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Apple's New App

Apple's New App

it's a game changer, for some.

Brandon Butch
June 21, 2024 • 📖 Read time: 10 minutes

Welcome back! 🍎
Here’s the latest with Apple.

Vision Pro 2 Canceled?
Apple’s new app launched
Apple explains AI device compatibility
& more!

📖 Read time: 3.8 minutes

📊 Poll

Last week, I asked: Will you use the new Apple Intelligence features?

Here are some of my favorite replies:

Yes - “1000% yes. I currently rely on AI features at work to review and edit emails, respond to customers on chat, and help organize my calendar and to-do list increasing productivity. It’s going to be awesome to have all of this in one place on a single device instead of getting it done by going to multiple places and using multiple devices.”

No - “For a mix of reasons. Partly because I don’t have an iPhone 15 Pro or any devices with Apple silicon anyway, partly because stuff like ChatGPT often just gets things wrong. And partly, in the case of Image Playground, because of the dubious stuff surrounding AI Images and copyright and whatnot (like with AI being trained on stolen art).”

This week: Do you use 3rd party apps to record video with more control? Why or why not? More on this below.

Do you use 3rd party Camera apps?

🗞️ The Latest

🥽 Apple Vision Pro 2 ‘Canceled’

This week, news broke that Apple was “suspending” their work on the Apple Vision Pro 2. Many viewed this negatively and assumed that the Vision Pro was slowly “dying.” Here’s the full story.

A report from The Information this week revealed that Apple has suspended work on the second-generation Vision Pro headset to focus on a cheaper model.
However, this isn’t new information. We’ve known this for months.
As Bloomberg reported in April: “Apple’s latest Vision Pro road map doesn’t currently call for a second-generation model until the end of 2026, though the company is trying to figure out a way to bring a cheaper version to market before then.”

The Cheaper Headset

The biggest challenge Apple faces with building a cheaper headset is how to do it.
Apple began working on a cheaper Vision device back in 2022 with the objective to sell it for around the same price as a high-end iPhone (~$1600).
Apple apparently wants to retain the Vision Pro's high-end display components in the cheaper model.
They’d cut back on costs by reducing the amount of cameras, producing a simpler headband, and reducing the size of the speakers.
I’d imagine the materials used would also be cheaper, as Apple wants to make its cheaper headset at least one-third lighter than the Vision Pro.

My take: The Vision Pro is still a new product in a new category for Apple, so getting the price down is something that will take several years. While the Meta Quest is the easiest product to compare it to, they are totally different and the price tag will likely never be the same.

I think getting a Vision headset under $2000 will be a big win for Apple. But the bigger win will be getting more apps developed and innovating on the software side, which is historically where Apple thrives. Don’t count Apple out in this space, I still believe the Vision line will be a winner in the coming decade.

📷 Apple’s New Application

After announcing the app a couple of months ago, Apple has officially launched Final Cut Camera for the iPhone!

The app gives you manual control over the ISO, exposure, shutter speed, white balance, and more.
The goal is to achieve more professional-looking video. It doesn’t work for still photos, though.
It’s missing small features like LUTs but the UI/UX beats any of the other “pro camera” apps on the market.
Final Cut Camera is free, works on any iPhone running iOS 17.4+, and can be used as a standalone app.
I made a full video covering the app & how it works.

The Real Magic

Multicam in action

While the app can be used on its own, the real magic is how it ties into the new Multicam feature in Final Cut Pro for iPad.
You can wirelessly connect up to 4 iPhones (seen above) so that you have four different angles for a video.
Once connected, you can remotely preview, adjust, and initiate recording on all connected devices straight from Final Cut Pro on the iPad.
And editing is a breeze, as shown in my video. You just tap the shot you want and it cuts the clip for you. Game changer!

Final Cut Pro for Mac

Final Cut Pro for Mac also received a big update with version 10.8.
It adds a new AI feature called Enhance Light & Color, which automatically improves color, color balance, contrast, and brightness with one click.
Smooth Slo-Mo is another new feature that intelligently blends video frames for the highest-quality movement.
There are several other enhancements, as Apple cites in the release notes.

My take: I’ve been using the Final Cut Camera app for the past couple of days and it is phenomenal. Using multiple iPhones as different angles in Multicam is a real game changer and will likely be my new preferred way of recording unboxing videos. My Final Cut Pro for iPad subscription was set to expire in 3 days but now, I’ll be renewing it for another year ($50).

📲 Apple Explains Themselves

Apple Intelligence has been the talk of the town ever since Apple announced it at WWDC last Monday. But the biggest criticism has been the (lack of) supported devices. Now, we have more insight as to why that is.

Apple’s upcoming AI features will require the iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max, or M1 and later for the Mac and iPad.
During a live Q&A at WWDC, John Gruber asked why. Here was the response from Apple’s AI/ML head John Giannandrea and marketing chief Greg Joswiak:

Giannandrea: "So these models, when you run them at run times, it's called inference, and the inference of large language models is incredibly computationally expensive. And so it's a combination of bandwidth in the device, it's the size of the Apple Neural Engine, it's the oomph in the device to actually do these models fast enough to be useful. You could, in theory, run these models on a very old device, but it would be so slow that it would not be useful.

Gruber: "So it's not a scheme to sell new iPhones?"

Joswiak: "No, not at all. Otherwise, we would have been smart enough just to do our most recent iPads and Macs, too, wouldn't we?"

It was also hinted at during the Q&A session that RAM was another factor at play. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that all of the devices compatible with Apple Intelligence have at least 8GB of RAM.

My take: Those with incompatible devices are reasonably upset at this move but I don’t believe this is an attempt to get you to upgrade your device. To even be able to run these AI models locally with only 8GB of RAM is impressive!

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