Catching up on Apple Keynote

00:44

S1 (Speaker 1)

Hello everyone. Welcome to Talking Tech. This edition available from September the 12th, 2023. I'm Stephen Jolley. Great to have you with us wherever you're listening, perhaps through Vision Australia radio, associated Stations of Australia or maybe the Community Radio Network, there is also the podcast. If you haven't caught up with that yet, all you need to do is search for the two words. Talking tech and Downer can all come usually on a Tuesday afternoon just after it's been produced. Another option is to ask a Siri device or smart speaker to play Vision Australia Radio Talking Tech Podcast. Vision Australia Radio Talking Tech podcast. 

With me, someone who can explain all this tech stuff really well. Vision Australia's National Advisor on Access Technology, David Woodbridge. David, we're really centering this presentation around September the 12th because it's really the day of the start of Christmas time at Apple.

S2

It is indeed. So for all you Apple geeks out there this week and next week is really going to be filled with lots and lots of Apple. Goodness, I promised that I would do other stuff after that. But yes, like you said, Stephen, this is the best time of the year for me as an Apple geeky person to really get stuck into looking at both what's current and what's happened with Apple over the years.

S1

So in short, there's a keynote address which takes place at around 3 a.m. Eastern Australian Time from Apple in California. That's on Wednesday morning the 13th that will talk about new Apple hardware. And it'll also make announcements about the release of new Apple software. So let's start by telling people how they can gain access to this either at 3 a.m. time or later on.

S2

The trick is, if you want to listen to this live, as in 3 a.m., then you can go to the apple.com dot org slash events page. And I said you because we're in Australia. If you're not, then just get rid of the dot bit so you can listen to it live mostly on safari. You can also cause listen to it on your Apple TV. But the easiest way to do it is wherever you are, run safari and hey presto on your iPhone, iPad, Mac and the Apple TV specifically because it's got they've actually got an Apple keynote channel.

S1

And you can find it on that Apple page later on in the week, can't you?

S2

Exactly. So what what they do with that page is that after the event they then leave it up there and then as new keynotes come on board if you like. So hopefully we're having one in October. Then it goes into the latest or recent keynote so you can go back and listen to them. In fact, you can go back quite a long time. So the events page will let you listen to the current one as of this week or listen to it a bit later and go back and listen to other keynotes going back in history, if you like.

S1

Tell us about the Twit TV live coverage.

S2

The Twit TV network, Leo Laporte and Co always do a really interesting broadcast. So what they do is that they have the the keynotes that are playing and then they make comments about the keynote. Now I'll just give you a warning now is that they do talk over the presentation. So if you really, really want to listen to the presentation, then don't do this one. 

If you're interested in tech journalists point of view of what's being spoken about, like maybe a new camera, new battery, new screen, all that sort of cool stuff, then the Twit network is absolutely fine. And of course this also comes out as a special on their Twit podcast network and you can find everything on their website at Twitch.tv. But again, like the Apple Link, I'll have this link in the show notes for you as well. So remember 3 a.m., listen to the Apple keynote or you can listen to the Twit TV broadcast here.

S1

And in Australia. If you wake up at a civilised time, where can you get information about it?

S2

There's going to be lots and lots of stuff coming out from Apple as we all know. So I always like going to. My first point of call is always apple bits and of course that's the community related website for everything to do with Apple stuff for blind and low vision folks. And I'm sure Thomas Donovan will be releasing a whole raft of demos and I'm assuming they'll be doing a, a bit of a special podcast on all the hardware releases. And if they don't, they'll definitely be a blog article about them.

05:20

S1

Yeah, and he's demos will be of the new features in the software, particularly the iOS software won't it.

05:26

S2

Correct. Yeah, because it's going to take them a little time to write up a blog article about all the new hardware that gets announced this week. But I'm sure he's already got the all the other podcast on on iOS 17, etcetera. Let's not forget Jonathan Mazin in the Living Mindfully. Here we go. So I'm shaming him and his daughter while we're doing their tricks. On having her describe the keynote as it's being presented. So that sounds really, really interesting.

S1

So for Living Blind Philly Plus subscribers, you'll be able to get that within a few hours. Others will get it in about three days time around Saturday.

S2

That's right. And look, I've also been asked to do my normal tech doctor blog and podcast, so I'll be doing mine on Wednesday morning the 13th, which will be about three hours after the actual keynotes finished. So by the time you've had this, hopefully you've not listened to it live, then you'll be able to download the tech doctor blog and podcast and listen to Robert Ellison and me talk about the Apple keynote event as well.

S1

Robert Carter always does a good job leading those. I've got a suggestion too, for people if they'd like to catch up with the Apple News early Wednesday morning Australian time, like when you're up and about after the event. BBC News have an app and in the technology section of that app there's always a very good write up of the event and it's a good overview of the event. It doesn't just focus on accessibility, it doesn't just focus on anything. So it's a good one to to have a look at if you want to know what happened. Big picture stuff.

S2

That's correct. And the other sources I always go to as well for sort of mainstream news about all the stuff happening in the tech world, including the Apple stuff is imore. So remember I more.com is absolutely amazing. They'll also produce some podcasts as well, but they have really good breakdowns of the whole keynote happening. The Verge is another really, really, really good resource and I'll most likely be Xingu and Mastodon. A lot of information. What I try and not to do is X feed or Mastodon post every single thing that's happening. I try to sort of work out what the main items are and then just post them for both those social media platforms. But I'm more and The Verge really two great sources for keeping up to date as well.

S1

That's all happening Wednesday morning, Australian Eastern time 3 a.m. and then available after that. Yep. Let's take a little historical perspective now because some interesting things happen at these events over the years. Tell us about the Lightning connector.

S2

As we know or suspect. So if you listen to this after Wednesday, then you'll know that the lightning connector, which came in in 2012 with the iPhone five, which replaced the 30 pin connector, which came in 2003 with the first iPod, it's now being changed over to USB C, So when you think that one connected lasted from 2003 to 2012, 30 PIN Connector. The Lightning Connector lasted from 2012 to 2023 and now I've got Usb-c. 

So for a range of different products over the years, that's not bad going until we realise the fact that this is only the third cable change, if you like, that we've ever had. But I've got this really interesting YouTube demo for changing from 30 PIN to Lightning by Phil Schiller back into the 2012 keynote. And it's always really funny how they go on and on about how fantastic this cable is. And I'm sure they'll be going on about how fantastic the USB C cable is, even though that Apple won't admit it, they really did get pushed in to do it via the European Union to make everything more consistent across all electronic devices.

S1

Three years later, from the 2012 announcement about the Lightning Cable 2015, The Apple Watch.

S2

That's right. And of course, the reason why we're mentioning both the the lightning cover Usbc and the Apple Watch is that the iPhone 15 will have Usb-c and the Apple Watch is going to have a new processor in it. So if you have an iPhone eight and a Apple Watch Ultra, which is I've got both of them, they've both got the same chip inside. So this will be really nice to see. And perhaps we have already that it's got a new chamber in it. So that's what I'm looking forward to. And by the way, I've still got my original iPhone in front in front of me, the three with a the 30 pin connector, the four S and the five with the lightning change. And I've also got my original Apple Watch version zero as it was first called.

10:14

S1

Of course you have then in 2016, AirPods seven years already.

S2

I know. It's been amazing isn't it? I just can't believe they've been around that long. And look, they really have changed. I mean know this article link in the notes says it changed the world. But as far as having a pair of AirPods that does both transparency mode and noise cancellation, it really was an amazing thing and I'm looking forward to. 

They were saying that next year, that case, the charging case will also change to Usb-c as well. But you know, as far as I'm concerned, nobody says you've got to update or throw out your your hardware if it's still working, as far as I'm concerned, keep using it.

S1

So the Apple event this week and in next week's program, we'll have a fully digested account of what's actually taken place. So look forward to bringing you that in a week's time. Now, Amazon is to discontinue its classic Kindle app and a bit of work going to go on behind the scenes.

S2

Yep. So this is for the Mac. It keeps getting a little little incremental updates, which is really not much to talk about. So what they're going to be doing supposedly over the next several weeks is writing up a new one using new code. And what I'm hoping is that they've put all this effort into the accessibility of the Kindle app for iOS and Android. I hope they do the same thing for the Mac because I have not been able to read at all a Kindle book using the Kindle app on my Mac ever since it first became available. 

So have a look in. I'd say about towards the end of October. Of course, if you follow me on social media, you know when it's been updated.

S1

Wordpad from Microsoft, it's going.

S2

I know. So over the next they didn't say when, but hopefully very soon the next update of Windows Will Yes, it'll be using Wordpad and Wordpad. Was that application that you used when you wanted to read files or word docs without having to run the hugely oversized and over featured word itself Microsoft Word. 

But notepad for reading dot txt files will still be around, so I'm a bit sad to see it go, but really nowadays it's even notepad for text files and if you want to read other document types, including RDF, then of course it's it's Microsoft Word itself, which will also read dot txt files by the way.

S1

So what was the reason for Wordpad all this time?

S2

I think it was a way of offering extra formatting options without having a full blown word processor. The problem with it though is it didn't have a spell checker and it didn't have many other features that a basic word processor has. So it was sort of a for me, it was sort of like an attempt for Microsoft back in the day, 30 years ago to have a sort of word processor application, but it never really made it. I don't even know when the last time I used, but yeah, it's finally going away and God rest his soul. In the application universe.

S1

Google turning 25 as it searches for an AI future.

S2

Google now celebrating its 25th birthday. And besides being a search engine when it first came in, they've done lots of projects and apparently on one of their pages they've listed 288 projects that went nowhere. They started them, they got really involved, and then they ended them with AI, because you would expect between Amazon, Microsoft and Google, we're talking about the three major players in artificial intelligence at the moment. 

I mean, we know they've got Apple behind the scenes, but according to this article, Microsoft is sort of in front, followed by Amazon, then followed by Google. But you would have thought out of all of those three, Google should have been on the top, then Amazon and then Microsoft. So it's going to be really interesting to see how this evolves. But and I really want Google to succeed because I can find a lot more stuff doing searches with or used to be able to find substring searches with Google than I could with Microsoft or Amazon.

S1

Yes. Well, we'll see how that goes. Just before we go, a reminder of where people can find details of what we've been talking about in this and previous editions of the program.

S2

Indeed. So, as always, you can check out our blog site, which is David would be our. I'd be a incom.

S1

David would be a pod bean pod bean to write to the program.

S2

You can write to me at Vision Australia, where I work, which is David Woodbridge How it sounds at Vision australia.org.

14:44

S1

David-dot-Woodbridge at Vision Australia-dot-org. This has been talking tech with me has been Vision Australia's National Advisor on Access Technology, David Woodbridge. I'm Stephen Jolley. Take care. We'll talk more tech next week. See you.