Philip Houska John Gruber is one of the most respected Apple bloggers and regularly invites interesting guests to his podcast. This time, however, in The Talk Show discovered a pair that smoothly surpasses most of the previous ones. Gruber's invitation was accepted by Apple's top executives: Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue and Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi. There were understandably many topics to deal with, because Cue and Federighi, like their colleagues, don't talk too often with the press.
Eddy Cue was first confronted by Gruber with a recent article by another respected technology commentator, Walt Mossberg, who on The Verge he wrote about Apple applications that need improvement. According to him, the native applications of applications on Mac and iOS need a drastic change, and he directly mentioned, for example, Mail, Photos or iCloud, and the biggest criticism came from iTunes, which is said to be even scary to open due to its complexity.
Cue, who runs iTunes, countered that the app was designed at a time when users synced their devices using cables. In this regard, iTunes was a centralized place where all content was carefully stored. Furthermore, Eddy Cue added that with the introduction of Apple Music, the company decided to prioritize music through streaming and continues to work on integrating already purchased music acts through iTunes into this application.
“We're constantly thinking about how to make iTunes better, whether it's a separate app for some folders or all the folders inside. At the moment, we have given iTunes a new design, which will come next month with the new operating system OS X 10.11.4, and from the point of view of using music, it will be even easier," revealed Cue, according to which Apple decided to adapt iTunes so that they are dominated by music.
Federighi also commented on iTunes, according to which there is a certain group of users who are not interested in major software changes, and another problem is also the fact that it is not so easy to update already established software, especially if the changes satisfy the majority of current or potential users.
Cue and Federighi also mentioned the huge range of active iOS devices, which has crossed the one billion mark. At the same time, long-time Apple employees revealed interesting numbers regarding other services: iCloud is used by approximately 738 million users, 200 messages are sent per second via iMessage, and 750 million payments are made weekly within iTunes and the App Store. Music streaming service Apple Music also continues to grow, currently reporting 11 million subscribers.
"First of all, I'd say there's nothing we care more about," Federighi reported on the subject of apps and services. "Every year we re-implement the things we were good at the year before, and the techniques we used last year to deliver the best apps are inadequate for the next year because the imaginary bar is constantly being raised," Federighi added, noting that the essence of of all Apple's software ventures has moved forward significantly in five years, and the Californian firm continues to try to come up with new groundbreaking features.
In Gruber's podcast, Federighi also revealed information about the upcoming update to the Remote application for iOS, which will receive support for the Siri voice assistant. Thanks to this, it will be easier to control the Apple TV and, for example, to play multiplayer games on it better, because the user will have a second equally capable one in the form of an iPhone in addition to the original controller. As expected, in tvOS 9.2 more significant Siri support appears.
John Gruber was not afraid to ask the boss of both guests, Apple CEO Tim Cook, who sent a photo on Twitter that caused a lot of emotions. Cook participated in the Super Bowl finals and took a photo of the winning Denver Broncos team at the end, but his photo was rather poor quality and blurry until the Apple boss, who prides himself on the quality cameras in his iPhones, took it down.
"I think it was great because it showed how passionate a sports fan Tim is and how excited he was to see his team win," says Cue.
The latest episode of the podcast The Talk Show, which is definitely worth your attention, you can download on the website Daring Fireball.
