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The Lacks-Nunchi Edition Thursday, June 8, 2023

Apple’s Journal App Needs To Read The Room, by Victoria Song, The Verge

If my parents were alive, they’d say this AI-powered feature lacks nunchi. Nunchi is one of those untranslatable words, but it’s a Korean term for quickly sussing out other people’s feelings and adjusting your behavior based largely on nonverbal context clues. It’s kind of like an amplified version of reading the room, mixed with mind reading and emotional intelligence. For example, my spouse might deduce I’m feeling sad because I’m looking at photos of my dead family while lying comatose in bed. Without commenting on it, they’ll get me a bowl of my favorite ice cream or suggest we go out for a walk. My iPhone would probably just assume I just really love my family (why else would I look at photos if not to feel happy?!) and suggest two new slideshows featuring them set to spunky tracks. My spouse has nunchi; my phone doesn’t.

So, forgive me for not feeling 100 percent confident in the Journal app’s machine learning. A part of me is terrified that when I download the iOS 17 beta, I’ll open the Journal app, and it’ll recommend that I write about an afternoon visit to Chuncheon, Korea, in June 2022. That it’ll pair D.O’s That’s Okay — a song I listen to whenever I miss my mom — with pictures of her gravestone overlooking picturesque rolling green hills. Or the photos of me and my relatives reunited for the first time since the covid pandemic, red-eyed and trying to put on a brave face for the relatives who couldn’t make it to the burial.

First Impressions Of Vision Pro And VisionOS, by John Gruber, Daring Fireball

What you see at first is just ... your world. You just see the room you’re in. There’s no status information, no metadata, no indicators. Just input from the cameras on the front of the headset, presented on the displays in front of your eyes. It does not magically look indistinguishable from real life, but it does not feel like looking at a screen at all. I noticed absolutely no perceptible latency. I definitely could not see pixels — the experience is “retina” quality. [...]

Again, it doesn’t look at all like looking at screens inside a headset. It looks like reality, albeit through something like a pair of safety glasses or a large face-covering clear shield. There is no border in the field of vision — what you see through Vision Pro is every bit as wide a field as what you see through your eyes. Most impressively, and uncannily, the field of view seemingly exactly matches what you see naturally. It’s not even slightly wider angle, or even slightly more telephoto. There is no fisheye effect and no aberrations or distortion in your peripheral vision. What you see in front of your face exactly matches what your own eyes see when you lift the Vision Pro up over your eyes. Imagine a set of safety glasses that used a glass treatment that gives the world a slight bit of a “film look”. A slight tint (that tint might get dialed in closer to reality by next year — to me it felt ever so slightly warm, color-wise), and a slight bit of visually flattering smoothness to everything.

The Mac Pro Ends The Apple Silicon Transition, But It’s Just One Step In A Much Bigger Journey, by Jon Porter, The Verge

It’s made Apple Silicon something of a double-edged sword for professional users, unlocking more performance but at the cost of modularity.

So no, we’re probably not going to see users swapping out their M2 Ultra processors to M3s in a couple of years’ time. But that doesn’t mean Apple necessarily has another trash can on its hands. Many of the problems with the 2013 Mac Pro stemmed from the fact that Apple itself struggled to release spec upgrades over time, having to rely on both Intel for CPUs and AMD for graphics. As it settles into a regular update cadence for its M-series chips, Apple has laid the groundwork for a much more seamless upgrade cycle this time around.

More From WWDC

IHG To Offer Apple AirPlay Integration With In-room TVs, by Mark Caswell, Business Traveller

IHG Hotels and Resorts has announced a new collaboration with Apple, allowing guests to stream content onto their in-room TV using the AirPlay system.

[...]

The new service will begin to roll out to selected IHG properties worldwide before the end of the year.

Apple Maps Is Finally Getting Offline Navigation, by Emma Roth, The Verge

Just like when you’re using Apple Maps online, the offline map will be able to show nearby places and your estimated time of arrival, along with directions for driving, walking, cycling, and public transit.

iOS 17 Automatically Removes Tracking Parameters From Links You Click On, by Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac

Link Tracking Protection is a new feature automatically activated in Mail, Messages, and Safari in Private Browsing mode. It detects user-identifiable tracking parameters in link URLs, and automatically removes them.

Apple TV's Karaoke Feature Will Let You See Yourself On-Screen With tvOS 17 Update, by Joe Rossignol, MacRumors

Starting with the tvOS 17 update launching later this year, Apple Music Sing will support Continuity Camera, allowing users to see themselves on their TV via a wirelessly-connected iPhone camera.

Stuff

Apple Announces Businesses Can Accept iPhone IDs Later This Year, by Joe Rossignol, MacRumors

Apple today announced that iPhone users will be able to present a driver’s license or ID stored in the Wallet app at participating businesses and venues starting later this year. Users will simply hold their iPhone or Apple Watch near the business’s iPhone to verify their age and identity for things like alcohol, rental cars, and more.

Apple's Back-to-school Sale Includes Gift Cards With Select Products, by Roman Loyola, Macworld

When you shop at Apple’s Education Store, you can get an Apple gift card when buying an eligible product.

Calling All Bird Lovers: We're Obsessed With This Identification App, by Jill Duffy, PC Magazine

Part of the appeal of birding may be the very low barrier to entry—you don't need anything more than to go outside to observe birds. And if you want help identifying them, the Merlin Bird ID app by Cornell Lab is where you should start.

Notes

Messi’s Move To MLS Is A Big Deal For Apple, by Andrew Webster, The Verge

Lionel Messi has found a new home, and it’s a big win for Apple. The legendary soccer player has said that he will be signing a deal with Inter Miami in MLS, fresh off of winning the World Cup last year with Argentina, and the club confirmed the news with a not-so-subtle tease on Twitter. Having arguably the best player in the game is a big coup for both the club and the league — but also for Apple, which has MLS streaming rights for the next decade.

I Played Diablo 4 For Windows On My MacBook Pro. It Was Complicated, Impractical, But Very Cool., by Matt Birchler, Birchtree

My hope is that the open source community will make some tools over the new few months that makes setting up Windows games on your Mac easier than it is right now. This won't make gaming on the Mac mainstream, but it would be awesome to have a simple solution to give people who are a little more adventurous with their computing and can hack something together.

Longer term, it would be amazing if Apple could make Windows games run completely automatically on macOS, similar to what Valve has done with the Steam Deck.

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Why didn't Apple demo-ed Vision Pro with soccer?

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Thanks for reading.