The new has had me feeling conflicted since the day it came out. Apple nailed the pricing, and I’ve dreamed of a larger MacBook Air since I bought my first one in 2012. But after 23 days, I returned it. It’s a fantastic value in the Mac line, but I know why it’s not for me.

more…

The post The 15-inch MacBook Air helped me realize how badly I miss the 12-inch MacBook appeared first on 9to5Mac.

If you’ve got an active Google account — or especially if you’ve got one you haven’t used in a while — you’ve probably got more apps and services hooked up to your account than you realize. There are all those places where you’ve “signed in with Google,” all those browser extensions you’ve given permissions to, all those add-ons that you’ve installed on top of Gmail and Google Drive, and so on.

While it’s always a good idea to be selective and cautious in choosing which apps and sites get these privileges, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with using your Google account instead of an email address and password combination or in giving another app that may be useful access to your emails or Google storage (depending on the app, of course).

However, when you stop using these third-party apps and services but keep the connections to your Google account in place, you are potentially leaving your data and your account exposed. It’s good security practice to keep the number of apps that can access your Google account down to a minimum — only the ones you fully trust and regularly use. The fewer connections, the safer you are.

Here’s how to find out what apps and services are attached to your Google account and how to remove them.

Using your Google account page

Google’s account management tools are fairly robust. You can access them on the web by going to your Google account page and logging in.

• Click Security from the menu on the left.
• Scroll down the main section to Your connections to third-party apps and services.
• Select See all connections.

You’ll now see a list of everything connected to your Google account — including, probably, a few apps you’d forgotten about.

Checking connected apps and services

Click on any of the entries in the list to see more information about it, including what the app is allowed to do and which Google apps it has access to (Gmail for reading and sending emails, for example). If this is an app that you no longer want to have access to your Google account:

• Select Delete all connections to break the link between the app or service and your Google account, then click Confirm.
• If you need more info first, click on the See details button to find out when the connection to your Google account was first established. From there, you can stop access by clicking the blue button (which will say either Delete connection or Stop using Sign in with Google).

Note that this doesn’t prevent you from using the app and service again in the future: if you load it up again, however, you’ll have to reestablish the connection to your Google account using your password or passkey.

Checking specific apps

On the Third-party apps & services page, just beneath the title that says [number] total apps and services, there are several buttons that will filter which apps you want to check out, including one labeled Access to.

• Click on Access to get a drop-down menu that lists specific Google apps that are being accessed by apps or devices (such as a speaker that uses Google Assistant).
• Click on any of the entries in the list to see more information about it, including what the app is allowed to do.
• Select Delete all connections to break the link between the app or service and your Google account, then click Confirm.

Using your mobile device

You can get to the same screens and options on Android and iOS, too.

On Android:

• Open Settings and tap Google.
• Select Manage your Google Account.
• Switch to the Security tab.
• Scroll down to Your connections to third-party apps & services.

On iOS

• Open the Google app and tap your profile picture (top right).
• Choose Manage your Google Account.
• Open the Security tab.
• Scroll down to Your connections to third-party apps & services.

You can also get to your Google account through the mobile browser on your smartphone: just head to your Google account page and sign in.

From your Google Drive

There’s actually a completely separate list of connected apps and services in your Google Drive account. These are typically plug-ins you’re running on top of Google Drive (perhaps to handle unusual file types) or games and apps that need the cloud storage space.

Head to Google Drive on the web, log into your account, and then:

– Click the cog icon (top right corner).

– Choose Settings from the menu, then Manage apps on the left.

Again, you’ll see a list of connected apps, together with what the app is designed to do and, in some cases, how much storage space its data is using.

• Click Options next to any third-party app to see how you can manage it. (Most Google-created apps will have Options grayed out, although you can unclick the Use by default if you have a different preferred app.)
• Choose Disconnect from Drive to break the connection with your Google Drive account (this typically appears for apps that are still active, and you get the option to delete its data at the same time).
• If an app is grayed out, it’s likely no longer available — you will probably see the message This app no longer has access to Drive beneath it, along with the amount of hidden app data that still remains behind. Click Options and choose Delete hidden app data to remove any associated files.

This is only something you can do on the web — the same screen isn’t available through the Android and iOS apps for Google Drive.

Web browser extensions

Browser extensions work a little differently in that they won’t all have direct access to your Google account, but they may have permission to interact with web apps (such as Gmail and Google Docs) when they’re open in your browser.

For example, a Gmail extension that lets you snooze emails for a certain period doesn’t need permission to log into your Google account but will have permission to interact with your Gmail data when the app is open in a browser tab.

As with full apps and services, keep your list of extensions trimmed down as much as possible to minimize the security risks — ideally, you should only really keep the ones you’re actively using.

Head to the extensions page in your browser of choice to see active extensions and remove them if necessary:

• In Chrome and Edge, click the three dots (top right), then Extensions > Manage Extensions.
• In Firefox, click the three lines (top right), then Add-ons and themes > Extensions.
• In Safari, select Safari > Settings > Extensions to see a list.

]]> https://www.latest-apple-news.com/2023/06/13/master-adobe-creative-cloud-with-this-39-99-deal-on-apps-and-training/ Tue, 13 Jun 2023 13:30:00 +0000 https://www.cultofmac.com/?p=820165 If all Adobe gave the world was the PDF file, the software maker would be justly remembered as a tech innovator. But today, the company gives visual creatives of all types the tools they need to realize their vision (and make a living) through the powerful tools in Adobe Creative Cloud. If you haven’t tried […]

(via Cult of Mac – Tech and culture through an Apple lens)

(via Cult of Mac – Tech and culture through an Apple lens)

0The MacBook Air 15 fills a gap in Apple’s laptop lineup that hasn’t been filled in basically ever: a large-screened laptop priced for the masses.

There is no reason that Apple needed to wait this long. But it is releasing this model now, following many months that were slow for the company and much slower for the industry at large. Apple, over the last two quarters, reported the sharpest year-over-year percentage decline in Mac revenue that we’ve seen in half a decade. If there were ever a time that laptop companies needed to inject the market with some pizzazz, it’s today, right now.

In the Windows space, PC makers are making a flashy pivot to services. Artificial intelligence is being shoved down consumers’ throats. New models are shipping with a laundry list of webcam beautification features and tools that keep your eyes in one place. Dell made an invisible touchpad. Lenovo’s doing funky things with E Ink and dual screens. HP hardwired a customer service button to its flagship product, rebranding itself from a PC company to a “solution” provider. Asus is… well, it’s doing various things over there. MSI’s trying to make ChatGPT.

But Apple is not chasing generative AI or E Ink or dual screens. It’s releasing a product that people have been asking for at a price that they are very likely to pay. A good, functional product that people have been shouting, for years, that they want. A 15-inch MacBook Air.

And yes, in case you were on the edge of your seat: it is good.

Feelings

The most recent MacBook I reviewed was the 16-inch MacBook Pro. That was a model where nothing was new with the chassis and everything was new with the chip.

On paper, this MacBook Air 15 is the opposite. The chip is a known quantity — it’s the M2, the same one that lives in the 13-inch MacBook Air and the 13-inch MacBook Pro. In fact, the model I have (eight-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16GB memory, 512GB storage, $1,699) is basically the same configuration we received for our review of the 13-inch model (with twice the memory) thrown into a bigger chassis.

Prior to the Air 15, if you wanted a MacBook with an appreciably larger display, you’d have to pay a $1,000 premium and get a thicker, much heavier computer. But if you now spec the 13-inch and 15-inch devices identically, the larger one commands around a $100 premium. The chip is not different; the chassis is different.

Well, is it? Using this device on a day-to-day basis does not feel particularly different from using the 13-inch Air. The keyboard and touchpad and trusty webcam notch are all the same. The biggest difference to report — and this will come as no surprise — is the screen. The 15.3-inch panel is large, especially with its slightly taller than 16:10 aspect ratio. It affords, frankly, much more space than I would ever know how to take full advantage of. I can comfortably use two windows side by side; on the 13-inch Air, I might have to zoom out a notch or two. Big screen devotees, you’ll be thrilled.

The second big difference is the weight. The 13-inch Air is 2.7 pounds, and the 15-inch Air is 3.3 pounds. There is just over half a pound of difference, and it is noticeable. While the 15-inch Air is a world lighter than its larger 16-inch M2 Pro cousins, it is significantly chunkier than the 13-inch Air.

Look, you are all going to make fun of me for this, and I deserve it. But the Air is an ultraportable machine, and that has been its shtick since it launched. The 15-inch Air is not an ultraportable machine in the same way. Just for some context, it is only a tenth of a pound away from the weight of the Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop. It is thin, thinner than other Windows laptops in this size class, but there is quite a bit packed into that chassis, and it’s still a big computer overall. Carrying it around in a tote bag was not my favorite thing.

But the third big difference is the speakers. The Air 13’s speakers are good; the Air 15’s are stupendous. Bass came through in a way it doesn’t on pretty much any other computer; I was so stunned when I first turned on a bass-heavy song that I thought it must’ve been coming from a Bluetooth speaker somewhere else.

Largely, however, the size of the chassis does not transform the experience of using the Air. This is not an XPS 13 / XPS 15 situation where two models have experiences, use cases, and target demographics that are clearly different. This is a larger Air, with the same keyboard as before, the same (albeit, even larger) excellent trackpad, and a bigger screen.

In turn, my complaints about this Air are largely my complaints about the smaller Air: I wish it were upgradable, I wish there were more ports, and I wish I could take or leave the notch. And my praise is the same. It is, for its category, portable. It is well built and sturdy. The screen is wonderful. It seems like Apple has figured out exactly what the MacBook Air needs to be. This is what a MacBook Air is.

Numbers

The MacBook Air 15 sits solidly between the MacBook Air 13 and the MacBook Pro 13 in most of the synthetic benchmark tests I ran. The three devices are in the same ballpark on the single-core Cinebench test; the 15-inch Air is much closer to the 13-inch Pro on the Shadow of the Tomb Raider gaming benchmark than it is to the 13-inch Air.

Since all of these devices have the same processor, any difference in performance likely comes down to cooling. Like the smaller version, the MacBook Air 15 does not have a fan. What it does have is a wee bit more room for its heat pipes to do their thing. Overall, it seems that the 15-incher’s big berth does not have quite as large of an impact on the M2’s performance as the MacBook Pro 13’s fan — but it gets a decent part of the way there.

The caveat: the Air still gets hot. It was hotter in the area right above the function row than I wanted to touch during pretty much all of my benchmark testing. The keyboard, while usable, was toasty. I did not see any of this heat when I was just using the Air to mess around in Chrome, which was most of the time. But if you’re one of those people buying this thinking you will use it to export video every so often, take that to note.

In more human terms, I do not really notice a difference in my day-to-day work performance between the MacBook Air 15 and any other MacBook released in recent years. The M1 chip was already well above the demands of my workload, and the M2 chip is a step yet beyond. I’m using an M1 MacBook Pro 13 as my daily driver for my journalist workload these days, and let me tell you — it’s all the same. That said, this is not a review where I can get away with just recommending that you buy last year’s model at a discount because there is no last year’s model. Fair enough. Well played.

The last thing to comment on is the battery life. I averaged 14 and a half hours. That is also squarely between what I generally see from the 13-inch MacBook Air (around 13 hours) and the 13-inch MacBook Pro (16 to 16 and a half). That’s a bit confusing since both of these devices have smaller batteries than the Air 15, and I wish I had a smart and scientific reason for it, but the explanation I’m going to go with is that, when you’re dealing with battery lifespans this long, these results are probably all within margin of error (and also put us at a point where we’re reaching somewhat diminishing returns). The Air 15 has a bigger battery, but it also powers a bigger display, and the differences all come out in the wash.

The takeaway here is that the Air 15 will get you through a day and then some. You shouldn’t have to worry about it. In fact, you won’t have to worry about much when you’re using this device. It works, it works for a long time away from the wall, and it has a big old screen. And that’s pretty much what we all wanted from a 15-inch MacBook Air to begin with.

This is how you do it

There are times when I wish I were on a beat like smart home was in the late 2010s or VR apparently is now, full of whizzbangs and colored lights and onstage demos that make everyone go “wow.” I’ll admit to finding myself envious, now and again, of tech journalists who regularly get to proclaim that they’ve found a gadget that could change the world forever.

But I am glad to be on the laptop beat today. Not because this MacBook is ushering in a new era for humanity but because real, regular people — sitting on their couches, checking their emails, bookmarking their recipes, whatever it is we all do — are going to be happy with this device. It’s everything you’d want from a MacBook Air. And it will help them do their work and check their emails and watch Netflix faster and better. Good laptops make us better versions of ourselves. That is all they should be doing.

I have no doubt that recent declines in PC sales are an unfortunate and upsetting thing for companies who make laptops. I wonder if I, a consumer, might take a more optimistic view. People bought a lot of things in 2020 and 2021, and they remain happy with those things. Those computers are serving their lifestyles and workloads just fine.

That’s a status quo, of course, that profit-maximizing PC manufacturers can’t condone. And from some players, the angle of attack has been to invent a new need. On the same day that it announced this MacBook Pro, Apple launched a $3,500 virtual reality headset. Like Lenovo’s dual-screen doodads and Dell’s touchpad-free rig, and the legions of AR- and VR- and RGB- and AI-loaded gadgets I’m pitched every week, Apple’s Vision Pro has a message. Your world, the consumer’s world, is lacking in ways that you did not realize — you may not think you need this expensive bundle of circuits, you may be sure you don’t need it, but just try it. You’ll see.

Thank God that headset shared the floor with this, a $1,300 laptop that does not claim to move the world but a laptop that does its job, with speakers, with screens, with processors that do things right. This device doesn’t manufacture a need; it found a need, and it’s filling it. We don’t need to be convinced that we want the Air 15. We’ve been waiting for it.

0The MacBook Air 15 fills a gap in Apple’s laptop lineup that hasn’t been filled in basically ever: a large-screened laptop priced for the masses.

There is no reason that Apple needed to wait this long. But it is releasing this model now, following many months that were slow for the company and much slower for the industry at large. Apple, over the last two quarters, reported the sharpest year-over-year percentage decline in Mac revenue that we’ve seen in half a decade. If there were ever a time that laptop companies needed to inject the market with some pizzazz, it’s today, right now.

In the Windows space, PC makers are making a flashy pivot to services. Artificial intelligence is being shoved down consumers’ throats. New models are shipping with a laundry list of webcam beautification features and tools that keep your eyes in one place. Dell made an invisible touchpad. Lenovo’s doing funky things with E Ink and dual screens. HP hardwired a customer service button to its flagship product, rebranding itself from a PC company to a “solution” provider. Asus is… well, it’s doing various things over there. MSI’s trying to make ChatGPT.

But Apple is not chasing generative AI or E Ink or dual screens. It’s releasing a product that people have been asking for at a price that they are very likely to pay. A good, functional product that people have been shouting, for years, that they want. A 15-inch MacBook Air.

And yes, in case you were on the edge of your seat: it is good.

Feelings

The most recent MacBook I reviewed was the 16-inch MacBook Pro. That was a model where nothing was new with the chassis and everything was new with the chip.

On paper, this MacBook Air 15 is the opposite. The chip is a known quantity — it’s the M2, the same one that lives in the 13-inch MacBook Air and the 13-inch MacBook Pro. In fact, the model I have (eight-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16GB memory, 512GB storage, $1,699) is basically the same configuration we received for our review of the 13-inch model (with twice the memory) thrown into a bigger chassis.

Prior to the Air 15, if you wanted a MacBook with an appreciably larger display, you’d have to pay a $1,000 premium and get a thicker, much heavier computer. But if you now spec the 13-inch and 15-inch devices identically, the larger one commands around a $100 premium. The chip is not different; the chassis is different.

Well, is it? Using this device on a day-to-day basis does not feel particularly different from using the 13-inch Air. The keyboard and touchpad and trusty webcam notch are all the same. The biggest difference to report — and this will come as no surprise — is the screen. The 15.3-inch panel is large, especially with its slightly taller than 16:10 aspect ratio. It affords, frankly, much more space than I would ever know how to take full advantage of. I can comfortably use two windows side by side; on the 13-inch Air, I might have to zoom out a notch or two. Big screen devotees, you’ll be thrilled.

The second big difference is the weight. The 13-inch Air is 2.7 pounds, and the 15-inch Air is 3.3 pounds. There is just over half a pound of difference, and it is noticeable. While the 15-inch Air is a world lighter than its larger 16-inch M2 Pro cousins, it is significantly chunkier than the 13-inch Air.

Look, you are all going to make fun of me for this, and I deserve it. But the Air is an ultraportable machine, and that has been its shtick since it launched. The 15-inch Air is not an ultraportable machine in the same way. Just for some context, it is only a tenth of a pound away from the weight of the Zephyrus G14 gaming laptop. It is thin, thinner than other Windows laptops in this size class, but there is quite a bit packed into that chassis, and it’s still a big computer overall. Carrying it around in a tote bag was not my favorite thing.

But the third big difference is the speakers. The Air 13’s speakers are good; the Air 15’s are stupendous. Bass came through in a way it doesn’t on pretty much any other computer; I was so stunned when I first turned on a bass-heavy song that I thought it must’ve been coming from a Bluetooth speaker somewhere else.

Largely, however, the size of the chassis does not transform the experience of using the Air. This is not an XPS 13 / XPS 15 situation where two models have experiences, use cases, and target demographics that are clearly different. This is a larger Air, with the same keyboard as before, the same (albeit, even larger) excellent trackpad, and a bigger screen.

In turn, my complaints about this Air are largely my complaints about the smaller Air: I wish it were upgradable, I wish there were more ports, and I wish I could take or leave the notch. And my praise is the same. It is, for its category, portable. It is well built and sturdy. The screen is wonderful. It seems like Apple has figured out exactly what the MacBook Air needs to be. This is what a MacBook Air is.

Numbers

The MacBook Air 15 sits solidly between the MacBook Air 13 and the MacBook Pro 13 in most of the synthetic benchmark tests I ran. The three devices are in the same ballpark on the single-core Cinebench test; the 15-inch Air is much closer to the 13-inch Pro on the Shadow of the Tomb Raider gaming benchmark than it is to the 13-inch Air.

Since all of these devices have the same processor, any difference in performance likely comes down to cooling. Like the smaller version, the MacBook Air 15 does not have a fan. What it does have is a wee bit more room for its heat pipes to do their thing. Overall, it seems that the 15-incher’s big berth does not have quite as large of an impact on the M2’s performance as the MacBook Pro 13’s fan — but it gets a decent part of the way there.

The caveat: the Air still gets hot. It was hotter in the area right above the function row than I wanted to touch during pretty much all of my benchmark testing. The keyboard, while usable, was toasty. I did not see any of this heat when I was just using the Air to mess around in Chrome, which was most of the time. But if you’re one of those people buying this thinking you will use it to export video every so often, take that to note.

In more human terms, I do not really notice a difference in my day-to-day work performance between the MacBook Air 15 and any other MacBook released in recent years. The M1 chip was already well above the demands of my workload, and the M2 chip is a step yet beyond. I’m using an M1 MacBook Pro 13 as my daily driver for my journalist workload these days, and let me tell you — it’s all the same. That said, this is not a review where I can get away with just recommending that you buy last year’s model at a discount because there is no last year’s model. Fair enough. Well played.

The last thing to comment on is the battery life. I averaged 14 and a half hours. That is also squarely between what I generally see from the 13-inch MacBook Air (around 13 hours) and the 13-inch MacBook Pro (16 to 16 and a half). That’s a bit confusing since both of these devices have smaller batteries than the Air 15, and I wish I had a smart and scientific reason for it, but the explanation I’m going to go with is that, when you’re dealing with battery lifespans this long, these results are probably all within margin of error (and also put us at a point where we’re reaching somewhat diminishing returns). The Air 15 has a bigger battery, but it also powers a bigger display, and the differences all come out in the wash.

The takeaway here is that the Air 15 will get you through a day and then some. You shouldn’t have to worry about it. In fact, you won’t have to worry about much when you’re using this device. It works, it works for a long time away from the wall, and it has a big old screen. And that’s pretty much what we all wanted from a 15-inch MacBook Air to begin with.

This is how you do it

There are times when I wish I were on a beat like smart home was in the late 2010s or VR apparently is now, full of whizzbangs and colored lights and onstage demos that make everyone go “wow.” I’ll admit to finding myself envious, now and again, of tech journalists who regularly get to proclaim that they’ve found a gadget that could change the world forever.

But I am glad to be on the laptop beat today. Not because this MacBook is ushering in a new era for humanity but because real, regular people — sitting on their couches, checking their emails, bookmarking their recipes, whatever it is we all do — are going to be happy with this device. It’s everything you’d want from a MacBook Air. And it will help them do their work and check their emails and watch Netflix faster and better. Good laptops make us better versions of ourselves. That is all they should be doing.

I have no doubt that recent declines in PC sales are an unfortunate and upsetting thing for companies who make laptops. I wonder if I, a consumer, might take a more optimistic view. People bought a lot of things in 2020 and 2021, and they remain happy with those things. Those computers are serving their lifestyles and workloads just fine.

That’s a status quo, of course, that profit-maximizing PC manufacturers can’t condone. And from some players, the angle of attack has been to invent a new need. On the same day that it announced this MacBook Pro, Apple launched a $3,500 virtual reality headset. Like Lenovo’s dual-screen doodads and Dell’s touchpad-free rig, and the legions of AR- and VR- and RGB- and AI-loaded gadgets I’m pitched every week, Apple’s Vision Pro has a message. Your world, the consumer’s world, is lacking in ways that you did not realize — you may not think you need this expensive bundle of circuits, you may be sure you don’t need it, but just try it. You’ll see.

Thank God that headset shared the floor with this, a $1,300 laptop that does not claim to move the world but a laptop that does its job, with speakers, with screens, with processors that do things right. This device doesn’t manufacture a need; it found a need, and it’s filling it. We don’t need to be convinced that we want the Air 15. We’ve been waiting for it.

Ever since I learned how to write, I’ve never been without a journal. There are currently six I use regularly on my desk, plus the Day One and Daylio apps on my phone. Each has its purpose, but I often wish for a single app or notebook to replace the rest. On paper, I’m the type of person Apple was appealing to when it announced the Journal app during this year’s WWDC keynote.

Instead, my reaction while watching the keynote was a knee-jerk Hell to the No. My hands were sweaty, my heart was racing, and I ended up walking away from my desk to take five deep breaths. The fact that Apple is Sherlocking Day One isn’t what set me off. It was the fact that Apple said it’ll use “on-device machine learning” to create customized journaling prompts based on your contacts, photos, music, workouts, location data, and even podcasts. Essentially, it was pitched as a riff on the Memories feature in the Photos app. An AI-powered scrapbook and digital diary rolled into one, if you will. And that’s worrying considering the AI behind Memories is… let’s just say it ain’t too bright.

The Journal app itself is not an inherently bad idea. According to Apple’s press release, it seems the intention is to help you cultivate gratitude by commemorating positive moments. There’s a growing body of research that suggests gratitude journaling may help boost your mental health — so it’s not as if the premise is completely woo-woo snake oil. My problem, based on the preliminary details Apple’s given us, is this proposed execution feels half-baked. People don’t only take photos of happy things or moments that spark joy. If your camera roll is like mine, it’s a jumble of happy, serene, infuriating, vain, mundane, and melancholy moments. It’s messy because life is messy. And if the Journal app truly takes a page from Apple’s Memories feature, there’s a good chance it’s going to tactlessly ambush you with memories you either don’t want or aren’t ready to see.

Image: Victoria Song / The Verge

In the past year, Memories has made two slideshows of my mom’s funeral set to an upbeat pop tune. Once around the one-year anniversary of her death — and again the day before her birthday. I wish I could say it was a fluke, but it’s done the same with the last pictures I have of my dad and me together before he lost his battle with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Photos where he was skeletal, half-lucid, and unable to walk. And again with photos of Daisy, our beloved family dog, who died eight months ago. The first few times were unexpected and ruined my day or week.

If my parents were alive, they’d say this AI-powered feature lacks nunchi. Nunchi is one of those untranslatable words, but it’s a Korean term for quickly sussing out other people’s feelings and adjusting your behavior based largely on nonverbal context clues. It’s kind of like an amplified version of reading the room, mixed with mind reading and emotional intelligence. For example, my spouse might deduce I’m feeling sad because I’m looking at photos of my dead family while lying comatose in bed. Without commenting on it, they’ll get me a bowl of my favorite ice cream or suggest we go out for a walk. My iPhone would probably just assume I just really love my family (why else would I look at photos if not to feel happy?!) and suggest two new slideshows featuring them set to spunky tracks. My spouse has nunchi; my phone doesn’t.

So, forgive me for not feeling 100 percent confident in the Journal app’s machine learning. A part of me is terrified that when I download the iOS 17 beta, I’ll open the Journal app, and it’ll recommend that I write about an afternoon visit to Chuncheon, Korea, in June 2022. That it’ll pair D.O’s That’s Okay — a song I listen to whenever I miss my mom — with pictures of her gravestone overlooking picturesque rolling green hills. Or the photos of me and my relatives reunited for the first time since the covid pandemic, red-eyed and trying to put on a brave face for the relatives who couldn’t make it to the burial.

To be clear, I don’t expect nunchi from current AI technology. What I would like, however, is more granular control so I can tell it what not to do. The Memories feature gives you a semblance of it. While you can’t disable it entirely, you can disable notifications, tell it to feature a person less, or remove someone as a significant person in your Photos album. It’s not at all intuitive for someone in the throes of grief, depression, or anxiety, though. Besides, I don’t want to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind my mom, dad, and Daisy. I want to hold onto every bad, good, and in-between memory of them because we’ll never get to make new ones. I simply want a say in when I revisit those memories. I want Apple to give me the tools to tell its AI what types of photos are off-limits, under what circumstances, and for how long. Without this kind of customizability, the Journal app suggestions can’t be anything but half-baked.

Image: Apple

It doesn’t help that all the Journal app screenshots Apple provided only feature Pollyanna-ish entries. I get why. No one wants to dwell on sad or unpleasant things. The problem is it gives the app a phony air — and inauthenticity is poison to any kind of journaling. It’d be surprising (though, in my opinion, comforting) if the example above said, “I dreamed about surfing last night. Usually when that happens I have a great day on the water, but today wasn’t my day. I had a hard time getting started. When Sarah picked me up around 5AM, the waves were choppy, and I just kept wiping out. Things mellowed out around 7AM, though, and hey, I got one or two good waves in. I wish the conditions had been better, but thems the breaks. But even if it wasn’t great, at least Sarah was with me.” The thing about cultivating gratitude is it doesn’t only come from commemorating or reliving happy times. In my experience, it comes from sitting with your worst moments and practicing how to reframe that ugliness into a lesson you can learn from.

Image: Victoria Song / The Verge

I could be wrong. Right now, my concerns are solely based on my previous experiences with Memories and other “On This Day” features from social media and journaling apps. The Journal app isn’t out of beta yet, and it’s entirely possible that the final version will include tools that grant users a bigger say in how this app can best work for them. Maybe the iOS 17 developers anticipated this and taught the on-device machine-learning model how to interpret complex context clues. Maybe the AI is capable of recognizing my mom’s portrait next to a grave, cross-referencing that with photos of my mom’s casket, running That’s Okay’s bittersweet lyrics through Google Translate, and coming to the conclusion that this is probably not a suitable journaling prompt for weeks surrounding my mom’s birthday and during holidays like Mother’s Day. Perhaps, it’ll put two and two together from the above facts and realize I’ll be more likely to appreciate the prompt during Korean holidays like Chuseok or Parents’ Day. Maybe it’ll note that despite all evidence pointing toward death, I keep her as a pinned contact and in my favorites because she’s my mom, and she’ll always be number one in my phone.

Somehow, I doubt it.

I don’t doubt it because I think Apple’s willfully ignoring the problem. I doubt it because I’m not the first one to bring up this issue. As this Wired story beautifully illustrates, algorithms unintentionally repackage the worst parts of people’s lives every day in the name of personalization. Social media will suggest you friend your ex’s new squeeze simply because you both run in the same circles. Mothers who have miscarried are haunted by ads for baby products because the algorithms think the baby was born. I had to delete Timehop because it kept showing me pictures of anniversaries with an ex — I’ve long been over it, but why do I need an AI to prompt me to revisit those photos? If I want to remember those times fondly, I know where to find them. Apple, Meta, Google, and the zillions of other companies that use our data have yet to figure out how to compassionately curate memories. Some controls exist across varying platforms, but most lack the nunchi to be helpful when you need them most.

The fundamental problem here is that AI can’t read the digital room. Until it can, I have my doubts about how healing these AI-powered features can really be.