512 Pixels

Apple Support:

If you’ve set up a PPTP VPN server, iOS 10 and macOS Sierra users won’t be able to connect to it. iOS 10 and macOS Sierra will remove PPTP connections from any VPN profile when a user upgrades their device.

Even though PPTP protocol is still available on iOS 9 and earlier or OS X El Capitan and earlier, we don’t recommend that you use it for secure, private communication.

Instead of running RSS sponsorships this month, I’m raising money in support of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as part of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. Click here to learn more and donate.

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When our son was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2009, we were thrust into the world of chemotherapy. As some of you heartbreakingly know, chemo is rough. The meds are brutal, and the side effects are enough to make anyone fall to their knees and plead for mercy. Josiah was just 7 months old when he got his first round of chemotherapy.

Even now, that sentence seems impossible.

How could anyone — let alone a baby — survive poison being pumped through their bodies? In his case, the chemo did it’s job. It’s been many years since scans indicated any type of growth of his residual brain tumor, thank God. Life at St. Jude goes beyond things like chemotherapy and radiation. Treatment is bigger than central lines and IV pumps.

Upon admission, we met people who worked across the hospital in all sorts of non-medical capacities. Child Life helped ensure that Josiah’s time in the hospital was as normal as possible. Going far beyond brining games to his room, Child Life has been hugely helpful in working through how to talk to Josiah about certain things over the years.

Since his first admission, he’s been receiving rehabilitation services in the forms of occupation, physical and speech therapy. His OT has known him since our very first week as a patient family. She and her co-workers taught Josiah how to walk without needing to crawl first. He now tries to take stairs two at a time. They’ve worked to reverse his left-side hemiparesis, which was caused by his tumor and related operations.

While he is now in a local public school, St. Jude’s school program has been hugely helpful in understanding his unique educational needs and how they’ve changed over the years.

These departments are just the tip of the iceberg. St. Jude is an institution designed to care for the patient’s total care, and the care of their families. There are social workers, parent mentors, counselors, spiritual caregivers and more, all ready to serve St. Jude kids and their families.

All of this care — like the chemo itself — is completely paid for by donations like yours.

I haven’t laughed during an Apple ad in a long time, but this one changed that.

As my iPhone 7 Plus was restoring from iCloud, I thought I noticed some sound. After picking the device up from my desk, it was clear the sounds are coming from back of the phone, possibly from the CPU. It seems to get worse if the iPhone is under load. It’s loud enough to be heard even if the iPhone is just sitting on the table. I don’t have to put it up to my ear to hear it.

I’ve heard from several other people with similar experiences, and others who are saying past iOS devices have displayed this issue. I’ve handled more devices than most, and haven’t come across this.

I’m not saying this is some widespread problem; I just wanted to share my experience with others who may be having it too.

After a phone call with AppleCare, they have decided to replace the phone. They were quick to try to solve the problem, and while I’m stuck waiting for a new phone for who knows how long, I appreciate that they worked to make it right.

I link to these iFixIt teardowns every year. I just can’t help myself.

Emily Lakdawalla:

Chinese officials have announced that this morning’s launch of the Tiangong-2 space station was successful.

Not much is known about the station, but this article outlines what has been shared.

This week on Ungeniused:

The Principality of Sealand is an unrecognized micronation off the coast of England with a very colorful history.

In recording this episode, I’ve realized goals in life are not very ambitious.

This week on Clockwise, I joined Dan Moren, Scholle McFarland and Brianna Wu to talk iMessage apps, macOS Sierra features, iPhone pre-orders and Swift Playgrounds.

The littlest Amazon Echo just got a nice update. As it has a small built-in speaker, it needs to be hooked up to an existing sound system or Sonos to get the party started. For $50, it’s a great way to make an existing setup a lot smarter.

Apple’s Mac Pro crossed a milestone today: it’s been 1,000 days since its last revision.

One. Thousand. Days.

Here’s how that number stands up over time, according to MacRumors:

Current rumors point to a revision to the desktop coming in the spring with Skylake-E, which means this number is only going to get higher. Apple skipped a generation of Intel chips, and I think it’s easy to say at this point that was a mistake. The lack of a GPU upgrade in that time is even more baffling.

I think it’s far past time Apple knock some off the price of this machine. Selling three year old hardware at its launch price is pretty insulting to pro users.

This week on Connected:

iOS 10 is here, and Federico has written the definitive review of it.

My thanks to our sponsors for this very special episode:

• Casper: Because everyone deserves a great night sleep. Get $50 off with the code ‘CONNECTED’
• Hover: Simplified domain management. Use code TEN to get 10% off your first purchase.
• Braintree: Code for easy online payments.

Brian Stucki at MacStadium:

Apple released iOS 10 today. This update brings all sorts of upgrades and features. There is one particular that is quite useful if you are running a Mac server to host your mail, notes, calendars and other features in macOS Server.

In past versions of iOS, you can easily setup with services like iCloud, Exchange, and Yahoo. Logging in will let you activate all their services like calendar and mail. With iOS 10 you can do this same thing with macOS server. Thanks to The Brooks Review for finding this new option.

Very cool. While I’m using iCloud and Google Apps, it’s about time macOS Server customers have an easier time connecting to their server for these data types.