Having reviewed iPhones for quite a while now, it has become apparent that there are two phases to each iPhone release. The more apparent one, that detractors refer to as incremental upgrades, are the minor improvements for each iteration – the improved camera, sharper or brighter display, thinner bezels, new SoC (System on Chip) processor and so on, that perform better than its predecessor. There’s also the introduction of new, or rather updated colours, and the elimination of others in some musical chair colour game that Apple plays, by subsequently reintroducing colours in later years, but it’s what the majority care about and discuss when deciding to buy a new phone.

The secondary ones are the new features that change the way you use your phone, and while not always fully embraced, turns into something that we become comfortable with and eventually accustomed to. Like the introduction of Dynamic Island on the iPhone 14 series, where the pill shape area on the top of the screen becomes a shape-changing notification hub for users. Before that, it was MagSafe wireless charging on the iPhone 12, and Face ID on the iPhone X. As a standalone feature, these were not standalone reasons to pick up a new iPhone, but when both phases combined, provided a value offering that few could pass up on.

It’s the same with the iPhone 16 range, and of course, the flagship iPhone 16 Pro Max. For this, Apple has increased the screen size, more so by having thinner bezels so you get a grand 6.9-inch screen, up from the 6.7-inch of last year’s iPhone 15 Pro Max. Measuring 163 x 77.6 x 8.25 mm and weighing 227g, it is comparable to the 159.9 x 76.7 x 8.3 mm of the iPhone 15 Pro Max, which weighs a similar 221g. Available in four titanium finishes – Black, White Natural and Desert, we’re just going to call it as we see it – black, white, silver and pink, the last being the review unit that we have, and the ones my children refer to as the new, pink iPhone.

On the insides, there is the new A18 Pro chip which promises faster and better performance and you can do all the benchmarking comparisons out there, but there are two things to know – unless you’re stressing the phone by shooting 4K ProRes video at 120 fps, editing high quality videos on the go or playing graphics and performance intensive games, you’re unlikely to tax the device to its fullest.

Here are Geek Culture’s gaming tests on both the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro Max, where we run both devices through a selection of high performance and graphically intensive games, and as you can see, both phones carve through these hit games like a hot knife through butter.

As for the 4K ProRes capabilities, that’s the new camera array running, with a 48MP Fusion Camera that has a faster quad-pixel sensor for reduced shutter lag, a new 48MP Ultra Wide, up from the 12MP on the iPhone 15 Pro Max, and a 12MP Telephoto. With it also comes a selection of new Photographic Styles, where users can use Apple filters to enhance the photo after it has been taken, and further tweak the hues and contrast of each image with a digital touchpad, by adjusting a dot around.

But the crown jewel here is the new Camera Control button, located on the right edge of the phone, below where the Power Button sits. When you rotate the device left, the shutter button appears on the top right edge, where most users know a camera shutter button should be. In either horizontal or vertical mode, you click it once to get directly to the camera, and in video mode, you click it to start recording. But what’s amazing is that this button also has a capacitive touch sensor, so when you depress, but not press on the button, you open up a selection of secondary controls.

The first depress gets you to a selection of preset styles, from Standard, to Vibrant, Natural, Luminous and so on, each offering a subtle tweak to the image to give it a different look and style, much like a more refined filter on Instagram. Depress the button twice, and you get to the secondary controls, where Camera allows you to 0.5x, 1x, 2x or 5x zoom; Zoom gets you a slider for more precise controls when zooming in and out, and Depth and Aperture lets you adjust exposure settings, while Tone adjusts the brightness. The concept of a press and a depress on the Camera Control might seem confusing at first, but once you realise it’s a capacitive touch sensor, it’s rather intuitive, and you’ll catch yourself with both hands on the device held horizontally, adjusting camera setting more efficiently without having to navigate around touch controls. 

What’s more interesting though, is that Apple has released the iPhone 16 range, by heralding what’s to come for owners. The Camera Control button does not have it now, but in a future roll out, it will introduce a two-stage shutter that lets you automatically lock focus and exposure. It will also provide one-touch access to Apple’s upcoming Visual Intelligence object identification.

As a general rule of thumb, you should not buy something on a promise of the future, or a future premise because there’s never a guarantee of success. Take the current excitement over AI or artificial intelligence, where brands and software developers are asking consumers to update and upgrade the hardware they are using for something better, of advanced operations supported by machines that can help you improve the way you write, draw and design. Brands are touting it, but the performative premise has yet to be realized.

Then there’s Apple’s latest iPhone 16 series and the promise of AI. In this case though, it’s Apple Intelligence, an upcoming artificial intelligence platform whose abbreviations have seemingly been co-opted by the American company to match the more popular nomenclature. First revealed at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in June, Apple Intelligence is a set of functionalities and features that makes use of on-device and cloud computing to mimic human intelligence in the form of writing, transcription, image creation, advanced search and virtual assistant support. It’s coming to the Apple family of iPhones, iPads and Macs, starting with the iPhone 16 series of devices… except that while the devices are here, but Apple’s AI isn’t available just yet.

The rollout of Apple AI starts next month with iOS 18.1, alongside iPadOS 18.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1. It will launch first in U.S. English, before expanding to include localised English in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.K. in December. By next year, Apple Intelligence will expand to include more languages, including Chinese, English (India), English (Singapore), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Vietnamese, and more.

Does it mean that Singapore users can only access AI in 2025? No, as these are language support. If you have your language set to US English, AI will work on your device. The inclusion of Singapore English simply uplifts the Singapore context and picks up on spoken English in Singapore, as we’re known to say, “One, two and tree” instead of three, or mudder and brudder instead of mother and brother, because ‘th’ is a challenge to pronounce. Only time will tell if AI will recognise ‘tew-tion’ as tuition, ‘meh-nets’ as magnets, and “Wait a-wow” instead of wait a while.

And while AI is not the key selling feature of Apple’s 2024 range of devices, it’s perhaps the most exciting one of in what I previously described as the second phase of an iPhone launch, as it’s a feature that changes the way you interact and use your iPhone. Apple is not the first to introduce artificial intelligence on mobile devices, but being first means little, as the ones who have, haven’t made a significant impact that draws consumers to the hardware.

So what we’re starting things off with is a series of hardware upgrades with the promise of greater things to come, which also explains why this isn’t a full review of the iPhone 16 Pro Max, because we, like every other media outlet, have only had the new devices for less than a week. That’s enough time to review the full device features, but to review the iPhone 16 16, and this flagship without Apple Intelligence is like test driving the car in the basement carpark, and not on actual roads.

We will update this first look and turn it into a full review in the coming weeks, by adding our thoughts on Apple Intelligence and how it holds up as a standalone feature, and how it integrates with the hardware.

HSALS

Hsals needs more space in his house, and more money in his bank account to pay for all the toys, collectibles and other geek related items that companies are churning out. Free-time? Girlfriend? Who’s got time for those?

The post Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max – First Looks appeared first on Geek Culture.

To say that this is Apple’s biggest Watch launch ever would be accurate, as the Apple Watch Series 10 not only brings about a significantly slimmer device, but the screen size of the latest fitness tracker from the American tech giant is also now bigger, which is in line with the company’s approach to an ever-expanding line-up.

The first Apple Watch came in two sizes – 38mm and 42mm, and the subsequent Series 4  bumped things up to 40mm and 44mm, and then to the 41mm and 45mm of the Series 7. The Series 10 is not only larger at 42mm and 46mm, but also thinner and instead of an Aluminium or Stainless steel finish, it’s now a choice between Aluminium (Silver, Rose Gold and Jet Black) and Titanium (Natural, Gold and Slate).

Still, anyone would be hard-pressed to easily identify a Series 8, 9 or 10 at first glance because the aesthetics of the square watch face hasn’t changed. There’s the crown on the right for navigation, and the addition of two speaker slots which now allows you to play music through the watch, and listen to calls. Our review unit, the Aluminium Jet Black might just look black, but we also have on hand the Watch Ultra 2 in Black Titanium, and as hard as we want to poke fun at consumers getting excited about a simple colour of a product, there is an elegant charm to the rich black that the Watch 10 offers, providing an all-round premium, aluminium, nano-particle finish alongside the matching black Ink Sport Loop band.

Worn on the hand, it doesn’t feel any lighter as the 36g of the 46mm Aluminium Watch 10 doesn’t differ greatly from the 39g of the 45mm Watch 9. The new thinness of the device makes the watch on your wrist look like less of a bulge but if you’re accustomed to accommodating its presence by not hitting the watch on corners of tables, you won’t have any issue here.

Where you’ll see a difference with the bigger screen is also a change in the way you read information off the Watch 10. Text is noticeably more readable from a wider angle, and brighter as well. It seems weird that the Watch 9 seemed bright enough the day before the Watch 10 arrived and in that instant when it’s turned on, you can see how the new OLED screen is just brighter.

As noted, a new feature is with speakers, where you can now play music through the Watch. It’s a good backup to have, in case you don’t have portable speakers or don’t want to use your phone while working out. And sometimes, you can be in the kitchen preparing a meal, or cleaning around the house and it’s too much of a hassle to blast music from your HomePods or from your phone, but hey, music from your wrist for the next 20 minutes is just about what the speakers can adequately provide. That said, the speakers are small so don’t expect to host a small party at home from your wrist.

The thing about using the Watch to take calls is the new voice isolation that hones in on your voice, so we tried it out at the recent Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Orchestra World Tour at The Star Theatre, where the music was playing and we stepped out to take a call on the Watch 10, and the other party could hear us clearly, not knowing there was a live concert directly behind us. Yes, we could have used our phone to make the call, but maybe we were busy picking up snacks at the concession, or selecting merchandise at the store.

Function-wise, new to watchOS 11 is a Vitals app that compiles some of the key personal health information, such as your heart and respiratory rate, sleep duration, blood oxygen level and so on. Yes, you can seek out each piece of information individually, mostly from the Health app but having the key ones presented in one app, showing data across a period of seven days as a graph is more visually impactful, allowing you to note which day generated a different reading against your typical range that you should take note of. 

One new feature that we haven’t been able to test in the five days that we’ve had the device is the new Sleep Apnea detection feature that the US Food and Drug Administration just approved for use. Mind you, Apple told us just last week at its Glowtime event that FDA approval was pending and a little over a week later, it’s been cleared for use.

Sleep apnea is a sleep-related breathing disorder where individuals have pauses or shallow breathing that can impact a person’s overall sleep and general well-being. Like several other Apple Watch features, such as Blood Oxygen measurement, the device is not qualified as a medical instrument or diagnostic tool, but it provides the user with enough data to indicate if there is a cause to seek professional medical care. 

Sleep Apnea is part of the Health app and like the other long list of measurement data available, you have to select it. It does take 30 days of recorded data of having the device worn while sleeping, to generate a report and since it was revealed, it’s become one of the most exciting features for many users, especially for those of us with aged parents, or are somewhat older, and want to find out if sleep apnea is something that they should be concerned about. Given that the majority of sleep apnea sufferers remain unaware that they have the condition, the Apple Watch serves as a simple and effective tool to keep those concerned about their general well-being on the right track.

That said, Sleep Apnea detection isn’t unique to the Watch 10 or Watch Ultra 2 Black Titanium, and also available on the Watch 9 and last year’s Watch Ultra 2, as long as the software is updated to watchOS 11, which was rolled out on 17 September.

So the question is, is the Watch Ultra 2 a better choice, or can the Watch 10 provide the most features at the best price? The thing is, the Watch Ultra came at a time where the Watch 8 had a battery life that demanded a daily charge, otherwise it failed to last throughout the day and at night. It was more of a lack of habit to charge the Watch 8 consistently, which was why the heavier and pricier Watch Ultra, with its larger battery life, was such a lifesaver. It could last longer and required a quick charge every other day, ensuring that you could wear it in the day and still go to bed with it, to track your sleep.

The Watch 10 now comes with a larger battery and significantly faster charging, due to the bigger charging coils in the rear. After draining the device after a day plus of use, the device went from 10 per cent to about 80 in less than 30 minutes, and if you’re in a pinch, a short 15-minute charge, which is about how much time it takes for a shower, gets you eight hours of use, which is more than enough to last you through the night. Just remember to charge it again the next morning when you’re getting ready for work.

In other words, those who are looking at the Watch Ultra 2 as their fitness tracker of choice purely for the larger battery no longer have any reason to ignore the Watch 10 as fast charging means casual, intermittent charging can power you through the next 12 hours, without worrying about a drained device. The lighter, more compact design more than makes up for the lack of an Action Button on the Watch Ultra, and the updated features and hardware now makes the Watch 10 a better casual watch for the majority out there.

HSALS

Hsals needs more space in his house, and more money in his bank account to pay for all the toys, collectibles and other geek related items that companies are churning out. Free-time? Girlfriend? Who’s got time for those?

The post Apple Watch Series 10 – First Looks appeared first on Geek Culture.

When the iconic 80s cartoon Transformers proposed that there was More Than Meets The Eye, it could never have imagined that this would encompass over 40 years of lore building across dozens of shows, hundreds of comics and toys, and of course, a billion-dollar film franchise.

So it must have taken Hasbro and Paramount some level of gumption to decide that the next film in the franchise would be a reboot of what had come before, be animated and only the second theatrical one since Transformers: The Movie (1986), be focused on the original core characters and for the first time in a long time, recast Peter Cullen, long recognised as the definitive voice of Autobot leader Optimus Prime since the first animated series, with Australian star, Chris Hemsworth of Thor fame.

The reason director Josh Cooley (Toy Story 4) could get away with most of it is because the live-action film franchise, while somewhat popular, has never really been embraced by fans of Transformers, unlike say, Tolkien fans being enmoured with Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. There have been dozens of retellings of popular Transformers characters through countless shows, from the heroic Autobots to the evil Decepticons, that there has never been a recognised and definitive lore to serve as the foundation of the franchise.

And let’s face it – Cullen, while iconic in his portrayal, sounds a lot older now than when he first voiced Optimus and Transformers One serves as an origin story of how Cybertron fell, and how Optimus Prime came to be, after having a bad falling out with his then best friend, D-16, who would eventually become Decepticon leader, Megatron.

Wait, what?

Maybe events here aren’t what you remember from your childhood, but here’s the thing – that history has never been properly defined and this is a movie for fans of Transformers, who want more than the good versus evil archetype that the various incarnations of the TV series were known for, and want something deeper and more meaningful. Before he was Optimus Prime, our future Autobot leader was Orion Pax, a dreamer who never saw himself as a leader. A miner extracting energon from the core of Cybertron, it’s where he met fellow miner D-16 and both became friends, looking out for each other. 

At this point in history, there are no Decepticons or Autobots – just a race of sentient robots, some of who can transform, while others like Pax and D-16, cannot. It’s where the duo first meet some of the other key characters in the series, from Elita (Scarlett Johansson) who is more commonly known as the girlfriend of Prime, and of course, Bumblebee (Keegan-Michael Key) who is currently known as B-127, or as he prefers, Badassatron. 

Leading the film though are Hemsworth as Orion Pax, and Brian Tyree Henry (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire) as D-16. The film sets them up as close friends whose different ideals set them on different paths. Think Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi from Star Wars, or Elphaba and Glinda from Wicked, and Batman/Bruce Wayne and Two-Face/Harvey Dent and like those stories, the rivalry was first established before someone decided to go back further, and make them friends turned enemies. 

Heck, this trope seems to be making a comeback in Hollywood, as the upcoming Mufasa explores the deep friendship between Mufasa and Scar, as does Wicked – Part 1, and as ludicrous as it may seem, Transformers One doesn’t dwell on the friendship between Pax and D-16, but uses it more as a platform to tell a story how different approaches can lead people along different paths.

Wanting his mining crew to be recognised, Pax signs himself and D-16 up for a race that gets them noticed by their great leader, Sentinel Prime (Jon Hamm), much to D-16’s chagrin, but it also gets them sent to the lower levels of Cybertron, where they meet Badassatron. Finding a lost signal, it sends Pax, D-16, Badassatron and Elita to the surface of Cybertron where they meet the long-thought-dead Sentinel Prime (Laurence Fishburne), and discover secrets that divide Pax and D-16.

Spliced between the narrative are a litany of easter eggs, some easier to spot than others, but if you know your characters, you’ll spot the obvious, including Starscream (Steve Buscemi), Shockwave (Jason Konopisos-Alvarez) and Soundwave (Jon Bailey) as Soundwave, as well the less obvious, including cameos by Jazz, Hound, Ratchet and a bunch of other blink-and-you-will-miss-it appearances, and the obscure, such as when a mocking Elita tells Pax that he neither has the touch, nor the power. Ouch!

That’s clearly a reference to the first 1986 film, as the phrase matches the lyrics for Stan Bush’s song, The Touch, which serves as the anchor song from the movie. There’s no denying that this movie will be heavily compared to that fan favourite, with both films tapping on well-known actors to voice popular Transformers characters. Both movies were made to sell toys, except that the 1986 marked the end of the first two seasons of the original cartoon, this film serves as a new beginning. What that film marked in death and destruction, Transformers One serves as a rebirth, filled with action, a story about new friendships, testing loyalties, what it means to be a leader, all shaped against the splintering of society. 

When the movie was first announced, there was no denying that it arrived with a healthy amount of sketicism. Recasting the key cast of a popular franchise is rarely embraced, especially with new character designs that point towards the selling of new toys by tapping on the legacy of old ones. But everyone in the case sounds like they had fun, from the craziness of B-127, the unhealthy adherence to authority of Elita, to the trajectory in life that D-16 takes – it’s all a great foreshadowing of what’s to come.

If there is one misstep in the film, it’s that it tries very hard to merge known lore into one film. From the Matrix of Leadership, to the many Primes who serve the planet Cybertron, to the introduction of the Quintessons, to visually revealing so many characters – it’s like saying your current friend squad is comprised of people you met as a teen, and they’ve been with you all this while.

What this movie is missing though is a kick-ass soundtrack. It’s the one thing that the 1986 film had that few movies have surpassed, and maybe it’s the songs that fans grew up with, but if there ever is a sequel to this planned trilogy, more can be done to amp up the tunes. But other than that, Transformers One serves as a fitting new chapter to a great legacy.

HSALS

Hsals needs more space in his house, and more money in his bank account to pay for all the toys, collectibles and other geek related items that companies are churning out. Free-time? Girlfriend? Who’s got time for those?

The post Transformers One – Review appeared first on Geek Culture.

It’s been said that the cast and crew of Marvel Studios are a family, so it’s no surprise that Robert Downey Jr. and the Russo Brothers are making a huge return to the franchise, in not one, but two Avengers films.

Downey Jr, whose turn as Tony Stark aka Iron Man anchored the franchise, before dying in Avengers: Endgame (2019), will next play Fantastic Four villain Victor von Doom and mark the character’s debut in Avengers: Doomsday in 2026.

The Russo Brothers, who helmed four of the biggest movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) –  Captain America: Winter Solider (2014), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and the second highest grossing movie of all-time, Avengers: Endgame, will also make their return with Doomsday, as well as the upcoming Avengers: Secret Wars (2027).

While Secret Wars was previously announced, it did not have a director and it would have followed the fifth Avengers film, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. In recent years though, the personal and legal drama surrounding Kang actor Jonathan Majors saw the studios fire the actor and relook its plans, and today’s announcement at Hall H during the annual San Diego Comic Con marks the first time that the studio has revealed the replacement of The Kang Dynasty with Doomsday.

The Fantastic Four family – Reed Richards aka Mr Fantastic, Susan Storm aka Invisible Woman, Johnny Storm aka Human Torch and Benjamin Grimm aka The Thing, to be played by Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach respectively, will make their appearance in the upcoming The Fantastic Four: First Steps from director Matt Shakman. The news of the official name for the Fantastic Four movie, along with the characters appearance in both Avengers sequels, were also made at the same Hall H session by Marvel Studios.

The return of Downey Jr marks a new chapter for the famed actor, who first played the playboy super-genius in 2008’s Iron Man, which kickstarted the MCU. More recently, the actor won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his turn as United States Secretary of Commerce Lewis Strauss in Christopher Nolan’s masterful epic, Oppenheimer (2023), and he also earned an Emmy nomination for his role in Park Chan-wooks’ mini-series The Sympathizer at HBO.

Despite his post MCU success, the actor has never closed the door on further appearances in the MCU, though fans assumed that he would reprise his role as Tony Stark, or at the very least, the evil variant of the character, Superior Iron Man.

“Happily. It’s too integral a part of my DNA,” Downey said when asked if he would ever return.

“That role chose me. And look, I always say, ‘Never, ever bet against Kevin Feige.’ It is a losing bet. He’s the house. He will always win.”

Since directing Endgame, the Russos produced 2022’s Academy Awards Best Picture winner, Everything Everywhere All at Once, and have directed their attention towards streaming, producing Amazon’s Citadel and Netflix’s Extraction movies. Their post-MCU directing projections have not hit the success at Marvel, including directing the Tom Holland-led crime drama Cherry (2021) for Apple TV+, and 2022 action movie The Gray Man with Ryan Gosling and Chris Evans at Netflix. 

Prior to this news, the duo had often said that the Secret Wars was one of their favourite comic book stories and would love a chance to do a live-action take on it.

“The one series that we adored growing up was Secret Wars. It’s incredibly ambitious. It would be bigger than Infinity War and Endgame. But it’s a massive undertaking.”

While both new Avengers would bring them back to the MCU, it will likely feature a new cast of heroes from the recent Phase 4, 5 and 6, though they would have a familiar face in Downey Jr.

HSALS

Hsals needs more space in his house, and more money in his bank account to pay for all the toys, collectibles and other geek related items that companies are churning out. Free-time? Girlfriend? Who’s got time for those?

The post Robert Downey Jr. Marks MCU Return As Doctor Doom; Russo Brothers To Helm ‘Avengers: Doomsday’ & ‘Secret Wars’ appeared first on Geek Culture.

This is a spoiler-free review.

The complex live-action cinematic outings of Marvel Comics characters have had a long, complicated history that spans decades and studios, but there’s no denying that Wolverine, along with Australian star Hugh Jackman (Real Steel, The Greatest Showman), stands out as the clear favourite within that non-Marvel Studios legacy (it has been 10 outings across 24 years after all), so it’s only fitting that he’s teaming up with current darling, Deadpool, to close off that chapter of the saga.

And start a brand new one.

Canadian star Ryan Reynolds (The Proposal, Free Guy) returns as the fan-favourite Merc with a Mouth and after years of excuses, denials and proclamations that there will never be a proper cinematic pairing between Deadpool and Wolverine, the long-awaited buddy film is finally here, amidst the storm of corporate buy-outs, rights reversion and legal licensing, with the duo finally making their massive Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) debut at Disney.

On the surface, it seems like an obvious cash grab for the 55-year-old Jackman and 47-year-old Reynolds, who are closing the books on two popular live-action heroes and are quite unlikely to continue on in their current incarnation, but beyond that, Reynolds and Jackman have come together to celebrate the very essence of comic book shenanigans, honour the rich legacy from the previous 20th Century Fox studio and more, and make their stamp in the highly successful MCU that has seen a drop of quality since 2019’s Avengers: Endgame. 

Right off the bat, Reynolds, Disney, along with director Shawn Levy (The Pink Panther, Night at the Museum), want you to know that this is the same foul-mouthed, sarcastic, violent, irreverent, nonsensical and fourth-wall-breaking character from the 2016 Fox original and 2018 sequel, and the first 10 minutes is a dummy’s guide in shooting bloody gore and violence, upping the kill count and still in keeping with tone of the previous two, non-Disney outings. Clad in his signature red and black costume, our favourite antihero gets swept up by the MCU’s Time Variance Authority (TVA), an organisation tasked with maintaining the Sacred Timeline of the main MCU, and realises that he needs Wolverine’s assistance.

Scratch that. His Wolverine died in 2017’s Logan and after trying to bring him back, or should we say, establish that this movie in no way tarnishes the much-lauded legacy left by that film, Deadpool has to seek out a new Wolverine and ends up being maimed, stabbed, kicked, punched, and blown up by a bunch of others until he ends up with a costumed variant who hates Deadpool as much as he hates himself.

In many ways, this Wolverine aka Logan is much like the one from previous movies, except that he carries a burden and wears a costume to honour the X-Men legacy. Thrust into a fight that he never asked for, both mutants have to fight through a crap ton of bad guys, variants, and villains to save the universe.

This allows the duo to do what the Deadpool series does best – mock the genre and franchise, now away from the lunacy of Fox that didn’t know what to do with it, take potshots at Disney, who has seemingly lost its way after over a decade on unrivalled success, and go out with a big bang.

Big on action and even bigger on the cameos, the film is a buffet of quips, references, and cameos that entertain, whether you’re a fan of superhero films, an ardent follower of comic books, an audience member with a casual interest, or someone who just wants to be entertained. Unlike the cameos from 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, which failed to honour the legacy of its talent-filled cameos and used them instead as punchlines, Deadpool & Wolverine digs deep into the last 25 years and brings back many live-action characters, some with their original actors, others via a recast, and even a few surprises.

Yet, writers Rhett Reese (Deadpool, Zombieland: Double Tap), Paul Wernick (Deadpool 2, Spiderhead), along with comic book writer Zeb Wells (The Amazing Spider-Man, Elektra), Reynolds and Levy understand fans are not merely content with familiar faces and references, and work tirelessly to bring back the heroism and optimism of live-action comic book movies, giving many of these characters, some of whom were discarded by the studio through no fault of their own, a chance to shine.

Maybe you weren’t a fan of the many Fantastic Four films at Fox, and hated some of the disjointed narratives and character inconsistencies from the X-Men movies, but this film brings several of them back to guide our two foolhardy heroes trying to save their own realities. In some cases, this film gives certain popular live-action characters the ending they deserve, or a chance that they never had to begin with, and even offering something as simple as a closure they never received.

There’s a small part in you that thinks, there’s no way Deadpool & Wolverine can live up to the hype, but Reynolds and Jackman have put everything they have into this film, and the screams, cheers and non-stop claps in the cinema prove that they have done the impossible, of honouring the previous live-action legacy at 20th Century Fox and beyond. The adrenaline rush of hilarious quips, mind-blowing cameos, and action sequences form an amazing love letter filled with enough respect and gratitude to cure any superhero fatigue.

Does Deadpool talk too much? Yes. Does Jackman look 55? Very much so, but his performance here matches that of Logan, and while the film is about saving multiple realities, it’s doing so on a much smaller scale. Is Taylor Swift in this film? She’s not and Reynolds already told us this, but the film is filled with so many Easter Eggs and cameos that there’s enough to make most people happy, though it will never be enough to make everyone contented. 

Want that superhero landing? The inevitable fights between heroes and those with villains? The emotions of losing? That superhero suiting-up scene that sends chills and thrills up your spine? The unexpected cameo that surprises and the expected ones that still put a smile on your face? It’s all here. Sure, some elements don’t always make sense, and there’s probably one too many f-bombs but you’ll love every minute of it.

The villains of Deadpool & Wolverine, including Emma Corrin’s (The Crown) Cassandra Nova to Matthew Macfadyen’s (Succession, Pride & Prejudice) Paradox, are the only ones we can name and to know their roles, and that of the TVA means that yes, it helps if you’re a fan of the comics. With the sudden appearance of the Deadpool Corps, you’ll realise that the film is not against excessive fan service, of which it does a lot, but that’s fine because the movie gets many things right, and we appreciate Reynolds and Jackman giving fans what they want. 

For Jackman, it’s another shot at making the role his, not that he needed to but after nearly two decades of playing Wolverine without seeing him in costume, it’s definitely great to see him in several. For Reynolds, it’s a chance to remind audiences that there is a certain logic to Deadpool’s nonsense, which is a lot better than the regular nonsense in movies these days.

HSALS

Hsals needs more space in his house, and more money in his bank account to pay for all the toys, collectibles and other geek related items that companies are churning out. Free-time? Girlfriend? Who’s got time for those?

The post Deadpool & Wolverine – Review appeared first on Geek Culture.

There are many names and terms used to describe the Apple Vision Pro – mixed reality headset, virtual reality (VR) tool, augmented reality (AR) device, spatial computer, portable computer and so on – not because people don’t know what to call it, but because what the tech giant’s latest device does is so new, there isn’t a simple naming convention that easily and effectively describes and covers all that the device is capable of.

Essentially, it’s a computer housed in a pair of goggles you wear on your head and place over your eyes, and control with hand gestures and movements. What users see upon wearing it is a front-facing virtual display that overlays on the real world through AR, and you can bring this portable machine anywhere, from using it on a car or train ride, in the cafe or library, or even on the plane. Yes, there’s a full computer within, powered by Apple’s M2 silicon chip, with an 8‑core CPU (4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores), a 10‑core GPU with 16‑core Neural Engine and 16GB of unified memory, as well as a R1 co-processor for dedicated real-time sensor input processing.

There’s an App Store, where you can download apps and games, from Microsoft Word and Excel, to interactive software; as well as a browser for you to surf the web, or stream content through to, and you can also use it to send messages and make Facetime video calls with. That said, the library of software is still in its infancy, and with notable absences, including Google’s productivity apps, to a dedicated Netflix app.

For gamers and sci-fi fans, the concept is a familiar one as the Apple Vision Pro is a headset that mixes reality – the virtual one with all the open programs and apps that you see appear in the headset display in front of your eyes, all overlaid on top of the real world a user is actively looking at. Think of it as that heads-up display your video game character is seeing in the tactical shooter you’re playing, where players can see their ammo and life bar prominently shown on their heads-up display, as well enemies nearby trying to take them out. 

In this real world, you can still see and interact with anyone physically present in the space around you, but the virtual world you’ve put up on the Vision Pro, be it an app, program, software or video game, can only be seen by the one wearing the headset and no one else. Because the unit offers Spatial Audio with dynamic head tracking through side speakers, others near you can hear what you’re listening to, so put on those AirPods Pro and you would have conveniently immersed yourself into a private realm of your own, giving you the best of both worlds.

The 600 to 650g unit comes in several parts, and what you use depends on your physical comfort level. There’s the main goggles frame, and two light seal cushions of differing sizes that sit around your eyes (hence the variation in overall weight), and you pick the one that fits your face so that when worn, light does not seep in via the sides. Within, there is a 23 million pixel, dual Micro-OLED 3D display, one for each eye, that offers close to 4K resolution, at 90Hz, 96Hz or 100Hz refresh rates.

Around the back of your head, there’s the solo knit band that attaches to each side of the Apple Vision Pro. Like donning a pair of skiing goggles, the thick, elastic band wrapped around your head sits above your ears, and you can tighten the band via a knob on the right. Personally, this is the more comfortable band but because it loops around the side of your head, the weight of the unit rests on your face and nose.

Which explains the need for the dual loop band (and again, for the weight differential), which has two thinner straps, like the Sports loop on the Apple Watch. One strap goes around the back of your head like the knit band, while the other goes around the top. By tightening each one individually, the whole unit can sit more securely and supported on your head, instead of having it rest on your face. There’s also a lens cover, and a battery pack that connects to the unit, to power it for two hours of general use or 150 minutes of video watching. Because it’s portable, you need to carry it around when you’re mobile, and there is a cable connecting the battery to the frame, though placing it in your back pocket blocks you from ever getting embroiled with the braided cable.

For those with prescription eyewear, you can order special Zeiss optical inserts that magnetically connect to the inner displays of the unit, and unless you’re wearing contact lenses, you will need them as the Vision Pro does not compensate for short-sightedness or myopia.

Apple calls it a spatial computer as it seamlessly blends the real and virtual world, even though in reality, what you’re seeing through the headset isn’t the same as looking through an actual pair of goggles. The unit uses a stereoscopic 3D main camera system, with spatial photo and video capture capabilities, and there are 12 camera sensors on the unit – two high‑resolution main cameras and six outward-facing tracking cameras that detect your hand gestures, along with four eye‑tracking cameras within the frame. 

What you’re actually “seeing” within the frame is an almost 4K-like screen that the front cameras are transmitting visuals to, while anyone looking at you with the headset on is actually looking at an external display of your eyes that are being transmitted through the internal cameras within the frame, which Apple refers to as EyeSight.

It sounds complicated but instead of a transparent passthrough that will limit the screen’s capabilities within, the internal cameras can track your eyes and easily recreate your facial expression, from the eyes and even your face. Imagine you’re on a Facetime video call wearing the Apple Vision Pro and the other party is using an iPhone –  what the caller will see on their phone is a digital, real-time rendering of your face, complete with facial expressions and movements, like a digital avatar that the company calls Personas.

To limit distractions, users can set a background that covers up the periphery of the display, so that you don’t see the real world relayed by the cameras, thereby keeping you focused on the virtual world. But if someone near you starts speaking to you persistently, the software is smart enough to recognise it and the background will start to fade, so that the person speaking to you slowly comes into focus and you can have a quick face-to-“face” conversation, even with the Vision Pro on. The other party will actually be looking at your eyes via EyeSight through the external display, providing the sense of comfort that attention is on the conversation.

Personas serve as more than just a digital avatar, because when you call others who also own an Apple Vision Pro, all callers will be placed in a virtual environment where you see the personas appear, like dialing into a video call and seeing talking heads in the virtual room. And with your AirPods on, there is even spatial audio, and if one party positioned to your virtual right starts speaking, the audio will come from your right as if he was right beside you. This is even better than a Zoom or WebEx call because when someone speaks, you see their Personas, and hear them in relation to their position next to you, as if they are physically beside you. There is no way to even begin to describe that sense of proximity provided, even though everyone on the call is in different time zones or continents.

The cameras also have another use – to detect and track your eye and hand movements and motion, enabling gesture control of the Apple Vision Pro without the use of any physical controllers. A pinching gesture with your index finger and thumb is the equivalent of a mouse click, and you combine this with a simple look at something on the screen, to activate it. From opening and closing apps, or making a selection, to even typing out a search on a virtual keyboard, all you have to do is look and pinch, tap on a keyboard or keypad, or move your hand in front of you.

Want to expand a virtual window? Look at the bottom right corner of the window and an icon will pop up. Raise both hands and pinch both fingers on both hands and pull your hands apart to enlarge the window, and put your hands together to decrease its size. Pinch and pull left, right, up or down to scroll through icons or webpages, or use the same gestures to drag a window and reposition it on screen by pinching and holding the bar at the bottom of the window. It sounds complicated, but once you do it once, you’ll realise the interface is so intuitive, my 12-year-old took all of five minutes to master the basics of gesture controls.

And the hardware and software works so smoothly, you’ll catch yourself for thinking that it wouldn’t. As long as the Apple Vision Pro has an unblocked view of what’s in front of you, it doesn’t matter if you lift your hands to make the pinching action, or have your hands placed by the side. Seated at my desk, my hands were on my lap and I could pinch and gesture without raising my hand off my lap and the Vision Pro quickly registered the movement. Lying on my bed with the Vision Pro and watching Apple TV+, the unit registered all gestures even if my hands were on the bed beside me, which means that the peripheral vision of the unit extended beyond what my eyes could consciously notice or naturally perceive.

For the most part, it works very well, until you really put it to the test. Remember the apps that are running? Each is a window on its own and you can reposition and place them anywhere in front of you, to the front, left or right, and above. Stack them, and you can effectively have a concave combination of 4 x 2 windows leaning in on you, like having 12 screens surrounding you. In some instances, I tried to simply glance at the upper left or bottom right window, intending to look and pinch to engage those windows and that’s when you realise that stealing side-eye glances doesn’t always work as effectively for triggering gesture controls. You can still use side glances sometimes, but for things to work reliably, it has to be a conscious, direct look to activate gestures.

So how does the Apple Vision Pro make you more productive? As a standalone unit, you can easily manipulate what’s in front of you. That 4 x 2 stack of windows mentioned earlier? Imagine if one was a browser or two, and another was playing videos. Your Message window could be placed within view of incoming messages, and you can even be on a Facetime video call – everything is at your virtual fingers tips and you can do so without minimising one window to get  to another as you would on a laptop.

But this is a mobile device so why stay at one place? These windows can also be oriented and anchored in a fixed spot in your virtual world. Have that Disney+ app positioned in your bedroom and if you leave the room, that window remains in the room with the show still playing until you walk right back in to continue watching. The document window you’re typing out in can be placed in your study room, and another browser can sit in your living room, while your Message window is minimised and placed on your dining table, for when you’re ready to sit down and respond to messages, connected to a Magic Keyboard and Trackpad.

While there are virtual keyboards, it’s hard to type quickly and efficiently without any tactile feedback and the cameras are not able to track fast finger movements either, so you can connect and need an Apple Keybaord and TrackPad for more precise interface. Pinching and moving might be effective, but when you’re editing photos or writing an essay, the use of a tried and tested traditional interface tool always works best. The most impressive is the use of Apple AirPods, especially with Spatial Audio that establishes the direction of the audio in relation to where your head is turned towards, and the app you’re using. When you’re watching a movie or show, the audio can shift and change, to make it seem as if you’re in a cinema hall. Heck, there are even apps that can shape your viewing experience, as you can determine if you’re seated at the rear, middle area or in the front of a cinema hall, and the accompanying visuals and audio will reflect that option.

Do you prefer to work on your MacBook? This is where the beauty of Mac Virtual Display comes in and you can have your Mac screen be a massive window in front of you, working on software that are not available on the Vision Pro but now you can work in the privacy of your own space, without inquisitive folks peering over your shoulder because only you can see your virtual screen. You can have Disney+ running alongside your virtual Mac display, or have a browser on the other side. But there’s something more because you can now combine the use of various Apple devices into one. If you have files on your phone or iPad, you AirDrop them, but if the files were sent across via iMessage, you can quickly and easily pull those files via Vision Pro, and insert them into your MacBook. It’s AirDrop with a new skin, and the seamless movement of files between devices is something so intuitive and natural, it’s a surprise no one else can manage this productivity process quite like Apple can.

The flip side to this is that while you can open multiple windows on apps native to the Vision Pro, this MacBook virtual display is a singular one, regardless if your Mac set-up has two or three screens linked to the Mac machine. So while this Mac window can be a massive one, there’s only one so you cannot pull out another window from that primary Mac display, and position it outside of the screen. The UI for this Mac display is also tied to the laptop, in that you might have a Magic Keyboard paired with your Vision Pro, but to type on the Mac via the virtual display, you need to use the laptop’s keyboard.

It also doesn’t support the gesture controls or eye-tracking unique to the Vision Pro, so you can be seated comfortably with windows placed virtually in close proximity, only to realise that the enlarged Mac display is only great to look at, because you somehow placed the MacBook too far away to use the keyboard and there’s nothing you can do, but use the laptop’s keyboard. It’s an otherwise counterintuitive interface and you have to constantly remind yourself that looking and pinching away at the virtual Mac display has zero impact whatsoever, aside from making you look rather silly. 

The good thing is that the upcoming visionOS 2 attempts to partially solve this by providing an ultra-wide virtual display that will be the equivalent of having two screens in front of you. You’ll still need the MacBook’s keyboard to work on, but privacy in your virtual world is assured.

What is slightly less assured are some noticeable hiccups along the way, though it’s more of app specific issues, rather than a device one, as with the apps, some work better when it comes to gesture controls and activation by looking. Games like Synth Riders and Beat Labs run smoothly with gestures and navigation controls, but for compatible game Time Guardians, where you have to spot and pick out items from a list, imagine staring right at the item and not registering a response simply because the game refuses to recognise that your eyes are looking directly at the intended item in front of your eyes. Yet, if you stare slightly to the left or right of that item, the game immediately faults you for not being precise. Also, when it comes to fast actions, the Super Fruit Ninja game seems like a sure thing, but in the rush of the game, your erratic hand motions to slice up the virtual fruits aren’t always accurately captured by the game, and you can literally see your virtual hands fail you at the moment of need.

Now, it does take some getting use to, to be able to look at the world with the headset on and not notice the lack of details but instead realise that you’re staring at a screen of your real world. For the most part, the lack of details from a video display doesn’t really matter, until you need to say, look at a message on your iPhone, or see something off a screen from your partner, or in low light conditions and that’s where the lack of video and display clarity will be obvious. And because the cameras needs light to operate, walking around with it on at night will prompt an alert that it’s too dark for the cameras to detect your hand movements.

As with any new device, Apple has taken the opportunity to introduce a series of new software with new terms to remember. Remember Touch ID and Face ID? With eye tracking, there’s the new Optic ID which scans your retina, and allows you to register with the unit for use, instead of using a passcode. During set-up, the Vision Pro easily scanned my eyes and registered me for Optic ID but three days later, the unit would never be able to use it to unlock the Vision Pro and I always needed my device PIN code. Unperturbed, I redid my Optic ID and it worked for the next few days, until it stopped and now, not only does the Vision Pro fail at Optic ID, it is no longer able to scan my eyes for a new Optic ID reset as well.

After some research and resetting the device, it seems that the cause of the issue was allowing others to use the device without turning on Guest Mode. Unlike iPhones or MacBooks, the Apple Vision Pro is a personal device and each time another user donned the headset, the cameras scanned their retina as if it were mine, and it messed with my actual retina scan. Once reset, I turned on Guest Mode each time someone new wanted to try it on and Optic ID now works perfectly with my eyes.

And overall, it’s a stunning example of how the cameras work wonderfully. Having noticed the Taobao app on the Vision Pro, I logged into my account and was blown away at what the Chinese eCommerce company had done. There is a page of listings with virtual 3D models of the items that you can cough up for Vision Pro, so if that photo of that pair of shoes or handbag isn’t good enough, you can now see it in a scale 3D model, rotate it and even see the actual dimensions before ordering it.

And the software even allows for two models to appear side by side on display. There I was looking at a tabletop oven, and I generated the render, and could walk into my kitchen, and place it on the countertop, to see if the look and colour matched that of my kitchen. There’s no need for a tape measure and the software can render it with actual dimensions. I was also able to open a second oven listing, and put both 3D models side by side in my kitchen, to see which one fits my kitchen space better. This is what shopping virtually should be like, to put my feet alongside a pair of shoes to see how they look, and be able to rotate a bag or a pair of watches, to see everything from all sides, virtually.

But is all of this worth the hefty S$5,299 price tag for the basic 256GB model, without the addition of the Zeiss Optical Inserts? There is currently no pressing use for this, the same way that there isn’t a pressing need for a supercar, though it’s a wonderful feeling to test drive one. The Apple Vision Pro is a sharp, precise look at the future that Apple wants to build and while it’s not the first with an AR or VR headset, this stands out as several heads above what’s out there, because it’s a fully realised ecosystem waiting for the potential of other software companies to offer users something better.

The gesture and visual controls are an unparalleled success that other tech companies can learn from, and companies like Alibaba and Disney have embraced the potential to show us what’s out there. The huge investment isn’t buying a use, but an experience that will evolve with time, much like how the iPad was questioned for its purpose when it first debuted in 2020, and has now become the de facto leader in that space with no competition in sight, because a tech company was bold enough to show us what’s out there.

Not too many can afford this on a whim, but those who are open to will experience something that has no equal in this space.

HSALS

Hsals needs more space in his house, and more money in his bank account to pay for all the toys, collectibles and other geek related items that companies are churning out. Free-time? Girlfriend? Who’s got time for those?

The post Apple Vision Pro – Review appeared first on Geek Culture.

Eighteen-year-old Raffles Institution student and games developer Jiang Tongyu has a secret.

In the last two years since she started developing games on Apple, the relatively shy musician, who plays the piano, guitar and samba, has developed two concept Playgrounds for Apple’s Swift Student Challenge, both of which were among the 350 winning global submissions for that year’s challenge. Named after Apple’s programming language Swift, the international competition, launched in 2020, is designed to support students to showcase their coding skills and creativity by developing app playgrounds. 

The first, City Nights, was a short game about mental health and the hustle of city culture. Her most recent submission, Tambourine Story, made it as one of 50 Distinguished Winners of 2024’s challenge, and for the first time, these 50 students were invited on an all-expenses paid three-day trip to Apple Park in Cupertino, California to join in the company’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), where the students met other like-minded global app creators and developers.

While the trip was a highlight, Tongyu was also one of the rare few who was able to personally present her winning app to Apple CEO Tim Cook, when he was in Singapore for a visit in April, to the Apple Developer Centre in Singapore’s One North. There was a moment when Cook listened to her explain the game’s concept, of an interactive game that is a tribute to music and collaboration, and even grabbed hold of the iPad to have a go at the game.

But unlike the majority of her peers on the Distinguished Winners list, her secret is that she still hasn’t launched any apps on Apple’s App Store, and it’s not for lack of effort.

She only started work on Tambourine Story last December, and initially developed the music game based on a little girl who wanted to join her elder brother’s band.

“The idea came when I was 16, and I wanted to sign up for a talent show with my friends, so we created a band. During the first practice session, when we played together for the first time, I thought the feeling of playing together with everyone else was so amazing, because it felt like you could be a part of something special and a part of something greater than yourself,” recalled the developer, who also plays video games with her brother.

The idea of playing together as a group was first explored in City Nights, where players got overwhelmed by different things they had to manage, from doing homework to catching up on notifications, and realised they had to rely on friends along the way.

“So the app Playground that I made was inspired by that feeling. I actually started with a much bigger scope, as I already had access to like five different instruments. But since it’s for Swift Student Challenge, there was a deadline, so I had to like cut down to make it.”

She settled on the tambourine and a single character, which also mirrored her own effort in single-handedly writing the music, coding the game, and drawing the art, and was eventually able to submit a three-minute concept by mid-February 2024.

“I combined a rhythm game, the story, as well as the usage of core motion, which allows the game to know the rotation and acceleration of the device, to create my game.”

So will we ever see a full version of Tambourine Story on the Apple App Store? The desire is there, but while she jokingly hopes that that new Apple Intelligence, or AI, announced at WWDC 2024, can help turn her submission into a full-fledged game, Tongyu has another A she has to deal with first – her upcoming A Levels examination.

“I’m struggling to think about how I should expand this game,” she admits. 

“I’m a bit torn between, for example, uploading what I have right now to the App Store or waiting until after A levels to expand on it, and make it longer,” she explains. 

“Since the start of June, I’ve been more focused on my A levels. I’m hoping to, since university only starts in the later half of next year, I have a gap year in between. And I hope to work on more projects, like more games.”

And the trip to WWDC 2024 has inspired her to do more, especially since Tongyu discovered that of the 50 Distinguished Winners, only four are from Asia, of which two others are female, and have done more than she has, by already releasing their own apps. 

Indonesian BINUS University student, Nadya Tjandra, 21, is a first-time Swift Student Challenge participant and her winning Playground, Circuit Craze, invites players to interactively learn about series and parallel electricity circuits. The educational tool was inspired by her childhood memory of her father who experienced a similar challenge. Prior to her win, she developed other apps, including Tiati, an app with Internet of Things integration to Apple Watch that can deliver alerts to drivers if they start nodding off when driving. 

Thailand student Patcharada Tawaditap, 17, from The Prince Royal’s College School, submitted app Playground Homo Sapiens, which teaches human evolution to children aged 8 to 12. The app, which contains five levels, uses a text-to-speech function to assist children in pronouncing the name of each evolutionary stage.

And in a reflection that leans in somewhat to her first game City Nights and the theme of mental health, Tongyu is both inspired and in awe of the other young student winners.

“I managed to win Distinguished Winner with this, which I’m really honored to have gotten. And of course, it was also really cool to meet all the different Distinguished Winners from all over the world. It just feels really inspiring. I would say that it feels really unreal,” she expresses, before adding, “And sometimes I’m not sure whether, how to say, you know, imposter syndrome.”

“Sometimes I feel like I shouldn’t be here, because some people’s apps have super complex technologies, and I feel like most of the selling points of my apps are usually the games.”

Immediately though, she reverts to her positive self and starts planning for the future.

“I think that it’s super inspiring to see everybody else around me as well. It’s like some people tell me that when they see my projects, they feel inspired by me. And I feel the same way when I see other people’s projects. So I think it’s a really nice community to have.

So what’s next? It’s exams first, before moving into app development.

“I have some game ideas that I’m working on with friends. And next for the Playground, I also want to incorporate different kinds of technology into the game because I always felt that video games have this unique kind of potential to be really immersive with the technology that it uses.”

HSALS

Hsals needs more space in his house, and more money in his bank account to pay for all the toys, collectibles and other geek related items that companies are churning out. Free-time? Girlfriend? Who’s got time for those?

The post No App Yet, But Singapore Student, 18, Wins Apple’s Developer Awards Twice, Meets Tim Cook & Visits Apple HQ In U.S. appeared first on Geek Culture.

For a company that has politely abstained from using the term ‘Artificial Intelligence’ in describing the machine learning and generative text, audio, and visual software that has captured the attention of the tech landscape in the last two years, Apple has certainly found a way to cleverly co-opt the AI acronym.

Apple Intelligence, announced at the company’s annual Worldwide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) in its Apple Park headquarters, is the new suite of AI features for the iPhone, iPad and Mac machines running the upcoming iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. Instead of a mere app or series of hardware that will inject AI into Apple’s ecosystem, think of Apple’s generative AI deployment as a series of tools and features, ranging from AI-generated emojis (Genmoji), an enhanced Siri that will also tap on the world’s leading learning model, ChatGPT, through a partnership with its designer OpenAI, to image generation, either via on-device or cloud-powered generative AI models, that device users can use to enhance their daily lives.

It’s like using spellcheck or grammar tool on a document – there’s no need to turn anything on and if there is a spelling error or grammar recommendation, the software can flag it without the need for the user to know the proper spelling or understand how it is happening. From screening composed emails to offer contextualised writing recommendations, to having digital assistant Siri be able to understand a more conversational tone during voice interactions, to simplifying photo editing and even searching in your library of hundreds, if not thousands of images, Apple Intelligence effectively does away with the more mundane manual steps that define tasks. By focusing on the results and experience by working seamlessly in the background, users don’t consciously think of it in action, even though it’s clearly present. 

Say you want to identify a photograph of a person taken in the park on your phone, and want the image enhanced before adding it to that individual’s contact card on your phone – you can now ask Siri to identify the image on your phone, have the necessary edits made, before the final image is added to your contact card.

Searches via Siri are now less contingent on having precise verbal instructions and are more contextual instead, so you can do follow-up queries that the software will now recognise as being associated, such as locating a restaurant, getting a reservation and then putting a calendar block for the event.

Remember that document, file or photo that your colleague sent you last week? Was it over email, WhatsApp or Telegram? Just ask Siri instead of trying hard to recall where is sits.

For those using Apple Pencil on the iPad, the software recognises handwriting and can clean up scribbles or misspellings, and even make edits following the user’s writing style.

All of this is enabled by the power of Apple silicon, to use machine learning to understand and create or improve on written language, take actions across apps, and simplify tasks. While the rollout is contingent on the latest device software operating systems, there is also a hardware element.

For Mac machines and the iPad, you need to be using the new M family of processors, and on the phone, it needs to be powered by the A17 Pro processor, which is currently only on the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max models.

This requirement is hardly surprising, as the newly introduced features tend to only work on the latest iteration of hardware but Apple’s announcement is notable in several aspects.

The first M1 chip debuted in 2020, which means any Mac or iPad bought from that year will be able to tap on Apple Intelligence. Compare this to Microsoft’s rollout of its Copilot generative AI. It’s available on Bing and Edge, and for subscribers of Microsoft 365, though not for the one-off installed version. Then there is Copilot+ on Windows laptops but these are for a new series of Windows PCs that can perform tasks that other Windows PCs cannot, which technically infers that current laptops aren’t capable nor worth the investment.

And like Google Gemini or Meta AI, the generative model itself becomes the focus of attention, instead of the support it brings, including for things it fails on. Known as AI hallucinations, these errors happen because AI models simply collect information without verification, which is why Google Bard told users to add non-toxic glue to bind cheese on pizza, because it has been referenced sarcastically online. AI generative models are an expanding software model that’s still learning, building and growing, but as massive as the tool itself can be, is it really necessary? It’s like buying a workshop simply because you need to use a screwdriver and Apple Intelligence isn’t meant to be the be-all and end-all of AI – it just needs to be useful with some things.

It’s also free, or rather, users don’t have to pay more for a feature that’s so heavily integrated. There are free versions of Copilot, Gemini and even ChatGPT, but the business model being touted is that generative AI is the new income generator for tech companies. But Apple is rolling it out for free (though some would argue that the Apple ecosystem already has a higher built-in adoption cost).  

Apple Intelligence also has one significant advantage over all its competitors, and that is the recorded history between you and your Apple device. Already, your iPhone has your contact list of friends and family, and photos of your family, friends and colleagues. It knows your holidays and travel history, and what your schedule will be from your calendar. With it, you can tell Apple Intelligence to group your holiday photos with your partner, or night out with your friends, or activities within a certain time frame. Meanwhile, Google Bard or Meta AI has no clue as to my children’s names, what they look like, or the photos that were taken in Seoul last year, or at the mall last week.

And for those who argue that Apple Intelligence is merely a subset of real AI offerings, by simplifying AI’s potential, arguments can also be made that AI models are also fractured and don’t offer everything either, simply because of limitations. For more detailed and vibrant AI images, the recommendation isn’t for Microsoft’s model, but to use Midjourney, Dall-E 3 or Stable Diffusion. Given AI hallucinations, the recommendations for using AI for research purposes, complete with citation of sources, are for the likes of Perplexity or Scite – it’s about finding the right tool with the proper offerings that best suit your needs.  

This level of intimacy and knowledge might seem scary at first glance, but it is what allows the company its extensive level of offerings, to create Genmoji that look like you, or your friends as a cartoon character, or sift through your library of images. Aside from the integration with ChatGPT, much of Apple’s AI deployment is dedicated to producing an overall impact on the user, and not be as task-focused as the AI touted by Apple’s peers, including Google, Microsoft, and Facebook. It’s also putting in extra efforts on privacy as AI models use existing data to improve, and artists, authors, talents and originators of content are pushing back against companies that are using their works to build a better AI model.

Apple is keeping things simple by putting privacy first and its use of ChatGPT taps on cloud computational capabilities, but under Apple’s own Private Cloud Compute which it can control and manage. In other words, Apple Intelligence can do some of the things other AI models can, with outside help, but it’s also factoring in a new standard for privacy in AI, that other companies might not be so focused on. This means information on your friends and family, which are on your devices, can be used to serve your needs, but it won’t be shared to improve any AI model because that information is yours. Apple also made it very clear that it will not share user data with OpenAI, or allow OpenAI to train its models with user data.

The flip side is that some elements can benefit the majority. Imagine if Apple took all the handwritten notes globally, especially those of doctors, and collectively processed them so that users anywhere can simply take a photo of doctor’s notes, and immediately know what was written down.

HSALS

Hsals needs more space in his house, and more money in his bank account to pay for all the toys, collectibles and other geek related items that companies are churning out. Free-time? Girlfriend? Who’s got time for those?

The post WWDC 2024: Apple Intelligence Isn’t AI As You Know It, But It’s More Useful For Everyone appeared first on Geek Culture.

What do American TV shows Tracker, Will Trent and 9-1-1; Korean dramas Queen of Tears, Uncle Samsik, Chief Detective 1958 and Dare To Love Me; Japanese series Acma: Game and The Honest Realtor; anime series Solo Leveling and Delicious In Dungeon, and upcoming China drama Joy of Life 2 have in common?

These are just a small sample from a growing pool of international TV shows, ranging from dramas, comedies and action, where within weeks, days or even hours after the latest episode premieres locally, are then dropped on popular streaming services such as Netflix, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, and Crunchyroll.

This allows international audiences to enjoy the latest episode, without waiting months for the same show to make its local debut on free-to-air channels, or be available at a premium via cable or pay TV services.

One of the biggest draws for subscribing to global streaming services, mainly American ones, is that the majority of new content are released globally at the same time, so international audiences know that they have the opportunity to watch the same shows that American audiences have longed had the advantage of being the first to watch.

And American streamers are recognising that they need a wider breath of international and local content when they launch their services globally. The likes of Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video have invested millions in producing and acquiring content from international markets to broaden the appeal of their content libraries. Where once local content providers or broadcasters would charge a premium for day/date premieres of popular shows from other markets locally, streamers have entered the picture by adding new episodes each week, breaking away from the full season drops that have come to define their services. 

Similar to how Hollywood studios might release new movies in cinemas for a limited release, before making the same show available on streaming services, usually within a short window of a few days or weeks rather than months, local broadcasters or production studios in China, Korea, Japan and more, who produce these shows, are first releasing the shows through traditional broadcast, before releasing episodes on Amazon or Netflix for international audiences within a similar shortened release window.

And the shows making their weekly streaming debut aren’t the same as the streaming shows produced by the streamers, such as Disney+’s Shogun, Netflix’s Stranger Things, Amazon Prime Video’s Reacher, or Apple TV+’s For All Mankind, where the rollout schedule, of a full season or weekly drop, is controlled by the service. As streamers invest more on local content in global markets, the acquisition of shows, which are sometimes inaccurately listed as original content from the streamer are merely just acquired from another market, and are thus only considered original for select international markets.

The standout here is Disney+, which draws content from multiple sources, some of which its parent company owns in the US. American police procedural crime drama Will Trent, based on the books by crime writer Karin Slaughter, is produced by Disney-owned 20th Television, and made its US debut on Disney-owned ABC network, which explains its international appearance on the streaming service. While nine episodes have premiered in the US, only the first seven are available on Disney+ at the time of writing.

Meanwhile, Tracker, starring Justin Hartley as a skilled survivalist and tracker, made its US debut on the Paramount-owned CBS network, but the show is produced by 20th Television. While 12 episodes have premiered in the US, the streamer is only showing up to episode seven at the moment.

The catch is that unlike the bulk of Asian and international dramas, where a full season of episodes is completed before it’s released daily or weekly, American shows are still in production as the season progresses, so if a show has low ratings and is cancelled before the series completes production, international audiences won’t be privy to a proper narrative resolution. 

And these limited release content aren’t only for new shows without a following, nor are they exclusive to a streamer and follow identical debut strategies. Both Crunchyroll and Netflix dropped weekly, new episodes of Solo Leveling, the Japanese animated show based on the hit Korean comic series, and are doing the same for anime series about a group of adventurers, Delicious In Dungeon. Meanwhile, anime series Kaiju No. 8, based on a manga about a man who gains the ability to turn into a kaiju creature after ingesting one, is available on both on Disney+ and Crunchyroll, but while the dedicated anime streaming service has all five episodes, only three are available on Disney+. 

Meanwhile, the recently concluded Korean hit series, Queen of Tears, starring Kim Soo-hyun, one of South Korea’s highest paid stars, made its weekly day/date debut on Netflix but was so new that by the time the final episode dropped, the last two episodes had not even been dubbed in English for international audiences.

The trend has become so popular that more partnerships between broadcasters, production houses and streamers are forming, to bring the latest blockbuster series to global audiences within a shorter release window. On May 16, the sequel to the hit 2019 Chinese historical and political drama, Joy of Life (庆余年), starring Zhang Ruoyun, Li Qin and Chen Daoming, will be premiering simultaneously on China’s CCTV and Tencent Video in the country, as well as on Disney+ in select international markets, including Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong, streamer Viu and on Jia Le channel on Singtel’s IPTV service.

The show will drop two episodes for its premiere on CCTV and on Viu’s freemium service, while subscribers to Tencent VIP, Singtel Jia Le and Viu Premium will have four episodes. Meanwhile, Disney+ and Tencent SVIP subscribers can watch five episodes today.

Subsequently, two new episodes will drop every weekday at 7:30 pm Singapore time, and one episode each on Saturday and Sunday, which means that Disney+ subscribers will get the highest tier of access and be able to catch the sequel to one of the nation’s most popular TV shows alongside Mainland viewers and won’t have to worry about being spoiled. 

In an interview with Singapore’s Chinese daily, Lianhe Wanbao, Wang Qiao, the vice president of New Classics Media (新丽传媒), which produces the series, said that if the sequel does well, it will give the streamer confidence in acquiring more Chinese shows, and pave the way for more Chinese dramas to appear on global streaming services. 

This is not the first time Disney+ is offering day/date debuts of Asian dramas as it has previously found great success with Korean shows, including Wonderful World, Flex X Cop, Revenent and more.

So where does that leave free-to-air, cable and paid TV networks and channels, some of who have longed given up on bringing popular international shows to viewers immediately, and choose to do so months, or even years after its debut, simply because streamers are now cheaper (Amazon Prime Video costs just S$2.99 a month), and have an ever growing library readily available?

Well, when was the last time you turned on the TV to watch the latest Korean, Japanese, American or Chinese show?

HSALS

Hsals needs more space in his house, and more money in his bank account to pay for all the toys, collectibles and other geek related items that companies are churning out. Free-time? Girlfriend? Who’s got time for those?

The post China’s Hit Drama ‘Joy of Life 2’ Makes Day/Date Disney+ Debut As Streamers Dial Up Limited Release Content appeared first on Geek Culture.

Everyone loves a good comeback story to mark a revitalised and recharged return to form, but it’s not as if Apple’s iPad needed it. Sure, sales figures might not have been growing after the post-pandemic slump, but the company was dishing out new silicon chips alongside upgraded smartphones, laptops, desktops and tablets, so something had to go. And the iPad did, by skipping 2023 without any new models, the first for the family of devices since its debut in 2010. But no one could have predicted this amazing return with its flagship iPad Pro in May 2024.

The top-end line of the iPad family, the Pro has always catered to the users who want size – at a whopping 13-inch – and performance, with a more powerful processor, to accompany them on the go, where a sharp display and touchscreen trumps a trackpad, and intuitive gestures and controls reign supreme. And upgrade Apple did, with changes that more than make up for a one-year gap. With the debut of a new M4 processor, a sharper OLED screen that marks a first appearance on an iPad, and an upgraded Apple Pencil, this year’s models dials up everything, including a pretty penny. 

When Apple launched its M3 Apple silicon last October, the performance of its latest chips in the new iMac and MacBook Pro models was still fresh, especially since it was just four months after the debut of the M2 Ultra chips in June. Well, the M3 family of chips, including the Pro and Max have barely warmed up and the company has now outfitted the new iPad Pro with the M4. Saying it’s faster and better performing sounds like a cliche and in many ways, it’s stating the obvious. On GeekBench 6, the iPad Pro with M4 generated a Single-core score of 3,721 and a Multi-core score of 14,669. In terms of graphics, the GPU Metal score clocked 53,555.

Now, an iPad and MacBook have different internals and performance, so a comparison won’t make much sense but we ran the same performance benchmark on the 2022 iPad Pro on M2, which generated a Single-core performance of 2,608, and 10,096 for Multi-core performance. With graphics, the GPU Metal score generated a score of 46,604. That roughly translates to over 42% increase in performance on paper, which is pretty significant.

Apple silicon chips are known for its low energy consumption and with the M4 built upon the second generation 3nm nanometer technology that packs more within, the chips are now more power efficient. Apple claims that the M4 can do what the M2 does, but with half the energy consumption, but we’re not going to see a large jump in battery life, as the other upgrades here are likely going to take care of that.

And that big upgrade is with the new Ultra Retina XDR display on both the 11-inch and 13-inch Pro models, with up to 1600 nits of peak brightness, and 1000 nits of full screen brightness. This marks the first time that an OLED display has been added to the iPad, but there’s something different here that Apple is calling Tandem OLED. Sharp OLED screens are not as bright as LED, so to compensate for it, Apple has slapped two OLED screens together, not to offer higher resolution, but to dial up the brightness, which explains how bright these new models can go. The 13-inch model offers 2752 x 2064 pixel resolution, at 264 pixels per inch, or ppi.

When you compare it to the last two generations of Pro models, what you’ll see is deeper, more intense blacks on the screen, and livelier, sharper colours. If you’re a photographer who uses the tablet to cycle through your day’s work, or uses it to edit images, there are now more details in the shadow and the brighter display makes identifying details on photos much easier. For those looking to relax, it can be that movie on Apple TV+, or TV series streaming across Netflix or Amazon Prime, where the details in Dune: Part Two glide majestically across the screen, especially with the black and white battle by Feyd-Rautha on Giedi Prime. 

With 256GB now serving as the default base model, the notable difference in hardware is the memory capacity, which is 8GB of RAM for the 256GB and 512GB models running on three performance cores and six efficiency cores, versus the 16GB of memory with four performance cores and six efficiency cores on the 1TB and 2TB versions.

If gaming is something you’re keen on, we suspect that even the base model is good enough for the majority of games available. We tested a series of games, from Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, PUBG Mobile to COD: Warzone Mobile, on the 1TB unit and it barely broke a sweat, cutting through the games with ease, and at the highest settings.

What adds to the wonder, and the promise of a true laptop replacement years in the making, is that this has been done on a significantly thinner build, or a mere 5.1mm on the 13-inch, and 5.3mm on the 11-inch. Compared to the 6.4mm on the 2022 models, that is a hefty 1.3mm shaved off, making this an incredibly thin tablet to bring around. Oh, would you like it as a laptop but haven’t been impressed by the less than laptop-like Magic Keyboard accessory? Apple has redesigned it as well, with the keyboard ditching the plastic and going with an aluminium frame, as well as new keys with a different travel for the buttons, making it more akin to the keys on an actual MacBook, instead of a keyboard accessory. It has also added a row of 14 function keys, faithfully offering a full keyboard performance.

But the biggest change to this accessory that makes your iPad Pro seemingly float above the keyboard, is the larger trackpad that no longer seemingly buckles under the pressure, as though it’s a fragile toy. Typing is now much more comfortable on the glass trackpad, and using that haptic-feedback mirrors the MacBook experience. It’s not the same of course, as a laptop offers that stability and heft, but you can now work on the go with greater effectiveness and precision on the new iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard.

So picture this. A thin display with the brightest, most colourful and sharpest display, with a top-of-the-line processor and a full keyboard that can be easily used on the lap and on the go, with an adjustable screen orientation. What’s missing from this pseudo laptop experience? A proper camera placement that sits along the horizontal length of the tablet and not the vertical breath, since a tablet this size would be awkward in portrait mode? Apple has finally heard your calls and placed the 12MP Ultra Wide front camera along the landscape edge on the device. What this means is that users can naturally look at the top of the horizontal edge for Facetime and video call, and not over to the side as before. It might seem like a small change, but for all of us looking off camera on work calls when using the iPad, simply because we weren’t used to the camera’s location on the iPad, this is a correction that has been a long time coming.

For those who use the iPad Pro as a creative tool, Apple has also updated a second accessory with the Apple Pencil Pro. It works like previous Pencil devices, offering the same precise handwriting and drawing capabilities as before, but now with more that makes an actual pencil seem obsolete. Where your fingers would once grip the shaft of the tool is now an option to press in with your fingers, squeeze the device, and cough up more menu options. With Procreate, it’s a case of more options for drawing tools and pressure density. It’s the same with Freeform as well, so instead of moving your hand to tap on the borders of the app, where the menu options sit, you can now paint, draw and create, with the simplest of gestures to bring up commonly used tools to make the creation process much easier.

An added gyroscope also allows the Pencil Pro to detect rotations of the device, so if you’re painting on a canvas and want to have a lighter tone, you can dab on the screen lightly, or press in for a darker tone. With the roll, you can now roll that pencil or paintbrush for that shading effect to appear on your final artwork. It’s actually one of the more intuitive aspects of the Pencil Pro, and it works rather elegantly. The only thing you have to note is the amount of roll and pressure to apply, and for the first few attempts, get used to where on the display the tools menu will pop up. It’s not jarring in any way, but unlike a right mouse click to bring up the menu where your cursor sits, the squeeze function doesn’t really have an indicated spot where the menu will appear, so it takes some acclimatisation to know where it will appear.

Those who like snapping photos need to know two things – a 13-inch iPad is not meant to be held up or overhead as a camera, but the 12MP wide camera on the rear is capable enough for presentations, or take photos should your iPhone be out of your hands. It’s capable of shooting 4K video up to 60 frames per second, and slo-mo video of up to 240 fps. 

Now that you know how great the device is, here’s the rub – the iPad Pro has always been the top-end tablet from the company and this M4-powered beast is a hefty investment. The base 256GB Wi-Fi model starts from S$1,999, and S$2,299 for the 512GB version for the standard glass version. It’s $2,899 for the 1TB and S$3,499 for the 2TB, and another S$150 if you opt for the nano-textured glass, only available on the larger capacity devices. This glass gives the device a matte effect, and reduces glare. The Apple Pencil Pro is another S$199, while the Magic Keyboard sets you back S$449, which means getting the basic model with accessories will cost S$2,647, which can get you a 15-inch MacBook Air with 8-Core CPU, 10-Core GPU, 16GB of Unified Memory and 512GB of SSD Storage.

And finally, the last thing you need to know, if you intend to get the cellular model, the new iPad models only support eSIM, and not a regular SIM card. For those of you already on eSIM for your other Apple devices, this is nothing new, but if you intend to pick up a new iPad, do sign up for an eSIM otherwise you’re better off with a Wi-Fi model.

HSALS

Hsals needs more space in his house, and more money in his bank account to pay for all the toys, collectibles and other geek related items that companies are churning out. Free-time? Girlfriend? Who’s got time for those?

The post Geek Review: Apple iPad Pro M4 (2024) appeared first on Geek Culture.

It was an afternoon at the library, with around two hours to burn. After securing a seat, and opening the (relatively) new MacBook Pro 16 M3 Max (MBP) 16-inch, imagine the surprise of seeing that it only had 18 per cent of power left. Someone forgot to charge it the night before, and that’s the downside of using a machine that can last over 15 hours of extended use – keeping the device charged up is no longer a priority since it can keep going for a pretty long time.

After five months of using Apple’s latest MBP powered by its latest M3 Max processor, and five years after making the switch from PC to Mac from a lifetime of Windows use, there is absolutely nothing to miss about the slow, power-hungry, bulky monstrosities that have come to define the competition. On the other hand, MacBooks are some of the most convenient, easy-to-use, and now, portable machines available to the everyday user, with the powerful MBP 16 offering everything you can ever need for being on the go.

Even at that low rate of battery life left, this MBP 16 chugged on staunchly, connecting to the Wi-Fi and performing as expected for the next 100-plus minutes for web surfing, and partially typing out this review. That’s close to two solid hours of work performance, and few, if even any, laptops can provide something so amazing with what would have been a heart-stopping 18 per cent of juice left.

Since the tech giant debuted its own Apple silicon M chip, each iteration has outperformed the previous and the current M3 is no different. For those who remain unconvinced with performance and prefer statistics, Apple M3 chips has transitioned to the 3nm fabrication process, over the 5nm on the M2 family of chips, which is represented by the jump in transistor count, to 25 billion now compared to 20 billion before. That’s a whopping 25 per cent increase in hardware performance and it was well represented our benchmarks when we tested it during launch.

So convinced about the new chips, Apple has launched three versions – the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max. For those looking at better performance, the M3 Pro and M3 Max machines are the way to go and the three chips are available for the MacBook Pro 14 models. For the larger MacBook Pro 16, you can opt for either the M3 Pro or M3 Max versions. There’s a price point for every user and choices start from the preconfigured 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU with 8GB of Unified memory base models of the M3 powered MBP 14, and 12-core CPU, 18-core GPU with 18GB of Unified Memory of the M3 Pro powered MBP 16. The preconfigured M3 Max MBP 14 peaks with the 14-core CPU, 30-core GPU with 36GB of Unified Memory, while the M3 Max MBP 16 offers up to 16-core CPU, 40-core GPU with 48GB of Unified Memory, which is this review unit. Of course, you can choose to upgrade things further at a price.

So what do all these numbers represent? Well, benchmarks only tell one part of the story, and the only way to present performance data is contextual and lucky for us, we have three machines running on M3, to give us a sense of what is happening under the hood. Using Adobe Premiere Pro, we converted a fully fleshed-out 5-minute project consisting of 4K footage, B-rolls and animations, from our “Spider-Man 2 CE Unboxing”, and exported it to MP4.

The result? The iMac on M3 took 6 minutes and 15 seconds to do the job, while the MBP 14 took a slightly shorter 5 minutes and 23 seconds. On this bad boy, it took just 2 minutes and 39 seconds, which is more than half the time on the iMac, and half that on the MBP 14.

This performance does come at a price, and at S$5,896.20, the top-end MBP 16 does command a certain premium but it’s a workhorse that will continue to deliver, much like how the MBP 16 M1 still continues to serve faithfully. Visually, the only thing differentiating this iteration is the new Space Black colour option that just adds new layers of appreciation to the already iconic silver and grey options from previous Mac laptops. At first glance, the black is more a dark grey, especially when light bounces off the aluminium frame, but with the processing capabilities coursing through this elegantly designed and coloured device, it’s in a state of beauty of its own, separate from the plastic black chassis that dominate most other brands of laptops.

Once opened, the 16.2-inch Liquid Retina XDR display around the 35.57cm by 24.81cm by 1.68cm machine easily takes prominence, offering 4K (3,456 x 2,234) native resolution at 254 pixels per inch that delivers rich, crisp and beautiful colours. From streaming movies and TV shows via the usual services, or playing videos games via Steam or Epic Games Store, the display tackles video content of every type with ease, with as much ease as connecting your AirPods. For the uninitiated, all your Apple devices will instantly recognise your AirPods when it’s connected to one device with your Apple ID, and you can easily toggle it to jump from iPhone to iPad to MacBook. Sadly, you do have to deal with the centre-set notch at the top of the display that houses the camera, as it prevents appreciation of full-screen content.

For gamers out there holding back until Apple starts to get serious about having high quality, performing titles on the platform, there is unfortunately very little in terms of anything new to add. While Apple silicon is certainly capable of running the latest AAA titles, Apple has opted to bring top games on a title by title basis, so while you’ll still be faced with incompatible warnings on Steam and Epic Game Store on games that cannot run on Mac, you can play select titles including Death Stranding Director’s Cut and Resident Evil Village. During Apple CEO Tim Cook’s recent visit to Singapore, we did get a chance to ask him about the current situation and while he did say it was a priority, he did not go into details. 

Portability with the device is also not an issue once you know about the ecosystem. The 2.16kg M3 Max models (2.14kg for the M3 Pro version) comes with a SDXC card slot, HDMI port and Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) on the right edge, and MagSafe 3, 2 x Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) and 3.5mm headphone jack on the left. You’ll still need an adaptor if you want to connect to a Ethernet cable, or need to plug in more USB type devices, but the machine is both for use in and out of the home.

The M3 Max model supports up to four external displays – with three external displays at 6K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt, and the last one with up to 4K resolution at 144Hz across HDMI.

It can do up to three external displays, with two external displays with 6K resolution at 60Hz over Thunderbolt, and either the last one at 8K resolution at 60Hz or 4K resolution at 240Hz over HDMI. That’s a lot of display options and ostensibly, such a set-up would cater for the use of more hubs as needed. On the go, the device offers 22 of content watching across Apple TV and while we didn’t put it to the test, the machine easily surpassed the 15 hours of wireless web use, as we were listening to Spotify and doing word processing on the move. 

The unit comes packed with a 140W USB‑C power adapter capable of fast charging, as we as a USB‑C to MagSafe 3 cable for charging. While we love the magnetic cable, there have been instances when the cable connects, but doesn’t charge. It takes a bit of jostling and awareness to see if the tiny orange light shows up, so we prefer to use this at home, and bring out a 100W USB-C cable for outdoor use as a physical connection works every time. 

Given its heft and price, the MBP 16 isn’t for everyone. Students looking for performance and power can opt for the M3 MacBook Air models, and should they want something more, there’s the MBP 14 M3 or M3 Pro that is more portable and affordable. The MBP 16 is the best-in-class device for professionals who need the power, real estate and performance at any time, and don’t mind bringing it around everywhere.

HSALS

Hsals needs more space in his house, and more money in his bank account to pay for all the toys, collectibles and other geek related items that companies are churning out. Free-time? Girlfriend? Who’s got time for those?

The post Geek Review: Apple MacBook Pro 16 M3 Max (2023), 6 Months Later appeared first on Geek Culture.

Two years ago, Apple released the most powerful Apple Watch in the market with a stronger battery, larger screen and added additional buttons, turning one of the world’s most successful  fitness tracker into well, the Apple Watch Ultra.

Aside from greater features, including endurance training for triathletes and desert running plus tracking, the company added a diving feature that, when combined with a subscription to the Oceanic+ app, turned the fitness device into a dive computer.

It’s an amazing achievement, putting all the varied sports, health and fitness-related features on a person’s wrist, and then telling them they can suit up, and jump into the sea and have all their underwater activities tracked and recorded. There were limits of course, and even as we put the device through its paces, of extreme running, cycling and diving, we noticed some limits and wondered what improvements the next version would bring. One clear one was that the pairing of the Oceanic+ app, Apple Watch and iPhone was dependent on an internet connection.

This wouldn’t be an issue if you’ve done the connection on land, before you set sail, but there isn’t online access in the middle of the sea, miles away from land and out on your boat, you could be swapping out phones, re-pairing devices and trying to ensure that things work, and the worst thing is not being able to get hardware to pair, when they are supposed to.

Well, the next version came soon enough when Apple launched the Watch Ultra 2, an update encased in the same chassis as the original. On the surface, the original and latest models look virtually identical, with larger orange button on the left side, and crown and second button on the right. Powered by the company’s latest and naturally, faster S9 chip, the biggest difference is that Apple’s smart assistant, Siri, now works directly on the watch, independent of the phone. Previously, the AI assistant connected to the cloud, and connections had to route from watch to phone to Apple servers and back again, causing a delayed response.

This time, simple commands and tasks, such as setting an alarm, asking for the time or starting a workout can be calculated or controlled from the Watch Ultra 2, and the results are faster in execution since they reside on the device and do not need to be sent to Apple servers to be processed and then sent back to the phone. Results from machine learning tasks are also generated more quickly and the watch feels more responsive overall though if you’re wondering, it’s not reason enough to swap out your current Watch Ultra with this successor because the first iteration is still a premium product that’s good enough. 

New to the Watch Ultra 2, and the regular Apple Watch 9, is Double Tap, an interactive feature that allows you to interact with your phone by tapping your thumb and index finger together twice. Other than the device’s existing sensors, this uses the S9 chipset, which explains why it’s not something last year’s Watch Ultra can perform. With it, you can answer your phone while driving, without taking your hands off the wheel, and your attention towards the front, or mute a call during a meeting, without ever touching your phone. It might sound like a simple feature, but if you’ve been in a meeting and need to reject a call without looking at your phone, or are in the middle of a run at the gym and don’t want to stop to grab your phone, the simple act of pinching your fingers twice is a natural gesture to pick up.

There are other gestures too, like covering your watch to mute it and if you’re looking for something a little brighter, the display here is now the sharpest and brightest, with 3,000 nits of brightness, which makes it the oh-so-perfect tool to take it diving in the open seas. 

We took the device out to sea, this time in Phuket and the biggest thing that Apple has solved is that there are no more issues pairing the Watch Ultra 2 to an iPhone out in open waters, even without a network connection. We got it up and running with no issues, unlike our first run with the original device, which is a boon to divers out there who, for whatever reason, might need to reset their devices and establish a new pairing. 

⁠Along with the hardware upgrade, developer Huish Outdoors has also made updates to the app, which is now able to show the number of dives taken, which is quite useful for recreational divers as dive centres usually ask for diving experience and the easiest is to show the number of dives.

Oceanic+ also now provides a break down of statistics in the number of dives taken per week, quarter and year, which is extremely useful for dive professionals to keep track of a dive season or busy period. Then again, it still shows the cumulative total depth taken by a diver, which is merely a fun statistic but a piece of redundant information not useful at all to a diver in the waters.

It has also added a⁠ dive logbook that automatically logs dive time, water temperature, depth profile and no-decompression limits, and users are also able to log other information related to the dive as well, including water conditions and the type of gear used. 

For divers out there, there are still features that Apple and Huish can add to make the next iteration an indispensable dive computer. On top of tagging the GPS coordinates of a dive site, which other apps such as the Garmin Dive also offers, perhaps offer users the opportunity to suggest a name of the dive site instead. 

The Apple team should also look at allowing the Watch Ultra family of devices to share dive statistics with diving school apps such as PADI or SSI. Depending on the type of certificate a dive centre offers, students will definitely benefit from using PADI and/or SSI apps for e-learning and something needs to be done about manually entering details, like what transferring details from the Garmin Dive to the SSI app entails.

And while it looks like Apple has updated the battery capacity of the Watch Ultra 2, from 542 to 564 mAh, battery performance has improved tremendously, and we managed two to three days worth of dives before a charge was required. Compared to the daily charge of the original unit, this is an amazing upgrade for Apple, especially considering the much brighter display. Interestingly enough, Apple claims 36 hours of normal use, and up to 72 hours in Low Power Mode (LPM), just like the original.

For divers out there though, other dive computers, such as the Garmin Descent MK2s, boasts battery life sufficient for four days of dives, so Apple’s latest falls short, but with just one revision, has managed to narrow the gap, which should put its competitors on watch. 

Another crucial reason for the enhanced battery life is likely due to the new watchOS 10 operating system that not only introduces new features for the phone, including new activities monitoring such as cycling tracking, or navigation features, but also cuts down on the battery drain with improved performance.

Ultimately, Apple has gone out and made a better Watch Ultra with the second iteration, though not enough to warrant an immediate upgrade if you own the original. With the new features, though not all, like the new maps, are available outside of the US, the company is creating a distinction between the Ultra and the regular models, so the question for those deciding on which to get is, how important is battery life and would have a special fitness tracker inspire you to try out new activities like cycling, or even go for your first dive?

HSALS

Hsals needs more space in his house, and more money in his bank account to pay for all the toys, collectibles and other geek related items that companies are churning out. Free-time? Girlfriend? Who’s got time for those?

The post Geek Review: Apple Watch Ultra 2 appeared first on Geek Culture.

No one passes an invitation to meet Apple CEO Tim Cook, so when four game developers – including an 18-year-old student and Apple Design Award winners –  from the region were assembled at the newly minted Apple Developer Center in Singapore to meet Cook as part of his Southeast Asia visit after Vietnam and Indonesia, careful care and consideration were made to ensure that he saw the best games and game developers that the region had to offer.

What they didn’t expect was the time, care and consideration that Cook spent amidst his extremely busy schedule that included visits to Gardens by the Bay, the Apple Store at Marina Bay Sands and Cerebral Palsy Alliance School Singapore on his first day in the Republic.

While the 63-year-old stepped into the area at the Developer Centre at Solaris in Singapore’s One North area accompanied by a small entourage, he approached each of the developers on his own without a minder, and spoke with each of the four – Singapore developers Chin Yong Kian and student Jiang Tongyu, Malaysian developer Yiwei P’ng and Thailand-based Jakob Lykkegaard – separately, taking great effort to speak and listen to each of them relate their journey, not only in developing games on the Apple ecosystem, but also their experience as a developer.

The first developer he met was 18-year-old Raffles Institution student Jiang Tongyu, a two-time WWDC Swift Student Challenge 2023 & 2024 winner. While she was clearly nervous about meeting Apple’s CEO, he in turn was surprised to find out that she is a two-time Swift Student Challenge winner.

When conversation turned towards her 2024 Swift Student Challenge submission, Tambourine Story, which saw her named as one of 50 Distinguished Winners, her nervousness flitted away as she walked Cook through her process in designing, coding and even writing her own music for the game. 

While Geek Culture was present for the duration of his visit and his discussions with all four developers, we will keep the contents of the discussions he had with the developers private, but suffice to say, Tongyu was clearly excited when Cook accepted her invitation to try her game, as he picked up the iPad and played Tambourine Story on it. 

The game uses the iPad as a tambourine, where players have to shake the device to match the beat of the music. Ultimately, she said that Cook did well playing the music, to the impressed smiles and laughs of the intimate group of people in the room. 

Next up was Chin Yong Kian aka Chiny of Chinykian Games in Singapore, who teaches game development to students, and has spent the last few years creating his own hit games for iOS – Serious Scramblers, Jump Jerboa, and his upcoming Apple Arcade title, A Slight Chance of Sawblades+, which will make its debut as Singapore’s first App Store Great. 

Cook placed great attention when Chin provided background on his games, which went back all the way to 2018, as he put focus on his attention to details, which provides the game with a level of depth that players recognise.

This was followed by a discussion with Malaysian developer Yiwei P’ng from Kurechii, the first Malaysian game studio on Apple Arcade at launch. He presented Apple Aracde title King’s League II (Arcade), showcasing his team’s talent in developing role-playing games for the Apple ecosystem. 

Lastly, there was Jakob Lykkegaard of Lykke Studios from Thailand, a long-time Apple developer with several Apple Arcade favourites, including tint and lumen. One of their games, stitch. was one of the first games made available on the Apple Vision Pro during its launch in the US.

After his casual but lengthy discussion with the developers, Cook also took time to provide his thoughts on game development to the select media present, not just on games on mobile, but also what Mac users have been clamouring for – AAA games from major studios on Apple’s more powerful Mac machines.

“We’re working on it,” promises Cook when asked by Geek Culture.

“We’ve had some success in the last couple of years or so, and the inflection point was Apple silicon and so we’ve just been growing and are going to continue to grow and continue to invest, because we know it’s important for a segment of our user community and we want to please them in every way possible. So it’s a key focus area.”

As for his first visit to the Developer Centre in Singapore, he noted that the introduction of Southeast Asia’s first Apple Developer Centre in the region was to help developers here improve, which was a frequent question asked to the team.

“And so out of asking ourselves and self-reflection there, we opened this centre. We wanted one in this region that was accessible for everyone from Southeast Asia. And I couldn’t be more pleased with what I’ve seen here today, and the level of passion from the developer community, and the focus on accessibility too. I think [this] is really important because we want our products we designed to be for everyone.”

And after 48 hours in sunny Singapore, Cook has said his farewells to the team here.

But before he left, he was able to meet up with Singapore’s next Prime Minister, DPM Lawrence Wong, to discuss the long and fruitful relationship between Singapore and Apple.

But what about Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong? As it turned out, Mr Lee posted on Instagram to say that while he was supposed to meet Cook, he caught a flu bug and had to cry off instead.

Still, Mr Lee noted, “Glad that Singapore is now a regional hub for Apple, and home to three of their retail stores. I look forward to the completion of the expanded campus!”

HSALS

Hsals needs more space in his house, and more money in his bank account to pay for all the toys, collectibles and other geek related items that companies are churning out. Free-time? Girlfriend? Who’s got time for those?

The post Apple CEO Tim Cook Puts Games In Focus During Visit To First SEA Apple Developer Center In Singapore appeared first on Geek Culture.

Busting makes anyone feel good, no matter what era you belong to.

Few movies have crossed the streams in mixing the past and the future, because conventional wisdom says you can only belong in one, and not cater to two audiences. But one can argue that the value of an iconic franchise such as Ghostbusters belongs in two worlds, and audiences are the better for it.

Do audiences want to see the original band of ghost hunters – Raymond ‘Ray’ Stantz (Dan Akroyd), Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) and Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson), along with their then secretary, Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts) still track down ghouls across New York City 40 years after their debut? No, life goes on and as much as fans want to watch the original crew of the USS Enterprise, played by their original actors, explore the galaxy, you can’t go back.

And yet, we also recognise that the new generation of Ghostbusters, the Spenglers – mom Callie (Carrie Coon) and her two kids, Trevor (Finn Wolfhard) and Phoebe (Mckenna Grace) – the daughter and grandchildren of OG Ghostbuster Egon (Harold Ramis), along with former teacher turned boyfriend/father figure Gary Grooberson (Paul Rudd), haven’t exactly proven themselves worthy to carry those proton packs, so we’re left with a blend of Ghostbusters old and new, carrying the legacy forward in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. 

In many ways, Frozen Empire is the natural progression of events after 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which introduced us to Egon’s hidden family, reunited the old crew to honour the original film and the passing of Ramis, and take down a returning evil. For those who lamented that the real Ghostbusters only appeared towards the very end of that film, Frozen Empire corrects that mistake and merges both teams.

The new Spengler family have moved to New York City where they’ve reoccupied the original firehouse headquarters, now owned by Zeddemore, who despite being the only member of the original crew in it for the job, now actually makes enough money to continue the legacy of the quartet. Stantz, the original member truly excited to track and capture ghosts serves as a mentor to the Spenglers, who are learning their way around the city and trying to avoid the current mayor of New York, Walter Peck, played with obnoxious glee by returning supporting cast member William Atherton. 

While there are a huge number of characters in play, the story focuses on two, Stantz and Phoebe, each who is the heart of their Ghostbusters team. Though he runs a shop filled with the occult, he’s still pretty much the excitable scientist looking for new artifacts with the supernatural attached to them, helping Zeddemore who is building a new containment unit to replace the old one under the firehouse. Alas, his zeal blinds him to the dangers of busting the supernatural, especially now that there’s 15-year-old Phoebe chasing after aimless spirits, as she tries to honour her grandfather’s legacy, but is deemed too immature and hotheaded. And who better to let their guard down, and get tricked by a spirit to unleash a gigantic terror upon NYC?

If you understood that reference, then you’ll recognise and appreciate that Frozen Empire is filled with massive callbacks to the original film, and director and co-writer Gil Kenan knows what his role is, to maintain the legacy established by fellow co-writer Jason Reitman, who directed the previous film and is the son of Ivan, the director of the first two films in the franchise. Aside from the firehouse, audiences return to the New York Public Library, meet up with old ghostly friends green and white, and while it can be a bit much, there is a lot to appreciate.

What is new is that this marks the first Ghostbusters film to introduce an original villain since the 1989 sequel, and it’s not a ghost, but a demonic god, Garraka. Nadeem Razmaad (Kumail Nanjiani) sells off a relic belonging to his grandmother, not realising it’s a trap until researcher Hubert Wartzki (Patton Oswalt) explains its origin in a massive exposition dump. It’s not the smoothest way to introduce a villain, but it’s not as if the origins of Gozer or Vigo were revealed with greater style. 

There’s also the exploration of Phoebe’s growth into an adult and very early on, she abruptly connects with a spirit through a game of chess, the same way she connected with her grandfather in the first movie. There are many ways to explain her relationship with the ghost of Melody (Emily Alyn Lind), in both a lazy narrative way, and as a subtext of an ill-fated relationship doomed to failure because they are of different worlds. But when they do connect, sparks fly greater than a firing proton pack.

Now that things are being rebuilt, and the team has new proton packs and a containment unit that’s bigger and better, new things are in store for the team. The question is if fans are happy with this conclusion, or if there’s an appetite for more busting to be made.

HSALS

Hsals needs more space in his house, and more money in his bank account to pay for all the toys, collectibles and other geek related items that companies are churning out. Free-time? Girlfriend? Who’s got time for those?

The post Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire – Review appeared first on Geek Culture.

This review is for the first three episodes of the series.

Comic book reboots and revivals are a dime a dozen, but when it comes to animated shows of the same genre, the X-Men ‘97 revival of the popular X-Men: The Animated Series (1992–1997) has shaped up into setting the gold standard on how to bring back a much-beloved series.

The original five-season series, featuring the now classic Gold Team line-up of Cyclops, Wolverine, Rogue, Storm, Beast, Gambit, Jubilee, and Jean Grey from the early 1990 X-Men comics, as well as then-new character Morph, basically retold comic book arcs in animated form, but also adding new elements. While the Saturday morning cartoon catered to young children, it also touched on religion, acceptance, divorce, the AIDS hysteria, and more. 

Disney dropped the first three episodes of the new 10-episode revival for review, and there’s no denying that the magic that drove the show over 15 years ago is back. Much of the credit should go to series creator Beau DeMayo, who ironically got fired a week before the series premiered. 

With Professor X aka Charles Xavier gone, the first episode serves as a recap that establishes who all the players are. Xavier seemingly passed on but left a psychic message to his X-Men after Empress Lilandra takes his body away to use Shi’ar technology to extend his life; Jean is pregnant and wants Scott to leave the team; the team is without a leader and needs time to recalibrate, while Remy wants to have some time with Rogue. It’s a good way to get things up and running and the first thing you noticed is how the team has updated the cell animation and costume design, while still retaining the essence of the original series. 

The updates in animation, which already can be seen in the updated series intro with the revised theme song, is much like seeing a different artist draw the X-Men. They were based on the designs of legendary artist Jim Lee, and the new work is still highly reminiscent of the 90’s Jim Lee school of cool, from Wolverine in his spandex yellow, Scott in blue and Ororo in her white garb. That said, the smoother animation is also more apparent, with tighter camera work so it movies with the action, weaving in and out of the characters as necessary.

The most obvious change is in the voice talent but here’s the thing – the new voices are close enough to the original such that it doesn’t matter that the voice of Scott is now by prolific voice actor Ray Chase, and not Norman Spencer, who passed in 2020 – Scott still has that white American frat boy tone to his persona. Incoming voice actress Jennifer Hale as Jean Grey is also comforting, maybe because she is one of the most, or the most prolific video game voice actor in the field, and she has been speaking to this core audience since 1994.

That said, it’s also glaringly obvious that the most distinct voices for two key characters are back. Barbadian-born, Canadian actress Alison Sealy-Smith has always provided Ororo Munroe with a distinct regal presence, something which might not have stood out before in the comics, and it’s great to hear her return in the revival. 

And then there is Cal Dodd. While his body of work is nowhere near as prolific as Mark Hamill as the Joker or Kevin Conroy as Bruce Wayne/Batman, Dodd was the definitive voice of Wolverine/James “Logan” Howlett for a generation of video gamers from the Capcom video games, the original X-Men animated series, and he even voiced Logan for two episodes in the 1994 Spider-Man animated series. Visually, audiences might picture Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, but the moment Wolverine speaks in animated or digital form, it’s Dodd you’re hearing and it’s great to have him back, riding on Scott.

The second episode is where things get interesting, and you would have seen it in the trailer. The twist at the end of the first episode is that Magneto returns and reveals that Xavier left the School for the Gifted to him, which means Erik Magnus Lehnsherr is in charge, which annoys the team. The episode goes on to deal with the ramifications of having a man deemed to be the enemy of mankind be the new leader of a team dedicated to protecting the human race. The episode draws into the lore of the animated series and comics, but it strikes a nice balance such that you can enjoy the series without rich knowledge of the animated show or of the classic comics, to know what’s happening. Well, you might wonder what Erik is doing with a new costume that sports a huge M on the chest. 

You don’t have to know the origin of the costume but for those who know that costume made its debut in Uncanny X-Men Vol 1 #200, where, believe it or not, Magento is on trial for his crimes and ends up saving Charles Xavier who then puts Erik in charge of the school, and to look after his X-Men, and Erik vows to, this episode has a deeper meaning. Oh, and watch out for that twist at the end of the episode.

The next episode is the craziest of the first three. Where the original series spent a few episodes adapting comic book arcs, including five episodes for The Phoenix Saga and four for The Dark Phoenix Saga in Season 3, this episode covers the storyline for Madelyne Pryor, Sinister X, Nathan Summers, and time travel, and seemingly wraps things up neatly in a one-and-done episode. 

For those who understand these references, you know you’re in for a good time and if you don’t, be pleasantly surprised. And also watch out for some great Easter Eggs in the process. Remember that the original covered over 20 years of comics, and we now have another 25 years worth to include, so when you see the Magik happen, it’s a blink or you’ll miss it event. Oh, there’s also a certain disturbing revelation that fans of the comics would know, but seeing it in a kid’s cartoon is just a little too much to accept.

But it makes for a great set-up for the remaining seven episodes, and the second season that is already in production. It’s just unfortunate that this series is not considered part of the massive Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) – it covers a lot of material that the MCU cannot possibly adapt.

X-Men ’97 premieres on Disney+ on 20 March with new episodes releasing every Wednesday.

HSALS

Hsals needs more space in his house, and more money in his bank account to pay for all the toys, collectibles and other geek related items that companies are churning out. Free-time? Girlfriend? Who’s got time for those?

The post X-Men ‘97 (Disney+) – Review appeared first on Geek Culture.