Connected #301: We Should Be Developers ⇢
This week’s episode of Connected is a special one:
The guys talk with Jenny Chen, an Apple engineer who works on Apple Pencil software, and Stephen Tonna from Apple’s product marketing team about what’s new in iPad OS 14, including Scribble and the release’s updated design language. Then, Federico, Myke and Stephen discuss the future of both Apple Arcade and iPhone chargers.
I really enjoyed getting to chat with Jenny and Stephen. iPadOS 14 is seriously cool.
My thanks to them and to our sponsors:
- PDFpen, from Smile: The ultimate tool for editing PDFs on the Mac.
- Miro: The online collaborative whiteboard platform. Sign up for a free account today.
- 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.
Liftoff #127: Wormy Space Coin ⇢
Black holes doing weird black hole things, a progress report on the SLS and a discussion of how some of NASA’s facilities should be renamed.
My thanks to our sponsor:
- Tuparev Technologies: Introducing StarBrush: Modern astronomical imaging tool for everyone.
Ungeniused #108: Some Cool Winter Olympic Games ⇢
This week on Ungeniused: a PSA from me (and a begrudging Myke) about how the Winter Olympics are the coolest games in town.
A Tour of Haiku Beta 2 ⇢
Haiku is an open-source project dedicated to rebuilding BeOS. The group just released the second beta, and Jim Salter has a thorough look at it over on Ars Technica.
If you aren’t familiar with BeOS, check out this episode of my podcast Flashback, on which Quinn Nelson and I dug deep into the operating system and its parent company.
Macintosh Manager: About the Hand Out Feature ⇢
A Macintosh Manager administrator can hand out files to members of the currently active workgroup, or to specific users that belong to the active workgroup (Figure 1). This feature is only available when logged in as a Macintosh Manager administrative user, either a Workgroup Administrator or a Global Macintosh Manager Administrator. When logged in to a Panels environment, this feature is found in the File menu. If the Hand Out command is dimmed, bring the Documents Panel to the foreground to make it available.
What was Macintosh Manager? Dennis Sellers has details.
The New York Times is Pulling out of Apple News ⇢
Kellen Browning and Jack Nicas:
The Times is one of the first media organizations to pull out of Apple News. The Times, which has made adding new subscribers a key business goal, said that Apple had given it little in the way of direct relationships with readers and little control over the business. It said it hoped to instead drive readers directly to its own website and mobile app so that it could “fund quality journalism.”
“Core to a healthy model between The Times and the platforms is a direct path for sending those readers back into our environments, where we control the presentation of our report, the relationships with our readers, and the nature of our business rules,” Meredith Kopit Levien, chief operating officer, wrote in a memo to employees. “Our relationship with Apple News does not fit within these parameters.”
The NYT never took part in Apple News+, but even that seems to have resulted in disappointing revenue for publishers. I know some in the Apple world would prefer the company to be between them and publishers to obscure their personal information, but clearly that doesn’t work with existing business models. I don’t blame the NYT for making this call.
Sponsor: The Omni Group: Powerful Productivity Tools Built for Pros ⇢
Since their founding in 1992, The Omni Group has created powerful tools for productive professionals. Designed for Mac, iPad, and iPhone, the Omni Productivity Suite is software engineered with pros (and their work) in mind.
OmniFocus is a to-do app and task management tool that helps you keep track of everything so you can efficiently achieve your goals. Managing complicated projects is painless with OmniPlan—project management software built to help professionals view, edit, and organize projects from start to finish.
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For Omni, productivity isn’t about getting more done—it’s about getting more out of life. And with four powerful productivity apps, the Omni Productivity Suite offers a program for any job—whether you need to stay focused, manage projects, communicate visually, or structure your ideas.
MPU 542: Beta Tales ⇢
It’s beta season, and David and Stephen have reported for duty with reports of new features and general thoughts on macOS Big Sur, iOS and iPadOS 14 as well as watchOS 7. Plus, a brief announcement about something coming in July.
Don’t be like David.
My thanks to our sponsors this week:
- 1Password: Have you ever forgotten a password? You don’t have to worry about that anymore.
- Cotton Bureau: Shop Graphic Tees, Hoodies, and More. Use MPU10 for 10% off.
- Sanebox: Stop drowning in email!
Report: iPhone 12 Won’t Include Charger in Box ⇢
People will complain which will be annoying, but’s it’s a good move from the environmental perspective.
TextExpander ⇢
My thanks to TextExpander for sponsoring 512 Pixels this week and making working across my devices way, way faster.
It is available for Mac, Windows, Chrome, iPhone and iPad. 512 Pixels readers get 20% off their first year.
The Stalman Podcast: The Mac Will Never Be the Same ⇢
I chatted with my buddy Tyler Stalman the other night about all the changes coming for the Mac that were announced at WWDC. It was a fun conversation about the tool at the center of many professional workflows.