Everyone’s favorite pocketable candy has a long history of making people smile.
This topic is way, way more interesting than I thought it was going to be.
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Mac OS X applications that can run natively on both Intel processor- and PowerPC processor-based Macs are called Universal applications. Even if you don’t have a Universal version of an application, you can still use it on an Intel processor-based Mac by means of Rosetta, which comes with every Intel-based Mac. Rosetta works behind the scenes to translate an existing, native, non-Universal application (one that was designed to run natively a PowerPC-based Mac, not a Classic application) so that it can run on an Intel-based Mac—all you have to do is double-click the application!
Sometimes, you might have a Universal version of a graphics or Internet application on your Intel processor-based Mac that you want to run via Rosetta instead of running natively. Because some Universal applications may continue to rely on existing plug-ins, you may sometimes need to force a Universal application to run in Rosetta to accommodate the plug-in. Check with your plug-in manufacturer(s) to see if Universal versions are available, too.
Writing in his excellent Monday Note newsletter:
Thinking of future Macs would be simpler if its putative new processors weren’t iOS-compatible, but here we are. That being said, setting aside inopportune claims of courage, Apple is a cautious company, well aware of the risks in trading a relatively simple life of separate Mac and iOS product lines for a complicated hybrid platform. This coming transition will be interesting to watch.
Daniel Knight, writing about the start of Low End Mac:
When I started adding some profiles of Macs to my personal web space in April 1997, who would have thought that it would grow into something enduring? We used Macs at work, I had a Mac at home, and I was teaching myself how to make web pages using Claris Home Page. So I put together two dozen Mac profiles from the 1986 Mac Plus to the 1990 Macintosh IIfx, sharing specifications, links to other resources, and my own experience with these models.
LEM is a resource I use on a regular basis. I couldn’t do what I do without it.
Did you know that you can back up your iPhone wirelessly, but outside of iCloud? And that not only can you restore these backups, but also browse and extract their contents?
Gain full control over your mobile data. Start backing up with iMazing today; backups are free, so take it for a spin.
Apple has announced (PRODUCT)RED versions of the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus:
Both phones sport a beautiful glass enclosure, now in red, with a matching aluminum band and a sleek black front. The special edition (PRODUCT)RED iPhone will be available to order online in select countries and regions tomorrow and in stores beginning Friday, April 13.
I guess Apple heard the complaining about using white cover glass on the RED iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. I think these look really nice.
There’s also a RED iPhone X Leather Folio coming. As always:
A portion of proceeds for all (PRODUCT)RED purchases go directly to Global Fund HIV/AIDS grants that provide testing, counseling, treatment and prevention programs with a specific focus on eliminating transmission of the virus from mothers to their babies.
I’m about a third of the way through this interview, and it’s pretty good.
Zeynep Tufekci, writing at Wired:
Zuckerberg’s outright denial that Facebook’s business interests play a powerful role in shaping its behavior doesn’t bode well for Facebook’s chances of doing better in the future. I don’t doubt that the company has, on occasion, held itself back from bad behavior. That doesn’t make Facebook that exceptional, nor does it excuse its existing choices, nor does it alter the fact that its business model is fundamentally driving its actions.
At a minimum, Facebook has long needed an ombudsman’s office with real teeth and power: an institution within the company that can act as a check on its worst impulses and to protect its users. And it needs a lot more employees whose task is to keep the platform healthier. But what would truly be disruptive and innovative would be for Facebook to alter its business model. Such a change could come from within, or it could be driven by regulations on data retention and opaque, surveillance-based targeting—regulations that would make such practices less profitable or even forbidden.
Jason Snell, in his review of the sixth-generation iPad:
At $329, the new sixth-generation iPad doesn’t have a bunch of the features of the more expensive iPad Pro, but if those features aren’t your priorities, you can spend half what you would on an iPad Pro and get an iPad that’s faster than the 2016 iPad Pro.
For years I’ve driven a Honda Civic. It’s about as far from a luxury car as you can get. The new iPad is a little like that car: Not the fanciest thing you can buy, but it’ll provide you with a solid, reliable tool to get you where you need to go. There’s not a thing wrong with that.
On June 19, Twitter has said it will be disabling “streaming services,” which is how third-party apps like Tweetbot and Twitterrific can stream the timeline and send push notifications. The replacement, the Account Activity API is not available to third-party developers:
The new Account Activity API is currently in beta testing, but third-party developers have not been given access and time is running out.
With access we might be able to implement some push notifications, but they would be limited at the standard level to 35 Twitter accounts – our products must deliver notifications to hundreds of thousands of customers. No pricing has been given for Enterprise level service with unlimited accounts – we have no idea if this will be an affordable option for us and our users.
This means that starting in June, third-party Twitter clients will only be able to offer a manually-refreshed feed, which itself will be rate limited by Twitter. Push notifications will be a thing of the past.
If this comes to pass, I think I’ll be on Twitter far less than I am today, and while that may be a good thing for me personally, it’s bad for the developers of these apps, and bad for Twitter itself. The company should fix this.
Update: Twitter has responded:
As always, we’re committed to providing ample time to migrate. We will provide at least 90 days notice of deprecation date from when the Account Activity API becomes generally available to all developers. More specifics on timing to come.
— Twitter Dev (@TwitterDev) April 6, 2018
Even though Twitter has pushed out the date to … sometime in the future, it’s still unclear if the new API can offer everything the old streaming one does.
However this turns out, unless Twitter really changes direction and embraces the third-party app that made its service great in the early days, these apps will always be on thin ice. That’s a shame.
Matthew Panzarino was invited to Apple to receive an update about Apple’s progress on the new Mac Pro:
The interviews and demos took place over the next several hours, highlighting the way that Apple is approaching upgradability, development of its pro apps and most interestingly, how it has changed its process to more fully grok how professionals actually use its products.
After an initial recap in what they’d done over the past year, including MacBooks and the iMac Pro, I was given the day’s first piece of news: the long-awaited Mac Pro update will not arrive before 2019.
Panzarino goes on, quoting Tom Boger, Senior Director of Mac Hardware Product Marketing:
“We want to be transparent and communicate openly with our pro community so we want them to know that the Mac Pro is a 2019 product. It’s not something for this year.”
“We know that there’s a lot of customers today that are making purchase decisions on the iMac Pro and whether or not they should wait for the Mac Pro.”
Apple has been building out what it is calling the Pro Workflow Team, which has been charged with ensuring that its pro hardware and software works well hand-in-hand, and meets the needs found out in the field:
“We’ve gone from just you know engineering Macs and software to actually engineering a workflow and really understanding from soup to nuts, every single stage of the process, where those bottlenecks are, where we can optimize that,” says Boger.
One more Boger quote:
We’re getting a much much much deeper understanding of our pro customers and their workflows and really understanding not only where the state of the art is today but where the state of the art is going and all of that is really informing the work that we’re doing on the Mac Pro and we’re working really really hard on it.”
I like this approach, and I think it shows Apple is taking the needs of users like me seriously. And with an iMac Pro on my desk quietly making my work smoother than ever, I’m totally fine waiting until 2019 to see what Apple has up its sleeve. Then again, this speaks to me, too.
This news comes at an interesting time. While Apple never said the new Mac Pro would be a 2018 product, I truly believe there would have been Great Nerd Angst if WWDC came and went without any news on this front.
There’s also the increased rumors around ARM-powered Macs. Like with the Intel transition, Apple’s pro products will surely be the last to make this move. It may be that 2019-ish Mac Pro will be the Intel Mac’s swan song.
I struggled to decide which answer I wanted to blockquote; almost all of them made me feel bad for the world.
Then I saw this one. Here’s the CEO of the world’s largest social media network:
I’ve said this already —but I think at this point that I clearly made a mistake by just dismissing fake news as “crazy”— as having an impact. People will analyze the actual impact of this for a long time to come, but what I think was clear at this point is that it was too flippant. I should have never referred to it as crazy.
Oh, and don’t miss this blog post, which shows the Cambridge Analytica data mishandling is way worse than first reported.
I strongly believe Facebook needs strict regulation at this point. And while I rarely say this sort of thing, I’m starting to think Zuckerberg isn’t capable of running this company.