512 Pixels

Shelly Brisbin:

I’m thrilled to let everyone know that the iOS 14 edition of iOS Access for All is now available in ePub format. The book contains more information about iOS accessibility than ever, including details, tips and step-by-step guides covering all the new and updated accessibility features in iiOS 14.

As promised, I’ve emailed new books to those who purchased the ePub edition of the iOS 13 edition after the new book was announced. If you buy the ePub from this site now, you’ll receive the iOS 14 edition right away. Updates for those who purchased the PDF and combo editions are coming soon, and I’m hoping to have an update posted in the Apple Books Store later today for people who wish to purchase it there.

It’s a fantastic book; I always learn a lot by reading through the changes Apple makes to iOS’ accessibility options each year.

Turn any website into a lightweight, customizable app in mere seconds on your Mac. Unite 4 includes hundreds of new features and improvements. Go check it out.

My studio is a disaster, but this was a lot of fun. Thank you to Relay FM listener and all-around nice guy Scott for the massive addition to my collection.

Writing on her blog, after sharing how much she has made on her apps over the last few years:

It’s simultaneously a lot and a little. It’s a lot for most developers. It’s a little for the developers I follow on Twitter. Early on, someone asked me how I would define success for myself as an indie developer. I remember stressing that my apps were just side projects (they are) and that I’d be happy if my revenue could cover the cost of my personal device upgrades (it has). At the time, I think I forgot to say something about how I wanted to make things that improved people’s lives, or just made them smile. In that way, I’ve also succeeded, and hearing from happy customers has been incredibly rewarding.

There have been a lot of rumors in the last few weeks about Project Titan, Apple’s electric car program. While reports vary on when Apple may actually deliver a car to market, it’s clear that something is being worked on inside Apple.

Patently Apple noticed two filings, both awarded this week:

The first is about climate control:

In Apple’s patent summary they note that the patent figures presented in their filing provide a vehicle climate control system for controlling climate conditions in various cabin regions of a vehicle cabin, where the climate control system is configured to control one or more vehicle components to change the set of climate conditions associated with one or more cabin regions to approximate a set of optimal comfort conditions.

The climate control system is configured to control various vehicle components to control climate conditions, including window assemblies, sunroof assemblies, etc.

…and the second patent is about self-driving technology:

The patent generally relates to mobile electronic equipment such as equipment in a vehicle and, more particularly, to systems in which a vehicle obtains situational awareness information from wireless transmissions from nearby vehicles and provides alerts to the driver.

I honestly do not know how I feel about all of this. Like David Sparks, I worry about it being a distraction from the company’s core products, but then again, such distractions have led to the iPod, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch a whole lot more over the last 20 years.

Mr. Macintosh, with the order in which you should try things when reinstalling macOS on an Apple silicon Mac:

1. macOS Recovery
2. System Recovery – (Will boot automatically if macOS Recovery is unavailable)
3. macOS Big Sur USB Installer Drive – (External boot for macOS Installers is enabled by default on Apple Silicon)
4. Apple Configurator 2 REVIVE option – This option will reinstall macOS Recovery (retains user data on the SSD hard drive)
5. Apple Configurator 2 RESTORE option – This option will Reinstall macOS Recovery, ERASE your SSD hard drive and reinstall macOS

These Macs are great, but the weirdness they bring to the table just builds on what the T1 and T2 brought with them.

On the last Connected of the year, we look back at 2020.

What a year.

My thanks to our sponsors:

• TextExpander, from Smile: Recall your best words. Instantly, repeatedly. Get 20% off your first year.
• Pingdom: Start monitoring your website performance and availability today, and get instant alerts when an outage occurs or a site transaction fails. Use offer code CONNECTED to get 30% off. Offer expires on January 31, 2021, and can be used only once.
• Wondery: Listen to the latest season of Business Wars, TikTok vs Instagram.

Apple Support:

If you have a “flavored” (strawberry, tangerine, blueberry, lime or grape) iMac keyboard connected to your Intel-based Mac and you press the F12 key to eject a disc immediately after pressing the power button, you may experience a kernel panic. Intel-based Macs include iMac (Early 2006) and Mac mini (Early 2006).

Update to Mac OS X 10.4.9 to prevent this issue.

No word on if using the terrible iMac mouse would cause the same issue, because everyone rage destroyed them.

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 lightweight and power efficient version of Slack, Discord, or Whatsapp with full notification support
• A fully featured Instagram app that has a resizable window, unlike the M1 version.
• A Robinhood, Figma, or Roam Research app for your desktop.

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!

This week, on the final Mac Power Users episode of 2020:

At the end of an unprecedented year, Stephen and David take some time to reflect on what it’s meant for an Apple user, and what they’d like to see out of 2021 in terms of tech.

On More Power Users, we spoke about some of our tech resolutions for the new year.

My thanks to our sponsors this week:

• TextExpander from Smile: Get 20% off with this link and type more with less effort! Expand short abbreviations into longer bits of text, even fill-ins, with TextExpander from Smile.
• Pingdom: Start monitoring your website performance and availability today, and get instant alerts when an outage occurs or a site transaction fails. Use offer code MPU to get 30% off. Offer expires on January 31, 2021, and can be used only once.
• Woven: The calendar with the most powerful scheduling tools. Try it free for 21 days.

As pointed out by MacRumors, it seems that iCloud account authentication has been rocky today, no doubt due to the number of new iOS devices and Macs unwrapped this morning.

Get ahead of your productivity for the New Year with the power of TextExpander. It removes the repetition out of work so you can focus on what matters most.

Say goodbye to repetitive text entry, spelling and message errors, and trying to remember the right thing to say. When you use TextExpander, you can say the right thing in just a few keystrokes.

It’s much better than copy and paste and easier than scripts and templates; TextExpander snippets allow you to maximize your time by getting rid of the repetitive things you type while still customizing and personalizing your messages.

TextExpander can be used in any platform, any app, anywhere you type. Just in my studio, it’s running on my two Macs, my iPhone and iPad — as well my newly-built PC.

Take your time back and increase your productivity. 512 Pixels readers get 20% off their first year.