1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,340 It's that time of year when all your Apple devices get the notification. 2 00:00:04,340 --> 00:00:07,700 There's a new OS! 3 00:00:07,700 --> 00:00:12,180 It is exciting because every year Apple adds handy features to their apps and services 4 00:00:12,180 --> 00:00:17,620 to make the devices more useful. And there are quite a few announced at WWDC this year. 5 00:00:17,620 --> 00:00:22,500 But it is also scary because what if you're on the tail end of that OS support, running 6 00:00:22,500 --> 00:00:26,820 the oldest and slowest devices? Will the update make them worse? 7 00:00:26,820 --> 00:00:30,820 To find out, I downgraded. 8 00:00:30,820 --> 00:00:37,700 Yes, I'm going to be switching to Apple's slowest supported devices, not the oldest. 9 00:00:37,700 --> 00:00:42,020 So that means I'm using the Core i5-powered Mac Mini with only 8GB of memory, rather than 10 00:00:42,020 --> 00:00:46,380 a still quite powerful iMac Pro, which is getting the update and technically older. 11 00:00:46,380 --> 00:00:53,140 I'm also switching to the 2020 i5 MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM, the 7th generation iPad 12 00:00:53,140 --> 00:00:58,580 and the iPhone XR. This should be interesting. 13 00:00:58,580 --> 00:01:03,340 Here's a list of all the new features that Apple is promoting in their new OS updates. 14 00:01:03,340 --> 00:01:06,900 The biggest one, of course, is their Apple Intelligence AI features. 15 00:01:06,900 --> 00:01:10,900 They won't be available when these operating systems roll out, but that doesn't matter 16 00:01:10,900 --> 00:01:15,580 because Apple Intelligence won't work on any of these older devices anyway. 17 00:01:15,580 --> 00:01:20,420 Neither will any of these features, like live audio transcription in phone call recordings. 18 00:01:20,420 --> 00:01:23,900 Then there are a few more announced features that are coming eventually but won't be 19 00:01:23,900 --> 00:01:27,860 arriving at launch either, like mail categorization. 20 00:01:27,860 --> 00:01:33,900 And finally, there's the region lock features. There are still a lot of features left, but they really don't deserve equal billing. 21 00:01:33,900 --> 00:01:39,180 Safari video picture in picture, so what? And so, I updated. 22 00:01:39,180 --> 00:01:45,140 Using the iPhone XR with iOS 18 Public Beta 5, after a few weeks with previous reversion 23 00:01:45,140 --> 00:01:50,060 installed, I can't say that I noticed it worked any slower than before. 24 00:01:50,060 --> 00:01:55,540 Every life still seems to be the same, too, which is bad because this iPhone is 6 years 25 00:01:55,540 --> 00:02:01,060 old now. As for new features, the most important, in my opinion, is RCS support. 26 00:02:01,060 --> 00:02:05,540 Even if Apple spent so little time announcing this back in June, I almost missed it. 27 00:02:05,540 --> 00:02:09,620 In case you're wondering, RCS stands for Rich Communications Standard, and it basically 28 00:02:09,620 --> 00:02:16,340 brings green bubbles into the 21st century. So all of the features you're used to with blue bubbles, read receipts, typing indicators, 29 00:02:16,340 --> 00:02:20,460 reliable group chats, are available, except encryption. 30 00:02:20,460 --> 00:02:24,820 You can see if a chat is in RCS in the typing box, though I kind of wish they made RCS have 31 00:02:24,820 --> 00:02:31,580 teal bubbles. It really is exciting, but I have one group of friends that all use Android phones. 32 00:02:31,580 --> 00:02:35,220 RCS means we should finally be able to set up a reliable group chat. 33 00:02:35,220 --> 00:02:39,860 Yet, two of them don't have RCS working properly, which is surprising to me because I thought 34 00:02:39,860 --> 00:02:43,420 Google was advocating so hard for RCS adoption. 35 00:02:43,420 --> 00:02:47,420 And even when everyone gets it set up, the experience is inconsistent in terms of what 36 00:02:47,420 --> 00:02:50,620 the iPhone user sees and what the Android user sees. 37 00:02:50,620 --> 00:02:54,780 RCS isn't the only thing Android users have that is finally coming to the iPhone. 38 00:02:54,780 --> 00:03:00,180 There's also T9 dialing, and the ability to not only place Apple icons anywhere on the 39 00:03:00,180 --> 00:03:08,620 home screen, but recolor them as well. I don't mind the dark mode icons, but I really find the app icon tinting unacceptable. 40 00:03:08,620 --> 00:03:13,740 Ugh. Hideous. So should you update your iPhone? 41 00:03:13,740 --> 00:03:17,180 Yes. But I'll explain more a bit later. 42 00:03:17,180 --> 00:03:22,780 Alright, now to the iPad. The slowest supporting iPad contains an A10 chip. 43 00:03:22,780 --> 00:03:25,980 This chip is two generations older than the iPhone XR's. 44 00:03:25,980 --> 00:03:29,020 In fact, it's from the iPhone 7. 45 00:03:29,020 --> 00:03:35,420 Surprisingly, despite this, I found the iPad to be perhaps the least impacted by updating. 46 00:03:35,420 --> 00:03:40,260 Maybe I'm less demanding of my iPad than of the other devices, but I kind of find it 47 00:03:40,300 --> 00:03:44,460 amusing that the oldest chip-wise is the most robust. 48 00:03:44,460 --> 00:03:48,060 So no downsides. So what are the upsides of updating? 49 00:03:48,060 --> 00:03:53,860 A calculator app. I love how the basic calculator looks like those giant calculators you'd buy your parents 50 00:03:53,860 --> 00:04:03,460 as a gag gift. And this even gets math notes too, though I'm going to need some help to figure that out. 51 00:04:03,460 --> 00:04:11,740 You guys do math, right? Yes. So there's a new math feature on iPadOS where you can just write out math problems and calculate 52 00:04:11,740 --> 00:04:18,660 them. Just put in a formula, a problem you're working on, you just write it out. 53 00:04:18,660 --> 00:04:21,660 Unknown symbol. What's the unknown symbol? I don't know. 54 00:04:21,660 --> 00:04:24,740 Maybe my writing's too bad. Do I have to tell it to factor it? 55 00:04:24,740 --> 00:04:32,900 No, but it did it right, though, right? Well, it tells me that's the equation, but I want it to factor it into... 56 00:04:32,900 --> 00:04:35,980 That is the symbol. It's getting it right. Why is it saying it's unknown? 57 00:04:35,980 --> 00:04:39,980 I don't know. I don't use Apple products. 58 00:04:39,980 --> 00:04:43,980 Ty didn't come help me. Is that even graphable? 59 00:04:43,980 --> 00:04:47,460 Yeah. Of course it is. 60 00:04:47,460 --> 00:04:53,060 It's probably... Wow! That's actually pretty cool. 61 00:04:53,060 --> 00:05:01,820 Would this be useful? I mean, look, it's cool, but I would never use this. 62 00:05:01,820 --> 00:05:05,100 No way. I would never use this. Well, thank you. 63 00:05:05,100 --> 00:05:08,260 Sorry. Thanks for the adventure. 64 00:05:08,260 --> 00:05:13,580 Thank you for helping. 65 00:05:13,580 --> 00:05:16,780 Without the new fancy chips to power the new fancy features, there's not a lot more to 66 00:05:16,780 --> 00:05:22,580 report about on the iPad. It gets a lot of the same buffs the iPhone gets, like a more informative and better-organized 67 00:05:22,580 --> 00:05:25,780 settings app. But how about a real computer? 68 00:05:25,780 --> 00:05:30,940 The slowest MacBook that will get macOS Sequoia is this 2020 MacBook Air that was released 69 00:05:30,940 --> 00:05:36,180 a mere 8 months before the Apple Silicon transition to M1. 70 00:05:36,180 --> 00:05:39,660 If you bought one of these, I am truly sorry. 71 00:05:39,660 --> 00:05:44,660 The space gray Intel Mac mini has had a bit more longevity, but let me tell you, even 72 00:05:44,660 --> 00:05:49,260 on the current OS Sonoma, these devices are showing their age. 73 00:05:49,260 --> 00:05:52,340 They get warm enough to keep me comfortable in the winter. 74 00:05:52,340 --> 00:05:56,820 And this Mac mini cannot even play back the aerial wallpaper without stuttering because 75 00:05:56,820 --> 00:06:00,980 the Intel graphics are at 100% utilization. 76 00:06:00,980 --> 00:06:04,300 There is less to report when it comes to updating macOS this time around. 77 00:06:04,300 --> 00:06:10,180 The two big additions are Windows style, Windows management, and iPhone mirroring. 78 00:06:10,180 --> 00:06:14,420 Dragging your window to the top or side corners of the screen to get it to fit within a predetermined 79 00:06:14,420 --> 00:06:18,020 area is great and was someone's idea for Windows 7. 80 00:06:18,020 --> 00:06:21,500 And 15 years later, it's finally on the Mac. 81 00:06:21,500 --> 00:06:27,060 It works just as you'd expect it would. Dragging to the top fills the screen, to the side splits the screen, and to the corner 82 00:06:27,060 --> 00:06:31,900 quarters the window. Holding the option key will get you to those things more quickly, and holding the window 83 00:06:31,900 --> 00:06:36,580 on the edge will move you to the next desktop, which can be a bit annoying if you're slow 84 00:06:36,580 --> 00:06:41,180 like me. I also don't know how to feel about the margin it creates between the Windows. 85 00:06:41,180 --> 00:06:45,460 Feels like a waste of space. iPhone mirroring is very useful though. 86 00:06:45,460 --> 00:06:49,460 It basically turns your iPhone into a Mac app no matter where it is in a house. 87 00:06:49,460 --> 00:06:53,500 It's pretty neat to be able to control your iPhone with a mouse, clicking and scrolling. 88 00:06:53,500 --> 00:06:56,820 So you'll need a trackpad if you want to pinch to zoom. 89 00:06:56,820 --> 00:06:59,860 Notifications for your iPhone appear like other Mac ones too. 90 00:06:59,860 --> 00:07:03,660 I got a signal notification and thought for a second that I installed the app on my Mac, 91 00:07:03,660 --> 00:07:10,420 but nope, iPhone mirroring booted up. Apple is pretty good at making sure you get notifications on the devices that you're using. 92 00:07:10,420 --> 00:07:15,420 So even though I have teams on both my Mac and iPhone, so far every time I've received 93 00:07:15,420 --> 00:07:20,180 the team's notification, it's opened on my Mac app instead of the iPhone mirroring. 94 00:07:20,180 --> 00:07:25,660 Great. Which is merciful too because it does take a while to reconnect if the connection has 95 00:07:25,660 --> 00:07:31,500 dropped. There are other oddities. It floats on your desktop as a full screen feed, but if you want to move it, you'll have 96 00:07:31,500 --> 00:07:35,100 to move your mouse above it and wait for the border to appear. 97 00:07:35,100 --> 00:07:40,740 It's also not resizable, which is annoying because text is a little small. 98 00:07:40,740 --> 00:07:46,780 These Macs are the most negatively impacted by the update. I mean, they were slow before, but now, ugh. 99 00:07:46,780 --> 00:07:49,940 For example, when I'm going between a lot of tabs on the Mac Mini, the computer just 100 00:07:50,300 --> 00:07:55,940 can't manage all of it in memory. Everything just stutters and it really feels like I'm trying to run through water. 101 00:07:55,940 --> 00:07:59,340 Because this MacBook Air has 16GB of memory, it's not as annoying. 102 00:07:59,340 --> 00:08:04,220 If you have the Mac Mini with only 8GB, I recommend spending the 50-ish dollars to upgrade 103 00:08:04,220 --> 00:08:09,700 it because you actually can. I'm curious how much longer Intel Macs will be supported. 104 00:08:09,700 --> 00:08:14,460 Power PC support was removed with the release of Snow Leopard, four years after the Intel 105 00:08:14,460 --> 00:08:19,260 transition started. So it's nice that Apple is giving these Macs some extra legs. 106 00:08:19,260 --> 00:08:22,540 So overall, do I recommend updating? 107 00:08:22,540 --> 00:08:28,060 Yes. Even with these hardware limitations, Apple is providing the most useful features for 108 00:08:28,060 --> 00:08:32,540 us all. With RCS support and iPhone mirroring, the integration between these devices is tighter 109 00:08:32,540 --> 00:08:37,420 and more convenient. But let me tell you, if there's anything I've learned from this exercise is that 110 00:08:37,420 --> 00:08:40,860 downgrading devices is not fun at all. 111 00:08:40,860 --> 00:08:46,580 So when the time comes to upgrade to new hardware, you most definitely will feel a difference. 112 00:08:46,580 --> 00:08:52,740 I can't wait to go back to my old setup. Thanks for letting this Mac Address last for so long. 113 00:08:52,740 --> 00:08:57,140 I'm curious in the comments below what the oldest Apple device you have that supports 114 00:08:57,140 --> 00:09:01,220 this year's operating system is and how you feel about updating it. 115 00:09:01,220 --> 00:09:05,140 And if you want to watch another video we did, check out the one where I gave a Mac 116 00:09:05,140 --> 00:09:10,380 studio to a fashion designer to see how well it works with their 3D rendering software.