512 Pixels

Liftoff #132: In the Shadow of Artemis ⇢

This week on Liftoff:

In the Utah desert, Northrop Grumman has tested a full-sized SLS SRB, while the future of work in low-Earth orbit is being debated. On Mars, InSight’s troubles continue and 17 billion light years-away, two black holes have collided.

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Bloomberg: September Event for Apple Watch and iPad, iPhone Coming Later ⇢

Mark Gurman, writing about the event Apple announced earlier today:

The event announcement on Apple’s website doesn’t have its typical tag line that hints at what is to be announced. But the invitation to media says “Time Flies,” indicating the announcement is related to the Apple Watch, not iPhones. The new iPhones won’t launch until October, Bloomberg News has reported.

The company is preparing new high-end and low-end Apple Watches as well as a redesigned iPad Air with an edge-to-edge screen. It’s also working on a smaller HomePod and the first pair of Apple-branded over ear headphones for release as early as later this year.

COVID-19 has ruined so much about 2020, but at least fall Apple events could be bonkers.

Apple Event Announced for September 15

Here we go:

#AppleEvent

Join us from Apple Park.

September 15, 2020, at 10 a.m. PDT. https://t.co/QAtlYeiXqx

What do you most want to see? pic.twitter.com/MEH66vZpJf

— Rene Ritchie (@reneritchie) September 8, 2020

This will be a virtual event, like WWDC. I think it’s safe to assume that iPhones will be at the heart of the news, but rumors about updated iPads, a new Apple Watch, over-ear headphones and more are all swirling around.

This event will be roughly a week later then when Apple normally announces new iPhones, and with WWDC happening several week late this year, iOS 14 seems to need more time in the oven. I halfway expect The time between the event and the first phones shipping to be slightly longer than normal.

But then again, maybe not.

Then of course there’s the news of Apple Silicon Macs, but I would be surprised if we see the first one of those at this event. There’s more than enough here for an October event, too.

Kbase Article of the Week: Performa Basics: Can‘t Use on a Performa 200 ⇢

Apple Support:

When launching Performa Basics on the Performa 200, a message appears stating that the Performa 200 cannot be set to 16 colors, so the application will NOT run. It seems that Performa Basics requires a color monitor.

Performa Basics would not be useful for a Performa 200 user. Basic operation of the computer is thoroughly outlined in the User’s Guide.

The Performa 200 was the only model to use the classic compact Mac design, hence the lack of a color screen.

Before this, I had not run across Performa Basics, and honestly, there’s not much out there about it. It was bundled with the Performa-specific versions of System 7,1 bundled with other tutorials like Mouse Basics:

I also found a reference for it in a PDF of a resume by Melissa Sleeter, who worked on the project. She mentions it as part of her job duties at Apple in the mid 1990s:

As a developer of multimedia tutorials, created storyboards, scripts, and graphics using electronic authoring tools. Designed and developed the Performa Basics and OpenDoc tutorials using Macromedia Director. Designed, scripted, and tested, the SimpleText Guide. Revised the online Macintosh Tutorial using Apple Guide.

This poster is also on her website, which is pretty cool:

I developed this poster to replace a setup booklet for the Apple Performa computers.

The poster cut support calls and reduced Cost of Goods Sold for Apple Performa computers by $0.11 per unit.

The next iteration of the setup poster was a graphic-only version—eliminating the cost of translating into 5 languages.

Ok, I’m off-track now.


  1. Which is a story for a different time. ↩︎

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Mac Power Users #552: HomeKit in 2020, with Mikah Sargent ⇢

This week on Mac Power Users, we got into HomeKit:

Since its introduction, HomeKit has steadily grown into a wide-reaching ecosystem for smart home devices. This week, Stephen and David talk with Mikah Sargent about HomeKit hardware and software, as well as ways to extend what Apple allows it to do in its default app.

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Connected #310: Drop of Water in a Desert ⇢

This week on Connected:

September is here, and with it, a new avalanche of Apple rumors. The guys talk about the iPhone 12, new iPads and over-ear headphones. Then, an in-depth conversation about iOS 14’s release date and what the future could bring to the Apple Watch.

On Connected Pro, the trio share thoughts on social media usage in 2020 and throwing remotes away.

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September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month ⇢

September is National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

I know there are lots of great causes to care about in 2020, but St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is near and dear to my heart.

In May 2009, our oldest son was six months and diagnosed with a Glioma Astrocytoma brain tumor. Over the course of a weekend, we went from being new parents with nothing but optimism for our family, to new parents being told that our baby was facing impossible odds.

Through the work and dedication of his medical team at St. Jude, last week Josiah started 5th grade. His life has been difficult. He underwent chemotherapy as a baby. He has seizures. He has limited use of his left side and he struggles with his speech.

But he is here, and that is all I care about. The other challenges are all things we can work on.

For the last several years, the Apple community has rallied around this cause every fall, raising money for St. Jude, which treats its patients without charging their families a single dime.

That’s incredible, and it’s only possible because of donors like me and you.

Last year, we celebrated the 10th anniversary of Josiah’s diagnosis. He’s no longer a cancer patient — he is a survivor. We wanted to mark the date in a permanent way, so my wife and I had a brick placed in his honor on campus at St. Jude.

I thought for a long time about what to have written on it, but I couldn’t have been happier when I saw it for the first time:

St. Jude stone

It reads:

In Honor of 10 Years at St. Jude, Finding Hope and Healing for Josiah and Friends.

It was important for us to include our community in this celebration, and that includes all of you.

Support the life-saving work of St. Jude

Kbase Article of the Week: Network Assistant: Observation Eyes Appear Even When Checkbox Is Deselected ⇢

Apple Support:

The “Show me when I am being observed” checkbox is deselected in the Network Assistant Security application on the client computer. However the eyes still appear in the client’s menu bar when the client is being observed from the Network Administrator station. This situation can occasionally occur when there is an issue with the Network Assistant preferences file.

????

Mac Power Users #551: Writing Music for the Picture Business, with David Metzger ⇢

We had a really cool interview this time on Mac Power Users:

David and Stephen are joined by orchestrator and composer David Metzger, whose resume includes Frozen, Muppets Most Wanted, The Avengers, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and more. He shares his setup, which includes multiple Macs networked together, numerous music applications and (eventually) a full-blown orchestra.

I had always assumed that the music creation process for films was intense, and it was super interesting to hear more about it.

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