posts

Tom Strickx and Celso Martinho at CloudFlare:

Today at 1651 UTC, we opened an internal incident entitled “Facebook DNS lookup returning SERVFAIL” because we were worried that something was wrong with our DNS resolver 1.1.1.1. But as we were about to post on our public status page we realized something else more serious was going on.

Social media quickly burst into flames, reporting what our engineers rapidly confirmed too. Facebook and its affiliated services WhatsApp and Instagram were, in fact, all down. Their DNS names stopped resolving, and their infrastructure IPs were unreachable. It was as if someone had “pulled the cables” from their data centers all at once and disconnected them from the Internet.

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Andrei Frumusanu at AnandTech:

Overall, while the A15 isn’t the brute force iteration we’ve become used to from Apple in recent years, it very much comes with substantial generational gains that allow it to be a notably better SoC than the A14. In the end, it seems like Apple’s SoC team has executed well after all.

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Jony Ive:

Steve’s last words to me were that he would miss talking together. I was sitting on the floor next to his bed, my back against the wall.

After he died, I walked out into the garden. I remember the sound of the latch on the wooden door as I gently pulled it closed.

In the garden, I sat and thought how talking often gets in the way of listening and thinking. Perhaps that is why so much of our time together was spent quietly.

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Apple:

Apple Watch Series 7, featuring the largest and most advanced Apple Watch display ever — and a reengineered Always-On Retina display with significantly more screen area and thinner borders — will be available to order beginning Friday, October 8, at 5 a.m. PDT and available in stores starting Friday, October 15.

Currently, the Series 7 isn’t in the Apple Store app at all. I hope I can save a pre-order like I did with my iPhone.

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This week on Mac Power Users:

David’s newest Field Guide covers DEVONthink, and this week he and Stephen discuss the application, some example uses and the basics anyone looking at it should know. After that, they review the new iPhone and iPad mini.

My thanks to our sponsors:

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Carolina Milanesi spent some time with Amazon’s new robot:

At the end of the two-week trial, I was left with mixed feelings about Astro. I was impressed with the autonomous navigation skills it displayed. I was enamored with its WALL-E like cuteness. I was convinced there could be a role for Astro to play in home monitoring and to help care for loved ones using Amazon’s new Alexa Together service. And the $1,000 price is reasonable given how much technology it packs, though Amazon might eventually sell it for less if the robot exits its current invite-only status and becomes a mainstream product.

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My thanks to Rogue Amoeba for sponsoring 512 Pixels this week. Their application Loopback delivers cable-free audio routing for MacOS. Get your audio where you need it, without having to crawl behind your desk.

Check out Loopback today, with a free trial. Through October 15, 512 Pixels readers can save 21% on Loopback (or any of our other fine products) with coupon code PIXELS21.

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Nine years ago, I reviewed the original iPad mini and wrote:

The iPad mini doesn’t add anything to the iOS experience feature-wise, but it does make using iPad apps out in the real world far more likely. I never felt comfortable using my iPad outside the office or house, but I think I’ll be taking this smaller, lighter iPad with me more often.

In the years since, the iPad line has expanded into multiple models, all slowly filling in a continuum of sizes and prices. Somewhere along the way, the iPad mini got left behind by most of us as iPadOS grew more capable.

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This time around, additions include the first Apple Watch, the last Cheese Grater Mac Pro, the 27-inch LED Cinema Display and the Thunderbolt Display.

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This week on Connected:

The guys all have new iPhones and talk about their migration experiences and initial impressions of the new devices. Then, Myke and Stephen tell Federico what he already knew — that the new iPad mini is fantastic.

We also got to break some news mid-show, which is always a treat.

My thanks to our sponsors:

• Instabug: Ship Quality Apps with Real-Time Contextual Insights
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If you were thinking how cool it would be to not only add old-school dithering to your photos, but export them in a format that MacPaint could open, this app is for you.

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New features include live video, pivot tables and more — but the most important part is that the new macOS versions come with much better icons.

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