512 Pixels

Ryan Christoffel has rounded up the details of the release, which is a huge one for the iPad.

Apple:

Audio CDs and disc images may not mount on a computer running a version of Mac OS X 10.3. Audio CDs do not appear when you insert them into the drive. Other CDs and DVDs seem to work normally.

You may also notice that disc images do not appear, and double-clicking the disk image results in an error code -536870208.

The solution?

Update to Mac OS X 10.3.2 or later.

And people complain about bugs in Catalina!

I feel pretty good about my choice to sit out this upgrade cycle.

Apple:

The macOS version of your app can now be included in a universal purchase, allowing customers to enjoy your app and in‑app purchases across iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS by purchasing only once. Get started by using a single bundle ID for your apps in Xcode and setting up your app record for universal purchase in App Store Connect.

This is great in terms of giving developers more flexibility when considering branching out onto other platforms, but it could hurt their bottom lines when users come to expect this from every app.

Update: This may not be all rainbows and sunshine:

The result of this move from Apple means that developers have no choice but to abandon their existing Catalyst apps if they want to move forward to Universal Purchase, which screws over users and will make them even more upset about Catalyst. Thanks? ????‍♂️

— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) March 24, 2020

Viktor Kádár and Patrik Borgatai have put together a lovely concept design of what a future iMac could look like. I generally don’t pay much attention to this sort of thing, but their work is beautiful. While I don’t think the iMac is going to pick up the wild hinge in Apple’s $999 Pro Stand, I think the rest of this could come to pass.

via 9to5Mac

If you’re looking to be a lot more productive on your Mac, Quinn Nelson has you covered:

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You can learn more about Micro.blog here.

This week on a very special episode of Mac Power Users:

MPU Hall of Famer Merlin Mann returns to discuss using plain text, home automation, the Apple TV and more.

It was great to catch up with Merlin on the show. My thanks to our sponsors for making it possible:

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Voting has closed in Round 1 of Mac Madness. The first round was a huge success, with 3,495 people casting their votes for their favorite Macs.

As promised, I live streamed the results:

The raw numbers can be found at the bottom of this post, but I have to say, I was surprised by several of the totals. As I said, these matchups were selected at random, and that meant that some good machines have already been knocked out.

Also, the 15.8 percent of you who chose “Literally any Performa” are … real special to me.

Here is the bracket for Round 2:

(click bracket to see larger version)

Go vote in Round 2 now! Voting will close on Tuesday.

Raw Numbers for Round 1:

Mac Pro (2019) — 70.5%

PowerBook G3 — 29.5%

Macintosh TV — 10.4%
Blue and White Power Mac G3 — 89.6% 2012-2015 Retina MBP — 64.6%

Mac SE/30 — 35.4%

iMac G3 — 72.5%

12-inch Retina MacBook — 27.5%

20th Anniversary Mac — 47.2%
Original Mac mini — 52.8%

Macintosh Portable — 25%
Power Mac G5 75% Clamshell iBook G3 71.6%

PowerBook 100 — 28.4%

iMac Pro — 53.2%

12-inch PowerBook G4 — 46.8%

Pre-Retina 13-inch MacBook Air (2010-2017) — 78.6%

Quadra 840AV — 21.4%

G4 Cube — 71.1%

11.6-inch MacBook Air — 28.9%

2016-2019 MacBook Pro — 36%
Mac IIfx — 64%

Titanium PowerBook G4 — 46.2%
2006-2012 Mac Pro — 53.8%

PowerBook Duo — 23.8%
Black MacBook — 76.2%

Power Mac 6100 — 22.3%
16-inch MacBook Pro — 77.7% iMac G4 — 84.2%

Literally any Performa — 15.8%

Original Macintosh — 54%

2018 Mac mini — 46%

I’m so happy that with 2020 MacBook Air, Apple finally has a notebook that anyone could recommend without any major caveats.

Snell has his hands on one, and his review is great. The bit about the processor is not something you want to miss:

If there’s a hint of things to come in my test results, though, it’s the performance of the iPad Pro. This isn’t the new 2020 model that’s due out next week, either—it’s the third-generation iPad Pro that was released the same day as the first Retina MacBook Air model. The 2018 iPad Pro was faster in single-core performance and 70 percent faster in multi-core performance.

Even if we accept that macOS and iPadOS are different beasts and that a Mac built around Apple’s own A-series processors wouldn’t necessarily score quite as high, it’s a clear sign that Apple’s state of the art iPad processor from 18 months ago is faster than the mid-range MacBook Air processor today.

The charts in his post really tell the whole story.

If you haven’t voted, consider this the final call for Round 1. I’ll be live streaming on the Relay FM Twitch channel at 3:30 PM Eastern.

Update: Voting has closed.

This week on the show:

Apple has announced new iPad Pros with a new keyboard and trackpad case, as well as the addition of cursor support in iOS 13.4. Myke takes it for a spin as Federico waits for his download to finish. Then, a tour of Apple’s updated Macs and Stephen’s new project, Mac Madness.

Lots of news this week, which is a nice distraction.

My thanks to our sponsors:

• Clean My Mac X: Your Mac. As good as new.
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