Welcome to SoundByte! 😎 In this issue:

• July Meeting
• Mini me? iPad gets more Mac like
• Glass eyes – Apple gets a new UI design
• A new start for Apple Intelligence?
• What new in Tahoe and what’s old?
• Vision Pro walks out of the Uncanny Valley
• Don’t drop that MacBook!
• Can AI help you level up on the Mac?
• Lots of little updates and notices

July Meeting

Join LMUG on Monday, July 14 at 7pm BST to discuss Apple’s WWDC updates. We will review the new software announced at WWDC, and what new features we can look forwards to. Come with your questions and we’ll try to answer them.

Check the email this newsletter came in for the Zoom link to the meeting. You can also find the link in our Slack Meetings Channel. 

You can now follow the London Mac User Group on Bluesky! Come and say hello 👋 over there 👉🏾 https://bsky.app/profile/lmug.bsky.social. Read more about it here.

Mini me? iPad gets more Mac like

It’s a well aired complaint that the iPad is overpowered for the limitations of iOS. This was proven when Apple felt able to use an A12X iPad chip as the basis for developers to get their Mac apps ready for Apple Silicon. Also (to a lesser degree), another grumble has been that many Windows laptops have touchscreens…why can’t the Mac have one? As recently as last year, Apple was saying, just get an iPad to go with your Mac. Buy two devices rather than one 🤑.

This WWDC, Apple unveiled iPadOS 26 (all Apple’s OS versions have switched to the year – 2026, rather than a version number). Its stand-out features include a new Files app, which gains a number of functions from the Mac Finder. This includes a detailed list view; folders in the dock; default apps for files, and folder colours. PDF workflows are improved by the full Preview app coming over from the Mac. IPadOS 26 also gains much improved background task handling, so you can export a video and then multi-task on something else. The iPad further gets control over audio inputs to better support podcasting and other media recordings.

On top of this, iPad gets a new multi-windowing system for multi-tasking. What does this look like? Well, if you have used a Mac it will look rather familiar. It appears you enter multi-tasking by dragging a window from the bottom-right corner (just like on VisionOS) to resize it. When you pull in the Window, you suddenly get the ability to have multiple (overlapping) windows on screen at the same time 🤯. Time will tell how useful this is on the smaller screen iPads. To control each window we get the same red, amber and green buttons as on a Mac. There’s more. When you tap the top of the screen, an honest to goodness menu bar appears with drop down menus.

To all intents and purposes, the iPad gets Mac or mac-like windows!

The combined result of all of this is the removal of many iPad OS limitations compared to the Mac.

Some will feel like this is the touch-screen Mac that we (some, ED) always wanted! But hold on, there was a good reason for not making a touchscreen Mac. Those window control buttons are small and hard to press accurately with our fat fingers. Apple has solved that, apparently. When you sausage poke the control buttons, a menu appears to let you control the window. I assume this may also work very well when used with a touch pad or Mouse.

So, is this it? Is this really a touch screen Mac, done the Apple way, so that Mac users can leave their MacBook at home? Perhaps for some people it is. But not for all. There are some fundamental differences between macOS and iPadOS that remain (some perhaps for good/obvious reasons like performance). While we wait for this game-changing update later this year, have a look a 9to5 Mac’s cautions here:

Glass eyes – Apple gets a new UI design

Do you remember iOS7? It was way back in 2013 that Apple overhauled the Skeuomorphic interface and icons of IOS 6. This was when iOS got the Jony Ive treatment and went flat and minimal. Now, Apple has turned again and we are going to get some fresh VisionOS inspired depth. Imagine a set of glass plates on top of each other. Maybe the back plate is green and the top plate contains a white speech bubble? When placed together, the plates make an icon. Something like that is what the new Liquid Glass UI will look like across the Apple 2026 platforms, from the Watch to the Mac Pro to the Apple TV.

As with iOS7, Apple is making refinements to Glass through the beta process before release. And it seems clear that all app developers will need to update their apps to avoid them looking passé. If you want to learn the details of what’s to come, have a look at Apple’s WWDC presentation here:

A new start for Apple Intelligence?

We have to wait see how Apple tackles upgrading Siri with a new brain as lamented in April’s SoundByte. Siri wasn’t the only part of Apple’s systems that used Apple Intelligence however. It can work well when given a defined or structured task based on large datasets filled with examples to learn from. Some of us see it working well in Photos, somewhat OK in redrafting our writings (not like that!, 🙄ED) and not so well in summarising messages.

Here’s an interview Apple with their mea culpa about what went wrong with Siri. They also talk about the other new 2026 features.

Focusing on Plan B, Apple’s 2026 update integrates Apple Intelligence into several new features:

• We will get live translation in messages and FaceTime calls.
• The iPhone will be able to screen unknown callers, and tell you what it’s about before you pickup.
• It will also monitor holds for you (e.g. call-centre wait queues) and call you, when they pick up.
• You can point your iPhone camera at an object like a lamp and it will tell you where you can buy it.
• You can use Apple Intelligence tools like summarisation in Apple Shortcuts.
• There are more photo realistic picture styles in Playgrounds.
• Apple Watch gains an AI workout buddy to encourage you during a workout.
• Mac Spotlight gains some powerful features.

We’ll have to wait to see how these work in real life!

Have a quick look at the new WatchOS 26 here:

And look at the New Spotlight/clipboard history/Control centre features on the Mac here (ED – we’re going to need a deep dive in an LMUG meeting on this productivity stuff once its out):

What’s new in Tahoe and what’s old?

Speaking of the Mac, Tahoe is the name of macOS 26. It gains the same Liquid Glass UI changes as the other Apple platforms and most of the same AI augmented feature updates. Have a look at 9to5 Mac’s deep dive here:

So who’s getting Tahoe? In some unavoidable bad news, older Macs are falling off the list again, and this time there are some significant casualties. The last Intel MacBook Air from 2020 gets the chop. As does the 2018 Intel Mac mini and the (once) powerful iMac Pro from 2017. A few Intel Macs get a reprieve but only for this year. This is the last macOS to support intel chips. You have been warned! Read more details on ArsTechnica.

Vision Pro walks out of the Uncanny Valley

The most striking feature of VisionOS 26 is the dramatically improved visual persona. This is the image of you, that Vision OS creates when you want to have a FaceTime call. Rather than you appearing with a face hugging dongle, vision OS creates a sort of humanistic Memoji that mimicks your face. It was fairly unconvincing. This is what got a big upgrade. Have at look at Adam Savage’s reaction this and some of the other features like pinned widgets.

Apple aren’t the only company making big upgrades in digital versions of humans. If you’re interested, have a look at the strides made in the latest technology from Unreal:

Don’t drop that MacBook

Our Chairman shares this review of Mac Book cases. Like iPhone you can get rugged cases to protect your MacBook investment from falls and dents. Have a look at some good options on iMore here.

Can AI help you level up on the Mac?

From the (ex-Apple) people who made Apple Shortcuts, a new app has come out that promises to help you get stuff done on your Mac with AI. It’s called Sky and it perhaps jumps in ahead on the new Siri.

Shortcut expert Federico Viticci says “What sets Sky apart from anything I’ve tried or seen on macOS to date is that it uses LLMs to understand which windows are open on your Mac, what’s inside them, and what actions you can perform based on those apps’ contents. It’s a lofty goal and, at a high level, it’s predicated upon two core concepts. First, Sky comes with a collection of built-in “tools”¹ for Calendar, Messages, Notes, web browsing, Finder, email, and screenshots, which allow anyone to get started and ask questions that perform actions with those apps. If you want to turn a webpage shown in Safari into an event in your calendar, or perhaps a document in Apple Notes, you can just ask in natural language out of the box.” Read more on MacStories.

When the time comes for Apple to respond with their own solution, there are some rumours that Apple might be considering Perplexity to be the brain transplant Siri needs. We shall see. In the meantime have a look at what might be special about Perplexity below:

Lots of little updates and notices

Speaking of ex-Apple employees, Sir Jony Ive gets another gig. He’s now a British Museum trustee.

Now, a warning for our US readers if you have Anker PowerBanks. There’s a big (fire risk) recall going on. Read the details here. Speaking of recalls, not quite, but Apple’s M2 Mac mini apparently has a habit of losing power. If that happens to you, head to the Apple Store for their repair program. Read on here.

There a new photo editor for iPhones. Check out the details on Ben Rice McCarthy’s website.

There been a recent hack, here of Gmail and there is a new show on Sky about a potential attack on the UK, for those into that sort of stuff. One possible attack vector is software updates or scripts from emails. Never run any update from an email you don’t recognise. Read about the threat here.

In some weird news, did you know US Air Traffic control worked on Windows 95? Presumably on computers not connected the Internet, given that’s OS’s suceptability to malware and viruses.

If you have a recent iPhone you need to try this haptic trailer for the new F1 film (via Tim Cook on X). Apparently it is the first trailer that uses haptic feedback. F1 is perhaps a good test case for this technology.

Finally, you might remember Steve Job made a commencement address at Stanford several years ago. The Steve Jobs Archive has enhanced this highly influential address to high definition. Maybe show this to your younger relatives to inspire them as it has inspired others.