'm I'm processing that
45:13
no and it'll just choose to do whatever it wants Uh so it's kind of a mixed bag
45:18
if it if it does run on the A&E I have to assume that with Apple's own
45:25
models and their own tasks they have some elevated privilege to say
45:31
"Hey system um run this on the A&E or else." And that's I imagine that's how
45:39
they get a lot of those extra performance speed ups And if the European Union ever figured out what any
45:45
of those technical terms mean they would you know be slapping Apple with a $12,000 fine I'm going to go to Brussels
45:51
and scream about Transformers Okay I I won't I will get workplace buy and
45:58
and I I will th this will this will partially be a vacation I I just have to
46:03
make it about something so I can expense it Mhm Fair enough Well let's wrap up
46:09
with iOS 26 beta 2 I I was enamored enamored at at one o'clock on Monday
46:16
when this when this dropped with the with the hopes and dreams that my phone might not be burning hot in my hand as
46:21
much anymore And um yeah I got most of it So uh big changes iOS 26 beta 2
46:30
tweaks control center to be a little more readable The back the background is slightly more opaque than before and
46:36
darkened So you can now see the controls that you would actually like to tap Imagine that Uh the new tab button in
46:43
Safari is now on the bottom instead of the top of the screen where you can actually again tap it with one hand Uh
46:49
brilliant In a browser you might want to go backwards and you also occasionally might want to go forwards So now when
46:55
you go back and you have the uh the compact tab bar design in Safari a forward button appears Weirdly before it
47:02
was hidden behind a menu You had to like long tap on the back button to go forward So good learnings there Yeah
47:09
that was that was hard to find Mhm Mhm Have you uh have you heard about the
47:14
hairy arm technique in design no I'll let that hang in the air Uh so okay I
47:21
I'm seeing a lot of these design changes in these betas and I have to assume we'll see quite a few more The the hairy
47:29
arm theory is when you have a very critical stakeholder you would include
47:34
one glaringly obvious thing incorrect with your design work so they can point
47:40
that out and feel like they did something and everything else will go under the radar And I I was looking at
47:46
the announcement of the beta 1 liquid glass design and I couldn't help but think this is absolutely their hairy arm
47:53
of we're just going to crank contrast to zero we're going to make Safari act all weird Um and people will be so focused
48:01
on that that we'll just glide past the other stuff And now everyone feels that
48:07
they've they've done their duty by yelling about the uh control center or
48:14
whatever it is that uh that that they're going to walk back next and everything
48:21
else will kind of the the window of acceptability and design will shift
48:26
slightly towards refractions and and light bending and everything else will
48:33
just kind of fall into Well as someone with an Italian family I'd say there's nothing wrong with hairy
48:39
arms I don't see why what what that phrase has to do with it Oh I completely forgot about the hairy Oh I completely
48:45
forgot why it was a hairy arm Uh yeah why why hairy arm i I completely for Yeah I'm I'm a terrible storyteller but
48:53
uh in in design comps they would sneak in in like a photo shoot of like a a supermodel they would sneak in one light
49:00
guy like a a lighting guy's hairy arm in the corner of the frame and the critical stakeholder would be like "Take that
49:07
out." Oh okay Yeah there you go Sorry I love opening loops that I refuse to
49:12
close the the the thing that bothered me most about the the first iOS 26 beta wasn't
49:19
Safari it wasn't uh the control center it was the phone app The phone app like
49:24
really irritated me and they they made like a a slight improvement now Like
49:30
what really bugs me is that uh when you hit the search button that's now at the bottom of the screen in the phone app
49:35
and you type in somebody's name like 99% of the time when I want to search through something in the phone app I'm
49:41
searching for a contact right but no it wouldn't show you your list of contacts If you type in Sam it'll show me all of
49:48
my phone calls with Sam and all of my voicemails that transcribe the word Sam in them but then not show me Sam's
49:54
contact information And that's the that's the search button that's right next to the contacts tab that's at the
50:00
bottom of the screen that's within reach of my thumb So I was like why why did it do that so uh one other change that they
50:06
made is they now have in the phone app when you type in somebody's name it'll show you Sam's contact information if
50:12
you type in Sam but only at the very bottom of the screen You have to scroll past all of the rest So they they've
50:19
taken like maybe one millimeter in the right direction there and I filed another like three feedbacks about it I'm making this my pet like my project
50:27
this year I I want them to fix the phone app Good luck Yeah Yeah Uh I'll I'll
50:32
scream and maybe they'll hear a gentle whisper into an engineer's ear Um they
50:38
have a new they have a new uh ringtone in beta 2 called alt one I can't imagine
50:45
that's the final name but um it sounds pretty neat Did you like it i I was kind
50:50
of you know meh I think it's nice I think it's nice It's It's weirdly the only ringtone that has an alternate
50:57
version of itself Like so I don't I don't know if that's like a weird developer thing What do you mean a what
51:03
version like you you go in settings you go to sounds and haptics and there's like the list of ringtones and all of
51:09
them are just like a you know this one this one this one this one But then this it's called reflections You tap on
51:14
reflections and then you have two versions of it The original one and then alt one So it's a weird like drop down
51:21
menu thing that that's just for that I don't know if it'll be like a special ringtone that's only on the new iPhones when they roll that out but right now
51:27
it's in there and so I set it as my ringtone I purchased Syla Voice Kiss Me Through the Phone as a ringtone for uh
51:35
99 cents in 2010 and it is traveling with me through every device and I won't
51:41
die with that ringtone Uh he I think he makes Alibaba uh shrink wrapped toys now Um you can
51:49
buy the Soulja Boy console That is a real thing You can look it up Uh it's I
51:54
I think it's going to give the Switch to a run for its money M the the Soldier console Do Do you have your phone on
52:01
sound like does it ever does it ever go off in public or is it just like a secret shame that you have uh it happens
52:07
on the Mac It It syncs It's synced over to the Mac and the Mac is never on
52:12
silent mode Um so my phone will just silently be buzzing but my enormous studio display will just start blasting
52:20
a very compressed boy ring tone at full volume at me
52:25
which is the way that magnificent I think that's the way it was meant to be heard Yeah Yeah It gets your attention
52:32
can't be ignored The other pet peeve of mine in iOS 26 the settings app they
52:38
they made it like much less dense than before like so much that like you can you only see like the first panel of
52:45
settings Uh and they tweaked it a little bit Uh so now on an iPhone 16 Pro if you open the settings app you can see like
52:51
general on the very bottom and that's the last item you see whereas before it was like hiding behind the the search
52:56
bar but they they've slightly slightly tightened it up a little bit And why did that bo why did that bother you well on
53:03
iOS 18 you open settings and from the from the main settings screen you can
53:09
see like the entire top panel and then like the first half of the second group of settings In iOS 26 they've made each
53:16
line item in like the setting screen so much taller that you can only see like half as many settings on screen at once
53:22
Yeah but you're probably going to have to scroll anyway to find the setting you want So I I was just looking at a uh a
53:27
Swift UI app that I I built a few days ago It looks like they just increased
53:32
the padding across the entire system for any uh standard list or or collection
53:39
view It's just rounder and with more padding I I have to imagine the settings is just collateral damage from that
53:45
change Um but it it is taking up an unnecessary amount of uh
53:53
height in in the settings screen It it just bugs me philosophically that
53:58
our our phones have been getting bigger allegedly for the purpose of like showing more content on the screen and
54:05
then every time they do that it's like 3 years later they just make the interface less dense so that you don't actually
54:10
see any more on your screen than before when you had like a 3 and 12 in iPhone 4 Yeah Yeah Yeah Well you'd be horrified
54:16
by my mom's phone She has a large text you know and it's you get about three
54:22
settings in the the screen when you open it up I mean I I'm all for the accessibility settings Like yeah old people should have the giant text if
54:28
they want it but I'm a young person I I have this I have it set on the smallest dynamic type size They shouldn't be
54:34
punishing me for that They um they they put those banner ads in the settings app
54:39
now So like it's it's going to be general at the bottom of the screen on the best case scenario but the second
54:46
they roll it like there's new Apple Arcade things It's going to be like you're you're going to be lucky if you
54:52
get battery just creeping past the search bar Mhm That's how they get you Any other
54:58
final thoughts before we wrap it up ios 26 How are we feeling yeah I like it I'm
55:03
still uh I'm still a big fan Mhm I like it a lot I like the liquid glass I don't know why people were losing their minds over the the settings um you know like
55:10
it being bit a bit uh uh illigible illigible it uh I think you know a lot
55:16
that came from screenshots if you're actually using it and you're scrolling around it's not actually that hard to see I didn't I mean I didn't have any
55:22
trouble at all seeing it uh the legibility was seemed to me to totally fine but uh yeah I mean people were
55:28
really losing their minds over that um I guess it's kind of better now to be honest I didn't actually notice the
55:33
difference between the two they did make it uh slightly more opaque in beta 2 That was another change they made but
55:38
only in light mode so far They probably haven't gotten around to fixing the dark mode setting yet I like this the new
55:44
Safari uh UI too I mean that took me a little while to you know like you said that I couldn't find the forward button
55:49
and it was a little bit I had trouble um uh uh navigating through the tabs like finding the different tabs that are open
55:56
But um it makes a lot of sense you know having it at the bottom and I' as I've gotten used to it I like it a lot you know like it's it's really kind of
56:02
functional Sam do you have a do you have any pet peeves in in the design that you're hoping they change yes Right now
56:08
this is going to just be a spoken version of a thing that I've already found feedback for I'm I'm quite happy
56:16
with all of the betas that have uh been rolling out I I think they're all generally net positives The one thing
56:24
that I I will absolutely complain about is um with a Mac you can set custom fer
56:32
icons and you right click a finger hit customize you can scrolling down a bunch
56:37
of SF symbols and and click one and it like indents the the funer icon with
56:42
that symbol being recessed It is not the entire bank of SF symbols It is a
56:50
handful kind of like a when you set a a shortcut icon or or when you set a reminders list you get like maybe a
56:57
hundred some Um and I I have all my screenshots go to a custom screenshots
57:03
folder in my home folder And there's no screenshot SF symbol So I have to be
57:08
like some some absolute clown and I have to use the uh the selection handle glyph
57:16
I I I I'm gonna get laughed out of town if if people see my my home directory with with an inconsistent glyph So I'm
57:23
I'm already on thin ice but like this this will just evaporate my street cred Um which which glyph is is it that you
57:30
want to use i would love I will tell you the glyph verbatim It is um I would use
57:37
camera.viewfinder It is a a camera symbol with like the the um framing the rectangle around it
57:46
Yeah Yeah I would love to use that but um technology simply is not there yet We we simply don't have the compute power
57:52
to put that specific symbol on top of an image Unforgivable Hopefully it'll come
57:59
in my lifetime but um it seems we're very far away from that technology Well
58:05
I think that wraps it up That's all the cult we have for you all this week But the fun continues Leander Cany is on
58:10
Twitter Elcanny Thanks for our very very special guest this week Sam is on Masttodon Blue Sky Twitter and Threads
58:18
for I all four apparently I don't know why at Sam Henry Gold That's Henry
58:24
spelled with an I I am on Macedon and Blue Sky Griffin Jones And you can join the weeklong discussion with me and all
58:30
the other gubs in the cult club discord by going to support.thecult.com Be sure to subscribe to the Cult of Mac
58:36
today newsletter to get all our top stories in your inbox each and every day This has been the Cultcast the best 30
58:42
plus minute Apple conversation you're going to hear all week long New episodes of the Cultcast come out every Thursday
58:47
night I want to thank everyone for listening for watching and we will see you all next time Have a great weekend
58:53
Say goodbye everybody Bye-bye everybody Drive safe I love you
59:01
Did you check out that 20 that listen to the um the 20th anniversary podcasting anniversary of the best of 20 podcasts
59:07
Yeah we were the cult cast snubbed again Yeah I thought
59:13
I skipped it You know they were doing the usual um I can't remember what they called
59:20
serial individual this weekend right i'm I'm just thrilled that they
59:25
did not include any of the the manos here podcast Yeah Rogan And I if if they
59:32
included Joe Rogan on on the list I I think I would have to just throw my phone into a trash can They include Alex
59:40
Jennis after kicking him off the Apple podcast You You can't deny it was a significant
59:46
podcast He truly was speaking into a microphone
59:52
For for that we are positive [Music]
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