None of these were crises, but they were all annoying, a reflection of a world where every service has been crammed into an app or hidden behind a QR code regardless of how little benefit it offers consumers. Every airline, hotel chain, bank, transit system, and pizza joint has its own app. My apartment requires three—one for building and parkade access, one for my thermostat and front door, and a third for making maintenance requests and paying rent. The latter, despite my building strongly encouraging its use, refuses to recognize my bank account, and no one seems to know how to fix it.
When Apple Intelligence was unveiled earlier this month, it was only promised for the Mac, iPhone and iPad. But there’s another device primed to get it: the Vision Pro headset. I’m told that Apple is actively working on bringing the features to the device, but it won’t happen this year. From a technology standpoint, the headset has more than enough memory (16 gigabytes) to run the technology. And the features, including notification prioritization, writing tools, an OpenAI chatbot and the new Siri, make sense for the headset — especially if Apple continues to position the Vision Pro as a device for getting work done and handling computer tasks.
It also shouldn’t be a major engineering task, given that visionOS is a variant of the existing iPadOS software. The bigger challenge will be getting the user interface design team to make it all look right in the mixed-reality environment.
The MLS Season Pass subscription has lowered its price to $49, for access to watch the remainder of the 2024 season. The 50% cut compared to its original $99 price, as of February, reflects the fact that we are now about halfway through this year’s season.
It's striking how ahead of its time Riven was back in 1997—that much is clear while playing this remake.
Perhaps all that mattered was showing that Apple is in the game, integrating AI technology into its devices so that it will be ready when that killer app does appear. Apple’s strength, after all, is perfecting rather than pioneering new technologies. It makes sense that when and if consumer applications for AI blossom, Apple might make some of the most useful versions of them, given its strength in user interfaces and its huge captive user network.
I think I've purchased Riven back in the day, but I don't think I have ever come close to completing it. It was too difficult for me.
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Thanks for reading.