512 Pixels

With High Sierra, Apple changed how the media playback control keys work on Macs without Touch Bars. In the past, these keys were locked to iTunes, even if media was playing in Safari, Messages or another application. Now, if I view an Animoji video from someone in Messages, the media keys become disassociated with iTunes, and they seem to get stuck with Messages far too long.

This has been driving me crazy on my iMac, where I keep iTunes running nearly all day. Thankfully, Milan Toth has fixed this regression with a little free Mac app named High Sierra Media Key Enabler. I’ve been running it since I saw Brian Stucki tweet about it, and it’s pretty great.

I joined Georgia Dow, Mikah Sargent and Dan Moren on this week’s episode of Clockwise:

Face ID spoofing, Facebook wants your nude pictures, whether we’d leave Twitter, and what we’d like to see Apple change for the iPhone X.

This old support document includes “the answers to the following frequently asked questions about Macintosh Performa 6100 series computers:”

1. What is the difference between native software and conventional software?
2. I bought a Macintosh Performa 6100 series computer and added an AV card. Can I get software that supports the video digitizer?
3. My computer does not remember sound settings from restart to restart. I continually have to go back to the Sound control panel and reset the CD input source.
4. What causes Type 11 errors?
5. Does my Power Macintosh have an FPU? I see errors that an FPU is not installed.
6. Can you install the Apple TV/Video System in a Performa 6115?
7. What is the difference between a Power Macintosh 6100 and a Macintosh Performa 6100 series computer?
8. I need to run DOS software on my Performa 6100 series computer. What are my options?
9. My microphone from my LC II does not work on my Performa 6100 series computer. What’s wrong?
10. I have an old program which tells me to turn off 32-bit addressing. But I don’t see this as an option in my Memory control panel. Why?
11. The sound from my 15" Multiple Scan Display is very low. Sometimes, I can only hear sound out the left speaker. What is wrong?
12. I have a Macintosh Performa computer which was shipped with a CD-ROM. I have purchased a third-party disk management utility or virus detector which states I should use a “Disk Tools” disk in order to create an emergency disk. I did not receive one with my computer. Should I have?
13. My computer recently stopped displaying any video. It appears to start up normally, but nothing appears on the monitor. What could be causing this?

Karan Varindani, writing about the updated version of Clips:

Playing with the Selfie Scenes in Clips last week, I had the same feeling that I did playing with Photo Booth on my Mac many years ago. It was a little surreal, as someone with incredible front-camera shyness, to find myself having so much fun with it. The whole experience had me thinking: In a few years, once the Face ID technology has spread to the rest of the iOS line (and maybe even the Mac), could Clips be the successor to Photo Booth? Between Selfie Scenes, stickers, Live Titles, and fast sharing to social media, it seems the perfect fit.

Marco Arment:

Apple has made many great laptops, but the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro (2012–2015) is the epitome of usefulness, elegance, practicality, and power for an overall package that still hasn’t been (and may never be) surpassed.

Like me, Marco formerly had a Thunderbolt 3 MacBook Pro and sold it out of frustration. He picked up a 2015 15-inch model, while I returned to a Late 2012 13-inch machine. As he writes, this generation of MacBook Pro is one for the ages:

At its introduction, it was criticized only for ditching the optical drive and Ethernet port, but these were defensible, well-timed removals: neither could’ve even come close to physically fitting in the new design, very few MacBook Pro users were still using either on a regular basis, and almost none of us needed to buy external optical drives or Ethernet adapters to fit the new laptop into our lives. In exchange for those removals, we got substantial reductions in thickness and weight, and a huge new battery.

There were no other downsides. Everything else about this machine was an upgrade: thinner, lighter, faster, better battery life, quieter fans, better speakers, better microphones, a second Thunderbolt port, and a convenient new HDMI port.

I would love having an SD card slot again, too. After reading this, I’m tempted to find a 2015 on eBay and run it as long as I can. Since my notebook is my secondary computer, I can totally get away with it.

This week on Connected:

Control Center is broken, Myke is broken and Spotify is broken.

My thanks to our sponsors this week:

• Eero: Never think about WiFi again. Use code CONNECTED for free overnight shipping.
• Squarespace: Make your next move. Enter offer code WORLD at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase.
• Hover: Show the world what you’re passionate about with 10% off your first purchase

This month on MacStories, I wrote about the original Apple TV:

By this point, iTunes housed (and sold) music, TV shows and movies. Users could enjoy this content on Macs, PC and iPods, but not their televisions.

This product — dubbed the iTV at this point — was designed for “completing the package” of Apple’s digital content business. In Jobs’ words, it was a box for getting iTunes content to a flat-screen TV. Pretty simple.

I am convinced that Control Center is in the wrong place on the iPhone X. Here’s a mockup of my iPhone. The touch targets are as follows:

• Green: Cover Sheet
• Blue: Control Center
• Pink: Spotlight

I understand conceptually why Control Center is where it is. Pulling down on the cell signal, Wi-Fi and battery indicators open the controls for those things. I actually like that linking of those two bits of UI.

The problem is that Control Center is too far away. I use my iPhone in my right hand, and even as someone who carried a Plus-sized phone for three years, I struggle to activate Control Center. Because Spotlight can be triggered with the same gesture — a downward swipe — from about anywhere on the screen, I often am greeted with a search field when all I wanted was to turn down my screen brightness or enter Airplane mode.

For people who use their iPhones with their left thumbs, it’s all but unreachable.

The inclusion of the flashlight and camera shortcuts on the iPhone X’s lock screen seem to indicate that Apple knew this was an issue. I love those shortcuts, for the record, but they could remain even if Control Center were to be usable again.

The old method of swiping up is clearly not an alternative on its own, as that gesture is now being used for returning to the homescreen from within an app or to launch the multitasking UI.

I think that’s where Control Center belongs. There’s evidence that Apple has experimented with this, as shown by Guilherme Rambo:

This is also interesting pic.twitter.com/JdYDhZDkev

— Guilherme Rambo (@_inside) August 21, 2017

Some have complained that this change would mean reaching Control Center would be more work, but it’s the exact same gesture to enter the multitasking UI on the iPad, where Control Center resides on that device. I think this change could bring a welcome continuity between the iPhone X and every other iPhone and iPad on the market.

I admit this leads to trouble on the lockscreen, but I’m not a fancypants California designer. Perhaps a short swipe would unlock the iPhone, but a long one could trigger Control Center.

There are other places Control Center could live, if the multitasking UI isn’t feasible. It could be the right-most card when app switching via horizontal swipes on the home indicator. It could even be revealed if a 3D Touch takes place on the home indicator itself. The latter would work on the lockscreen as well.

Just about anything would be better than where it is today.

Neil Hughes has been running battery tests on the iPhone X and his findings blew my mind a little bit:

Reddit normally features a white background and black text, but with Apple’s smart invert colors option enabled, the back of the screen is now black and the text is white. This is important because black pixels in an OLED are essentially “turned off” and consume far less power — a stark contrast from LCD displays, where the backlight must illuminate all pixels, including black ones.

After three hours with maximum brightness and smart invert colors enabled, the iPhone X battery dropped from 100 percent to just 85 percent.

We then ran the exact same test with an iPhone X running in normal mode — that is to say, Reddit was loaded on Safari with a white background and black test. With the backlight turned up to maximum, the battery drained from 100 percent down to 28 percent.

iOS really needs a dark mode, using true black as the background. Running with “Smart Invert” enabled in Accessibility settings may save a lot of power, but it is looks super janky in a lot of corners of the operating system. I’d love to see Apple ship a true dark mode, and I’d be even happier if we didn’t have to wait until iOS 12 next year to see it.

I’ve moved to Tweetbot and Overcast’s dark modes, but the dark gray used means the display is still taking up more power than it would with a true OLED-friendly mode.

via MacStories

You’ve probably heard of Bitcoin, one of the earliest crypto-currencies, but there are others like Ethereum. Balance connects to the most popular crypto-currency exchanges like Coinbase along with traditional financial institutions bridging the gap between the old financial world and the new one.

If you’re not familiar with this stuff, that’s okay…

Balance want to help teach you about crypto currencies, and the macOS and iOS apps they are building will serve as a wallet for all the world’s currencies.

Balance is ready for the future. The current financial system is based on outdated, legacy software. Blockchains are the bedrock of a more secure and open system based on cryptocurrencies, but not many people are using them yet. Balance is poised to change that by becoming a single destination for traditional financial accounts and crypto-currency exchanges.

Learn more at the Balance website.

My thanks to Timing for sponsoring 512 Pixels this week.

Timing automatically tracks which apps, documents and websites you use — without start/stop timers. See how you spend your time, eliminate distracting activities, and improve your client billing.

David Sparks, writing about bucking the trend of moving away from RSS readers:

The reason I’ve stuck with RSS is the way in which I work. Twitter is the social network that I participate in most and yet sometimes days go by where I don’t load the application. I like to work in focused bursts. If I’m deep into writing a book or a legal client project. I basically ignore everything else. I close my mail application, tell my phone service to take my calls, and I definitely don’t open Twitter. When I finish the job, I can then go back to the Internet. I’ll check in on Twitter, but I won’t be able to get my news from it. That only works if you go into Twitter much more frequently than I do. That’s why RSS is such a great solution for me. If a few days go by, I can open RSS and go through my carefully curated list of websites and get caught back up with the world.

I totally agree.