Category: Apple

Even though I had a 5K iMac on my desk for a year before replacing it with my iMac Pro, I’ve never gotten good at plugging things into the back of the machine without looking. As someone who imports photos and video from an SD card on a regular basis, you’d think I’d be better at finding the port on the back.

I recently picked up Satechi’s $49 awkwardly named “Aluminum Type-C Clamp Hub Pro” to help with this problem. It puts a SD card slot, Micro SD card slot, three USB 3 and one USB-C port around the front of the iMac, all enclosed in a small body that fits perfectly flush with the front of the computer. It plugs into one of the USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports on the machine, which worked well for me, as I had one free.

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HomePod orders are now open.

I picked up a white model, set for in-store pickup two weeks from today. We have a couple of Amazon Echos around the house, despite being subscribers to Apple Music. We pay for Amazon’s Echo-only music streaming and use the speaker to control a bunch of smart lights, listen to news, set timers while cooking and more.

On paper, the HomePod should do everything we ask of our Echo, but I’m a little worried that Siri won’t be able to keep up as well as Alexa does. I guess I’ll find out in two weeks.

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Mark Gurman is reporting that Apple is working to overhaul its iBooks (soon to just be named “Books”) app and store, with the help of at least one ex-Amazon employee:

The new app, due to be released in coming months, will include a simpler interface that better highlights books currently being read and a redesigned digital book store that looks more like the new App Store launched last year, according to people familiar with its development. The revamped app in testing includes a new section called Reading Now and a dedicated tab for audio books, the people said.

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As he does every year, Jason Snell has asked a whole bunch of Apple watchers to provide feedback on the company’s performance for the past year.

This year, everything seems to have scored better than in 2016, except for hardware reliability, software quality and the company’s environmental and social initiatives, as Snell writes:

Judging by my panel’s responses, 2017 was something of a bounce-back year for most of Apple’s core platforms. But there was still plenty of concern to go around, especially when it came to the quality of Apple’s software.

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Apple:

macOS Server is changing to focus more on management of computers, devices, and storage on your network. As a result, some changes are coming in how Server works. A number of services will be deprecated, and will be hidden on new installations of an update to macOS Server coming in spring 2018. If you’ve already configured one of these services, you’ll still be able to use it in the spring 2018 macOS Server update.

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Federico has the details:

In a press release, Apple today announced iOS 11.3, the third major update to iOS 11 set to be released in beta for developers later today, and launching to the general public this Spring. iOS 11.3 will improve upon iOS 11 and features that debuted alongside the iPhone X with new Animoji, a major upgrade to ARKit, the ability to store health records in the Health app, plus other improvements for built-in system apps.

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Apple Support lists the following fixes in the 10.13.3 update:

• Addresses an issue that could cause Messages conversations to temporarily be listed out of order
• Resolves an issue that could cause your Mac to stop responding when connected to an SMB server

It also patches the bug that allowed the App Store menu in System Preferences to be unlocked with any password.

It’s in the Mac App Store now.

If you’re running macOS Sierra or El Capitan, Apple has pushed “Security Update 2018-001” that addresses the Meltdown vulnerability. If you’re on 10.11 or 10.12, run updates today.

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Apple PR:

HomePod, the innovative wireless speaker from Apple, arrives in stores beginning Friday, February 9 and is available to order online this Friday, January 26 in the US, UK and Australia. HomePod will arrive in France and Germany this spring.

The $349 speaker is powered by Apple Music and comes with Siri and HomeKit support. The HomePod supports SiriKit, so select third-party apps will be supported by the speaker.

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Horace Dediu has put together a very helpful post that frames Apple’s cash in terms that even a lowly Mac blogger can understand.

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Matt Birchler has put together a great blog post exploring what watchOS 5 could bring:

watchOS is far from perfect and there are tons of things that could be done to make it not only a better experience for those who already own one, but to draw in more people to the platform. The Apple Watch is one of the largest reasons I’m loyal to iOS for my smartphone, and since Apple is pretty darn invested in people buying more iPhones, they probably want to get people to love their Apple Watches even more so these customers never change sides.

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Jason Snell has published a video showing how to attach Apple’s VESA Mount Kit for the iMac Pro. It’s a very clever bit of hardware design:

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I’m not one for publishing links to Apple ads, but this made me chuckle.

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