Category Archives: WWDC

Apple, Apple TV, Apple Watch, Augmented reality, Episodes, iMac, iOS, iOS 11, iPad, iPad Pro, iPhone, Mac, Machine learning, macOS, QotW, Virtual reality, WWDC, WWDC 2017

Week 98 QotW – WWDC 2017

This is our annual deep-dive episode on announcements from Apple’s WWDC developer conference. We handle the news from today’s keynote in more or less chronological order:

  • Introduction, tvOS, watchOS
  • macOS and new Mac hardware
  • iOS and iPad
  • HomePod.

We discuss each of the announcements and share our thoughts and what we think the implications and prospects are for the products announced.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. You can reach the individual hosts on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast. And we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes or in your podcast app of choice.

BlackBerry, Differential privacy, Episodes, Gaming, Headphone jack, Instagram, iPhone, iPhone 7, macOS, Privacy, Supercell, Tencent, WWDC, WWDC2016

Episode 52 – Differential Privacy, macOS Sierra Reviews, iPhone 7 Reports

We returned to our usual format this week, kicking things off with a News Roundup, and including a Question of the Week and Weekly Pick.

Our News Roundup covered three topics: Instagram’s release of user numbers, including 500 million monthly active users and 300 million daily active users; Tencent’s acquisition of a majority stake in Supercell for $8.6 billion; and BlackBerry’s earnings.

Our Question of the Week is: “How can differential privacy make my life better?” Aaron did a bunch of homework on this concept, which Apple introduced to many of us at WWDC last week but has actually been around for much longer. He tells us what differential privacy is, what some of the real-world applications are, and the benefits and limitations of this approach. We’ve included some links to some of Aaron’s reading material in the show notes.

Lastly, we discussed some other topics relating to WWDC which we didn’t get to last time or which have emerged since last week’s episodes, including the reviews of the macOS Sierra release which came out this week, and reports from the Wall Street Journal that Apple’s next iPhone will largely stick to the iPhone 6 and 6s form factor while ditching the 3.5mm headphone jack. We wrapped up the episode with our Weekly Pick, this week a recommendation from Jan.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.

Apple, Episodes, iOS, iOS 10, macOS, tvOS, WatchOS, WWDC, WWDC2016

Episode 51 – Themes from WWDC 2016

This episode is entirely devoted to covering the 2016 edition of Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), which we previewed last week. Rather than go through chronologically, as we often do with these episodes, or even by product/platform, we felt it might be more interesting to pick up on four big themes from this event and discuss those, incorporating a lot of the biggest announcements in the process. The four themes are:

  • Openness, or loosening the reins – which includes the new Siri, iMessage, and Maps extensions; making Apple’s apps deletable; and the new lock-screen UI for VoIP apps
  • AI and deep learning and pushing back against the narrative that Apple is behind – including advances in Siri, Photos, QuickType, and the concept of differential privacy
  • Things that should have happened sooner – or, as Aaron named this segment, “Finally” – watchOS 3 and its new app and dock model; single sign-on and the Remote app for tvOS; the Home app for setting up and controlling HomeKit devices; Siri on the Mac; the Apple Music redesign; and split-screen view for Safari tabs
  • Reinforcing the ecosystem – including Auto-Unlock; the iCloud Universal Clipboard; Apple Pay on the web; Siri on the Mac; and iCloud syncing of the Desktop and Documents folders.

We spent the bulk of the time talking about these themes, but spent a little time up front talking about the structure and tempo of the event, and a little at the end debating the magnitude of these year’s announcements. The topic of WWDC will likely spill over in some form into next week’s episode too, as we didn’t cover all the major news in this episode.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

  • Apple’s WWDC site, with all videos from the conference
  • Episode 33 (iMessage as a Platform), something we discussed earlier and was featured in a big way at this year’s event
  • Episode 50, our WWDC preview episode from last week.

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.

App Store, Apple, Apple Music, Apps, Episodes, iMessage, Retrospective, Siri, tvOS, WatchOS, WWDC, WWDC2016

Episode 50 – Our First Year, WWDC Preview

This week’s episode marks the one-year anniversary of the first episode, with both episodes offering previews of Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC). It’s also episode 50 (we skipped the weeks of Christmas and New Year).

Given the anniversary, we thought it would be fun to do a little retrospective of some of the things we’ve covered on the podcast over the past year, and so we made that another topic of discussion on the latest episode. There’s now a permanent page on the site where you can easily see a full listing of past episodes, so you can easily browse them. But we spent some time highlighting some of our favorite episodes from the past year, as well as discussing the past year in consumer tech. Links to the episodes we mention are below in the show notes.

If, for whatever reason, you don’t feel like reminiscing with us, you can skip to 21:20, when we start talking about this year’s WWDC. Specifically, we talk about Siri and digital assistants in general, something Jan’s been asked about a bunch in the lead up to WWDC by reporters. Secondly, we talk about iMessage and the prospects for iMessage as a platform, something we discussed in Episode 33. We also talk through iOS getting more pro features, what we might see in tvOS and watchOS, Apple Music, the App Store changes announced this week, and the fact that we’re unlikely to see any new hardware announced.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.

Apple, Artificial Intelligence, Assistants, Episodes, Google, Microsoft, Music, Siri, Spotify, Twitter, Voice recognition, Windows 10, Windows Phone, WWDC, WWDC2016

Episode 48 – Consumer Tech in Africa, Apple & AI

We’re back to our usual format for this week, with a News Roundup, Question of the Week, and a third topic, plus a Weekly Pick.

Our News Roundup covered three topics: Spotify’s financials, which Jan wrote about earlier in the week; Microsoft’s decision to exit the consumer smartphone market; and Twitter’s planned change to the 140-character limit. Our Question of the Week piggybacks off Aaron’s recent trip to Ghana, which is one of a number of trips he’s made there over the last nine years. The question is “What’s the state of consumer technology in Africa?” and we spent a good amount of timing doing a deep dive into this topic, based not just on Aaron’s personal observations but on additional research (see the show notes for a couple of good sources).

Our third topic this episode was Apple’s efforts in AI, and a narrative that seems to have emerged recently about a perception that Apple is behind in AI, and that this will be problematic for the company. We talk about the pros and cons of this argument, how it relates to Siri specifically, and how Siri might evolve at this year’s WWDC. Lastly, we have our Weekly Pick, which is actually a double recommendation from Jan this time around.

As usual, you’ll find some links to related content as well as other ways to listen to the podcast beneath the embedded Soundcloud player below.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com). We also have a dedicated Podcast Twitter handle at @BDPcast.

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you. Also, we’d love it if you would leave a review of the podcast on iTunes.

Beta program, Episodes, Liquidmetal, Music, Royalties, Taylor Swift, WWDC, WWDC2015

Episode 4 – Taylor Swift, Public Betas, and Liquidmetal

In Episode 4, we kick off our conversation with a discussion of the very rapid turnaround that happened this past weekend when Apple reversed its stance on paying royalties to artists and labels in the face of a blog post from Taylor Swift (this episode was recorded before it became clear  how much Apple would be paying labels during the free trial, so you’ll hear some speculation on that point). In our Question of the Week, Aaron tackles the three different flavors of Apple’s operating systems – developer previews, public betas, and final releases – and what you should know about them, as well as some insight into when exactly the public betas and the final releases might land. And at the end we have a brief discussion about Apple’s ongoing licensing of the Liquidmetal alloys and what it might do with them, if anything.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com).

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the podcast if you want to add it manually to your app of choice.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you.

Beats, Beats 1, Episodes, Music, News, Radio, WWDC, WWDC2015

Episode 3 – WWDC 2015 announcements – part 2

Last week was the first part of our review of the announcements from Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference, which focused on the operating system announcements around iOS, OS X, and watchOS. This week, we follow up on that episode with a discussion focused on the content-centric announcements from WWDC, principally Apple Music and the News app.

Our Question of the Week discussion this episode focuses on the DJs Apple has hired away from Radio 1, Hot97, and Rinse FM to host its new Beats 1 radio service. We did some research on the background of these three very different DJs, their strengths, why Apple hired them, and what they’re likely to do for Apple. This discussion starts around 20:25 in to the episode.

We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com).

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the app if you want to add it manually.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you.

Episodes, WWDC, WWDC2015

Episode 2 – WWDC 2015 announcements, part 1

In the second episode of our podcast, we review some of the key announcements from Apple’s WWDC keynote, focusing particularly on the iOS, OS X, and watchOS news. Also this episode, we introduce a new weekly feature called “Question of the Week”, in which we’ll do a deep dive into answering a question that may be on listeners’ minds. Given that the open sourcing of the Swift programming language got the biggest applause from the audience at WWDC, we thought we’d start by explaining what it means and why it’s significant. Special thanks to Farshad Nayeri, who helped us in our research into this question.

Next week, we’ll follow up with more analysis of the WWDC news, with a special focus on the content announcements including Apple Music and the News app. Our Question of the Week will be looking at the DJs for Apple’s Beats 1 radio station and what makes them unique. We invite listeners to submit questions for subsequent weeks in the comments below, on Twitter (@jandawson, @aaronmiller), or via email (jan at jackdawresearch dot com).

As ever, you can also find the podcast on iTunes, in the Overcast app, or your own favorite podcast app. Here is the RSS feed for the app if you want to add it manually.

Show notes:

Here are some useful links relating to this week’s episode:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you.

Episodes, WWDC, WWDC2015

Episode 1 – WWDC 2015 Preview

5 Comments

This is the first episode of the Beyond Devices Podcast, featuring Jan Dawson and Aaron Miller. In this episode, we look forward to Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference next week, and discuss some of what we’re expecting, and some of what we’d like to see Apple announce. Next week, we’ll be looking back on and digesting the news from WWDC.

At the beginning of the episode, we also introduce ourselves as co-contributors to the podcast. Jan is the author of the Beyond Devices blog and the founder and Chief Analyst at Jackdaw Research, a research and advisory firm focused on the consumer technology market. Aaron is a business school professor who has authored several books in the iMovie: The Missing Manual series with David Pogue, and continues to keep a close eye on Apple.

You can also find the podcast on iTunes.

Show notes:

We refer to several posts and other items in the conversation this week – here are some links:

Please leave us a comment or get in touch via Twitter to give us feedback. We’d love to hear from you – this is very much a work in progress and we look forward to getting better over time!