This morning Apple announced their all-new iPad and iPad Pro lineups via press release and a short announcement video. The new iPad (non-Pro) features new colors and an updated square-edge design that brings it in line with the rest of Apple’s modern iPads and iPhones. The iPad Pro has been upgraded to Apple’s M2 chip, and supports a new “hover” mode on the Apple Pencil. Apple also unveiled a new Magic Keyboard Folio accessory, which includes a detachable keyboard with a trackpad and function keys.
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Don’t Polish Your Apple Watch Ultra⇢
This poor Watch didn’t do anything to deserve such mistreatment.
Kbase Article of the Week: Mac OS X: Script Editor Has Two Choices for Saving Compiled Script⇢
Speaking of weird bugs and scripts, here’s Apple Support on a weird bug that was present in an early version of Mac OS X 10.2:
When using Script Editor to save a new file, there are two choices for compiled script.
When you choose Save As or save a script for the first time, you see two choices for the format:
- compiled script
- Compiled Script
The choices produce identical scripts. It does not matter which format you choose; they only differ in the capitalization. This is to expected [sic] to be corrected in a future version of Script Editor.
The Terrible Tale of iTunes 2
A tweet from Mr. Macintosh over the weekend reminded me of one of the worst bugs Apple shipped in an application update.
Version 2 of iTunes was going to be a big deal, including support for the just-announced iPod and the addition of an equalizer with cross-fading.
Things did not go well. Here’s a bit from Adam Engst, dated November 12, 2001:
After releasing the new version late Friday night, Apple hastily pulled the Mac OS X installer Saturday morning due to a problem where, in some situations involving multiple volumes named in specific ways, the installer could delete a large number of files. Needless to say, this is a bad thing, and there have been reports of Apple quietly offering to buy file recovery software or even pay for DriveSavers recovery of affected hard disks. A revised installer, with the designation iTunes 2.0.1, was released before the end of the weekend.
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Mac Power Users #662: Navigating Apple Maps⇢
Apple Maps has matured from its rocky start back a decade ago into a robust alternative to Google Maps. This week, David and I go on a roadtrip through the service’s history, features and more. On More Power Users, the longer and ad-free version of the show, we talked through Apple Maps’ horrific launch
On Starting Simple
You can’t go too long in this corner of the Internet without running into a report or rumor about Apple’s AR headset plans. As an example, here is The Verge’s Adi Robertson, writing about a feature that is supposedly coming with the new hardware:
Apple’s rumored virtual and augmented reality headset will reportedly use iris scanning tech for logins and payments, according to The Information. The report, which cites two people involved in developing the headset, says the scanning is supposed to make it easier for multiple people to use the headset with their own accounts.
Doom Running in Notepad⇢
Getting Doom running on weird hardware is all-time favorite hobby of some on the Internet, but this takes things to the next level.
Guided Frame⇢
Steven Aquino, writing at Forbes, about a feature that shipped with the new Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro:
A marquee feature of the Pixel 7 series is what Google calls Guided Frame. The feature, an interplay of hardware and software, works with Android’s TalkBack screen reader to help guide a Blind or low vision person to get into the best positioning for a good selfie. Guided Frame also smartly leverages haptic feedback to assist in confirmation that you did the right thing. For many disabled people, the double dose of sensory input — clinically known as bimodal support, referring to two forms of sensory experience — is not only technologically adroit. Haptics is one way to make use of a device’s panoply of sensors, but the practical application these little buzzes have for people who can’t rely on pure visual feedback is not superfluous. It’s actually extremely useful.
Artemis I Gets New Launch Windows⇢
NASA is targeting the next launch attempt of the Artemis I mission for Monday, Nov. 14 with liftoff of the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket carrying the Orion spacecraft planned during a 69-minute launch window that opens at 12:07 a.m. EST. Artemis I is an uncrewed flight test to launch SLS and send Orion around the Moon and back to Earth to thoroughly test its system before flights with astronauts.
Kbase Article of the Week: iMac G5 (iSight): Built-in iSight Camera Produces Blue or Green Pictures⇢
When you take pictures with the built-in iSight camera in your iMac G5 (iSight), the resulting images may look blue or green in Photo Booth or iChat instead of full color.
This can happen when your display’s Colors setting is set to “Thousands” in the Displays pane of System Preferences. To fix your photos, just modify the settings to display millions of colors instead of thousands.
Goodbye, ‘Notebooks’⇢
Benjamin Mayo has noticed something new going on with Apple’s website:
Apple appears to be rolling out a wide-reaching branding change about how it refers to its Mac portable lineup. Up until recently, Apple officially referred to the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro as “Mac notebooks” or just “notebooks,” leaning on the relatively outdated industry terminology of notebook computers.
But now, everything user-facing appears to be slowly converting to using a “laptop” nomenclature. Updates to the Apple Online Store product pages, articles in the Apple Support knowledge base, and even the Mac operating system is beginning to reflect this branding update.