512 Pixels

I don’t really care much about this sort of story, but it is wild to think about how far the company has come since the dark days.

On September 18, from 2-8 PM Eastern, Myke Hurley and I will be hosting the second annual Podcastathon for St. Jude, raising money for an amazing institution that treats children without their families ability to pay.

That work begins today. We’d love to have you join us in raising $315,000 for St. Jude. The Relay FM community really rallied around this last year, and I think 2020’s campaign will be even better.

Donate today!

Apple Support:

Mac OS X Server 10.2 Server Assistant may stop responding (“hang” or “freeze”) when setting up your server if TCP/IP is not enabled on the built-in Ethernet port.

The fix:

Enable TCP/IP on the built-in Ethernet port while setting up Mac OS X Server 10.2. It is not required that an Ethernet cable actually be connected to the port, so long as TCP/IP is enabled on it.

Jacob Kastrenakes at The Verge:

Epic says that Apple has threatened to cut off its access to all iOS and Mac developer tools as retaliation for sneaking a new payment option into Fortnite last week — a stunt that ended in the app being banned from the App Store and Epic filing a blockbuster antitrust lawsuit against Apple, claiming it places illegal restrictions on the distribution of iOS apps.

Apple will terminate Epic’s inclusion in the Apple Developer Program, a membership that’s necessary to distribute apps on iOS devices or use Apple developer tools, if the company does not “cure your breaches” to the agreement within two weeks, according to a letter from Apple that was shared by Epic. Epic won’t be able to notarize Mac apps either, a process that could make installing Epic’s software more difficult or block it altogether. Apple requires that all apps are notarized before they can be run on newer versions of macOS, even if they’re distributed outside the App Store.

Epic has filed for a preliminary injunction against Apple, asking the court to stop the company from cutting it off. Epic says it will be “irreparably harmed long before final judgment comes” if it does not obtain the injunction. “Apple’s actions will irreparably damage Epic’s reputation among Fortnite users and be catastrophic for the future of the separate Unreal Engine business,” Epic writes. Epic also asks for Fortnite — with its lowered prices and alternate payment option — to be returned to the App Store.

A lot of people thinks that this will enough for Epic to come back to the App Store, but it also feels like Apple is dumping fuel on the antitrust fire here.

Mark Gurman:

Apple Inc. on Monday told retail and customer-support employees that the company is expanding the time period when customers can subscribe to its AppleCare+ service.

Consumers currently have a chance to sign up to the warranty-and-support program within 60 days of buying an Apple product. This subscription window is increasing to up to a year now in the U.S. and Canada.

“This gives customers another opportunity to protect their device and have access to all the AppleCare+ benefits,” Apple wrote in a memo to staff seen by Bloomberg News. The company told employees the offer is available to customers who pay for AppleCare+ in full versus monthly payments, or for those that subscribe via installments on the Apple Card credit card.

Good for customers, but better for Apple’s services revenue.

David Shayer, writing at TidBITS:

It was a gray day in late 2005. I was sitting at my desk, writing code for the next year’s iPod. Without knocking, the director of iPod Software—my boss’s boss—abruptly entered and closed the door behind him. He cut to the chase. “I have a special assignment for you. Your boss doesn’t know about it. You’ll help two engineers from the US Department of Energy build a special iPod. Report only to me.”

The next day, the receptionist called to tell me that two men were waiting in the lobby. I went downstairs to meet Paul and Matthew, the engineers who would actually build this custom iPod. I’d love to say they wore dark glasses and trench coats and were glancing in window reflections to make sure they hadn’t been tailed, but they were perfectly normal thirty-something engineers. I signed them in, and we went to a conference room to talk.

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This week on MPU, Brett Terpstra returns to the show to talk about the Touch Bar, regular expressions, Markdown and what Apple Silicon Macs will mean for macOS applications and utilities.

On More Power Users, David talks about this Oculus Quest and getting his work done in VR. It was weird.

My thanks to our sponsors:

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I was offline for much of the day, re-opened Twitter and saw that all hell had broken loose.

This week on Connected:

Federico talks about watchOS 7 and Stephen takes the group down a trip of old Apple press releases, causing Myke to be relieved about his Apple Newsroom reading habits. Also: a pre-announcement and some peer-pressure about a purchase.

Here is a chart that will prove helpful in the last segment of the show:

On Connected Pro, I pop off, Myke has things to build and Federico describes a future business plan based on MySpace Tom.

My thanks to our sponsors:

• Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code CONNECTED at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
• ExpressVPN: High-Speed, Secure & Anonymous VPN Service. Get 3 months free with a 1-year package.
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Some notable fixes in the update:

• Addresses an issue where unneeded system data files might not be automatically deleted when available storage is low
• Fixes a thermal management issue that caused some displays to exhibit a green tint
• Fixes an issue where Exposure Notifications could be disabled for some users

That second note is important to me. I’ve been talking about this on Connected for a while, and my two co-hosts refused to agree it was a real issue.

Guess it was.