The Big Tech Show: What Apple announced for iPhones, Macs, iPads and Watches at WWDC, and its minimalist position on AI
Adrian is currently in Cupertino at Apple Park, California, where Apple just showcased their latest product upgrades. There were three main areas of focus; iOS 26, Liquid Glass and AI features.
CCS Insight analysts, Ben Wood and Leo Gebbie, joined Adrian to discuss the new suite of Apple updates.
The conversation began on the topic of AI. Both analysts pointed out that Apple's platform based approach to AI which centers on privacy is behind the other main players in the artificial intelligence space but that the typical Apple customer may not be buying hardware based on its AI capabilities.
You can listen to the full episode here on the Irish Independent website or wherever you get your podcasts.
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The Irish Sun
9 hours ago
- The Irish Sun
Anti-kidnap trick, texting without signal, silent 999 calls & burglary sensor – must-know iPhone hacks to save your life
YOUR phone can save your life – you just need the right settings. There are plenty of hidden before you need them. 11 You'll be prompted to try it if you're attempting to text without cell signal or Wi-Fi Credit: Apple 11 You can easily connect to satellites overhead to send texts Credit: Apple 11 You can try out a demo of the satellite calling feature whenever you like Credit: Apple Text and call with no signal It turns out that you can make calls, send texts, and even share your location You just need an iPhone 14 or newer – and then you can communicate via satellite, even if you've got no network bars. For texting, make sure you have iMessage switched on (Settings > Apps > Messages), then try to send a text without signal. You should see an alert that you're out of phone and Wi-Fi coverage, with an option to Use Messages via Satellite. Just follow the instructions (and make sure you have a clear view of the sky). Read more on iPhone If you go to the Find My app, tap Me, then Send My Location, and you'll be able to use a satellite to share your exact location with no signal. And Brits can also make emergency calls over satellite too. You can test the feature out without actually making a 999 call by going to Settings > Emergency SOS > Satellite Connection Demo. Then if you have no phone signal or Wi-Fi, try to make a call. It won't work – but you'll be offered satellite calling instead. Just follow the demo and, again, remember to have a clear view of the sky . Most read in Phones & Gadgets Pay without battery Your iPhone can still make some payments – even when Importantly, your phone needs to have died for this to work. You can't just switch it off. Apple interview with Greg Joz Joswiak on new artificial intelligence, screening, hold assist, carplay, liquid glass and ios updates HOW TO DEMO THE SATELLITE FEATURE Here's what you need to know... You can try the Satellite Connection Demo to get to grips with this feature before you need to use it. Remember: you'll need to be outside with a clear view of the sky. Trees and hills can block your signal, so try to go somewhere that's very open. Go to Control Centre by swiping down from the top-right corner of your iPhone. Then tap on the Cellular button on the right of the Control Centre. Next tap Satellite, and then choose Try Demo. Choose what you want to test, and then follow the on-screen instructions. You can also access it in the Settings app. Go to either Settings > Apps > Messages and choose Satellite Connection Demo, or go to Settings > Emergency SOS to test out the Emergency SOS via Satellite feature. You'll need to have an Express Mode card set up. You'll be able to choose one by going into your Apple Pay settings. This is the default card that you can use contactlessly on public transport without unlocking your phone. Once you have a debit or credit card chosen as your Express Mode option, you can then use it on certain public transport options – like the London Underground. "With compatible iPhone models , you might be able to use power reserve with some cards, passes and keys that have Express Mode turned on for up to five hours when your iPhone needs to be charged," Apple explains. 11 Set up Express Mode for your Apple Wallet cards, passes, and keys Credit: Apple HOW TO SET UP EXPRESS MODE Here's the official Apple guide... Open the Wallet app and select a card, pass, or key. Tap the More button, then tap Card Details. Tap Express Transit Settings or Express Mode. Select your preferred transit card, payment card, or other compatible pass or key. Apple adds: "You can select a different transit or payment card for Express Transit Mode on your Apple Watch: "On your iPhone, open the Apple Watch app. In the My Watch tab, tap Wallet & Apple Pay. "Then tap Express Transit Card, select a transit or payment card, and authenticate on your Apple Watch with your passcode." "To see the cards, passes and keys available for use with power reserve, press the side button or the Home button when your iPhone needs to be charged. "However, pressing the side button or Home button often may reduce the power reserve significantly. If you turn off your iPhone, this feature won't be available." This could get you home in an emergency situation when you're out of power and can't make contact with anyone. Just note that you can't use it for making other types of purchases, like buying products in shops. Silent 999 calls A couple of years ago, Apple Emergency SOS lets you press and hold the side button and volume button (or press the side button five times) to trigger an emergency call. This normally triggers a countdown and sounds an alarm as part of the process. But there might be situations where you want to make a subtle call. 11 There's a special feature in your iPhone settings called Call Quietly Credit: The Sun Go to Settings > Emergency SOS and toggle Call Quietly on. If you have Call Quietly active, it'll block the warning alarms, flashes, and any VoiceOver audio when you use the '5 Button Press' or 'Hold and Release' Emergency SOS techniques. But if you dial 999 directly, it'll just work as normal. Check In -Check In feature that alerts family members if you've been kidnapped 11 On iPhone, there's a feature called Check In Credit: The Sun 11 You can choose how much data is shared with friends Credit: The Sun If you're heading home after a night out, there's a helpful feature to let your friends and family make sure you're getting back safely. It's called Check In, and it can help if you're lost or very drunk – or even in To send a Check In, go to Messages, tap on a chat, then hit the + (plus) symbol, and go to More > Check In > Edit. If you choose the When I Arrive option, you enter a destination, your transport method (like driving, walking, or public transport), and add extra time. HOW TO CHANGE YOUR CHECK-IN SHARING DETAILS Here's what to do... Go into Settings > Apps > Messages on your iPhone. Then scroll down the page and tap on Check In Data. You'll be able to choose the details that you want to share if your Check In isn't completed. The first option is called Limited . This will only show your current location, as well as your phone signal and battery details. The second option is Full . This shares all of the info in Limited, as well as the route that you've travelled, your iPhone's last unlock time, and when you most recently removed your Apple Watch. Picture Credit: Apple Then Check In will monitor your journey and warn your friend or family member if your iPhone stops progressing for "an extended period of time". If you do make it to your destination then Check In will automatically complete. The other option is After A Timer, which lets you specify a certain amount of time. This is handy if you're meeting someone new, like if you're going on a date. 11 You can edit the details of your Check In at any time Credit: The Sun 11 Check In even used estimated travel times (which you can add to) to make it as accurate as possible Credit: The Sun If you don't end the Check In before the timer runs out then your friend will be automatically warned. You can also change the info you share, so you can give your friend or family member extra info like: Current location Network signal Battery details The route you've travelled The last time you unlocked your iPhone The last time you removed your Apple Watch It can keep your friends and family members in the loop, and potentially help them come to your rescue. Medical ID Medical ID is a clever feature that lets you add important info to your iPhone Lock Screen. Just go to the Health app, tap on your profile picture, then choose Medical ID. 11 Medical ID lets you choose emergency contacts, as well as listing medications and allergies Credit: Apple You'll be able to enter emergency contacts, and important info like allergies or medical conditions. If someone wants to view your medical ID – like a paramedic – then they could swipe up from the Lock Screen, tap Emergency on the passcode screen, and then tap Medical ID. They don't need your passcode to see it. Sound Recognition There's an extremely clever feature called Sound Recognition that can alert you to specific noises. So your iPhone can listen out for glass breaking, which could be linked to a burglary, or an animal or pet knocking something over. 11 Your iPhone can listen out for plenty of different sounds Credit: Apple If this happens while you're asleep, the notification might wake you up – and there'll be a record of it happening on your phone. That way, you can be sure that you didn't imagine it. Just go into Settings > Accessibility > Sound Recognition and set your iPhone up to listen out for you. This has even more uses if you have a hearing impairment. You can set your iPhone up to listen out for other noises like fire or smoke alarms. And then you can receive notifications for those sounds if you can't hear them yourself. If you have an Apple HomePod speaker at home, you can also set that up to listen out for smoke alarms – and ping your iPhone while you're out at work or on holiday. Just go into the Home app to set it up.
The Irish Sun
2 days ago
- The Irish Sun
I'm obsessed with ‘no wires' Ring doorbell that lets you easily find anything in seconds – & I didn't need to drill
SOMETIMES the best tech is just the stuff that's easiest to use. That's always been Apple's style – and Amazon has managed the same feat with its top-notch Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus. 11 The Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus is an easy way to upgrade your home security Credit: Sean Keach 11 I've been using it for two months and it's a real treat Credit: Sean Keach It's not the catchiest name, but this is one of the best smart home gadgets on the market. Ring video doorbells hardly need an introduction. They sit More of my neighbours have them than not. Read more on Ring doorbells It sounds a bit 1984, but they let you dodge people selling solar panels – and there's a speaker for telling delivery drivers not to leave your package upside down in the rain. And naturally we all hope that they'll put off trespassers and even burglars from trying their luck too. But one thing has always turned me off Ring doorbells: drilling. Hate it. It's faff. What if you don't have a drill? What if you don't want to drill? It's a layer of annoyance I just don't need in my life. Most read in Tech Enter: the Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus. My hero. My £129.99 hero. Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus at Amazon for £129.99 – I've been trying it out for weeks now, and I'm convinced it's one of the best products I've ever owned. Warning to criminals as new Ring doorbell AI feature makes it even easier to catch you STICK TO IT Normally a Ring doorbell connects to your house in two ways, neither of which I love. The first is through the wires that would connect a regular doorbell, giving it power . And the second is through screws, which turn into holes that you've drilled in your wall. They're both layers of friction that I don't love, which is why I do love the Battery Video Doorbell Plus. 11 The gadget snaps the view from the front of your house with a built-in camera Credit: Sean Keach For a start, it doesn't need any wiring. It has a built-in battery that needs a recharge every four to eight months. I've been using mine for nearly two months, and the battery has dropped by about 30%. So that feels about right. This doorbell can be drilled to the wall, but I picked up Ring's sticky mount for £17 ( Now if I ever want to remove my doorbell setup, I don't have to disconnect wires or fill any holes. I just yank it off the wall and away I go. Set up is easy. The doorbell connects to the Ring app on your phone and away you go. EASY VIEWING So what else does it do, besides attaching to my wall in a simple and effective way? At its most basic, you can get it to notify you when someone presses the doorbell or comes onto your property. Motion Zones make it easy to avoid detecting movement on the street – you can just draw on the app's video feed to block out areas you don't want monitored. 11 You can watch a live view through the Ring camera at any time Credit: Sean Keach And you can set up Privacy Zones to shut out your neighbouring properties too (or your own windows, if your front door is set back). Two-way audio lets you chat to visitors. And it the doorbell can even detect whether it's seeing a person – or an animal, or car. Automated replies work like an 'out of office' for your home, telling couriers that you're away and to leave the post at the door. And you can have different settings depending on whether you're at home or away using a 'geofencing' feature. It's got night vision. Even colour night vision. And Smart Video Search lets you type in phrases (like 'red car') to spot specific moments. You might even find crooks with a search like 'person in garden last night'. It'll find basically anything you're looking for in seconds. Very clever. The video quality is very sharp. It's officially 1536p HD. But a more useful description is: you can easily see details even at a distance, and it's effective even in poor lighting. 11 The Ring doorbell will tell you when it has detected a person – even before they push the button Credit: Sean Keach It has a broad field of view, so you shouldn't miss a thing. You can always mount it with a slight tilt too, if needed for awkward porch/garden layouts. The other accessory that I snapped up to improve my Ring experience It's basically a speaker for your doorbell, if you want something more traditional than just phone notifications. You plug it into the mains, and leave it there. They cost between £20 and £30 ( 11 You can easily mount the doorbell without connect it to any wiring Credit: Sean Keach A-DOOR IT The doorbell's main benefit is peace of mind. Your house has all of your stuff. Your precious belongings. Your front door is the gateway to that treasure trove. Knowing who is at your door – no matter where you are in the world – in some ways feels priceless. It resolves the issue of not being able to contact delivery drivers while you're away, or the fear that suspicious antics are going on while you're on holiday. 11 There's a built-in button so it works just like a regular doorbell – but alerts are beamed straight to your phone Credit: Sean Keach And I think it gives your neighbourhood a more general feeling of safety. It's neighbourhood watch in the literal sense. And maybe it's not technically a feature, but I love seeing surprise clips of my wife pulling funny faces at the camera for me to watch later. It turns a boring part of our lives – opening and closing the door – into a fun scrapbook of easily-missed memories. It's also had some tangible perks. I couldn't for the life of me find my cap the other day. It was only be reviewing Ring footage that I could see I'd left home with it earlier in the week – and came back without it. I never did find that cap. But I knew I'd lost it in a place I'd never get it back. So it gave me the peace of mind to buy a new cap, rather than going through the cupboards and drawers again for the sixteenth time. 11 The Chime lets you hear a doorbell noise inside your home if you want Credit: Sean Keach CASHING ON The main downside is that some of the best perks are locked behind a subscription. The £129.99 fee for the doorbell only gets you the gadget itself, plus basic benefits like notifications for a doorbell press. If you pay £4.99 a month, you get 180 days of Video Event History and package alerts. Then there's Standard, which is £7.99 a month and adds in doorbell calling, extended live views, cover for all of your devices, and all of the Basic perks too. 11 I used the Ring adhesive mount to attach the doorbell to my wall – rather than drilling any holes Credit: Sean Keach There's a Premium plan for £15.99 a month that wraps in 24/7 recording, continuous live view, and Smart Video Search. The one you pick comes down to your own needs, but you can probably get by with Basic. Anything less and I think you're missing out, personally. RING IT UP? This is a brilliant device. It's not the cheapest Ring doorbell (or even video doorbell generally), but it's easy to use, very effective, and has no-nonsense set up. 11 The Ring app is very comprehensive with no end of settings to customise your doorbell experience Credit: Sean Keach Now I've got it, I can't imagine not having one. And I suppose that's one of the best endorsements a gadget can get. The Sun says: Easily worth the £130 fee – but you'll need the monthly subscription to get the best value from it. A genuinely life-improving gadget that I'd struggle to give up. 4.5/5 Ring Battery Video Doorbell Plus at Amazon for £129.99 – All prices in this article were correct at the time of writing, but may have since changed. Always do your own research before making any purchase. 11 The Battery Video Doorbell Plus is a great option for first-time Ring customers Credit: Sean Keach
Irish Examiner
3 days ago
- Irish Examiner
Ireland's firms brace for economic hit with quiet confidence
Hundreds of companies, 200,000 jobs, billions of euro in corporation tax revenue. Add it all up and Ireland's reliance on US investment for its economic success is starkly clear. While it is one of the most vulnerable countries to Donald Trump's efforts to rewrite global trade, there's a quiet confidence in its financial sector and economy. From the finance minister to bankers, the view is that the small, open economy, with its low unemployment and a healthy budget surplus starts from a strong point against any potential shocks. They believe the country can leverage its reputation for stability, clear regulation and business friendliness to ensure Ireland stays an attractive location for money. It's a model that has long worked for the country, but it will face tests in the coming years. Acknowledging that, the central bank, Department of Finance, and major banks have cut their economic forecasts in recent months. 'We focus on what we can control,' finance minister Paschal Donohoe said this week. From an Irish point of view, we can't influence what's going to happen with global trade, but we can influence how competitive our economy is. Based on a domestic measure, growth is set to slow to about 2% in 2025, from 2.7% last year. Much of the concern for Ireland centers on what tariffs mean for its tech and pharmaceutical sectors, which is dominated by firms like Apple, Alphabet, Eli Lilly, and Pfizer. Corporation tax receipts, heavily concentrated in a small number of firms, totalled €39bn in 2024, accounting for 36% of the total tax take. That figure encapsulates Ireland's prowess at luring foreign capital, and its dependence on American money. In spite of the risks to investment and jobs, the country's financial elite continues to see expansion. That message was on display this week at the Future of Finance event hosted by Bloomberg in Dublin, where Donohoe spoke. The financial services industry has grown substantially over the past decade, in part because of the stability Ireland has developed since the 2008 financial crash. Measured by assets, the sector reached €8tn in size in 2023. Total assets under management for Irish-resident investment and money market funds is at €5.5tn, more than tripling over the last decade, according to the central bank. Along with competitiveness, Ireland's other sales pitch is consistent and clear regulation. The idea is guardrails and stability, but not unwanted deterrents. Mary-Elizabeth McMunn, deputy governor at Ireland's central bank, calls it a 'pragmatic' approach. 'We want financial institutions to be around in good times and in bad,' Ms McMunn said. So in some ways I would say our interests are completely aligned because if I'm a CEO of an institution, I want to be around for the longer term. I don't want a shock to hit that really adversely interrupts my business. While the central bank has recently won plaudits for its industry engagement, it drew criticism after the Brexit vote when it frustrated banks looking to set up trading arms in Dublin. Most ultimately opted for Frankfurt and Paris. There are also lingering frustrations about high taxes on some activities and what is effectively a cap on bank bonuses. AIB share sale Emblematic of Ireland's financial turnaround, this month the Government disposed of the remainder of its shareholding in AIB. After the bailouts of the global financial crisis, that means the country's two biggest banks are now fully out of State ownership. A third, PTSB, will follow at some point. The bailouts cost billions of euros — AIB alone came to about €20bn — but the Government said it broke even based on current market prices. AIB's journey reflects the broader changes that have taken place. 'The industry is fundamentally different than it was,' chief executive Colin Hunt said. When he took over, six and a half years ago, 'nonperforming exposures were 10% of gross loans. They are now less than 3%, and that is reflected right across the industry,' he said. While the Irish banking industry is now more streamlined, Mr Hunt said AIB could take part in wider European consolidation in the future, though he does not see anything imminent. 'You want to ensure that your institution is in a relatively strong position to decide how it plays in that consolidation wave,' he said. For Ireland, the general optimism will undoubtedly be challenged. There are less than two weeks to go before Trump's July 9 deadline for a trade deal, after which tariffs on almost all EU exports to the US will jump to 50%. 'There are challenges,' Mr Donohoe said. 'But we are well-placed to deal with them. And we will.' Bloomberg Read More Trump's policies blamed as Irish tourism revenues drop
