Welcome to our hebdomadal Apple Breakfast pillar , which includes all the Apple news you miss last week in a handy bite - sized roundup . We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday daybreak cup of chocolate or teatime , but it ’s nerveless if you want to give it a read during luncheon or dinner party 60 minutes too .
Hands on with the future
Trapped as I am on a showery island in the North Atlantic , I spent the former months of this twelvemonth watch on enviously while U.S. colleaguesplungedinto the world of spacial computer science . But now that Vision Pro haslaunched in the U.K. , I ’ve finally had a probability to try it out for myself . And while I ’ll write more about the experience soon , the first sentiment that struck me was how authoritative Apple ’s retail stores are to this launching – far more , in fact , than they ever have been for a previous product dismission .
The matter about Vision Pro , and this is both the equipment ’s greatest strength and its biggest challenge , is that it ’s totallydifferent . Before the iPod came along , we knew in a general good sense how to expend MP3 player . The iPhone was resonant of the familiar iPod , and arrive in a world already flooded with mobile phone as well as smartphone / PDA concept . AirPods were just wireless EarPods , and the Apple Watch is , well , a smarter watch . But the Vision Pro is n’t like any Apple product we ’ve seen before . Yes , it ’s a headset , but it ’s not really comparable to any of the rival VR and mixed - reality headset already on the grocery store . Vision Pro is far more ambitious ( and expensive ) as a universal computer science and entertainment weapons platform . Using the merchandise is an experience that ’s hard to opine , and almost as difficult to describe . You simply have to try it for yourself .
It ’s lucky for Apple , then , that the ship’s company possess a web of high-pitched - end retail outlet across the globe where customer can try out Vision Pro in a controlled environment , one with team of trained , patient experts , closet full of various sizes of shoulder strap and lite seal of approval , and even a political machine that can see your glasses to work out which lenses are take . Part of the demonstration process regard having your expression scanned to work out which appurtenance will provide the optimal fit and switch it out if the scan is n’t 100 percent reliable . In my vitrine , the proposed seal was sent away and replace with something dear in a matter of proceedings .
Using the headset , meanwhile , is often counterintuitive , at least at first , but a knowledgeable Apple employee able to answer questions and anticipate any difficulty makes it all seem intuitive . select onscreen elements by attend at them and then tapping your finger and quarter round together is a little mind - blowing , and you need someone to help . None of this would work if you were trying to bribe solely online and test it out at home .
This all seems normal now : Apple is known for its little oases of glass and wan - wood furniture . But lest we forget , it seemed like a bizarrely illogical move when the first Apple Stores opened back in 2001 . At a metre of relentless brick - and - mortar fall , Steve Jobs – not for the first or last time – swam against the lunar time period , decide to spendmoreon retail , promote from stores - within - a - storage to consecrated outlets in expensive location . With more and more customers buying online , and most companies looking for ways to downsize their physical locations , this seemed not so much deadly great as just … insane . But it proved a masterstroke .
What Jobs understand was the importance of Apple salute itself as a tribe ; and kin call for somewhere to meet and commune . The stores also acted as a gigantic advert for the company ’s time value , body forth as much by the modest item of the furnishings as by the ( sometimes unsettling ) incontrovertibleness of the staff . Walk into an Apple Store and you realise what the society is about before you peck up a mathematical product .
On the more practical side , Jobs may also have felt that a company selling premium products needs a blank space where it can demonstrate that they ’re worth the excess money … and walk less tech - savvy customers through their operation . We may conceive iPads are light to use , but newcomers are more likely to buy one if a kindly expert shows them how they work . The Apple Store conception seems so obvious in retrospect , but it really was n’t at the meter . What we surely did n’t know in 2001 was that Apple would one day set in motion a $ 3,499 product that demand likely customer to be guided through a complex half - hour demonstration ; a product that would have zero chance of achiever if the Apple Store did n’t exist .
metalworks
Apple isfinally ready to unleashthefull potentialof the iPhone , iPad , and Mac .
Karen Haslam offers10 way of life to protect your Macfrommalware and stealing .
Installing theiOS 18 public beta ? These arethe best featuresto try first .
Apple Payunder investigating in U.K.amid‘seismic shift’in consumer behavior .
This incredible caseturns your old Apple Watch into amodern - daylight iPod mini .
It ’s not just iPhones : orchard apple tree user areholding on to their Macslonger than ever .
Apple drops asurprise HomePod miniskirt update — but it’snot the one we require .
Podcast of the week
The public betas for Io and iPadOS 18 , and macOS Sequoia are come , and you might be waiting to instal them . But is that really a unspoilt estimation ? In this episode of the Macworld Podcast , we talk about why you should and why you should avoid them .
you may catch every episode of the Macworld Podcast onSpotify , Soundcloud , thePodcasts app , orour own site .
Reviews corner
The rumor mill
Apple ’s secret factor formaking the iPhone thinnerjust gotdelayed to 2026 .
First inside information emergeof next year’sM5 MacBooks .
iPhone 17 : Everything we sleep with so far about the2025 iPhone .
Software updates, bugs, and problems
Massive AT&T datum breachexposes record of nearly all its customers’calls and textual matter .
And with that , we ’re done for this week ’s Apple Breakfast . If you ’d like to get unconstipated roundup , bless up forour newssheet . you’re able to also follow us onFacebook , Threads , orTwitterfor word of breaking Apple news stories . See you next Monday , and outride Appley .
