512 Pixels

The folks at DEVONtechnologies have a new free app out for Mac users, and it’s one that may seem familiar in some great ways:

You want to learn more about your Mac’s current network connection or test if a remote server is still alive or already swimming belly-up? Your connection to a server is slow and you want to find out more about what detours your data packages take on their way to their destination? Or you’re on the hotel Wi-Fi and plan to flip out on the poor network speed based on proper empirical data?

You could use the Terminal for all of this, of course, and type ping or traceroute. But there’s a more Mac-like way: Meet our new Neo Network Utility 1.0. It got you covered with a full range of networking tools for retrieving information about your network adapter and diagnosing common network problems. Netstat, Ping, Lookup, Traceroute, Whois, Finger, Port Scan, and Network Speed, they’re all here in a nice and clean user interface.

Earlier this week, it was announced that Aqara was shipping its new smart lock, the U200.

For a while, I’ve been thinking about a product like this for the door to my studio, so I jumped on it, ordering the $269 lock from Amazon.¹ I got that scar on my thumb running Ethernet cable through my old house like 12 hours ago. Be careful with knives!

I don’t have much experience with products in this category, but I do have a bunch of Aqara water sensors stashed around the house, under sinks and in the pan for our hot water heater. I’m also a fan of their smart home switches for triggering HomeKit scenes easily.

The U200 integrates with your existing lock by motorizing the interior side of it. In my case, the U200 interfaced with the inside of the deadbolt directly. I pulled the lock apart, mounting the U200’s mounting plate using the screws from my original, old-fashioned lock.

This was pretty easy for me, given two facts:

• This door and lock were installed only a couple of years ago, so everything is nice and modern.
• I’m handy and know my way around a deadbolt.

Sadly, Aqara’s installation guide is pretty lackluster, and doesn’t really talk about some of the adjustments that may be necessary in some cases. The package comes with a custom-cut piece of 3M double-sided tape and a few spacers of various thicknesses, but not a lot of detail is given on when to use them. If you’re patient, you’ll work it out, though.

(The other janky part of the experience comes to the Aqara hub. In setup flow for the lock, the app says the new M3 hub is required for Matter integration, but if you have an M2 hub like me, you can expose it to Matter if you drill into its settings. Aqara should make this clear so people don’t needlessly upgrade their hubs.)

Once the plate was attached, the large motorized component screws on. It’s chunky, and a lot of the space is taken up by a removable battery that recharges via a USB-C port.

The other part of the equation is the keypad, which includes a fingerprint reader and an NFC reader. The keypad can be used outdoors, but I opted to mount mine in between the PodCabin’s main door and its outer screen door to keep it out of sight. As long as its within 2 meters of the lock, Aqara says placement is flexible.

This thing runs on several AAA batteries, and slides off a mounting plate that is affixed to the wall with a combination of 3M double-sided tape and screws.

Once everything was in place, I fired up the Aqara iOS app and added the lock to my existing setup. As I mentioned above, I wasn’t able to enable its Matter connection, but everything works just fine without it.

Well, mostly fine. I know this thing has been out for like 2 days, so I can forgive some weirdness, but I had to pull the battery from the lock side of the device to get it to pair with HomeKit. Once it did, iOS walked me through creating my very first HomeKey. Jason Snell wrote about this feature of iOS and watchOS back in 2022, but in short, you can use your device to unlock the door using NFC.²

This means I can unlock my office with my fingerprint, a PIN code, the Aqara app, the Home app, and with my Watch or iPhone. I love that flexibility.

This is obviously not a full-blown review, but I am excited to finally have a reason to explore this part of the smart home landscape. I’m living in the future!

I’ll keep you posted on how all of this goes over the coming months.

This week on Connected:

John Voorhees joins Stephen and Myke to discuss the origins of Bluetooth, Phil Schiller’s new/old job, and the possibilities of a new HomePod. Then, they play a BRAND NEW game from the creators of The Rickies, The Annies, the Jeremies, and others.

Shawn Hickman’s excellent app Sofa has arrived on two more platforms:

I’m happy to announce that Sofa is now available on the Mac and Vision Pro!

I had originally planned to have Sofa ready for Vision Pro when it launched in February, but I was deep in the middle of working on Sofa 4.0 (which launched in April). During May, I was focused mostly on 4.0 bug fixes and prepping for my trip to WWDC in early June.

Up to this point, you’ve technically be able use Sofa’s iPad app on the Mac and Vision Pro, but this new version of Sofa is built specifically for the Mac and Vision Pro. There is still a lot more work to be done for these apps, especially the Mac, but this is a good improvement over the existing iPad versions.

Sofa is one of those cool indie apps that just exudes care. If you’re looking for a way to organize the books you want to read, media you want to watch, and more, Sofa is the perfect app for getting them out of that old Apple Note you’ve been using.

I saw this story break last night, but couldn’t figure out a way to link to it without using some language that is firmly against the 512 Pixels Style Guide. What a disgusting thing to do.

If you’re looking for a deal on a bunch of cool, indie software, this is the event for you.

MarsEdit 5 is a major upgrade to the preeminent Mac app for editing WordPress, Micro.blog, Tumblr, and many other types of blogs.

The new Microposting feature makes it “as easy to post to your own blog as it is to post to Twitter.” When MarsEdit 5 is running on your Mac, just press a configurable global keyboard shortcut, write out your latest thoughts, and instantly publish to your blog.

MarsEdit supports editing posts in rich or plain text, and the latest update is especially great for Markdown fans. Now when you’re writing Markdown in plain text mode, MarsEdit applies live, beautiful syntax highlighting to make it easier to focus separately on the content and style of your posts.

MarsEdit is used by top bloggers to maximize their productivity and enjoyment of blogging. It’s great for pros like John Gruber of Daring Fireball, and yours truly, while also being simple enough to remove the mystery of blogging for everyday folks who just want to share their thoughts with the world.

MarsEdit 5.1 just shipped and features all-new support for publishing to Mastodon! Now you can use the same app you use to write and publish to your main blog, to write and publish to your Mastodon microblog. Check out the announcement at this link.

One app, limitless publishing opportunities.

Download MarsEdit today, and see what all the hype is about. It’ll make you a better blogger!

This week on MPU, David and I are joined by Sigmund Judge to discuss Apple TV hardware, tvOS, Apple TV+ content, and more.

While working on another project, I came across this video of Steve Jobs speaking at Macworld Expo in the fall of 1997. It’s a stunning video for a few reasons.

In it, he announces no products. Instead, he shared some thoughts on how he viewed the mess that Apple had found itself in before it purchased NeXT. In the span of about half an hour, he announced a new Board of Directors and a wide-ranging partnership with Microsoft, complete with Bill Gates making his now infamous appearance via satellite.

The closing of Jobs’ remarks really grabbed me. He insisted that the broader Apple community needed to change how it thought about the company and its relationship with Microsoft and other companies. At the very end, he spoke about how Apple’s brand meant thinking a little differently from the other players in the field. About six weeks later, Apple would launch its Think Different campaign.

What blew my mind — other than how fast the 38 minutes flew by — is that just ten years later, Jobs would be introducing the iPhone.

While working on another project, I came across this delightful blog post by Jay at The House of Moth, about the Power Mac G5:

How many fans does a Power Mac G5 have? Depending on the configuration this answer varies but you can be almost sure the answer is always one short. Let’s take a look at the Late 2005 Quad in this example.

– 2 intake fans (front inlet fan assembly) – 2 exhaust fans (rear exhaust fan assembly) – 1 fan in the PCI bay (speaker assembly) – 1 fan for the hard drives (media bay fan)

6 fans total, right? Wrong. There is a fan behind the hard drive fan as well, part of the media bay fan assembly (in some models), and it does not get the credit it deserves. Without this single fan your G5 can overheat and even die.

So where is this fan located exactly?

I won’t spoil it, but I will say that I had totally forgotten about this quirk of the Power Mac G5, and I gutted a bunch of them back in my day as a Mac Genius.

Mark Gurman, writing at Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. will get an observer role on OpenAI’s board as part of a landmark agreement announced last month, further tightening ties between the once-unlikely partners.

Phil Schiller, the head of Apple’s App Store and its former marketing chief, was chosen for the position, according to people familiar with the situation. As a board observer, he won’t be serving as a full-fledged director, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter isn’t public.

It’ll be good to have an adult in the room over there. Gurman continues:

The board observer role will put Apple on par with Microsoft Corp., OpenAI’s biggest backer and its main AI technology provider. The job allows someone to attend board meetings without being able to vote or exercise other director powers. Observers, however, do gain insights into how decisions are made at the company.

Having Microsoft and Apple sit in on board meetings could create complications for the tech giants, which have been rivals and partners over the decades. Some OpenAI board meetings will likely discuss future AI initiatives between OpenAI and Microsoft — deliberations that the latter company may want Schiller excluded from. Board observers often do oblige and exit meetings during discussions that are seen as sensitive.

This week on Connected:

Federico and Myke discuss MacStories’ open letter on AI, explore their feelings on how AI could impact the future of creativity, and delve into the idea of “Context, Consent, and Control.”