Steve Jobs didn’t want an iPad mini. He hated the idea. The original iPad was the perfect size and anything smaller just wouldn’t be usable. He made fun of the tiny Android tablets already on the market, literally saying you’d have to shave down your fingers just to hit the tap targets, and that all they could run was blown up phone apps. An unbelievably ironic statement for reasons I’ll get into in a future video.
So, he had Apple focus on making the iPad 2 faster, thinner, and lighter, the iPad 3 Retina, and the iPad 4… fixing the iPad 3.
But then something interesting happened...
Steve Jobs didn’t want an iPad mini. He hated the idea. The original iPad was the perfect size and anything smaller just wouldn’t be usable. He made fun of the tiny Android tablets already on the market, literally saying you’d have to shave down your fingers just to hit the tap targets, and that all they could run was blown up phone apps. An unbelievably ironic statement for reasons I’ll get into in a future video.
So, he had Apple focus on making the iPad 2 faster, thinner, and lighter, the iPad 3 Retina, and the iPad 4… fixing the iPad 3.
But then something interesting happened. In January of 2011, Apple’s head of services, Eddy Cue, read an article on GigaOm. It was by Kevin Toffle, and it was titled Why I Just Dumped the iPad (Hint: Size Matters)
In the article, Kevin laid out why he still very much liked the OG 9.7-inch iPad, but also why he sold it and got a 7-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab instead. Basically, it was a play on the now famous iPhone-line — the best camera is the one you have with you. For Kevin, the best tablet was the one he could have with him, constantly, in the back pocket of his non-skinny, non-hipster jeans. There were trade-offs, for sure, but, for him, convenience won.
So, Eddy Cue went out, got a Samsung Galaxy Tab, and started using it. He didn’t like Android, obviously, or web browsing for some reason, but he liked email, books, and social media. And he emailed then chief operating officer, Tim Cook, head of iPhone and iPad software, Scott Forstall, and head of marketing, Phil Schiller and told them as much. And he talked to Steve Jobs about it as well. Several times.
Now, the one thing most wanna-be Steves forget about Jobs is that he wasn’t a dictator. He had strong opinions but he also hired smart people and expected them to have strong opinions — and arguments — as well. To change his mind when they knew they were right. Because if they were ever wrong… well, that’d be on them.
It happened with iTunes on Windows and it happened again with the iPad mini. They convinced him there was a market for smaller tablets, but also a threat from them, and if anyone was going to cannibalize the iPad with a smaller tablet, it was going to be Apple, dammit.
Then, as was so often the case, when Steve Jobs changed his mind, he changed it hard. Like Fast chase scene 180 furious spin hard. Going from not wanting and iPad mini to wanting it immediately. The fastest turn around of any new Apple hardware product at the time.
Sadly, Steve Jobs passed away in October of 2011, right after the introduction of the iPhone 4s. But the iPad mini was locked.. FTLs all spun up and go for jump.
Except… except for what could have been an almost insurmountable obstacle for Henri Lamiraux’s software team at the time. They’d done a marathon of sprints to get the original iPhone up and running for 2007, the App Store for 2008, the iPad for 2010, and the idea of having to make another entirely new interface size for 2012… it was a lot.
But, as luck would have it — or, more precisely, the serendipity that comes from smart, sustainable, scalable software decisions over time — they figured out that if they made it slightly bigger — 7.9-inches — they could scale the existing 9.7-inch iPad interface down to iPhone density, and it would still be usable. The bigger iPad-sized UI elements and touch targets just became smaller iPhone-sized UI elements and touch targets. That also meant all of the existing iPad apps, at least the ones that used Apple’s UIKit frameworks or respected the human interface guidelines for the iPad, would just work on the iPad mini. Giving it a huge advantage over tiny Android tablets and their still blown up phone apps.
That effectively flattened the software obstacles and it was go for launch. Well, race for launch, in typical Apple fashion at the time.
They couldn’t do a Retina display, because for chassis and cost reasons it was on second generation Apple A5 silicon, and the iPad 4 was only able to do it well with that many pixels with an A6X, but they’d get there by version 2. They could do a new, sleeker industrial design language though, the one that would only come to the regular iPad the following year with the first Air.
So, on October 23, 2012, at the California Theater in San Jose, Phil Schiller took to the stage and announced it — the iPad mini. Everything great about the original, with a shave and a haircut, all Pym-particled down in size. The most convenient iPad ever.
And, especially in the years before Apple started making big and bigger iPhones, they sold just a ton of smaller iPads.
And now, rumor has it, Apple is revving up their engines for the biggest iPad mini update ever. Maybe not an iPad Pro Pro, but… poetically, and iPad Air mini. I’ve got all the details for you right here, right now, so give it a click and I’ll see you in the next video.
M1 let Apple take the existing MacBook Air chassis and… rip out the fan, let the Mac mini run on max… basically forever, and make an iMac almost as thin as an iPad. But those are all ultra-low power implementations of Apple silicon. The ones that put the efficiency in performance efficiency. One year later, and we still don’t have any ultra-high power implementations. Any that put the performance first. Also, any with bigger displays, more ports, and higher memory and storage configs.
If you want a pro Mac, you still have to buy an Intel Mac… for now, or keep waiting for an M1X, probably until this fall at the earliest, next summer at the latest. So... should you keep waiting?
Photo Face. Photo Grid. Photo Share. Smarter Home. Status screen. Home Key. Car Key. Office Key. Hotel Key. All your IDs. Eventually. Super scribble. Editing schemes. Easy JIF GIF memes. Focus. Mindfulness. Respiratory rate. Health Trends. Tai Chi and Pilates bends. More always on. Better Contacts. Amazing Assistive Touch. And yes, Multiple timers. And more! It’s the watchOS 8 Public Beta. It supports every Apple Watch going back to the Series 3 and SE. You can install it now, but beta means beta, especially on the watch, so think twice, and then strap yourself in. Get it? (Sorry…!)
Portrait Watch Face
Always on, which makes the watch work… as a watch, now works well beyond the watch. On all sorts of apps, including third-party apps!
Some years, Apple has a bevy of new Watch faces for us. This year, they’re focusing on one main one — the Portraits Watch Face. It uses the depthy data from portrait mode photos shot on your iPhone to layer the time in between the subject and the background. It’s a cool effect, and given the popularity of the OG photo face, something a lot of people will love… to showcase their loves… significant other, child, maybe… pet?
I’m still waiting for a Photo variant of the Infographic face though. Basically, something I can customize the hell out of, so I can make my own Superman watch, or whatever, without giving up on all the complications I need. And yes, I will be asking for this every year until I get it. Because that’s what works.
Photos
There’s a new Photos app on the Watch. In addition to the traditional synced photos, you can also see memories and featured photos. Memories are even shown off in a new mosaic grid.
And if any of them catch your eye… or heart… you can easily share them over Messages or Email. Which is something I’ve ended up doing every damn day on the iPhone. So, I’m super happy to have it right on the Watch now as well.
Workouts
Pilates is making it’s way into Apple Watch workouts this year… and so is Tai Chi. And Apple seems to be doing this right, because the workout is fine for my mom doing her Yangjia Taijiquan movements, all slow and steady, but also for me getting my much more ballistic Chenjia on. Well done!
Messages
There’s a new, hybrid message composition board on the Watch that lets you switch between Scribble, dictation, and emoji. You can even edit dictations now by using the Digital Crown to move the cursor point. Yes, the Apple Watch got editing before ducking Twitter.
There’s a new Contacts app, so it’’s easier to browse, add to, even edit your connections right on your Watch. And yes please, because every step towards a fully independent Watch is a good one.
And you can also add the ultimate in high density inter-human communications, the final form of hieroglyphics and pictographic — JIF/GIFs and memes. Just enter a hashtag image and select from whatever’s trending.
Tim smiling at M1 iPad do jif gif
Actually, the G is silent…
Mindfullness
The new Mindfulness app on the Apple Watch doesn’t so much replace the previous Breathing app as it does… next level it.
The breathing part is more holistic now, bringing the mind and body together through Focus, which works the coolness and heat of your respiration in attentive cycle. Center, where you ground yourself through your belly, or Dan Tien in Taiji and Qigong parlance. And connect, where you concentrate on your chest and heart as you inhale and exhale.
And if you’re worried about forgetting anything while you’re breathing, you can now set multiple timers to remind you. Yes, the Apple Watch also got to multiple timers before the iPhone. Be mindful of that for next year, iOS!
Then there’s Reflect, which is… next next level. It’s more meditation meets positive affirmation meets… self discovery. You’re presented with a short, random concept for reflection and an animation to help you visualize at the same time.
It doesn’t just give you options, it gives you a gateway into regulating your feelings, your stress levels, your ability to deal with the world.
You can also quickly and easily set one of the new Focus Modes on your Watch, like Personal or Work, and it’ll propagate to your other devices. So, basically, shields up whenever you want.
I think it’s terrific Apple’s starting to help with mental health as well as physical and I can’t wait to see how far they can take this.
Trends
There’s also assistive touch, the mind-blowing, totally sci-fi new accessibility feature, which Apple pre-announced just before watchOS 8, and I covered in a previous video. Link in the description.
Also new in health are trends. That’s for new features like respiratory rate in sleep and walking steadiness — which leans on the iPhone sensors to try and prevent you needing the fall detection of the Apple Watch sensors.
Apple is just applying on-device trend analysis on all the health-related data your Watch and iPhone are collecting, so it can surface important changes, and give you and your doctor the best, most timely information possible.
IDs
The Apple Watch is getting Keys and IDs, just like the iPhone. I covered the basics in the iOS 15 beta video, link in the description, but I’m most looking forward to all of them on the Apple Watch. The ability to tap and go — or tap and enter — from your wrist just beats the pants pocket off of having to fish out and handle it on the phone.
Home
Beyond Home keys, there’s also a much improved Home app. Which, we’ve needed for a while. Apple nailed the Dick Tracy years ago, so now it’s all about the Tony Stark.
You get a current status board right at the top, accessories and scenes auto-sorted by relevancy, a dedicated area for any and all cameras, as well as a place for favorite rooms, accessories, and scenes.
You watch will also suggest relevant additional actions when a trigger occurs, even if they’re not part of an existing automation, like if the doorbell rings, unlocking the door and turning on the entrance lights.
Because the Watch display is so small, input so constrained, and interactions so brief, Apple is leaning on machine lifting to so just so much of the heavy lifting here.
New Safari Tab Bar. Tab Groups. Tabs Anywhere. Everywhere even. Universal Control for iPad… and Mac. AirPlay to Mac. AirPlay Speaker…from Mac. Spatial Audio with heads tracked. Shortcuts on Mac. New Books app. Hello screen savers and wall papers for all. Privacy indicators. Privacy Protections. Split View Swapping. And a ton. An imperial metric ton of iOS cross-over features. Day and freaking hallalulah date. It’s the macOS Monterey Public Beta. It supports the MacBook back to 2016, the MacBook Air and Pro back to 2015, the Mac mini back to 2014, the iMac back to 2015, the iMac Pro, and the Mac Pro back to the trashcan. You can download it now, but just remember — beta means beta, so don’t put it on anything mission critical. Now let’s do this!
Day and Date
Time was iPhones would get a bunch of fancy new features and it would take years if not never for them to come to the Mac. Well, not today software satan, not any more. Thank re-orgs, thank SwiftUI, thank Apple silicon, thank Federighi finally going full-on, Feighi-level Apple Cinematic Universe, whatever, but from FaceTime to Messages, SharePlay to Shared With You, Live Text to Translate, the vast majority of all the fancy new iOS features are now coming on time, and at the same time, to macOS. I covered all of them in the iOS and iPadOS beta videos, so I won’t recapitulate them here, but there’s some interesting Mac-specific tech going on as well.
Live Text only works on M1 Macs, not Intel, because Live Text is literally Live. Apple’s doing it on the fly in real time. No pre-prossessing and indexing, no server round-tripping. As soon as you encounter any image, new or old, including images on web pages, it gets sent to the Neural Engine and any and all text is made selectable and actionable. You could brute force around that with Intel, but not in real time and not without impacting the other work the CPU and GPU need to be doing at that time, any time you come across an image anywhere. It’s the whole reason Apple moved to their own silicon to begin with.
For Portrait Mode in FaceTime, Apple’s using the Neural Engine in the M1 chip to do a real-time… monocular depth estimation and segmentation masking, like the 2020 iPhone SE. You can toggle that and audio modes in Control Center. You can see up to 20 people in the new Grid view as well, and if you have more than that on your table read, the others will be rostered and rotated in as they speak.
There’s also a new hot mic indicator. Software, not hardware like the hot camera indicator, but it’ll show up next to Control Center on the menu, and above the Control Center interface when you expand it, so you can see exactly when and what is listening to you at any given time.
Because the Mac is a full-on multi-windowing environment, SharePlay on the Mac can be way less constrained… or just let you get way more distracted, than is possible on the iPhone or iPad.
And the Mac will even let you switch apps in Split View now without having to burn the whole thing down and start over again. Which… swoon. Can I get a finally?
Safari
Twenty years ago, Don Melton, Ken Kocienda, Richard Williamson and team kicked off the Alexander project at Apple. They forked KHTML, Konquerer, made the WebKit rendering engine, and the Safari web browser. Apple’s browser. Under the single, Quisats Harrach of zero regression. It doesn’t slow down. Ever.
With macOS Monterey, that obsession continues with a new tab bar. Which… I’ve actually been kinda hesitant about. I was very much old navigator yells at clouds when address bars and search fields were first conflated, and seeing Apple further conflate them with tab bars… I was screaming. In my heart.
But it’s working and it’s significantly reducing the amount of interface chrome… not Chrome, chrome, though that too… around my web content, which can never get enough pixels as far as I’m concerned. So, we’ll see how I feel come release.
What’s instant win for me is tab groups. Put all the pages you use together, all your web workflows, and then invoke them, switch between them, add new tabs to them, even share them, at any time. And if you have multiple Apple devices, they’ll sync between your Mac, iPhone, and iPad, so you can do all that from any of them.
The new Quick Note features, which I covered in the iPadOS video, is baked right in as well. You can jot down some thoughts, highlight some text, and the Quick Note will persist so you can revisit or update it any time you go back to a website.
Web extensions, which have been a bit of a mixed-as-in-everytime-they-update-they-disappear-until-I-jump-through-hoops-to-get-them-re-enabled-blessing for me on Big Sur, are going cross-platform with iPad and iPhone, which will not abide any such shenanigans, so fingers crossed that’ll all be fixed and fast.
And if you subscribe to iCloud+, which up until now just meant paying for extra iCloud Storage — or Apple One, Private Relay will help protect your identity from profilers on line. Basically, it hides the address of the website you’re going to from your ISP, and your IP address from the website you’re going to, and any data harvesters they’re connected to. I have a whole entire deep dive video up on that that I’ll link in the description, because it’s super cool.
Universal Control
With Universal Control, you can use your Mac to control your iPad, two iPads, an iPad or Mac… you get the idea.
It’s not a screen take-over like Sidecar or a projection like AirPlay. It’s not turning your iPads or other Mac into secondary or tertiary displays. iPads stay iPads. Macs stay their own Macs. You can just use a single Mac keyboard, mouse, or trackpad to control the iPads or other Mac.
It’s instant setup if you drag your mouse cursor from your Mac and keep dragging in the direction of your iPad or Mac, but you can also configure a static or frequent combo in System Preference for literally zero setup.
Then you can just point, click, swipe, type, open, close, drag, drop, across both devices, multiple desktops — it’s just the biggest escalation in Apple’s continuity system… ever.
Of course, there’s a lot more going on, especially behind the scenes for privacy and security, and I’ve got a whole entire video up on that as well, link in the description.
AirPlay to Mac
AirPlay for Mac lets you stream video from your iPhone, iPad, or other Mac, to any Mac. Just pick it the way you would any AirPlay source, and use your Mac like… it was a television attached to an Apple TV.
It’s not Target Display mode, the late, lamented hardline that let you use an iMac as a second screen for your Mac. That’s been lost to frame stitching for 5K displays, as least for now. This has higher latency to ensure sync. Which you can minimize but doing it hard over a USB cable if you want to.
But if that’s not a deal breaker for you, and for many applications it may not be, then you absolutely can use it to take over your iMac’s screen with your Mac’s screen. Or just beam something from your iPhone to your much bigger Mac screen.
You can use it to mirror or extend your display. And if you don’t want or have video, you can even target your Mac as an AirPlay 2 speaker for audio.
I’ve been wanting it, asking for it for years, and now it’s here. Hurrah.
Spatial Audio
Spatial audio with dynamic head tracking works on the Mac now, kinda like how it does on the iPhone and iPad. I say kinda because the Mac does’t have the same sensors, so the system is just assuming the direction you’re looking most of the time is where the screen’s at, and then basing the dynamic off any and all changes from that.
Clever Apple.
More
There are new Hello screen savers and desktop wallpapers for everyone, not just the new iMacs.
On device and continuous dictation for M1 Macs that’ll personalize to you over time.
A new collaboration folder in the Finder and a new circluar progress meter for file copies that you can use to stop and resume larger files, at your leisure.
Low power mode lets you tip your Macs balance between performance and efficiency decidedly towards efficiency.
And there’s a built in Authenticator for two-factor security tokens so you no longer have to rely on just a password or use the easy to SIM-swap SMS system to protect your accounts. There’s even an iCloud Passwords app for the web, and an Edge Extension for Windows users in the Edge Store. Satya Microsoft asks, Tim Apple answers!
He even asks Craig Software to ship macOS virtualization for Apple Silicon.
In addition to the accessibility features Apple previously announced this year, the Mac is also getting custom mouse pointers. Set you own outline and fill colors so you can more easily make it out as it moves and changes modes.
There’s also better support for full keyboard access so you can do way, way more without having to switch to a mouse or trackpad.
You can factory restore your Mac, blowing away all content and settings without having to re-install macOS. It destroys the T2 or M1 encryption keys so your stuff is just gonner than gone gone. Summary deresolutioned.
Shortcuts
Hey, here’s something interesting about Shortcuts for Mac — It’s not a catalyst app, not UIKit for Mac. It’s a full on Macity Mac app. All AppKit under the covers and SwiftUI on top.
Which is… interesting for a whole number of reasons, but mostly how SwiftUI seems to staking its claim as the future of cross-Apple apps… staking it right through the heart of catalyst, just maybe?
Either way, anyway. You can use Shortcuts on Mac just like Shortcuts on iOS. To take any tasks you need to do more than two or three times a day, or any tasks that require two or three more clicks than you otherwise have the patience to give them. Just let Shortcuts do the heavy lifting.
And if you’re new to Shortcuts, Apple has a gallery full of the basics to get you started, and maybe inspire you to more cunning and complex Shortcuts of your own.
Here’s something else interesting about Shortcuts for Mac — it’s the start of a multi-year transition from ye old automations of yore to the bold, bright future of workflows. What that means for now, though, is that Automator is still around, and you can import your existing automations into Shortcuts to prepare them for that future.
Then you can use Spotlight, the Finder’s context-sensitive preview pane, the menu bar, even the dock — in other words, just exactly where you’d expect to find them on the Mac.
SharePlay. Screen share. Shared with You. FaceTime for everyone. Focus… for anyone. Status. Notification summaries. More better Maps, Notes, and Weather. Much better Safari. IDs. Keys. On-device Siri. Live Text and wide translate. Lens… I mean look up! Brighter Spotlight. More musical memories. Health Sharing. Mobility Caring. Privacy Reports. Mail Protection. Private Relay. Legacy. Recovery. Authenticator. And… so much more. It’s the iOS 15 Public Beta. It supports every iPhone going back to the 2015 6s and 2016 SE. Yes. Seriously. You can grab it now, but just remember — beta means beta, so always practice safe update and backup. Then buckle up!
Staying connected
Zoom won the pandemic. Wasn’t even close. It got verbed. But thanks to FaceTime’s ease of use, integration, and absence of continual security malfeasance, it also saw a ton of Apple’s to Apple’s usage as well. And that’s what’s being built on here.
There’s a new Grid View, because everyone floating and throbbing on screen is fun for a few minutes, but just way too much all day, every day. The Grid is currently limited to 6 people though, while group calls can still go over 30.
Spatial Audio, which builds a 3D sound stage around you, is being used to virtually place everyone in a group call relative to where they appear on the call, to help them sound clearer and more natural. And at this point, just spatial audio all the things.
You can turn on voice isolation, which is like the opposite of active noise cancelation, helping the other person hear what you’re saying without all the background clutter. Or, you can flip to Wide Spectrum, which is like the opposite of Transparency Mode, to amplyify every sound in your environment so the person you’re talking to can hear what you hear, like to better include them in a happy birthday party moment.
If you want to hide any personal items, or just the mess behind you, you can turn on Portrait Mode. The controls in general can be a little tricky to find, or can change state or place unexpectedly, so I hope Apple keeps iterating on it before release.
And all of that is available to third party apps as well, so Zoom or anyone else can use the built-in Portrait Mode if they want to, at least from release on. Apple’s really on overdrive this year when it comes to third-party integration for a bunch of the new features, which… you just really love to see it.
You can also create FaceTime links now and either share them or attach them to Calendar events. And, in addition to Apple devices, Android and Windows users can open them up on the web to join the call, no account or login needed. Anyone using the link needs to be approved by someone — anyone — already on the call, and if you accidentally social the link and anyone unintended joins, anyone already on the call has 30 seconds to yote them right back out again.
Then there’s SharePlay, which turns your FaceTime call into a group music or video experience. And yeah, you’ll need some family and friends on iOS 15 to use this with.
Everything is automatically in sync for everyone, all controls work for everyone, if anyone talks, the volume will adjust so you can promptly shush them and point them towards the built-in Messages functionality instead — as the laws of nature and decency demand. They can thank you later with new Memoji styles and poses.
For quick songs, TikToks, stuff like that, I think it’ll be great right on the iPhone. For longer form shows, movies, like TV or Disney+, especially Twitch streams, you can start them on your iPhone but watch them on the Apple TV, which I think will be a far better, more comfortable experience. And… kinda really sets the stage — and the tech — for shared VR and AR experiences one day, which has me all shades of hype.
Even though Apple’s making it available to all developers, there’s no YouTube yet, which would be legit great with this, no Netflix, and no Spotify… which for a company that complains so continuously always about lack of system access seems to never take that access when it’s offered. Victimy much?
You can also use SharePlay to screen share, and not just play. But pretty much anything and everything on your iPhone display. While you’re on FaceTime. It’s been available on the Mac since the elder days of iChat but on iOS, it’s just one of the biggest remaining finales ever. So many tech support trips across town saved… so many…
Finding Focus
Notifications are like the essential truth of the Vampire Lestat. Anyone making an informed choice will always want Notifications. And anyone deluged by Notifications will do almost anything to be rid of them forever.
Apple’s trying to help with this, again… again… by expanding Do Not Disturb into something more… nuanced…. Called Focus.
With Focus, you can select a preset like OG DND, Sleep, which has been around for a minute, first in Clock, then in Health, but is newly now integrated here, Personal, or Work, or you can roll your own.
At that point, it becomes like a force shield, bouncing off all interruptions except for the people and apps you specifically choose. And whether, to curb your anxiety… or just FOMO, you can choose whether or not to let time sensitive notifications through no matter what. Siri can even announce those for you if you have like a Workout focus and are off on a run with your AirPods. What’s considered truly time sensitive? Apps get to opt-into the integration but if they abuse it, you can opt them out, hard.
You can also go in and set different Home screens to show or hide based on the Focus, so your most available apps are the most appropriate for that Focus.
Once you invoke a Focus on one device, like your iPhone, it gets invoked across all your devices, like Watch, iPad, Mac… And anyone on the other side will see that you’re in DND and can wait and message you until you come out again, or if it’s urgent, choose to punch through your shield anyway. Which, again, should cut down on anxiety and FOMO when using it. And, if anyone abuses, give you the joy of muting or the excuse to full-on block them.
And I realize for some people, Focus may sound like… a lot. Like I already got a 12 jobs and my phone shouldn’t be one of them, which is why I got and damn iPhone to begin with, a lot. But Apple provides those sample Personal and Work focuses, and recommendations for people and apps, so it’s super easy, barely and inconvenience to get started. And you can always just stick to old school DND and no one will judge you. Except maybe Thomas Frank. Because Thomas Frank.
And since Apple’s given Notifications in general a fresh coat of icon and profile-pic paint, and will bundle up app notifications into a summary for you while keeping people notifications front-and-center, it’s more glanceable and manageable now either way.
Exploring the World
Maps is getting Apple’s version of Google Earth, at least the spinning globe part. More interestingly, a new, more detailed, more stylized city and driving experience, and a more immersive Augmented reality walking direction feature that lets you scan-to-place for step-by-step.
I hate to be the boy who cried future here, because it’s such a damn cliche, but this kind of tech is another example of Apple doing what needs to be in place today in order for us to have a very exciting tomorrow, and I just can’t wait for that day to get here.
Same with IDs in Wallet. I know… I know it’s going to feel like forever for every state, province, and region to add licenses, known traveler, and other documents to Apple’s system, but at least it’s starting.
ID uses the same security as Apple Pay, so you need Face ID, Touch ID, or your passcode to authenticate your ID. And if your phone was previously locked, and someone takes it when you’re presenting your ID, they can’t unlock it any further than Wallet without your Face ID, Touch ID, or passcode. And if you get particularly bad vibes, you can always squeeze the power and volume buttons to crash the west wing… I mean throw away the hardware keys, disable biometrics, and lock everything else down until you re-enter your passcode or password. Which will require you having physical control of your phone again.
Fold in home, office, and hotel keys, and we’re one step closer to living our best physical card free life.
I’m going to cover Safari properly in the macOS preview, because long video already long, but unique to the iPhone version is the new bottom-loaded tab bar… which is great for one handed-ease of use, so you can coffee talk and walk while browsing way better, but as currently implemented it just jumps around too much and adds way more cognitive load and interface spelunking than it ought to. I’m hoping Apple spends more time with it prior to release to just zero-regression it like every version of Safari has been mandated to do since the beginning of time. Or Alexander. Or whatever! It should be the same rules as Apple Watch — every interaction as fast as WebKit possible..
Privacy
Apple pre-announced the new accessibility features this year, so I’ve already got a video up on those. Also some of the new privacy features, like a full on Private Relay deep-dive. Which comes with iCloud+, the new name for the extra storage tiers, only now with more than just extra storage. So if you have that, or Apple One, you have Private Relay, and also Hide My Email, which lets you use rando Sign-in-with-Apple styles addresses instead of your own personal one; Custom domains for your iCloud email, shareable with your whole family, and even HomeKit secure video storage that does’t count against your iCloud limit.
Also, because for most regular human type non-InfoSec or high value target type people, having our photos stolen is far less of a concern than losing those photos forever, Apple is adding both Account Recovery Contacts and Digital Legacy Contacts.
You pick one or more people you trust to help you get back into your account if you’re ever locked out, and the same or different people to gain access to your data in the event of your death. Apple’s not first to this by any means, but it’s important that they’re doing it.
With Find My, you can now see family and friends in real time, so less frustration when trying to track each other down at Disney. You can also get separation alerts for devices, including AirTags, so you leave no bag behind.
Plus, you can locate devices that have been powered down for up to 24 hrs, even ones that have been erased but are still Activation Locked. And they’ll say they’re activation locked and trackable, in case some brainiac tries to sell them quick. Either way, remember you’re not batman, don’t even lose your life to find your phone.
Using Intelligence
Apple’s on-device intelligence team has just been Hulk-smashing it over the last few years, and this year in particular with Live text. It’s one of my favorite new features ever. And yes, sure, Google has had Lenses since at least 1812, but I like having it, and Translate, system-wide now on iOS. And I all-caps LOVE the way it works because just like the name says on the tin — it’s really, truly live.
That means it’s not scanning and indexing text in the background, it’s not round-tripping to any servers. The machine learning models and Apple Neural Engine cores are just tearing through it all on-device and in real time. And it’s something!
Open a photo with text in it, whether it’s typed or hand written, it’ll make it live. Open the camera, don’t even take a photo, same thing. Go to a webpage with a picture on it… you get the idea. Live Text has a particular set of machine learned skills, and if you come across an image, it will look for text, it will find it, and it will… kill… at making that text selectable, copyable, even actionable for you. Like see a link, click it. See a number, call it. I sometimes can’t even tell what’s Safari any more and what’s a screen shot in Photos. It’s trippy.
The on device computer vision system can also identify objects in photos now as well, and look them up using Siri’s knowledge system. It’s like the first, primitive, dragged from the primordial AI and AR ooze stage of a full on JARVIS HUD system. What? A nerd can and will dream!
All of this is now integrated into Spotlight search, as it should be, and you can access that right from the Lock Screen if that’s how you want to roll.
Even Siri’s living its best life now with improved sequential inference to better keep context during conversation, and — hold onto your bits — on-device speech recognition and offline query processing. That means Siri doesn’t have to round-trip to Apple’s servers for the basics any more, which not only removes a particularly annoying previous point of failure, but makes the whole system feel much more responsive. Like the move from Intel to M1 more responsive.
Apple’s also added a feature I’ve personally spent many a WWDC lobbying for in person, ever since they added Remember This a few years back — Share this. Basically, whatever you could remember, you can now share. Photos, web pages, just ‘Hey, share this’, name your target and it’s shared.
They’re a few of the critical first steps Apple has to take to… never mind make dominate like Kramer in Karate, but just make Siri competitive again in the assistant space.
Multitasking menu. Center Window. Window Shelf. App Switcher on super soldier serum. Keyboard shortcuts… on Hulk serum. Widgets unleashed. App Library added. Quick Notes. Tag Notes. Text magnifier… ish. Watch together, listen together, SharePlay, Screen Share, Shared with You, Focus, Status, Notification Summaries, Better Maps, way better Safari, Live text, Look Up, Spotlight done right, Musical Memories, Swift Playgrounds from UI and App Store, Universal Control, Privacy Protection, iCloud+, IDs, accessibility, and so much more. It’s the iPadOS 15 public beta. It supports iPad mini back to G4, iPad back to G5, iPad Air back to G2, and iPad Pro back to the OG. You can get it now, but just remember — beta means beta, so backup for you download, and then letsgooooo….
Catch up
I’m guessing Apple just ran out of time last year and couldn’t bring a well-thought-out, screen-size optimized version of Widgets and App Library to both the iPhone and iPad at the same time. And like the Batman, iPhone always wins.
So, this year we’re getting just exactly that thought-out, big screened version, that also sports a new bigger widget size and support for the Home Screen rotation unique to the iPad, and an App Library icon on the Dock.
Just like the iPhone, you can now hide Home Pages you’re not using, and lean on Spotlight and App Library for your lesser used apps. Even if search and categorization can still be a bit… funky at times.
There are some new widgets, for Find My, Contacts, Mail, App Store, Game Center and more.
And… yeah, our long national iPad Home Screen nightmare is now officially over and we can move on.
Multitasking
No, you still can’t bootcamp into macOS on your iPad, or run it in a virtual machine, as interesting, tantalizing even, as all of that might well be. But Apple has seriously improved the multi-windowing experience on iPadOS itself.
It’s something they’ve been experimenting with for a few years now, and has gone from frustratingly limited to consternatingly fussy and overloaded. But now… now… Apple’s had another take-a-pencil-to-space moment of realization… and decided to a multitasking menu button to every window. And it’s so good!
Go to an app, tap the button, pick between split-view, slide-over, and the new center window, if it’s an option, and you’re off and productivizing, or creatoring, or however you multi do you.
It makes it super easy, not gonna say it again, to create app pairs, and to change them. Just touch the multitasking menu button, hold, and pull down. Then replace that app with the next one you want.
There’s also a new Shelf mechanic now that shows all the open windows from the same app. It’ll disappear when you’re working, come back when you tap the Multitasking menu button, and you can use it to quickly and easily swap to any of those open windows.
You can also create and change app pairs right in the App Switcher now as well, which is great. And you can even use the keyboard for full on multitasking and navigation now, which is greater. Like… Shakespeare the way it’s meant to be done greater.
The Globe key is also now an extra modifier, for even more options, and when you hold Command down to see your keyboard options, you can search to find exactly what you need.
Universal Control
In the biggest escalation of Continuity… ever… If you have a Mac, you can now use it to fully control your iPad. Up to two of your iPads, if you want. It’s not Sidecar, because your iPad stays an iPad, you can just keep your hands on your Mac’s keyboard and mouse or trackpad to use it.
I’ve done a whole entire explainer video on how exactly it works already, and I’ll link it in the description.
SharePlay
The iPad is getting all the same new FaceTime and Messages features as the iPhone, including SharePlay. I covered all the basics in the iOS 15 video, link in the description, but the longer form video experience is certainly more captivating on the bigger iPad display. Which also lets you fit 20 people into the new grid view, much more than the 6 that fit on the iPhone. So, you know, if you and the rest of your Hamilton cast want to jam about a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot
In the Caribbean… or, whatever.
Ditto the new Focus modes, which lets you set up customized do-not-disturb settings for different people and apps, even Home Screen pages, that you can turn on or off from your iPad or any Apple device, but work across all your devices. Again, more in the iOS 15 video.
Likewise, Safari is getting a slew of updates that I’ll be covering in the macOS Monterey video.
Swift Playgrounds
Swift Playgrounds though, is absolutely all about the iPad. New this year is the ability to design in SwiftUI, Apple’s next-generation, cross-device interface builder. And, in the biggest finally in the history of enormous finales, you can now publish right from Swift Playgrounds to the App Store.
In other words, you can finally make iOS apps on iOS. We lived to see it!
And yeah, sure, it’s not Xcode for iPad, at least not yet. But combined with the new Xcode Cloud, we’re closer than ever.
More
There’s a ton more as well, including all the new Maps, Accessibility, an privacy features. Which I covered in the iOS 15 video. But also some new gaming features.
iPadOS can buffer the last 15 seconds of your game play, so you can capture your best moves using game controllers, including the new support for Xbox Series XS and PS5 controllers.
Game Center lets you bring in your most recent contacts from messages, and there’s a new Game Center friend request inbox.
Quick Notes
Along with Live Text & Translate, which I’m going to do a whole entire explainer on soon, Apple is also making Notes into a system-wide… extra-dimensional pocket Notes universe, with Quick Notes.
Just swipe diagonally up to invoke the floating Quick Notes window, and then you can throw in text, handwriting, sketches, whatever you need. Even links, which then creates persistent context for that Quick Note, that you can go back to whoever you want. Even on the web, where you can highlight, matching pages to your notes. You can even share them with friends, family, and colleagues, @mention people.
Quick Notes sync across iPad, Mac, even iPhone, and you can find them in their own little pocket universe or in the main Notes app any time.
And, I love it, it’s like a whole meta commentary layer on the app and web universes. Only drawback is that it’s limited to Apple’s Notes for now, but given how integration-happy Apple’s been lately, after their usual year of stress-testing, it’s not hard to imagine them making it available to other Notes providers.
If the built-in Notes is your jam, though, you can now draw on images, which yes thank you, and — and — Apple has bought back the magnifier for text editing. It lets you move the cursor position around with your finger and actually see where you’re moving it. It’s just… nowhere nearly as good looking or well magnified as it used to be, so fingers crossed Apple gives it lots more love before release.
Apple’s also adding tags this year, along with a tag-browser and Smart Folders based on the tags. The aforementioned @mentions for collaboration, along with an activity view and highlights to track those collaborations.
That’s not just for Notes but also for Reminders, which also gets Siri announcements for AirPods, and improved Natural Language input.
About all it needs now is the ability to machine learn tasks it knows I’m never going to do, and silently remove them over night so I don’t feel so damn guilty the next day, every day.
For the vast, vast majority of apps and workflows — the vast majority of people — not only won’t a 5 GB RAM limit on iPad Pro apps ever be an honest-to-Jobs, actual, real-world type problem, but odds are you won’t even notice it. Much less be irked by it. At least if people didn’t publish first, research second… or never. Which irks me, obviously.
For some very specific apps, though, you absolutely will notice. iPad apps like Procreate that can benefit from more layers, which do indeed require more RAM.
It’s for those very specific types of iPad apps that Apple’s adding this very specific new entitlement. So they can check system resources, see how much extra memory is currently available, and then request and get more of that memory to use.
So, the iPad is fundamentally different from the Mac. We can tell by them having different names and all.. When the Mac comes under memory pressure, when too many apps are asking for too much RAM, more than what the system’s hardware can happily provide, macOS starts to page out to disk. Basically swapping bits back and forth, from RAM to SSD, as required.
iPadOS — iOS — has no such concept of swap. It is… swapless. Back in the day, it just consumed too much power, wore down too much storage, and didn’t provide the utterly instant experience Apple wanted for the iPhone and then the iPad.
So, instead, when the iPad comes under memory pressure, when you do something in the foreground app that asks for more RAM than what the system’s hardware can happily provide, iPadOS does a jetsam— just kicks, jettisons, yotes a background app or several — kills them just to watch them die… to free up memory for the foreground apps.
Now, the iPad nothing may only have 3GB of RAM and cost barely over 300 bucks, but the iPad Pro can go up to 8, even 16GB and starts at $800. So why not let it be all that it can be?
Well, they do. Kinda. Sorta. It’s less than ideal from a Mac point of view but it works for the iPad.
Because you can have multiple big apps in-memory and keep them instantly responsive, all at the same time.
So, like a rage-baity poster type person can have Safari with a few tabs ready to re-post and the socials or CMS open on the left, Procreate with a bunch of layers going on the right. This video running picture-in-picture without dropping a frame, and Messages in slide over so they can trash talk what I’m saying to any friends or fellow poster who also does’t happen to know or particularly care how the iPad actually works, because so damn lazy for clout-traps.
But I digress. With 8 or 16GB, you can also multitask through a bunch of different apps, even big cross-compiled games and data-heavy social networks, without having any of them relaunch, or any Safari tabs reload. Especially on the 16GB iPad Pro. Sometimes for days.
And for the vast, vast majority of apps and workflows — the vast majority of people — not only won’t a 5 GB limit ever be an honest-to-Jobs, actual, real-world type problem, but odds are you won’t even notice it. Much less be irked by it. At least if people didn’t publish first, research second… or never. Which irks me, obviously.
For some very specific apps, though, you absolutely will notice. Apps like Procreate that can benefit from more layers, which do indeed require more RAM.
It’s for those very specific types of apps that Apple’s adding this very specific new entitlement. So they can check system resources, see how much extra memory is currently available, and then request and get more of that memory to use.
And because someone who’s working on a mountain of layers in Procreate is probably focused entirely on Procreate, and not bouncing as much between other windows or apps, Apple’s going to let that foreground, focused app, just be super RAM thirsty, at least for as long as you stay focused on it.
But the app has to be able to handle it when and if you do decide to bounce and start doing something else, and that memory being taken away as fast as it was given, because iPadOS’ priority is still making everything you do feel instantly, utterly responsive.
So if you see a bunch of articles or tweets complaining about the RAM limit, just laugh and click out of them, because they only cared about the what so far as they could rage-bait you for monetization, not the why in order to provide you with value. But If you see articles or tweets explaining it, even if they hate it, even if they suggest different limits, or swapping jetsam… for swap, give them a read and some well-earned attention, because they did their damn job and gave you that value.
Side-loading on iOS — on iPhone and iPad — is back in the news thanks to Apple's new white paper on the risks and dangers, because of the pressure they're facing from U.S., E.U., and... nerds like me and you. Here's what's going on!
Side-loading on iOS. It is back in the news, front and center again. And it's something I've actually been doing a lot of thinking about in general. Originally, I just thought, sure, allow side-loading. Do it like Gatekeeper on the Mac, where by default, it's App Store only, but you can go into settings and you can switch it to allow developer certificate apps to be installed outside the App Store, or just allow any app to be installed. But I started realizing that I'm a traditional computer user. I've been using computers since before I can remember using anything else. And a lot of the people talking about this issue are traditional computer users. They are people in the media, people on Twitter, people on YouTube, who just grew up steeped in computers, traditional computers, and consider every device, everything that we use should be, should work like a traditional computer.
But that is only one very, very narrow point of view, and one that often lacks an enormous amount of empathy and consideration for people who are not traditional computer users, which perhaps ironically, ends up being a huge part of the market for iOS devices, the people for whom iOS devices were literally designed and intended. If we go back to the early days of the App Store, when Steve jobs first presented the iPhone SDK, he made it really 100% super crystal clear that what he was suggesting, what Apple was building, was not a traditional computer with the iPhone and the iPad that followed it, but something much more analogous to an app console.
And I know that really ruffled some people's feathers and they say that, the iPhone shouldn't be a console, that, "I bought it. "I should be able to do what I want with it." And I'm not arguing that. I'm not arguing whether it should be or not. I'm just saying that from design, from inception, it was not, it deliberately, specifically was not. It was designed to be a console in every sense of the word, the same way an Xbox was designed to be a console as something different from the gaming PCs that Microsoft already dominated. Something like a Nintendo box or a PlayStation box. It was designed to be something much more familiar and much more forgiving, something much simpler and easier for the mainstream public, for the people for whom even a Macintosh, as user-friendly as it was, was still too much of a traditional computer, was still too confusing, too intimidating, too inaccessible. People for whom finding and downloading and doing everything with apps was still a huge challenge, a huge problem. Nevermind, removing those apps, if they were bad or simply wrong for them. The App Store was designed to take a myriad of web portals and retail software experiences, and different vendors, and pricing models, and support infrastructures, and installers, and uninstallers, and just make one simple place on device where you could push a button and get an app and then hold down jiggle and delete that app. And that was it. That was all it ever took. That's how the App Store was designed.
And now there's just an incredible amount of pressure from geeks, nerds, tech aficionados like ourselves, but also companies like Epic, and regulators like the US government and the European Community to change that. And I've been trying to think this through, and that's why I'm having this conversation with you because I'm really interested in your point of view. I want you to help me figure this out because on one side, I do want everything that I own to be a traditional computer. If the iPhone and the iPad worked like a Mac, it would be absolutely no problem for me, but I think it might end up being a problem for everybody who's not me. And I don't wanna do one of those things where I mistake my opinion for a majority opinion just because it's mine. Because I do think that we do represent the minority opinion here because we have grown up so steeped in traditional computing technology and everybody who just hates that.
And I'm not saying dumb people by any stretch of the imagination. Some people might just find computers in general challenging, but others could be mega super geniuses, the lawyers and doctors, and architects, and scientists who just have zero interest in or patience for the trappings of a traditional computer and they look at an iPhone or an iPad as a simple communications device or a simple tool. Simple as in it does what they want them to do with no fuss, no muss, no baggage or luggage built around it. They just turn it on. They open the app they wanna use, and they turn it off. And there's nothing they ever have to worry about. And I know the classic pushback on that is why can't we have both? Why can't the default be for the mainstream, for the masses, but have that web iOS style Konami Code that puts me into developer mode, or as John Gruber suggested, have people with developer accounts get the equivalent of a developer fuse device that can do more than just the mainstream device can do. And the problem is that doors always open both ways. It's the same argument that you have literally with backdoors versus no backdoors is that once you create these processes, they will be used. It really could be anything. It could be school is just forcing you to side-load an app if you are a student there, companies forcing you to side-load an app if you work there, government's forcing you to side-load apps, saying if you wanna play Fortnite, for example, you've got a side-load an app for that, or people being told something's not available in their region, but they can get it if they're willing to side-load it. Once the potential exists, it will be both used and abused.
And that's sort of like when people mention problems with side-loading for all the opportunity that comes with it in equal and opposite risk. Those apps that you are forced to download, or tricked into downloading, or become desperate and download, they don't have any of the requirements of the App Store for review, for example, or any of the malware scans. They don't have to follow any of the privacy policies of the App Store. Everything that Apple has spent the last decade architecting up to and including all the app privacy protections and privacy labels, all of those things, they don't exist in a side-loading model. So the app that your school or work or government forces you to side-load could be surveilling you, or the version of the game that you get either knowingly or unknowingly is pirated, or it's not available in your region, you download it.
And it is festooned with malware, or spyware, or adware, it just opens up all of these vectors for abuse that don't exist if their side-loading is not allowed, just some total across the operating system. And right now, the way that iOS exists, that is not a problem that any normal person has to ever face. Yes, there have been issues with enterprise certificates. Facebook famously got caught by Apple abusing an enterprise certificate to get people to download a surveillance client so they could monitor everything they were doing on their phones. And there've been other examples. There's been jailbreak over the years as well. That required a little bit of technical skill to get into,. But if an official process exists, it is something that can and will be socially engineered, peer pressured, motivated, in ways that it simply cannot be on iOS right now. And this is where I sort of get into part of my dilemma. And that is over choice because everybody here is arguing about choice. I should have the choice to install the apps that I want on my device. I should have the choice to use the App Store or not use it.
And I'm just not sure if that choice should be per platform or across platforms. And what I mean by that is should we as consumers have the choice to side-load apps on iOS or not side load them? Side-load apps on Android or not side-load them? Or should that choice be, I use iOS because I don't want side-loading and I wanna be protected against even the potential of side-loading. Or I use Android where I can side-load. Is that enough of a choice? And if side-loading is forced on Apple, because it's clear Apple doesn't want and Apple believes it's a huge, sure, security risk on one side, but also a risk to their control of the app economy on the other side. But if it's forced on Apple, does that increase consumer choice because now iOS people have the option to side-load? Or does it decrease consumer choice because now people who want nothing to do with side-loading have absolutely nowhere to go? And that part does concern me because we as traditional computer aficionados, I'm trying not to use the word geek as often as I have been, but we already have so many choices. We have windows, and Android, and macOS, and Linux, and Unix, and all the other nixes out there. We have our choice from amongst half a dozen to a dozen other viable operating systems and operating systems across a gamut of phones and tablets, and computers.
But mainstream users, people who do not want the cruft of traditional operating system or in their minds, the perils even of when they really have only iOS and Chrome OS. And it feels like at some level, we're taking that away from them. We're reducing their choices down to nothing just because we like the sexiness of Apples, iPhone and iPad hardware. And I have some ideas about what Apple could do instead of allowing side-loading things involving the way transactions are handled or currently not handled on the web, or the amount of commission charged to developers. But that would make this already long video even longer.
Universal Control. Your Mac runs your iPad. Your Mac runs… your other Mac. It’s just… Total. Ecosystem. Escalation. And this is how it works…
Time was, if you slid your iPad up next to your Mac, and you wanted to control it, you had to reach over and do it directly… tap, type, swipe… Like an animal.
Now, with the upcoming macOS Monterey and iPadOS 15, you can just take it over with Universal Control.
Time was, if you slid your iPad up next to your Mac, and you wanted to control it, you had to reach over and do it directly… tap, type, swipe… Like an animal.
Now, with the upcoming macOS Monterey and iPadOS 15, you can just take it over with Universal Control. It’s a Continuity technology, like Handoff, Universal Clipboard, and Sidecar. And, it has the exact same requirements as Sidecar in terms of Bluetooth radios and Apple custom accelerator chips. But, basically, if you can use Sidecar, you can use Universal Control.
And then… let’s say you have your MacBook and you get a shiny new iPad, and log into it with your Apple ID. As soon as those two devices come into proximity, they’ll pair using Bluetooth Low Energy, or BTLE.
The pairing is done out-of-band, which means separate from any other communications, and end-to-end encrypted using Apple’s Push Notification Service protocol – APNs, which is the system responsible for all the internet-based notifications you get on all your devices.
So… just imagine your MacBook and iPad start sending these secret little iMessages between them to set things up for you.
Once the pairing happens, each device generates a symmetric key that’s encrypted using 256-bit AES, — Just… really strong encryption — and each stores it in its own Keychain, which is the system Apple uses to securely store credentials like passwords.
Those keys are then used to encrypt and authenticate the BT LE broadcasts between the devices.
Apple also measures time of flight, or how long the transmissions take between the devices, to make sure your iPad really is close to your Mac, in other words you have physical possession and oversight of both devices, but also to make sure some theoretical evil-doer isn’t sitting in the middle, trying to record the broadcast on one end and relay or replay it to another device on the other end.
Once the pairing is established and secured, your devices will then use Bluetooth LE to advertise their current activity, protected by 256-bit encryption, in Galois/Counter or GCM Mode, which helps balance security and performance.
And not just to sync data, like you’d see with Google Docs open on two computers at the same time. But activity and state.
It’s how you can start an email on your iPhone, tap the Continuity Email icon on your Mac, and not have to go look for the app or to a website and navigate to the file you want to open, and then scroll to where you left off, but just one tap or click and you’re e taken right to that email, right to the exact spot, ready and able to continue typing immediately.
Or how you can take a screenshot on your iPhone, hit copy, and instantly paste it into a doc on your Mac. Or some text. Or vice versa.
And it’s how you can drag the cursor on your Mac to the edge of the screen, keep on dragging, and have it pop up on your iPad.
And that’s it. You’re in Universal Control mode. That’s all. Zero setup.
Now, yes, you do have to start the drag on you Mac… which… is a drag. You can’t initiate Universal Control on the iPad, at least not yet.
But once you start the drag on your Mac, the way Apple figures out where your iPad is relative to your Mac is very… take a pencil into space.
I’m sure they prototyped all sorts of time-of-flight and acoustic pattern models to actually figure out where exactly in time and space each device is relative to the other, and I’m just as sure that eventually every device will have a U1 or similar chip in it, which will just know where every other things is… always.
But for now, Apple is just counting on us to know. That the direction we drag the cursor is the direction of the iPad.
And sure, that means we’ll see some prank videos and articles of people deliberately dragging the wrong way and saying ha ha, silly Apple, it’s all broken! And just, ok fellow kids.
When you drag your cursor to the edge of your Mac screen, and keep dragging, the continuity system detects that through everything I just described, and your iPad responds by bringing up a special… cursor membrane indicator on the side that’s close to your Mac.
And, yeah, if you just happen to be captain iPad or Ozimandias or something, and have multiple iPads setup on the same side of your Mac, it’ll just assume you want to use whichever of those iPads you last used. Whichever last registered activity on the Continuity system.
Apple then switches from Bluetooth LE to their own peer-to-peer don’t-call-it-Wi-Fi-direct ad hoc wireless connection, similar to how it handles AirDrop or Handoff or Sidecar. That connection is encrypted using TLS, which exchanges and verifies iCloud identity certificates, and, from then on, sends any large data payloads over Wi-Fi because so much faster. What I’m not sure about just yet is whether or not that connection persists, like an encrypted, encoded Sidecar stream, or is created opportunistically and temporarily only when large amounts of data are being transferred. So… TBD.
Either way, any way, tt that point, you can swipe straight through and just start controlling your iPad, or, you can use that initial cursor indicator — the Mac… or iPad icon on it — to adjust the level for the cursor, so if you iPad is slightly higher or lower than your Mac, you can set what you want to be considered level, so when you begin swiping back and forth, the cursor stays exactly where you expect it to.
Either way, from then on, your Mac mouse or trackpad can control your iPad as if it were the iPad’s mouse or trackpad. It doesn’t take over the display like AirPlay or Sidecar and make it another display for your Mac, it’s still your iPad in every way, you’re just controlling it with your Mac.
One trackpad and keyboard to rule them all.
Universal Control also acts a visual interface for Universal Clipboard, so instead of having to copy something on your iPad and paste it on your Mac, you can just drag it from your iPad and drop it right onto your Mac. And pretty much anything you can drag, you can drop.
You can also slide in another iPad on the other side if you want, or, say, another Mac, a fancy new M1 iMac, whatever. Then you can control everything with either one of the Macs trackpads, mouses, or keyboards. Even drag and drop across any and all desktops.
Now, if that’s not what you want. If you want to just take over the iPad screen, you have Sidecar for that. Works the same as always. You just click on the display preferences on the Mac, select your iPad as the Sidecar target, and then your iPad becomes a suped-up second display for your Mac. Send a second, virtual display to your iPad using an encrypted encoded stream. Using pretty much the same technology I just described, Bluetooth LE for initial handshake, and then point-to-point Wi-Fi for serious data transfer.
But now, also new with macOS Monterey, your Mac can become a second display for another Mac or even an iPad or iPhone… with AirPlay for Mac. It basically just turns your Mac display into an AirPlay target, like an Apple TV attached to a TV. That uses AES encryption for either a video stream or mirroring. As long as you’re on the same network, and you authenticate a verify the same as any other AirPlay connection, that tiny MacBook Air or enormous iMac or ProDisplay XDR screen becomes yours.
Now, it’s not a perfect replacement for the long lost, much-lamented Target Display Mode because AirPlay has some latency to preserve sync, but for a lot of applications, that really won’t matter. And until Apple gets its Target Display Mode act back together, which who knows how long that could be, does kinda make using an old or extra Mac display as a second display.
Which, hurray!
Now, there’s also AirPlay for Mac to talk about, but that’s a real tangent for this video, so I’ll save it for the Nebula cut, where I don’t have to worry about YouTube view durations or retention or views per viewer… or any of that stuff.
It’s where I post all my videos ad free, sponsor free, and many of them with extended, bonus content. Sometimes twice or three times as long, like event reactions, interviews, explainers, and more.
YouTube is just now going to start rolling out support for picture-in-picture in the official app. But with one giant catch:
It’s only rolling out to people in the U.S., Americans, those of the States United. If you want to use it outside America, you know, in the other 96% of the known world, you have to pay for YouTube Premium. Which just makes all the kind of sense that doesn’t.
Now, that is in line with what YouTube has previously done on Android. Live free and PiP Hard in America, pay to PiP Play everywhere else.
Picture-in-picture, or the ability to float a video window over on top any other screen. It’s been available on the iPhone for a year already and the iPad… what… 6 years now.
But, in all that time, not only has YouTube failed to support in their own apps, they’ve gone out of their way to sabotage it in Safari.
Unless you’re a YouTube premium subscriber, trying to use even the basic, built-in, default functionality in Safari will cause YouTube to just scrooge-close the PiP on you with zero mercy or fs given.
There’s a shortcut you can use to get around those particular shenanigans, but really… it’s just beyond frustrating it had to exist, at all, ever.
And, I mean, kinda get it, YouTube’s only goal is to keep you watching YouTube — and ads — on YouTube, so maybe they felt PiP was good for users but not for them, who knows?
Either way, YouTube is just now going to start rolling out support for picture-in-picture in the official app. But with one giant catch:
It’s only rolling out to people in the U.S., Americans, those of the States United. If you want to use it outside America, you know, in the other 96% of the known world, you have to pay for YouTube Premium. Which just makes all the kind of sense that doesn’t.
Now, that is in line with what YouTube has previously done on Android. Live free and PiP Hard in America, pay to PiP Play everywhere else.
But I gotta believe that just has to change eventually, if not soon. Never mind that I don’t believe you’re allowed to charge for system-level features in the App Store, making a feature free in one part of the world and premium everywhere else… is just not a good look, and I can’t believe the look YouTube really wants here.
All that being ranted, I am legit glad that YouTube is continuing to improve their Apple device experience. After getting 4K working last year, Picture in Picture is just one more item off the missing feature list. And now that we’re approaching Android parity, maybe we can hope for more general fixes?
Like notifications, where if you subscribe but don’t hit the bell, you’ll only occasionally get them, and sometimes days later. Or if you hit the bell and choose always, but don’t get prompted to turn on OS level notifications for the app, so you still get nothing.
That’s why we all get so many complaints about not seeing the notifications…
Also, adding @ mentions to live stream chats on mobile like there are on desktop, because so many of us watch on mobile so always now.
So let me know what you think about the new PiP normal, and what else you’d like to see in the YouTube app, and I’ll see you in the next video!
