There’s no reason to write an intro to this outlining all the problems with the Late 2013 Mac Pro, so let’s get right to it: Apple is working to replace it with an all-new Mac Pro, based on a modular design, that will pair with a new, Apple-branded, built-for-pros external display. It’s not going to ship this year, but in the meantime, Apple plans on shipping configurations of the iMac better geared to the pro market.1
Category: Apple
Original iPad Went on Sale Seven Years Ago
It feels a lot longer than that, honestly. Here’s some reading from back in the day:
- My original review and some follow-up a month later after traveling with the tablet.
- Reviews by Jason Snell and John Gruber
- Shawn Blanc’s excellent diary-style review
- An article about the original iPad’s wallpaper and one about the typography used in its original software release
- Apple’s press release on first-day sales
- Some early app picks from some guy named Federico Viticci
Apple Pulling Out of Imagination Technologies Relationship⇢
Imagination Technologies, the British chip designer that provides PowerVR graphics processors for use in the iPhone and iPad, has said that Apple will no longer be licensing its technology in less than two years’ time. In a statement, Imagination says that Apple has notified the company that it’s “working on a separate, independent graphics design in order to control its products and will be reducing its future reliance on Imagination’s technology.”
More Apple Retail Changes Coming⇢
This time around, the changes are focused on how the stores interact with business customers:
Apple is planning another shakeup within its retail stores, according to a source who shared the company’s plans with MacRumors. At the end of April, Apple plans to eliminate certain retail positions, including Business Manager, Business Events Lead, Events Coordinator, and Events Lead.
Apple Store Leaders began informing affected employees about the change earlier this week, and many were caught off guard by the sudden sunsetting of specialized positions that have long existed at retail stores.
Xserve Finds New Lease on Life⇢
Brian Stucki, on the MacStadium blog:
Here we are in 2017 and we’re bringing back a second life for the Xserve.
Since Macminicolo merged with MacStadium, we now have more space and many more options for Mac mini, Mac Pro, and 1U servers like the Xserve. While Mac Pro is definitely our focus, I feel like I owe the Xserve fans an update.
Our hosted Mac private clouds are powered by VMware and include unlimited use of vSphere Enterprise (ESXi) 6.x. Since this software can handle any number of server nodes to draw from, we use both Mac Pro and Xserve to build the fleet for customers. This helps us find just the right balance of price and power for any situation.
Comparing Night Shift and f.lux
First released as part of iOS 9.3, Night Shift slowly shifts the color temperature of your screen to be warmer as the evening goes on. Some claim that this may help you sleep better, as blue light is harsher and can disrupt your sleep cycle, but the science is out on that.
I don’t know if it actually doing anything helpful, but I’ve enjoyed Night Shift on my iPhone and iPad over the last year. I often am wrapping up the day one of these two devices pretty close to bedtime, and I find the warmer tones pleasing. It may be the placebo effect, but using up a device without — ahem, watchOS team — is jarring.
WWDC Lottery Opens Today⇢
Using iTunes Today⇢
Like me, Casey Newton still relies on syncing to iTunes to put music on his iPhone. And like me, he’s finding that more and more complicated:
For my system to work, iTunes has to sync. But with each passing year, the act of syncing seems to take longer than the year before. Hours pass by as my phone is “backing up,” even if I fully backed up the phone minutes before. And increasingly, sync doesn’t work at all. Sometimes I plug in my phone and iTunes doesn’t recognize it as a device. Sometimes the dreaded “unknown error” occurs. Most frequently, I get this: “iTunes cannot sync photos to the iPhone … because your Photos Library is not yet available. Please try again later.” (I am just learning that there is apparently a fix for this one.)
Apple Acquires Workflow
Matthew Panzarino, writing at TechCrunch:
Apple has finalized a deal to acquire Workflow today — a tool that lets you hook together apps and functions within apps in strings of commands to automate tasks. We’ve been tracking this one for a while but were able to confirm just now that the ink on the deal is drying as we speak.
Workflow itself has been acquired, and is now free on the iOS App Store. The team behind it, led by Ari Weinstein, will be working for Apple.
On That New iPad
The biggest news out of today’s press releases from Apple is probably the new 9.7-inch iPad.
Tech wise, it’s more or less an upgraded iPad Air 2. It comes with a A9 processor, 8 MP cameras and 10-hour battery life. None of Apple’s Pro features are here. It doesn’t support the Smart Keyboard, Apple Pencil or include that fancy four-speaker sound system.
The price is decidedly un-Pro, as well. At $329, the 32 GB model a full $270 cheaper than the 9.7" iPad Pro with the same storage space, and that’s before the extra $248 the Smart Keyboard and Pencil will set you back.
On the Hackintosh
I really like my iMac, but every once in a while I do wish Apple was shipping a cheese-grater Mac Pro with modern internals. I’d love to shove some of my external drives into a tower that could keep my desk nice and tidy, not to mention having more horsepower for audio and video editing.
In the current vacuum of updated Pro hardware from Apple, some are turning to Hackintoshes. These custom-built PCs are designed to run macOS, giving users great flexibility to build their own setups for running Mac software.
