June 17, 2025

MacBreak Weekly 977: A Slab of Ham on a Box

2 hours 19 minutes

This week's episode dives deep into the post-WWDC hangover, exploring Apple's remarkable software improvements across platforms. The hosts examine the first third-party immersive video production using Blackmagic's new camera, celebrate major Vision Pro persona upgrades, and discuss Apple's complete re-architecture of iPad windowing. The conversation reveals how Apple's software teams seem to have hit their stride after years of criticism, delivering substantial improvements from terminal apps to AI integration.

Canal+ MotoGP Documentary for Vision Pro - First third-party Apple immersive video production shot entirely with new Blackmagic URSA camera, featuring French motorcycle racer Johann Zarco

Spatial Personas Get Major Upgrade - visionOS 26 delivers dramatically improved personas that actually look like real people, though beards still cause mouth-tracking issues

Geographic Persistence and Room Mapping - visionOS 26 features allow virtual objects to stay in place across reboots and sessions

Apple Home Hub Smart Display Discovery - Code found in iOS 26 dev beta reveals upcoming HomePod with screen, expected by the end of year

iPad Multitasking Revolution - Craig Federighi explains the complete re-architecture of iPadOS 26 windowing system, bringing full Mac-style window management to iPad

Background Task Processing - iPadOS 26 introduces finite background tasks for exports and file operations, finally allowing users to switch apps during long processes

Software Quality Renaissance - Discussion of Apple's apparent software turnaround, from improved backend infrastructure (40% improvement moving from Java to Swift/Rust) to new developer APIs

New Speech-to-Text APIs - Apple provides developers access to on-device transcription that's twice as fast as Whisper, though slightly less accurate

Third-Party App Integration Improvements - Apple now allows music apps to show animated artwork on lock screen and provides access to various ML models

Terminal and Spotlight Updates - macOS 26 features the first meaningful Terminal app update in years, plus pro features added to Spotlight, including clipboard history

F1 Movie Marketing Blitz - Deep dive into Apple's $200+ million investment in the F1 film, including custom iPhone cameras built for race cars and haptic trailer experiences

Picks of the Week:

Leo's Pick: Classic Sega iOS games going free before delisting on the App Store, including Crazy Taxi, Sonic titles, and Super Monkey Ball

Jason's Pick: PlugShare app for electric vehicle owners to find compatible charging stations across all networks and plug types

Andy's Pick: Usagi Yojimbo comic collection Humble Bundle featuring Stan Sakai's acclaimed samurai rabbit series, with proceeds supporting the Hero Initiative

Alex's Pick: Perla iOS camera app designed to give iPhone footage an authentic 16mm film look and feel

Hosts: Leo Laporte, Alex Lindsay, Andy Ihnatko, and Jason Snell

Download or subscribe to MacBreak Weekly at https://twit.tv/shows/macbreak-weekly.

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