512 Pixels

My money is on a new iPhone:

Just got the invite. It’s official. pic.twitter.com/L9v0vbiUll

— Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) August 31, 2017

Nest has announced an updated thermostat, and wow, I love how it looks.

This week on Query:

This week, Ren likens firmware and other types of software to a tree as Stephen giggles quietly. Then, they move on to DVD ripping and bookmark management.

What a jerk:

When you use Keynote 1.1 with Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, the application may unexpectedly quit. To resolve this issue, update to Keynote 1.1.1, or upgrade to Keynote 2 (part of iWork).

In a new kbase article:

Apple File System (APFS), is the default file system in macOS High Sierra for Mac computers with all flash storage. APFS features strong encryption, space sharing, snapshots, fast directory sizing, and improved file system fundamentals.

When you upgrade to macOS High Sierra, systems with all flash storage configurations are converted automatically. Systems with hard disk drives (HDD) and Fusion drives won’t be converted to APFS. You can’t opt-out of the transition to APFS.

I have been running macOS High Sierra for a while on my MacBook Pro, and the move to APFS was invisible and seamless. So far, everything feels rock solid.

Included is a connected radiator valve, door lock, window guard and more.

Over on The Sweet Setup, Shawn Blanc has launched a video series about Ulysses, the text editor for macOS and iOS. I’ve been able to check out a bunch of the videos in advance, and the series really is good. Ulysses is a great app, but can be a little intimidating at first, and the series does a good job at breaking it all down.

This week on Connected:

Federico is back from the Genius Bar and joined by Stephen to discuss Time Machine and iCloud Backups, Apple’s push with Swift education and SMS filtering in iOS 11.

My thanks to our sponsors for this week’s show:

• Eero: Never think about WiFi again. Use code CONNECTED for free overnight shipping.
• Ting: A smarter way to do mobile. Save $25 on selected devices or keep it as Ting credit.
• Crimson Mesa: Announcing Shokem Nimai, The Ancient Game of the River.

Balance is a powerful menubar app for your money built by a team from Apple, Stripe and Ethereum. It was featured in the U.S. Mac App Store when it launched in February.

Securely connect to your accounts

Balance uses Plaid.com, the best API for securely accessing your financial data. It gives the app a read-only token to access your account history.

Quickly check your balances

With one click or keyboard shortcut you can pop open Balance and check all of your accounts. Lock the app with a password or TouchID.

Speedily search through your transactions

As a native app with local data storage, Balance is super fast. Quickly search through all of your downloaded transactions with powerful filters.

Powerful notification engine

Balance is Hazel for money. You can create rules to trigger useful notifications to help you stay on top of your finances.

One subscription, coming to all of Apple’s platforms

The basic plan starts at $4.99 / month. Balance is launching on iOS and watchOS later this year, and is also building a full windowed app for macOS. Early customers will get access to betas for all of these.

Check out Balance on the U.S. Mac App Store today. International support is planned for later this year.

Chuq Von Rospach recently retired his Touch Bar MacBook Pro, and doesn’t miss it as much. His thoughts on the technology resonated with me:

It seems to me Apple fell in love with the technology of the Touch Bar system, which if you dig into it a bit is a stunning piece of engineering, and expected all of us to fall in love with it as well. The problem is: Apple rarely sells things to us based on neat technology, it sells us based on the stories of how that technology will solve problems for us, and right now, the problems a Touch Bar solve for us that we care about being solved are few and far between.

My thanks to Balance for Mac for sponsoring 512 Pixels once again this week. Balance is a powerful menubar app for your money built by a team from Apple, Stripe and Ethereum. It’s way better than using your bank’s poorly-made website.

John Lagomarsino at The Outline:

Skeuomorphic design, where user interfaces emulate the appearance of physical objects, has been popular for pretty much the history of personal computing. The ideas of “files,” “folders,” and the “recycle bin” in Windows could be considered skeuomorphs, intended to help transition early computer users from analog to digital, as could the idea of an “inbox” and “outbox” in email and the paperclip that symbolizes attachments. More recently, a lot of early iOS apps were famous for their heavy-handed skeuomorphic elements, with felt textures and chunky drop shadows.

But no area of computing has so thoroughly gone for it more than audio software.