Connected #333: A Stack of Battery Pancakes ⇢

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This week on the show:

Stephen refuses to be pigeonholed, Federico talks about how MagSafe could be used on new accessories and Myke doesn’t want to talk about folding iPhones, but then does. Also on the list of topics: failing Apple watches, #GreenGate and blankets.

On Connected Pro, the fight between Apple and users who want to customize their home screens is discussed, then a name of an old website is lost to time.

My thanks to our sponsors:

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On watchOS 7.3.1 and Dead Apple Watches ⇢

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Jay Peters:

Apple released watchOS 7.3.1 on Monday, and it could help fix an issue that prevents some Apple Watch Series 5 or SE smartwatches from charging while in the battery-saving Power Reserve Mode. But even the software update might not fix the issue, according to Apple. If it doesn’t, the company will repair your watch for free.

Apple Support:

To check if your Apple Watch is affected by this issue, place your watch on the charger that you normally use, then wait at least 30 minutes.

If your Apple Watch still won’t charge, contact Apple Support to set up a mail-in repair free of charge. Your watch will be examined before service to verify that it’s eligible for free repair.

This comes on the heels of a charging issue with some MacBook Pros. I’m sure they aren’t actually related issues, but what a weird set of problems.

Kbase Article of the Week: Reduce Cable Strain on your MagSafe Power Adapter ⇢

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Apple Support:

While the MagSafe power adapter is designed to travel with your Mac notebook, some ways of using it can contribute to the fraying or breaking of cables. The MagSafe adapter, like any other metal wire or cable, is subject to becoming weak or brittle if repeatedly bent in the same spot. Follow these recommendations to reduce the likelihood of damaging the adapter.

I still really miss MagSafe. USB-C charging may be convenient, but it’s not as nice.

Newton Press ⇢

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25 years ago, Apple introduced software named Newton Press:

Using an easy drag-and-drop method, Newton Press users can create electronic reference documents or Newton books from files on a Mac OS-based personal computer. These books are created by simply dropping files onto the Newton Press icon on the Macintosh, which automatically formats the document so it can be viewed on a Newton Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) such as the MessagePad. Newton Press supports a variety of word processing, text, or graphics documents supported by the Claris XTND technology for the Mac OS.

“The availability of Newton Press is a significant milestone in our endeavor to continue the positive momentum generated by Newton 2.0,” said Sandy Benett, acting vice president of Apple’s Newton Systems Group. “The numerous positive reviews and comments we’re receiving are a testament to the genuine viability of the Newton platform and bring us another step closer to making Newton PDAs the ubiquitous device they were envisioned to be.”

With Newton Press, mobile professionals and corporate customers can take advantage of the combined power of personal computers, enterprise information, and Newton PDAs to easily publish and distribute electronic documents. Word processing files, email messages, graphics and text blocks from Mac OS-based personal computers now can be readily available to reference, annotate, fax or print from the Newton PDA. These electronic documents can even be distributed to other Newton users, making Newton Press a perfect solution for mobile professionals needing to exchange and distribute data.

If you want to take a trip through the User Manual for Newton Press, this link is for you.

Apple Launches ‘For All Mankind’ Podcast ⇢

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Apple has launched a new podcast to coincide with season two of For All Mankind, which debuts on AppleTV+ on Friday.1 It is hosted by Krys Marshall, who plays astronaut Danielle Poole on the show, and will offer a behind-the-scene look at the show. Oddly, the podcast is coming out every other week, even though the show will be weekly.

I’m really excited about this season of the show. Keep an eye on Liftoff, the space podcast I do with Jason Snell.. Later this week, we’ll be posting an interview with someone involved in the show.

  1. If Apple Podcasts isn’t your jam, there’s an RSS feed for the new podcast as well. ↩

Sponsor: Backblaze Unlimited Backup ⇢

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Backblaze offers unlimited computer backup for Macs and PCs for just $6 a month (no gimmicks or add-ons or gotchas included). This means they will back up your movies, music, photos, videos, projects, and all the data you have! You can restore files from anywhere in the world and directly download them from the web or their mobile apps. You can also have your backup sent to you via hard drive and have it overnighted right to your home! Never worry about finding lost versions or deleted files—you can extend your retention period to one year or forever!

Backblaze has over an exabyte of customer data backed up and counting — that’s 1,000,000,000 gigabytes. They have also restored well over 50+ billion files for customers and they come recommended by The New York Times, Inc., Macworld, Tom’s Guide, 9to5Mac, and more.

Get peace of mind knowing your files are backed up securely in the cloud. Start your free 15-day trial with Backblaze today by going to backblaze.com/512pixels.

Mac Power Users #575: Talking Parity with John Siracusa ⇢

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This week on Mac Power Users, David and I spoke with John Siracusa about the 2019 Mac Pro and what Apple silicon may mean for pro users. Then, John spoke about his pair of Mac apps and what he wants out of the future of macOS.

For More Power Users, we discussed the Pro Display XDR and window management techniques for larger screens.

My thanks to John for joining us, and to our sponsors:

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  • DEVONthink: Get Organized — Unleash Your Creativity. Use this link for 10% off.

micro.blog ⇢

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My thanks to micro.blog for sponsoring 512 Pixels this week.

It offers blog hosting and a welcoming community built around independent microblogs that can be used for short- and long-form writing. Start a microblog with your own domain name so your posts remain under your control. Add photos, videos and even podcasts.

Connected #332: Pretending — Once Again — to be John Voorhees ⇢

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This week on the show:

Everyone’s a real Federico, but only Stephen could disrupt the show document in such a profoundly useless way. Myke takes on the form of those around him.

Topics include MacBook Pro batteries, Spotify and Siri getting cozy, the iPhone 12 mini and more.

On Connected Pro, I explained what an ice storm is.

My thanks to our sponsors for the episode:

  • Hover: Make a name for yourself. Get 10% off any domain name.
  • Mack Weldon: Reinventing men’s basics. Get 20% off your first order with promo code CONNECTED.

DEVONthink To Go 3 ⇢

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I’ve used DEVONthink for about a year to hold all of my research and gathered materials relating to tech history. As of this writing, I have 22,197 items in the application, across ten databases. Its search features make quick work of crawling all of these bits of information, letting me find anything I have on a certain topic across a range of PDFs, text documents, web archives and more.

DEVONthink on the Mac is solid, but the mobile app has felt left behind, with version 3 of DEVONthink To Go, that’s changed.

The new iOS and iPadOS app brings support for modern mobile features like dark mode, iPad cursor support and even multiple windows. Searching is much faster, and now OCR can done on-device, as opposed to having to wait until you get back to a Mac.

I sync my databases with Dropbox, but this new version also introduces CloudKit sync, if that’s your jam.

The app is a free download on the App Store and comes with a one month free trial. After that, pricing looks like this:

  • Monthly subscription: US $1.99
  • Yearly subscription: US $14.99
  • One-time purchase: US $39.99

If you had DEVONthink to Go already installed, that one-time price is $19.99, but the new version will run for free until July.

I’m really happy to see DEVONthink to Go become a more modern and performant counterpart to the Mac version. While I tend to do this type of work while at my desk, doing so from my iPad or even iPhone just got a lot more enjoyable.