Once upon a time, purchasing a family computer was more complicated than finding four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree. With recent price drops for personal computers and a proliferation of easy-to-use and useful software, there’s never been a more affordable or better time to bring your home into the 21st century.
Wish lists and children’s letters to Santa can be daunting enough without adding bits and bytes, RAM and ROM, to the equation. So here are 10 tips for buying a computer the whole family will use and enjoy for seasons to come.
Myke has returned and has feelings about recent developments on the show. After Myke tries to punish Stephen with a set of quiz questions, Federico explores Obsidian’s new Canvas feature.
Apple today introduced three advanced security features focused on protecting against threats to user data in the cloud, representing the next step in its ongoing effort to provide users with even stronger ways to protect their data. With iMessage Contact Key Verification, users can verify they are communicating only with whom they intend. With Security Keys for Apple ID, users have the choice to require a physical security key to sign in to their Apple ID account. And with Advanced Data Protection for iCloud, which uses end-to-end encryption to provide Apple’s highest level of cloud data security, users have the choice to further protect important iCloud data, including iCloud Backup, Photos, Notes, and more.
Daniel over at Red Sweater Software has released version 5 of his excellent blog editor for macOS:
MarsEdit 5 features a beautiful new icon, a “Microposting” feature for streamlined short-form blogging, enhanced plain-text editing with built-in Markdown syntax highlighting, a completely rebuilt rich text editor based on Apple’s latest WebKit2 technologies, and a variety of nuanced improvements to make your blogging workflow smoother, and more enjoyable than ever.
My favorite feature of the update is the Markdown syntax highlighting, which you can see in this screenshot:
As someone who does all of his blogging in MarsEdit, it’s a great addition and helps ensure that I don’t make silly syntax errors.
The new version of MarsEdit also includes a new system-wide quick post feature that makes it easy to send short posts to a blog of your choosing:
As with previous versions, Daniel has upgrade pricing avaible:
This update is free for MarsEdit 4 users who purchased a license on or after June 1, 2022. For all other licensed MarsEdit 4 users, the upgrade fee is $29.95. For all other users the one-time purchase price is $59.95.
Users who purchased the in-app purchase via the Mac App Store can obtain the same upgrade discounts within the Mac App Store version of MarsEdit 5, when it becomes available, by locating a valid copy of MarsEdit 4 with premium features unlocked.
Version 5 should be in Setapp shorlty.
I’ve been using MarsEdit 5 in beta for a while,1 and it continues to be a critical tool in how I run 512 Pixels. The new version makes it all the better. I’m excited to see the new Microposting evolve over time, making my shift away from social media even easier.
Disclosures: Red Sweater Software is a past — and future — sponsor of 512 Pixels and provided a license for MarsEdit 5 to me for free, but did not pay/approve/even see this blog post before it went up. I just really dig the app, which is why Red Sweater is a sponsor. ↩
The Orion spacecraft swung by the Moon on Monday, flying to within 130 km of that world’s surface as it set course for a return to Earth this weekend.
In making this “powered flyby burn” to move away from the Moon, Orion’s service module performed its longest main engine firing to date, lasting 3 minutes and 27 seconds. After successful completion of the maneuver, NASA’s mission management team gave the “go” to send recovery teams out into the Pacific Ocean, where Orion is due to splashdown on Sunday, during the middle of the day.
Not everyone has a stack of old Macs for running older software, but the Internet is a magical place, and Mac OS 9 has joined OS 8 and System 7 in being able to be run in the browser.
This app was mentioned on last week’s Upgrade, but I wanted to highlight it here as well, as it offers in-depth stats on the player, team and game level, as well as loads of customization in the app itself.
Sports Alerts is one of the first apps I’ve found to bring live sports scores to the Dyanmic Island and Live Activies. I’m running the iOS 16.2 beta, and have had Apple’s own TV app prompt me to start a Live Activity for a handful of Memphis basketball games, but it seems hit or miss so far as to what games it can display.1
The UI isn’t the nicest I’ve seen; in fact, it feels a little like the iOS 7 days in places, but the killer feature is live scores visible from anywhere:
Like every other application that offers them, Score Alerts cannot start a Live Activity on its own. In this case, you have to open the app, find your game, and manually start a Live Activity. I’ve enabled “Start of Game” notifications for my favorite teams to act as a reminder to pop into the app and start the Live Activity.
It’s still early days for this iOS feature, and I’m sure more well-known sports app will add Live Activities for games, but for now at least, Sports Alerts has earned itself a spot on my iPhone.
After installing the 16.2 beta, I re-enabled push notifications for TV.app on my phone to test these new sports features, and I came to regret that after just a few days. I really dislike how many HEY COME WATCH THIS THING notifications TV.app sends. ↩
Charlie Chapman is the developer behind Dark Noise and the host of the Launched podcast. This week, he talks with David and Stephen about his experience as an iOS developer and what it’s like when Apple adds OS features that compete with something you’ve built.
Get your team communicating faster so they can focus on what’s most important. With TextExpander your team’s knowledge is at their fingertips.
Get your whole team on the same page by getting information out of silos and into the hands of everyone that needs to use it. You can share your team’s knowledge across departments so your team is sending a unified message to your customers and isn’t spending time reinventing the wheel.
Here’s how it works:
Store It: Keep your company’s most used emails, phrases, messaging, URLs and more right within TextExpander.
Share It: Get your whole team access to all the content they need to use every day. Organize it by department and
Expand It: Deploy the content you need with just a few keystrokes on any device, across any apps you use.
The folks behind OpenAI have opened up a new AI tool that can return text when given a prompt. Naturally, I asked it to write about Apple products.
Prompt #1: Write 5 paragraphs in the style of a news article written by about Apple’s new iMac computer, complete with quotes from experts
Apple has released a new iMac computer, bringing updated hardware and a renewed focus on performance to the iconic all-in-one desktop. The new iMac features the latest Intel processors, with options up to a 10-core Core i9 chip, along with AMD Radeon Pro 5000 series graphics, delivering up to 55 percent faster performance than the previous generation.
“The new iMac is a powerful addition to Apple’s desktop lineup,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “With its updated hardware and sleek design, it’s the perfect computer for users who want the best performance and the best user experience.”
The new iMac also boasts improved storage options, with options up to 8TB of high-speed SSD storage, and support for up to 128GB of high-speed DDR4 memory. Additionally, the new iMac features a brighter and more vibrant Retina display, with support for the P3 wide color gamut, as well as True Tone technology for automatically adjusting the display’s white balance.
“The new iMac’s display is truly stunning,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing. “With its brighter colors and improved contrast, it’s a great choice for creatives who want to see their work in the best possible light.”
In addition to the updated hardware, the new iMac also includes macOS Big Sur, the latest version of Apple’s operating system. Big Sur brings a redesigned interface, improved app functionality, and new features such as Control Center, which provides quick access to commonly used settings and controls.
“macOS Big Sur is a major step forward for the Mac,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering. “With its redesigned interface and new features, it makes the iMac even more powerful and easy to use.”
Prompt #2: A tweet thread about the new iPhone camera system
Just got my hands on the new iPhone and the camera system is incredible! The triple-camera setup offers a huge range of focal lengths and the image quality is stunning.
The night mode feature is a game changer, producing photos with incredible detail and low noise in low light situations. The video capabilities are also impressive, with smooth stabilization and impressive 4K quality.
Overall, the new iPhone’s camera system is a huge step forward and sets a new standard for smartphone photography. #iPhoneCamera #NightMode #TripleCamera
Prompt #3: Initial impressions after using the Apple Newton in 1993, as a magazine column written by Jason Snell
As a long-time Mac user, I was excited to get my hands on the new Apple Newton when it was released in 1993. I had heard a lot about its revolutionary handwriting recognition technology and was eager to see how it performed in the real world.
After using the Newton for a few days, I have to say that I’m impressed. The handwriting recognition technology works surprisingly well, allowing me to jot down notes and have them automatically converted to text. It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely good enough for everyday use.
One thing I really like about the Newton is its small size and portability. It fits easily into a pocket or purse, making it a great option for on-the-go note-taking. The screen is also nice and large, making it easy to read and write on.
Overall, I’m pleased with the Newton. It’s not without its flaws, but the handwriting recognition technology is a game-changer and makes it a worthwhile addition to any Mac user’s toolkit. I’m looking forward to seeing how it evolves in the future.
Prompt #4: The description for an episode of the Connected podcast, about the iPad Pro
In this episode of Connected, we dive into the new iPad Pro and all of its impressive features. We discuss the powerful M1 chip that powers the device, the stunning new Mini-LED display, and the vast improvements to the cameras.
We also talk about the new Thunderbolt port and the implications it has for connecting accessories like external displays and storage. Plus, we discuss the potential for the iPad Pro to replace a traditional computer for many users.
Tune in to learn more about the latest and greatest iPad Pro.
Prompt #5: A poem concerning the eMate 300
The eMate 300, a sight to see
A small and sturdy machine
With a keyboard and screen
It may not be the fastest
Or the most advanced device
But it’s rugged and reliable
And it gets the job done right
With its green and black design
It stands out in a crowd
And its long-lasting battery
Means it can go the distance
So here’s to the eMate 300
A humble workhorse of the digital age
May it continue to serve
Long into the future.
Prompt #6: A haiku about the HomePod
In the corner it sits
A small white orb of sound
Filling the room with song
As reported by the Department of Public Safety, on December 1st around two o’clock in the morning, Alaskan State Troopers were notified that “an adult male traveling via snowmachine from Noorvik to Kotzebue had activated an Apple iPhone Emergency SOS via satellite on his iPhone after becoming stranded.”
The NWAB SAR worked with Apple’s Emergency Response Center and local search and rescue teams to send “four volunteer searchers to the Nimiuk Point area directly to the GPS coordinates provided by the Apple Emergency Response Center. The adult male was located and transported to Kotzebue by the volunteer search team.”
Thankfully, the man was rescued safely without any injuries due to the iPhone feature and the team’s quick response.
It’s as we expected: the new landscape camera interfers with the interior components needed to charge the Pencil 2. Hopefully Apple can resolve this for future models.
Yesterday, Tiff Arment published the final episode of Somehow I Manage, our Office re-watch podcast. We were joined by the wonderful Mikah Sargent, who was Tiff’s original cohost:
Tiff, Stephen, and Mikah pull up some hay bales (with complementary hay hooks) and share an emotional goodbye as they discuss “Finale”. This episode of “The Office” originally aired on May 16, 2013.
Hosting SIM was a great way to re-live one of my favorite TV shows. Thank you all who listened!
This week on the show, Federico and I are joined by the One True John to discuss the past, present and future of the iPad mini, as well as home networking, award-winning APIs and a big surprise.
Apple Newsroom has been busy. Today, the company announced the first-ever Apple Podcasts Award winner:
Apple today announced the Apple Podcasts Award honoring a Show of the Year and its team for outstanding quality, innovation, and impact. Inspired by the signature app icon, the Apple Podcasts Award represents Apple’s decades-long commitment to supporting creators as they share their voices with the world and helping listeners to discover the best podcasts.
The recipient of the Apple Podcasts Award is Slate’s critically acclaimed narrative history series, Slow Burn, for its latest season, Roe v. Wade, hosted by Slate executive editor Susan Matthews. Published throughout June 2022, the four-episode season explores the events leading up to the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision, offering listeners an in-depth perspective on this universal and timely human rights issue.
I haven’t heard this particular season of Slow Burn, but have loved previous seasons that I have heard.
“This year’s App Store Award winners reimagined our experiences with apps that delivered fresh, thoughtful, and genuine perspectives,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “From self-taught solo creators to international teams spanning the globe, these entrepreneurs are making a meaningful impact, and represent the ways in which apps and games influence our communities and lives.”
NASA’s uncrewed Orion spacecraft reached the farthest distance from Earth it will travel during the Artemis I mission — 268,563 miles from our home planet — just after 3 p.m. CST. The spacecraft also captured imagery of Earth and the Moon together throughout the day, including of the Moon appearing to eclipse Earth.
Reaching the halfway point of the mission on Flight Day 13 of a 25.5 day mission, the spacecraft remains in healthy condition as it continues its journey in distant retrograde orbit, an approximately six-day leg of its larger mission thousands of miles beyond the Moon.
That distance breaks the previous record for distance from Earth achieved by a crew-rated vehicle set by Apollo 13.1 As impressive as that is, the imagery is even better:
Every year, I spend some time in late November talking about Operation Broken Silence, a non-profit working to bring education to thousands of kids across Sudan, all of whom have been forced from their homes due to decades of conflict.
This year, OBS is hard at work bringing water to this region as well, and I’d love your help to make this possible:
Drag the tab at the end of the Control Strip. If you drag it more than halfway
across the display, the Control Strip moves to the other edge. If you have more than one display, you can drag the Control Strip to the left or right edge of the other display as well. The Control Strip always stays on the left or right edge of your display.
Changing the display’s resolution from a smaller setting to a larger one and restarting the computer moves the Control Strip higher up on the display.
Record any audio, with Audio Hijack. Whether you want to save audio from individual applications like Safari or Skype, hardware audio devices like microphones and mixers, and even the entire system audio output, Audio Hijack can handle it. Simply put, if it can be heard on MacOS, Audio Hijack can record it. Use it to:
Record conversations from Skype, Zoom, and other VoIP apps
Save streaming audio from the web
Create podcasts, both remote and in-studio
Digitize vinyl
And so much more
Noted tech writer Stephen Hackett has declared Audio Hijack “the best audio recording tool available for macOS, and … it just keeps getting better.” Who are we to disagree?
Visit our website to learn more and download a free trial of Audio Hijack 4. You’ll be glad you did!
OmniFocus expert Tim Stringer drops by the show to catch David and Stephen up on his businesses, his use of multiple Macs and how OmniFocus 4 is shaping up while in beta.
Amazon is going through the biggest layoffs in the company’s history right now, with a plan to eliminate some 10,000 jobs. One of the areas hit hardest is the Amazon Alexa voice assistant unit, which is apparently falling out of favor at the e-commerce giant. That’s according to a report from Business Insider, which details “the swift downfall of the voice assistant and Amazon’s larger hardware division.”
Alexa has been around for 10 years and has been a trailblazing voice assistant that was copied quite a bit by Google and Apple. Alexa never managed to create an ongoing revenue stream, though, so Alexa doesn’t really make any money. The Alexa division is part of the “Worldwide Digital” group along with Amazon Prime video, and Business Insider says that division lost $3 billion in just the first quarter of 2022, with “the vast majority” of the losses blamed on Alexa. That is apparently double the losses of any other division, and the report says the hardware team is on pace to lose $10 billion this year. It sounds like Amazon is tired of burning through all that cash.
What is (was?) Alexa about, strategically? I’ve often heard that the vague idea was that people would buy Alexa devices for obvious stuff (playing music, setting timers) but that eventually they’d starting using Alexa to buy stuff from Amazon — and thus wind up buying more stuff from Amazon than they would if they didn’t have an Alexa device in their house. That never made sense to me. Buying stuff via voice commands seems inherently uncertain — like buying a lottery ticket where you need some luck to actually get the product you think you told Alexa to buy. Even if it works, how is it any better than just shopping at Amazon on your phone, iPad, or computer? It seems worse to me, and no more convenient. How do you comparison shop via voice?
iCal and the calendar feature of Microsoft Entourage can be used together–as long as you have iCal 1.5 or later and Mac OS X 10.3.5 or later installed.
If you have earlier versions of iCal or Mac OS X, when you try to add an iCal invitation to an Entourage calendar, an alert box with an error message could appear; an Entourage invitation received with the Mac OS X Mail application could appear as plain text instead of as an attachment; or, when you try to import or add an .ics file from Entourage into iCal by double-clicking the file’s icon, an alert box might appear.
If you weren’t around in the Entourage days, you really missed something. I ran it for years in college (as my school handed out Exchange accounts to students), and it was the hub for so much of my digital life.
Unite 4 for macOS allows you to turn any website into an app on your Mac. Using a lightweight, WebKit powered browser as a backend, you can easily create isolated, customizable apps from any site.
Unite 4 includes dozens of new features, including support for native notifications, new customization options, and much more. Unite apps also serve as a great alternative for resource hogging Electron apps or half-baked Catalyst apps.
Some examples of apps you could create in mere minutes with Unite:
A Gmail web client that behaves like a native mail client
A status bar app for Apple Music or Overcast
An isolated workspace for apps that may track you like Facebook
A Google Meet app that works efficiently without using Chrome
A fully featured Instagram app that has a resizable window
A Robinhood, Figma, or Roam Research app for your desktop
The newly launched Unite 4.2 makes the experience even better, with built-in password management, fully-featured status bar apps, and much more.
512 Pixels readers get 20% off this week when you purchase Unite 4 at bzgapps.com/unite512 or when you use the promo code ‘512Pixels’ at checkout.
You can also try Unite for 14 days absolutely free or use it as part of your subscription if you’re a Setapp subscriber!
I just packed and labeled the final orders for the Kickstarter! The last set of packages will be taken to the post office Monday morning. It feels great to have reached this point the weekend before Thanksgiving.
(To be fair, there are still 23 of you who have not filled out a shipping survey! If you log in to Kickstarter, you will find a direct message from me with your survey URL!)
I have loved seeing the notes from those of you who have already received yours in the mail. Keep sending them my way!
Earlier this summer, on the day Artemis I was originally scheduled to launch, I spent an hour testing out the capabilities of this new deep space voice assistant down on the ground at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
While this was a demo model (they wouldn’t let me in the spacecraft — I asked), as far as I could tell, it was an exact replica of the one on Orion, even down to the lack of an internet connection.
This week on the show, we discuss cubes, the value of feedback and what’s left for Apple’s year. Also on the topic list: mid-life crises, the Apple polishing cloth and a new membership perk for Connected Pro.
After the end of the space shuttle program, we really were kind of stuck in terms of getting a crew to space from American soil. And SpaceX and others are working to supply missions to the International Space Station, but there hasn’t been anything really since Apollo to get us further out into space. And so the SLS rocket, this Artemis 1 mission, is the first big step to put boots back on the moon for the first time in 50 years.
At 1:47 Eastern time this morning, NASA’s $20+ billion rocket finally left its launch pad:
Launch starts about 3:16:54 into the video.
The SLS rocket and Orion crew capsule have their roots all the way back into the early 2000s, as NASA prepared for a post-shuttle world.1 It’s taken longer — and cost more — than expected, but now NASA has a vehicle capable of returning crew to the moon.
There are a lot of complex issues around this rocket, including the fact that SpaceX is well on its way to building its own vehicle in this class. There is an argument to be made that NASA should focus on science and exploration, and let companies like SpaceX and ULA manage all the launch vehicle hardware, but for today, I’m just glad to see this thing make it off the ground for the first time.
If you want to keep up with how the mission goes, be sure to check out NASA’s Artemis blog. It has its own RSS feed and everything.
In fact, much of the SLS itself is made of recycled and upgraded shuttle hardware. The idea was that by re-using flight-proven hardware designs, the rocket could be built more quickly and for less money. ↩
You can upgrade the Macintosh Centris 610 or 650 with an FPU, but Apple doesn’t provide or support such an upgrade. You must rely on third-party companies who can remove the 68LC040 from its socket and replace it with a 68RC040. Since Apple doesn’t intend to offer an upgrade, we can’t guarantee that the processor will remain a socketed component.
There aren’t very many compatibility problems with non-FPU systems. While the addition of an FPU allows certain types of applications to execute faster, these applications tend to be more technical in nature. Business applications — such as spreadsheets, databases and word processors — don’t require an FPU to run.
Most applications check to see if there’s an FPU present. If one doesn’t exist, they emulate the floating point instructions in software. There are a few applications that expect or require an FPU. These applications will present problems and we anticipate most software developers will revise these products.
NASA’s next Artemis 1 launch window is upon us. The SLS rocket is slated to launch November 16th, with the two-hour launch window opening at 1:04 AM Eastern. It’ll be streaming on NASA TV if you’re awake.
Every model in the iPhone 14 lineup — iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Plus, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Pro Max — can connect directly to a satellite through a combination of custom-designed components and deeply integrated software. Emergency SOS via satellite builds on existing features vital to iPhone users, including Emergency SOS, Medical ID, emergency contacts, and Find My location sharing, offering the ability to connect to a satellite for a more 360-degree approach to sharing critical information with emergency services, family, and friends. This game-changing service allows Public Safety Answering Points (PSAPs) — or emergency services call centers — to connect to even more users in emergency situations, and requires no additional software or protocols to enable communications. Users will be connected directly to emergency services that are equipped to receive text messages, or to relay centers with Apple-trained emergency specialists who are ready to contact PSAPs that cannot receive text messages on the user’s behalf.
“Providing Emergency SOS via satellite is an important breakthrough that will save lives. The critical work being done by Apple to create innovative new solutions to support 911 providers and first responders is a huge step forward in protecting Californians and the broader public during an emergency situation,” said Mark Ghilarducci, the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services’ director.
Get your team communicating faster so they can focus on what’s most important. With TextExpander your team’s knowledge is at their fingertips.
Get your whole team on the same page by getting information out of silos and into the hands of everyone that needs to use it. You can share your team’s knowledge across departments so your team is sending a unified message to your customers and isn’t spending time reinventing the wheel.
Here’s how it works:
Store It: Keep your company’s most used emails, phrases, messaging, URLs and more right within TextExpander.
Share It: Get your whole team access to all the content they need to use every day. Organize it by department and
Expand It: Deploy the content you need with just a few keystrokes on any device, across any apps you use.
Five years ago, I opened the Notes app on my Mac and began creating a hub for all of my Apple Retail information. The document started small, but it eventually ballooned and overshadowed the app. It wielded a tiny scroll bar and depleted system resources just to open and search. I needed a better way to find store information at a glance.
Starting today, there is a better way.
This is Facades, my new app for iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. With Facades, you can browse, discover, and bookmark a catalog of every current and former Apple Store.
Stores are grouped into convenient categories, so you can browse by location, design style, or store feature. I’ve included lists of moved, renamed, and closed stores. Store trends and statistics are illustrated with colorful charts. There’s even a list of unassigned store rollout numbers.
However, one UI inconsistency is really getting to me. I’ll quote myself from the Feedback I filed (#FB11779798) with Apple today:
On the iPhone and iPad, the task inspection pane can move the tasks to a different list. On macOS, the pane lacks this option, and the only way to move a task to a different list is via drag and drop. The iPhone and iPad UI should be present on the Mac for the best usability between devices.
You can see the discrepancy in these two screenshots:
In general, I think bringing iOS-first user interfaces to the Mac is clumsy at best,1 but I’d make the trade for a more useful — and usable — Reminders app on macOS.
It’s finally starting to feel like autumn here in Memphis. Leaves are falling, as is the temperature. In the PodCabin, I’ve been hard at work packing and shipping calendars. Yesterday, I hosted a live stream doing just that:
As of this writing, I have about 300 packages left to pack and send out! All in all, this year’s fulfillment has gone much smoother than last time. I learned a lot about the process last time around that is really paying off this year.
I am still missing surveys from about two dozen of you! If you haven’t filled out a survey on BackerKit, please check your private messages on Kickstarter — there, you will find a link to your survey to confirm your address.
…but as you can probably imagine, that verified badge cost someone a mere $8. Jordan Liles has more:
On Nov. 10, 2022, a Twitter account with a “verified” checkmark badge and a display name of “Eli Lilly and Company” tweeted, “We are excited to announce insulin is free now.” The account’s handle was @EliLiIlyandCo. However, this was nothing more than a parody account, as its bio clearly said.
The message was engaged with tens of thousands of times. At last check, it was nearing 20,000 combined reweets, quote tweets, and likes.
Don’t get me wrong, companies like Eli Lilly charge a criminal amount for insulin and other medications, but this is exactly the sort of thing that was bound to happen under Twitter’s new pay-to-be-verified scheme.
Maybe a lawsuit or two will help that sink in over at Twitter HQ. At least the new system has been paused for now.
Adi Robertson has more experience reviewing AR and VR products than just about anyone else, and wow does she have some words for Meta’s new $1,499 Quest Pro:
The problem is, the Quest Pro isn’t very good. It’s a device seemingly launched without plan or purpose, highlighting VR’s persistent drawbacks without making good use of its strengths — and topped off with some irredeemably bad software. We might be seeing a roadmap for where Meta is going, but right now, it’s not a particularly fun place to be. And if Meta lingers there much longer, its metaverse is in trouble.
As Hurricane Nicole spun over Florida, NASA’s bajillion dollar SLS rocket sat atop Launch Complex-39B. Eric Berger:
Prior to Nicole’s arrival, NASA said its SLS rocket was designed to withstand wind gusts of 74.4 knots. Moreover, the agency stated on Tuesday in a blog post, “Current forecasts predict the greatest risks at the pad are high winds that are not expected to exceed the SLS design.”
From the publicly available data, however, it appears that the rocket was exposed to wind gusts near, at, or above 74.4 knots for several hours on Thursday morning. A peak gust of 87 knots was reported on the National Weather Service site, with multiple gusts above NASA’s design levels. It is possible that the 74.4-knot design limit has some margin built into it.
The time the space agency would have needed to begin rolling the rocket back to safety within the Vehicle Assembly Building, Nicole’s estimated winds were far below the safety margin. Time will tell if the choice to keep the rocket outside was a bad one, as Berger writes:
According to Phil Metzger, an engineer who worked on the space shuttle program for NASA, the most likely concern will be the structural integrity of the rocket after being exposed to prolonged periods of high winds. A rocket is designed to go upward, so although its structure can endure intense pressure and winds in a vertical direction, it is not designed to withstand similar winds in the horizontal direction.
In a series of tweets, Metzger predicted that it will be a busy couple of weeks for structural engineers to assess the risks of damage from the storm and potentially seek waivers to fly the vehicle after its exposure to these loads. This will be a difficult task. There is no ability to X-ray the structures inside the rocket, so this process will involve running, and re-running, structural calculations. At some point the program’s leadership will have to decide whether the risk—which includes the potential for the rocket to break apart during launch—is too high to fly without further inspections or remedial work.
Jim Free, NASA’s Associate Administrator for Exploration Systems Development, issued a statement on the issue, citing slower wind speeds than otherwise reported:
While wind sensors at the launch pad detected peak wind gusts up to 82 mph (71 knots) at the 60-foot level, this is within the rocket’s capability. We anticipate clearing the vehicle for those conditions shortly.
Our team is conducting initial visual check-outs of the rocket, spacecraft, and ground system equipment with the cameras at the launch pad. Camera inspections show very minor damage such as loose caulk and tears in weather coverings. The team will conduct additional onsite walk down inspections of the vehicle soon.
We took the decision to keep Orion and SLS at the launch pad very seriously, reviewing the data in front of us and making the best decision possible with high uncertainty in predicting the weather four days out. With the unexpected change to the forecast, returning to the Vehicle Assembly Building was deemed to be too risky in high winds, and the team decided the launch pad was the safest place for the rocket to weather the storm.
Myke returns to the show with some questions for his co-hosts. Then, conversations about Federico’s Apple Frames 3.0 Shortcut, Stephen’s ability to track his wallet and Elon’s changes at Twitter.
I have begun the messy process of merging much of my Photos library with my wife’s. At the end of this project, I can see a beautiful world in which we have access to tens of thousands of photos, with complete metadata and no duplicates.
It’s going to take me a while to get there, but I’ve already hit one snag: there are no albums in iCloud Shared Photo libraries. Jason Snell has more:
I have no idea if Apple considers this an item for its to-do list or if it has decided that albums are old school and everyone should just search to find and collect stuff now. Fortunately, there are workarounds to this problem that allow you to collaborate with others in curating and collecting photos—but with limitations.
Every item in the Photos library can be assigned a keyword, and keywords are synced across iCloud Shared Photos. So if you want to collaborate with other members of your iCloud Shared Photo library—or even if you just want them to be able to view the curation and selection—you can do this by selecting all the photos you want to collect and assigning them a keyword.
With keywords, members of the library have another tool for searching across thousands of entries, and on the Mac at least, smart albums can be built based on keywords.
This is not what I want out of this feature, but it’s better than nothing. I’m sure once I get everything as organized as possible, Apple will add albums back to this new product.
The Power Mac G4 is powered by the revolutionary new PowerPC G4 chip architected by Apple, Motorola and IBM, and is the first personal computer in history to deliver supercomputer-level performance of over one billion floating-point operations per second. The Power Mac G4s run professional applications like Adobe’s Photoshop up to twice as fast as 600MHz Pentium III-based PCs.
The G4 chip incorporates a new execution unit named the Velocity Engine — the heart of a supercomputer miniaturized onto a sliver of silicon. In a set of Intel’s own tests published on their web site, the 500MHz G4 chip was 2.94 times as fast as the 600MHz Pentium III processor.
“The Power Mac G4 is not only the fastest Mac ever, it’s the fastest personal computer ever,” said Apple’s interim CEO Steve Jobs. “The revolutionary G4 processor with its remarkable Velocity Engine is the first ‘supercomputer on a chip,’ delivering over one gigaflop of sustained performance.”
The new lineup was clad in a more mature version of the Blue and White G3’s case, but on the inside, things were a bit confusing.
In the November 1999 edition of Macworld, Andrew Gore explained the differences between the models:
In the initial Power Mac G4 lineup, are two different configurations, one an intermediate step between the faster G4s and the blue-and-white Power Mac G3, and the other a high-end configuration featuring impressive new technologies.
In order to get one model in the G4 lineup down under $2,000-and to get it out to customers as soon as possible Apple placed a 400MHz G4 processor onto a slightly modified version of the blue-and-white G3’s logic board and put the board in the new Power .Mac G4 case. In almost all other respects, the low-end Power Mac G4 is exactly the same as the G3 Power Macs. One notable exception: none of the Power Mac G4 models feature an ADB port.
The article was joined by this helpful table of specs:
Toward the end of the piece, Gore wrote:
If you’re itching to rush out and buy one of the high-end Power Mac G4s, hold your horses. While Apple says the low-end 400 MHz system is shipping now, at press time the company was predicting shipment of the 450 MHz G4 model sometime in September and the 5OO MHz unit in October.
He urged the reader to hold out for an AGP model, which was faster and more forward-looking than the PCI machines, which were basically the old G3 with a faster processor:
Unless you absolutely can’t afford the pricier models or can’t wait another minute, we suggest you bide your time and wait for the high-end G4 configurations to appear. Although the G4 processor does account for a lot of the performance improvements in the new models, the niceties of the new logic-board design will also have major impacts on speed. And if you opt for the low-end model, you won’t be able to play with cool new capabilities like using an AirPort card, internal FireWire devices, two separate USB ports, or the new Apple Cinema Display.
This press release, dated October 13, 1999, explains what was going on with Apple’s supply of PowerPC G4s:
Apple today announced that it has reconfigured the processor speeds in its Power Mac G4 line to match PowerPC G4 chip availability from Motorola. The new Power Mac G4 configurations will now include processors running at 350 MHz, 400 MHz and 450 MHz, and will be priced at $1,599, $2,499 and $3,499, respectively. The move is in response to Motorola’s delays in reaching volume production of its 500 MHz G4 processor chip, which is now scheduled for availability early next year.
These new configurations will enable us to meet the tremendous demand for our new Power Mac G4 line, said Steve Jobs, Apple s interim CEO. Fortunately, the machines remain very, very fast easily outperforming Pentium III-based PCs.
Apple also announced today that IBM will begin manufacturing G4 processor chips in the first half of calendar 2000 for use in Apple products.
It’s not very often in Apple’s history that one comes across a product update that results in a slower product, but clearly it wasn’t the plan. Notably, Apple didn’t lower the price of the towers to reflect their new, slower speeds. The move took on the name “speed dump,” as Mac users weren’t happy with the changes.
In December Apple updated the lineup, getting rid of the PCI model, replacing it with a 350 MHz Power Mac that included all the upgrades present in the AGP models.
Apple today announced it has increased the performance of its industry-leading Power Mac G4 line with faster processors running at 400-, 450-, and 500 MHz. Pricing remains unchanged, starting at US$1,599.
The Power Mac G4, which features the PowerPC G4 processor with its remarkable Velocity Engine, runs professional applications like Adobe Photoshop over 50 percent faster than 800 MHz Pentium III-based PCs.
A full six months after its original introduction, Apple was finally shipping a 500 MHz Power Mac G4. In the grand scheme of things, this was a mere hiccup in what was otherwise a golden era for Mac hardware advancements, and a lesson in controlling your own technology stack that Apple wouldn’t forget.
In the upheaval surrounding Twitter’s changes to its verification system, many were left wondering how accounts posing as politicians, journalists, musicians, athletes and others could be noted as official. As it turns out, the checkmark was the way to go after all.
Twitter is rolling out another type of checkmark to help distinguish accounts that users actually need to know are real. Although you can pay for a blue checkmark with the new version of Twitter Blue, select accounts for governments, companies, or public figures will get a gray “Official” checkmark, according to a thread from Twitter’s Esther Crawford, who is heading up the new Twitter Blue initiative.
“A lot of folks have asked about how you’ll be able to distinguish between @TwitterBlue subscribers with blue checkmarks and accounts that are verified as official, which is why we’re introducing the ‘Official’ label to select accounts when we launch,” Crawford says.
“Accounts that will receive it include government accounts, commercial companies, business partners, major media outlets, publishers and some public figures.”
Being previously verified doesn’t automatically mean you’ll get the new “Official” label, and you can’t buy the new label, meaning Twitter will be the one making the call on who gets to have it.
It really feels like someone is making this stuff up as he goes along.
Just a quick programming note that I have opened up sponsorships for next year. Details are all over on this page. If you have a cool product, app or service, 512 Pixels is a great way to get the message out.
Apple Frames 3.0 is a major update that involved a complete re-architecture of the shortcut to improve its performance and reliability on all Apple platforms. For Apple Frames 3.0, I entirely rebuilt its underlying file structure to move away from base64 and embrace Files/Finder to store assets. As a result, Apple Frames 3.0 is faster, easier to debug, and – hopefully – easier to maintain going forward.
But Apple Frames 3.0 goes beyond a new technical foundation. This update to the shortcut introduces full compatibility with the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max with Dynamic Island, Apple Watch Ultra, and the M2 MacBook Air. And that’s not all: Apple Frames 3.0 also brings full support for resolution scaling on all iPad models that offer the ‘More Space’ display mode in iPadOS 16. And in the process, I also added support for ‘Default’ and ‘More Space’ options on the Apple Silicon-based MacBook Airs, MacBook Pros, and iMac. All of this, as always, in a native shortcut designed for high performance that uses Apple’s official device images and requires no manual configuration whatsoever.
This is a very useful Shortcut, and I’m so glad Federico keeps iterating on it.
It’s just been a few days since Musk let go roughy half of Twitter’s staff, and the cracks are already beginning to show, as Elizabeth Lopatto has discovered:
I can’t change my screen name on Twitter. I can change my bio. But not my screen name. So although I was helpfully trying to describe myself as “Elizabeth Lopatto (parody)” that simply wasn’t possible.
[…]
I have no idea what’s causing this problem but I’m not the only one experiencing it. My coworker Alex Cranz can’t change hers either. Neither can Jay Peters, Tom Warren, or Sean Hollister. However, our coworker Mitchell Clark can! Cranz, Peters, Warren, Hollister and I are all verified. Clark isn’t.
Hmmmmm.
Update: It’s a little unclear if this was a technical problem or a policy change. Honestly, it’s hard to tell the difference all of a sudden.
Early tomorrow morning, people around the globe will have the opportunity to view one of the most spectacular events in the sky, a total lunar eclipse. Here’s a rundown of how to watch this event and why total lunar eclipses are often referred to as “blood moons.”
NightWare is a digital therapeutic system that works in conjunction with Apple Watch and iPhone to disrupt nightmares related to post-traumatic stress disorder. Available by prescription only, it’s also the first and only digital therapeutic developed specifically to treat nightmares that is cleared by the FDA. NightWare uses information from the Apple Watch heart rate sensor, accelerometer, and gyroscope to detect a nightmare and then disrupt it through haptic feedback, generating gentle pulses on the wrist that gradually increase until the user is roused from the nightmare, but not from sleep.
This sort of thing is consumer technology at its best.
If you have a Mac with Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C), Thunderbolt / USB 4, Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C), or USB-C ports, you can use cables to transfer data and connect your Mac to other devices and displays. If you have a Mac notebook computer, you can also connect to a power adapter to charge your Mac.
It’s great having One Connector to Rule Them All, but wow is USB-C messy.
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NASA is about to try to launch its Artemis 1 mission again. Here’s Stephen Clark at Spaceflight Now:
NASA scrubbed the first launch attempt for the Artemis 1 moon mission Aug. 29, when data indicated one of the rocket’s four hydrogen-fueled main engines was not being properly thermally conditioned during the countdown. Engineers later determined that the thermal measurements were from a bad sensor, and not indicative of a more serious problem.
A second launch attempt Sept. 3 was scrubbed by a hydrogen leak in the connection between the core stage of the rocket and its mobile launch platform. NASA replaced seals in the connection fully fueled the rocket in a tanking test Sept. 21 without any significant leaks, paving the way for launch opportunities in late September and early October.
But the threat from Hurricane Ian forced NASA officials to move the rocket back to the Vehicle Assembly Building for safety, delaying the next Artemis 1 launch attempt to Nov. 14. Unlike the mission’s previous countdowns, the next three Artemis 1 launch opportunities will be at night. Trajectory limitations and the position of the moon relative to Earth determine when the mission can launch.
The launch window on November 14 starts at 12:07 a.m. EST and will extend 69 minutes,1 with backup windows on November 16 and 19.
If the SLS continues to give NASA trouble and the rocket doesn’t get off the ground in these upcoming windows, things could get a lot more complicated, as Eric Berger reports at Ars:
On Thursday, NASA officials held a teleconference with space reporters and discussed the planned rollout of the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft early on Friday morning. The space agency remains on track for an Artemis I launch attempt on November 14, shortly after midnight, said Jim Free, who leads exploration systems development for NASA. This will be the third attempt to launch the SLS rocket on its debut flight. Free said the launch team is confident, but acknowledged there are “unknown unknowns” that may crop up during the countdown.
December deadline? … One of the big questions about the rocket concerns the lifetime of its massive solid rocket boosters, which have now been stacked for nearly two years. NASA’s Cliff Lanham, who oversees ground systems, said NASA’s initial analysis found that the rocket boosters provided by Northrop Grumman had a lifetime of one year. However, a subsequent analysis of their health cleared one through December 9, 2022, the other through December 14. NASA could probably extend their life further with additional analysis, Free adds. But this will be a source of concern if the Artemis I mission has to be delayed again.
Given how rocky this rocket’s development has been over the last decade, I’ll feel a lot better about things once it’s on its way to the moon.
This is a real bummer, given how good the new version of Weather is. I guess we’re just one step away from ads for weight loss apps showing up when looking at the weather while packing for the beach.
After following the steps in Matt’s blog post, I had everything up and running, and fed the machine about 25 photos of myself. I played around with a bunch of different prompts and got some pretty wild results:
Sidestepping the very complicated subjects related to AI-art, this was a pretty fun way to spend an hour of my day. That last one is true nightmare fuel, though.
DVD-ROM, as its name implies, is a “read-only memory” format. Your computer can read a disc’s contents, but it cannot save data to one.
DVD-RAM (DVD random-access memory) and DVD-RW (DVD rewritable) are both rewritable mediums. Both DVD-RW and DVD-RAM are rewritable DVD standards that have been published by the DVD Forum, a group of more than 200 industry-leading corporations.
This article then links to a second article titled “SuperDrive: About Rewriteable DVD Discs,” which goes into a lot more detail. It ends with this note:
Important: Information about products not manufactured by Apple is provided for information purposes only, and does not constitute Apple’s recommendation or endorsement. Please contact the vendor for additional information.
If you’ve been reading some parts of the internet lately, you might’ve seen a brouhaha over the quote-unquote “fact” that Pantone has “copyrighted colors.” They’re forcing Adobe to pay them oodles of money for color swatches, and Adobe said “no you.” Now users have to pay $15 a month just to use COLORS? Madame is outraged!
Well, it’s more complicated than that. The reality is that the world of color is complex, even for those of us that see and feel it every day. Many working designers don’t know all the fiendish intricacies surrounding the tools of their trade. Your real questions are “how does this affect me” and “what can I do about it?” Or maybe you’re used to picking colors from all those swatch books in Photoshop and wondered why it’s such a big deal that they went away.
In the name of expedience I’m formatting this in a question-and-answer format. Sit back, grab some popcorn, and be prepared for more than you wanted to know about the Pantone Matching System.
As a long-time Mail.app user, I was excited to see Apple giving new features to the app in this year’s crop of OS releases.
Some of these additions are great; I particularly like the ability to schedule a message to be sent at a later time, as well as the ability to “unsend” a message. Sure, that second one is really just a 30 second timer set in the Outbox before a message heads off to the recipient, but it’s a really nice tool for those of us who are prone to typos.
The follow-up feature has been hit or miss for me. The idea is great, as having Mail remind me about a message that didn’t get a response is genuinely useful, but whatever logic Mail is using to pick which emails deserve this treatment is impossible to parse.
The new feature that is currently bothering me is Mail’s new ability to remind me if I forget an attachment or recipient. Gmail and others have had this for years, and it’s honestly great.
It’s just too bad that Mail doesn’t seem to understand that some people put their email addresses in their email signatures. As you can see in this screenshot, Mail has started warning me every time I send a message that the email address in my footer has been left off the recipient list:
This is a shockingly dumb catch on Mail’s part because the application should know what I have set up using its own Signatures feature. It’s literally right there in the app’s own settings:
This has been filed with Apple as Feedback FB11741630.
Last week, Adobe removed support for free Pantone colors across its Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustrator Creative Cloud applications. PSD files that contained Pantone spot colors now display unwanted black in their place, forcing creatives who need access to the industry-standard color books to pay for a plugin subscription (via Kotaku).
“As we had shared in June, Pantone decided to change its business model. Some of the Pantone Color Books that are pre-loaded in Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign were phased-out from future software updates in August 2022,” said Ashley Still, senior vice president of digital media marketing, strategy, and global partnerships at Adobe in a statement to The Verge. “To access the complete set of Pantone Color Books, Pantone now requires customers to purchase a premium license through Pantone Connect and install a plug-in using Adobe Exchange.”
Yes, I did link to this days after the news broke just because I thought of the headline.
One of the Twitter Blue perks was ad-free access to more than 300 US publishers through a deal known as Ad-Free Articles.
Twitter would pay publishers an amount roughly equivalent to the ad revenue for a view, and in return subscribers would be able to read pieces on Twitter Blue Publisher sites without ads.
Twitter has cancelled this feature overnight, with just one day’s notice. Publishers were sent an email announcing the change.
Musk and his buddies view this plan as a way to get people to actually give Twitter money. But by monetizing a symbol that currently has value, they will ultimately remove all of that existing value.
Blue checks exist on social platforms as a means of combating misinformation. Currently, if someone makes a fake account pretending to be a world leader, journalist or celebrity, it’s easy to tell it’s a fake if the account doesn’t have a blue check. But under this newly proposed system, there’s not much incentive to pay the $20 per month to stay verified, especially since the once-coveted symbol would be available to anyone willing to pay. It’s quite possible that bad actors trying to pose as journalists to spread fake news would be more incentivized to pay the $20 than actual journalists.
Of course, Musk doesn’t seem to care about misinformation — just this weekend, he shared a link to an article that included baseless claims about the recent horrific attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband.
For better or for worse, Twitter has become the hub for a lot of news, and while it’s not a perfect system, verification is a signal to users that the source they are reading are legitimate. Upsetting that balance is only going to bring more even more misinformation — or worse — to Twitter.
Apple has shipped significant updates to its operating systems, so David and Stephen explore the features each brings to the table, getting deep into macOS Ventura and iPadOS 16.1.
In other news, we have the MPU Merch Store has re-opened for the holidays! We’ve got the Classy Tee back for pre-order, as well as a sweatshirt and hoodie:
Everyone knows that they should be backing up their computer, and Backblaze is an easy and secure way to back up docs, music, photos, videos, drawings, projects — all of your data. Files can be accessed via Backblaze’s excellent website or on the go with the Backblaze app on iOS and Android. If you experience a drive failure, Backblaze lets you download your files, or you can restore via mail, with a hard drive full of your data that gets shipped to your door. By default, Backblaze saves deleted and old versions of files for 30 days, but for an extra $2/month, you can increase that retention history to 1 year!
They’re good at this; Backblaze has restored 55 billion files for their customers. And they have nearly two exabytes of data storage under management and counting — that’s almost 2,000,000,000 gigabytes.
You can download a free, fully-featured trial at backblaze.com/512pixels. Unlimited computer backup for Macs and PCs starts at just $7/month. Backblaze is a lot of peace of mind for such a low cost.
That famous clip of a floppy disk floating through the air after being ejected from a Macintosh Portable really makes my brain vibrate in a special way. In this video, Scott Manley explains why the Portable was there in the first place:
Nilay Patel, in a fantastic piece about the challenges that You Know Who faces with his purchase of Twitter:
Twitter is a disaster clown car company that is successful despite itself, and there is no possible way to grow users and revenue without making a series of enormous compromises that will ultimately destroy your reputation and possibly cause grievous damage to your other companies.
[…]
The essential truth of every social network is that the product is content moderation, and everyone hates the people who decide how content moderation works. Content moderation is what Twitter makes — it is the thing that defines the user experience. It’s what YouTube makes, it’s what Instagram makes, it’s what TikTok makes. They all try to incentivize good stuff, disincentivize bad stuff, and delete the really bad stuff. Do you know why YouTube videos are all eight to 10 minutes long? Because that’s how long a video has to be to qualify for a second ad slot in the middle. That’s content moderation, baby — YouTube wants a certain kind of video, and it created incentives to get it. That’s the business you’re in now. The longer you fight it or pretend that you can sell something else, the more Twitter will drag you into the deepest possible muck of defending indefensible speech. And if you turn on a dime and accept that growth requires aggressive content moderation and pushing back against government speech regulations around the country and world, well, we’ll see how your fans react to that.
As before, creating a USB Installer requires downloading a full copy of macOS Ventura from Apple. This can be done via the Mac App Store if you are already running Ventura. If not, your Mac may only download the delta update. As of the initial version of macOS Ventura, the full installer is about 12 GB.
These direct links point to a .pkg file, not the “Install macOS Ventura” application you may have expected. In Finder, a quick double-click will unpack it and put the installer application in your Applications folder.
You’ve probably seen all the USB-C iPhone headlines that came out of this interview, but the whole thing is worth a watch, or a listen if you’re like me and ripped the audio then uploaded it to your Overcast account to listen to later when you go for a walk.
Lucy is the first mission to explore the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, an ancient population of asteroid “fossils” that orbit around the Sun at the same distance as Jupiter. To reach these distant asteroids, the Lucy spacecraft’s trajectory includes three Earth gravity assists to boost it on its journey to these enigmatic asteroids.
On October 13, 2022, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft captured this image of the Earth and the Moon from a distance of 890,000 miles (1.4 million km). The image was taken as part of an instrument calibration sequence as the spacecraft approached Earth for its first of three Earth gravity assists. These Earth flybys provide Lucy with the speed required to reach the Trojan asteroids — small bodies that orbit the Sun at the same distance as Jupiter. On its 12 year journey, Lucy will fly by a record breaking number of asteroids and survey their diversity, looking for clues to better understand the formation of the solar system.
Use the powerful camera system of your iPhone to do things never before possible with a webcam, including Center Stage, Portrait mode, Studio Light, and Desk View.
At first sight, it might appear that boot volume groups and overall disk layout in Ventura are exactly the same as those in Big Sur and Monterey. This article shows their similarity, and how they differ significantly.
macOS Ventura makes the things you do most on Mac even better, with big updates to the apps you use everyday, including Mail, Messages, and Safari. You can use your iPhone as a webcam for your Mac with Continuity Camera. There’s also an entirely new way to automatically organize your windows with Stage Manager. And when you upgrade, you get the latest security and privacy protections for your Mac.
On the next episode of Mac Power Users, David and I will be getting into the weeds on this release of macOS.
Lastly, I have updated my macOS Screenshot Library with images of Ventura — including its new mostly-bad System Settings application. You can explore those images over on this page, and if you want 6K versions of Ventura’s wallpaper, I’ve got you covered there as well:
These are relatively easy iPads to review with a fairly straightforward narrative around them. The new iPad Pro is an iterative update that shows us Apple has seemingly hit a plateau in terms of innovation with this particular design – save for one feature that truly surprised me. The new base model iPad is a massive update compared to its predecessor, adding an all-new, iPad Pro-inspired design and a brand new accessory – the Magic Keyboard Folio – that has turned out to be one of my favorite accessories Apple has launched in recent years. I’ve had a ton of fun playing around and working with the new iPad over the weekend; if you’re in the market for an 11″ tablet, you shouldn’t sleep on this one.
It’s a real shame that the Magic Keyboard Folio is only available for this iPad. It’s also a shame that the best colors we’ve ever seen on an iPad are on the base model:
Over on Six Colors, Jason Snell wrote about this iPad’s Apple Pencil support in his review:
Unfortunately, if you’re a fan of the Apple Pencil, I don’t think I can really recommend this iPad. The 10th-generation iPad only supports the first-generation Apple Pencil, which was supplanted four years ago by the Apple Pencil 2. Since it charges via Lightning, and this iPad doesn’t have a Lightning port, Apple has ginned up an awkward $9 adapter that lets you charge the Pencil via a USB-C cable. It’s small and will be easy to lose, and if your Pencil runs out of battery when it’s not around, you’re mostly out of luck. (Though if you’ve got an iPhone, you can plug it into that, and it’ll suck some power and charge itself back up.)
This is a ridiculous situation, but Apple has painted itself into a corner thanks to its design decisions with the two Pencil models and its choice not to bite the bullet and add Pencil 2 compatibility on this iPad. If you don’t need pressure sensitivity in your stylus, consider using the $70 Logitech Crayon, which is compatible with most modern iPad models and charges via USB-C.
At its core, this iPad is an excellent tablet with fast performance, reliable battery life, and a vast library of optimized apps to make use of its large touchscreen.
But along with those upgrades comes a higher price: the 10th-gen iPad starts at $449, $120 more than the previous model, and can be kitted out to over $1,000 with storage, cellular, and accessory upgrades. This is for the entry-level iPad with no qualifier after its name, the one that you buy for casual use, kids, schoolwork, travel, and content consumption — it’s not really a device to replace your laptop with.
MarsEdit 4 is a native Mac interface to WordPress and other blogging systems that focuses on one thing: blogging! As WordPress gets increasingly complicated with an emphasis on BLOCKS and whole-site design, MarsEdit sticks to the classic idea that:
There would be an editor.
You could write in it.
You could publish it to your blog.
If you’re annoyed by the increasing complexity of WordPress’s browser-based editor, download MarsEdit and give it a try. It’s the “Cadillac” of classic editors. You’ll see why many of the best bloggers in the Apple ecosystem rely on MarsEdit’s native, reliable, intuitive Mac interface.
With Matter on the horizon, there has never been a better time to get into home automation. Stephen and David talk about how their HomeKit setups have evolved over time and what they hope Apple and others can add to the smart home in the future.
Script Editor, the built-in macOS app for creating and dealing with AppleScript and JavaScript automation, comes with a handful of example templates, including this gem for importing files into Aperture:
Aperture was discontinued some eight years ago, but this template is still included in the version of Script Editor bundled with macOS Ventura.
The Guardian has an excerpt from Bono’s memoir, and the excerpt includes a bit on the time Apple and U2 added the band’s newest album to everyone’s iTunes music libraries:
If just getting our music to people who like our music was the idea, that was a good idea. But if the idea was getting our music to people who might not have had a remote interest in our music, maybe there might be some pushback. But what was the worst that could happen? It would be like junk mail. Wouldn’t it? Like taking our bottle of milk and leaving it on the doorstep of every house in the neighbourhood.
Not. Quite. True.
On 9 September 2014, we didn’t just put our bottle of milk at the door but in every fridge in every house in town. In some cases we poured it on to the good people’s cornflakes. And some people like to pour their own milk. And others are lactose intolerant.
I take full responsibility. Not Guy O, not Edge, not Adam, not Larry, not Tim Cook, not Eddy Cue. I’d thought if we could just put our music within reach of people, they might choose to reach out toward it. Not quite. As one social media wisecracker put it, “Woke up this morning to find Bono in my kitchen, drinking my coffee, wearing my dressing gown, reading my paper.” Or, less kind, “The free U2 album is overpriced.” Mea culpa.
[…]
For all the custard pies it brought Apple – who swiftly provided a way to delete the album – Tim Cook never blinked. “You talked us into an experiment,” he said. “We ran with it. It may not have worked, but we have to experiment, because the music business in its present form is not working for everyone.”
Evans Hankey has been in charge of Apple’s hardware design for three years, but she is now leaving the company according to a new report from Mark Gurman:
The departure was announced inside the Cupertino, California-based technology giant this week, with Hankey telling colleagues that she will remain at Apple for the next six months. The company hasn’t named a replacement. Hankey oversees dozens of industrial designers.
Her pending exit marks the first time that Apple will be without a de facto design chief since Apple co-founder Steve Jobs retook control of the company in the late 1990s and appointed Ive to the job. Richard Howarth, a key designer on both Ive and Hankey’s teams, briefly held the role of head of industrial design, reporting to Ive, between 2015 and 2017.
“Apple’s design team brings together expert creatives from around the world and across many disciplines to imagine products that are undeniably Apple,” a spokesman said in a statement. “The senior design team has strong leaders with decades of experience. Evans plans to stay on as we work through the transition, and we’d like to thank her for her leadership and contributions.”
With the timelines and collaboration at Apple, it’s always a bit tricky to place responsibility for a decision on any one person, but for whatever input Hankey had in the design of the Apple silicon Mac line up, I’m thankful for.
Musk has previously gestured at plans for layoffs if he were to buy Twitter, but those cuts could go even deeper than previously imagined.
According to a new report from the Washington Post, Musk plans to purge 75% of Twitter’s workforce, or around 5,600 employees. If Musk’s vision for a much leaner platform comes to fruition, Twitter would be forced to operate with a sliver of its current staff.
Between broader economic factors and ongoing criticisms that Twitter has failed to deliver on its promise (at least as far as investors are concerned), Twitter was always going to trim its workforce. But cutting the staff down by three quarters isn’t what most people had in mind. The Post noted that Twitter already planned to cut around a quarter of its workforce — but leaving a quarter of the workforce is a different situation altogether.
I know people who have already resigned from Twitter over the whole Musk situation, but I didn’t think this sort of thing was going to be in the cards.
This morning Apple announced their all-new iPad and iPad Pro lineups via press release and a short announcement video. The new iPad (non-Pro) features new colors and an updated square-edge design that brings it in line with the rest of Apple’s modern iPads and iPhones. The iPad Pro has been upgraded to Apple’s M2 chip, and supports a new “hover” mode on the Apple Pencil. Apple also unveiled a new Magic Keyboard Folio accessory, which includes a detachable keyboard with a trackpad and function keys.
There’s a lot to like about each of these new products, but the details reveal some very strange decisions on Apple’s part.
