| Cult of Mac

Apple Vision Pro first impressions: Fab or fatally flawed? [The CultCast]

By

Apple Vision Pro on The CultCast podcast: The technology sound amazing!
The technology behind Apple Vision Pro looks amazing!
Image: Cult of Mac
WWDC23

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: The first impressions of Apple’s just-unveiled Vision Pro headset leave us mind = blown. Still, no matter how vivid the VR is … or how flawless the visionOS user interface is … or how “natural” the headset looks to be … can anything justify its $3,499 price tag?

Also on The CultCast:

  • The load of new Macs showcased at WWDC23 left us surprised — and just a little perplexed. Who exactly is the Mac Pro for?
  • The iPhone’s voice recognition receives marginal improvements in the first iOS 17 beta, and that gives us hope for the future.
  • Marquee features aside, iOS 17 brings a ton of tiny, thoughtful improvements.
  • The tally is in for last week’s WWDC23 predictions. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner!

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!)

10 awesome new features Apple didn’t talk about at WWDC23

By

Apple Didn’t Show You These
Apple didn’t have time to show you all the awesome features in iOS 17.
Image: D. Griffin Jones/Cult of Mac
WWDC23

Despite dumping massive engineering resources into its brand-new visionOS platform for the Vision Pro headset, Apple is bringing loads of new features to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS and even tvOS this year. Headlining features include NameDrop, StandBy, Journal, Live Stickers, pet tagging in Photos and blurring unsolicited nude pictures.

However, Apple didn’t have time during its jam-packed WWDC23 keynote this week to cover all the new features. Now that iOS 17 is out, here are some of the hidden gems people have discovered in Apple’s latest operating systems.

Apple health updates boost mind and body across platforms

By

New health features come to iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and watchOS 10.
New health features come to iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and watchOS 10.
Photo: Apple
WWDC23

At WWDC23, Apple said it’s adding a slew of new health features in iOS 17, iPadOS 17 and watchOS 10 that will help you take care of yourself physically and emotionally.

And while new mental health and vision features are coming across platforms, the more-general Health app finally arrives on iPad, as well.

How to improve security in Safari Private Browsing with iOS 17 and macOS Sonoma

By

How to make Safari Private Browsing much more private
Safari Private Browsing mode will soon get multiple new features to prevent online tracking.
Photo: Killian Bell/Ed Hardy
WWDC23

Private Browsing mode in Apple Safari will soon get even more secure. It’ll be locked against someone else accessing it, and incorporate new tools to prevent websites from tracking users.

The additional privacy features are coming in iOS 17, macOS Sonoma and iPadOS 17, all of which were unveiled at WWDC23 this week.

iOS 17 brings offline navigation to Apple Maps

By

iOS 17 brings offline navigation to Apple Maps
Apple Maps can route users to their destinations even without a cell signal.
Photo: Apple
WWDC23

Apple is fixing one of the biggest annoyances of Apple Maps on iOS 17. You can finally download maps for offline use, complete with turn-by-turn directions.

Google Maps has long offered the ability to download maps for offline use. This allows you to use the app for navigation even when not in network range.

The internet won’t stop ragging on Vision Pro’s price tag

By

Apple Vision Pro price tag: $3,499.
That $3,500 price tag certainly got people's attention.
Photo: Apple
WWDC23

The $3,499 price of Vision Pro, the long-awaited AR/VR headset Apple rolled out at WWDC23, startles some people. You can find audience reaction videos out there with audible gasps when the price was announced (including among Apple employees, some posts claim). And mainstream headlines are joining in, too.

And of course social media hasn’t let up on the jokey memes. See below for a few choice examples.

Apple opens the floodgates for Mac gaming

By

A lineup of Macs running The Medium
Porting PC games to the Mac just got “easier than ever before.”
Photo: Apple
WWDC23

A stealth announcement at WWDC23 is that Apple has significantly lowered the barrier of entry to port PC games to the Mac. A new Game Porting Toolkit “provides an emulation environment to run your existing, unmodified Windows game,” says Aiswariya Sreenivassan — a GPU, graphics and displays software engineer at Apple.

It’s a big gap to clear, which is why the Mac has been left behind in recent years. PC games are compiled for the Intel x86 architecture that the Mac just finished moving away from. The unified Apple silicon architecture bears little resemblance to the standard gaming PC with discrete graphics cards and memory. Apple’s Metal 3 library is very different from DirectX, Unity, Unreal and Vulkan — the usual suspects across the computing pond.

Apple’s new tools could open the floodgates for Mac ports of popular PC games. According to a game engine programmer I spoke with, the Game Porting Toolkit demo is “really impressive.” If the tools work as well in practice as in Apple’s demo, they “would be incredibly useful,” said the developer, who works for a major game developer and asked to remain anonymous.

Apple Design Awards go to 12 great apps and games

By

Six apps and six games won in six categories, chosen from 36 finalists.
Six apps and six games won in six categories, chosen from 36 finalists.
Photo: Apple
WWDC23

A dozen “best-in-class” apps and games took honors in the Apple Design Awards Monday at WWDC23. Winning development teams hailed from around the world, delivering innovative apps with great design, Apple said.

“Apps and games are integral to how we live, work, and play. At Apple, we love to recognize outstanding developers whose apps reflect incredible creativity and design excellence,” said Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations.

Hands on with iOS 17 Autocorrect and intelligent input improvements

By

iOS 17 Keyboard settings
Entering text gets a bit easier, with fewer typos, in iOS 17.
Graphic: Apple
WWDC23

Apple is souping up the systems for entering text into iPhone with iOS 17. Autocorrect is getting enhanced with AI for fewer typos, as part of multiple improvements to what Apple calls “intelligent input.” And Dictation is getting a boost that promises more-accurate voice recognition, too.

I tested the changes in the first iOS 17 beta. Here’s how well they work … so far.

Here’s how spatial user interfaces work in visionOS

By

UI elements of visionOS
visionOS has a rich library of user interface elements. That will set it above other headsets.
Photo: Apple
WWDC23

How does Apple’s new “spatial computing” platform visionOS work exactly?

At WWDC23 this week, Apple detailed a bunch of interesting tidbits about how the new Vision Pro headset works. Apple detailed how buttons look and behave in the spatial computer, how they are pressed without any physical controls, and how apps work in 3D.

Here’s how Apple’s spatial interface works.