512 Pixels

Dan Seifert, The Verge:

The most interesting thing is Apple’s new Family Setup service, which lets parents provision an Apple Watch for their kids to use. They can choose what apps and services their kids can access, who they can call or send messages to, and track their location through GPS. Even if you’re not a parent, the new Family Setup service is interesting because it gives us an idea of what a truly standalone Apple Watch could be.

For the past few weeks, I’ve strapped an Apple Watch SE to my eight-year-old child to see what the new Family Setup service is like to use in the real world (or at least as real of an experience as I can get in the middle of pandemic lockdown). Here’s what I’ve learned.

My thanks to Soulver for macOS for sponsoring 512 Pixels this week. It’s a wonderful mashup of notepad and calculator that I use on the Mac multiple times a week in running my business.

If you’ve been waiting for a new iPad Air, pre-orders are up now.

This week on Connected:

The dust is settling from Apple’s iPhone 12 event and out of the haze steps a Keynote Chairman. Also discussed: MagSafe’s return and trustworthy friends.

Some real-time follow-up: I ordered an iPhone 12 Pro this morning.

My thanks to our sponsors, who made that purchase possible:

• TextExpander, from Smile: Take back your time with the power of TextExpander. Get 20% off with your first year.
• ExpressVPN: High-Speed, Secure & Anonymous VPN Service. Get an extra three months free.
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Sebastiaan de With gets into the details about what’s new with Apple’s camera systems.

I think this seals my iPhone 12 Pro Max fate.

No one reviews iOS and iPadOS like Federico does. I’ve been working my way through this for the last few days, and it’s spectacular as always.

At $99, this is a much more compelling product than the full-sized HomePod. The tech specs are interesting, especially the Watch-first S5 chip at the heart of the small device. We have a HomePod in our kitchen, but I will be picking up one of these for the bedroom in November when the can be ordered.

One of the new features on the iPhone 12 and 12 Pro is MagSafe, a series of magnets in the new iPhones and a bunch of accessories that work with them.

A few things I noticed on that page:

• The stand-alone $39 MagSafe charging puck is compatible with every phone back to the iPhone 8, but also wirelessly-charging AirPod cases.
• The MagSafe cases don’t have a lip that extends above the front glass; they stop at the edge of the glass. The back of the Clear Case with MagSafe is … kind of ugly.
• I may finally become an iPhone wallet person.
• There don’t seem to be any leather MagSafe-compatible cases on Apple’s website. In fact, at this point, there are no leather cases for the iPhone 12 family, best I can tell.
• The iPhone and Apple Watch “Duo Charger” isn’t on the site yet, either. Hopefully it doesn’t follow in the AirPower’s footsteps … or in the PowerBook Duo’s, really.

Update: A note on Apple’s site says additional accessories, including leather cases, will be coming later.

Apple’s new product pages are up; this is always the one I rush to see.

Apple Support:

This document explains how to generate a startup page for the LaserWriter 12/640 PS, Color LaserWriter 12/600 PS, Color LaserWriter 12/660 PS, and LaserWriter 4/600 PS printer. It also provides a sample startup page for the printers.

Sadly the samples are long gone.

Soulver 3 for macOS is a unique tool that brings the power of natural language processing, unit and currency conversions, calendar math and a whole lot more to the Mac in a native, rich application that integrates with system features including the command line, Automator, URL schemes and third-party services like Alfred.

I’ve been a Soulver user since … forever. It’s one of those Mac applications so wired into my workflow that I can’t imagine working without it. I use it for all sorts of administrative tasks, from verifying Relay FM membership payments to personal budgeting and more. The ability to bring in reference tokens from previous lines and setting up variables makes this work efficient and less error-prone, both of which are good things.

The best part for me is that I can simply type into Soulver, which makes tracking numbers visually really simple, without the overhead of creating a new spreadsheet every time I need to crunch some numbers.

Learn more and check out a 30-day trial over on the Soulver website.

This week on Mac Power Users, we did something a little different:

With Apple Silicon Macs coming soon, Stephen plays a montage for David that recaps the Intel era, featuring its highs and lows.

I think that overall, history will smile upon the Mac’s Intel years.

On More Power Users, David and I shared about the different email apps and services we’ve been playing with recently.

My thanks to our sponsors:

• 1Password: Have you ever forgotten a password? You don’t have to worry about that anymore.
• 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.
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• The Intrazone by Microsoft SharePoint: Your bi-weekly conversation and interview podcast hosted by the SharePoint team