Let’s talk iOS 14 public betas, AirPods, and technostalgia
- jul
- 12
Let's discuss public betas, AirPods rumors, and more — it's been a heck of a week.
Another week has gone by, which means another installment of Editor's Desk from yours truly. And it's been another whirlwind week, if I do say so myself.
First off, let's get the big news out of the way: Apple dropped the public betas for iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and tvOS 14. Unfortunately, we still don't have the macOS 11 Big Sur or watchOS 7 public betas as of this writing, but we expect them to drop soon. As far as what's available so far, Rene Ritchie did a nice preview of iOS 14 and Christopher Close did a preview for tvOS 14, and both of them are quite in-depth with what to expect from the next iterations of software from Apple. I highly recommend giving them a read if you haven't already. We'll be working on more in-depth previews of the public betas this week.
Speaking of iOS 14, the new version of iOS has been exposing apps that seem to have been snooping in on the contents of our device clipboards. The latest one that hit the news this week is Reddit, though it seems that they're in the process of amending the issue with an update later this week. Honestly, the whole concept of clipboard snooping is a bit of a mixed one for me — it's useful for some apps, like Reddit, where I may want to copy and paste a link to share with others. But apps like TikTok are a bit more sketchy (I don't even have TikTok installed on any of my devices) to begin with. Either way, our own Stephen Warwick wrote up a detailed piece about what clipboard snooping is, and I highly recommend giving it a read.
And if you are interested in Shortcuts at all, iOS 14 makes them even better than ever. I haven't really spent a lot of time with Shortcuts, but Joseph Keller is the king of Shortcuts here at iMore. He wrote up a great piece explaining his favorite changes to Shortcuts in iOS 14, so if you want to dive into the world of automations and more, make sure to hit that up.
Another thing in the news this week is a rumor from Ming-Chi Kuo that the next iteration of AirPods 3 may look similar to AirPods Pro. Honestly, this is a rumor that I hope isn't true, because not everyone likes in-ear earbuds, the regular AirPods fit better for some people, and there should be more differentiating factors to keep the AirPods and AirPods Pro separate. I agree with everything that Luke Filipowicz says in his editorial piece on the AirPods rumor, so don't forget to check that out. If Apple decides to change the form factor of the regular AirPods to match the Pros, but without the pro features, I'm going to be pretty disappointed — the Pro design isn't what I'd consider to be one-size-fits-all.
Finally, we wrapped up our "Technostalgia" series that ran for the past month. In this little feature series, all of us here at iMore, Android Central, and Windows Central, along with MrMobile, talked about some old tech that we miss dearly. If you haven't already, make sure to take a look at our favorite nostalgic tech — perhaps it can serve as a great little trip down memory lane for you as well.
Anyway, that's another week in the books. I can't wait to see what the next week has in store for us.
- Christine Romero-Chan