Mac Power Users #479: 100,000 Subscribers, with Rene Ritchie »

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This week on MPU, David and I interviewed Rene Ritchie:

Over a year ago, long-time Apple blogger Rene Ritchie launched Vector, a daily YouTube show covering the world of Apple and tech beyond. This week, David and Stephen catch up with Rene, talking about his video workflows, YouTube as a platform and the future of the Mac and iOS.

Rene is one of the hardest-working people in our industry, and it was a lot of fun to hear more about he gets it all done.

My thanks to our sponsors:

  • The Omni Group: We’re passionate about productivity for Mac, iPhone and iPad.
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  • eero: Never think about WiFi again. Get $100 off the ‘Eero base unit and 2 beacons package’, and a year of eero Plus.
  • Direct Mail: Create and send great looking email newsletters with Direct Mail, an easy-to-use email marketing app designed exclusively for the Mac.

History of Gold Apple Watches »

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Zac Hall at 9to5Mac, writing on the weird history of the use of gold and gold finishes when it comes to the Apple Watch:

Apple Watch has a curvy history with the color gold and accompanying straps. The original 18K gold Apple Watch Edition paired with a range of straps before being discontinued. Aluminum models have included three shades of gold (rose gold, gold, and “new” gold) with Sport and (now discontinued) Woven Nylon bands using gold hardware. Gold variations aren’t sold separately either which makes them somewhat rare.

Apple Watch Series 4 comes in two flavors of gold — aluminum and new stainless steel — but the gold band variety is still limited. While there are few perfect matches, these are some of my favorite pairings.

Guilherme Rambo: macOS 10.15 to Ship with Screen Time and Siri Shortcuts »

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Guilherme Rambo, continuing an incredible week at 9to5Mac:

Apple is working on bringing the Mac and iOS closer together with the introduction of macOS 10.15 and iOS 13. Siri Shortcuts, Screen Time, and more are expected to be unveiled for Mac during its Worldwide Developers conference in June.

According to people familiar with the development of macOS 10.15 – which has been in the works for at least two years – the new version will include support for Siri Shortcuts, a feature introduced in iOS 12 which allows users to create custom voice shortcuts for actions that can be done in apps.

It’s also likely that the Shortcuts app – a result from the acquisition of Workflow – will be available on macOS, the inclusion of system-wide support for Siri Shortcuts on macOS 10.15 strongly suggests it.

This makes a lot of sense for iOS apps that will make the jump to the Mac, but I hope that Apple can integrate standard AppKit apps as well.

He goes on:

Screen Time on the Mac will work just like it does on iOS. There will be a new panel in System Preferences to configure the feature. When the time limit for an app has been exceeded, an overlay will be shown, allowing the user to either close the app or unlock the app with a passcode.

This will be great. I use Screen Time now on my iOS devices, but it bothers me that my Mac — where I do the bulk of my computing — is left out of these stats.

There is no doubt in my mind that 10.15 is going to be the biggest release of macOS in years. This feels like the start of a new era for the Mac and its software. I mean, he closes the post with this:

(sent with lasers)

Hi there, Marzipan’d Messages app.

My Wife is a Badass »

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My wife Merri, writing at Parents:

I am grateful for my son’s cancer diagnosis.

Say whaa? I know. If I hold up a mirror right now, I am giving myself the sarcastic stink eye as well. In the words of a dear friend: “Please don’t hear what I’m not saying.”

Seriously, she amazes me every day with her strength and grace.

Connected #239: Pizza Trousers »

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I didn’t make Connected this week, but the young men I record with did a great job talking about changes that may be coming to the iPad with iOS 13:

This week, in the absence of adult supervision, Myke and Federico discuss their new favorite time zone app and consider some recent iOS 13 rumors before Ticci talks about what arrived in his mailbox.

My thanks to our sponsors this week:

  • Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code CONNECTED at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
  • Pingdom: Start monitoring your websites and servers today. Use offer code CONNECTED to get 30% off.
  • Moo: Custom business printing and design. Use promo code PRINT15 for 15% off.

St. Jude Finds “Bubble Boy” Cure »

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Michelle Corbet at The Daily Memphian:

Over the past three years, nine babies with SCID-X1, more commonly known as “bubble boy disease,” have been treated with an experimental therapy that is now being heralded as a cure.

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital president and CEO James Downing said in his 32 years at St. Jude, the children’s hospital has accomplished many milestones, but Wednesday’s announcement was particularly exciting — a cure.

“These patients are toddlers now who are responding to vaccinations and producing cells as they explore the world and live normal lives,” said principal investigator of the trial, Dr. Ewelina Mamcarz, of the St. Jude Department of Bone Marrow Transplantation and Cellular Therapy.

The results are being published in the April 18 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

This is simply amazing.

A Brief History of The Prompt and Connected »

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This week marks the 10th anniversary of MacStories, and John asked me to write a column to help mark the occasion. His entire pitch to me was: “You’ve known Federico the longer than anyone else who writes on MacStories,” so I opted to write a bit about the history of Connected and its forerunner The Prompt:

“I think we should talk to Federico about joining the show.”

With that, my podcasting career – and life – got a lot better.

This was the spring of 2013. Myke Hurley and I were packing our bags at Myke’s original podcast network, heading over to 5by5. He and I had been publishing a weekly Apple show named “The 512 Podcast,” but we wanted to do something bigger and better, and Myke had the idea to wrangle Federico into things.

The Prompt was a life-changing project for all three of us; Relay FM exists because that show was the success that it was.

CalZones »

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It seems like a rarer and rarer occurrence that a new iOS app can make a big difference in my daily work, but Underscore’s new “timezone savvy calendaring” app has done it. Here’s Smith, introducing the app on his blog:

CalZones is a calendaring app built from the ground up to be smart about managing timezones. It starts by letting you choose a list of the zones that are relevant to you and then all aspects of the app tailor themselves into making it easy to coordinate between those timezones.

I think I have tried every single timezone app I’ve found for iOS, but this one gets it right, as Federico Viticci writes:

Perhaps you’re planning a Skype call with three more people, each living in a different time zone; maybe you have to coordinate a product launch and need to know at a glance what “3 PM GMT” means for your customers in New York, San Francisco, Rome, and Sydney. CalZones, the latest app by _David Smith, is the first iOS app I’ve ever used that fundamentally gets how people work and schedule events across multiple time zones. It’s almost like CalZones was made specifically for me, and it’s an app that speaks directly to my heart.

CalZones is on the App Store now for $4.99. If you work across multiple time zones, it’s going to make your life a whole lot better.